Journal of Surfaces and Interfaces of Materials

Journal of Surfaces and Interfaces of Materials
ISSN: 2164-7542 (print); EISSN: 2164-7550 (online)
Copyright © 2000- American Scientific Publishers. All Rights Reserved.

Instructions for Authors

Journal of Surfaces and Interfaces of Materials is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal consolidating research activities in all aspects of advanced materials in the fields of science, engineering and medicine into a single and unique reference source.

JSIM provides the means for materials scientists, chemists, physicists, biologists, engineers, ceramicists, metallurgists, theoreticians and technocrats to publish original research articles as reviews, full research articles and communications of important new scientific and technological findings, encompassing the fundamental and applied research in all latest aspects of advanced materials.

JOURNAL POLICY: It is journal policy to publish only 100% original and unpublished research work therefore Journal of Surfaces and Interfaces of Materials does not wish to receive any papers on research work that has already been reported in parts or contains already published text, data, figures, tables or other illustrations or any copyright materials whatsoever that has been submitted or accepted for publication either in a journal or conference proceedings elsewhere in any form, in print or in electronic media. When submitting a manuscript, authors should make a full statement to the Editors that the research work contained in their manuscript is completely original and unpublished. If redundant or duplicate publication is attempted or occurs authors should expect immediate editorial action to be taken including prompt rejection of the submitted manuscript. Submission of any manuscript that contains redundant or duplicate publication of the same or very similar research work violates the policies of this journal and will be rejected.

It is the sole responsibility of all authors to ensure that all manuscripts are new, original and not published previously in any form any media, shall not infringe upon or violate any kind of copyrights of others and does not contains any plagiarized, fraudulent and improperly attributed materials. Extended and modified versions of previously published abstracts, papers in any conference or journal are not allowed whatsoever.

Corresponding author should provide a clear statement confirming this while submitting manuscript to any ASP journal. Is this manuscript 100% original and unpublished? Has this manuscript been published in parts (figures/text/tables) in any conference proceedings or journal in any media or language or format whatsoever? Is this manuscript from free from plagiarism (including self-plagiarism) and copyright infringement?

Authors must follow this "Journal Policy" strictly.

PUBLISHING ETHICS: American Scientific Publishers strictly follows guidelines set by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors, available at www.publicationethics.org. All Authors, Peer-Reviewers and Editors work together in a great harmony to ensure the highest ethical standards in publishing quality research work in our journals.

ETHICAL COMPLIANCE: Research papers reporting animal or clinical studies should, where appropriate, contain a statement that they have been carried out with animal or human ethics committee approval. All scientific studies should be carried out in accordance with the relevant national and local guidelines. Each author(s) warrants that his or her research institution has fully approved the protocol for all scientific studies involving animals or humans and that all experiments of any kinds were conducted in compliance with ethical and humane principles of research after ethics committee approval.

SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPT: Authors are kindly advised to read JSIM policy before submitting their manuscript to JSIM Editors. Authors are encouraged to submit high quality original research work that has not been published or nor under consideration by other journals or conference proceedings elsewhere in any format whatsoever. Authors should submit manuscript electronically either as a PDF or Microsoft Word file to the Editors-in-Chief. Authors are highly encouraged to submit manuscript electronically as a PDF file (preferred) or MS Word file to save time for the reviewing process.

Authors should submit a list of FIVE (5) potential referees accompanied with their complete mailing address, telephone, fax and email address, who may be contacted for reviewing the manuscript though refereeing, is done by anonymous reviewers. In order to ensure that the highest quality manuscripts are published, reviewing process is carried out in two stages. A mandatory editor's approval is required in the first stage for the manuscripts before it is submitted to the peer review process in the second stage.

To speed up the reviewing process, editors will communicate with authors and the referees via email. ASP or Editors will not return manuscripts to authors and keep any records whatsoever after a formal decision has been made about the manuscript. Editors have the right to reject the manuscript.

OPEN ACCESS: Publisher would allow open access participation in Author Choice with an advanced payment of $2950 fee where author may select open access publication of their published articles. Open access publication of articles will be allowed after receiving a full payment.

FREE COLORS: Color illustrations are most welcome by the journal as they are effective in conveying complex graphs and photographs. Free color printing at the Publisher's discretion, will provide an opportunity to publish color figures/illustrations in print at NO COST to the authors.

MANUSCRIPT PROCESSING FEES: Authors should understand that there are many occurring publishing expenses per journal page associated with manuscript processing, editorial, production, typesetting, printing, paper, binding, shipping, web-hosting, and archiving. However authors pay no publication fees as well as the costs of any color figure/illustration in a print edition to American Scientific Publishers whatsoever, therefore, publisher is doing all services to authors free of costs and/or at fractional costs, hence, publisher is not obligated to provide any hard/softcopies of journal issue and/or research article to anyone whatsoever. Authors may download pdf file of their published papers from Ingenta after paying fractional costs. If authors require a hardcopy of the journal issue having their research articles then authors may also purchase hardcopies of the journal issue or subscribe to the journal by contacting the publisher. No free hard/softcopies of journal issue and/or research article are provided. On the other hand, if authors want to support the journal by paying full manuscript processing fees plus all costs of color figures/illustrations/photos in a print edition through their research grants or affiliated institutions, then publisher will provide hardcopy of journal issue or pdf file of his/her research article after receiving a full payment. American Scientific Publishers highly appreciate for author's kind understanding and support.

COVER ART: JSIM features new cover art time to time. Authors are encouraged to submit high quality color figure/illustration to have their published paper featured.

FULL RESEARCH ARTICLES: Full-length papers that report original research work on any aspects of materials in the fields of science, engineering and medicine.

COMMUNICATIONS: Highest priority will be given to the communications reporting important new scientific and technological findings. Rapid publication is provided for concise and up-to-date reports. These articles should not exceed three-four published pages. No section headings should be used for these short communications.

REVIEWS:The state-of-the-art review articles with author's short biography and photo are published. Reviews are limited to a maximum length of 35 journal pages having more than 100 references. It is authors' responsibility to obtain written copyright permissions to reproduce any copyright materials from other sources. Authors are advised to cite proper references in figure/tables captions of all previously published figures/tables/illustrations including their own published work and obtain copyright permissions from appropriate publishers and authors.

CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS: Selected peer-reviewed articles from conferences and symposia.

TYPING: All manuscripts must be in English, typed double-spaced on one side of the page throughout (including footnotes, references, tables, legends) on 8.5" x 11" or A4 white paper leaving at least 1 inch left hand margin.

INTRODUCTORY MATERIAL: The first page of the manuscript should have a concise title limited to about 15 words and the names of all authors, complete mailing address for correspondence, telephone, fax numbers and email address. Please indicate with an asterisk (*) the author to whom correspondence regarding the manuscript should be directed.

ABSTRACT: All manuscripts must contain an informative 150 to 200 words abstract explaining the essential contents of the work, key experiments, ideas and results.

FIGURES: It is very important to supply high quality figures in a form suitable for reproduction. All figures, tables, illustrations, photographs should be prepared in such a way that they could be printed in a single column size with a width of 3 1/4 inches or 8.25 cm. Use 14 ARIAL BOLD font for legends and 12 ARIAL font for numbering/wordings in figures, use the same font for all figures. Only if absolutely necessary should figures/tables/photos occupy double columns. Each figure must be referred to in the text and will be printed in black and white unless otherwise instructed by the authors. Each Figure should be submitted on a separate sheet and marked with the name of the author, title of manuscript and figure number. All formulae and figures should be carefully drafted and never drawn freehand. High quality original figures and glossy prints of all photographs are required. Photocopies of the figures and photographs are not acceptable.

PHOTOGRAPHS: Half-tone illustrations should be supplied as clear, glossy, unmounted prints. The author's name, title of manuscript and figure number should be written on the back.

TABLES: Each table must be referred to in the text. Each table should be typed double-spaced on a separate sheet and identified sequentially by Arabic numerals corresponding to the order in which they appear in the text. Each table should have a brief explanatory title, which should be labeled unambiguously. The position of each table should be clearly marked in the text.

UNITS: Internationally accepted units of measurement must be used. The units of measurement are used in conjunction with their numerical values; the units should be abbreviated as suggested below. If more commonly used units are adopted, conversion factors should be given at their first occurrence. Greek symbols may be used.

%, ºC, nm, µm (not m), mm, cm, cm3, m, h (or hr), min, s (or sec), µg, mg, g (or gm), kg, cal, kcal, in. (or write out inch), ml [write out liter(s)].

The American Physical Society style guide can be used as a general reference on matter of units, grammar and formatting.

ABBREVIATIONS: No abbreviations are allowed in the title and abstract and should be defined the first time they are used within the text. The "Journal of Surfaces and Interfaces of Materials" should be abbreviated as J. Surf. Interfac. Mater. for the reference citation purpose.

REFERENCES: References should be in the proper format on a separate page, numbered in the sequence in which they occur in the text. Cite references numerically as superscripts in the text and list at the end of the manuscript. Do not use abstracts and websites as references. References to papers accepted but not yet published should be designated as "in press". Information from manuscripts submitted but not accepted should be cited in the text as "unpublished observations" with written permission from the source. Avoid citing a "personal communication" unless it provides essential information not available from a public source. For scientific articles, authors should obtain written permission and confirmation of accuracy from the source of a personal communication. References should be listed in the following style. The references must be verified by the authors against the original documents.

1. Journal article
J. M. Koziara, P. R. Lockman, D. D. Allen, and R. J. Mumper, J. Nanosci. Nanotechnol. 6, 2712 (2006)

2. Book
H. S. Nalwa, Editor, Handbook of Nanostructured Biomaterials and Their Applications in Nanobiotechnology, Vols. 1-2, American Scientific Publishers, Los Angeles (2005)

3. Chapter in a Book
H. V. Jansen, N. R. Tas and J. W. Berenschot, in Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Edited H. S. Nalwa, American Scientific Publishers, Los Angeles (2004), Vol. 5, pp.163-275.

4. Conference Proceedings
J. Kimura and H. Shibasaki, Editors. Recent Advances in Clinical Neurophysiology. Proceedings of the 10th International Congress of EMG and Clinical Neurophysiology, (1995) October 15-19; Kyoto, Japan

5. Patent
C. E. Larsen, R. Trip, and C.R. Johnson, Methods for procedures related to the electrophysiology of the heart. U.S. Patent 5,529,067, June 25 (1995).

6. Scientific Report
M. J. Field. R. E. Tranquada, J. C. Feasley, Editors. Health services research: work force and educational issues. Washington: National Academy Press; (1995) Contract No.: AHCPR282942008. Sponsored by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research.

7. Dissertation
S. J. Kaplan. Post-hospital home health care: the elderly's access and utilization [dissertation]. St. Louis (MO), Washington University (1995).

8. Patent
C. E. Larsen, R. Trip, C. R. Johnson, Inventors; Novoste Corporation, assignee. Methods for procedures related to the electrophysiology of the heart. US Patent 5,529,067. June 25 (1995).

Do not use the phrases "et al." and "ibid." in the reference section. Instead, the names of all authors in a reference must be listed.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: These should be brief and placed at the end of the text before the references.

PROOFS: Page proofs for the correction of printer's errors only will be dispatched to the corresponding author denoted with an asterik (*) unless otherwise requested. Alterations at this stage are not allowed as they are expensive and may have to be charged to the authors. The proofread copy and reprint order form must be returned within 72 hours.

OFFPRINTS: Authors may order offprints of articles with a minimum of 100 from American Scientific Publishers (ASP) prior to publication. An order form accompanying the page proofs will be sent directly to the corresponding author (*). Please return your offprint order form with the page proofs.

ELECTRONIC SUBMISSION: Upon acceptance of the manuscript for publication, authors should submit to the publisher a diskette or CD containing the final version of the manuscript accompanied by a hard copy printout to improve the accuracy and speed up the typesetting process. The disk or CD should be clearly labeled with the author's name, manuscript title, the date, and the hardware and software package used in preparation. The preferred medium is a CD in Windows/MS-DOS or Macintosh having TeX. We are also able to accept line artwork/graphics on CD if you supply us the source files to enables us to modify the artwork as required for the journal format.

WARRANTIES AND COPYRIGHTS: By submitting the manuscript, the authors warrant that the entire work is original and unpublished; it is submitted only to this Journal and all text, data, figures/tables or other illustrations included in the research article are completely original and unpublished, and these have not been previously published or submitted elsewhere in any form or media whatsoever. All authors are responsible for the complete contents of their manuscript. The author(s) warrant that the work contains no unlawful or libelous statements and opinions and liable materials of any kind whatsoever, do not infringe on any copyrights, intellectual property rights, personal rights or rights of any kind of others, and does not contains any plagiarized, fraudulent, improperly attributed materials, instructions, procedures, information or ideas that might cause any harm, damage, injury, losses or costs of any kind to person or property. Each author(s) agrees to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless American Scientific Publishers and the Editors for any breach of such warranties. It is authors' responsibility to obtain written copyright permissions from other sources (publishers) for reproduction of any figures, tables, photos, illustrations, text or other copyright materials from previously published work. It is the policy of American Scientific Publishers to own the copyright of all contributions it publishes. To comply with the U.S. Copyright Law, a Copyright Transfer Form that transfer copyright of the article to the publisher must be completed by the authors prior to publication of an accepted article in this journal. Authors must submit a signed copy of the Copyright Transfer Agreement with their manuscript.

ETHICAL ISSUES: Authors cannot submit a manuscript for publication to other journals simultaneously. It is waste of valuable resources because editors and referees spent a great deal of time processing submitted manuscripts. It is also unethical to republish similar research articles (text/figures/tables) again because journals have limited page space and it most likely violates copyrights which have already been transferred to the first journal. Therefore, all journals require a signed author's copyright transfer agreement stating the originality of the research work submitted through a manuscript. As stated above that authors should submit original, new and unpublished research work to the journal. The ethical issues such as plagiarism, fraudulent and duplicate publication, violation of copyrights, authorship and conflict of interest are serious issues concerning ethical integrity when submitting a manuscript to a journal for publication.

WITHDRAWAL OF MANUSCRIPTS: If the author requests withdrawal of manuscript after submission within the time span when the manuscript is still in the peer-reviewing process with Editors/Referees, author is allowed to withdraw the manuscript without paying any withdrawal penalty whatsoever. However, it is unethical to withdraw a submitted manuscript from one journal if accepted by another journal. The withdrawal of manuscripts from the journals after submitting to the publisher will incur a withdrawal penalty from American Scientific Publishers. After the manuscript is accepted for publication either through journal editors or guest editors or conference organizers, the withdrawal is not permitted by American Scientific Publishers. If the authors or conference organizers or a third party withdraw manuscripts any time after final manuscripts have already been submitted to American Scientific Publishers for processing, the request is not entertained without a significant withdrawal penalty. Authors or conference organizers or a third party are not allowed to withdraw submitted manuscripts because the withdrawal wastes valuable manuscript processing time, money and works invested by the publisher. The authors or conference organizers or a third party must always pay $200 per page manuscript processing charges as withdrawal penalty to the publisher even if the withdrawal is permitted. The withdrawal of the conference papers by conference organizers will never be permitted and the conference organizers will be punished for withdrawal by paying a withdrawal penalty of US$500 per manuscript. Withdrawal of manuscripts is only allowed after withdrawal penalty has been fully paid to the American Scientific Publishers by the authors or conference organizers or a third party. Any reason whatsoever of withdrawal of submitted manuscripts is treated as invalid and completely unacceptable under any circumstances. Publisher is not responsible for any damages whatsoever resulting from this consequence of the author's or conference organizer's or a third party decision. All questions or differences whatsoever concerning manuscripts withdrawal from American Scientific Publishers whether as to construction or otherwise, shall be held in the County of Los Angeles, California, United States of America.

ABSTRACTING AND INDEXING: American Scientific Publishers has no control whatsoever over abstracting and indexing of their scientific journals in any types of databases (SCIE, Scopus, Compendex, PubMed, CPCI, etc.), therefore, the publisher does not guarantee and take any responsibilities whatsoever for any kind of abstracting and indexing coverage of the published work in any types of databases whatsoever.

UNAUTHORIZED CONFERENCES: American Scientific Publishers would like to caution potential authors that there are fraudulent activities going on in some countries where Conference Organizers are cheating fellow colleagues by falsely promising the publication of their research papers in SCIE/EI journals. It is very unfortunate to mention that some conference organizers are using the ASP logo and the journal titles/covers from ASP's websites without any authorization, which is completely illegal. Be aware that such conference organizers also disconnect emails and phones after receiving full payment for registration and publication charges from potential authors. Kindly be vigilant of such illegal activity. American Scientific Publishers is not responsible for such fraudulent activities and for any kind of damages brought on by the author's decisions. Author(s) hereby undertake to indemnify and hold harmless American Scientific Publishers and the Editors for any and all damages/claims/liabilities incurred from any and all actions by the conference organizers or any third party.

WARRANTIES FOR CONFERENCE ORGANIZERS: The Conference Organizer(s) submitting manuscripts to American Scientific Publishers warrant and represent that any material prepared by the Author(s) for the Journal shall be 100% new, original and unpublished in any form, shall not infringe upon or violate any copyright, trademark, obligation of confidentiality or other right or the privacy of others, or contain any libelous or unlawful statements or material or instructions that may cause harm or injury to a person or property; and that he/she will not include in the Journal any Article that the Editor believes or has any reason to believe may infringe or violate such rights or contain such material or matter or instructions that may cause harm or injury.

The Conference Organizer(s) submitting manuscripts to American Scientific Publishers represent and warrant that they have full power and authority to enter into this agreement. The Conference Organizer(s) agree to indemnify and hold the Publisher and any of its representatives harmless from any and all claims, demands, for any special, indirect, incidental, consequential or punitive damages of any kind whatsoever, including, but not limited to all liabilities, lost opportunities, costs, charges and expenses (including counsel fees) that the Publisher incurs or sustains arising out of any breach by the Conference Organizer(s) of the foregoing warranties and representations. The Conference Organizer(s) hereby agrees to indemnify and defend American Scientific Publishers from claims, costs, charges, damages, fees, expenses or liabilities of any kind whatsoever brought or preferred by any third party against Publisher.

The relationship between the parties is that of independent contractors and does not constitute a partnership and the Conference Organizer(s) shall have no authority to bind American Scientific Publishers in any way. All questions or differences whatsoever which may at any time hereafter arise between the parties hereto concerning this Agreement or the subject matter thereof and whether as to construction or otherwise, shall be held in the County of Los Angeles, California. These terms and conditions shall be construed and interpreted under the laws of the State of California.