An International Journal on Multidisciplinary Materials Research
ISSN: 2158-5849 (Print); EISSN: 2158-5857 (Online).
Copyright © 2000- American Scientific Publishers. All Rights Reserved.
| Instructions for Authors |
| Materials Express is an international multidisciplinary peer-reviewed journal reporting research on the synthesis, characterization, properties, and application of a very wide range of materials from physical sciences to engineering to life sciences. In particular, the journal aims to report advanced materials with interesting electronic, magnetic, optical, mechanical and catalytic properties. A broad spectrum of the research topics to be covered is as follows: |
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| JOURNAL POLICY: It is
journal policy to publish only 100% original and unpublished
research work therefore Materials Express 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their manuscript is completely original and unpublished.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. Materials Express offers express publication of authoritative and comprehensive review articles, detailed full papers on original research and short communications of cutting-edge research results. The dedicated editors ensure express review (within 30 days of manuscript receipt) and express publication (within 30-45 days of acceptance). For Readers: Readers can read, redistribute and reuse the articles for free, as long as they cite the publication details properly and do not use for any commercial purposes. For Authors: There are no page charges whatsoever; full expense of the publication is kindly borne by the publisher. Free online availability increases your paper's visibility, readership and citation. |
| SUBMISSION OF
MANUSCRIPT: Authors are kindly advised to read MEX policy before
submitting their manuscript to MEX 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. All manuscripts must be submitted ONLINE. A single manuscript file (containing all text, figures, tables etc.) needs to be uploaded in pdf or doc format. Authors using LaTeX for manuscript preparation, should upload the final source file after the acceptance notification. Please carefully follow the instructions for manuscript preparation, as detailed below. And before submission, cross check again with the checklist. |
| Authors should suggest
at least FIVE potential referees (Name, Department,
Institute, Country, 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 sent out for peer reviewing in the second
stage. |
| 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. |
| COVER ART: MEX features new cover art every issue. Authors are encouraged to submit high quality color figure/illustration suitable for cover feature. |
| TYPES OF CONTRIBUTIONS |
| COMMUNICATIONS: Materials
Express publishes important communications of promising experimental
results that have not been reported previously and warrant rapid
publication to draw the attention of materials scientists. Authors
should justify in the cover letter why they feel to publish their
work as an express communication. The recommended length is 3-4
journal pages. FULL PAPERS: Materials Express publishes high-quality full papers reporting an original research work in sufficient details. Simply explaining the results obtained does not constitute a scientific paper. Results must be compared with similar works reported by other groups and discussed scientifically. Authors should briefly mention the novelty of their research findings in the cover letter. The recommended length is 6-12 journal pages. |
| REVIEW ARTICLES: Review
articles are normally published by invitation from the Editors.
Review Articles should bring the reader up-to-date with research in
a particular field, highlighting the areas of special excitement and
progress. The article should highlight important developments made
over the past 5-10 years, providing an authoritative in-depth
discussion on existing problems. Authors should identify areas in
the field where further developments are imminent, and give possible
directions. The recommended length is 15-20 journal pages. Potential
authors willing to publish a review article in Materials Express
should contact an Editor with the review title, abstract and outline
before the manuscript preparation. Authors are advised to cite proper references in all figures/tables captions of all previously published figures/tables/illustrations including their own published work and obtain proper copyright permissions from appropriate publishers and authors. It is authors' responsibility to obtain written copyright permissions to reproduce any copyright materials in print and online editions of the journal from other sources for reproduction of any figures, tables, photos, illustrations or other copyright materials from previously published work. |
| RESEARCH NEWS & VIEWS.
It is primarily for non-specialized readers on recent progress and
developments in various areas of materials science and engineering.
It also includes materials-research based technology transfers,
major product launches, and government policies and initiatives
towards research fundings, intellectual properties, etc. Recommended
length is 1 page only including one display item. For all types of contributions mentioned above, the authors are required to suggest five potential reviewers (name, complete affiliation and e-mail), who must not be their collaborator at any stage. However, the editors are free to choose reviewers beyond the list suggested by the authors. |
| 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. |
| KEYWORDS: Authors should provide 5-10 important keywords related their submitted research work. |
| 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 should be presented on a separate page with the figure caption in the bottom. All schemes/drawings should be prepared by using proper tools and never drawn freehand. Scanning of any image or spectra (if required) should be done at least at 600 dpi. |
| 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 um), mm, cm, cm3, m, h (not hr), min, s (or sec), µg, mg, g (not 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 "Materials
Express" should be abbreviated as Mater. Express for
the 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. Do not cite any submitted work until it has been accepted for publication. References to papers accepted but not yet published should be designated as "in press". Avoid citing any unpublished work or personal communication.The references must be verified by the authors against the original documents. When cited in the text, reference numbers are superscript, not in brackets unless they are likely to be confused with a superscript number. Do not use linked fields (produced by EndNote and similar programs). Please use the one-click button provided by EndNote to remove EndNote codes before finalizing your manuscript for submission. The maximum number of references, strictly enforced, is 50 for Articles and 30 for Communications. Each cited work should have a separate reference number (multiple citations are not allowed against a single reference number). Only published or accepted articles should be cited and included in the reference list; papers in preparation or just submitted should NOT be referenced. Status of the accepted articles in the reference list must be updated while revising the manuscript and proof reading. If the publication detail (volume and page numbers) of a cited article in press is not available, DOI numbers must be noted at the end of the reference. Authors’ names should begin with first and middle names initialized, followed by the surname. Full titles of all cited articles are required. The article titles in the reference list should be written in sentence case (only the first word capitalized, not all words) and in upright (not italicized). While citing a book chapter, the reference should begin with the names of the chapter authors, followed by the chapter title (in sentence case and upright), and then the book title (all words capitalized and italicized). Finally, the publisher, city, year and page number should appear in sequence. Journal titles should be abbreviated as standard usage (italicized). The year of publication should be typed bold, but the parentheses should be normal (not bold) terminating with a period. For example, References should be typed in the following pattern. |
| 1. Journal articles
A. H. C. Neto and K. Novoselov; Two-dimensional crystals: beyond graphene; Mater. Express 1, 10 (2011). J. W. Han, A. Lohn, N. P. Kobayashi, and M. Meyyappan; Evolutional transformation of copper oxide nanowires to copper nanowires by a reduction technique; Mater. Express 1, 176 (2011). 2. Books S. S. Ray and M. Bousmina; Polymer Nanocomposites and Their Applications; American Scientific Publishers, Los Angeles (2006). H. S. P. Wong and D. Akinwande; Carbon Nanotube and Graphene Device Physics; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2011). 3. Chapters in a Book H. V. Jansen, N. R. Tas and J. W. Berenschot; MEMS-based nanotechnology; In Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, American Scientific Publishers, Los Angeles, (2004), Vol. 5, pp.163-275. H. Jónsson, G. Mills, and K. W. Jacobsen; Classical and quantum dynamics in condensed phase simulations; In Nudged Elastic Band Method for Finding Minimum Energy Paths of Transitions; World Scientific, Singapore (1998), pp. 387–405. 4. Conference Proceeding 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. Dissertation S. J. Kaplan; Post-hospital home health care: the elderly's access and utilization; Ph.D. Thesis, St. Louis (MO), Washington University (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. |
| 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. 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. |
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