Journal Guide

Acta Ecologica Sinica - International Journal  publishes recent theories and novel experimental results in ecology, and facilitates academic exchange and discussions both domestically and abroad. The Journal promotes the development of and foster research talents for ecological studies in China, so as to contribute to the knowledge innovation, sustainable development and the revitalization of the nation through science and education.

Position of the journal
Acta Ecologica Sinica is the only comprehensive journal in China devoted to ecology and its sub-disciplines. It relies on and unites ecological scientists in China with the aim of publishing papers on innovative experimental work. Published papers should bear the characteristics of combined ecological research frontiers and clear national benefits, unveiling mechanisms of the interactions between life and environment, and promoting the development of ecological science in China. The journal represents the standards of ecological research in China and is one of the highest impact journals.

Domestic impact
According to "China Science and Technology Journals Citation Report", the impact factor of Acta Ecologica Sinica is 1.414, ranking number 31 among all the academic journals in China; total citations are 3614, ranking 5 among all the academic journals in China. In the last five years, Acta Ecologica Sinica has been one of the top journals in the category of biological science in terms of total citation and impact factor, and was awarded as one of the "Hundred outstanding Journals".

Acta Ecologica Sinica has been awarded several times including the first-class award from the http://english.cas.cn/Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 2000, the second-class award from http://english.cast.org.cn/ Chinese Association of Sci. & Tech. in 2002, the second-class award of National Journal Award, and was listed among the 100 key journals in China at the second national journal show.

International perspective
Members of the editorial board of Acta Ecologica Sinica have high academic standing in ecological research, its past and present www.elsevier.com/journals/acta-ecologica-sinica/1872-2032/editorial-board editors-in-chief are academicians of the http://english.cas.cn/ Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the old.cae.cn/en/ Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), and are internationally renowned ecologists. Editorial members come from various areas of ecological research, and among them 13 are academicians of CAS or CAE. In recent ears, Acta Ecologica Sinica is receiving increasing international attention, and 13 international scientists have joined the editorial board, which strengthens the Journals impact worldwide. It is anticipated that our journal will further gain more international recognition and will eventually be indexed in the Science Citation Index.

Journal coverage
This journal publishes papers on animal ecology, plant ecology, microbial ecology, agro-ecology, forestry ecology, grassland ecology, soil ecology, ocean and aquatic ecosystems, landscape ecology, chemical ecology, contaminant ecology, urban and human ecology. We particularly welcome reviews on recent developments in ecology, novel experimental studies and short communications on innovative research, new theories, methodologies, new techniques, book reviews, and research news and laboratory introductions.

Topics include:

• metagenomics
• population genetics/genomics
• evolutionary ecology
• conservation and molecular adaptation
• speciation genetics
• environmental and marine genomics
• ecological simulation
• genomic divergence of organisms

The ultimate aim of Ecological Indicators is to integrate the monitoring and assessment of ecological and environmental indicators with management practices. The journal provides a forum for the discussion of the applied scientific development and review of traditional indicator approaches as well as for theoretical, modelling and quantitative applications such as index development. Research into the following areas will be published.• All aspects of ecological and environmental indicators and indices.• New indicators, and new approaches and methods for indicator development, testing and use.• Development and modelling of indices, e.g. application of indicator suites across multiple scales and resources.• Analysis and research of resource, system- and scale-specific indicators.• Methods for integration of social and other valuation metrics for the production of scientifically rigorous and politically-relevant assessments using indicator-based monitoring and assessment programs.• How research indicators can be transformed into direct application for management purposes.• Broader assessment objectives and methods, e.g. biodiversity, biological integrity, and sustainability, through the use of indicators.• Resource-specific indicators such as landscape, agroecosystems, forests, wetlands, etc.The following contributions will be accepted:Original research papersReview articlesSpecial themed issuesShort notes and case studiesPerspectivesLetters to the EditorBook reviews

The journal Ecological Informatics is devoted to the publication of high quality, peer-reviewed articles on all aspects of ecoinformatics, computational ecology and systems ecology. The scope of the journal takes into account the data-intensive nature of ecology and the precious information content of ecological data in view of global environmental and climate change. The nature of the journal is interdisciplinary at the crossover between ecology and informatics. It focuses on recent developments in sensor-based data acquisition, internet-based data archiving and sharing, data assimilation, inductive reasoning and forecasting of ecological data.The journal invites papers on: •novel concepts and tools for the acquisition, management, analysis and synthesis of ecological data including genomic and paleoecological data, •understanding ecosystem functioning and evolution, and •informing decisions on environmental issues like sustainability, climate change and biodiversity.

The journal is concerned with the use of mathematical models and systems analysis for the description of ecological processes and for the sustainable management of resources. Human activity and well-being are dependent on and integrated with the functioning of ecosystems and the services they provide. We aim to understand these basic ecosystem functions using mathematical and conceptual modelling, systems analysis, thermodynamics, computer simulations, and ecological theory. This leads to a preference for process-based models embedded in theory with explicit causative agents as opposed to strictly statistical or correlative descriptions. These modelling methods can be applied to a wide spectrum of issues ranging from basic ecology to human ecology to socio-ecological systems. The journal welcomes research articles, short communications, review articles, letters to the editor, book reviews, and other communications. The journal also supports the activities of the International Society of Ecological Modelling (ISEM).Benefits to authorsWe also provide many author benefits, such as free PDFs, a liberal copyright policy, special discounts on Elsevier publications and much more. Please click here for more information on our author services.Please see our Guide for Authors for information on article submission. If you require any further information or help, please visit our support pages: http://support.elsevier.com

The journal has three main sections. They are:

• Policy Debates and Controversies
  This section will contain highly policy relevant articles that are of general interest to economists. We will strive to obtain opposing views on current topics.
• Recent Trends in Economic Research
  This section will contain research articles from all fields of economics, similar to those published in other general interest economics journals, such as the American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Economic Journal, or the Economic Record. These articles will not necessarily be easily accessible to non-academic economists. We expect authors to provide the main insights in a non-technical introduction and in the conclusions.
• Comments and Discussions of Past and Present Contributions to Economics
  This section has two aims. On the one hand it is a platform to critically discuss recent contributions to the economic literature. This section will contain contributions that revalidate econometric articles and/or discuss the importance of recent findings in economics. On the other hand, it will contain a critical appreciation of classic contributions to the economic literature. We will invite original authors as well as scholars that work in the field to review the importance of classic contributions to modern economics.

Economic Modelling fills a major gap in the economics literature, providing a single source of both theoretical and applied papers on economic modelling. The journal's prime objective is to provide an international review of the state-of-the-art in economic modelling.Economic Modelling publishes the complete versions of many large-scale models of industrially advanced economies which have been developed for policy analysis. Examples are the Bank of England Model and the US Federal Reserve Board Model which had hitherto been unpublished. As individual models are revised and updated, the journal publishes subsequent papers dealing with these revisions, so keeping its readers as up to date as possible.The main subject areas covered include: national macroeconomic models (for both advanced and less developed countries), growth models, optimization models, planning models, international trade models, interaction of national and regional economies, general equilibrium modelling of national economies, modelling structural adjustments, sensitivity of econometric models to alternative macroeconomics policies.Months of publication: January, April, July and October.Index bound in last issue of calendar year.Recent Special Issue: Financial liberalization and housing market dynamics.

Economic Systems is a refereed journal for the analysis of causes and consequences of the significant institutional variety prevailing among all developed, developing, emerging, and transition economies, as well as attempts at and proposals for their reform.The journal is open to micro and macro contributions, theoretical as well as empirical, the latter to analyze related topics against the background of country or region-specific experiences. This is to reflect the respective new orientation within the field of comparative economics: decades of development and transition experience in many countries have clearly demonstrated the importance of institutions and institutional change for the functioning of markets and the ways in which policies influence economic activity in general and economic growth in particular. However, we believe that institutional development is only one of the important factors in affecting domestic and global economies.Hence, Economic Systems strongly encourages submissions from all other fields, covering, but not limited to, a variety of aspects of financial and economic systems and development, including private and state banking; goods and services and financial markets; macro and micro policies and their effects; and global trade issues and exchange rate systems in all developed, developing, emerging, and transition economies. We are particularly interested in empirical papers with significant policy implications.

Submission fee Economics Letters handles a submission fee of EUR 50 (reduced 30) USD 65 (40) Yen 6000 (4000). The reduced prices are for students. Submissions will only be considered after payment of the submission fee via SubmissionStart. After you submit your manuscript, you will receive an email regarding how to transfer your payment. The submission fee is non-refundable and a paper may be rejected by the Editors without being sent for review, should a paper be inconsistent with the Aims and Scope of the Journal as set out on the Journal website, or not adhere to the style requirements as outlined in the Guide for Authors. The submission fees are used to support journal related activities.Economics Letters aims to be a valuable addition to the specialist literature, offering quick dissemination and easy accessibility of new results, models and methods in all fields of economic research. All researchers are welcome to submit their articles to Economics Letters, and especially young researchers and advanced graduate students are encouraged to submit their articles.The "letter" format consists of concise communications, which are a vehicle to quickly communicate important pieces of new research. For instance, a theorist could submit to Economics Letters a thought-provoking example before the analysis is extended to a general theorem in a fully fledged paper that will go elsewhere. Similarly, an experimentalist or an empirical researcher could submit to Economics Letters some important preliminary results, where perhaps the threshold for robustness, thoroughness or completeness of the analysis is not as high as it would be for a complete paper. Comments or pedagogical notes are not suitable for transmission in this form.The following are important features of the "letter" format:Concise: Contributions are usually limited to 2,000 words (12 manuscript pages), allowing readers to determine their potential interest in a letter very quickly, and to digest a large amount of material in a usable form.Rapid: The fast review process and immediate online publication ensure a brief manuscript turnover time.Efficient: A quick way to stay up-to-date with developments in all areas of economics.Every submission to Economics Letters will be subject to a careful peer-review process. With few exceptions, in which submissions are sent back for small editorial revisions before acceptance, each paper will be either accepted as is or rejected. Detailed reports will not be provided; the reasons for the decision will be explained in a brief cover letter from the editor. Economics Letters aims to have a quick turnover time of up to two months between the submission and final decision.Economics Letters and Elsevier uphold the highest standards of academic integrity. Therefore, instances of plagiarism, fabricating or results, and other examples of ethics breach, when properly confirmed, are taken very seriously. The journal imposes a number of sanctions, which include, but are not limited to, a five-year submission ban, and notification to the author's department chair or relevant supervisor.

Economics and Human Biology is devoted to the exploration of the effect of socio-economic processes on human beings as biological organisms. Research covered in this (triennial) interdisciplinary journal is not bound by temporal or geographic limitations.Themes include:The impact of socio-economic processes, such as industrialization, urbanization, agricultural policy, technological change and commercialization and the degree of penetration of the world food system on biological welfare and health outcomes.The effects of government intervention programs, as well as macroeconomic and public health policy on the human organism at either the individual or the population level.Feedback effects from human biological outcomes to economic growth at the national, regional and local levels insofar as healthier individuals invariably lead longer more creative and more productive lives, influencing thereby the course of economic development.The complex symbiotic relationship between such anthropometric indicators as weight, birth-weight, physical stature and the body-mass-index, as well as morbidity and mortality, on the one hand and socio-economic processes or events on the other.The conceptualization of health and health models in economic theory.The measurement of poverty, malnutrition and psychological deprivation and the role of health and income inequality in the persistence of poverty traps.The biological components of the quality of life: how well does the human organism itself thrive in its socio-economic and epidemiological environment.Health and economic systems; environment and health; health in the transition economies.Statistical, econometric, methodological and philosophical issues associated with the measurement and modeling of these relationships.Contributions in auxology, anthropometry, biocultural anthropology, demography, development economics, economic history, epidemiology, health economics, human biology, human nutrition, health sciences, medicine, physical anthropology, public health and sociology are welcomed.

Starting with papers submitted March 1, 2014, the review process for articles submitted to the Economics of Education Review will no longer be double blind. Authors are requested to include a title page with authors' names and affiliation. Reviewers will continue to be anonymous.Economists concerned with human resources and local government finance, specialists in education finance and educational administrators need to be aware of the latest research in the economics of education. Economics of Education Review encourages the development of sound theoretical, empirical and policy research, demonstrating the role of economic analysis in the solution or improved understanding of educational problems and issues. The journal encourages the interaction of ideas, research methods and results between economists and other scholars interested in the economic dimensions of education.We are pleased to announce that a new electronic submission and handling system, EES, has been implemented for Economics of Education Review. This 'Elsevier Editorial System' is a web-based system with full online submission, review and status update capabilities. EES allows you to upload files directly from your computer. We strongly encourage all authors to use EES at the following URL when submitting papers to the journal: http://ees.elsevier.com/ecoedu. (First time users will need to register).Benefits to authorsWe also provide many author benefits, such as free PDFs, a liberal copyright policy, special discounts on Elsevier publications and much more. Please click here for more information on our author services.Please see our Guide for Authors for information on article submission. If you require any further information or help, please visit our support pages: http://support.elsevier.com

Economics of Transportation publishes scholarly papers that make important contributions to transportation economics. The journal also publishes papers that research the interaction between transportation and other economic activities; papers that seek to promote cross fertilization with other fields of economics including labor, trade, urban economics, and industrial organization; and substantive papers on timely policy issues relating to transportation. The journal welcomes both theoretical and applied papers. Papers are welcome regardless of the originating discipline provided they contribute to the goals of the journal. Economics of Transportation aims to uphold the highest standards of scientific originality and quality.Benefits to authorsWe also provide many author benefits, such as free PDFs, a liberal copyright policy, special discounts on Elsevier publications and much more. Please click here for more information on our author services.Please see our Guide for Authors for information on article submission. If you require any further information or help, please visit our support pages: http://support.elsevier.com

Ecosystem Services, associated with the Ecosystem Services Partnership (ESP), is an international, interdisciplinary journal that deals with the science, policy and practice of Ecosystem Services in the following disciplines: ecology and economics, institutions, planning and decision making, economic sectors such as agriculture, forestry and outdoor recreation, and all types of ecosystems.The aims of the journal are:(1) To improve our understanding of the dynamics, benefits and social and economic values of ecosystem services, (2) To provide insight in the consequences of policies and management for ecosystem services with special attention to sustainability issues, (3) To create a scientific interface to policymakers in the field of ecosystem services assessment and practice, and(4) To integrate the fragmented knowledge about ecosystem services, synergies and trade-offs, currently found in a wide field of specialist disciplines and journals.Manuscripts should always address ecosystem services and deal with at least one of the following themes:(a) The link between ecosystem services and social and economic benefits and associated values, including monetary values; i.e. what is the role of ecosystem services in providing and sustaining benefits for humans and how are these benefits and values perceived by public and policy makers? (b) The link between the levels of ecosystem services and economic, environmental and land use policies and practices; i.e. how is (the sustainability of) ecosystem services in natural, agricultural and urban systems affected by these policies and what are the trade-offs in service provision, and subsequent benefits and economic values, between different policy schemes?(c) The link between government and business strategies and the sustainability of ecosystem services, i.e. the use of ecosystem services in PES arrangements, biodiversity-offset programs and multiple service land use planning.Articles may address these topics from different (paradigmatic) perspectives, including basic research, integrated assessment approaches and (ex ante and ex post) policy evaluations. They may be inter-disciplinary or draw from specialized fields within economic, ecological, social and political sciences. Systems addressed may range from natural and semi-natural ecosystems to cultivated systems and urban areas and from local to global scales.Article types:• Original Research Articles (including policy assessments) • Short communications• Review Articles (including policy reviews) • Views and Commentaries• Letters to the Editor• Special issue PapersAudience: academia, governments, non-governmental organisations, business community.

Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety focuses on integrated mechanistic research related to short- and long-term pathways and interactions of substances and chemical mixtures in environmental systems and subsystems on their bioavailability, and assimilation in organisms, as well as biological responses of these organisms, and damage mechanisms (endocrine disruption, genotoxicity); and on their subsequent fate in the environment, food chain, including humans. Novel technologies, techniques, and methods such as biomarkers, biosensors and bioanalytical systems, bioremediation methods, QSARs and QSPRs, advanced high performance computational methods, models, and their applications in obtaining and processing interdisciplinary ecotoxicological information are also addressed in the journal. We welcome the applied outcome of complex ecotoxicological research such as developing the science-based Environmental Quality Criteria (EQC), standard toxicity tests, techniques, and methods for ecotoxicological evaluation of the environment, as well as developing ecotoxicologically proven methods and technologies for prevention, interception, and remediation of human-induced damage to ecosystems. Emphasis is placed on ecological animal models rather than laboratory based rodent studies; The above scope of the journal is aimed at providing science-based tools for sustainably managing the environment through risk assessment, risk characterization, risk prediction, and risk management. The journal publishes regular research articles, and review articles.

The journal Educación Médica (Medical Education, http://www.elsevier.es/edumedwww.elsevier.es/edumed) is a scientific journal that is published 4 times a year, with articles in Spanish and in English, and will consider for publication those works related to education in the Health Sciences in all its aspects: teaching planning, and development of teaching; educational resources; teaching methodology; educational techniques; teaching accreditation; learning styles results; evaluation; etc. Works may be submitted on the initiative of the author, or at the request or commission of the journal Editorial Committee.

La revista Educación Médica (http://www.elsevier.es/edumedwww.elsevier.es/edumed) es una revista científica de periodicidad trimestral, que publica artículos en español y en inglés, y que considerará para su publicación aquellos trabajos relacionados con la educación en las Ciencias de la Salud en todos sus aspectos: la planificación docente y el desarrollo de la docencia; los recursos educativos; la metodología docente; las técnicas educativas; la acreditación docente; los estilos de aprendizaje; los resultados; la evaluación; etc. Los trabajos podrán ser presentados por iniciativa del autor, o bien a demanda o petición del Comité Editorial de la revista.

Education for Chemical Engineers is IChemE's new online journal, launched in May 2006 at ACHEMA.With a remit to publish education research papers, resource reviews and teaching and learning notes, ECE is targeted at chemical engineering academics and educators, discussing the ongoing changes and development in chemical engineering education.This international title publishes papers from around the world, creating a global network of chemical engineering academics. Papers demonstrating how educational research results can be applied to chemical engineering education are particularly welcome, as are the accounts of research work that brings new perspectives to established principles, highlighting unsolved problems or indicating direction for future research.Core topic areas:AssessmentAccreditationCurriculum development and transformationDesignDiversityDistance educationE-learningEntrepreneurship programsIndustry-academic linkagesBenchmarkingLifelong learningMultidisciplinary programsOutreach from kindergarten to high school programsStudent recruitment and retention and transition programsNew technologyProblem-based learningSocial responsibility and professionalismTeamworkWeb-based learning

Educational Research Review is a new international journal aimed at researchers and various agencies interested to review studies in education and instruction at any level. The journal will accept meta-analytic reviews, narrative reviews and best-evidence syntheses.Diverse types of reviews can be accepted:• Research reviews: Reviews aimed at comparing research on similar or related topics.• Theoretical reviews: Reviews able to critically describe the evolution of theories and the way they are understood in different contexts.• Methodological reviews: Reviews devoted to methods and methodologies used in education.• Thematic reviews: Reviews based on description of particular areas of the literature, or particular educational approaches or learning models.• Theoretical contributions - state-of-the-art papers relating issues, comparisons, and analyses to the application of methods and models to the educational process.• Research critiques - reviews on selected educational topics reflecting implications for the field of education.• Forum Papers - shorter articles presenting new ideas, or responses to published material stimulating debate, but well founded in the existing literature.• Instructional techniques - reports on instructional techniques when the use of adequate controls demonstrates the validity of the findings.Membership Benefits:Members of the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI) receive online access to Educational Research Review for free as a member benefit.

The Egyptian Informatics Journal is published by the Faculty of Computers and Information, Cairo University. This Journal provides a forum for the state-of-the-art research and development in the fields of computing, including computer sciences, information technologies, information systems, operations research and decision support. Innovative and not-previously-published work in subjects covered by the Journal is encouraged to be submitted, whether from academic, research or commercial sources.