Information for Authors
SCIENCE CHINA Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy (Sci China Phys Mech Astron) is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal supervised by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and cosponsored by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the National Natural Science Foundation of China. Its primary mission is to encourage communication of basic and innovative research results of high quality in the fields of physics, mechanics and astronomy. The subject areas featured include solid state physics, atomic and molecular physics, optical physics, acoustics, theoretical physics, particle physics, nuclear physics, nuclear technology, accelerator and detector, plasma physics, mechanics, solid mechanics, fluid mechanics, biomechanics, astrophysics, astromechanics, astrometry, astronomical technology, and interdisciplinary areas, etc. All papers should be intelligible for a broad scientific audience.
Contributions are invited from researchers all over the world.
Papers published in Sci China Phys Mech Astron include:
Reviews: summarize representative results and achievements in a particular topic or an area, comment on the current situation, and advise on the research directions, which should be based on or closely related with the author’s own research work.
Research papers: report on important original results in all areas of physics, mechanics and astronomy.
Brief reports: present short reports in a timely manner of the latest important results.
How to submit
To submit a manuscript, please visit the website of Science in China Press at http://phys.scichina.com, click the button “submission”, and use the Academic Journal Management System. For a new user, please register an “Author Account”, and then submit a manuscript following the guidance.
Please introduce the research background, innovation and scientific value of your work, as well as your latest publications in a cover letter when submitting. The detailed contact information of the first author and corresponding author is required (please promptly inform the editorial office of any change of contacting addresses). The authors may recommend 3－8 qualified reviewers and/or request the exclusion of specific reviewers. An informative cover letter is considered helpful for editors and reviewers to make evaluation of your paper.
Duplicate submission is forbidden. In this case, we will inform the author’s institution and the relevant journal.
Poor English expression of a submitted manuscript may lead to the final rejection.
File format: single columned, A4 size, 10 pt, single spaced, word, Tex or pdf file, with figures and tables inserted in the text.
To strengthen the international communication and improve the visibility of the Chinese version, the paper title, author names and addresses, and a detailed abstract in English will also be required for the papers submitted for publication in the Chinese version.
Reviewing policy
All submissions will be reviewed by referees selected by the editorial board. The decision of acceptance or rejection of a manuscript is made by the editorial board based on the referees’ reports. The entire review process may take 60 to 90 days, and the editorial office will inform the author of the decision as soon as the process is completed. If the editorial board fails to make a decision within 90 days, it is up to the authors to decide whether they would withdraw their paper or submit it elsewhere.
A manuscript recommended and peer-reviewed by an editorial member of this journal or by a CAS academician of the relevant field (please indicate “Recommended by XXX” on the title page) will be directly sent to the editor-in-chief for the acceptance/refusal decision. For a paper authored by an editorial member of this journal or by a CAS academician of the relevant field, who takes responsibility for this paper (please indicate “Contributed by XXX” on the title page), it will be coped with in the same way.
Authorship
Authorship should be limited to those who have contributed substantially to the work, and every author has responsibility for the data and argument mentioned in the paper. The corresponding author must have obtained permission from all authors for the submission of each version of the paper and for any change in authorship.
Copyright
A completed form assigning copyright to Science China Press must be returned to the Sci China Phys Mech Astron office when the paper is accepted for publication. The copyright covers the exclusive right to reproduce and distribute the article (in various languages), including offprints and reprints, translations, photographic reproductions, microform, electronic form (offline, online) or other reproductions of similar nature. The Copyright Transfer Statement is available at www.scichina.com
After acceptance
For the paper with a great breakthrough result, quick publication will be arranged. After typesetting, page proof is usually sent electronically as email attachments to the corresponding author. The proof plus any minor corrections must be returned to the managing editor within 36 hours. Failure to do this will result in delays in publication. Corrections can be noticed in different ways: 1) highlight the corrections and send us the print proof pages; 2) fax us the corrections; 3) highlight the corrections and send us the corrected page proof as email attachment.
After publication
Authors will be presented one sample copy. If more sample copies and offprints are required, please contact the managing editor and pay the extra fee.
The full text in English is available at www.cnki.net and www.springerlink.com for the subscribers outside China. The whole journal in both the English version and the Chinese version will open free three months after the publication.
Publication charge
The page charge for an article to be published will be required. The colour graphic charge is 1000 yuan/page (page charge will not be required in that case).
Contact
Editorial Office of Sci China Phys Mech Astron
Science China Press
16 Donghuangchenggen North Street
Beijing 100717, China
Tel: 8610-64015835
Fax: 8610-64036350
Email: physics@scichina.org
Manuscript format
Contributions are required of a concise, focused account of the findings and reliable essential data. They should be well organized and written clearly and simply, avoiding exhaustive tables and figures. Authors are advised to use internationally agreed nomenclature, express all measurements in SI units, and quote all the relevant references.
Title: Titles must be limited to no more than 20 words, and should be concise, indexable, and informative for a broad scientific audience. Authors should avoid using colons, questions, nonstandard abbreviations, etc. in titles.
Author(s): Authorship should be limited to those who have contributed substantially to the work.
The order of the authors listed should be agreed by all the coauthors, and every author should have the responsibility for the published content.
Family names are written in upper case. The email address of the corresponding author is required.
Author affiliation: The affiliation should be the institution where the work was done. Complete addresses are required with post codes.
Abstract: An abstract (100—200 words) is a summary of the content of the manuscript. It should briefly describe the research purpose, method, result and conclusion. The extremely professional terms, special signals, figures, tables, chemical structural formula, and equations should be avoided here, and citation of references is not allowed.
Keywords: A list of three to eight keywords should follow the abstract. The chosen keywords are required to reflect the theme of a manuscript.
Text: A paper should begin with a brief introduction of the significance of the author’s research. Nomenclature, signal and abbreviation should be defined at their initial appearance. All the figures and tables should be numbered in numerical order.
Introduction: Being the most important part of an article, the introduction introduces the relevant research background and the progress in 2 or 3 years, with references cited in numerical order, then presents the problem to be solved in this article, and finally briefly describes the method adopted in this work. Before the end, the aim of the research should be mentioned. Subtitle is forbidden in this part, and introduction of the article structure is considered unnecessary.
Materials and method: This part introduces the materials, method and experimental procedure of the author’s work, so as to allow others to repeat the work published based on this clear description.
Discussion and conclusions: Conclusions should be derived from the observation and experimental results, and comparison with other relevant results is considered helpful to further proving the results. Repeated data should be avoided, and conclusions and suggestions are required to be clearly expressed. New hypotheses and recommendations may be proposed when warranted.
Figures and tables: Figures and tables should be numerically numbered, inserted in the text, and cited in order within the text. The figures should have resolution not lower than 600 dpi and clear lines of 5 px, with signals and letters in Arial Unicode MS at 7 pt. A space should always be maintained between the variable and the unit.
Equations: An equation is numerically numbered (Arabic numeral), and has the number put on its right side.
Acknowledgements: The author expresses his/her thanks to the people helping with this work, and acknowledges the valuable suggestions from the peer reviewers. Financial support also appears in this part, with grant number(s) following. The full title of each fund is required.
References: Reference citation is regarded as an important indicator of the paper quality. If the relevant references, especially the results published in 2 to 3 years are not cited in the paper, or most citations are from the author’s publications, the editor will consider this paper unattractive. References should be numerically numbered and cited in order within the text, with the numbers expressed in square brackets. The author should carefully check the author names, article title, journal title, year, volume and issue number of references, and create the listing according to the format of Sci China Phys Mech Astron.
Reference format
1. For an author’s name, full spelling of family name appears before abbreviation of given name, with a spacing in the middle.
2. If there are more than 3 authors, the first 3 names are followed by et al.
3. The article title should be identified by an initial capital letter with the remainder of the title in lower case.
4. For correct abbreviations of journal titles, refer to ISO, e.g., Chin Sci Bull for Chinese Science Bulletin, Sci China Phys Mech Astron for SCIENCE CHINA Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy.
5. For books and proceedings, the initial letter is capitalized for all the notional words and for function words with more than 4 letters.
6. Do not forget to list the editor names of the proceedings, the publisher, the publishing address, and the beginning and terminating pages.
7. Accepted but unpublished papers should be followed by “in press”.
8. Websites or homepages cannot be cited as references.
Reference examples
●Journal
Wang Q H, Lindon O, Hardle W. Semiparametric regression analysis with missing response at random. J Am Stat Assoc, 2004, 99: 334－345
●Monograph
Rordam M, Larsen F, Lausten N. An introduction to K-theory for C*-algebras. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. 30－35
●Proceedings
Qin H R. The subgroups of a finite order in K(Q). In: Bass H, Kuku A O, Pedrini C, eds. Algebraic K-theory and Its Application. Singapore: World Scientific, 1999. 600－607
●Conference proceedings
Minor H E. Spillways for high velocities. In: Zurich V E, Minor H E, Hager W H, eds. Proceedings of International Workshop on Hydraulics of Stepped Spillways, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, 2000. 3―10
●Dissertation
Liu G X. Classification of finite dimensional basic Hopf algebras and related topics. Dissertation for the Doctoral Degree. Hangzhou: Hangzhou University, 2005. 24－28
●Technical report
Phillips N A. The Nested Grid Model. NOAA Technical Report NWS22. 1979
●Patent
Zhang W P. Experiment Apparatus of Diffraction Imaging. China Patent, 02290557.X, 2003-12-03
●User manual
Wang D L, Zhu J, Li Z K, et al. User Manual for QTKMapper Version 1.6, 1999
●Software
Hemodynamics III: The ups and downs of hemodynamics. Version 2.2. Orlando (FL): Computerized Educational Systems. 1993
●CD
Anderson S C, Poulsen K B. Anderson’s Electronic Atlas of Hematology. Philadelphia: Lippincott Wilkins, 2002
●Electronic version of a journal
Christine M. Plant physiology: Plant biology in the Genome Era [OL]. Science, 2003, 281: 331－332 [2003-09-23]. http://www.sciencemag.org/anatmorp.htm |
