Instruction for Authors

Advances in Computational Mechanics 

ISSN: 1940-5820 (Printed)

ISSN: 1940-5839 (Online)

Shortcuts

Cover Letter
Templates
General Format of Articles
Declarations
Chemical Compounds
Mandatory Data Deposition and suggested repositories
Suggesting Reviewers
English Editing Service
Authorship and Contribution
Conflicts of Interest
Copyright and Licensing
Corrections and Retractions
Post-Publication Discussions and Corrections

Manuscripts submitted for publication must be prepared according to the guidelines given below.                           

Publish with TSP journals must aware the issues about Publication Ethics,Authorship and Copyright have been appropriately considered; 

Manuscript submitted to TSP will follow the Editorial Procedures and Peer-Review. 

Template in PDF: Sample.pdf.

Template in MS Word: sample.doc.

Template in LaTeX: LaTeX

This guideline is intended to assist authors as they prepare their manuscripts. To avoid any delay and time-consuming restructuring, we ask and encourage authors to read the guidelines before writing the manuscript.                                                        

Tech Science Press publishes review and research articles. All papers must be written in English, and follow a clear, concise style. Our language editors may have to check the language and grammar of your submitted manuscript, and make editorial changes if deemed necessary.

The corresponding author of a manuscript is responsible for submission and all subsequent correspondences on behalf of all the authors that are included in the m. All published papers should contain adequate information and data for readers to replicate the result.

1 Cover Letter

A submitted manuscript must be accompanied by a cover letter. The cover letter must clearly state that the manuscript is an original work with its own merit, has not been previously published in whole or in part, and is not being considered for publication elsewhere. It should also include statements clearly indicating that all authors have read the final manuscript, have approved the submission to the journal, and have accepted full responsibilities pertaining to the manuscript’s delivery and contents. If there are any ethical, copyright, disclosure issues that come with the manuscript, please reveal them in the cover letter. In the cover letter, authors need to declare that there is no conflict of interests or disclose all the conflicts of interest regarding the manuscript submitted.

2 Templates

Authors are encouraged to use the Microsoft Word and LaTeX templates (see links above).

3 General Format of Articles

3.1 General Style

• The paper size is US Letter (8.5″ × 11″ or 21.59 cm × 27.94 cm) All margins — top, bottom, left, and right — are set to 1.5″ (3.81 cm).

• Use Times New Roman 11-point size for the main body of the paper, single spacing, except for the heading as outlined in section 3.4.

• The paper must be in a single column format.

• Use British English or American English spellings throughout your manuscript, but not both.

• Do not use page breaks or multiple returns between sections.

• Do not insert page numbers or line numbers.

• Use paragraph spacing after 3 pt for the main body of the paper.

3.2 Manuscripts

3.2.1. Title and Author Information

• The title of the paper should be in bold, Times New Romans, 14-point, at the top center of the title page. Use capital letter on each word of the title.

• Insert two blank lines (two Returns) before the title.

• Insert one blank line (one Return) between title and authors

• Provide full names of all authors and their affiliations. The author line should be centered.

• Authors should be numbered regard to their affiliations. There should be no space between the author name and the number.

• Corresponding author should be marked *.

• Use two blank lines (two Returns) between authors and the Abstract.

3.2.2 Abstract

• Abstract of a research paper should be 200-400 words, and 150-300 words for review paper.

• The abstract should be in one continuous paragraph without reference numbers.

• All abbreviations should be defined in full unless the abbreviation appears more than once in the abstract.

• Insert one blank line (one Return) between the Abstract and the Keywords.

3.2.3 Keywords

• Three keywords are the minimum. Use a comma to divide each keyword.

• Each keyword except the first one should be lowercase unless an uppercase letter is necessary.

• One blank line (one Return) between the Keywords and the main text.

3.3 Headings

In the main body of the paper, three different levels of headings (for sections, subsections, and sub-subsections) may be used.

• The section of abstract should not be numbered. Subsequent sections should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numbers, starting from 1.

• Level one headings for sections should be in bold, and be flushed to the left, e.g., 1., 2., ….

• Level two headings for subsections should be bold-italic, and be flushed to the left. Level two headings should be numbered after the level one heading, e.g., 1.1., 1.2.,….

• Level three headings should be italic; and be flushed to the left, e.g., 1.1.1., 1.1.2.,….

• Use 12-pound before paragraph distance and 3-pound after paragraph distance.

• Do not use page breaks or multiple returns between sections.

3.4 Units and Symbols

• There should be a space between the unit and Arabic number: 5 mm NOT 5mm.

• Please use Arabic number and relevant unit in the manuscript: 5 kg NOT five kilograms or 5 kilograms or five kg.

• Do not use hyphen/dash or any connector symbol between the value and its unit: 5 kg NOT 5-kg.

• Please clarify all units during a calculation or a mathematical relationship: 3 cm5 cm NOT 35 cm, 123 g±2 g or (123±2) g NOT 123±2 g, 70%-85% NOT 70-85%.

• Greek letters must be inserted using the correct Greek symbol (using Times, Helvetica or Symbol font), NOT written in full, i.e., alpha: α; beta: β, ß, (available in Times and Helvetica); and gamma: γ, etc.

Abbreviations

Abbreviations should be defined in parentheses the first time they appear in the abstract, main text, and figure or table captions and used consistently after that. Accepted abbreviations for statistical parameters are P, n, SD, SEM, df, ns, ANOVA, t.

Equations

If you are using MS Word, please use either the Microsoft Equation Editor or the MathType add-on. Please submit math equations as editable text and not as images.

Statistical Analysis

Appropriate statistical treatment of the data is essential. When the statistical analysis has been performed, the name of the statistical test used, the n number for each analysis, the comparisons of interest, the alpha level and the actual p-value for each test should be provided.

3.5 Figures and Tables

3.5.1 Figures

• Figures should be centered, and should have a figure caption placed underneath.

• The size of figures is measured in centimeters and inches. Please prepare your figures at the size within 17 cm (6.70 in) in width and 20 cm (7.87 in) in height.

• Figures should be placed in the text soon after the point where they are referenced.

• Figures should have no frames and borders.

• In the main text, where reference the figures, use Fig. followed by a space and the figure number, e.g., Fig. 1.

• The digital format JPEG, PNG, TIFF are acceptable, with >300 dpi resolution.

• Figures should be in the original version, should not be stretched or distorted.

• Do not use Photoshop or such software to change the color or appearance of figures.



Figure 1: Some functions of x




3.5.2 Figure Captions and Labels

• Figures should have relevant captions but should not contain the same information which is already described in the main text.

• Figure (diagrams and photographs) captions should be numbered consecutively using Arabic numbers.

• One-line Caption should be centered in the column, e.g., Figure 1. The text caption ….

• The text caption with more than one line should use justified alignment.

• The size of labels should be no smaller than 8-point and no larger than the font size of the main text.

• Figure labels must be sized in proportion to the image, sharp, and legible.

• Labels must be saved using standard fonts (Arial, Helvetica or Symbol font) and should be of the same font and size in all figures in one paper.

• All labels should be in black, and should not be overlapped, faded, broken or distorted.

• The first letter of each phrase, NOT each word, must be capitalized.


3.5.3 Copyright of Figures

• If a figure or table has been published previously—even by an author of the manuscript being submitted for review，the copyright holder’s written acknowledgment and permission for its re-use are often required.


3.5.4 Tables

• Tables should be placed in the text after the point where they are referenced, and should be consistent with the main text.

• Tables should be centered and should have a title placed above.

• Tables should be centered and should have a title placed above.

• One-line table title should be centered and multiple-line title should use justified alignment.

• Use Times New Roman, font size<than 12 for table titles.

• Titles should be centered in the format “Table 1. The text …”, e.g., Tab. 1.

• Table notes should be aligned with the left table frame.

• Where reference the Tables, please use abbreviation “Tab.”. followed by the number, e.g., Tab. 1

Table 1: Table caption

1	2	3
11	12	13
21	22	23




3.6 Equations and Mathematical Expressions

3.6.1 In-line style

• In-line equations/expressions are embedded in paragraphs of the text. For example, .

• In-line equations/expressions should not be numbered.

• In-line equations/expressions should be use as same/similar size font as the main text.


3.6.2 Display style

• Equations in display format are separated from the paragraphs of text.

• Equations should be flushed to the left margin of the column.

• Equations should be editable.

• Equations should be numbered consecutively using Arabic numbers. See Eq. 1 for an example. The number should be right aligned.

                                                                                                                                                                                                      (1)


3.7 Citations

• The author-year format of the citation must be used for the citations in the main text, e.g., [Atluri (1986)].

• If the cited reference has two authors, please see the example, [Atluri and Nakagaki (1986)].

• If the cited reference has three authors, please see the example, [Atluri, Nakagaki and Han (2000)].

• If the cited reference has more than three authors Please cite all first 3 authors' last names, and followed by "et al", for example, [Atluri, Nakagaki, Han et al. (2000)].

• When cite more than one reference, separate them with a semicolon, see [Atluri (1998); Atluri and Nakagaki (1986); Atluri, Nakagaki and Han (2000); Atluri, Nakagaki, Han et al. (2000)].

• If the sentence starts with a reference, insert citation right after it, for example, “Atluri et al. [Atluri, Nakagaki, Han et al. (2000)] have found that…”.

• If multiple works cited by the same author and year, in the text, it should be “[Atluri (1998a)]”, “[Atluri (1998b)]”.

• No citation to the page number should be used.

• Citation to the figures should be in section 5.1. Citation to the tables should be in section 5.3.


3.8 References

• All references should be listed at the end of the paper, in the reference section.

• The names of the authors should be in bold, last name(s) first.

• References should be organized alphabetically by the last names of the first authors.

• The year inwhichthe paper is published follows the name(s) of the author(s).

• Use full name of journal cited in reference e.g., Computational Mechanics, use italic font, followed by a comma before the volume, issue and page number.

• Do not capitalize every letter of the journal’s name.

• Every paper in the References section must be cited at least once in the text of the paper. Every paper cited in the text must also appear in the References section.

• Volume, issue and page number should be expressed as “vol. 4, no. 5, pp. 507-517.”.

• Keep DOI number when you have the data aforementioned.

• If more than one works are cite from the same authors and the same year, please mark a, b, …. after the publication year.

• Based on our particular style, the first six authors will be listed as they appear. When more than six authors are listed, keep the first six authors and followed by et al.

• Et al. should not be italic.

• Personal communications should be avoided.

• Non-English references should not be included in the Reference list. The entire manuscript cited must be in English.

  
  

Reference examples (References at the end should be listed in alphabetical order):

Reference of a book: Author Surname, Author Initial. (Year Published): Title. Publisher, Publisher Location.

Reference of a book chapter: Author Surname, Author Initial.(Year Published): Chapter Title. Title. Publisher, Publisher Location.

Atluri, S. N. (2004). The Meshless Local Petrov-Galerkin (MLPG) Method. Tech Science Press, USA. 
Atluri, S. N. (2004). A four-node hybrid assumed-strain finite element for laminated composite plates. Tech Science Press, USA.




Reference of journal article: Author Surname, Author Initial. (Year Published): Title. Journal Full Name, volume number, issue number, page number.

1. Atluri, S. N., Han, Z., Shen, S. (2003). Meshless Local Patrov-Galerkin (MLPG) approaches for weaklysingular traction & displacement boundary integral equations. Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, 4(5), 507-517.

2. Atluri, S. N., Zhu, T. (1998). A new meshless local Petrov-Galerkin (MLPG) approach in computational mechanics. Computational Mechanics, 22, 117-127.




Reference of an online source: Author Surname, Author Initial. (Year Published). Title. URL.

Atluri, S. N. (2004). The meshless method (MLPG) for domain & BIE discretizations. http://www.techscience.com/info/mlpg_atluri




Reference of a Thesis: Author Surname, Author Initial. (Year Published). Title (Level). Institution Name, Location.

1. Darius, H. (2014). Savant syndrome-theories and empirical findings (Ph.D. Thesis). University of Turku, Finland.

2. Zhao, S., Yang, Z. C., Zhou, X. G., Ling, X. Z., Mora, L. S. et al. (2014). Design, fabrication, characterization and simulation of PIP-SiC/SiC composites. Computers, Materials & Continua, 42(2), 103-124

4 Declarations

When submitted, manuscripts should, where appropriate, contain the following sections near the end, before the list of references:

Acknowledgments

TSP suggests to list all non-author contributors in the acknowledgement section at the end of the paper, with details on their respective activity. Contributors include individuals in the planning, conducting, editing and/or reporting the work, and all the patients or members of the public who have kindly assisted as research volunteers. This is a good place of acknowledging their support, list their names and recognize their individual roles. TSP strongly encourages authors to fully acknowledge contributions of patients and the public towards their research, if and where appropriate.

Funding Statement

Authors must divulge all sources of funding for the research reported, specifying the role of each in the design of the study, the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data, and the composition of the manuscript. Specifically, the full name of each source of funding should be provided accompanied by any associated grant numbers in square brackets. 

Availability of Data and Materials

This statement—which is not required for review articles—should make clear how readers can access the data used in the study and explain why any unavailable data cannot be released. 

Conflicts of Interest

Authors must declare all potential conflicts of interest; if they have none to declare, they should state plainly, “The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to report regarding the present study.” 

5 Chemical Compounds


Chemical and Chemical Nomenclature and Abbreviations
Authors should provide the exact structure of the chemical compound, and if there are appeared as new chemical compounds, authors should submit the small-molecule crystallographic data to the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD) and deposit relevant information to PubChem. The final version of the manuscript should contain the accession codes. When possible, authors should use systematic nomenclature to identify chemical compounds, and biomolecules using IUPAC is preferred. Standard chemical and chemical abbreviations should be used. Chemical structures should be included as high-resolution files according to Cell Press Figure Guidelines. 




Combinatorial Compound Libraries

The authors should include standard characterization data for a diverse panel of library components when describing the preparation of combinatorial libraries in the manuscript.      




Chemical Structures for Organic and Organometallic Compounds


Chemical structures for organic and organometallic compounds should be established through spectroscopic analysis. The authors should provide standard peak listings for both 1H NMR and proton-decoupled 13C NMR for all new compounds. Other NMR data, when appropriate, such as 31P NMR, 19F NMR, etc. should be reported. For the identification of functional groups, both UV and IR spectral data should be reported when appropriate. For crystalline materials, melting-point ranges should be included. For the analysis of chiral compounds, specific rotations should be reported. For known compounds, authors should provide detailed references.      




Spectral Data
Detailed spectral data for new compounds should be provided in the Materials and methods section. The authors should explain how specific, unambiguous NMR assignments were made in the Materials and methods section.      




Crystallographic Data for Small Molecules

For crystallographic data for small molecules, authors should provide a standard crystallographic information file (CIF) and a structural figure with probability ellipsoids.  The authors should check the CIF using the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr) checkCIF.For the structure, the structure factors must be included either in the main CIF or in a separate CIF. Crystallographic data for small molecules should be submitted to the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC), and the accession number must be referenced in the manuscript.     




Biomolecular Materials
Manuscripts reporting new biomolecular structures should contain a table summarizing structural and refinement statistics. If suitable, high-field NMR or X-ray crystallography may also be used. For new biopolymeric materials (e.g., oligosaccharides, peptides, nucleic acids, etc.), if it is not possible for structural analysis by NMR spectroscopic methods. Authors must provide evidence of the identity based on sequence (when appropriate) and mass spectral characterization.      




Biological Constructs


Authors should provide sequencing or functional data that validates the identity of their biological constructs (plasmids, fusion proteins, site-directed mutants) upon request.  




Polymers


For new materials, as well as 1H NMR and 13C NMR, the mass spectral analysis should be used to support the identification of molecular weight. Ideally, high-resolution mass spectral (HRMS) data are preferred.  




Nanomaterials


The authors must provide a detailed characterization of both individual objects and bulk composition.




6 Mandatory Data Deposition and Suggested Repositories

Before submission of the manuscript, the deposition of new sequence information to the community-endorsed, public repository is necessary. Accession numbers and other relevant, unique identifiers provided by the database should be included in the submitted manuscript. 

DNA and RNA Sequences: Genbank, European Nucleotide Archive (ENA), DDBJ, Protein DataBank, UniProt 

DNA Sequencing Data: GEO, ArrayExpress, NCBI Trace and Short-Read Archive, ENA's Sequence Read Archive

New microarray (Data must be MIAME compliant, as described at the MGED website specifying microarray standards): Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), ArrayExpress. Genetic polymorphisms: dbSNP, dbVAR

Linked genotype and phenotype data: dbGAP, European Genome-phenome Archive (EGA)

Protein sequences: UniProt (submission tool SPIN). Flow cytometry: FlowRepository

Chemical Compound Screening and Assay Data: PubChem

7 Suggesting Reviewers

Authors are welcome and encouraged to suggest reviewers when they submit their manuscripts by using the submission system. Authors should make sure they are totally independent and without conflicts of interest in any way. When suggesting reviewers, the Corresponding Author must provide an institutional email address for each suggested reviewer.

8 English Editing Service

Clear and concise language enables both the journal editors and reviewers to concentrate on the scientific content of your manuscript. In order to facilitate a proper peer review process and ensure that submissions are judged exclusively on academic merit, Tech Science Press strongly encourages authors to prepare the language of their manuscripts with the utmost care.

If you are an author whose native language is not English—or you have any concerns regarding the language quality of your manuscript—we recommend having your manuscript professionally edited by a qualified English-speaking researcher in your field prior to submission.Tech Science Press has partnered with LetPub as an option to provide this service at a 5% discount to all our authors.

Please use the following Coupon Code to receive the special 5% discount when you check out with LetPub: TSP5D

LetPub: https://www.letpub.com/

9 Authorship and Contribution

The listed authors include all of the individuals who have made substantial contributions to the intellectual content of an article in terms of the conception, drafting, and revising of the work and the acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of the data. Their approval is required for the submitted version as well as any substantially modified version to which they have contributed. Further, all of the listed authors are considered personally responsible for all aspects of the work and must guarantee that any questions regarding its accuracy or integrity—even for aspects of the work in which an individual author did not personally take part—are appropriately examined, resolved, and documented in the article.

On the other hand, involvement in the securing of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of a research group does not in itself justify listing as an author. Rather, those who have contributed to the work in such ways should be listed in the acknowledgments.

Please note that submissions by any individual other than one of the listed authors will not be considered. It is not only the edition changes that require the consent of all authors, but also the authorship changes, that is, adding and deleting authors requires the consent and signature of all authors.

10 Conflicts of Interest

Conflicts of interest (COIs, also referred to as “competing interests”) are external pressures that have the potential to influence the validity or objectivity of research. Editors, authors, and reviewers may have COIs, and TSP considers it essential to identify and seek to mitigate them so as to ensure the integrity of its role in the dissemination and preservation of knowledge. 

Authors must declare all potential conflicts of interest; if they have none to declare, they should state plainly, “The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to report regarding the present study”.

In order to limit COIs, authors must identify and declare any personal circumstances or associations that may be perceived as having such influence and acknowledge all funding sources for the work. However, COI statements relating to public funding sources, such as government agencies and charitable or academic institutions, need not be supplied.

To be specific, TSP defines a COI as any relationship that may have an impact on the authors, reviewers, or editors of a manuscript during the peer review process, on the making of editorial decisions, or generally on any stage in the path toward publication. Thus COIs may include (but are not limited to): 

• affiliation with the same institution; 

• personal relationships, e.g., between thesis advisers and their students;

• academic relationships, e.g., among co-authors, collaborators, or competitors;

• business or financial relationships.

COIs are not considered permanent; however; such relationships that have ended more than two years prior to the submission of a manuscript need not be identified as sources of potential conflict.

Authors

TSP requires a declaration from all authors of a manuscript regarding any potential COIs that could be relevant to the integrity or reliability of the scientific and professional judgment presented therein, as well as that of otherwise unassociated studies in the same journal. Potential conflict, unless already declared, will be held in confidence while the paper is under review. If the article is accepted for publication, the potential conflict of interest will be included in the acknowledgments. If there is, in fact, no conflict of interest, the authors should state plainly.

Reviewers

Reviewers should declare any COIs when they are assigned a manuscript and disclose this information to the editor, who will then assess whether they should proceed with the review process. 

Editors

Editors, including Editor-in-Chiefs, Associate editors and Guest editors should be aware of their own potential COIs. If the Editor(s) have authored or coauthored of the manuscript, editor(s) could be perceived to be influenced by the relationship. TSP expects the Editors to declare any COIs or potential COIs. 

11 Copyright and Licensing 

TSP publishes all articles under an open-access license, which means that they remain accessible to all without charge and without technical or legal barriers and that they can be re-used with proper acknowledgment and citation. Financial support for open access publication is provided by the authors’ institutions or by research funding agencies, which pay a relatively low article processing charge (APC) once manuscripts that have been accepted. More specifically, TSP journals publish articles under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) License. TSP is committed to open access publishing as a means to foster the exchange of research among scientists, especially across disciplines. 

The copyright and other proprietary rights related to work published by a TSP journal are retained by the authors. If they reproduce any text, figures, tables, or illustrations from this work in their own future research, the authors must cite the original published version. They are further asked to inform the journal’s editorial office of any exceptional circumstances in this regard at the time of submission, for which exceptions may be granted at the discretion of the publisher.

Articles published in TSP journals are likely to contain material republished with permission under a more restrictive license. When this situation arises, it should be indicated; it is the responsibility of the authors to seek permission for reuse from the copyright holder.

12 Corrections and Retractions 

Corrections 

TSP considers every article published online to be in its final form. When authors receive the proofs of their articles, they have the opportunity to check for errors. Occasionally, however, errors may be detected in a published article. A correction is a statement indicating the correction of an error or omission; for TSP, authors or readers may submit such a statement either through the journal’s online manuscript submission system or by sending an email to the journal’s editorial office (along with the submission ID). A corrected article is not removed from the journal’s contents, but a correction notice is linked to it and made freely available to all readers. 

TSP publishes corrections of errors involving metadata and those of a scientific nature that do not alter the overall thrust of a published article only; the addition of new data is not permitted. During the correction process, the editor responsible for preparing the article for publication is consulted when necessary. 

Retractions 

A retraction is a notice that a previously published paper should no longer be regarded as part of the published literature. The primary purpose of retractions is to correct major errors and to ensure the integrity of the literature rather than to punish the authors of compromised papers. Retractions are thus issued in cases in which there is clear evidence that the findings either are unreliable—whether as a result of misconduct (e.g., data fabrication) or honest mistakes (e.g., miscalculations or experimental errors)—have previously been published elsewhere without proper citation, permission, or justification (i.e., instances of redundant publication), or are the product of plagiarism or other forms of unethical behavior. 

The retraction will be assigned to the Editor-in-Chief of the journal, the Editor, and the Managing Editor who handled the paper. Retracted articles should not be removed from printed copies of the journal (e.g. in libraries) nor from electronic archives but their retracted status should be indicated as clearly as possible. Notice of retraction is linked to the retracted article and are freely available to all readers. 

Artcles may be retracted by their author(s) or by the Journal Editor, or the publisher. In all cases, the retraction indicates the reason for the action and who is responsible for the decision. If a retraction is made without the unanimous agreement of the authors, that is also noted. 

In rare and extreme cases, the publisher may remove an article. Bibliographic information about the article will be retained to ensure the integrity of the scientific record.

13 Post-Publication Discussions and Corrections 

TSP allows for further discussion after either publication or rejection. Thus, authors may appeal a rejection or request an opportunity for post-publication revision by contacting the journal’s editorial office, though only in cases involving a major misunderstanding concerning either a technical aspect of the manuscript or the scientific advance demonstrated therein. When making such an appeal or request, authors must provide a detailed justification for their request or description of the situation, including point-by-point responses to the reviewers’ and/or editor’s comments. The journal’s managing editor then forwards the manuscript and related information (including the identities of the referees) to the responsible editor (either the editor-in-chief or, in the case of special issues, the guest editor), who renders a decision that is considered final and irreversible.