Manuscript Preparation

Double Blind: The journal adopts a double-blind review system in which the editor-in-chief and the associate editors know the identity of the authors but the reviewers do not. Therefore, manuscripts submitted to the journal should not reveal the identity of any of its authors. For example, the authors should remove explicit indications of their names and institutions and all acknowledgments. Such information will be added to the printed manuscript upon acceptance for publication.

Disclosure of Related Manuscripts: The authors should notify the editor in writing whether their submitted manuscript or any similar version of it (1) has substantial overlap with any of their other manuscripts (e.g., prior publications, conference proceedings, book chapters, papers submitted to other journals), (2) has appeared in or will appear in a non-refereed publication, conference proceeding, or book chapter, and/or (3) was previously rejected by the journal.

Submission Format: Submissions should use a 12-pt font, have 1-inch margins on all sides, and have 1.5 spacing.

Page Limit: Manuscripts (new and revised submissions) should normally be no more than 35 pages in the submission format described above, including all material such as main body, references, appendix, tables, and figures.

Abstract: A text-only abstract of no more than 150 words should be provided. There should be no reference appearing in the abstract.

References: References should be listed alphabetically by author name at the end of the paper in conformance with the journal's style. In-text citations should be indicated by the author's last name and the year of publication, e.g., (Smith 1988) or Smith (1988).

Manuscript Submission

Submission Process: The manuscript should be submitted electronically via the journals's website. Authors may contact the managing editor Catherine Wang if they have any question or encounter any problem in the submission process.

Required Materials: In addition to the blinded manuscript, authors need to submit (1) the name of the associate editor who would be appropriate to review the manuscript and (2) the names, institutions and detailed contact information of six appropriate reviewers for the manuscript. Authors should not select any associate editor or reviewer with whom any author of the manuscript has a conflict of interest.

Supplementary Materials: Authors may upload additional materials that would support the review process. For a revised manuscript, authors should submit a document summarizing the major changes they have made and including detailed responses to the comments of the previous round of reviews.

Manuscript Review

Initial Review: An associate editor will first screen whether a manuscript has sufficient contribution before sending to reviewers for detailed review. If not, the manuscript will be returned to the authors with a brief explanation.

Detailed Review: If a manuscript passes the initial review, the associate editor will assign reviewers to further evaluate the manuscript in detail. Upon receipt of the reviews, the associate editor will provide a recommendation based on these reviews to the editor-in-chief, who will decide whether the manuscript should be accepted as is, revised, or rejected.

Review Decisions

Notification: The corresponding author of the manuscript will receive an email notification when a final decision is made. Possible decisions are Reject, Major Revision, Minor Revision, and Accept.

Revision: Manuscripts with a decision of Major Revision or Minor Revision will be returned to the authors for further actions. Manuscripts that are not revised within one year from the date the review decision is released may be reclassified as "Withdrawn" and revisions submitted after the one-year mark may be treated as new submissions. A revised manuscript should be accompanied by a separate "Responses to Reviewers' Comments" document, which provides a summary of the major changes made to the previous manuscript and a point-by-point description of whether and how the issues raised by the reviewers and editors have been addressed.

Rejection: In principle, the journal does not encourage resubmissions of rejected manuscripts. If a submitted manuscript is based on a manuscript previously rejected by the journal, the authors should reveal this in the submission cover letter and to state clearly why resubmission is justified.

Acceptance: For an accepted manuscript, the corresponding author must submit the final version of the manuscript in Word, Tex, LaTeX, or WordPerfect format, a final author-generated PDF, and a signed Copyright Transfer Agreement.

Copyright Policy

The submission of a manuscript to the journal for reviewing means that the authors certify that the manuscript is not copyrighted, nor has it been accepted for publication (or published) by any peer-reviewed journal, nor is it being reviewed elsewhere. A copyright transfer agreement form can be downloaded through the following link Copyright Transfer Agreement.