Instructions for authors

Apunts. Sports Medicine, a publication by Consell Català de l'Esport (Catalan Sports Council), is a scientific journal dedicated to sports medicine. Apunts is focused, on the one hand, on the impact of high sports performance on men and women and, especially, in the study of team sports and muscle, tendon, and ligament injuries. On the other hand, on the behavior to follow while practicing sport or physical activity during illnesses or in certain situations. The journal regularly includes original articles on Applied Research, Clinical Cases, Editorial articles or Comments, Consensus Articles, Reviews and Letters to the Editor. All of which undergo an anonymous external peer review process.

Editorials
With some exceptions, these will be commissioned by the Editorial Committee on a current topic, which may or may not refer to an article published in the same issue of Apunts. Sports Medicine. They usually consist of 800-1000 words with a maximum of 15 literature references. A single author is preferred.

Originals
Original articles must follow the format of, Introduction, Material and methods, Results, and Discussion. The maximum length of the text will be approximately 3,500 words, and up to 6 figures or tables will be accepted. It is essential to include a structured abstract, only in English, with not more than 250 words in length. Three to 6 keywords will be included after the abstract. If the original article is a clinical trial, Apunts. Sports Medicine recommends that all the authors register it in a public access electronic register, in accordance with the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE, http://www.icmje.org/faq.pdf). In this respect, all clinical trials are defined as those research projects that prospectively assign human subjects to a determined intervention or group to study the cause-effect relationship between the intervention and the clinical result. The researchers who conduct a randomised prospective study should consult the latest version of the CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) (http://www.consort-statement.org/) criteria and include a flow-chart of the type recommended by CONSORT, detailing the distribution of the subjects under study during the running of the same. Randomised, prospective studies should be clearly identified in the title and in the abstract of the article. Likewise, it must include the register number and the register name in the last line of the abstract. Trials may be registered in any of the following registers (or in others that comply with the ICMJE regulations):
a) Clinical Trials: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/
b) ISRCTN Register: http://www.controlled-trials.com/isrctn/
c) Netherlands Trial Register: http://www.trialregister.nl/trialreg/index.asp
d) UMIN Clinical Trials Registry: http://www.umin.ac.jp/ctr

Reviews
Apunts. Sports Medicine will give special priority to those review works that focus on current topics. The maximum length of the text will be approximately 4,500 words, and up to 6 figures and tables will be allowed. It is essential to include a non-structured abstract, only in English, which is no longer than 150 words. Three to 6 keywords will be included after the abstract. If the authors carry out a systematic review of the literature on a topic or a meta-analysis, they should adhere to the recommendations proposed by QUOROM (Quality of Reporting of Meta-analyses) (Moher D, Cook DJ, Eastwood S, Olkin I, Rennie D, Stroup DF, for the QUOROM Group. Improving the quality of reports of meta-analyses of randomised controlled trials: the QUOROM statement. Lancet. 1999;354:1896-900) (www.consort-statement.org/QUOROM.pdf).

Special Articles
This section will include articles related to Sports Medicine, which due to their characteristics cannot be considered for the Originals or Reviews sections. The text length will be approximately 4500 words and up to 6 figures and tables will be allowed. It is essential to include a non-structured abstract, in Spanish or Catalan and English, which is no longer than 150 words. Three to 6 keywords will be included after the abstract.

Clinical Cases
Clinical Cases will be the description of one or more clinical experience cases that will show little known facts of part or all of the phenomenon in its application to sport. Case studies may be included in which new, exceptional aspects are described or which add important assessments. The maximum length will be approximately 900 words and must be structured into the following sections: Introduction, Presentation of the case, and Discussion. Two figures and two tables will be accepted. The bibliography must not exceed 15 references. It will include a non-structured abstract, only in English, which is no longer than 150 words. Three to 6 keywords will be included after the abstract

Letters to the Editor
The Editorial Committee encourages readers to submit objections or comments related to articles recently published in the Journal and, in some cases, on important articles published in other journals. This correspondence must contain interesting ideas and comments and must always be supported by scientific data and a maximum of ten literature references. Whenever possible the reply letter from the authors of the article commented on will be published at the same time. It will contain a maximum of 450 words. There will be a maximum number of four authors.

Please, submit your article via https://www.editorialmanager.com/APUNTS/

Apunts. Sports Medicine accepts articles only in English. However, the article can be sent in Spanish or Catalan while the article is being reviewed, but, once accepted, the author must send it in English, and the article in the original language (Spanish or Catalan) will be included at the end of the article as “Additional Material” in pdf with Word format.

Articles published in Apunts. Sports Medicine are summarised and indexed in Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), Scopus, ScienceDirect, Heracles, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, EMCARE, Dialnet, IBECS, E-revist@s, Sportdiscus and Latindex.

You can use this list to carry out a final check of your submission before you send it to the journal for review. Please check the relevant section in this Guide for Authors for more details.

Ensure that the following items are present:

First page:

• One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details (postal address, E-mail address).
• All necessary files have been uploaded.

Anonymous manuscript: 

• Include keywords.
• All figures (include relevant captions).
• All tables (including titles, description, footnotes).
• Ensure all figure and table citations in the text match the files provided.
• Indicate clearly if color should be used for any figures in print.

Further considerations:

• The manuscript has been 'spell checked' and 'grammar checked'.
• All references mentioned in the Reference List are cited in the text, and vice versa.
• Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Internet).
• A competing interests statement is provided, even if the authors have no competing interests to declare.
• Journal policies detailed in this guide have been reviewed.
• Referee suggestions and contact details provided, based on journal requirements.

For further information, visit our Publishing Support Center.

Please see our information pages on Ethics in publishing and Ethical guidelines for journal publication.

If the work involves the use of human subjects, the author should ensure that the work described has been carried out in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans. The manuscript should be in line with the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals and aim for the inclusion of representative human populations (sex, age and ethnicity) as per those recommendations. The terms sex and gender should be used correctly.

Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.

All animal experiments should comply with the ARRIVE guidelines and should be carried out in accordance with the U.K. Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, 1986 and associated guidelines, EU Directive 2010/63/EU for animal experiments, or the National Institutes of Health guide for the care and use of Laboratory animals (NIH Publications No. 8023, revised 1978) and the authors should clearly indicate in the manuscript that such guidelines have been followed. The sex of animals must be indicated, and where appropriate, the influence (or association) of sex on the results of the study.

Studies on patients or volunteers require ethics committee approval and informed consent, which should be documented in the paper. Appropriate consents, permissions and releases must be obtained where an author wishes to include case details or other personal information or images of patients and any other individuals in an Elsevier publication. Written consents must be retained by the author but copies should not be provided to the journal. Only if specifically requested by the journal in exceptional circumstances (for example if a legal issue arises) the author must provide copies of the consents or evidence that such consents have been obtained. For more information, please review the Elsevier Policy on the Use of Images or Personal Information of Patients or other Individuals. Unless you have written permission from the patient (or, where applicable, the next of kin), the personal details of any patient included in any part of the article and in any supplementary materials (including all illustrations and videos) must be removed before submission.

All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples of potential competing interests include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Authors must disclose any interests in two places: 1. A summary declaration of interest statement in the title page file (if double-blind) or the manuscript file (if single-blind). If there are no interests to declare then please state this: 'Declarations of interest: none'. This summary statement will be ultimately published if the article is accepted. 2. Detailed disclosures as part of a separate Declaration of Interest form, which forms part of the journal's official records. It is important for potential interests to be declared in both places and that the information matches. More information.

The below guidance only refers to the writing process, and not to the use of AI tools to analyse and draw insights from data as part of the research process.

Where authors use generative artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process, authors should only use these technologies to improve readability and language. Applying the technology should be done with human oversight and control, and authors should carefully review and edit the result, as AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete or biased. AI and AI-assisted technologies should not be listed as an author or co-author, or be cited as an author. Authorship implies responsibilities and tasks that can only be attributed to and performed by humans, as outlined in Elsevier’s AI policy for authors.

Authors should disclose in their manuscript the use of AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process by following the instructions below. A statement will appear in the published work. Please note that authors are ultimately responsible and accountable for the contents of the work.

Disclosure instructions
Authors must disclose the use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process by adding a statement at the end of their manuscript in the core manuscript file, before the References list. The statement should be placed in a new section entitled ‘Declaration of Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process’.

Statement: During the preparation of this work the author(s) used [NAME TOOL / SERVICE] in order to [REASON]. After using this tool/service, the author(s) reviewed and edited the content as needed and take(s) full responsibility for the content of the publication.

This declaration does not apply to the use of basic tools for checking grammar, spelling, references etc. If there is nothing to disclose, there is no need to add a statement.

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis, see 'Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication' section of our ethics policy for more information), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, including electronically without the written consent of the copyright-holder. To verify originality, your article may be checked by the originality detection service Crossref Similarity Check.

Please note that preprints can be shared anywhere at any time, in line with Elsevier's sharing policy. Sharing your preprints e.g. on a preprint server will not count as prior publication (see 'Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication' for more information).

Inclusive language acknowledges diversity, conveys respect to all people, is sensitive to differences, and promotes equal opportunities. Content should make no assumptions about the beliefs or commitments of any reader; contain nothing which might imply that one individual is superior to another on the grounds of age, gender, race, ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, disability or health condition; and use inclusive language throughout. Authors should ensure that writing is free from stereotypes, slang, reference to dominant culture and/or cultural assumptions.  We advise to seek gender neutrality by using plural nouns ("clinicians, patients/clients") as default/wherever possible to avoid using "he, she," or "he/she." We recommend avoiding the use of descriptors that refer to personal attributes such as age, gender, race, ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, disability or health condition unless they are relevant and valid. These guidelines are meant as a point of reference to help identify appropriate language but are by no means exhaustive or definitive.

Reporting guidance
For research involving or pertaining to humans, animals or eukaryotic cells, investigators should integrate sex and gender-based analyses (SGBA) into their research design according to funder/sponsor requirements and best practices within a field. Authors should address the sex and/or gender dimensions of their research in their article. In cases where they cannot, they should discuss this as a limitation to their research's generalizability. Importantly, authors should explicitly state what definitions of sex and/or gender they are applying to enhance the precision, rigor and reproducibility of their research and to avoid ambiguity or conflation of terms and the constructs to which they refer (see Definitions section below). Authors can refer to the SSex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) guidelines and the S SAGER guidelines checklist. These offer systematic approaches to the use and editorial review of sex and gender information in study design, data analysis, outcome reporting and research interpretation - however, please note there is no single, universally agreed-upon set of guidelines for defining sex and gender.

Definitions
Sex generally refers to a set of biological attributes that are associated with physical and physiological features (e.g., chromosomal genotype, hormonal levels, internal and external anatomy). A binary sex categorization (male/female) is usually designated at birth ("sex assigned at birth"), most often based solely on the visible external anatomy of a newborn. Gender generally refers to socially constructed roles, behaviors, and identities of women, men and gender-diverse people that occur in a historical and cultural context and may vary across societies and over time. Gender influences how people view themselves and each other, how they behave and interact and how power is distributed in society. Sex and gender are often incorrectly portrayed as binary (female/male or woman/man) and unchanging whereas these constructs actually exist along a spectrum and include additional sex categorizations and gender identities such as people who are intersex/have differences of sex development (DSD) or identify as non-binary. Moreover, the terms "sex" and "gender" can be ambiguous—thus it is important for authors to define the manner in which they are used. In addition to this definition guidance and the SAGER guidelines, the Sresources on this page offer further insight around sex and gender in research studies.

All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following: (1) the conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be submitted.

Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the journal Editor. To request such a change, the Editor must receive the following from the corresponding author: (a) the reason for the change in author list and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed.
Only in exceptional circumstances will the Editor consider the addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors after the manuscript has been accepted. While the Editor considers the request, publication of the manuscript will be suspended. If the manuscript has already been published in an online issue, any requests approved by the Editor will result in a corrigendum.

In line with the position of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, the journal will not consider results posted in the same clinical trials registry in which primary registration resides to be prior publication if the results posted are presented in the form of a brief structured (less than 500 words) abstract or table. However, divulging results in other circumstances (e.g., investors' meetings) is discouraged and may jeopardise consideration of the manuscript. Authors should fully disclose all posting in registries of results of the same or closely related work.

Randomized controlled trials should be presented according to the CONSORT guidelines. At manuscript submission, authors must provide the CONSORT checklist accompanied by a flow diagram that illustrates the progress of patients through the trial, including recruitment, enrollment, randomization, withdrawal and completion, and a detailed description of the randomization procedure. The CONSORT checklist and template flow diagram are available online.

Registration in a public trials registry is a condition for publication of clinical trials in this journal in accordance with International Committee of Medical Journal Editors recommendations. Trials must register at or before the onset of patient enrolment. The clinical trial registration number should be included at the end of the abstract of the article. A clinical trial is defined as any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects of health outcomes. Health-related interventions include any intervention used to modify a biomedical or health-related outcome (for example drugs, surgical procedures, devices, behavioural treatments, dietary interventions, and process-of-care changes). Health outcomes include any biomedical or health-related measures obtained in patients or participants, including pharmacokinetic measures and adverse events. Purely observational studies (those in which the assignment of the medical intervention is not at the discretion of the investigator) will not require registration.

Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' (see more information on this). An e-mail will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' form or a link to the online version of this agreement.

Author rights
As an author you (or your employer or institution) have certain rights to reuse your work. More information.

Find out how you can share your research published in Elsevier journals.

You are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement then it is recommended to state this.

Please visit our Open Access page (https://www.elsevier.com/journals/apunts-sports-medicine/2666-5069/open-access-information) for more information.

Researcher Academy is a free e-learning platform designed to support early and mid-career researchers throughout their research journey. The "Learn" environment at Researcher Academy offers several interactive modules, webinars, downloadable guides and resources to guide you through the process of writing for research and going through peer review. Feel free to use these free resources to improve your submission and navigate the publication process with ease.

Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these). Authors who feel their English language manuscript may require editing to eliminate possible grammatical or spelling errors and to conform to correct scientific English may wish to use the English Language Editing service available from Elsevier's Author Services.

Our online submission system guides you stepwise through the process of entering your article details and uploading your files. The system converts your article files to a single PDF file used in the peer-review process. Editable files (e.g., Word, LaTeX) are required to typeset your article for final publication. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, is sent by e-mail.

Please submit your article via https://www.editorialmanager.com/APUNTS/

Please submit the names and institutional e-mail addresses of several potential referees. For more details, visit our Support site. Note that the editor retains the sole right to decide whether or not the suggested reviewers are used.

This journal operates a double anonymized review process. All contributions will be initially assessed by the editor for suitability for the journal. Papers deemed suitable are then typically sent to a minimum of two independent expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper. The Editor is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles. The Editor's decision is final. Editors are not involved in decisions about papers which they have written themselves or have been written by family members or colleagues or which relate to products or services in which the editor has an interest. Any such submission is subject to all of the journal's usual procedures, with peer review handled independently of the relevant editor and their research groups. More information on types of peer review.

This journal uses double-anonymized review, which means the identities of the authors are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa. More information is available on our website. To facilitate this, please include the following separately:
Title page (with author details): This should include the title, authors' names affiliations, acknowledgements and any Declaration of Interest statement, and a complete address for the corresponding author including an e-mail address.
Anonymized manuscript (no author details): The main body of the paper (including the references, figures, tables and any acknowledgements) should not include any identifying information, such as the authors' names or affiliations.

It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the word processor used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the word processor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. The electronic text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts (see also the Guide to Publishing with Elsevier). Note that source files of figures, tables and text graphics will be required whether or not you embed your figures in the text. See also the section on Electronic artwork.
To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the 'spell-check' and 'grammar-check' functions of your word processor.

Divide your article into clearly defined sections. Each subsection is given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line. Subsections should be used as much as possible when cross-referencing text: refer to the subsection by heading as opposed to simply 'the text'.

It will be brief and must only provide the necessary explanation in order that the reader can understand the text that follows. It must not contain figures or tables. It must clearly express the aim(s) of the work in the last paragraph.

The first paragraph of the material and methods section must mention the design type (experimental, clinical, retrospective, prospective, observational, clinical trial, controlled or not, etc.) and the study setting (multicentre or not, type of centre, etc.). The methods and procedures used must be set out with sufficient detail in order to allow other researchers to reproduce the research. In clinical trials, details will be given of the randomisation method. Furthermore, the method used to calculate sample size must be specified, as well as the main variable of the study and an explanation of its calculation. The methodology used in the statistical analysis must be explained. Whenever it is intended to publish a very uncommon observation, the literature search method, the keywords used, years covered, and the date of updating must be specified in the text. When experiments on humans are presented, it must indicate whether the procedures that were followed were in accordance with the ethical guidelines of the Committee responsible for human experimentation (institutional or regional) and with the principles of the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, revised in 1983 and available at http://www.wma.net/e/policy/b3.htm. A photocopy of the approval by the corresponding Ethics Committee will be provided. When animal experiments are performed, it must mention whether the European Community guidelines on animal research were followed.

The observations made with the material and methods used are set out, not interpreted. These data will be shown in a logical sequence and may be expressed in detail in the text or with the addition of tables and figures, but the tables and figures data must not be used repeatedly in the text.

The authors must express their own opinions on the subject without repeating the data provided in the Introduction and Results in detail. They will highlight here: 1) the significance of the practical application of the results; 2) the considerations on a possible inconsistency of the methodology and the reasons why the results could be valid; 3) the relationship with similar publications and a comparison between the areas of agreement and disagreement, and 4) the indications and directions for future studies, expounding new hypotheses when these are justified, clearly labelling them as such. Emphasis should be made on novel and important aspects of the study and the conclusions
they obtained.

If there is more than one appendix, they should be identified as A, B, etc. Formulae and equations in appendices should be given separate numbering: Eq. (A.1), Eq. (A.2), etc.; in a subsequent appendix, Eq. (B.1) and so on. Similarly for tables and figures: Table A.1; Fig. A.1, etc.

• Title. Concise and informative. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible.
• Author names and affiliations. Please clearly indicate the given name(s) and family name(s) of each author and check that all names are accurately spelled. You can add your name between parentheses in your own script behind the English transliteration.  Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.
• Corresponding author. Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication. This responsibility includes answering any future queries about Methodology and Materials. Ensure that the e-mail address is given and that contact details are kept up to date by the corresponding author.
• Present/permanent address. If an author has moved since the work described in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, a 'Present address' (or 'Permanent address') may be indicated as a footnote to that author's name. The address at which the author actually did the work must be retained as the main, affiliation address. Superscript Arabic numerals are used for such footnotes.

It is one of the fundamental sections of the article, as through this, the basic information of the study is obtained in the bibliographic indexes. In Apunts. Sports Medicine it must contain a maximum of 250 words, and must be structured into four parts: Introduction, which will indicate the aims of the study; Material and methods, which will describe, the patient series, the laboratory materials and other methods used, the nature of the study (randomised, retrospective, experimental, etc.), Results, which will include basic data with numeric values and their statistical signifi cance; and Conclusions, where it will succinctly point out the main conclusions of the study. In Reviews, Special Articles and Clinical Cases, the abstract must not be structured, but must be equally informative on its content. Abbreviations will be avoided in the Abstract. After the abstract, the authors must specify, and identify as such, 3 to 6 keywords that will help to index the article in databases. The terms in the “Medical Subject Headings” (MeSH Terms) of Index Medicus should be used, which can be consulted and downloaded at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/.

Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of 6 keywords, using British spelling and avoiding general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, 'and', 'of'). Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly established in the field may be eligible. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.

Define abbreviations that are not standard in this field in a footnote to be placed on the first page of the article. Such abbreviations that are unavoidable in the abstract must be defined at their first mention there, as well as in the footnote. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the article.

Where necessary it will mention the people (whose intellectual contribution does not justify being included as an author), centres or bodies that may have collaborated or supported the carrying out of the work. If there are commercial implications they must also be mentioned in this section.

List funding sources in this standard way to facilitate compliance to funder's requirements:

Funding: This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]; the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA [grant number zzzz]; and the United States Institutes of Peace [grant number aaaa].

It is not necessary to include detailed descriptions on the program or type of grants and awards. When funding is from a block grant or other resources available to a university, college, or other research institution, submit the name of the institute or organization that provided the funding.

If no funding has been provided for the research, please include the following sentence:

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Follow internationally accepted rules and conventions: use the international system of units (SI). If other units are mentioned, please give their equivalent in SI.

Whilst it is accepted that authors sometimes need to manipulate images for clarity, manipulation for purposes of deception or fraud will be seen as scientific ethical abuse and will be dealt with accordingly. For graphical images, this journal is applying the following policy: no specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced. Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are acceptable if and as long as they do not obscure or eliminate any information present in the original. Nonlinear adjustments (e.g. changes to gamma settings) must be disclosed in the figure legend.

General points:
• Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.
• Embed the used fonts if the application provides that option.
• Aim to use the following fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Times New Roman, Symbol, or use fonts that look similar.
• Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
• Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.
• Provide captions to illustrations separately.
• Size the illustrations close to the desired dimensions of the published version.
• Submit each illustration as a separate file.
• Ensure that color images are accessible to all, including those with impaired color vision.

A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available.

You are urged to visit this site; some excerpts from the detailed information are given here.

Formats
If your electronic artwork is created in a Microsoft Office application (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) then please supply 'as is' in the native document format.
Regardless of the application used other than Microsoft Office, when your electronic artwork is finalized, please 'Save as' or convert the images to one of the following formats (note the resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below):
EPS (or PDF): Vector drawings, embed all used fonts.
TIFF (or JPEG): Color or grayscale photographs (halftones), keep to a minimum of 300 dpi.
TIFF (or JPEG): Bitmapped (pure black & white pixels) line drawings, keep to a minimum of 1000 dpi.
TIFF (or JPEG): Combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (color or grayscale), keep to a minimum of 500 dpi.

Please do not:
• Supply files that are optimized for screen use (e.g., GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); these typically have a low number of pixels and limited set of colors;
• Supply files that are too low in resolution;
• Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.

Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format (TIFF (or JPEG), EPS (or PDF) or MS Office files) and with the correct resolution. If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable color figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in color online (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites). Further information on the preparation of electronic artwork.

Ensure that each illustration has a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached to the figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.

Text graphics may be embedded in the text at the appropriate position. See further under Electronic artwork.

Please submit tables as editable text and not as images. Tables can be placed either next to the relevant text in the article, or on separate page(s) at the end. Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text and place any table notes below the table body. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in them do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article. Please avoid using vertical rules and shading in table cells.

Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Any references cited in the abstract must be given in full. Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these references are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution of the publication date with either 'Unpublished results' or 'Personal communication'. Citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication.

Increased discoverability of research and high quality peer review are ensured by online links to the sources cited. In order to allow us to create links to abstracting and indexing services, such as Scopus, CrossRef and PubMed, please ensure that data provided in the references are correct. Please note that incorrect surnames, journal/book titles, publication year and pagination may prevent link creation. When copying references, please be careful as they may already contain errors. Use of the DOI is highly encouraged.

A DOI is guaranteed never to change, so you can use it as a permanent link to any electronic article. An example of a citation using DOI for an article not yet in an issue is: VanDecar JC, Russo RM, James DE, Ambeh WB, Franke M. (2003). Aseismic continuation of the Lesser Antilles slab beneath northeastern Venezuela. Journal of Geophysical Research, https://doi.org/10.1029/2001JB000884. Please note the format of such citations should be in the same style as all other references in the paper.

As a minimum, the full URL should be given and the date when the reference was last accessed. Any further information, if known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.

This journal encourages you to cite underlying or relevant datasets in your manuscript by citing them in your text and including a data reference in your Reference List. Data references should include the following elements: author name(s), dataset title, data repository, version (where available), year, and global persistent identifier. Add [dataset] immediately before the reference so we can properly identify it as a data reference. This identifier will not appear in your published article.

Where a preprint has subsequently become available as a peer-reviewed publication, the formal publication should be used as the reference. If there are preprints that are central to your work or that cover crucial developments in the topic, but are not yet formally published, these may be referenced. Preprints should be clearly marked as such, for example by including the word preprint, or the name of the preprint server, as part of the reference. The preprint DOI should also be provided.

Please ensure that the words 'this issue' are added to any references in the list (and any citations in the text) to other articles in the same Special Issue.

Most Elsevier journals have their reference template available in many of the most popular reference management software products. These include all products that support Citation Style Language styles, such as Mendeley. Using citation plug-ins from these products, authors only need to select the appropriate journal template when preparing their article, after which citations and bibliographies will be automatically formatted in the journal's style. If no template is yet available for this journal, please follow the format of the sample references and citations as shown in this Guide. If you use reference management software, please ensure that you remove all field codes before submitting the electronic manuscript. More information on how to remove field codes from different reference management software.

These will be presented using Arabic numbers according to their appearance in the text with the corresponding correlative numbering. The article will always show the reference number in superscript, which may or may not be accompanied by the name of the authors; when these are mentioned in the text, if it is a work carried out by two, both are mentioned, and if there are several, the first is mentioned followed by the expression et al. Journal names must be abbreviated in accordance with the style used in Index Medicus, available at: ftp://nlmpubs. nlm.nih.gov/online/journals/ljiweb.pdf.

If the journal is Spanish and is not found in Index Medicus, it must be abbreviated with the style used in CINDOC, available at: http://dice.cindoc.csic.es/listado_revistas.php?letra=A. If the journal is Latin American and is not found in Index Medicus, it must be abbreviated in accordance with the style used in Latindex, available at: http://www.latindex.unam.mx/.

Wherever possible, the inclusion of textbooks or minutes of meetings as references must be avoided. The use of imprecise phrases as bibliographic references will be avoided and phrases Instructions for authors such as “unpublished observations” or “personal communication” may not be used, but they can be mentioned between parentheses within the text. The bibliographic references must be checked by comparing with the original documents, always indicating the initial and final page of the reference.

The format of the references must follow the rules adopted by the AMA style (https://umc.libguides.com/citations/ama).

The examples shown below are some of the most commonly used:

1.1. Journal Article
Surname followed by initials of name. Up to 6 authors' names should be listed. Over 6 authors, list only the first 3, followed by "et al." Then include the title of the work in the original language and a full stop, abbreviated name of the journal, also followed by a full stop, year of publication followed by a semi-colon, volume number followed by a colon, and first and last page number of the article, separated by a hyphen.

1.1.1. Standard journal article with less than 6 authors Robles Gil MC, Muñoz Marín D, Olcina Camacho GJ, Timón Andrada R, Maynar Mariño M. Modificaciones de la composición corporal de mujeres pre y posmenopáusicas sometidas a un programa de aeróbic. Apunts Med Esport. 2010;45:3-7.

1.1.2. Standard journal article with more than 6 authors Ayán C, Molina AJ, García H, et al. Efecto de una modifi cación reglamentaria en la incidencia de lesiones en lucha leonesa. Apunts Med Esport. 2010;45:17-22.

1.1.3. Supplement Volume Article
Del Río C, Biondo S, Martí-Ragué J. Incontinencia fecal. Valoración del paciente. Tratamientos clásicos. Cir Esp. 2005;78 Supl 3:34-40.

1.1.4. Article in pre-publication with DOI
Hägglund M, Waldén M, Til L, Pruna R. The importance of epidemiological research in sports medicine. Apunts Med Esport. 2010. doi:10.1016/j.apunts.2010.02.006.

1.1.5. Article in print
Drobnic F. Síntomas de vías respiratorias altas y normative antidopaje de 2010. La pseudoefedrina: camino de ida y vuelta. Apunts Med Esport. In print 2010.

1.1.6. The author is an organisation
Serveis Mèdics Futbol Club Barcelona. Guía de Práctica Clínica de las lesiones musculares. Epidemiología, diagnóstico, tratamiento y prevención Versión 4.5 (9 de febrero de 2009). Apunts Med Esport. 2009;164:179-203.

1.1.7. Individual and organisation, both are authors
Vallancien G, Emberton M, Harving N, Van Moorselaar RJ; Alf-One Study Group. Sexual dysfunction in 1,274 European men suffering from lower urinary tract symptoms. J Urol. 2003;169:2257-61.

1.1.8. No author
21st century heart solution may have a sting in the tail. BMJ. 2002;325:184.

1.1.9. Volume with a supplement
Geraud G, Spierings EL, Keywood C. Tolerability and safety of frovatriptan with short- and long-term use for treatment of migraine and in comparison with sumatriptan. Headache. 2002;42 Suppl 2:S93-9.

1.1.10. Journal issue with a supplement
Glauser TA. Integrating clinical trial data into clinical practice. Neurology. 2002;58(12 Suppl 7):S6-12.

1.2. Book and book chapters
1.2.1. Complete book
1.2.1.1. Authors as editors
Mvoelkel NF, MacNee W, editors. Chronic obstructive lung diseases. Hamilton: BC Decker Inc.; 2002.

1.2.1.2. Personal Author(s) (not editors)
Murray PR, Rosenthal KS, Kobayashi GS, Pfaller MA. Medical microbiology. 4th ed. St. Louis: Mosby; 2002.

1.2.1.3. Authors and different editors
Breedlove GK, Schorfheide AM. Adolescent pregnancy. 2nd ed. Wieczorek RR, editor. White Plains (NY): March of Dimes Education Services; 2001.

1.2.1.4. Organisation as author
Royal Adelaide Hospital; University of Adelaide, Department of Clinical Nursing. Compendium of nursing research and practice development, 1999-2000. Adelaide (Australia): Adelaide University; 2001.

1.2.2. Book chapter
Weibel ER. The structural basis of lung function. En: West JB, editor. Respiratory physiology: people and ideas. New York: Oxford University Press; 1996; p. 3-46.

1.3. Documents in electronic format
1.3.1. Standard article in electronic format Morse SS. Factors in the emergence of infectious diseases. Emerg Infect Dis [electronic journal] 1995;1 [consulted 05-06-1996]: Available at: http://www. cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/eid.htm

1.3.2. Internet site (page)
Cancer-Pain.org [internet page]. New York: Association of Cancer Online Resources, Inc.; c2000-01 [updated 16 Mayo 2002; quoted 9 Jul 2002]. Available at: http://www.cancerpain.org/.

1.4. Other published material
1.4.1. Conference proceedings. Harnden P, Joffe JK, Jones WG, editors. Germ cell tumours V. Proceedings of the 5th Germ Cell Tumour Conference; 2001 Sep 13-15; Leeds, UK. New York: Springer; 2002.

Journal names should be abbreviated according to the List of Title Word Abbreviations.

Elsevier accepts video material and animation sequences to support and enhance your scientific research. Authors who have video or animation files that they wish to submit with their article are strongly encouraged to include links to these within the body of the article. This can be done in the same way as a figure or table by referring to the video or animation content and noting in the body text where it should be placed. All submitted files should be properly labeled so that they directly relate to the video file's content. In order to ensure that your video or animation material is directly usable, please provide the file in one of our recommended file formats with a preferred maximum size of 150 MB per file, 1 GB in total. Video and animation files supplied will be published online in the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect. Please supply 'stills' with your files: you can choose any frame from the video or animation or make a separate image. These will be used instead of standard icons and will personalize the link to your video data. For more detailed instructions please visit our video instruction pages. Note: since video and animation cannot be embedded in the print version of the journal, please provide text for both the electronic and the print version for the portions of the article that refer to this content.

Include interactive data visualizations in your publication and let your readers interact and engage more closely with your research. Follow the instructions here to find out about available data visualization options and how to include them with your article.

Supplementary material such as applications, images and sound clips, can be published with your article to enhance it. Submitted supplementary items are published exactly as they are received (Excel or PowerPoint files will appear as such online). Please submit your material together with the article and supply a concise, descriptive caption for each supplementary file. If you wish to make changes to supplementary material during any stage of the process, please make sure to provide an updated file. Do not annotate any corrections on a previous version. Please switch off the 'Track Changes' option in Microsoft Office files as these will appear in the published version.

This journal encourages and enables you to share data that supports your research publication where appropriate, and enables you to interlink the data with your published articles.  Research data refers to the results of observations or experimentation that validate research findings. To facilitate reproducibility and data reuse, this journal also encourages you to share your software, code, models, algorithms, protocols, methods and other useful materials related to the project.

Below are a number of ways in which you can associate data with your article or make a statement about the availability of your data when submitting your manuscript. If you are sharing data in one of these ways, you are encouraged to cite the data in your manuscript and reference list. Please refer to the "References" section for more information about data citation. For more information on depositing, sharing and using research data and other relevant research materials, visit the research data page.

If you have made your research data available in a data repository, you can link your article directly to the dataset. Elsevier collaborates with a number of repositories to link articles on ScienceDirect with relevant repositories, giving readers access to underlying data that give them a better understanding of the research described.

There are different ways to link your datasets to your article.  When available, you can directly link your dataset to your article by providing the relevant information in the submission system. For more information, visit the database linking page.

For supported data repositories a repository banner will automatically appear next to your published article on ScienceDirect.

In addition, you can link to relevant data or entities through identifiers within the text of your manuscript, using the following format: Database: xxxx (e.g., TAIR: AT1G01020; CCDC: 734053; PDB: 1XFN).

One set of page proofs (as PDF files) will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author (if we do not have an e-mail address then paper proofs will be sent by post) or a link will be provided in the e-mail so that authors can download the files themselves. To ensure a fast publication process of the article, we kindly ask authors to provide us with their proof corrections within two days. Elsevier now provides authors with PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download the free Adobe Reader, version 9 (or higher). Instructions on how to annotate PDF files will accompany the proofs (also given online). The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site.
If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return them to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and scan the pages and return via e-mail. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor. We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately. It is important to ensure that all corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility.

The corresponding author will be notified and receive a link to the published version of the open access article on ScienceDirect. This link is in the form of an article DOI link which can be shared via email and social networks. For an extra charge, paper offprints can be ordered via the offprint order form which is sent once the article is accepted for publication. Both corresponding and co-authors may order offprints at any time via Elsevier's Author Services.

Visit the Elsevier Support Center to find the answers you need. Here you will find everything from Frequently Asked Questions to ways to get in touch.
You can also check the status of your submitted article or find out when your accepted article will be published.