Information for Contributors

Journal Policy

The Journal of Agricultural Meteorology is an international peer-reviewed open access journal supported by the Society of Agricultural Meteorology of Japan. Published quarterly by the society since 1943, the Journal of Agricultural Meteorology maintains the highest standards of scientific and publication ethics. Its global audience – which includes those involved in research, policy and agricultural production – access articles free online.

pdf version is here

AIMS & SCOPE

The Journal of Agricultural Meteorology is an international peer-reviewed Open Access journal that aims to improve the understanding of biophysical and biochemical processes in agriculture , forestry and natural ecosystems. It publishes important original papers and review articles that address a range of topics: weather disasters, local climate, micrometeorology, climate change, soil environments, atmospheric environment and chemistry, plant phenology and physiology, plant response to environmental change, crop growth and yield prediction, instrumentation, remote sensing, mitigation strategy, landscape architecture, geography, and environmental control across a wide range of managed or natural ecosystems, from open fields to greenhouses and plant factories. The journal aims to facilitate the broad understanding of the main challenges facing the field today and so articles can be set across the range of scales: local to global or molecular to ecosystem.

MANUSCRIPT TYPES

The journal publishes a range of manuscript types, all of which undergo rigorous peer review.

Original Papers

There are two categories of Original Papers: full papers and short papers. Full papers report on important and comprehensive original research. Short papers are intended for the rapid publication of concise reports of recent results, descriptions of methods, or observations of phenomena.

Review Papers

Review papers summarize literature on a specialized topic, discuss any challenges in that field of research, and present a perspective on the future of the field.

Research Notes

Research Notes provide useful information in both applied and practical fields of research, but are less substantial than a full paper.

Discussions

Discussions present critical reviews of articles that were published by the journal. Discussions should be submitted no more than 6 months after the publication date of the article being reviewed.

JOURNAL & ETHICS POLICIES

The Journal of Agricultural Meteorology strives to uphold the highest research and publishing standards, and this comprehensive suite of policies covers the main responsibilities of the journal’s authors, reviewers, editors and publisher. Before submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors must ensure that they have read and complied with the journal’s policies.

Author Responsibilities

Submission

The Journal of Agricultural Meteorology welcomes manuscript submissions from authors anywhere in the world. Submission to the journal implies that all authors have read and approved the manuscript, have agreed to its submission, and have the right to publish their work.

Submission to the journal also implies that all authors have read and complied with the journal’s policies on publication and scientific ethics. Authors of submitted manuscripts acknowledge that the journal’s editors reserve the right to reject or retract any manuscript that they believe may breach any of these policies.

Duplicate submission

Submission to the journal implies that the manuscript has not been previously published (in part or in whole, in any language), is not in press, and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

Authors must inform the editors if any related manuscripts are under consideration, in press or published elsewhere. The availability of a manuscript on a publicly accessible preprint server does not constitute prior publication (see ‘Preprints’).

If authors choose to submit their manuscript elsewhere before a final decision has been made on its suitability for publication in the journal, they should first withdraw it from the Journal of Agricultural Meteorology.

Originality

Submission to the journal implies that the manuscript is original work. The journal uses iThenticate plagiarism software to screen manuscripts for unoriginal content. By submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors agree to this screening. Any manuscript with an unacceptable level of unoriginal material may be rejected or retracted at the editors’ discretion.

Preprints

To support the wide dissemination of research, the journal encourages authors to post their research manuscripts on community-recognized preprint servers, either before or alongside submission to the journal. This policy applies only to the original version of a manuscript that describes primary research. Any version of a manuscript that has been revised in response to reviewers’ comments, accepted for publication or published in the journal must not be posted on a preprint server. Instead, forward links to the published manuscript should be posted on the preprint server.

Scooping

When assessing the novelty of a manuscript submitted to the journal, the editors will not be influenced by other manuscripts that are posted on community-recognized preprint servers after the date of submission to the Journal of Agricultural Meteorology.

Authorship

Submission to the journal implies that all authors have seen and approved the author list. Changes to the author list after manuscript submission – such as the insertion or removal of author names, or a rearrangement of author order – must be approved by all authors and the editor.

Authors are those who have made substantial contributions to the work; have agreed to be held accountable for their own contributions to the work; can identify which co-authors are responsible for other parts of the work; have confidence in the integrity of the work; and have reviewed and approved the final manuscript. Contributors who do not qualify for authorship may be included in the Acknowledgements section instead.

Image integrity

Authors may digitally manipulate or process images, but only if the adjustments are kept to a minimum, are applied to the entire image, meet community standards, and are clearly described in the manuscript. All images in a manuscript must accurately reflect the original data on which they are based. Authors must not move, remove, add or enhance individual parts of an image. The editors reserve the right to request original, unprocessed images from the authors. Failure to provide requested images may result in a manuscript being rejected or retracted.

Reproducing copyrighted material

If a manuscript includes material that is not under the authors’ own copyright, the authors must obtain permission from the copyright holder(s) to reproduce it.

If a manuscript includes previously published material, the authors must obtain permission from the copyright owners and the publisher of the original work to reproduce it. The authors must cite the original work in their manuscript.

Copies of all reproduction permissions must be included with the manuscript when it is first submitted.

Availability of data and materials

Authors must disclose the source of publicly available data and materials, such as public repositories or commercial manufacturers, by including accession numbers or company details in their manuscript, as appropriate.

Authors may make their own data and materials available in Supplementary Material, or by linking from their manuscript to relevant community-recognized public databases or digital repositories. All data sets must be made available in full to the editors and reviewers during the peer review process, and must be made publicly available by the date of publication. Authors commit to preserving their data sets for 10 years from the date of publication in the journal.

The journal encourages authors to grant reasonable requests from colleagues to share any data, materials and experimental protocols described in their manuscript.

Animal/human experimentation

Authors of manuscripts describing experiments involving humans or materials derived from humans must demonstrate that the work was carried out in accordance with the principles embodied in the Declaration of Helsinki, its revisions, and any guidelines approved by the authors’ institutions. Where relevant, the authors must include a statement in their manuscript that describes the procedures for obtaining informed consent from participants regarding participation in the research and publication of the research.

Authors of manuscripts describing experiments involving animals or materials derived from animals must demonstrate that the work was carried out in accordance with the guidelines approved by the authors’ institution(s).

Sample collection

Manuscripts describing the collection of plant, soil, water, archaeological, geological, paleontological or wildlife samples or specimens should include detailed information on their provenance and collection methods. Authors must include a statement in their manuscript describing the relevant ethics guidelines, local laws and collection permits under which the research was conducted.

Conflicts of interest

In the interests of transparency, the journal requires all authors to declare any conflicts of interest in relation to their submitted manuscript. A conflict of interest exists when there are actual, perceived or potential circumstances that could influence an author’s ability to conduct or report research impartially. Potential conflicts include (but are not limited to) competing commercial or financial interests, commercial affiliations, consulting roles, or ownership of stock or equity.

Authors should list all funding sources for their work in the Acknowledgements section of their manuscript.

Confidentiality

The journal maintains the confidentiality of all unpublished manuscripts. By submitting their manuscript to the journal, the authors warrant that they will keep all correspondence about their manuscript (from the Editorial Office, editors and reviewers) strictly confidential.

Editor / Publisher Responsibilities

Editorial and peer review process

The journal uses single-blind peer review. When a manuscript is submitted to the journal, it is assigned to one of the Managing Editors, who performs initial screening. Manuscripts that do not fit the journal’s scope or are not deemed suitable for publication are rejected without review. The Managing editor allocates each of the manuscripts to an Associate Editor, who handles peer review. The Associate Editor selects two appropriate reviewers to provide their assessment of the manuscript. Reviewers are selected based on their expertise, reputation and previous experience as peer reviewers. The deadline for submission of the reviewers’ reports varies by article type. Final decisions are made by the Managing Editors upon the recommendation from the relevant Associate Editor. The Editor-in-Chief and the Managing Editors rigorously discuss the decision on individual manuscripts where it is deemed necessary.

Once the reviewers’ reports have been received, the Associate Editor determines whether the manuscript requires revision. Authors who are asked to revise their manuscript must do so within 4 weeks, unless authors request postponement of the re-submission and the request is approved by the Editors. Otherwise, it may be treated as a new submission. The Associate Editor may send revised manuscripts to peer reviewers for their feedback or may use his or her own judgement to assess how closely the authors have followed the comments on the original manuscript. The Editor-in-Chief and the Managing Editor responsible for the manuscript then makes a final decision on the manuscript’s suitability for publication in the journal upon the recommendation from the Associate Editor.
Manuscripts submitted for Special Issues undergo the same peer review process as described above. Guest Editors may be appointed to oversee a Special Issue, but final decisions on all manuscripts are made by the Editor-in-Chief and relevant Managing Editor.
The members of the Advisory Board act in advisory roles, providing feedback as reviewers and making suggestions to improve the journal. In cases where the Editor-in-Chief is an author on a manuscript submitted to the journal, a member of the Editorial Committee is responsible for making the final decision on the manuscript’s suitability for publication in the journal.

Reviewer suggestions

When submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors are requested to suggest reviewers that they would like included in or excluded from the peer review process. The Associate Editor may consider these suggestions but is under no obligation to follow them. The selection, invitation and assignment of peer reviewers is at the relevant Associate Editor’s sole discretion.

Reviewer reports

It is the journal’s policy to transmit reviewers’ comments to the authors in their original form. However, the journal reserves the right to edit reviewers’ comments, without consulting the reviewers, if they contain offensive language, confidential information or recommendations for publication.

Acceptance criteria and editorial decisions

If a manuscript satisfies the journal’s requirements and represents a valuable contribution to the published literature, the Associate Editor may recommend acceptance for publication in the journal.

In brief, the acceptance criteria are that articles published in the journal are:

• within the subject area as outlined in the Aims and Scope
• novel
• scientifically, ethically, and otherwise rigorous
• of interest to our broad audience, even if focussed at a local or regional scale
• well-constructed and written in English

If a manuscript does not meet the journal’s requirements for acceptance, but it has a high probability of acceptance after minor or major revision, the Associate Editor may ask the authors to revise it accordingly. Revised manuscripts must be submitted within 4 weeks, otherwise they will be treated as new submissions.

If a manuscript does not meet the journal’s requirements for acceptance or revision, the Associate Editor may recommend rejection.

Editorial independence

The Society of Agricultural Meteorology of Japan (SAMJ) has granted the journal’s Editorial Board complete and sole responsibility for all editorial decisions. The Society’s executive will not become involved in editorial decisions, except in cases of a fundamental breakdown of process.

Editorial decisions are based only on a manuscript’s scientific merit and are kept completely separate from the journal’s other interests. The authors’ ability to pay any publication charges has no bearing on whether a manuscript is accepted for publication in the journal.

Appeals

Authors who believe that an editorial decision has been made in error may lodge an appeal with the Editorial Office. Appeals are only considered if the authors provide detailed evidence of a misunderstanding or mistake by a reviewer or editor. Appeals are considered carefully by a Managing Editor and the Editor-in-Chief, whose decision is final.

Confidentiality

The journal maintains the confidentiality of all unpublished manuscripts. Editors will not:

• disclose a reviewer’s identity unless the reviewer makes a request for such disclosure
• discuss the manuscript or its contents with anyone not directly involved with the manuscript or its peer review
• use any data or information from the manuscript in their own work or publications
• use information obtained from the peer review process to provide an advantage to themselves or anyone else, or to disadvantage any individual or organization.

Conflicts of interest

A conflict of interest exists when there are actual, perceived or potential circumstances that could influence an editor’s ability to act impartially when assessing a manuscript. Such circumstances might include having a personal or professional relationship with an author, working on the same topic or in direct competition with an author, or having a financial stake in the work or its publication.

Members of the journal’s Editorial Board undertake to declare any conflicts of interest when handling manuscripts. An editor who declares a conflict of interest is replaced by a new editor.

Errata and retractions

The journal recognizes the importance of maintaining the integrity of published literature.
A published article that contains an error may be corrected through the publication of an Erratum. Errata describe errors that significantly affect the scientific integrity of a publication, the reputation of the authors, or the journal itself. Authors who wish to correct a published article should contact the editor who handled their manuscript or the Editorial Office with full details of the error(s) and their requested changes. In cases where co-authors disagree over a correction, the Editor-in-Chief or the Managing Editor responsible for the manuscript may consult the Editorial Board or external peer reviewers for advice. If an Erratum is published, any dissenting authors will be noted in the text.

The journal reserves the right to retract any published article that is later shown to: contain invalid or unreliable results or conclusions; have been published elsewhere; or not meet acceptable standards of research or publication ethics. Individuals who believe that a published article should be retracted are encouraged to contact the journal’s Editorial Office with full details of their concerns. The Editor-in-Chief will investigate further and contact the authors of the published article for their response. In cases where co-authors disagree over a retraction, the Editor-in-Chief may consult the Editorial Board or external peer reviewers for advice. If a Retraction is published, any dissenting authors will be noted in the text.

The decision to publish Errata or Retractions is made at the sole discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.

Editors’ own publications in the journal

Any member of the journal’s Editorial Board who is an author on a submitted manuscript is automatically excluded from the peer review process within the journal’s online manuscript submission and tracking system. They are able to see their manuscript as an author but not as an editor, thereby maintaining the confidentiality of peer review.

A manuscript authored by an editor of the journal will be subjected to the same high standards of peer review and editorial decision making as any manuscript submitted to the journal.

Responding to potential ethical breaches

The journal will respond to allegations of ethical breaches by following its own policies and, where possible, the guidelines formulated by the Committee on Publication Ethics.

Long-term digital archiving

J-STAGE preserves its full digital library, including JAM, with Portico in a dark archive (see https://www.portico.org/publishers/jstage/). In the event that the material becomes unavailable at J-STAGE, it will be released and made available by Portico.

Reviewer Responsibilities

Confidentiality

As part of their responsibilities, reviewers agree to maintain the confidentiality of unpublished manuscripts at all times. By accepting the invitation to review a manuscript, reviewers agree not to:

• disclose their role in reviewing the manuscript
• reveal their identity to any of the authors of the manuscript
• discuss the manuscript or its contents with anyone not directly involved in the review process
• involve anyone else in the review (for example, a post-doc or PhD student) without first requesting permission from the Editor
• use any data or information from the manuscript in their own work or publications
• use information obtained from the peer review process to provide an advantage to themselves or anyone else, or to disadvantage any individual or organization.

Reviewer conflicts of interest

A conflict of interest exists when there are actual, perceived or potential circumstances that could influence a reviewer’s ability to assess a manuscript impartially. Such circumstances might include having a personal or professional relationship with an author, working on the same topic or in direct competition with an author, having a financial stake in the work or its publication, or having seen previous versions of the manuscript.

Editors try to avoid conflicts of interest when inviting reviewers, but it is not always possible to identify potential bias. Reviewers are asked to declare any conflicts of interest to the Editor, who will determine the best course of action.

OPEN ACCESS, COPYRIGHT AND PUBLICATION CHARGES

From Vol 77 in 2021, the Journal of Agricultural Meteorology is fully Open Access and uses Creative Commons (CC) licenses to allow users to use, reuse and build upon the material published in the journal without charge or the need to ask prior permission from the publisher or author. More details on the CC licenses used by the journal, and their conditions, are below.

Licensing and copyright

Articles published on or after Vol 77 in 2021 are published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 International license. The CC BY license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as you are credited for your article. Authors retain all copyrights. Copyright of published articles on or before Vol 76 in 2020 belongs to the Society of Agricultural Meteorology of Japan.

Article Processing Charges (APCs)

As an open access journal with no subscription charges, a fee (Article Publishing Charge, APC) is payable by the author or research funder to cover the costs associated with publication. This ensures your article will be immediately and permanently free to access by everyone.

Publication charges are dependent on the length of the article. The APC for full papers, review papers and research notes is 100,000 yen, and the APC for short papers is 80,000 yen; applicable consumption taxes are included. There is no charge for discussions in this journal.

Additional charges apply if the number of printed journal pages exceeds the following limits: 10 pages for full papers and research notes; 12 pages for review papers; 4 pages for short papers; and 1 page for discussions. Excess pages are charged at 10,000 yen per page. All charges must be paid before the article is published online.

The APC of Invited papers may be supported by the society, according to its by-laws.

Color charges

Figures in the online version of articles, whether color or black and white, are reproduced from the accepted manuscripts as submitted by the author at no charge.

If you wish for color in print, you can inform the Editorial Office at the production stage (further instructions are provided at that time). Production costs need to be supported, which will be provided to you when required. If you choose black and white in print, convert your artworks to grayscale and provide these upon request to ensure correct reproduction in the print version.

Self-archiving (Green Open Access) policy

Self-archiving, also known as Green Open Access, enables authors to deposit a copy of their manuscript in an online repository. The journal encourages authors of original research manuscripts to upload their article to an institutional or public repository immediately after publication in the journal in line with the terms of the license.

MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION

All manuscripts must be submitted via the journal’s online submission system, Editorial Manager: https://www.editorialmanager.com/agrmet/default.aspx. The original or revised manuscript text may be uploaded as a PDF or Microsoft Word file, but a Word file is required for the final manuscript text. Figures may be submitted separately in several other formats. The day of submission is recorded as when the Editor-in-Chief or one of the Managing Editors receives the file.

If you encounter any problems with online submission, please contact
the Editorial Office: c/o Nishimura Toshado Co., Ltd., 1-6-4 Kamimachi, Kochi 780-0901, Japan.

Email: kisho-henshu(at)nishimura-p.co.jp

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

Style

Manuscripts should be prepared using appropriate software such as Microsoft Word. All pages should be numbered consecutively, starting with 1 for the title page and including those containing acknowledgments, references, tables and figures. Pages must be set A4 paper size and include margins of 3 cm on all four sides. The text must be in a single-column with double-spacing and consecutive line numbers throughout. The text should be 12- point Times New Roman or equivalent.

English standards

Manuscripts should be written in clear, grammatically correct English. Authors whose native language is not English are strongly encouraged to have their manuscript checked by a native English speaker or by an editing service prior to submission. If a manuscript is not clear due to poor English, it may be returned to the authors without peer review.

Format

Original papers (full papers and short papers) are typically organized as follows: Title, Author Name(s) and Affiliation(s), Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgments, References, Appendix and Supplementary files (if necessary). However, this format is not a strict requirement and other formats are acceptable, especially for the other article types. Please refer to a recent issue of the journal for examples/

Title

The title should be concise and informative. Series titles (e.g., “A study of photosynthesis of tomatoes l. Irradiance”) are not permitted.

Authors and affiliations

List all author names and affiliations, complete address(es) including a zip codes. The corresponding author should be identified by an asterisk (*) where there is more than one author. Also supply the telephone number, facsimile number, and e-mail address of the corresponding author.

Keywords

Up to five key words must be listed alphabetically immediately after the abstract. Do not use key words included in the title.

Running Title

The running title should not exceed 50 characters, including spaces.

Abbreviations and units

Each abbreviation should be defined in parentheses together with its non-abbreviated term when it first appears in the text (except in the Title and Abstract). Terms common to the field is not necessarily needed to be expanded.

SI units must be used throughout the article, but some generally recognized non-SI units may also be used (e.g., minute, hour, day, litre, tonne).

Units should be written with symbols (e.g., m, Pa) rather than full names (e.g., meter, Pasca1). Symbols should not be written in italics nor in the plural form, and symbol abbreviations should not be followed by a period, except at the end of a sentence.

Only one prefix should be used in a unit (e.g., 1.0 S m^-1 rather than 10 mS cm^-1). In derived units, a space must be used to separate two or more base units (e.g., N m). Negative powers are recommended when expressing a derived unit.

Abstract

The abstract should concisely summarize the purpose, methods, principal results, and conclusions of the research. It must be self-standing, easily interpretable and ideally, raise the reader’s interest. Uncommon abbreviations should be avoided. It should not exceed 300 words for full papers or 200 words for short papers. If it is essential to refer to a previous publication, omit the article title (e.g. Akai, S. and Roberts, H. (2019). Sci. Journal., 14: 10–15).

Introduction

The Introduction should provide sufficient background information to allow the reader to understand the purpose of the study and its relationship with other research in related fields, although it should not include an extensive review of the literature.

Materials and Methods

The description of the methods should be brief, but it must include sufficient details to allow the experiments to be repeated. The sources of unusual chemicals, plants, water, soils, microbial strains, animals or equipment should be described, and the location (city, country) of the company should be provided in parentheses. If hazardous materials or dangerous procedures are used in the experiments and the precautions related to their handling are not widely recognized, it is recommended that the authors provide the necessary details.

Results

This section includes the results of the experiments. The Results and Discussion sections may be combined if this helps readers to understand and evaluate the study. Tables and figures, including photographs, can be used to present the experimental results (see below). Excessive explanations of the data presented in tables and figures should be avoided.

Discussion

The Discussion should be concise and should deal with the interpretation of the results. Novel models or hypotheses may be proposed in this section only if they are suggested by the results obtained in the experiments. Do not repeat the description of the experimental results in this section.

Acknowledgments

This section should be brief. Authors should list all funding sources for their work in the Acknowledgements section.

References

In the main text, references should follow the Harvard style (author-date), e.g., “Smith (2018)” or “(Smith, 2018)”. When two or more references are cited at the same time, they must be separated by a semicolon. For a reference with three or more authors, use “et al.” following the first author: “Smith et al. (1999)”.

The References section then lists the cited works alphabetically according to the authors’ last names. If the number of authors is more than 3, list the first three authors followed by et al.

When there are two or more articles by the same first author, such references should be listed according to the following order: first, single-authored articles, and second, articles with two or more authors.

If there are two or more articles with more than one author, list the articles according to the last names of the second authors, and then according to the last names of the third or subsequent authors. If all of the authors are identical, the references should be arranged according to the year of publication.

Articles published in the same year with identical authors must be differentiated by adding letters after the year of publication, e.g., “1995a”. The formats for some common types of references are shown below.

Journal Article
(The name of the journal should be in italics, and the volume number should be in Bold.)
Author(s), year of publication: Title of the article. Name of The Journal volume number, start page–end page. Journal names should be spelled out in full(should not be abbreviated).
Book
(The title of the book should be in italics.)
Author(s), year of publication: Title of The Book. Name of the publisher, location (city) of the publisher, “pp.” the whole page number.
or
Author(s), year of publication: Title of The Book. Name of the publisher, location (city) of publisher, “pp.” start page–end page.
or
Name of the editor(s) “(ed.),” year of publication: Title of The Book. Name of the publisher, location (city) of the publisher, whole page number “pp.”
Chapter in Book
(The title of the book should be in italics.)
Author(s), year of publication: Title of the chapter. “In” Title of The Book (“ed. by” name of the editor(s)). Name of the publisher, location (city) of the publisher, “pp.” start page–end page of the chapter.
Proceedings
(The title of the proceedings should be in italics.)
Author(s), year of publication: Title of the article. Name of The Proceedings (“ed. by” name of the editor(s)). date, and venue of the meeting, “pp.” start page–end page.

Type the last name of the author or editor first, then the initial of the first name. For two or more authors, names should be written as follows:

Finally, the DOI number can be added to the end of each format if available.

Tables

Place each table on a separate page with consecutive numbers (Table 1, Table 2 etc.).

Titles and captions should be provided on a separate page. Units of measurement should be included with numerical values at the top of columns. Avoid detailed explanations of the experimental conditions used to obtain the data shown in tables (this should be included in the Materials and Methods section).

Figures

Figures should have a resolution of 600 dpi or higher. If the figure will need be reduced in size for the print/PDF version, the author should consider line thickness and the size of the letters and symbols. Each figure. illustration or photograph should be placed on a separate page with consecutive numbers, as in Fig. 1, Fig. 2. For figures to be printed in color, authors should indicate so in the margin.

Captions for figures, photographs and tables should be provided on a separate page. Captions for figures should be formatted as follows (pay attention to the use of periods): “Fig. 1. Effect of … plants.”.

Formulas

Equations must be numbered consecutively and are cited in the text according to the equation numbers. The equation number should be placed at the right-hand side of the equation in parentheses (e.g. F＝mg (1)).
Italics and Greek characters should be used for scalars, while non-italics should be used for operators and functions (e.g., max, min, sin, cos, exp). For vectors, authors should use boldface non-italics (e.g., v) or italics with an arrow placed aloft (e.g.
→
v
).

For matrices, authors should use capital italics (e.g., A, O). Formulas in text can be written out, as in a/b, exp(t/r).

Supplementary material

Authors can submit supplementary material for online-only publication. Supplementary material enhances, but is not essential to, a reader’s understanding of a manuscript and may comprise data, text, or other formatted files. It is published online alongside the accepted manuscript. Authors should contact the Editorial Office if they wish to include materials with with special formats.

As supplementary material is assessed as part of the peer-review process, authors must submit it in its final form as part of their manuscript submission. After a manuscript has been accepted for publication, authors may not make any changes to the supplementary material.

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPTS

Manuscripts that are accepted for publication are copyedited and typeset by the journal’s production team before publication. All communication regarding accepted manuscripts is with the corresponding author.

Proofs

Page proofs are sent to the corresponding author, who should check and return them within 72 hours. Only essential corrections to typesetting errors or omissions are accepted; excessive changes are not permitted at the proofing stage.

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased in increments of 50, and the number of reprints must be specified at the submission. Charges for re- prints are calculated by the following formula:

Cost for reprints (yen)＝15(4＋n) N, where n is the number of printed pages, and N is the number of reprints (which must be in a multiple of 50).

Contact the journal

The Editorial Office,
c/o Nishimura Toshado Co., Ltd.,
1-6-4 Kamimachi, Kochi 780-0901, Japan.
email: kisho-henshu(at)nishimura-p.co.jp

1 October 2024