The IEICE Transactions on Information and Systems The Information for Authors

The IEICE has four Societies, each of which publishes their own English Transactions monthly.
Each society has its own Editorial Committee for its English Transactions.

The information described herein is subject to change without prior notification. [Last Revised on 1 January, 2008]

1. General guidelines

1.1 Eligibility for submission:

At least one of the authors must be an IEICE member when the manuscript is submitted for review. Invited papers are an exception. We recommend that authors unaffiliated with IEICE apply for membership. For detailed information on the IEICE Membership Application, refer to here.

1.2 Originality of manuscript:

All submitted manuscripts must contain original work i.e. there must be no other manuscript(s) of similar content, written by any or all of the authors, that have appeared in or have been submitted to other academic or commercial journals. Academic journals refer to journals published by domestic or foreign institutions, in which submitted manuscripts are published after peer review. *In certain cases, results, which have previously appeared in other publications, may be submitted as an original submission provided that the copyright of the manuscript is held either by the author(s) or by the IEICE. Examples of these cases include books, newspapers, and bulletins published by public agencies, schools, and companies; proceedings of international conferences, abstracts of meetings and research gatherings of the IEICE and other academic societies; bulletins published by universities; public domain patents/patent abstracts; and other publications of a similar nature.

*Regarding Submission to "Information Technology Letters": The manuscript that had appeared in "Information Technology Letters" in or before 2007 is not accepted as it is. "Information Technology Letters" is published by the IEICE Information and Systems Society, IEICE Human Communication Group and Information Processing Society of Japan.

1.3 Counter measures against duplicate submission:

If a manuscript is suspected of having been submitted to any other journal, the IEICE Editorial Committee has the right to investigate the situation by exchanging information with the other institutes to which the manuscript is suspected of having been submitted. The IEICE Editorial Committee will apply sanctions against authors who are discovered to have made duplicate submissions to any other journals as a result of discreet inquiries.
The sanctions are as follows: (1) Immediate rejection of the manuscript in question. (2) Prohibition against the authors/co-authors of any new submissions to the IEICE transactions and journal for no more than one year. (3) Notification to the other institutes to which the duplicate submission has been made. (4) Publication of a notice that cancels the already-published manuscript, as well as the indication of the deletion of the manuscript in the case of on-line publication.


1.4 Type of manuscript:

PAPER: Includes reports on research, developments, and examinations performed by the Society's members for the specific fields shown in the category list such as detailed below, the contents of which may advance the development of science and industry: (1) Reports on new theories, experiments with new contents, or extensions of and supplements to conventional theories and experiments. (2) Reports on development of measurement technology and various applied technologies. (3) Reports on the planning, design, manufacture, testing, or operation of facilities, machinery, parts, materials, etc. (4) Reports on development of system or software .etc .(referred to as Papers on system development) (5) Presentation of new methods, suggestion of new angles, ideas, systematization, software, or any new facts regarding the above (1) to (4).

LETTER: Includes the following in terms of range and content and the same as those for PAPER. (6) Reports on research for prompt announcement. (7) Written discussions to submit opinions to articles published in the Transaction. (8) Suggestion of critical opinions conceived in relation to research. The Transactions is a medium where the members provide and exchange new topics easily and in a timely manner in either form shown above. It is the perfect way for members to acquire new knowledge and information on these topics, actively exchange questions, opinions, etc., and enlighten each other.

SURVEY PAPER: Includes the following, targeting the same range and content as the PAPER. (9) Reports that reflect a set understanding of the field involved, and effectively respond to inquiries from researchers or other involved parties about the significance of the field. In short, reports that support entries by new researchers, development by on-site researchers and applications by involved parties in that field. (10) Reports that differ from tutorials (explanatory articles appearing in journals) in that they demand a high caliber of technical knowledge. In short, reports that envision readers as specialists in the field, place their focus on classification of existing documents, provide overviews of the field, evaluate the latest trends and cover other areas in that field. (11) Reports targeting major and large-scale fields (areas in which numerous readers have an interest) that effectively develop a basic framework or overall image of that field. In short, summary introductions that will hopefully encourage new research and otherwise supply members with high-level assessments of the field, while systematically presenting existing research from a set perspective.


2. Process for Initial Submission of a Manuscript

2.1 Process for initial submission

 Each submitted manuscript is categorized as either "PAPER" or "LETTER". When submitting a manuscript to a Regular Section, authors should register their submission using the 'Manuscript Registration Form' provided on our web page. Manuscript Registration Form for Initial Submission




STEP 1:Temporary Registration (by the authors)

1. Register the initial information in the Registration Form.

2. After the registration is completed, print out the "Copyright Transfer and Page Charge Agreement" and the "Confirmation Sheet of Manuscript Registration".

3. Choose either "Submit on the Web" or "by POST".

3-1

In case of "Submit on the Web"

a)
 Upload a PDF file for review and editable electronic files for publishing in accordance with the instructions.

b)

Send "Copyright Transfer and Page Charge Agreement" (one copy) and "Confirmation Sheet of Manuscript Registration" (one copy) by mail.
3-2
 In case of "by POST"
a)
 Attach "Copyright Transfer and Page Charge Agreement" (one copy),"Confirmation Sheet of Manuscript Registration" (one copy) to the hardcopy of your manuscripts (PAPER: five copies, LETTER: four copies) and CD-R including editable electronic files for publishing.

*Editable electronic files for publishing : They are source files such as LaTeX, dvi, Word, eps, etc of your manuscript. They must include author's photo and biography.

4. After the temporary registration is completed, "Notification of Completion for temporary registration" will be sent to you by e-mail.

ATTENTION: Please do not forget to send "Copyright Transfer and Page Charge Agreement" and "Confirmation Sheet of Manuscript Registration". We cannot start the review process without them, even if we receive the manuscript.
If the manuscript is being submitted to a Special Section (Special Issue), all the required items should be sent to the address specified in the Call for Papers. For detailed information on each Special Section (Special Issue), refer to the Call for Papers.


STEP 2:Registration (by IEICE)

After we receive "Copyright Transfer and Page Charge Agreement", "Confirmation Sheet of Manuscript Registration ", and Manuscript, "Receipt of Manuscript" will be sent to you by e-mail. Please use your Reference Number specified in "Receipt of Manuscript", if you want to know the review status of your manuscript or when asking questions. The day on which we receive your manuscript with "Copyright Transfer and Page Charge Agreement" and "Confirmation Sheet of Manuscript Registration" is "Manuscript Received" day.

IN CASE you cannot submit a manuscript on our web, all the following required items should be mailed to the IEICE Publishing Office.

1. Confirmation Sheet of Manuscript Registration
1 copy of the Confirmation Sheet of Manuscript Registration, which includes the information specified in Section 1.2, should be provided. An electronic version of the Confirmation Sheet of Manuscript Registration is available from here
        MS-Word version     HTML version

2. A completed Copyright Transfer and Page Charge Agreement
A copy of the form appears in Appendix A, and the source data of TeX is available from http://www.ieice.org/ftp/index-e.html. Please review the agreement and be sure to put your sign it to indicate your acceptance.

3. Manuscript including figures and tables (5 copies for paper submissions, 4 copies for letter submissions)
See Section 2.2 for manuscript style specifications.

4. Electronic data of the manuscript
A PDF file for review and electronic files for publishing by using CD-R of the manuscript must be submitted. The mailing address is :

The IEICE Publishing Office:
The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers
Kikai-Shinko-Kaikan Bldg., Annex 3F, 5-22, Shibakoen 3 chome, Minato-ku, Tokyo, 105-0011 JAPAN,
Tel:+81-3-3433-6692  Fax:+81-3-3433-6616
E-mail:  Trans.on Information and Systems:   trans-d@ieice.org
 If the manuscript is being submitted to a Special Section (Special Issue), all the required items should be sent to the address specified in the Call for Papers. For detailed information on each Special Section (Special Issue), refer to the Call for Papers.


2.2 Initial information

The following information must be provided on a Confirmation Sheet of Manuscript Registration.

1 .
 Title of the manuscript
2 .
 Personal Information on each author
1. Title (Prof., Dr., Mr., Ms., etc,), Name, Membership Status, Membership Number, E-mail address
2. If the author is a student, then the laboratory name should also be included.
3 .
 Detailed Information on the author for correspondence Affiliation, department, address, Tel/Fax number and E-mail address of the author to be contacted.
4 .
 Categorization of the manuscript type
5 .
 Type of Section (Regular Section / Special Section (Special Issue))
6 .
 Category of Transactions (A: Fundamentals / B: Communications / C: Electronics / D: Information and Systems)
7 .
 Manuscript Type (PAPER / LETTER)
8 .
 The Registration Number of the previously submitted manuscript if this is a re-submmission.
9 .
 Topic of Research Field (Editorial Subject Index) chosen from the list in Appendix D.


3. Manuscript Style Specifications

3.1 Length of manuscript

The standard number of pages is 8 for a PAPER and 2 for a LETTER. The maximum number of pages for the initial submission of a LETTER is 4. One page has approximately 900 words. The page charges are considerably higher for extra pages as shown in Appendix B. Authors are not allowed to divide a longer manuscript into several shorter manuscripts to reduce the page charges.
3.2 Manuscript style

A manuscript must contain the following elements in the order as specified below. If there are no figures, photographs or tables, (11) and (12) can be omitted.

1 .
 Title
2 .
 Name and membership status (member/non-member) of each author
3 .
 Affiliation and correspondence address
4 .
 Summary (about 300 words for a PAPER, 50 words for a LETTER)
5 .
 Keywords (4-5 keywords)
6 .
 Body of the manuscript
7 .
 Acknowledgments, if any
8 .
 Reference list
9 .
 Appendix, if any
10.
 Author photograph and biography of each author (not necessary for a LETTER)
11.
 Captions for all figures, photographs, and tables
12.
 All figures, photographs, or tables


3.3 IEICE Style file for manuscripts

Authors are strongly urged to use " IEICE Style File(LaTeX2ƒÃ)" provided free of charge by the IEICE for preparation of their manuscript. The prepared manuscript will then be nearly the same as the final published version, which facilitates both preparation and editing. IEICE Style File is available on our website at http://www.ieice.org/ftp/
Authors may choose to submit manuscripts using their own style file. In this case, however, publication may be delayed and an extra cost will be incurred.
We also offer an MS-Word Template for preparation of a manuscript. Please refer to the Instructions and Directions before using this template.
Note that this MS-Word Template is NOT our Official Style File for the IEICE Transactions, so that, in the case that authors make use of this template, the page charges will be as given in Part 2 of Appendix B. Any questions regarding page charges and other issues related to publication should be directed to the IEICE Publishing Office.


3.4 When using an IEICE style file

LaTeX style file

1. The items, which can be included in the LaTeX generated part of the manuscript, are text, equations and tables. Equations and tables must be included directly in the text and should be a part of the LaTeX source file.

2. Figures and photos should be saved in EPS format and attached to the LaTeX source file. When figures are produced using LaTeX functions (under the Picture environment: PicTeX and Epic, etc.), attachment of the EPS file is not necessary. In this case, the figures should be included in the LaTeX source file.

3. In cases that the figures, photographs, and tables are submitted separately (i.e. not a part of the text), their position in the manuscript must be indicated in the margin of the text or at the location where they are to be placed.

4. For our editorial procedure, captions of all figures, photographs, and tables are requested to be submitted aside from the LaTeX generated part of the manuscript.


3.5 When not using an IEICE style file

When you do not use the LaTeX style file, the submitted manuscript should conform to the following rules.


3.5.1 When using Windows

The manuscript data, produced originally with word-processing software under Windows environment should be saved as a text-file format(*.txt) or the word-processor-specific format. All data should be saved with a file name and extension code (with suffix).

2. Photos (bit-map format data, such as screen captures) should be saved in either BMP or TIFF format.
3. Figures (vector-format data, which have line drawings and font information) should be saved in EPS format.But only those made with MS Word, Excel, and Power Point should be saved in the software-specific form of files.
4. Regarding tables, layout information such as ruled lines should be removed, and only the contents of the tables should be saved in a text-file format with similar layout and presentation as the original table, following the table captions.
5. All figures, photos, and table captions should be provided at the end of the manuscript.


3.5.2 When using a Macintosh

Manuscripts generated using Macintosh software should be saved in "simple text format".

1.Equations can be generated using either of the following procedures.

(a) Use PageMaker's "Epsilon", then save in PICT format.
(b) Use the software "Expressionist", then save in EPS format. In cases in which a format other than the ones given in (a) and (b) is used, the page charges will be according to Part 2 of Appendix B

2. Figures and photographic images must be in EPS or TIFF format. Otherwise, they may be included after the PageMaker generated part of the manuscript, and must be the same scale as of the publication. They will be reduced as necessary.

3. Tables should be submitted in one of the following formats.

(a) EPS format generated on a Macintosh.
(b) The divider lines forming the framework of the table should be omitted, and the remaining contents of the table should appear exactly as in the text.
(c) Hard copies of the tables to be submitted separatelymust be the same scale as of the publication. 4. In cases in which the figures, photographs, and tables are submitted separately (not a part of the text), their position in the manuscript must be indicated in the margin of the text or at the location where they are to be placed.

5. For our editorial procedure, captions of all figures, photographs, and tables are requested to be submitted separately from the PageMaker-generated part of the manuscript.


3.5.3 When using a UNIX

The manuscript data, produced with a text editor, under the UNIX environment should be saved as a text-file. Refer to the following instructions for disk preparation.

1. Photos (bit-map format data such as screen captures) should be saved in either BMP or EPS format.
2. Figures (vector-format data, which have line drawings and font information) should be saved in EPS format.
3. Regarding tables, layout information such as ruled lines should be removed, and only the contents of the tables should be saved in a text-file format in layout and presentation that is similar to the original table, following the table captions.
4. All figures, photos, and table captions should be presented at the end of the manuscript.


3.6 Style for figures, photographs and tables

1. All figures, photographs, and tables must be original works of the author(s).
2. All figures, photographs and tables must have captions.
3. Figures and tables must be neat.
4. Photographs must be black and white glossy, so that details may be seen. Color publication is available at extra cost.
5. Electronically produced photos should be saved on appropriate media for the relevant computer environment. Please note that extremely thin lines and half-tone dot meshing will not appear in the final publication.
6. Figures, photographs, and tables should have a width of 8cm if they are to occupy one column and a width of 16cm if they are to occupy 2 columns. In the case of submission of these items in hard copy, they must be the same scale as of the publication.
7. Printed characters in figures and tables must appear in the final publication at 7-point size(minimum).
8. Copies of all figures, photographs and tables not included in the body of the manuscript must be included at the end of the manuscript.


3.7 References


 3.7.1 Style for references

References should appear in the format given below. In the case that cited references are written by coauthors, family names and given name initials for each must be given. Titles of journal papers must be all lowercase except for the first letters of the first word. Exceptions are also made for abbreviations and proprietary name. The journal names should be abbreviated as shown in Appendix C: Abbreviated Journal Names.

Journal papers
[1] W. Rice, A. C. Wine, and B. D. Grain, "Diffusion of impurities during epitaxy", Proc. IEEE, vol.52, no.3, pp.284-290, March 1964.

Books or edited collections
[2] M. G. F. Fuortes, ed., Handbook of Sensory Physiology, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1972.

One section of a book
[3] H. K. Hartline, A. B. Smith, and F. Ratlliff, "Inhibitory interaction in the retina", in Handbook of Sensory Physiology, ed. M. G. F. Fuortes, pp.381-390, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1972.

Conferences
[4] Y. Yamamoto, S. Machida, and K. Igeta, "Micro-cavity semiconductors with enhanced spontaneous emission", Proc. 16th European Conf. on Opt. Commun., Amsterdam, The Netherlands, no.MoF4.6, pp.3-13, Sept. 1990.


3.7.2 Citation of references

 References should be cited by number in brackets, e.g. [12]. Superscript format should not be used.



4. Galley Proofs

In general, a submitted manuscript would be published in the IEICE Transactions three months after acceptance. About 6-7 weeks prior to the publication, authors will be asked only once to proofread the galley proofs. In revising the manuscript, only misprints may be changed. Be aware that we do not accept any change in the authors' names including the order of the listed authors. Our editorial policy does not allow modification in title or authors' names except that authors have the justifiable reason.



5. Page Charges

5.1 Page charges

All authors, including authors of invited papers, are required to pay for the page charges to partially cover the cost of publication. Peer review of your manuscript is provided as a service. Authors are entitled to 50 reprints of their article. Detailed information on page charges is given in Appendix B. An invoice will be sent to the corresponding author as soon as the amount of the page charges is determined. Detailed instructions on payment methods will accompany the invoice.


5.2 Penalties for failure to pay for page charges

If payment is not completed within one year after publication, we will prohibit all the authors of the unpaid manuscript from submitting any new submissions to the IEICE Transactions. The prohibition shall continue until the payment is confirmed.
For authors with IEICE membership who paid their membership fees by credit cards: If payment is not completed within one year after publication, we will withdraw the page charges from one of the credit cards. All IEICE members in the authors are subject to this collection.
(These penalties apply to manuscripts submitted after June 1, 2006.)


5.3 Overseas Membership Development Program (OMDP)

As part of our effort to support IEICE Overseas Members residing in Asia(except Republic of Korea and Taiwan), Africa, Central America & South America, the Overseas Membership Development Program (OMDP) provides a discount on page charges. For details on eligibility for each Membership grade, please refer to our web site: http://www.ieice.org/eng/member/OM-appli.html.
If the first author of a manuscript meets the requirements of the OMDP, the page charges will be reduced by 60% at the authors request. Furthermore, in case that the first author is an Overseas Student Member, the page charges will be reduced by 80%. (For further information, please refer to the table of page charges of the OMDP (http://www.ieice.or.jp/eng/shiori/appb.html). Any authors who wish to apply for the discount should submit a written request to the OMDP.The discount will only be considered for manuscripts of which an electronic version of the final manuscript is submitted in the format specified by the IEICE LaTex style file provided by the IEICE. Failure to follow any of the above procedures will disqualify the applicant from receiving the discount, and full payment of the page charges will be requested.
NOTE: Because of the recent rapid economic development of Republic of Korea and Taiwan, applications from members of these countries for the IEICE Overseas Membership Development Program(OMDP) are no longer accepted from April 2005. (The discount on page charges by OMDP is not provided to author(s) whose manuscript is submitted after April 1, 2005(JST).)



6. Copyright

The copyrights of all articles in the Transactions published by the IEICE are automatically transferred to the IEICE. However, the original authors retain the right to copy, translate or modify their own manuscripts.
In cases when a manuscript is translated into another language or when any portion of the manuscript is to be submitted to another publication, authors should register the action with the IEICE, and the original manuscript should be clearly cited in the publications.

(1) When transfer of the copyright of the manuscript to the IEICE is difficult for any of the following exceptional reasons, a report should be submitted at the time of initial submission to the IEICE Publishing Office for further discussion.

(a) Author(s) do not desire to transfer the copyright of an article contributed as a special lecture at a conference.
(b) Contents of an article jointly belong both to the author and to an organization to which the author belongs, and the organization will not permit copyright transfer of the manuscript. Manuscripts should be prepared upon understanding of the above rules.
(2) When citations from other publications are made, the following should be noted.
(a) Attention should be paid to the copyright of references to be cited.
(b) When references to figures, tables, and photos in other books and journals are cited, obtain permission from authors and publishers holding their copyrights prior to their use. For the detail, refer to the IEICE Provisions on Copyright.

7. Review Process

7.1 Review criteria

1. Originality:
The author of a manuscript, when another manuscript has priority, shall be obliged to refer to this fact.
Papers on system development, even when integrating preexisting technologies, shall be considered for originality from the following viewpoints.
1) Innovativeness in combination,
2) Innovativeness in system, and
3) Innovativeness in knowledge available from the system developed.

2. Practicality:
Manuscripts shall be evaluated as effective when their contents are interesting to readers and their achievements contribute in some way to developing science and technology.
The viewpoints are the importance of the subject dealt with therein and how far the achievements available from the manuscript may contribute to settlement of the problem.
It is often the case with Papers on system development that the evaluation of a similar system has not been announced or, even if announced, is difficult to make under common conditions with the developed system. In this case, when a manuscript describes a system such that this is recognized to be totally or partially superior to other similar systems, it shall be evaluated as effective.

3. Reliability:
It shall be the responsibility of the author to ensure the reliability of the manuscript, and his (her) sincere efforts towards such responsibility will, as a matter of course ensure reliability.
It shall not be required to describe every calculation and experiment in detail for the evaluation of the reliability of a manuscript.
Additional considerations shall be necessary as follows:
1) Whether important documents are referred to and evaluated fairly without exception.
2) Whether comparisons and evaluations with conventional technologies and their results are made sufficiently leading to a correct conclusion.
3) Whether sufficient efforts are made using theories, experiments, and simulations to support the conclusion (however, sufficient support may not be required for a manuscript with superior ideas depending on the field it concerns).
4) Whether the conditions used for experiments, etc., are clearly described.


7.2 Decision to accept for publication

Based on the judgments of the reviewers, the Editorial Committee will make one of the following decisions regarding PAPERS and LETTERS.

1. Acceptance:
The decision is made if the manuscript meets the overall criteria described in Section 7.1,and is judged to be of interest to the readers of the IEICE Transactions. There are two cases. The first case is that the manuscript is accepted as it is. The second case is that the manuscript is accepted under the condition that the English of the manuscript should be improved according to the suggestions made by the Associate Editor. The IEICE could provide free services for correcting English grammar for authors who are with non-profit organizations, in which case the authors should contact the IEICE Publishing Office in advance

2. Conditional acceptance:
The decision is made if the manuscript in its present form does not meet the overall criteria described in Section 7.1, but is judged to be capable of meeting them with revision. The conditional acceptance is made only once, and a revised manuscript (described in below) that fails to satisfy the conditions will be rejected.

* Revised manuscript submission
A revised manuscript should be resubmitted within 60 days of the date of acknowledgement of Conditional Acceptance. If the 60 days limit is exceeded, and there are no extenuating circumstances, then the manuscript will be considered as a new submission. The time limit may be shortened for Special Sections (Special Issues). The author(s) must attach an accompanying letter to the Associate Editor indicating how they have revised the manuscript in accordance with the the Reviewer's and Associate Editor's comments.
NOTE : In revising the manuscript, be aware of the following.
* When the Authors make any additions or corrections, the section(s) should be marked so that the Reviewer can clearly identify the changes made.
* Any changes in the authors' names including the order of the listed authors are not accepted after the initial submission.

3. Rejection:
The decision is made if the manuscript does not meet the overall criteria described in Section 7.1 and requires major revisions with excessive editing, or if the subject matter is not suitable for the scope of the IEICE Transactions.


7.3 Resubmission

For manuscripts receiving rejection notices or of manuscripts receiving conditional acceptance notices but withdrawn at authors' discretion, the revised version of the manuscript may be resubmitted. Upon resubmission, the previous manuscript's reference number must be provided on the cover sheet.


7.4 Request for Reconsideration

Authors who have received rejection notices may request reconsideration on the part of the Editorial Committee. This shall be done by clearly stating the specific reasons for the request by writing on a separate sheet under the title "Formal Complaint."

(a) Written request shall be accepted for reconsideration. The deadline for submission is within 60 days of the date of the rejection notice. When requesting reconsideration, no amendments or additions to that manuscript shall be accepted.
(b) The Editorial Committee shall carefully study the claims and if they should be recognized as being appropriate, the rejected manuscript shall be reconsidered.
(c) The procedures for the reconsideration of the manuscript shall be in accordance with the normal review procedures.
(d) Requests for reconsideration shall be limited to one request per manuscript.

7.5 English Quality Check (EQC)

Some of the submissions to this journal do not adhere to high enough standards of English. In response to this, we have introduced the English Quality Check (EQC) as an experimental means of improving the quality of submissions. As a part of the EQC program, each submitted draft is checked by a native English speaker prior to beginning its review process. The result of the check is then used by the associate editor and other reviewers as a reference during the review process.
The associate editor may reject a submission because of its low English quality before assigning reviewers; in this case, the normal review criteria, Originality, Practicality, and Reliability are not taken into consideration. It should be noted that, even if a submission contains very high quality content, it may be still be rejected if it does not meet the journal's English quality standards.