Vox Sanguinis

The Official Journal of the International Society of Blood Transfusion

Edited by:
Wolfgang Mayr

Print ISSN: 0042-9007
Online ISSN: 1423-0410
Frequency: Eight times a year
Current Volume: 98 / 2010
ISI Journal Citation Reports® Ranking: 2008: 27/62 Hematology
Impact Factor: 2.755

TopAuthor Guidelines

Submission of Manuscripts

All manuscripts should be submitted online at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/vox. Please submit all elements of the text in one file only. To submit you will require a user ID and password, which can be obtained on first use of the submission web site. Full instructions are provided. All file types are supported but to help Editors and reviewers view the submission the following types are recommended: text in Microsoft Word or generic rich text format (RTF), figures in Word, TIFF or JPEG format. Please consult the Wiley-Blackwell's electronic artwork guidelines at http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/illustration.asp. Macintosh users are advised to add the correct three-letter filename suffix. It is strongly recommended that, where possible, you combine all parts of your submission into a single document. Full help and support are provided by e-mail (support@scholarone.com), the web (http://blackwellsupport.custhelp.com) or telephone (+ 1 434-817-2040 ext. 167).

If you cannot submit online please contact the editor:

W. R. Mayr
University Clinic for Blood Group
Serology and Transfusion Medicine
Medical University of Vienna
Währinger Gürtel 18-20
A-1090 Vienna, Austria

Tel: + 43 1 40400 5337
Fax: + 43 1 40400 5321
e-mail: wolfgang.mayr@meduniwien.ac.at

Only original papers written in English will be considered for publication. The author who submits a paper for publication is responsible that all other authors agree to its submission, and this should be acknowledged in the covering letter provided during the submission.

Conditions and Exclusive Licence Form
All manuscripts are subject to editorial review. No page charges are levied. Manuscripts are received with the explicit understanding that they have not previously been published elsewhere nor are they under simultaneous consideration by any other publisher. Manuscripts must comply with the COPE guidelines (see below).

Papers accepted must be licensed for publication in Vox Sanguinis and a completed Exclusive Licence Form must accompany every accepted paper. Authors will be required to license copyright in their paper to Wiley-Blackwell. Copyright licensing is a condition of publication and papers will not be passed to the publisher for production unless copyright has been licensed. Upon acceptance of an article, authors must fax the completed Exclusive Licence Form to the Production Editor on Fax: +65 6511 8288.

Online Open
OnlineOpen is available to authors of primary research articles who wish to make their article available to non-subscribers on publication, or whose funding agency requires grantees to archive the final version of their article. With OnlineOpen, the author, the author's funding agency, or the author's institution pays a fee to ensure that the article is made available to non-subscribers upon publication via Wiley Interscience, as well as deposited in the funding agency's preferred archive. For the full list of terms and conditions, see http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/authorresources/onlineopen.html#OnlineOpen_Terms. Any authors wishing to send their paper OnlineOpen will be required to complete the payment form available from our website at Online Open Form. Prior to acceptance there is no requirement to inform the Editorial Office that you intend to publish your paper OnlineOpen if you do not wish to. All OnlineOpen articles are treated in the same way as any other article. They go through the journal's standard peer-review process and will be accepted or rejected based on their own merit.

Rapid Communications
Manuscripts intended for Rapid Communication must present new findings of sufficient importance to justify their accelerated acceptance. They should follow the general arrangement of research papers with the exception that no abstract or introduction are required. The first paragraph should include the reason for the study and the main findings. They should not exceed 8 double-spaced manuscript pages in length, including figures, tables and references. Proofs are checked by the Editor and not sent to the author. Review will be rapid, and once accepted, the paper will be included in the next available issue.

Short reports, Case reports
They may include up to 1100 words of text, two figures or tables and up to 12 references. A summary of up to 100 words should be followed by continuous text, subdivided if appropriate.
Short reports: Short reports describing completed work on significant novel developments into scientific or clinical aspects of transfusion medicine may be published. Short reports could include important preliminary observations, short methods papers, therapeutic advances, and any significant scientific or clinical observations which are best published in this format. Publication of initial results which will lead to more substantial papers will generally be discouraged.
Case reports: The submission of Case Reports is not encouraged, but they will be considered if the report includes novel scientific material or is of extraordinary clinical interest. Case reports should include a brief description of the case and a comment section discussing the salient features in the context of the World literature.

Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor are welcome but should contain no more than 450 words and a maximum of five references.

Presentation of Manuscripts
Papers should be structured as follows: (a) Title Page, (b) Structured abstract, (c) Text, (d) References, (e) Figure and Table Legends, (f) Figures and Tables.

Title page: The first page of each paper should indicate the title, the authors' full names, and the institute where the work was conducted. A short title for use as running head is also required. Give details of sources of research support (where applicable).

Full address: The exact postal address of the author to whom correspondence should be sent, complete with postal code must be given at the bottom of the title page. Please also supply phone and fax numbers, as well as your e-mail address.

Abstract: Each paper needs an abstract of up to 15 lines which should be organised as follows:
Background and Objectives: What is the purpose of the study?
Materials and Methods: How was the study done?
Results: Most important findings?
Conclusion: Most important conclusion?

The abstract should include only text. Avoid the use of abbreviations and citations. Supply three to six keywords.

Text: All manuscripts must have an appropriate introduction, a single materials and methods section (with the methodology of all experiments), results and discussion. English spellings should be used. Authors can express measurements in SI Units. Except for units of measurement abbreviations should be spelled out on first use and should be standard. Drug names should be generic, although authors may add brand names in parentheses if they wish.

Illustrations and Figures: Please do not send original illustrations, instead submit three sets of good photocopies. Illustrations should be numbered on the back, with orientation and author's name. Any lettering or symbols must be large enough to stand reduction in size; publication could be delayed if lettering or symbols are too small. Explanatory legends should be provided on a separate sheet of paper.

Electronic Artwork: We would like to receive your artwork in electronic form. Please save vector graphics (e.g. line artwork) in Encapsulated Postscript format (EPS) and bitmap files (e.g. half-tones) in Tagged Image File Format (TIFF). Ideally, vector graphics that have been saved in metafile (.WMF) or pict (.PCT) format should be embedded within the body of the text file. Avoid using tints if possible; if they are essential to the understanding of the figure, try to make them coarse. Always enclose a hard copy of digitally supplied figures. Detailed information on digital illustration standards is available on the Wiley-Blackwell's homepage at http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/illustration.asp.

Colour Figures: It is the policy of Vox Sanguinis for authors to pay the full cost for the reproduction of their colour artwork. Therefore, please note that if there is colour artwork in your manuscript when it is accepted for publication, Wiley-Blackwell requires you to complete and return a colour work agreement before your paper can be published. This form can be downloaded as a PDF from the internet. The web address for the form is: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/pdf/SN_Upw2000_X_CoW.pdf If you are unable to download the form please contact the production editor at: vox@wiley.com and they will be able to email or fax a form to you.

Once completed, please return the form to the production editor at the address below:

Production Editor
Vox Sanguinis
Journal Content Management
Wiley Services Singapore Pte Ltd
600 North Bridge Road
#05-01 Parkview Square
Singapore 188778
Fax: +65 6511 8288

Any article received by Wiley-Blackwell with colour work will not be published until the form has been returned.

Tables: These should be numbered an provided with the manuscript. Each table requires a title; short legend may also be provided if necessary. Please identify footnotes (which should be kept to a minimum and written in bold print) by superscripts, a, b, c etc. Do not use graphics software to create tables.

References: In the text identify references by Arabic numerals [in square brackets]. Material submitted for publication but not yet accepted should be noted as 'unpublished data' and not be included in the reference list. The list of references should include only those publications which are cited in the text. Do not alphabetise; number references in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. The surnames of the authors followed by initials should be given. There should be no punctuation other than a comma to separate the authors. Cite all authors: 'et al' is not sufficient. Journal names must be italicised, and abbreviated according to the Index Medicus system. (Also see International Committee of Medical Journal Editors: Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. N Engl J Med 1997;336:309-315.)

Examples
(a) Papers published in periodicals:
Ranasinghe E, Harrison JF: Bruising following blood donation, its management and the response and subsequent return rates of affected donors. Trans Med 2000; 10:113-116

(b) Monographs:
Mollison PL, Engelfriet CP, Contreras M: Blood Transfusion in Clinical Medicine, ed 10. Oxford, Blackwell Science, 1997

(c) Edited books:
Luzzatto L, Karadimitris A: The molecular basis of anaemia; in Provan D, Gribben J (ed): Molecular Haematology. Oxford, Blackwell Science, 2000

Reference management
We recommend the use of a tool such as EndNote or Reference Manager for reference management and formatting.
EndNote reference styles can be searched for here:
http://www.endnote.com/support/enstyles.asp

Reference Manager reference styles can be searched for here:
http://www.refman.com/support/rmstyles.asp

Ethical Policy
When reporting research on human subjects, the work must comply with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki (1964), and authors should indicate that ethical approval of the study was granted, and, where appropriate, that informed consent was given. The Editors reserve the right to reject a paper with questionable ethical justification.

Conflict of Interest
Authors are expected to disclose any commercial or other associations that might pose a conflict of interest in connection with the submitted article. All funding sources supporting the work, and institutional or corporate affiliations of the authors, should be acknowledged on the title page. Articles are considered for publication on the understanding that neither the article nor its essential substance has been or will be published elsewhere before appearing in Vox Sanguinis. Abstracts and press reports published in connection with scientific meetings are not considered as publications.

Manuscript Acceptance
After an article has been accepted for publication, the final version should be provided via http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/vox. Files should be formatted double-spaced with no hyphenation and automatic word-wrap (no hard returns within paragraphs). Please type your text consistently, e.g. take care to distinguish between '1' (one) and 'l' (lower-case L), and '0' (zero) and 'O' (capital o), etc.

Accepted manuscripts will be published from the electronic version. This reduces typesetting errors and speeds up publication. Authors must ensure that all sections of their paper, including tables and figure captions (but not actual figures), are presented in a single file, updated to incorporate all revisions, and that the file matches the final hard copy. In the full-text online edition of the journal, figure legends may be truncated in the abbreviated links to the full-screen version. Therefore, the first 100 characters of any legend should inform the reader of key aspects of the figure.

Manuscript format: Please note that it is imperative the manuscript is uploaded to ScholarOne Manuscripts as a Microsoft Word (see note below) or RTF file, and not as a PDF file, and that figures are uploaded in Word, TIFF or JPEG format. PDF files cannot be used for copyediting and typesetting; if the final version of your manuscript is supplied as a PDF file, this will delay the production process.

Word 2007: Please note that Word 2007 is not yet compatible with journal production systems. Unfortunately, the Journal cannot accept Microsoft Word 2007 documents until such time as a stable production version is released. Please use Word's 'Save As' option therefore to save your document as an older (.doc) file type.


Permissions
Materials copied from other sources must be accompanied by a written statement from both author and publisher giving permission to the Vox Sanguinis for reproduction. Obtain permission in writing from at least one author of papers still in press, of unpublished data and of personal communications. It is the author's responsibility to ensure that permissions are obtained.

All manuscripts will be carefully revised by the copy editor. When proofs are ready for checking, the corresponding author will receive an email alert containing a link to a web site. A working e-mail address must therefore be provided for the corresponding author. The proof can be downloaded as a PDF (portable document format) file from this site. Acrobat Reader will be required in order to read this file. This software can be downloaded (free of charge) from the following web site: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. This will enable the file to be opened, read on screen and printed out in order for any corrections to be added. Further instructions will be sent with the proof. Excessive changes made by the author in the proofs, excluding typesetting errors, will be charged separately.

Free access to the final PDF offprint or your article will be available via author services only. Please therefore sign up for author services if you would like to access your article PDF offprint and enjoy the many other benefits the service offers. Paper offprints can be ordered at the prices quoted on the order form, which accompanies the proofs, provided that the order is returned to the address indicated on the form.

We will be pleased to publish details of upcoming Transfusion Medicine events. Please write to the Editor-in-Chief giving dates, name of congress/meeting, venue and secretariat address.

Author Material Archive Policy

Please note that unless specifically requested, Wiley-Blackwell will dispose of all hardcopy or electronic material submitted 2 months after publication. If you require the return of any material submitted, please inform the editorial office or production editor as soon as possible if you have not yet done so.

Paper Policy

The Publisher's policy is to use permanent paper from mills that operate a sustainable forestry policy. Paper has been manufactured from pulp that is processed using acid-free and elementary chlorine-free practices. Furthermore, the Publisher ensures that the text paper and cover board used has met acceptable environmental accreditation standards.

Early View
Vox Sanguinis is covered by Wiley-Blackwell's Early View service. Early View articles are complete full-text articles published online in advance of their publication in a printed issue. Articles are therefore available as soon as they are ready, rather than having to wait for the next scheduled print issue. Early View articles are complete and final. They have been fully reviewed, revised and edited for publication, and the authors' final corrections have been incorporated. Because they are in final form, no changes can be made after online publication. The nature of Early View articles means that they do not yet have volume, issue or page numbers, so Early View articles cannot be cited in the traditional way. They are therefore given a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which allows the article to be cited and tracked before it is allocated to an issue. After print publication, the DOI remains valid and can continue to be used to cite and access the article. More information about DOIs can be found online at http://www.doi.org/faq.html

Author Services

NEW: Online production tracking is now available for your article through Wiley-Blackwell's Author Services.
Author Services enables authors to track their article - once it has been accepted - through the production process to publication online and in print. Authors can check the status of their articles online and choose to receive automated e-mails at key stages of production. The author will receive an e-mail with a unique link that enables them to register and have their article automatically added to the system. Please ensure that a complete e-mail address is provided when submitting the manuscript. Visit http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor for more details on online production tracking and for a wealth of resources including FAQs and tips on article preparation, submission and more.

Disclaimer

The Publisher, the International Society of Blood Transfusion and the Editors cannot be held responsible for errors or any consequences arising from the use of information contained in this journal; the views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Publisher, the International Society of Blood Transfusion and the Editors; neither does the publication of advertisements constitute any endorsement by the Publisher, the International Society of Blood Transfusion and the Editors of the products advertised.

COPE

Vox Sanguinis adheres to the guidelines on good publication practice of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and to the uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). See http://www.publicationethics.org and http://www.icmje.org, respectively, for details.