Journal Guide

Sustainable Materials and Technologies (SM&T) is an international, cross-disciplinary and fully open access journal, published by Elsevier. SM&T publishes original full-length research articles and reviews in applied or fundamental science of nano-, micro-, meso-, and macro-scale aspects of materials and technologies for sustainable development with special attention to contributions that reduce the knowledge gap between materials and system designs.

Aims and Scope
SM&T acknowledges the interdisciplinary nature of scientific research on sustainable development and covers a broad and wide scope. It provides a scientific platform for physicists, mathematicians, chemists material scientists, engineers and other technical experts to contribute innovative works and combine the different disciplines in Sustainability Science and Technology related to:
• Resource-efficiency optimization (e.g., minimize amount of precious metals in product design)
• Waste minimization and management (e.g., CO2 capture and water purification)
• Material recycling and materials recovery from complex products
• Material substitution to enable lower-impact production and/or use (e.g., composites)
• Life cycle analyses of sustainable technologies
• Energy sources for the long term
• Materials performance targets in the context of a system design
• Advanced manufacturing processes with reduced energy, water, and materials footprint

Submissions focusing only on policy/decision making or economic aspects are unsuitable to SM&T.

Paper type
There are several options for authors to publish their recent works in SM&T:
• Fast track communication: Outstanding short articles reporting novel, recent and interesting works with high impact can benefit from accelerate publication procedure.
• Paper: Original scientific articles that are in line with the aims and scope of the journal.
• Notes: Brief descriptions of a technique, a small but important experiment or theoretical point, or a novel solution to a commonly encountered problem in sustainable science and technology fall in this category.
• Comments and replies: Critiques about a published article which should not be more than 500words (1 to 2 journal pages). The original authors will be invited to submit a reply.
• Invited topical reviews: Intended to summarize an accepted report on a recent development. Invited by the Editorial board and written by experts in related fields.

Papers from engineers, natural and social scientists as well as philosophers are invited and those at the interface between these disciplines are particularly encouraged. Types of article published by the journal include original research, perspectives, short communications, policy and review papers. All papers should include some elements of life cycle thinking and should clearly demonstrate that they are addressing topics related to sustainable production and consumption. Note that papers on end-of-pipe treatment technologies are outside the scope.

The areas and topics covered by the journal include but are not limited to:

Concepts and approaches
• Circular economy
• Clean technology/cleaner production
• Climate change mitigation
• Consumer engagement and communication
• Corporate social responsibility
• Eco-efficiency
• Ecosystem services
• Ethical investment and consumption
• Green/sustainable chemistry
• Industrial ecology
• Intra/Intergenerational equity
• Life cycle management
• Life cycle thinking
• Life cycle sustainability assessment
• Producer responsibility
• Rebound effect
• Supply chain management
• Sustainable design
• Sustainable lifestyles
• Sustainable policies
• Sustainable procurement
• Sustainable products and services

Tools
• Carbon and water footprinting
• Analysis of consumer preferences and attitudes
• Economic instruments
• Integrated product policies
• Internalisation of environmental and social costs
• Life cycle assessment
• Life cycle costing
• Material flow analysis
• Multi-criteria decision analysis
• Scenario analysis
• Social life cycle assessment
• Stakeholder analysis
• Sustainability indicators
• System optimisation

Sectors
• Chemicals
• Construction and buildings
• Energy
• Financial
• Food
• Health
• Manufacturing
• Resources and feedstocks
• Retail
• Tourism
• Transport and mobility
• Waste
• Water

Introduction:To tackle complex real world problems, scientists have been looking into natural processes and creatures - both as model and metaphor - for years. Optimization is at the heart of many natural processes including Darwinian evolution, social group behavior and foraging strategies. Over the last few decades, there has been remarkable growth in the field of nature-inspired search and optimization algorithms. Currently these techniques are applied to a variety of problems, ranging from scientific research to industry and commerce. The two main families of algorithms that primarily constitute this field today are the evolutionary computing methods and the swarm intelligence algorithms. Although both families of algorithms are generally dedicated towards solving search and optimization problems, they are certainly not equivalent, and each has its own distinguishing features. Reinforcing each other's performance makes powerful hybrid algorithms capable of solving many intractable search and optimization problems.About the journal:Swarm and Evolutionary Computation is the first peer-reviewed publication of its kind that aims at reporting the most recent research and developments in the area of nature-inspired intelligent computation based on the principles of swarm and evolutionary algorithms. It publishes advanced, innovative and interdisciplinary research involving the theoretical, experimental and practical aspects of the two paradigms and their hybridizations. Swarm and Evolutionary Computation is committed to timely publication of very high-quality, peer-reviewed, original articles that advance the state-of-the art of all aspects of evolutionary computation and swarm intelligence. Survey papers reviewing the state-of-the-art of timely topics will also be welcomed as well as novel and interesting applications.Topics of Interest:Topics of interest include but are not limited to: Genetic Algorithms, and Genetic Programming, Evolution Strategies, and Evolutionary Programming, Differential Evolution, Artificial Immune Systems, Particle Swarms, Ant Colony, Bacterial Foraging, Artificial Bees, Fireflies Algorithm, Harmony Search, Artificial Life, Digital Organisms, Estimation of Distribution Algorithms, Stochastic Diffusion Search, Quantum Computing, Nano Computing, Membrane Computing, Human-centric Computing, Hybridization of Algorithms, Memetic Computing, Autonomic Computing, Self-organizing systems, Combinatorial, Discrete, Binary, Constrained, Multi-objective, Multi-modal, Dynamic, and Large-scale Optimization.Applications:Furthermore, the journal fosters industrial uptake by publishing interesting and novel applications in fields and industries dealing with challenging search and optimization problems from domains such as (but not limited to): Aerospace, Systems and Control, Robotics, Power Systems, Communication Engineering, Operations Research and Decision Sciences, Financial Services and Engineering, (Management) Information Systems, Business Intelligence, internet computing, Sensors, Image Processing, Computational Chemistry, Manufacturing, Structural and Mechanical Designs, Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Mathematical and Computational Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience, Brain-computer Interfacing, Future Computing Devices, Nonlinear statistical and Applied Physics, and Environmental Modeling and Software.

This journal is an international medium for the rapid publication of original research papers, short communications and subject reviews dealing with research on and applications of electronic polymers and electronic molecular materials including novel carbon architectures. These functional materials have the properties of metals, semiconductors or magnets and are distinguishable from elemental and alloy/binary metals, semiconductors and magnets.Materials considered to be within the purview of this journal include:• low-dimensional conductors and superconductors such as organic charge-transfer compounds and metal chain compounds• conducting and semiconducting polymers and molecular materials• fullerenes, carbon nanotubes and related novel carbon architectures• supramolecular conjugated architectures• nanoscale electronic molecular and electronic polymer materials• molecule- and polymer-based magnets.Experimental, theoretical and application papers on the chemistry, physics and engineering of these materials are encouraged for submission. Original manuscripts on their chemical, electrochemical, electrical, photonic and magnetic properties will be considered for publication. Papers on electronic, electroluminescent, lasing, solar cell, anticorrosion, sensor, actuator, biological and other potential device applications of these materials are encouraged.

This international journal is devoted to the applications of educational technology and applied linguistics to problems of foreign language teaching and learning. Attention is paid to all languages and to problems associated with the study and teaching of English as a second or foreign language. The journal serves as a vehicle of expression for colleagues in developing countries. System prefers its contributors to provide articles which have a sound theoretical base with a visible practical application which can be generalized. The review section may take up works of a more theoretical nature to broaden the background.Benefits to authorsWe also provide many author benefits, such as free PDFs, a liberal copyright policy, special discounts on Elsevier publications and much more. Please click here for more information on our author services.Please see our Guide for Authors for information on article submission. If you require any further information or help, please visit our support pages: http://support.elsevier.com

Systematic and Applied Microbiology deals with various aspects of microbialdiversity and systematics of prokaryotes. It focuses on Bacteria and Archaea; eukaryotic microorganisms will only be considered in rare cases. The journal perceives a broad understanding of microbial diversity and encourages the submission of manuscripts from the following branches of microbiology: Systematics: Theoretical and practical issues dealing with classification and taxonomy, i.e. (i) new descriptions or revisions of prokaryotic taxa, including descriptions of not-yet cultured taxa in the category Candidatus (ii) innovative methods for the determination of taxonomical and genealogical relationships, (iii) evaluation of intra-taxon diversity through multidisciplinary approaches, (iv) identification methods. Applied Microbiology: all aspects of agricultural, industrial, and food microbiology are welcome, including water and wastewater treatment. Comparative biochemistry and genomics: studies concerning biochemical/metabolic and genomic diversity of cultured as well as yet-uncultured Bacteria and Archaea. Ecology: descriptions of the microbial diversity in natural and man-made ecosystem; studies quantifying the size, dynamics, and function of microbial populations; innovative research on the interaction of micro-organisms with each other and their biotic and abiotic environment.

Systems & Control Letters has become one of the leading journals in the field. The aim of the journal is to allow rapid dissemination of contributions in the area of systems and control, in the form of concise papers. All aspects of the field are covered. Mathematically oriented papers having a clear relevance to systems and control as well as papers describing specific applications in engineering, economics, the physical sciences, signal processing, etc. are accepted. In addition to research papers, also discussion papers, appealing illustrative examples, and brief reviews of recent or to be published papers, are acceptable.Articles are limited to 8 journal pages, including figures, with a preference for articles not exceeding 6 pages. The concise article format permits the editorial board to process papers very rapidly and enables the reader to learn efficiently about new results and developments.Originality, quality and clarity are the criteria for choosing the material to be published in Systems & Control Letters. The subject matter can be theory, methodology, empirical studies or applications.Benefits to authorsWe also provide many author benefits, such as free PDFs, a liberal copyright policy, special discounts on Elsevier publications and much more. Please click here for more information on our author services.Please see our Guide for Authors for information on article submission. If you require any further information or help, please visit our support pages: http://support.elsevier.com