Submission guidelines

Manuscripts must be written in English of acceptable standard. The topic must be related to

• optimal design of structures (stressed systems)or
• multidisciplinary optimization techniques if one discipline involved is (or is potentially) structural or fluids design.

Requirements for papers focusing on new or improved global optimization algorithms

Suggestions for helping readers reproduce results presented in your paper

The following types of manuscripts will be considered for publication.

Research Papers

• Research Papers must describe original results of researchincluding an abstractan introduction with a literature surveyformulationderivations and/or algorithm developmentillustrative examplesconclusions and references with longer derivations possibly in appendices. They should preferably not exceed 12 journal pages.

Review Articles

• Review Articles must represent a comprehensive overview of an entire field and preferably should not exceed 18 journal pages whichmust include an exhaustive literature survey.

Industrial Applications

• Industrial Applications describe practical but challenging applications of structural and multidisciplinary optimization.

Brief Notes

• Brief Notes must not exceed 4 journal pagesand may describe a preliminary report on ideas and results of major importance. They receive a high priority in publication.

Educational Articles

• Educational Articles contain information which is likely to be used in teaching methods of structural and multidisciplinary optimization. It includes (i) innovative design optimization strategies and their assessment; (ii) needed tutorial material for methods that have already established their usefulness for a wide audience.

Book Reviews

• Book Reviews must present a comprehensivebalanced and critical review of a book in a field related to the scope of the journal.

Benchmark case studies

• Benchmark case studies contain solutions for a set of problemswhich are suitable for testing new methods in future resarch papers

Discussions

• Discussions represent constructive and meaningful comments and criticisms on any publication in the journalsubmitted within twelve months of the appearance of the latter. They should not exceed two journal pages.

ISSMO News

• ISSMO News report on events relevant to the International Society of Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization.

The final decision on the manuscript type will be made by the Editor-in-Chief just before online publlication.

Editorial procedure

Single-blind peer review

This journal follows a single-blind reviewing procedure.

This journal also publishes special/guest-edited issues. The peer review process for these articles is the same as the peer review process of the journal in general.

Additionallyif a guest editor authors an article in their issue/collectionthey will not handle the peer review process.

Peer-review Process

Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization (SAMO) follows a single-blind reviewing procedure.

Although the Editors of SAMO strive for the most timely and efficient process for peer reviewour overarching goal is to provide substantive reviews to our authors along with constructive suggestions for improvements and clarifications when needed.

Manuscripts submitted to SAMO are usually reviewed by two referees selected from the relevant worldwide research community together with one Editor. No article is accepted without two complete and final reviews. For revisions of prior submissionsit is common for suggested major revisions to be re-evaluated by the original refereesbut articles requiring only minor revisions are often only re-evaluated by the original Editors and Editors-in-Chief.

The reviewers handling a paper are all anonymous and are invited by the manuscript’s Handling Editorwho is selected by the Editor-in-Chief by a unique volunteering system. In this system the Editor-in-Chief typically invites multiple editors to volunteer as the Handling Editor for a manuscript. This approach helps to ensure a good subject and interest match with the editor. Although Editors are tasked with making recommendations on each submission that they handle and can request revisions as wellonly the Editor-in-Chief can make a final decision to accept or reject an article.

When selecting reviewersthe editorial board seeks to avoid conflicts of interest and close associates of the authorssuch as frequent collaboratorsformer adviseesor former advisors. SAMO accepts manuscript submissions from its own editorial board members in cases in which the identities of the Editor and referees handling the manuscript can remain fully confidential. To be acceptedmanuscripts submitted by editorial board members must meet the same quality standards as all other accepted submissions; there is no special preference or consideration given to such submissions.

SAMO also publishes special issues. The peer review process of any submission associated with a special issue is handled by Guest Editors who are responsible for assigning at least two referees to each article and evaluating the reviews. Like our EditorsGuest Editors make recommendations and request and evaluate revisionsbut only the Editor-in-Chief can make final decisions of accept or reject on any special issue article. In typical cases the Guest Editors consist of a mix of regular editors and invited guest editors to ensure a consistent reviewing process and standards. Also invited guest editors are vetted carefully by the Editor-in-Chief to ensure that they possess the required academic credentials for the subject matter of the Special Issue. (Typicallywe do let papers stay within the Guest Editors. Very often a good portion of the GEs are our regular editors)

Manuscript Submission

Manuscript Submission

Submission of a manuscript implies: that the work described has not been published before; that it is not under consideration for publication anywhere else; that its publication has been approved by all co-authorsif anyas well as by the responsible authorities – tacitly or explicitly – at the institute where the work has been carried out. The publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.

Permissions

Authors wishing to include figurestablesor text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.

Online Submission

Please follow the hyperlink “Submit manuscript” and upload all of your manuscript files following the instructions given on the screen.

Source Files

Please ensure you provide all relevant editable source files at every submission and revision. Failing to submit a complete set of editable source files will result in your article not being considered for review. For your manuscript text please always submit in common word processing formats such as .docx or LaTeX.

Submitting Declarations

Please note that Author Contribution information and Competing Interest information must be provided at submission via the submission interface. Only the information submitted via the interface will be used in the final published version. Please make sure that if you are an editorial board member and also a listed author that you also declare this information in the Competing Interest section of the interface.

Please see the relevant sections in the submission guidelines for further information on these statements as well as possible other mandatory statements.

Title Page

Please make sure your title page contains the following information.

Title

The title should be concise and informative.

Author information

• The name(s) of the author(s)
• The affiliation(s) of the author(s)i.e. institution(department)city(state)country
• A clear indication and an active e-mail address of the corresponding author
• If availablethe 16-digit ORCID of the author(s)

If address information is provided with the affiliation(s) it will also be published.

For authors that are (temporarily) unaffiliated we will only capture their city and country of residencenot their e-mail address unless specifically requested.

Large Language Models (LLMs)such as ChatGPTdo not currently satisfy our authorship criteria. Notably an attribution of authorship carries with it accountability for the workwhich cannot be effectively applied to LLMs. Use of an LLM should be properly documented in the Methods section (and if a Methods section is not availablein a suitable alternative part) of the manuscript. The use of an LLM (or other AI-tool) for "AI assisted copy editing" purposes does not need to be declared. In this contextwe define the term "AI assisted copy editing" as AI-assisted improvements to human-generated texts for readability and and to ensure that the texts are free of errors in grammarspellingpunctuation and tone. These AI-assisted improvements may include wording and formatting changes to the textsbut do not include generative editorial work and autonomous content creation. In all casesthere must be human accountability for the final version of the text and agreement from the authors that the edits reflect their original work.

Abstract

Please provide an abstract of 150 to 250 words. The abstract should not contain any undefined abbreviations or unspecified references.

For life science journals only (when applicable)

• Trial registration number and date of registration for prospectively registered trials
• Trial registration number and date of registrationfollowed by “retrospectively registered”for retrospectively registered trials

Keywords

Please provide 4 to 6 keywords which can be used for indexing purposes.

Statements and Declarations

The following statements should be included under the heading "Statements and Declarations" for inclusion in the published paper. Please note that submissions that do not include relevant declarations will be returned as incomplete.

• Competing Interests: Authors are required to disclose financial or non-financial interests that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication. Please refer to “Competing Interests and Funding” below for more information on how to complete this section.

Please see the relevant sections in the submission guidelines for further information as well as various examples of wording. Please revise/customize the sample statements according to your own needs.

Text

For LaTeX submissions we encourage authors to use the Springer Nature LaTeX template when preparing a submission.

Please ensure you provide all relevant editable source files at every submission and revision.

Text Formatting

Manuscripts should be submitted in LaTeX. We recommend using Springer Nature’s LaTeX template and choosing the formatting option “[iicol]”. The submission should include the original source (including all files and figures) and a PDF version of the compiled output.

Word files are also accepted.

Headings

Please use the decimal system of headings with no more than three levels.

Abbreviations

Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used consistently thereafter.

Footnotes

Footnotes can be used to give additional informationwhich may include the citation of a reference included in the reference list. They should not consist solely of a reference citationand they should never include the bibliographic details of a reference. They should also not contain any figures or tables.

Footnotes to the text are numbered consecutively; those to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data). Footnotes to the title or the authors of the article are not given reference symbols.

Always use footnotes instead of endnotes.

Acknowledgments and Funding Information

Acknowledgments of peoplegrantsfundsetc. should be placed in a separate section on the title page. The names of funding organizations should be written in full. In additionplease provide the funding information in a separate step of the submission process in the peer review system. Funder names should preferably be selected from the standardized list you will see during submission. If the funding institution you need is not listedit can be entered as free text. Funding information will be published as searchable metadata for the accepted articlewhereas acknowledgements are published within the paper.

Mandatory section:

Replication of results: It is desirable that papersespecially on new methodologyshould help readers reproduce results presented in the paper. This can be done in a variety of waysincluding making data or codes available as supplementary material. It is recognized that this is not always possiblebut in that case the paper should explain why it is not possible. Thereforesubmitted papers are required to have a section titled Replication of results that will address this topic. This section should appear just before the References section. If no results are presented in the paper. The section should have the following sentence: No results are presented.

Scientific

Please use the standard mathematical notation for formulaesymbols etc.:

• Italic for single letters that denote mathematical constantsvariablesand unknown quantities
• Roman/upright for numeralsoperatorsand punctuationand commonly defined functions or abbreviationse.g.cosdete or explimlogmaxminsintand (for derivative)
• Bold for vectorstensorsand matrices.

References

Citation

Cite references in the text by name and year in parentheses. Some examples:

• Negotiation research spans many disciplines (Thompson 1990).
• This result was later contradicted by Becker and Seligman (1996).
• This effect has been widely studied (Abbott 1991; Barakat et al. 1995ab; Kelso and Smith 1998; Medvec et al. 19992000).

Reference list

The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications and unpublished works should only be mentioned in the text.

Reference list entries should be alphabetized by the last names of the first author of each work. Please alphabetize according to the following rules: 1) For one authorby name of authorthen chronologically; 2) For two authorsby name of authorthen name of coauthorthen chronologically; 3) For more than two authorsby name of first authorthen chronologically.

If availableplease always include DOIs as full DOI links in your reference list (e.g. “https://doi.org/abc”).

• Journal article

  Gamelin FXBaquet GBerthoin SThevenet DNourry CNottin SBosquet L (2009) Effect of high intensity intermittent training on heart rate variability in prepubescent children. Eur J Appl Physiol 105:731-738. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-008-0955-8

  Ideallythe names of all authors should be providedbut the usage of “et al” in long author lists will also be accepted:

  Smith JJones M JrHoughton L et al (1999) Future of health insurance. N Engl J Med 965:325–329

• Article by DOI

  Slifka MKWhitton JL (2000) Clinical implications of dysregulated cytokine production. J Mol Med. https://doi.org/10.1007/s001090000086

• Book

  South JBlass B (2001) The future of modern genomics. BlackwellLondon

• Book chapter

  Brown BAaron M (2001) The politics of nature. In: Smith J (ed) The rise of modern genomics3rd edn. WileyNew Yorkpp 230-257

• Online document

  Cartwright J (2007) Big stars have weather too. IOP Publishing PhysicsWeb. http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/11/6/16/1. Accessed 26 June 2007

• Dissertation

  Trent JW (1975) Experimental acute renal failure. DissertationUniversity of California

Always use the standard abbreviation of a journal’s name according to the ISSN List of Title Word Abbreviationssee

ISSN LTWA

If you are unsureplease use the full journal title.

Additional Information References

Please note:

Authors are requested to check that any references used in the paper should follow the guidelines below

1.Keep a lean and relevant list of referenceunless the submission is a review that requires approval by an editor.

2.Only include works that are necessary and correctly cited in the text and that have been previously published or accepted for publicationand have direct relevance to the current submission.

3.Do not include more than 15 % of papers that have previously appeared in SAMO unless the work is essential to the submission.

4.Do not include self-works by any of the authors unless necessary to the current submission.

Papers that do not meet these guidelines will be returned to the author for correction before further consideration by the journal.

Tables

• All tables are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
• Tables should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.
• For each tableplease supply a table caption (title) explaining the components of the table.
• Identify any previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference at the end of the table caption.
• Footnotes to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data) and included beneath the table body.

Artwork and Illustrations Guidelines

Electronic Figure Submission

• Supply all figures electronically.
• Indicate what graphics program was used to create the artwork.
• For vector graphicsthe preferred format is EPS; for halftonesplease use TIFF format. MSOffice files are also acceptable.
• Vector graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the files.
• Name your figure files with "Fig" and the figure numbere.g.Fig1.eps.

Line Art

• Definition: Black and white graphic with no shading.
• Do not use faint lines and/or lettering and check that all lines and lettering within the figures are legible at final size.
• All lines should be at least 0.1 mm (0.3 pt) wide.
• Scanned line drawings and line drawings in bitmap format should have a minimum resolution of 1200 dpi.
• Vector graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the files.

Halftone Art

• Definition: Photographsdrawingsor paintings with fine shadingetc.
• If any magnification is used in the photographsindicate this by using scale bars within the figures themselves.
• Halftones should have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi.

Combination Art

• Definition: a combination of halftone and line arte.g.halftones containing line drawingextensive letteringcolor diagramsetc.
• Combination artwork should have a minimum resolution of 600 dpi.

Color Art

• Color art is free of charge for online publication.
• If black and white will be shown in the print versionmake sure that the main information will still be visible. Many colors are not distinguishable from one another when converted to black and white. A simple way to check this is to make a xerographic copy to see if the necessary distinctions between the different colors are still apparent.
• If the figures will be printed in black and whitedo not refer to color in the captions.
• Color illustrations should be submitted as RGB (8 bits per channel).

Figure Lettering

• To add letteringit is best to use Helvetica or Arial (sans serif fonts).
• Keep lettering consistently sized throughout your final-sized artworkusually about 2–3 mm (8–12 pt).
• Variance of type size within an illustration should be minimale.g.do not use 8-pt type on an axis and 20-pt type for the axis label.
• Avoid effects such as shadingoutline lettersetc.
• Do not include titles or captions within your illustrations.

Figure Numbering

• All figures are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
• Figures should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.
• Figure parts should be denoted by lowercase letters (abcetc.).
• If an appendix appears in your article and it contains one or more figurescontinue the consecutive numbering of the main text. Do not number the appendix figures,"A1A2A3etc." Figures in online appendices [Supplementary Information (SI)] shouldhoweverbe numbered separately.

Figure Captions

• Each figure should have a concise caption describing accurately what the figure depicts. Include the captions in the text file of the manuscriptnot in the figure file.
• Figure captions begin with the term Fig. in bold typefollowed by the figure numberalso in bold type.
• No punctuation is to be included after the numbernor is any punctuation to be placed at the end of the caption.
• Identify all elements found in the figure in the figure caption; and use boxescirclesetc.as coordinate points in graphs.
• Identify previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference citation at the end of the figure caption.

Figure Placement and Size

• Figures should be submitted within the body of the text. Only if the file size of the manuscript causes problems in uploading itthe large figures should be submitted separately from the text.
• When preparing your figuressize figures to fit in the column width.
• For large-sized journals the figures should be 84 mm (for double-column text areas)or 174 mm (for single-column text areas) wide and not higher than 234 mm.
• For small-sized journalsthe figures should be 119 mm wide and not higher than 195 mm.

Permissions

If you include figures that have already been published elsewhereyou must obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format. Please be aware that some publishers do not grant electronic rights for free and that Springer will not be able to refund any costs that may have occurred to receive these permissions. In such casesmaterial from other sources should be used.

Accessibility

In order to give people of all abilities and disabilities access to the content of your figuresplease make sure that

• All figures have descriptive captions (blind users could then use a text-to-speech software or a text-to-Braille hardware)
• Patterns are used instead of or in addition to colors for conveying information (colorblind users would then be able to distinguish the visual elements)
• Any figure lettering has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1

Generative AI Images

Please check Springer’s policy on generative AI images and make sure your work adheres to the principles described therein.

Supplementary Information (SI)

Springer accepts electronic multimedia files (animationsmoviesaudioetc.) and other supplementary files to be published online along with an article or a book chapter. This feature can add dimension to the author's articleas certain information cannot be printed or is more convenient in electronic form.

Before submitting research datasets as Supplementary Informationauthors should read the journal’s Research data policy. We encourage research data to be archived in data repositories wherever possible.

Submission

• Supply all supplementary material in standard file formats.
• Please include in each file the following information: article titlejournal nameauthor names; affiliation and e-mail address of the corresponding author.
• To accommodate user downloadsplease keep in mind that larger-sized files may require very long download times and that some users may experience other problems during downloading.

AudioVideoand Animations

• Aspect ratio: 16:9 or 4:3
• Maximum file size: 2 GB
• Minimum video duration: 1 sec
• Supported file formats: aviwmvmp4movm2pmp2mpgmpegflvmxfmtsm4v3gp

Text and Presentations

• Submit your material in PDF format; .doc or .ppt files are not suitable for long-term viability.
• A collection of figures may also be combined in a PDF file.

Spreadsheets

• Spreadsheets should be submitted as .csv or .xlsx files (MS Excel).

Specialized Formats

• Specialized format such as .pdb (chemical).wrl (VRML).nb (Mathematica notebook)and .tex can also be supplied.

Collecting Multiple Files

• It is possible to collect multiple files in a .zip or .gz file.

Numbering

• If supplying any supplementary materialthe text must make specific mention of the material as a citationsimilar to that of figures and tables.
• Refer to the supplementary files as “Online Resource”e.g."... as shown in the animation (Online Resource 3)"“... additional data are given in Online Resource 4”.
• Name the files consecutively e.g. “ESM_3.mpg”“ESM_4.pdf”.

Captions

• For each supplementary materialplease supply a concise caption describing the content of the file.

Processing of supplementary files

• Supplementary Information (SI) will be published as received from the author without any conversioneditingor reformatting.

Accessibility

In order to give people of all abilities and disabilities access to the content of your supplementary filesplease make sure that

• The manuscript contains a descriptive caption for each supplementary material
• Video files do not contain anything that flashes more than three times per second (so that users prone to seizures caused by such effects are not put at risk)

Generative AI Images

Please check Springer’s policy on generative AI images and make sure your work adheres to the principles described therein.

Editing Services

English

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Authors should refrain from misrepresenting research results which could damage the trust in the journalthe professionalism of scientific authorshipand ultimately the entire scientific endeavour. Maintaining integrity of the research and its presentation is helped by following the rules of good scientific practicewhich include*:

• The manuscript should not be submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration.
• The submitted work should be original and should not have been published elsewhere in any form or language (partially or in full)unless the new work concerns an expansion of previous work. (Please provide transparency on the re-use of material to avoid the concerns about text-recycling (‘self-plagiarism’).
• A single study should not be split up into several parts to increase the quantity of submissions and submitted to various journals or to one journal over time (i.e. ‘salami-slicing/publishing’).
• Concurrent or secondary publication is sometimes justifiableprovided certain conditions are met. Examples include: translations or a manuscript that is intended for a different group of readers.
• Results should be presented clearlyhonestlyand without fabricationfalsification or inappropriate data manipulation (including image based manipulation). Authors should adhere to discipline-specific rules for acquiringselecting and processing data.
• No datatextor theories by others are presented as if they were the author’s own (‘plagiarism’). Proper acknowledgements to other works must be given (this includes material that is closely copied (near verbatim)summarized and/or paraphrased)quotation marks (to indicate words taken from another source) are used for verbatim copying of materialand permissions secured for material that is copyrighted.

Important note: the journal may use software to screen for plagiarism.

• Authors should make sure they have permissions for the use of softwarequestionnaires/(web) surveys and scales in their studies (if appropriate).
• Research articles and non-research articles (e.g. OpinionReviewand Commentary articles) must cite appropriate and relevant literature in support of the claims made. Excessive and inappropriate self-citation or coordinated efforts among several authors to collectively self-cite is strongly discouraged.
• Authors should avoid untrue statements about an entity (who can be an individual person or a company) or descriptions of their behavior or actions that could potentially be seen as personal attacks or allegations about that person.
• Research that may be misapplied to pose a threat to public health or national security should be clearly identified in the manuscript (e.g. dual use of research). Examples include creation of harmful consequences of biological agents or toxinsdisruption of immunity of vaccinesunusual hazards in the use of chemicalsweaponization of research/technology (amongst others).
• Authors are strongly advised to ensure the author groupthe Corresponding Authorand the order of authors are all correct at submission. Adding and/or deleting authors during the revision stages is generally not permittedbut in some cases may be warranted. Reasons for changes in authorship should be explained in detail. Please note that changes to authorship cannot be made after acceptance of a manuscript.

*All of the above are guidelines and authors need to make sure to respect third parties rights such as copyright and/or moral rights.

Upon request authors should be prepared to send relevant documentation or data in order to verify the validity of the results presented. This could be in the form of raw datasamplesrecordsetc. Sensitive information in the form of confidential or proprietary data is excluded.

If there is suspicion of misbehavior or alleged fraud the Journal and/or Publisher will carry out an investigation following COPE guidelines. Ifafter investigationthere are valid concernsthe author(s) concerned will be contacted under their given e-mail address and given an opportunity to address the issue. Depending on the situationthis may result in the Journal’s and/or Publisher’s implementation of the following measuresincludingbut not limited to:

• If the manuscript is still under considerationit may be rejected and returned to the author.
• If the article has already been published onlinedepending on the nature and severity of the infraction:

  - an erratum/correction may be placed with the article

  - an expression of concern may be placed with the article

  - or in severe cases retraction of the article may occur.

The reason will be given in the published erratum/correctionexpression of concern or retraction note. Please note that retraction means that the article is maintained on the platformwatermarked “retracted” and the explanation for the retraction is provided in a note linked to the watermarked article.

• The author’s institution may be informed
• A notice of suspected transgression of ethical standards in the peer review system may be included as part of the author’s and article’s bibliographic record.

Fundamental errors

Authors have an obligation to correct mistakes once they discover a significant error or inaccuracy in their published article. The author(s) is/are requested to contact the journal and explain in what sense the error is impacting the article. A decision on how to correct the literature will depend on the nature of the error. This may be a correction or retraction. The retraction note should provide transparency which parts of the article are impacted by the error.

Suggesting / excluding reviewers

Authors are welcome to suggest suitable reviewers and/or request the exclusion of certain individuals when they submit their manuscripts. When suggesting reviewersauthors should make sure they are totally independent and not connected to the work in any way. It is strongly recommended to suggest a mix of reviewers from different countries and different institutions. When suggesting reviewersthe Corresponding Author must provide an institutional email address for each suggested reviewerorif this is not possible to include other means of verifying the identity such as a link to a personal homepagea link to the publication record or a researcher or author ID in the submission letter. Please note that the Journal may not use the suggestionsbut suggestions are appreciated and may help facilitate the peer review process.

Authorship principles

These guidelines describe authorship principles and good authorship practices to which prospective authors should adhere to.

Authorship clarified

The Journal and Publisher assume all authors agreed with the content and that all gave explicit consent to submit and that they obtained consent from the responsible authorities at the institute/organization where the work has been carried outbefore the work is submitted.

The Publisher does not prescribe the kinds of contributions that warrant authorship. It is recommended that authors adhere to the guidelines for authorship that are applicable in their specific research field. In absence of specific guidelines it is recommended to adhere to the following guidelines*:

All authors whose names appear on the submission

1) made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisitionanalysisor interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work;

2) drafted the work or revised it critically for important intellectual content;

3) approved the version to be published; and

4) agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

* Based on/adapted from:

ICMJEDefining the Role of Authors and Contributors,

Transparency in authors’ contributions and responsibilities to promote integrity in scientific publicationMcNutt at allPNAS February 272018

Disclosures and declarations

All authors are requested to include information regarding sources of fundingfinancial or non-financial interestsstudy-specific approval by the appropriate ethics committee for research involving humans and/or animalsinformed consent if the research involved human participants and a statement on welfare of animals if the research involved animals (as appropriate).

The decision whether such information should be included is not only dependent on the scope of the journalbut also the scope of the article. Work submitted for publication may have implications for public health or general welfare and in those cases it is the responsibility of all authors to include the appropriate disclosures and declarations.

Data transparency

All authors are requested to make sure that all data and materials as well as software application or custom code support their published claims and comply with field standards. Please note that journals may have individual policies on (sharing) research data in concordance with disciplinary norms and expectations.

Role of the Corresponding Author

One author is assigned as Corresponding Author and acts on behalf of all co-authors and ensures that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately addressed.

The Corresponding Author is responsible for the following requirements:

• ensuring that all listed authors have approved the manuscript before submissionincluding the names and order of authors;
• managing all communication between the Journal and all co-authorsbefore and after publication;*
• providing transparency on re-use of material and mention any unpublished material (for example manuscripts in press) included in the manuscript in a cover letter to the Editor;
• making sure disclosuresdeclarations and transparency on data statements from all authors are included in the manuscript as appropriate (see above).

* The requirement of managing all communication between the journal and all co-authors during submission and proofing may be delegated to a Contact or Submitting Author. In this case please make sure the Corresponding Author is clearly indicated in the manuscript.

Author contributions

In absence of specific instructions and in research fields where it is possible to describe discrete effortsthe Publisher recommends authors to include contribution statements in the work that specifies the contribution of every author in order to promote transparency. These contributions should be listed at the separate title page.

Examples of such statement(s) are shown below:

• Free text:

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparationdata collection and analysis were performed by [full name][full name] and [full name]. The first draft of the manuscript was written by [full name] and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Example: CRediT taxonomy:

• Conceptualization: [full name]…; Methodology: [full name]…; Formal analysis and investigation: [full name]…; Writing - original draft preparation: [full name…]; Writing - review and editing: [full name]…; Funding acquisition: [full name]…; Resources: [full name]…; Supervision: [full name],….

For review articles where discrete statements are less applicable a statement should be included who had the idea for the articlewho performed the literature search and data analysisand who drafted and/or critically revised the work.

For articles that are based primarily on the student’s dissertation or thesisit is recommended that the student is usually listed as principal author:

A Graduate Student’s Guide to Determining Authorship Credit and Authorship OrderAPA Science Student Council 2006

Affiliation

The primary affiliation for each author should be the institution where the majority of their work was done. If an author has subsequently movedthe current address may additionally be stated. Addresses will not be updated or changed after publication of the article.

Changes to authorship

Authors are strongly advised to ensure the correct author groupthe Corresponding Authorand the order of authors at submission. Changes of authorship by adding or deleting authorsand/or changes in Corresponding Authorand/or changes in the sequence of authors are not accepted after acceptance of a manuscript.

• Please note that author names will be published exactly as they appear on the accepted submission!

Please make sure that the names of all authors are present and correctly spelledand that addresses and affiliations are current.

Adding and/or deleting authors at revision stage are generally not permittedbut in some cases it may be warranted. Reasons for these changes in authorship should be explained. Approval of the change during revision is at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief. Please note that journals may have individual policies on adding and/or deleting authors during revision stage.

Author identification

Authors are recommended to use their ORCID ID when submitting an article for consideration or acquire an ORCID ID via the submission process.

Deceased or incapacitated authors

For cases in which a co-author dies or is incapacitated during the writingsubmissionor peer-review processand the co-authors feel it is appropriate to include the authorco-authors should obtain approval from a (legal) representative which could be a direct relative.

Authorship issues or disputes

In the case of an authorship dispute during peer review or after acceptance and publicationthe Journal will not be in a position to investigate or adjudicate. Authors will be asked to resolve the dispute themselves. If they are unable the Journal reserves the right to withdraw a manuscript from the editorial process or in case of a published paper raise the issue with the authors’ institution(s) and abide by its guidelines.

Confidentiality

Authors should treat all communication with the Journal as confidential which includes correspondence with direct representatives from the Journal such as Editors-in-Chief and/or Handling Editors and reviewers’ reports unless explicit consent has been received to share information.

Compliance with Ethical Standards

To ensure objectivity and transparency in research and to ensure that accepted principles of ethical and professional conduct have been followedauthors should include information regarding sources of fundingpotential conflicts of interest (financial or non-financial)informed consent if the research involved human participants and a statement on welfare of animals if the research involved animals.

Authors should include the following statements (if applicable) in a separate section entitled “Compliance with Ethical Standards” when submitting a paper:

• Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest
• Research involving Human Participants and/or Animals
• Informed consent

Please note that standards could vary slightly per journal dependent on their peer review policies (i.e. single or double blind peer review) as well as per journal subject discipline. Before submitting your article check the instructions following this section carefully.

The corresponding author should be prepared to collect documentation of compliance with ethical standards and send if requested during peer review or after publication.

The Editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned guidelines. The author will be held responsible for false statements or failure to fulfill the above-mentioned guidelines.

Competing Interests

Authors are requested to disclose interests that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication. Interests within the last 3 years of beginning the work (conducting the research and preparing the work for submission) should be reported. Interests outside the 3-year time frame must be disclosed if they could reasonably be perceived as influencing the submitted work. Disclosure of interests provides a complete and transparent process and helps readers form their own judgments of potential bias. This is not meant to imply that a financial relationship with an organization that sponsored the research or compensation received for consultancy work is inappropriate.

Editorial Board Members and Editors are required to declare any competing interests and may be excluded from the peer review process if a competing interest exists. In additionthey should exclude themselves from handling manuscripts in cases where there is a competing interest. This may include – but is not limited to – having previously published with one or more of the authorsand sharing the same institution as one or more of the authors. Where an Editor or Editorial Board Member is on the author list we recommend they declare this in the competing interests section on the submitted manuscript. If they are an author or have any other competing interest regarding a specific manuscriptanother Editor or member of the Editorial Board will be assigned to assume responsibility for overseeing peer review. These submissions are subject to the exact same review process as any other manuscript. Editorial Board Members are welcome to submit papers to the journal. These submissions are not given any priority over other manuscriptsand Editorial Board Member status has no bearing on editorial consideration.

Interests that should be considered and disclosed but are not limited to the following:

Funding: Research grants from funding agencies (please give the research funder and the grant number) and/or research support (including salariesequipmentsuppliesreimbursement for attending symposiaand other expenses) by organizations that may gain or lose financially through publication of this manuscript.

Employment: Recent (while engaged in the research project)present or anticipated employment by any organization that may gain or lose financially through publication of this manuscript. This includes multiple affiliations (if applicable).

Financial interests: Stocks or shares in companies (including holdings of spouse and/or children) that may gain or lose financially through publication of this manuscript; consultation fees or other forms of remuneration from organizations that may gain or lose financially; patents or patent applications whose value may be affected by publication of this manuscript.

It is difficult to specify a threshold at which a financial interest becomes significantany such figure is necessarily arbitraryso one possible practical guideline is the following: "Any undeclared financial interest that could embarrass the author were it to become publicly known after the work was published."

Non-financial interests: In additionauthors are requested to disclose interests that go beyond financial interests that could impart bias on the work submitted for publication such as professional interestspersonal relationships or personal beliefs (amongst others). Examples includebut are not limited to: position on editorial boardadvisory board or board of directors or other type of management relationships; writing and/or consulting for educational purposes; expert witness; mentoring relations; and so forth.

Primary research articles require a disclosure statement. Review articles present an expert synthesis of evidence and may be treated as an authoritative work on a subject. Review articles therefore require a disclosure statement. Other article types such as editorialsbook reviewscomments (amongst others) maydependent on their contentrequire a disclosure statement. If you are unclear whether your article type requires a disclosure statementplease contact the Editor-in-Chief.

Please note thatin addition to the above requirementsfunding information (given that funding is a potential competing interest (as mentioned above)) needs to be disclosed upon submission of the manuscript in the peer review system. This information will automatically be added to the Record of CrossMarkhowever it is not added to the manuscript itself. Under ‘summary of requirements’ (see below) funding information should be included in the ‘Declarations’ section.

Summary of requirements

The above should be summarized in a statement and placed in a ‘Declarations’ section before the reference list under a heading of ‘Funding’ and/or ‘Competing interests’. Other declarations include Ethics approvalConsentDataMaterial and/or Code availability and Authors’ contribution statements.

Please see the various examples of wording below and revise/customize the sample statements according to your own needs.

When all authors have the same (or no) conflicts and/or funding it is sufficient to use one blanket statement.

Examples of statements to be used when funding has been received:

• Partial financial support was received from [...]
• The research leading to these results received funding from […] under Grant Agreement No[…].
• This study was funded by […]
• This work was supported by […] (Grant numbers […] and […]

Examples of statements to be used when there is no funding:

• The authors did not receive support from any organization for the submitted work.
• No funding was received to assist with the preparation of this manuscript.
• No funding was received for conducting this study.
• No fundsgrantsor other support was received.

Examples of statements to be used when there are interests to declare:

• Financial interests: Author A has received research support from Company A. Author B has received a speaker honorarium from Company W and owns stock in Company X. Author C is consultant to company Y.

  Non-financial interests: Author C is an unpaid member of committee Z.

• Financial interests: The authors declare they have no financial interests.

  Non-financial interests: Author A is on the board of directors of Y and receives no compensation as member of the board of directors.

• Financial interests: Author A received a speaking fee from Y for Z. Author B receives a salary from association X. X where s/he is the Executive Director.

  Non-financial interests: none.

• Financial interests: Author A and B declare they have no financial interests. Author C has received speaker and consultant honoraria from Company M and Company N. Dr. C has received speaker honorarium and research funding from Company M and Company O. Author D has received travel support from Company O.

  Non-financial interests: Author D has served on advisory boards for Company MCompany N and Company O.

Examples of statements to be used when authors have nothing to declare:

• The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.
• The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.
• All authors certify that they have no affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest or non-financial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript.
• The authors have no financial or proprietary interests in any material discussed in this article.

Authors are responsible for correctness of the statements provided in the manuscript. See also Authorship Principles. The Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to reject submissions that do not meet the guidelines described in this section.

Research Data Policy and Data Availability Statements

This journal follows Springer Nature research data policy. Sharing of all relevant research data is strongly encouraged and authors must add a Data Availability Statement to original research articles.

Research data includes a wide range of typesincluding spreadsheetsimagestextual extractsarchival documentsvideo or audiointerview notes or any specialist formats generated during research.

Data availability statements

All original research must include a data availability statement. This statement should explain how to access data supporting the results and analysis in the articleincluding links/citations to publicly archived datasets analysed or generated during the study. Please see our full policy here.

If it is not possible to share research data publiclyfor instance when individual privacy could be compromisedthis statement should describe how data can be accessed and any conditions for reuse. Participant consent should be obtained and documented prior to data collection. See our guidance on sensitive data for more information.

When creating a data availability statementauthors are encouraged to consider the minimal dataset that would be necessary to interpretreplicate and build upon the findings reported in the article.

Further guidance on writing a data availability statementincluding examplesis available at:

Data availability statements

Data repositories

Authors are strongly encouraged to deposit their supporting data in a publicly available repository. Sharing your data in a repository promotes the integritydiscovery and reuse of your researchmaking it easier for the research community to build on and credit your work.

See our data repository guidance for information on finding a suitable repository.

We recommend the use of discipline-specific repositories where available. For a number of data typessubmission to specific public repositories is mandatory.

See our list of mandated data types.

The journal encourages making research data available under open licences that permit reuse. The journal does not enforce use of particular licences in third party repositories. You should ensure you have necessary rights to share any data that you deposit in a repository.

Data citation

The journal recommends that authors cite any publicly available data on which the conclusions of the paper rely. This includes data the authors are sharing alongside their publication and any secondary data the authors have reused. Data citations should include a persistent identifier (such as a DOI)should be included in the reference list using the minimum information recommended by DataCite (Dataset CreatorDataset TitlePublisher [repository]Publication YearIdentifier [e.g. DOIHandleAccession or ARK]) and follow journal .

See our further guidance on citing datasets.

Research data and peer review

If the journal that you are submitting to uses double-anonymous peer review and you are providing reviewers with access to your data (for example via a repository linksupplementary information or data on request)it is strongly suggested that the authorship in the data is also anonymised. There are data repositories that can assist with this and/or will create a link to mask the authorship of your data.

Support with research data policy

Authors who need help understanding our data sharing policyfinding a suitable data repositoryor organising and sharing research data can consult our Research Data Helpdesk for guidance.

See our FAQ page for more information on Springer Nature’s research data policy.

After acceptance

Upon acceptanceyour article will be exported to Production to undergo typesetting. Shortly after this you will receive two e-mails. One contains a request to confirm your affiliationchoose the publishing model for your articleas well as to arrange rights and payment of any associated publication cost. A second e-mail containing a link to your article’s proofs will be sent once typesetting is completed.

Article publishing agreement

Depending on the ownership of the journal and its policiesyou will either grant the Publisher an exclusive licence to publish the article or will be asked to transfer copyright of the article to the Publisher.

Offprints

Offprints can be ordered by the corresponding author.

Color illustrations

Online publication of color illustrations is free of charge. For color in the print versionauthors will be expected to make a contribution towards the extra costs.

Proof reading

The purpose of the proof is to check for typesetting or conversion errors and the completeness and accuracy of the texttables and figures. Substantial changes in contente.g.new resultscorrected valuestitle and authorshipare not allowed without the approval of the Editor.

After online publicationfurther changes can only be made in the form of an Erratumwhich will be hyperlinked to the article.

Online First

The article will be published online after receipt of the corrected proofs. This is the official first publication citable with the DOI. After release of the printed versionthe paper can also be cited by issue and page numbers.

Open Choice

Open Choice allows you to publish open access in more than 1850 Springer Nature journalsmaking your research more visible and accessible immediately on publication.

Article processing charges (APCs) vary by journal – view the full list

Benefits:

• Increased researcher engagement: Open Choice enables access by anyone with an internet connectionimmediately on publication.
• Higher visibility and impact: In Springer hybrid journalsOA articles are accessed 4 times more often on averageand cited 1.7 more times on average*.

• Easy compliance with funder and institutional mandates: Many funders require open access publishingand some take compliance into account when assessing future grant applications.

It is easy to find funding to support open access – please see our funding and support pages for more information.

*) Within the first three years of publication. Springer Nature hybrid journal OA impact analysis2018.

Open Choice

Funding and Support pages

Copyright

Open Choice articles do not require transfer of copyright as the copyright remains with the author. In opting for open accessthe author(s) agree to publish the article under a Creative Commons license. Details of the OA licences offered to authors can be found on the individual journal websitein the journal's How to publish with us guide.

To find out more about publishing your work Open Access in Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimizationincluding information on feesfunding and licencesvisit our Open access publishing page.