IEEE

SIGNAL PROCESSING LETTERS

A PUBLICATION OF THE IEEE SIGNAL PROCESSING SOCIETY

Information for Authors

Updated April 2008

The IEEE Signal Processing Letters is a monthly publication designed to provide rapid publication of original, timely and significant contributions in signal, image, speech and audio processing. Submissions must be previously unpublished and may not be under consideration elsewhere.

Targeted publication time is four months from the end of the month in which the manuscript is received, provided that the author responds immediately to all communications. In order to accomplish this, the outcome of the prompt review process will be binary: an accept or reject decision. Authors are strongly encouraged to submit well prepared manuscripts that are complete and ready for publication. Only minor modifications to accepted manuscripts are allowed, upon indication of the Associate Editor handling the paper.

Manuscripts must be prepared following the "New Manuscript Submission'' guidelines below, and should be submitted to the online Manuscript Central portal. After both conditional and unconditional acceptance (AQ and A decisions), finalized manuscripts should be prepared and submitted following the "Final Manuscript Submission Guidelines" below. Additionally, any revised manuscript must be submitted to the Manuscript Central following the rues of the new manuscript submission.

Do not send manuscripts directly to the Editor-in-Chief or Associate Editors; they will access your manuscript electronically via the Manuscript Central system.

New Manuscript Submission.

Manuscripts are limited to 10 double-spaced, single-column (1-column) pages and are submitted electronically as a PDF file (complete with all camera-ready illustrations) along with a fax containing a completed copyright form.

Submission of a manuscript amounts to assurance that it has received proper clearance from the author's company or institution; that it has not been copyrighted, published, or accepted for publication elsewhere; and that it will not be submitted elsewhere while under consideration by IEEE Signal Processing Letters.

Please follow the next 3 steps:

1. Account in Manuscript Central. If necessary, create an account in the on-line manuscript system, Manuscript Central. Please check first if you already have an existing account which is based on your e-mail address and may have been created for you when you reviewed or authored a previous paper.
2. Electronic manuscript. Prepare a PDF file containing your manuscript in double-spaced, single-column (1-column) format, with one full blank line between lines of type, using a font size of 11 points or larger, having a margin of at least 1 inch on all sides, consisting of 10 pages or less. The manuscript may not exceed 10 double-spaced pages, including title; names of authors and their complete contact information; abstract; text; all images, figures and tables; and all references.
   
   

The first page of the manuscript should contain the title, the authors' names and institutional affiliations, the abstract, the EDICS category, and the corresponding author's address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address. Indicate one or more EDICS categories from the list appearing in every issue of the Letters, and online at http://www.signalprocessingsociety.org/publications/periodicals/letters/letters-edics/. Upload your manuscript as a PDF file "manuscript.pdf" to the Manuscript Central (MC) web site, then proofread your submission, confirming that all figures and equations are visible in your document before pressing the button.

Proofreading is critical; once you press the + button, your manuscript cannot be changed in any way. Do not submit as PostScript or MS Word files. You must convert these files to PDF before submission, assuring that there are no missing fonts or special characters. It is very important to note that the conversion will not be done for you by the journal staff and your manuscript will not be circulated for review.

Double-column version of manuscript. You are required to also submit a roughly formatted version of the manuscript in single-spaced double-column (2-column) of 4 pages or less IEEE format (10-point font size) using the IEEE style files (it is allowed to let long equations stick out). This version will serve as a confirmation of the approximate publication length of the manuscript at submission, and gives an additional confirmation of your understanding that no manuscript can exceed four journal pages.

Upload this version of the manuscript as a PDF file "double.pdf" to the Manuscript Central web site.

Cited References not yet published need to be included as supporting documentation for the Associate Editor and reviewers. This applies to each reference listed that has not yet been published or is otherwise hard to access for reviewers.

Also ensure that the EDICS are entered in the MC system. At the appropriate place, you may enter keywords for further distinction. After uploading the file and proofreading it, submit your manuscript by pressing the button. A confirmation of the successful submission will open on screen containing the manuscript tracking number and will be followed with an e-mail confirmation to the corresponding and all contributing authors. Once you press the utton, your manuscript cannot be changed in any way.

3. Copyright form. By policy, IEEE owns the copyright to the technical contributions it publishes on behalf of the interests of the IEEE, its authors, and their employers; and to facilitate the appropriate reuse of this material by others. To comply with United States copyright law, authors are required to sign and submit a completed "IEEE Copyright Transfer Export Control Compliance Form" with their original submission (and again with the finalized manuscript prior to publication).

The form is available online. Print the form, complete it and send it by fax to the IEEE Signal Processing Society Publications Office at +1 732 562 8905.

Assistance in English Writing. If you would like assistance with English grammar and usage prior to submitting a manuscript for review, you can submit a manuscript for copy editing. This is an external professional service at the expense of the author. The SPi copy editors will edit for grammar, usage, organization, and clarity, querying potentially substantive revisions as necessary. Cost estimates are available immediately on-line. Edited manuscripts will generally be returned to the author within two weeks of submission.

ManuscriptLength. The submitted manuscript length can be at most 10 double-spaced pages. In print (double-column format, 10 point type), this is approximately 3 pages. No manuscript can be more than 4 published pages. We will immediately request that longer submissions be shortened and they will not be given an official received date.

Author Misconduct.

Author Misconduct Policy: Plagiarism includes copying someone else's work without appropriate credit, using someone else's work without clear delineation of citation, and the uncited reuse of an author’s previously published work that also involves other authors. Plagiarism is unacceptable.

Self-plagiarism involves the verbatim copying or reuse of an author’s own prior work without appropriate citation; it is also unacceptable. Self-plagiarism includes duplicate submission of a single journal manuscript to two different journals, and submission of two different journal manuscripts which overlap substantially in language or technical contribution.

Authors may only submit original work that has not appeared elsewhere in a journal publication, nor is under review for another journal publication. Limited overlap with prior journal publications with a common author is allowed only if it is necessary for the readability of the paper. If authors have used their own previously published work as a basis for a new submission, they are required to cite the previous work and very briefly indicate how the new submission offers substantively novel contributions beyond those of the previously published work.

It is acceptable for conference papers to be used as the basis for a more fully developed journal submission. Still, authors are required to cite related prior work; the papers cannot be identical; and the journal publication must include novel aspects.

Author Misconduct Procedures: The procedures that will be used by the Signal Processing Society in the investigation of author misconduct allegations are described in the IEEE SPS Policies and Procedures Manual.

Author Misconduct Sanctions: The IEEE Signal Processing Society will apply the following sanctions in any case of plagiarism, or in cases of self-plagiarism that involve an overlap of more than 25% with another journal manuscript:

1. immediate rejection of the manuscript in question;
2. immediate withdrawal of all other submitted manuscripts by any of the authors, submitted to any of the Society's publications (journals, conferences, workshops), except for manuscripts that also involve innocent co-authors;
3. prohibition against each of the authors for any new submissions, either individually, in combination with the authors of the plagiarizing manuscript, or in combination with new co-authors, to all of the Society's publications (journals, conferences, workshops). The prohibition shall continue for one year from notice of suspension.

Further, plagiarism and self-plagiarism may also be actionable by the IEEE under the rules of Member Conduct.

Submission Format. Authors are encouraged to prepare manuscripts employing the on-line style files developed by IEEE. All manuscripts accepted for publication will require the authors to make final submission employing these style files. The style files are available on the web. (LaTeX and MS Word).

• Title page and abstract: The first page of the manuscript shall contain the title, names and contact information for all authors (full mailing address, institutional affiliations, phone, fax, and e-mail), the abstract, and the EDICS. An asterisk * should be placed next to the name of the Corresponding Author who will serve as the main point of contact for the manuscript during the review and publication processes. An abstract limited to 100 words is required. The abstract should not only indicate the scope of the paper but should also summarize the author's conclusions so that the abstract by itself may be useful in information-retrieval systems.
• EDICS: All submissions must be classified by the author with an EDICS (Editors' Information Classification Scheme) selected from the list of EDICS published online. The EDICS category should appear on the first page---i.e., the title and abstract page---of the manuscript.
• Illustrations and tables: Each figure and table should have a caption that is intelligible without requiring reference to the text. Illustrations/tables may be worked into the text of a newly-submitted manuscript, or placed at the end of the manuscript. (However, for the final submission, illustrations/tables must be submitted separately and not interwoven with the text, and captions should also be typed in a separate list and appended to the manuscript.) In preparing your illustrations, note that in the printing process, most illustrations are reduced to single-column width to conserve space. This may result in as much as a 4:1 reduction from the original. Therefore, make sure that all words are in a type size that will reduce to a minimum of 9 points or 3/16 inch high in the printed version. Sharp, laser-printed illustrations are acceptable; however, illustrations produced on dot-matrix printers should be redrawn. Only the major grid lines on graphs should be indicated.
• References: References must also be double-spaced and must have complete titles for each reference cited.

Multimedia Materials

IEEE Xplore can publish multimedia files and Matlab code along with your paper. Alternatively, you can provide the links to such files in a README file that appears on Xplore along with your paper. For details, please see http://www.ieee.org/web/publications/authors/transjnl/index.html under "multimedia". To make your work reproducible by others, the Transactions encourages you to submit all files that can recreate the figures in your paper.

Final Manuscript Submission Guidelines.

Upon conditional or unconditional acceptance of a manuscript for publication (AQ and A decisions), instructions for providing the final materials required for publication will be sent to the Corresponding Author. Finalized manuscripts should be prepared in LaTeX2e or MS Word, and are required to use the style files established by IEEE.

Instructions for preparing files for electronic submission.

In summary,

• Files must be self-contained; that is, there can be no pointers to your system setup.
• Include a header to identify the name of the Transactions, the name of the author, and the software used to format the manuscript.
• Do not import graphics files into the text file of your finalized manuscript although this is acceptable for your initial submission). If submitting on disk, use a separate disk for graphics files.
• Do not create special macros.
• Do not send PostScript files of the text.
• File names should be lower case.

Additional instructions for preparing and submitting graphics are available.

In summary,

• Graphics files are accepted only in PostScript, Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) or Tagged Image File Format (TIFF). Files submitted in EPS format will be converted to TIFF format by the IEEE production staff. If an EPS graphic calls for fonts directly, please use one of the following Adobe Type 1 fonts: Times Roman, Helvetica, Helvetica Narrow, Courier, Symbol, Palatino, Avant Garde, Bookman, Zapf Chancery, Zapf Dingbats, New Century Schoolbook.If submitting graphics in TIFF, make sure that the graphics contains all of the required tags. At present, only ``paletted color TIFF'' format is accepted. The resolution should be 400 dpi. If you have any questions regarding these tags, please e-mail.
• Graphics files should be separate from the text, and not contain the caption text.
• Graphics file names should be lower case and named fig1.resolution, fig2.resolution etc.

If a manuscript includes computer-generated images, then the accepted, finalized manuscript must include originals of these images. These should take the form of glossy, black-and-white photographs for gray-scale images or color photographs for color images. Printing of illustrations in color will be at the expense of the author. Halftones produced by laser printers (300 dpi) generally are not of acceptable quality and are susceptible to moire patterns when re-sized and screened. To conserve space in the publication, most illustrations are reduced to single-column width. However, the quality of the published image is of paramount importance. Author guidance is sought on the image size necessary to discern the level of detail the author believes is required. Thus, for each image, please specify a suggested publication width.

Page Charges.

After a manuscript has been accepted for publication, the author's company or institution will be approached with a request to pay a page charge of $110.00 per page to cover part of the cost of the publication. These page charges are not obligatory, nor are they a prerequisite for publication. However, the author should strongly encourage his or her employer or institution to honor this payment in order to offset some of the expenses incurred in the publication of his work. The author will receive 100 free reprints (without covers) if the page charge is honored. Detailed instructions will accompany the page proofs.