Respirology

Author Guidelines

Updated on 14 May 2013

Respirology is the official journal of the Asian Pacific Society of Respirology. It is the preferred English language journal of the Japanese Respiratory Society, the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand and the Taiwanese Society of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, and an official journal of the World Association of Bronchology and Interventional Pulmonology. The Journal publishes original papers of international interest on laboratory and clinical research that are pertinent to respiratory biology and disease. Manuscripts on any topic within the field of respiratory medicine, including allied health; cell and molecular biology; epidemiology; immunology; pathology; pharmacology; physiology; intensive and critical care; paediatric respiratory medicine; bronchoscopy; interventional pulmonology and thoracic surgery are welcomed.

 

SUBMISSION

Papers are published in Respirology in the approximate order of date of final acceptance under the following headings: Editorials,Invited Reviews, Reviews, Original Articles, Scientific Letters and Correspondences.

The Editor-in-Chief is:

Peter R. Eastwood
c/- School of Anatomy, Physiology and Human Biology (M309)

The University of Western Australia

35 Stirling Hwy

Crawley, Western Australia 6009,

AUSTRALIA
Tel: +61 8 6488 8694
Fax:+61 8 6488 1550

respirology-aphb@uwa.edu.au

Submissions must be made online at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/res.

Please read the following author guidelines and use our manuscript preparation checklist before submitting your manuscript.

Contributions that do not comply with the Journal’s requirements will be returned to the authors for correction prior to peer review. 

ETHICS AND RESEARCH PRINCIPLES

Manuscripts concerning research supported in whole or in part by tobacco companies and associated institutes and organisations will not be considered for publication. Authors are expected to comply with strict ethical standards and for human research, conform to the provisions of the latest update of the WMA Declaration of Helsinki. Consent must be obtained from each patient after full explanation of the purpose, nature and risks of all procedures, and the research protocol must be approved by the Institutional Review Board or a suitably constituted Human Research Ethics Committee at the institution within which the work was undertaken. For retrospective studies using patient medical records, the Institutional Review Board or Ethics Committee must approve access to patient records and patient confidentiality must be maintained. For animal studies, approval from an appropriately constituted Animal Research Ethics Committee should be obtained. Statements regarding written informed consent and ethics approval, including the Ethics or Institutional Review Board approval number, must be included in the Methods section and proof of approval must be produced upon request. If ethics committee approval was not obtained or was not required, it should be stated in the Methods section of the manuscript.

 

PUBLISHING PRINCIPLES

Manuscripts should conform to the revised guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), published as Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication. These guidelines and the advice of the Editorial Board, Editorial Staff , Publisher and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) will be used if matters of advice, dispute or contention arise in relation to publications and/or authors.

Respirology requires the author to submit exclusively to the journal and will not accept original contributions containing significant portions of material published or submitted for publication elsewhere except for abstracts of no more than 400 words. Any material available through PubMed, Institutional websites, Pre-Print websites or other electonically accessible sources are considered to have been published. The Editors of Respirology reserve the right to refuse such contributions. Respirology employs iThenticate software to detect plagiarism and, by submitting a manuscript to this journal, the authors accept that their manuscript will be screened for overlap with previously published works. We strongly advise authors to check their own work before submission to avoid rejection on those grounds.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST AND AUTHORSHIP
Respirology requires that all authors disclose any potential or actual conflict of interest (financial or other), or state the absence of such conflict of interest, as part of their manuscript. Respirology requests the corresponding author to take responsibility for the declaration of any conflict of interest and authorship by completing the Journal's Conflict of Interest and Authorship Declaration form. The completed form should be submitted online with the manuscript. In case of difficulty accesssing or uploading this form, please contact the Editorial Office (respirology-aphb@uwa.edu.au).

All persons listed as authors should qualify for authorship as defined by the ICMJE and all persons qualifying for these requirements should be listed as authors. No more than ten authors should be listed for any submission unless approved by the Editor in Chief. In exceptional circumstances, the Editor in Chief will accept equal first and last authorship and justification must be provided on the title page. There can only be one corresponding author and this person is solely responsible for (i) communicating with the journal and managing communication between co-authors; (ii) including all qualifying authors in the author list and getting their approval for submission of the manuscript and the order in which the authors are listed (iii) distributing the proofs to all co-authors and returning all proof corrections to the journal office; (iv) responding to any queries regarding the published paper.

USE OF COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL
Previously published material such as figures, tables, photographs, survey instruments and questionnaires may only be reproduced in Respirology with the specific permission of the copyright holder, which for figures, tables and photographs is usually with the publisher rather than the original author. The relevant figure legend or table caption should identify the source of the material and state that it is used with permission, and the full reference should be provided in the reference list. Please ensure that permission is obtained for both printed and electronic media dissemination.

Authors should be aware that many questionnaires or survey instruments are copyrighted, in order to maintain their integrity. The copyright conditions often require permission to be obtained from the copyright holder prior to any use of the instrument in research, and prohibit changes to the content, language and/or format of the instrument without specific permission from the copyright holder.It is the responsibility of the authors to verify whether a questionnaire or survey instrument is subject to any copyright restrictions, and to obtain written permission for its use prior to commencement of the research. Permission for use of validated instruments in research may be required by copyright holders even if the instrument has previously been published, or is available for use in clinical practice. Authors should be aware that unauthorised versions of well-known questionnaires may often be found online. If there is any doubt, the original author of the instrument should be contacted for clarification, prior to commencement of the research.

Respirology reserves the right to request written evidence that the authors obtained permission to use or reproduce any copyright material. Fees associated with the use of reproduction of copyrighted material are to be covered by the authors.

REGISTRATION OF CLINICAL TRIALS
Clinical trials started after 1 July 2005 must be registered in an open-access trials database prior to the enrolment of the first participant for the manuscript to be considered for publication. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ definition states that a clinical trial is “any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects on health outcomes.” Authors should state in the Methods the site of registration and the reference number. 

ENGLISH EXPRESSION AND MANUSCRIPT STYLE
All contributions should be written in English and spelling should conform to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. The Editors reserve the right to return manuscripts to the author for English language editing prior to external peer review. If necessary, Respirology may only consider the manuscript after it has been professionally edited at the author's expense. A list of editing services is available online at http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/english_language.asp. In addition, the Editors and Publisher reserve the right to modify typescripts of accepted manuscripts to eliminate ambiguity and repetition and to improve communication between author and reader. In following this practice the scientific content and message will not be changed. In case of extensive alterations, the manuscript will be returned to the author for revision and/or approval before publication.

ABBREVIATIONS
The use of abbreviations is discouraged except for standard abbreviations of units of measure. The author may abbreviate words in the text that are repeated more than five times, but these abbreviations should not be used in the title.The abbreviation must be defined in parentheses on first mention in the abstract and in the body of the manuscript and, if applicable, they must be re-defined in the figure legend or table caption. A list of used abbreviations including their definitions must be provided as part of the manuscript.

STATISTICAL METHODS AND HYPOTHESES

Where appropriate, all original articles should state the hypothesis that is being tested and detail the statistical method that was used.

For advice on statistical reporting, Respirology encourages authors to refer to the SAMPL guidelines: Lang T, Altman D. Basic statistical reporting for articles published in clinical medical journals: the SAMPL guidelines. In: Smart P, Maisonneuve H, Polderman A (eds.) Science Editors' Handbook, European Association of Science Editors, 2013.

Respirology uses the services of biostatisticians for the assessment of statistical methodology of selected manuscripts.

COLOUR FIGURES
A total payment of ¥64,000, US$530 or A$1,100 (Goods and Services Tax (GST) included) by the authors is required for up to three colour figures and an additional payment of ¥32,000, US$265 or A$550 (GST included) for each extra colour figure thereafter. The authors must agree to cover the cost of reproduction of all colour figures. Authors who do not wish to pay the colour charges must submit figures in grey scale. If colour is important to the understanding of the figure, the Editor in Chief may require agreement to pay colour charges as a condition of acceptance. Payment must be received prior to the paper being published. 

ARTICLE TYPES

Original Articles

Respirology encourages the submission of manuscripts focusing on clinical or laboratory research in areas relevant to the practice of respiratory medicine. Original articles must not be longer than 2500 words, excluding the abstract (maximum 250 words), references (maximum 50), table and figure legends. Longer manuscripts, unless justified in the covering letter, may be returned to the authors for reduction before being considered for peer review.

Editorials and Invited Reviews
Editorials and invited reviews are generally commissioned by the Editor-in-Chief. Author guidelines, including word counts, for editorials and invited reviews will be provided by the Editorial Office at the time of invitation. Invited papers are subject to the same review process as unsolicited submissions.

Unsolicited Reviews

Unsolicited review articles may occasionally be considered if they cover a relevant and timely topic of strong interest to readers of Respirology. Before submitting an unsolicited review, authors must contact the Editorial Office (respirology-aphb@uwa.edu.au) and provide the following information for the Editor's consideration: an abstract; outline of the manuscript with subheadings and topics; need for the review; relevance to the readership of Respirology and authors' track record on the topic. Reviews submitted online without the pre-approval from the Editor-in-Chief will be returned to the author. Author guidelines, including word counts, for unsolicited reviews will be provided by the Editorial Office at the time of pre-approval.

Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses

Systematic reviews may or may not use statistical methods (meta-analysis) to analyze and summarize the results of the included studies. Respirology has endorsed the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) Statement, as described in the PRISMA Explanatory and Elaboration document. It recommends the use of its checklist and flow diagram as a guide to a systematic review with or without a meta-analysis approach (www.prisma-statement.org). Respirology requires authors to include a similar flow chart as part of the manuscript, and a copy of the checklist as part of the submission. Authors must indicate in the copy of the checklist which items have been implemented in the manuscript. Taking the time to ensure the review meets these basic reporting needs will improve the manuscript and potentially enhance its chances for eventual publication.
Authors of meta-analyses of observational studies must follow the Meta-analysis of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE) reporting guidelines and checklist, and include as part of their submission a copy of the checklist indicating the items that have been implemented.

Scientific Letters

Authors wishing to see rapid publication of early but significant data may wish to submit a Scientific Letter of no more than 500 words, one figure or table, and five references. An unstructured abstract of maximum 75 words should be included.

Clinical Notes / Case Report

Respirology no longer accepts the submission of case reports and clinical notes. Instead, case reports can be submitted to Respirology Case Reports, the official Open Access case reports journal of the Asian Pacific Society of Respirology: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)2051-3380

Correspondences

These are usually letters regarding articles published in Respirology. Letters must be fewer than 500 words. Author(s) of the article commented on may be invited to respond. Respirology reserves the right to accept or reject letters for publication, and may amend or extract text without misrepresenting the writer’s views.

 

MANUSCRIPT STRUCTURE AND FORMATTING

Manuscripts are to be typed double-spaced (including references, tables, figure legends and footnotes), in 12-point type, on A4 size paper with 3-cm margins at the top and the left-hand side of the pages and must be in Word (doc or docx) format only (pdf cannot be accepted and will be returned to the author for conversion). All pages should be numbered consecutively beginning with the title page. Manuscripts should contain, in this order, a title page, summary at a glance (original articles only), abstract (see requirements below for each article type), key words, short title, text of the manuscript, acknowledgements, references, tables,and figure legends. Please note that in addition to including this in the manuscript, the title, abstract, names of the authors and their affiliations, short title and key words will have to be entered upon submission of the manuscript in ScholarOne Manuscripts.

Title Page

The title page should include the title and all authors' full names, degrees and affiliations. The contact address, fax number and email for the corresponding author must also be provided, as well as each author’s role in the study. The word count for the abstract and text (without references, tables or figure legends) should also be provided on the title page.

Summary at a Glance

For Original Articles only, authors should provide a ‘Summary at a Glance’ that briefly states, in less than 50 words, what is being tested and what the presented study adds to the literature.

Abstract

Original Articles: Concise abstract of no more than 250 words which is structured as follows: Background and objective, Methods, Results and Conclusions. The abstract should not contain references or footnotes.

Reviews: An unstructured and concise abstract of no more than 250 words should be included. The abstract should not contain references or footnotes.

Scientific Letters: A concise abstract of no more than 75 words should be included.

Editorials and Correspondences: No abstract is required, please type N/A in the abstract box upon submission in ScholarOne Manuscripts.

Key Words

Five key words, in alphabetical order below the abstract, must be supplied for indexing purposes, and should be selected from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) list provided by the US National Library of Medicine

Short Title

A short title of fewer than 40 characters (including spaces) must be provided.

Text

Original Articles should be arranged under the usual headings of Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion.

Methods (including statistical methods used, study design, participant recruitment and sample collection) should be described in sufficient detail to make clear how the results were derived. The location (city, state, country) of manufacturers specified in the text should be provided. Generic names of drugs should be used. SI units should be used throughout, with few exceptions, e.g. blood pressure (mmHg). If monetary values are mentioned in the manuscript, the equivalence in US dollars should also be presented. When applicable, statements regarding Ethics Committee and Internal Review Board approval, written informed consent and clinical trial registration must be included in this section.

 

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements of persons (including their affiliation) who made a significant contribution and who endorse the data and conclusions should be included. Acknowledgement of funding sources is required. Submissions containing research supported by NIH grants must include the grant number in their acknowledgements.

References
References should be cited in the text, tables and legends, using superscript Arabic numerals (after punctuation marks where appropriate) in the order in which they first appear in the text. References should be limited to 50, typed doubled-spaced and numbered consecutively. Titles of journals should be abbreviated in the reference list according to the style used in Index Medicus.

Unpublished observations and personal communications should not be listed as references, but may be incorporated in the text and stated as such in parentheses. References to articles in a language other than English that do not have an English abstract should not be used.

Reference formatting and punctuation should conform to the Journal style which is based on the Vancouver system.
Examples follow:

Standard journal article

List the first three authors, if more add et al. The issue number should not be quoted.

1 Lahita R, Kluger J, Drayer DE, et al. Antibodies to nuclear antigens in patients treated with procainamide or acetylprocainamide. N. Engl. J. Med. 1979; 301: 1382–5.

Books and other monographs

2 Cade JF, Pain MCF. Essentials of Respiratory Medicine. Blackwell Science, Oxford, 1988.

Book Chapter

3 Colby VT, Carrington CB. Infiltrative lung disease. In: Thurlbeck WM (ed.) Pathology of the Lung. Thieme Medical Publishers, New York, 1988; 198–213.

Electronic material
4 World Health Organisation, 3 July 2003. Update 94: Preparing for the Next Influenza Season in a World Altered by SARS. http://www.who.International/csr/disease/ influenza/sars. Accessed: 15 September 2003.

Online Article not yet published in an issue

An online article that has not yet been published in an issue (therefore has no volume, issue or page numbers) can be cited by its Digital Object Identifier (DOI). The DOI will remain valid and allow an article to be tracked even after its allocation to an issue.

5 Walker J, Kelly PT, Beckart L. Airline policy for passengers requiring supplemental in-flight oxygen. Respirology 2009 doi 10.1111/j.1440-1843.2009.01521.x

Tables

Tables should be supplied at the end of the manuscript file, on separate pages with one table per page, and each table accompanied by a descriptive caption at the top. Each table should be referred to in the text and numbered in the order of mention. Explanatory material should be placed in footnotes below the Table and not included in the heading. All non-standard abbreviations should be defined in the footnotes. Footnotes should be indicated by *, †, ‡, §. Statistical terms such as SD or SEM should be identified in headings. Use of the word-processing ‘Table’ function for creating tables is encouraged; otherwise, use only one Tab (not spaces) to separate each column in a table.

Figure Legends

Legends should be supplied on a separate page in the manuscript file and should not appear as part of the figure files.
Each figure should be referred to in the text and numbered in the order of mention. Symbols, arrows and numbers or letters used to identify parts of illustrations should be identified and explained in the legend. The description in the legend should be sufficient for the reader to interpret the figure without reference to the text.

Figures and Electronic Art

Manuscript submissions containing figures that do not adhere to the requirements and specifications outlined in this section will be returned to the authors for corrections prior to peer review.

Each figure must be submitted as a seperate file and should not be embedded in the manuscript text file. All figures must be saved in EPS or TIFF format with a minimum resolution of 300 dpi. Figures should be presented at actual size to fit a single column (81 mm width), double column (169 mm width) or intermediate column (118 mm width). Each figure and figure file is to be identified clearly with the figure number.

Figures should be sharp and authors should refer to http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/illustration.asp for further details. Letters, numbers and symbols must be clear and legible and their size should be in scale with the figure. Use a sans serif font (preferably Arial), avoid using bold type, and use a consistent font type and size throughout all figures in the manuscript. Titles, keys and detailed explanations should be confined to legends and not included in the figures. All photomicrographs must have internal scale markers and legends must include the magnification and stain used. Photographs of persons must be retouched to make the subject unidentifiable, or be accompanied by written permission from the subject to use the photograph.

Research images must not be retouched or altered in any way that may misrepresent information present in the original image. The following four basic guidelines for handling image data have been developed by The Rockefeller University Press and are available on the website of the Council of Science Editors: (1) No specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced; (2) Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are acceptable if they are applied to the whole image and as long as they do not obscure, eliminate, or misrepresent any information present in the original; (3) The grouping of images from different parts of the same gel, or from different gels, fields, or exposures must be made explicit by the arrangement of the figure (e.g. dividing lines) and in the text of the figure legend; (4) If the original data cannot be produced by an author when asked to provide it, acceptance of the manuscript may be revoked. Respirology randomly checks submitted and published papers for image manipulation.

There is a charge for publishing in colour (see COLOUR FIGURES for details) and authors submitting figures in colour must agree upon suibmission to cover this cost. Authors who do not wish to pay the colour charges must submit figures in grey scale.If colour is important to the understanding of the figure, the Editor in Chief may require agreement to pay colour charges as a condition of acceptance.

Images for the Journal Cover

Each issue of Respirology features cover images selected from the papers published in the same issue. Authors are encouraged to submit suitable high-quality illustrations for consideration for cover illustration even if they do not appear in the actual article. The illustrations should be accompanied by a short explanatory legend, be submitted as supplementary files and have the word “cover” in the name of the files. Colour illustrations will be printed on the cover free of charge for the author, but usual charges will apply for the illustrations to be printed in the article. Illustrations for the cover should comply with the requirement for figures as described above.

Supporting Information

Supporting information (e.g. figures, tables and video material) can be submitted provided it is pertinent to the manuscript. If the manuscript is accepted for publication, supporting material can be made available online as a link to the published article. Supporting information should be labelled sequentially Figure S1, Table S1, and so on and should be referred to in the text as “Figure S1 in the online supporting information”. Please note that online supporting information will be refereed but will not be copyedited, or proofread by the Journal staff or the Publisher. It is the responsibility of the authors to ensure the accuracy of the contents. Information on submission of supporting information is available at http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/suppmat.asp.

 

PEER REVIEW

All submitted manuscripts, both unsolicited and invited, are reviewed before publication by multiple independent (i.e. independent from the author) qualified experts:

- Original articles are pre-screened upon submission by a Deputy Editor who assesses whether the manuscript falls within the scope of Respirology and is suitable to send to external referees. A decision to reject a submitted manuscript without external review requires a confirmation by a second Deputy Editor. Approximately 30% of submitted manuscripts get rejected at this pre-screening stage. The other 70% are assigned to an expert Associate Editor who sends the manuscript to at least two external referees. Authors are encouraged to suggest preferred reviewers upon submission and the option to request non-preferred reviewers is also available. Respirology accepts approx. 20% of submitted Original Articles. Accepted articles require final approval from a Senior Editor before proceeding to publication.

- Unsolicited and systematic reviews and are initially assessed by the Editor in Chief and, if considered within the scope of Respirology, are subsequently assigned to an appropriate Associate Editor for assessment by two external referees.

- Invited reviews are commissioned by the Editor in Chief and are assessed by at least one Associate Editor who can choose to involve one or more external referees.

- Editorials, scientific letters and correspondences are generally reviewed by the Editor in Chief only, who can involve external referees as required.

DISCLAIMER AND RESERVATIONS

The Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board reserve the right to refuse any material for publication, and to accept manuscripts conditional upon changes in its contents and category of publication. Any final decision rests with the Editorial Board. The Publisher, Asian Pacific Society of Respirology, the Editorial Board and the Editors cannot be held responsible for errors or any consequences arising from the use of information contained in the Journal.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

AFTER A MANUSCRIPT HAS BEEN ACCEPTED

Accepted Articles
Accepted Articles have been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review and final editing but have not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process. Accepted Articles are published online in PDF format only before the proofs are available, are given a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which allows them to be cited and tracked, and are are indexed by PubMed. A completed copyright form is required before a manuscript can be processed as an Accepted Article.

Copyright
Authors publishing in the Journal will be asked to sign an Exclusive Licence Form, which can be downloaded here. All authors must read and agree to the conditions outlined in the form, and must sign the form or agree that the corresponding author can sign on their behalf. Articles cannot be published until a signed form with original signature (not a digital one) has been received.

Any material (figures,tables, photographs, questionnaires) reproduced or adapted from other publications requires permission from the copyright holder for publication in Respirology. In signing the Exclusive Licence Form it is assumed that authors have obtained permission to use copyrighted or previously published material. All permissions must be faxed to the Editorial Office or uploaded with the manuscript files.

Publication Fee

After acceptance of the manuscript, the corresponding author (as listed on the title page of the manuscript) will be charged a publication fee. Authors must agree to pay the fee upon submission of their manuscript and payment must be finalised prior to the manuscript being published. Correspondences and invited papers are excluded from this fee. Depending on the GDP per capita of the corresponding author's country of residence, the fee is US$300, US$150 or US$50 per manuscript. Please refer to this form for the publication fee per country. Authors should contact the Editorial Office (respirology-aphb@uwa.edu.au) in case of hardship or special circumstance.

Online Open
Online Open 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 Online Library, as well as deposited in the funding agency's preferred archive. The Online Open fee is fixed at US$3000.

For the full list of terms and conditions, see http://wileyonlinelibrary.com/onlineopen#OnlineOpen_Terms.

Any authors wishing to send their paper OnlineOpen will be required to complete the payment form available from our website at: https://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/onlineopen_order.asp. A number of institutions and funders financially support their investigators publishing open access articles with Wiley. Authors affiliated with an organization which has an institutional or funding agency arrangement with Wiley (listed here) can request an institutional/funder discount or payment (as applicable).

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.

Note to NIH Grantees

Pursuant to NIH mandate, Wiley-Blackwell will post the accepted version of contributions authored by NIH grant-holders to PubMed Central upon acceptance. This accepted version will be made publicly available 12 months after publication. For further information, see www.wiley.com/go/nihmandate. The NIH grant number must also be included in the acknowledgements section of the manuscript.

Author Services

Author Services allows the corresponding author to track the article—after its acceptance—online through the production process to publication online and in print. The author will receive an email, instructions and a unique ID from the journal once their accepted article has been sent for production. After registration with the tracking service, authors can check the status of their article online or be alerted to all or selected stages of production. Authors can also nominate 10 colleagues to be alerted when their article is published online and to get free access to their article.

Page Proofs and Offprints

Corresponding authors will receive instructions via email on how to download a Portable Document Format (PDF) typeset page proof and associated forms. The PDF proof allows the author a final check of the layout, including tables and figures. Alterations other than the essential correction of errors are unacceptable at PDF proof stage. The proof should be checked, and approval to publish the article should be emailed to the Publisher by the date indicated; otherwise, it may be approved by the Editor-in-Chief or publication may be withheld. A minimum of 50 offprints will be provided upon request, at the author’s expense and can be ordered online through C.O.S. Printers . For queries regarding offprints, please email offprint@cosprinters.com.

SUPPLEMENTS

Guidelines for supplements to be published by Respirology can be obtained from the Editorial Office (respirology-aphb@uwa.edu.au).