We signed the agreement with Elsevier Science to publish a special volume of the Computational Materials Science (CMS) journal. The scope of the journal matches main themes of the Symposium on Software Development for Process and Materials Design, Moscow, Sept., 2002. We welcome balanced overviews of methodology, details of software implementation and organization, and the presentation of typical applications for which the code is intended. The goal is to arrive at the concise and informative description of code capabilities, algorithmic solutions and operation, architectural design, interaction with other software packages, and the domain of possible and typical uses. The priority is given to papers, which describe actual software package(s) currently used in materials and process design research. Paper should provide contact information (e.g., a Web site) for readers who would like to acquire the software). Our goal is to provide CMS readers with a good selection of existing approches which are AVAILABLE NOW!!!. We therefore explicitly discourage papers which discuss methodologies which are not available outside a narrow circle of developers and close collaborators. While we ask authors to present examples of applications and best uses for the software, papers which do not provide description of the software itself and to do not include overview of methodology will not have high priority. We expect that authors are not only users, but also contribute to the development of the software described in the papers. The software packages presented in this volume should be generally available (though not necessarily free...). If your package is a recent addition to the computational materials science tool box, please make sure that you provide the name of the package with the contact information and instructions for readers who would consider acquiring the software. If your package or its demo is distributed for free, we would be happy to add it to our servers at: http://www.ccl.net (Computational Chemistry List) and http://www.nanoandgiga.net (Nano and Giga).
CMS is an important journal for the materials science community and this issue may become a needed and highly quoted reference for this dynamically developing field. Such a resource is long overdue, and you can help all of us to fill this void.
The priority will be given to high quality papers which follow the guidelines provided above. Papers should be original contributions and they will undergo a regular peer review process using our electronic on-line review engine. Standard paper size is: 10-15 papes, 12pt, double spaced. Please follow the Guide for Authors for instructions about paper required format. It is preferred that you use LaTeX, but it is not a requirement. The suggested LaTeX document class is Elsevier's elsart though the revtex is also acceptable. Please upload your papers as soon as possible (the deadline for submission was extended until the end of February, 2003) to our anonymous ftp server (follow closely the instructions given in http://asdn.net/software_paper_upload.shtml page) or send it as e-mail attachments to software@asdn.net or jkl@osc.edu. Note that the asdn.net is protected with the anti-spam defenses, and it is possible that your mail is rejected if you are posting from the subnet which spammed us before. In this case, use the jkl@osc.edu address, which is (to the despair of its owner) still left essentially unfiltered for this reason.
If you have special needs for the paper submission, please contact the editors at software@asdn.net or jkl@osc.edu.