I am writing to report on several recent developments of interest to Aerosol Science and Technology (AST) authors and readers. These include faster access to accepted papers, improved visibility and impact for AST, and growth in the number of papers that are being submitted.
As of this month, accepted manuscripts will be available to AST subscribers within 7 days after the final files are sent to the publisher. Taylor and Francis' Accepted Manuscripts Online (AMO) service now provides readers with access to accepted manuscripts before they are copyedited and typeset. Manuscripts are accessible through InformaWorld's web site, and Digital Object Identifier (DOI) numbers are provided to allow articles to be cited and to allow citations to be recorded by ISI. This will speed up access to AST articles by 1–2 months.
AST's impact factor has followed a steady upward trend for the past decade and is now 2.739. According to ISI, AST ranks 14/128 among chemical engineering journals and 36/181 among environmental sciences journals. These are very good rankings. Based on the excellent papers we are receiving in areas of emerging importance, we expect that AST's rankings will continue to improve.
In October 2009 AST introduced a new category of papers, Aerosol Research Letters (ARL). ARL are short articles (a maximum of 2500 words) that describe especially significant developments. No more than 10% of AST papers will be ARL, and ARL are freely available to the world (open access) upon publication. Three ARL articles have been published and can be viewed at http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/02786826.asp. Another one is in press and will be available soon. I encourage aerosol scientists to consider ARL for their most novel results.
AST submission rates are increasing sharply. In 2006, 153 manuscripts were submitted and more than 240 manuscripts were submitted in 2010. To accommodate this potential increase in the number of printed pages, we encourage authors to make use of Supplemental Information for material that might have been printed as an Appendix; Supplemental Information is archival and available online but not in print.
Readers are encouraged to watch for a special issue on measurements in the 1 nm range early in 2011. These papers discuss the use of mass spectrometers, ion mobility spectrometers, and condensation particle counters to detect particles/molecular clusters/ions in that size range. Four review articles are also being considered for publication in 2011. We welcome suggestions for critical reviews and special issues on other topics of importance to aerosol science and technology.