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General


The Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment (JSTAT) is an international, peer-reviewed, online-only journal created by the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) and the Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP Publishing), following the success of JHEP and JCAP. SISSA Medialab is in charge of the peer review of submissions, while IOP Publishing is in charge of the online publication of articles and subscriptions.


Scope


JSTAT is targeted to a broad community interested in different aspects of statistical physics, which are roughly defined by the fields represented in the conferences called 'Statistical Physics'. Submissions from experimentalists working on all the topics which have some connection to statistical physics are also strongly encouraged.

The Journal covers different topics which correspond to the following keyword sections.

JSTAT Keywords
1. Quantum statistical physics, condensed matter, integrable systems
2. Classical statistical mechanics, equilibrium and non-equilibrium
3. Disordered systems, classical and quantum
4. Interdisciplinary statistical mechanics
5. Biological modelling and information

The Journal's scope should not be regarded as fixed and will evolve and adapt over time to the changes in research trends.


Editorial policy


From the outset the Journal's main aim was to ensure fast and efficient online publication tools to the scientific community, while keeping that community in charge of every aspect of the peer-review and publication process, in order to ensure the highest quality standards in the Journal.

Consequently the Chief Scientific Director, the Scientific Directors and the Editorial Board jointly establish the Journal's scientific policy and ensure the scientific quality of accepted articles. Editors and referees operate anonymously, but they can reveal their identity to the authors if they so wish.

The criteria for acceptance are scientific quality, originality and relevance. Length should be appropriate to the information presented. Serial publication should be avoided. This implies that ongoing work in a series of papers, reporting incremental steps forward from previous work, is not enough to warrant acceptance in JSTAT. Editors are asked to apply a strict quality filter in selecting contributions for publication.

When submitting a paper to the Journal, contributors must look up the JSTAT list of keywords and choose the ones that best define the subject of their work. The JSTAT system will then automatically assign the submission to a member of the Editorial Board by choosing the best match of the author's keywords with the areas of expertise of the available editors, taking editor workload into account. Editors take full responsibility for the submission, either reviewing the preprint themselves or sending it to as many referees as may be necessary. Editors may also consult a fellow member of the Editorial Board.

JSTAT also publishes invited Special Issues, reviews and perspective reviews.


Ethical policy


Manuscripts submitted to JSTAT must not have been published or be under consideration for publication in other refereed journals, nor should they be sent to other journals while being considered for publication in JSTAT. JSTAT will not tolerate any misconduct relating to plagiarism of already published articles. The journal applies the principles of publication ethics endorsed by IoPP.

Organisation chart


JSTAT is organised as follows:

  • Chief Scientific Director
  • Scientific Directors
  • Editorial Board
  • Editorial Office at SISSA Medialab
  • Publishing Office at IOP Publishing

The Chief Scientific Director is in charge of coordinating the activity of the Scientific Directors and monitoring the quality of the Journal.

The Scientific Directors are in charge of supervising the Editorial Board and monitoring the quality of the Journal jointly with the Chief Scientific Director. The Scientific Directors are first instance for an appeal in cases of disagreement between Authors and Editors.

The Editorial Board is JSTAT's most important asset. JSTAT has a large Editorial Board in order to provide competent coverage for all the areas indicated by the keywords and thus avoid generic decisions or the inappropriate selection of referees. Editors are in charge of the peer-review of submissions, take full responsibility for the articles they are in charge of, can assess papers themselves or send them to one or more referees and take the final decision on whether or not to publish a contribution.

The Editorial Office is in charge of supervising the functioning of the Journal in collaboration with the Editorial Board. SISSA Medialab, where the Editorial Office is based, runs the software system that automates the editorial process.
The Editorial Office monitors the Journal daily, provides assistance to authors, editors and referees, and takes action in close collaboration with the Scientific Directors in the event of any problems or delay that may arise.

The Publishing Office at IOP Publishing is responsible for the marketing and distribution of the Journal, including the typesetting and publication of accepted contributions. As for archive preservation, IOP Publishing and SISSA Medialab are committed to maintaining the archive (i.e. through LOCKSS http://www.lockss.org) and taking appropriate steps in the event of signifcant technology changes.


JSTAT software


The JSTAT editorial website is hosted at SISSA Medialab (http://jstat.sissa.it), where a web-based software system has been developed and is used to process submissions and the entire editorial procedure - submission of preprints, their automatic assignment to the appropriate editors, peer-review, contacts between editors, referees and the Editorial Office, revision of contributions and delivery of accepted articles to IOP Publishing - as well as the administration of the Journal.

The JSTAT software system relies on a powerful database that stores the files of the contributions, their metadata and, most importantly, all the correspondence between the journal users, who have direct access to all the information, files and correspondence items appropriate for their role on their personal web pages. All users have a single username and password to access their home page on the JSTAT website for all of their different roles.

JSTAT is available online through IOP Publishing's Electronic Journals service http:/iopscience.iop.org/jstat. Contributions are published as soon as they are available in their final form. Online publication offers enhanced features and functions:

  • Powerful search engines in addition to the table of contents and indexes used by paper journals. Readers can `cluster' search results by topic.
  • Extensive reference linking. IOP Publishing is part of CrossRef and also has bilateral reference-linking agreements with other physics publishers.
  • Contributions are hypertextual, with links within the articles themselves and to the articles quoted in the references.
  • JSTAT encourages authors to submit multimedia files to enhance the online version of published research articles. Multimedia enhancements typically consist of video clips, animations or supplementary data.

Contact details


The JSTAT Editorial office can be contacted via email at jstat-eo@jstat.sissa.it

Sissa Medialab srl
Via Bonomea, 265
34136 Trieste - Italy
Tel. +39-040-3787 620
Fax. +39-040-3787 640
pec@pec.sissamedialab.it

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