About Phys. Rev. E
[ PRE News | Service Description | Getting Started ]

Physical Review E(PRE) interdisciplinary in scope, focuses on many-body phenomena, including recent developments in quantum and classical chaos, and soft matter physics. It has sections on statistical physics, equilibrium and transport properties of fluids, liquid crystals, complex fluids, polymers, chaos, fluid dynamics, plasma physics, classical physics including nonlinear, media, and computational physics. In addition, the journal features sections on two rapidly growing areas: biological physics and granular materials.

This document contains information about this online service. It introduces recently added new features, describes the available services, and provides information users may find helpful in getting started. As part of an Online Help compendium the present document refers to Scitation. Scitation houses the current year of journal content plus the previous three years. Earlier volumes are contained in the Physical Review Online Archive (PROLA), for which a separate document is available (see About PROLA).

While many features of this online service are freely available, some require a personal or institutional subscription. If you are able to access full-text articles and view linked references without being prompted for a password and username, you are doing so via a subscription paid for by your library or institution.


PRE News

  • January 2009: All 2005 content has been moved into PROLA (Physical Review Online Archives). Scitation houses the current year of journal content plus the previous three years.

  • January 2008: All 2004 content has been moved into PROLA (Physical Review Online Archives). Scitation houses the current year of journal content plus the previous three years.

  • January 2007: Editorials and Announcements now have citations and dois and follow the same production process as articles. They are available without subscription, same as errata.

  • January 2007: All 2003 content has been moved into PROLA (Physical Review Online Archives). Scitation houses the current year of journal content plus the previous three years.

  • September 2006: APS expands its Open Access (OA) offerings to articles published in Physical Review A-E, Physical Review Letters, and Reviews of Modern Physics. This OA initiative is called FREE TO READ. The Free to Read icon will be displayed on all FREE TO READ articles. The full text (pdf) will be available without a subscription. See http://publish.aps.org/FREETOREAD_FAQ.html for more information.

  • July 2006: Online PDFs of articles appearing in new volumes of Physical Review Letters, Physical Review and Reviews of Modern Physics are now hyperlinked for more convenient on-screen navigation.

  • June 2006: Both PROLA and Scitation now display citing articles from publishers that participate in the CrossRef forward linking program.

  • January 2006: Full text of Errata, Publisher's Notes, Editorial Notes and Retractions are now freely available without a subscription.

  • January 2006: All 2002 content has been moved into PROLA (Physical Review Online Archives). Scitation houses the current year of journal content plus the previous three years.

  • July 2005: New volumes of Physical Review and Physical Review Letters now contain a link from the full text pdf back to the online abstract through the DOI (Digital Object Identifier). The DOI link can be found below the abstract and is blue in color. There will be a delay of a few hours between publication and activation of the link while the DOI is being registered via CrossRef.

  • 17 May 2005: New Abstract Displays - APS journals' abstracts pages have been redesigned with a more user-friendly interface using an updated layout and font styles. Login status is now displayed on the pages, and full text options are presented according to the login status. For example, authenticated browser sessions no longer offer "Order Document" links. Unauthenticated user displays now also include select reference and citing article lists, comprised of only those articles published in APS and AIP journals. (Full reference lists continue to be displayed for authenticated users.)

  • 19 April 2005: Users of the APS journals on Scitation can now search all APS content from any APS journal, since search coverage has now been extended to include content formerly only searchable in PROLA, The American Physical Society's Physical Review Online Archive. Search results containing hits to articles hosted on PROLA will feature a link to the PROLA abstract, where the full text can be accessed. (Note that access to the full text of PROLA articles may require a separate subscription.)

  • 18 March 2005: Scitation® Research Alerts - Receive weekly e-mails containing the abstracts of nearly every article published in your field - drawn from approximately 4,000 journals worldwide. This fee-based service is driven by the powerful Inspec database, which provides nearly full coverage of the literature in physics, electronic and electrical engineering, computer science, communications and information technology. In addition, Inspec adds almost a half million new items yearly, drawn from journals, proceedings, books, reports, and theses. See http://www.scitationalerts.org for details.

  • 24 February 2005: RSS Feeds - APS is now providing content using RSS feeds as a convenience to our readers. Journal feeds contain recently published articles in each journal and are updated as new articles are published. A list of all available feeds along with a set of frequently asked questions can be found at http://feeds.aps.org or by following the RSS link on journal pages.

  • 5 January 2005: All 2001 content has been moved into PROLA (Physical Review Online Archives). Scitation houses the current year of journal content plus the previous three years.

  • 13 January 2004: Searching is now freely available without a subscription.

  • 5 January 2004: All 2000 content has been moved into PROLA (Physical Review Online Archives). Scitation houses the current year of journal content plus the previous three years.

  • 17 December 2003: Free E-Mail ToC Alerting Service launched. See Alert Center for details.

  • 2 January 2003: All 1999 content has been moved into PROLA (Physical Review Online Archives). Scitation houses the current year of journal content plus the previous three years.

  • Previous "News" Listings

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Service Description

Physical Review E is published electronically one article at a time. A new issue is "opened" at the beginning of a month and as articles complete the production process are published in that issue. The issue is "closed" at the end of the month. PRE is published monthly (6 issues per volume, two volumes per year).

Users can select from a list of all available volumes and browse any HTML TOC, read abstracts, and view PDF (and PostScript) articles (or place a document delivery order). Physical Review E offers the following features:

Available Volumes

  • Direct access to the Tables of Contents of recent issues including the latest, open issue.

  • Browse the list of articles accepted for publication (ordered by month of acceptance). The abstracts of electronically submitted articles are also available. These can be found on the homepage in the drop down menu of Recent and Future Issues below the current issue(s).

  • Access to the issue index of any volume in the current year plus the previous three years.

  • Access to earlier volumes via the Physical Review Online Archive (PROLA).

Tables of Contents

  • Browse an HTML version of the Table of Contents (TOC) of any issue, including the latest open issue. The HTML TOCs contain hyperlinks from individual titles to the abstract of each title as well as options to view full-text PDF or PostScript articles and place both online and offline document delivery orders. For more information on viewing and printing PostScript files, consult the Online Help specific to working with compressed PostScript.

  • Browse PDF versions of the TOCs for the last few years, which contain weblinks to the HTML abstracts.

Abstracts

  • The abstract "view" shows bibliographic information including the citation, title, author name(s), and abstract. In addition, author affiliation(s), PACS categories, and hyperlinked references are available as well as links to the full-text PDF or PostScript version of the article (see below).

  • Reference sections are available in the abstracts for subscribers. They include links to those citations available in PROLA, AIP's SPIN database, IEE's INSPEC database, and the arXiv.org E-print archive. Read Reference Sections and Reference Linking in Abstracts for more information.

  • From the abstract "view," users can view the full-text PDF or PostScript version of the article, including all figures, tables, and references. Or, an "Order Document" link will allow users to place an order for offline document delivery.

  • Links to related papers are available in the abstracts; that is, crosslinks within a series of papers (Papers I, II, etc.), from a Comment to the Article commented on and its Reply, and from an Article to its Erratum (and in most cases, the link are bidirectional; that is, the Comment features a link to the Reply and vice versa). For more information, read Related-Paper ("See Also") Citations and Links in Abstracts in Online Help.

  • "Citing Articles" links (i.e., "forward" reference links to other articles on Scitation citing the article currently being viewed) are available for the last few years. These links appear after the Reference Section, and are available for subscribers. Read Reference Sections and Reference Linking in Abstracts for more information.

  • A tabular array containing additional bibliographic information can be accessed by following the "Additional Information" link appearing after the PACS numbers.

Searching

  • Search a "Current Issue" database which includes the most recently closed issue plus the issue currently building.

  • Search a database covering recent volumes (i.e., the current year plus the previous three years of contents).

  • Search a database of earlier volumes in the Physical Review Online Archive (PROLA).

  • An Author Search Interface is available for effective searching on names with initials.

Free Access to Some Areas

  • The Tables of Contents (PDF and HTML), the abstract view and searching of articles are not password protected. Password/username will only be requested for viewing full text and references, and entrance to AIP's SPIN database via the Search SPIN database link appearing on the search pages. When a password/username does apply, it is requested only once per "session." A "session" is the period between successful login (authentication) and logout (exiting), or 15 minutes of "idle" time (after which the user is automatically logged out). Password/username is NOT requested, at any point, for access via an institutional subscription.

Important Links

  • The “Accepted Papers” tab on the home page provides access to listings of papers to appear in future issues of Physical Review E.

  • The home page provides links to other APS journals and to the Physical Review Online Archive (PROLA).

Other Features

  • A password-changing mechanism is available for individual users. For access, click here and, for more information, consult the Online Help.

  • An "Exit" button (or textual equivalent) appears at the bottom of all PRE pages. The login system tracks the number of concurrent users on the system (i.e., the number of logins per login name). There are limits that are set per user and per institutional login. In order to free up a "slot" for the next user, it is recommended that you use the "Exit" button. If you do not, the next person logging in from your institution may not be able to access the service for up to 15 minutes.

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Getting Started

Here's a recommended checklist for first-time PRE users:

  • Make sure you have a current browser that supports (a) authentication (login and password), (b) HTML forms (for database queries), (c) HTML tables, (d) JavaScript (JavaScript support must be enabled to take full advantage of all Article Collection functions, as well as some functions of the reference-linking, related-article-linking, and user-interface enhancing functions), and (e) cookies.

    IMPORTANT:
    Authentication requires that cookies be enabled in a cookie-capable browser; more information is available in the Online Help.

    While several other browsers are "Netscape-compliant," and their use should allow you to take full advantage of all of the journal's features, we recommend Netscape Navigator (more details are available from the Online Help page). As stated, authentication is required in order to enforce the publisher's subscription controls over its journals. This control is based on Netscape software products, and depends on the Netscape "cookie" mechanism (please refer to the PRE FAQ for more information on cookies) to authenticate and track both individual and institutional users throughout the system. While browsers that do not support this mechanism may function adequately, technical support in regard to authentication problems will NOT be extended to users who are not running either Netscape Navigator (version 2.0 or higher) or Microsoft Internet Explorer (version 2.0 or higher).

  • To view full-text PDF versions of PRE articles, as well as PDF versions of issue tables of contents, you must have one of the following applications:
    1. the Adobe Acrobat Reader,
    2. the Adobe Acrobat Reader browser plug-in,
    3. Adobe Acrobat Exchange, or
    4. another "viewer" that can display or otherwise manipulate PDF files.
    More details are available from the Online Help page. An Acrobat Tutorial is also available.

  • To view full-text PostScript versions of articles, you must have a PostScript viewer or any other application that enables you to otherwise manipulate PostScript files [all PostScript files delivered via Scitation (i.e., the last few years of contents) are in compressed ("gzipped") format]. More information is available from the Online Help regarding working with compressed PostScript.

  • PRE has been designed for Internet access corresponding to a 14,400 bps or faster modem connection. Tips on configuring your browser for slower connections (and to optimize any connection) are available from the Online Help page.

  • Consult the PRE FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) for a compendium of capsulized information about PRE.

  • Consult the Online Help, especially with regard to using the Acrobat products in conjunction with your browser, and for detailed tutorials on how to search the PRE databases.

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