r's online platform www.springerlink.com. All articles will be published online via Online First before they appear in print, thereby ensuring rapid dissemination of papers to the scientific community. The journal will include Cross Reference Linking and ToC Alerts, a feature by which subscribers receive the table of contents by email weeks in advance of the new issue. All authors, via the Springer Open Choice program, will have the option of publishing their articles using the open access publishing model.