Submission Deadline: May 16, 2016.

Step-by-step to your abstract submission

1. New users should create one account under “Log-in”.
   If you submitted an abstract to IEPA Japan, then you already have an account saved. Enter the same email address as you did in 2014 and use the “forgot password” link to assist your log-in; or if you have a new email address, you may create a new account.
   Check your email for confirmation of your new account. If nothing arrives, please check your spam folder.  Add “submissions@iepaconference.org” to your address book to receive communications on your abstract(s). Questions can be submitted to submissions@iepaconference.org.
2. Please login to your account with your email and password. Choose Symposium, Oral and/or Poster Submissions and follow the indicated steps.
3. After your successful abstract submission you will receive an email confirmation. Please also check your spam folder here.  You may login at any time to submit more abstracts or to make changes to abstracts already submitted until the abstract deadline on May 16, 2016.

Important Submission Elements

All submissions must be in final form and ready for publication in the Abstract Book.
Your submission will NOT be reviewed for typos or other errors.
Check your work carefully as no changes are allowed after the submission deadline.

1. Titles:
   The title should be dynamic and conclusive, rather than descriptive, and should be entered in title case format, AP format. In general, you should capitalize the first letter of each word unless it is a preposition or article. Do italicize scientific names of organisms such as streptococci or candida. Titles should not be bold.
2. Authors:
   Each author should be added separately to the submission to ensure proper listing. Enter first (given) name, and last (family/surname) name for each author; middle name or initials should be entered in the First Name field. The first author will be listed in the published program as the speaker. Do not enter names in all capital or all lowercase letters. For Affiliation #s, enter the appropriate number, or numbers, next to each speaker to indicate which schools or universities the author is affiliated with. When entering affiliation numbers, use the format 1,2,3 with no spaces. The order of the authors can be modified at any time prior to the abstract deadline.
3. Symposium abstracts:
   Symposium submissions must include a chair (organizer) and author information for each abstract. If accepted, the chair will be required to register to attend the conference in order to introduce the symposium. A second organizer, co-chair, is optional, however registration will be required for all participants. There is an additional option to add a discussant as a fifth speaker in the symposium, without an additional abstract. Please note that symposiums with discussants will have time modifications for the talk in order to allow the fifth speaker. It is not a requirement to include a discussion with your symposium submission.
4. Affiliations:
   Enter each school or university name only once. Then associate affiliations with a speaker using the Affiliation #s box. Do not enter addresses or department names; they will be removed. Do not enter affiliations in all capital or all lowercase letters.Authors and affiliations will be published in this format:
   Joe Smith¹, Jane Jones^1,2; ¹Stanford University, ²UCLA
5. Abstract Text:
   All abstracts must be a single paragraph not exceeding 250 words. Multiple paragraphs will be merged into a single paragraph.Line breaks, tabs and multiple spaces will be replaced with single space. Formatting, such as italic and bold, is not supported. Do not include references.
   The following structure of the abstract must be strictly adhered to in order to be admitted for reviewing:
       1. Purpose
       2. Materials and Methods
       3. Results
       4. Conclusion
6. Content of the Abstract:
   Titles, authors and authors’ affiliations are not included in the 250 word limit, The abstract must contain a brief statement of:
       a. The objectives of the investigation,
       b. Experimental methods used,
       c. Essential results, including data and, where appropriate, statistics,
7. Notes:
   The optional Notes field can be used to provide special instructions on the handling of your submission. Notes are not published.
8. The following information should be submitted:
   All abstract submissions must select at least one theme from the included menu. IEPA will correspond with the submitter and/or first author listed on the abstract. Thus, make sure to include a correct email address for the presenting author of each abstract.
   
9. Registration
   The presenting author(s) must be a registered participant. Please note that the presenting author is not automatically registered by submitting an abstract. Regular registration is obligatory and binding and implies payment of the registration fee.
   For registration, please click here.

Registration Requirement

Presenting authors for all talks must register to attend the conference. Presenting authors for all posters must register by 1 August 2016 (early bird deadline) for their abstract to be included in the printed program book.

Abstract Review

The Scientific Review Committee evaluates all submitted abstracts. Abstracts submitted for talk sessions are assessed by a minimum of two reviewers; poster abstracts are assessed by a single reviewer. Reviewers are chosen whose area of expertise matches the topic of your abstract.

Abstracts are reviewed on a scale of 1 to 4. Reviewers can individually recommend rejection, possible rejection, possible acceptance or recommend acceptance. The scores are averaged between the reviewers and the Organizing Committee makes the final decision for acceptance and/or rejection based on the recommendations of the Scientific Review Committee.

Abstracts that are submitted for sympoia but not accepted by the review committee will automatically be considered for oral talks. Orals that are not accepted as talks will automatically be reviewed as posters. It is not necessary to re-submit your abstract if it is not accepted in the submission form entered.

Criteria for the rejection of abstracts are off-topic themes, a lack of results, no or fatally flawed methods, incomprehensibility, or repetition of well-known literature. Abstracts that are recommended for rejection by at least one reviewer will be considered for rejection by the Organizing Committee. Abstracts will only be finally rejected if a 2/3 majority of the committee votes for rejection.

Abstract Acceptance

After the reviewing process and after the abstracts are scheduled for the meeting, authors will be informed about the outcome of the reviewing process. All correspondence, including notification of abstract acceptance and details for poster and talk presentations, will be sent to the Corresponding Author (submitting author) via email. The corresponding author shall be responsible for informing all contributing authors of any related correspondence.

Program Scheduling

The Organizing Committee will meeting in July to schedule presentations for the meeting. Abstracts are divided up into thematically organized sessions. Symposium presentations include four speakers and at least one chair. Oral Sessions include up to six individual talks. Because there are usually more requests for talks than slots available, the reviewers’ ratings will primarily determine which abstracts will be assigned to the talk sessions.

All Symposium Abstracts that are not accepted for a symposium will automatically be considered for individual talks and/or posters. All Oral Abstracts that are not accepted for talks will be automatically considered for posters. At any time, the committee may decide to gather superior oral submissions into a symposium and/or break up a symposium into oral sessions, depending on the ratings from the reviews and the abstracts submitted. Individual authors will be notified in this case, so please be sure to include the correct email address for the authors of each abstract.

The program will be announced in July 2016 so that all presenting authors will have ample time to complete the registration process prior to the end of the early-bird discount deadline.

Program Scheduling

All accepted abstracts will be printed in the meeting abstract booklet. All abstracts presented at the conference will be published in the Wiley Online Library under Early Intervention in Psychiatry.