Welcome to the latest issue of Artery Research. As the journal is now in its 3rd year of publication I felt that it would be appropriate, on behalf of the editorial board to provide an update of our progress. Artery Research is continuing to develop its reputation in the publishing arena with submissions and citations following as the journal begins to expand its readership. In 2008 we were fortunate enough to benefit from the first years full subscription from the Artery meeting and society membership. Institutional subscribers continued to grow, reaching well over 3000 via the ScienceDirect platform.

This increased subscription resulted in over 7000 full text downloads in 2008, which is an excellent and very positive result allowing for the fact that there are only 29 papers published so far in 2 volumes. This calculates at an average of 240 downloads per paper. By comparison with larger, more established titles this is above average (counting the papers published in the last 10 years only the average download per paper for a sample of other journals calculates at 130 downloads per published item).

The flow of papers to the journal is steadily increasing, resulting in a rejection rate in 2008 of 28%. Increasing the papers being submitted to the journal is a strategic aim for 2009 along with a focussed campaign to further raise the profile of the journal.

Editorial and production times are still very competitive with accepted papers published online 48 days (6.8 weeks) after acceptance. Reviewing times too are very competitive with authors receiving a first decision an average of 49 days (7 weeks) after submission.

Online Usage

During 2008 there were 953 institutes downloading full-text articles from Artery Research via ScienceDirect. The geographical distribution of these institutes, as given in the chart below, shows that the journal is being accessed internationally.

The average number of downloads per month was 618. The most downloaded articles in 2008 were:

Citations

To date, four articles published in Artery Research have been cited in (other) journals:

Vol/Iss.	Article/Authors
2-1	Identifying the vulnerable plaque: A review of invasive and non-invasive imaging modalities. Kips, J.G.; Segers, P.; Van Bortel, L.M.
2-2	Canola oil decreases cholesterol and improves endothelial function in patients with peripheral arterial occlusive disease – a pilot Stricker, H.; Duchini, F.; Facchini, M.; Mombelli, G study.
1-1	Inflammation and arterial function. Aznaouridis, K.A.; Stefanadis, C.I.
2-2	Waves in arteries: A review of wave intensity analysis in the systemic and coronary circulations. Hughes, A.D.; Parker, K.H.; Davies, J.E.
2-1	The life and times of Donald A. McDonald. Nichols, W.W.; O’Rourke, M.F.
1-2	How to measure endothelial function by pulse wave analysis. McEniery, C.M.
1-2	Arterial structure and function in end-stage renal disease. Pannier, B.; Guerin, A.P.; Marchais, S.J. et al.
1-2	Importance of the aortic reservoir in determining the shape of the arterial pressure waveform - The forgotten lessons of Frank. Davies, J.E.; Hadjiloizou, N.; Leibovich, D. et al.
1-1	Abridged version of the expert consensus document on arterial stiffness. Laurent, S.; Cockcroft, J.; Van Bortel, L. et al.
1-1	Molecular determinants of arterial stiffness. Laurent, S.; Fassot, C.; Lacolley, P.; Boutouyrie, P.

Vol/Iss.	Title/Author(s)/Cited
1-1	Abridged version of the expert consensus document on arterial stiffness. Laurent, S., Cockcroft, J., Van Bortel, L. et al. 3 citations in: Am. J. Hypertension; Med. Biol. Engineering and Computing; Artery Research
1-2	Arterial structure and function in end-stage renal disease. Pannier, B., Guerin, A.P., Marchais, S.J. et al. 2 citations in: Current Opinion in Nephrology and Hypertension; Nephrology, Dialysis, Transplantation
1-1	Reducing arterial stiffness and wave reflection – Quest for the Holy Grail? Mahmud, A. 2 citations in: Fundamental and Clinical Pharmacol.; Nephrology, Dialysis, Transplantation
1-1	Molecular determinants of arterial stiffness. Laurent, S., Fassot, C., Lacolley, P., Boutouyrie, P 1 citation in: Journal of Hypertension

PubMed application

The journal was submitted to the Medline board at the end of 2008 and the journal is scheduled to be assessed in June this year. A successful application will allow us to focus on the next step in the journal’s development and consider an application to Thompson and inclusion on Web of Science and that all important Impact Factor.

Editorial Board

We are very pleased to welcome the following new members to the Editorial Board of Artery Research:

• Prof. Alun Hughes (London, UK)

• Dr. Miklós Illyés (Budapest, Hungary)

• Dr. Francesco Mattace-Raso (Rotterdam, The Netherlands)

• Dr. Carmel McEniery (Cambridge, UK)

• Dr. Anna Paini (Brescia, Italy)

• Dr. Patrick Segers (Gent, Belgium)

• Dr. James Sharman (Brisbane, Australia)

• Dr. Thomas Weber (Wels, Austria)

On behalf of the editorial board I would like to thank all our reviewers and those who have already submitted their work to Artery Research. We are making every effort to increase submissions in the future and we encourage you to submit more of your work over the coming year. As always we will try and provide the readership with a journal that will be relevant to both researchers and clinicians alike and we welcome your suggestions for future issues. Finally, I look forward to seeing many of you in person at our forthcoming meeting ARTERY 9 in Cambridge in September.