Units, symbols and abbreviations in the Proceedings

I. McCance, Past APPS Editor, 3 Judith Court, Mount Waverley, Victoria 3149, Australia.

The previous abstracts make reference to Baron (1988) as the source of information for units, symbols, abbreviations and conventions that should be used in the "Proceedings". To simplify the authors' tasks, some of this information is abstracted here.

Units: SI units should be used. Baron (1988) lists SI Base Units (e.g., kilogram, (kg)), prefixes for SI Units (e.g., milli (10^-3), micro (10^-6), nano (10^-9)), SI derived units with special names (e.g., newton, N, = kg m s^-2), and non-SI units accepted for general use (e.g., litre, l or L (see footnote to Table), = 1×10^-3 m³.

Derived units should be written sequentially, e.g., ml kg^-1 min^-1 as in Regan et al. (1994), with no full stop between. Where only two terms are involved, the solidus may be used, e.g., mol/l or mol l^-1.

Symbols and Abbreviations: Abbreviations should be defined in the text of the abstract, not in the title.
Times: s, min, h, d; prefer not to abbreviate week, month, year.
Statistics: x, SD, SE (see McCance, 2001), P, r, t, χ². Always indicate d.f. where appropriate.
Routes of administration: i.v., i.p., i.m., i.c.v.

ampere	A	diameter	diam.	logarithm to base e	log_e or ln
anterior	ant.	editor(s)	ed.	maximum	max.
calculated	calc.	experiment	expt.	minimum	min.
compare	cf.	extracellular fluid	e.c.f.	page/pages	p./pp.
compliance (resp.)	C	similarly, i.c.f.,p.c.v. or PCV, r.b.c. or RBC, r.m.s.,w.b.c. or WBC		relative humidity	r.h.
counts per minute	ct/min	haemoglobin	Hb	temperature	temp.
concentration of substance shown as formula	[ ]	increment	Δ	revolutions per minute	rev/min
cycles per second	Hz	litre	l or L^¶	volume	vol.

^¶Note: Baron allows l, L as alternatives. Authors should be consistent.

Approximation: use approx. (or ≈) for measurements. The Latin word circa (c or ca) should be reserved for dates.

Baron, D.N. (1988) In: Units, Symbols and Abbreviations, ed. Baron, D.N., pp. 1-64. London: The Royal Society of Medicine.

McCance, I. (2001) Proceedings of the Australian Physiological and Pharmacological Society
32(1), 2P.

Regan, J.M., Macfarlane, D.J. & Taylor, N.A.S. (1994) Proceedings of the Australian Physiological and Pharmacological Society, 25(1), 3P.