The APS journals receive manuscripts from scientists all over the world. For authors whose names cannot be expressed in Latin characters, their names in the byline must be transliterated, a process that is not necessarily bidirectionally unique. For example, the eight Chinese names王伟, 王薇, 王维, 王蔚, 汪卫, 汪玮, 汪威, and 汪巍all transliterate as Wei Wang. To remove some of the ambiguity arising from this unfortunate degeneracy of names, APS will allow some authors the option to include their names in their own language in parentheses after the transliterated name, such as Wei Wang (汪卫). The option to present names in the article byline in this manner is an experiment initially offered to Chinese, Japanese, and Korean authors, whose names can be expressed in Unicode characters. An example of a Japanese name is Tadanori Minamisono (南園忠則), and a Korean name is Chang Kee Jung (???). In the English text the given name precedes the family name, while the reverse is true for the characters. As we gain experience, we may be able to broaden this offer to other languages.
Authors who wish to try this option will need to prepare their manuscripts by following the special instructions at http://authors.aps.org/names.html.