Author Guidelines
Cover Letter
The cover letter is necessary for each submission. The cover letter should be uploaded as a separate file in Step 4 during the submission. The contents of the cover letter should include brief explanation of what was previously known, the conceptual advancement with the findings and its significance to broad readership. The cover letter will only be visible to the editor. Reviewers will not have access to the cover letter.
Title
The title should capture the conceptual significance for a broad audience. The title should not be more than 50 words and should be able to give readers an overall view of the paper’s significance. Titles should avoid using uncommon jargons, abbreviations and punctuations.
Abstract
The abstract should provide a brief summary of the paper. It should not contain any non-standard abbreviations, acknowledgements of support, references, footnotes or equations. The abstract should not exceed 200 words.
Keywords
Three to six keywords should be provided.
Introduction
The introduction section should provide a context or background that gives a broad readership an overall outlook of the field and the research performed. It tackles a problem and states its important regarding with the significance of the study. Introduction can conclude with a brief statement of the aim of the work and a comment about whether that aim was achieved.
Materials and Methods
The materials and methods section provides the general experimental design and methodologies used. The aim is to provide enough detail to for other investigators to fully replicate your results. It is also required to facilitate better understanding of the results obtained. Protocols and procedures for new methods must be included in detail to reproduce the experiments.
Ethics
Ethics information, including IACUC permit numbers and/or IRB name, if applicable. This information should be included in a subheading labeled "Ethics Statement" in the "Methods" section of your manuscript file, in as much detail as possible.
Results
The result section focuses on the results of the experiments performed. This section can be divided into subsections.
Discussion and Conclusion
The discussion and conclusion section should provide the significance of the results and identify the impact of the research in a broader context. It should not be redundant or similar to the content of the results section. Use the conclusion section for interpretation only, and not to summarize information already presented in the text or abstract.
Author Contributions
The author contributions section describes the contribution of each author, designated by initials. For the case of co-first authors, description of each author’s contribution is required.
Acknowledgements
The acknowledgements section should acknowledge contribution(s) from non-authors and funding sources. It should also include a declaration of any conflict of interest.
Supplementary Information
The supplementary information section is optional and contains all materials and figures that have been excluded from the entire manuscript. The information is relevant to the manuscript but remains non-essential to readers’ understanding of the manuscript’s main content. All supplementary information should be submitted as a separate file in Step 4 during manuscript submission. Please ensure the file names of such files start with ‘Suppl_info_’.
Text
The text of the manuscript should be in Microsoft Word. The length of the manuscript cannot be more than 8000 words.
In-text citations
Reference citations in the text should be numbered consecutively in square brackets. Some examples:
- Negotiation research spans many disciplines [3,4].
- This result was later contradicted by Becker and Seligman [5].
- This effect has been widely studied [1–3,7].
Personal communications and unpublished works can only be used in the main text of the submission and are not to be placed in the Reference section. Authors are advised to limit such usage to the minimum. They should also be easily identifiable by stating the authors and year of such unpublished works or personal communications and the word ‘Unpublished’ in parenthesis. E.g. (Smith J, 2000, Unpublished)
References
The references section is compulsory and should be placed at the end of all manuscripts. The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications and unpublished works should be excluded from this section.
The journal follows the Vancouver style of references. You can refer to the ICMJE Recommendation for preparing your references in the manuscript for submission. For references in the reference list, if the referred article has more than five authors, list only the first five authors and abbreviate the remaining authors to italicized ‘et al.’ (meaning: "and others"). Authors referenced are listed with their surname followed by their initials (e.g. Smith J). All references should be numbered (e.g. 1. 2. 3. etc.) and sequenced according to the order it appears as an in-text citation. References should follow the following pattern:
- Journal article
Terauchi Y, Takamoto I, Kubota N, Matsui J, Suzuki R, Komeda K, Hara A, Toyoda Y, Miwa I, Aizawa S, Tsutsumi S, Tsubamoto Y, Hashimoto S, Eto K, Nakamura A, Noda M, Tobe K, Aburatani H, Nagai R, Kadowaki T. Glucokinase and IRS-2 are required for compensatory beta cell hyperplasia in response to high-fat diet-induced insulin resistance. J Clin Invest 2007; 117(1): 246–57. doi: 10.1172/JCI17645. - Non-English journal article
Massone L, Borghi S, Pestarino A, Piccini R, Gambini C. Localisations palmaires purpuriques de la dermatite herpetiforme (French) [Purpuric palmar sites of dermatitis herpetiformis]. Ann Dermatol Venerol 1987; 114(12): 1545–1547. - Book
Rojko JL, Hardy WD Jr. Feline leukemia virus and other retroviruses. In: Sherding RG (editors). The cat: diseases and clinical management. New York: Churchill Livingstone; 1989. p. 229–332. - Proceedings
Sasaki Y, Nomura Y (editors). Symposium on Nasal Polyp; 1984 Oct 5–6; Tokyo. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell; 1986. p. 48. - Dissertations
Jones DL. The role of physical activity on the need for revision total knee arthroplasty in individuals with osteoarthritis of the knee [PhD thesis]. Pittsburgh (PA): University of Pittsburgh; 2001. p. 436. - Patents
Blanco EE, Meade JC, Richards WD (inventors). Ophthalmic V (assignee). Surgical Stapling system. US patent. 4,969,591. 1990 Nov 13. - Websites
Hypertension, Dialysis & Clinical Nephrology [Internet]. Hinsdale (IL): Medtext, Inc.; 1995–2001 [cited 2001 Mar 8]. Available from: http://www.medtext.com/hdcn.htm.
Tables, Lists and Equations
Tables created using Microsoft Word table function are preferred. The tables should include a title. Titles and footnotes/legends should be concise. These must be submitted together with the manuscript. Likewise, lists and equations should be properly aligned and its meaning clear to readers.
Figures
Figures include photographs, scanned images, graphs, charts and schematic diagrams. Figures submitted should avoid unnecessary decorative effects (e.g. 3D graphs) as well as be minimally processed (e.g. changes in brightness and contrast applied uniformly for the entire figure). It should also be set against a white background. Please remember to label all figures (e.g. axis etc.) and add in captions (outside the figure) as required. All figures must have a brief title (also known as caption) that describes the entire figure without citing specific panels, followed by a legend defined as description of each panel.
The preferred file formats are TIFF and JPEG. All figures should be legible in print form and of optimal resolution. Optimal resolutions preferred are 300 dots per inch for RBG colored, 600 dots per inch for greyscale and 1200 dots per inch for line art. Although there are no file size limitation imposed, authors are highly encouraged to compress their figures to an ideal size without unduly affecting legibility and resolution of figures. This will also speed up the process of uploading in the submission system.
The Editor-in-Chief and Publisher reserve the right to request from author(s) the high-resolution files and unprocessed data and metadata files should the need arise at any point after manuscript submission for reasons such as production, evaluation or other purposes. The file name should allow for ease in identifying the associated manuscript submitted.
