Submissions

Author Guidelines

Style and Format

Copyediting manuscripts

Prior to submission, authors who believe their manuscripts would benefit from professional editing are encouraged to use language-editing and copyediting services. Obtaining this service is the responsibility of the author, and should be done before initial submission. These services can be found on the web using search terms like “scientific editing service” or “manuscript editing service.”

Submissions are not copyedited before publication.

Submissions that do not meet standards may be rejected.

Manuscript Organization

Manuscripts should be organized as follows. Instructions for each element appear below the list.

Viewing Figures and Supporting Information in the compiled submission PDF
The compiled submission PDF includes low-resolution preview images of the figures after the reference list. The function of these previews is to allow you to download the entire submission as quickly as possible. Click the link at the top of each preview page to download a high-resolution version of each figure. Links to download Supporting Information files are also available after the reference list.

Parts of a Submission

Title

Include a full title and a short title for the manuscript.

Titles should be written in sentence case (only the first word of the text, proper nouns, and genus names are capitalized). Avoid specialist abbreviations if possible. For clinical trials, systematic reviews, or meta-analyses, the subtitle should include the study design.

Author list

Authorship requirements

All authors must meet the criteria for authorship, and their contributions should be briefly mentioned at the end of the manuscript. Those who contributed to the work but do not meet the criteria for authorship can be mentioned in the Acknowledgments.

The corresponding author must provide an ORCID iD at the time of submission by entering it in the user profile of the platform.

Author names and affiliations

Enter author names on the title page of the manuscript and in the online submission system.

On the title page, write author names in the following order:

• First name (no initials,)
• Middle name (no initials)
• Last name (surname, family name)

There will be an additional field for you to customize exactly how you will like your name to appear in the paper. Degrees, memberships, and affiliations should not be included.

Each author on the list must have an affiliation. The affiliation includes department, university, or organizational affiliation and its location, including city, state/province (if applicable), and country. Authors have the option to include a current address in addition to the address of their affiliation at the time of the study. The current address should be listed in the byline and clearly labeled “current address.” At a minimum, the address must include the author’s current institution, city, and country.

If an author has multiple affiliations, enter all affiliations on the title page only. In the submission system, enter only the preferred or primary affiliation. Author affiliations will be listed in the typeset PDF article in the same order that authors are listed in the submission.

Author names will be published exactly as they appear in the manuscript file. Please double-check the information carefully to make sure it is correct.

Corresponding author

The submitting author is automatically designated as the corresponding author in the submission system. The corresponding author is the primary contact for the journal office and the only author able to view or change the manuscript while it is under editorial consideration.

The corresponding author role may be transferred to another coauthor. However, note that transferring the corresponding author role also transfers access to the manuscript. (To designate a new corresponding author while the manuscript is still under consideration, watch the video tutorial below.)

Only one corresponding author can be designated in the submission system, but this does not restrict the number of corresponding authors that may be listed on the article in the event of publication. Whoever is designated as a corresponding author on the title page of the manuscript file will be listed as such upon publication. Include an email address for each corresponding author listed on the title page of the manuscript. The maximum number of corresponding authors is 2.

Consortia and group authorship

If a manuscript is submitted on behalf of a consortium or group, include its name in the manuscript byline. Do not add it to the author list in the submission system. You may include the full list of members in the Acknowledgments or in a supporting information file.

PubMed only indexes individual consortium or group author members listed in the article byline.

Author contributions

Provide at minimum one contribution for each author in the submission system. Use the CRediT taxonomy to describe each contribution.

Contributions will be published with the final article, and they should accurately reflect contributions to the work. The submitting author is responsible for completing this information at submission, and we expect that all authors will have reviewed, discussed, and agreed to their individual contributions ahead of this time.

The Journal will contact all authors by email at submission to ensure that they are aware of the submission.

Cover letter

Upload a cover letter as a separate file in the online system. The length limit is 1 page.

The cover letter should include the following information:

• Summarize the study’s contribution to the scientific literature
• Relate the study to previously published work
• Specify the type of article (for example, research article, systematic review, meta-analysis, clinical trial)
• Describe any prior publication with the Journal regarding the submitted manuscript
• Suggest appropriate Academic Editors and Reviewers (optional) to handle your manuscript. You can use this in the form provided by the platform at the moment of submission.

Fees assistance

At the moment, we have a free submission and publication policies.  CCBY license request (which is optional at the moment) requires an online payment. Contact us in case you need fee assitance: ventas@infomedicint.com.

Title page

The title, authors, and affiliations should all be included on a title page as the first page of the manuscript file.  

Abstract

The Abstract comes after the title page in the manuscript file. The abstract text is also entered in a separate field in the submission system.  

The Abstract should:

• Describe the main objective(s) of the study
• Explain how the study was done, including any model organisms used, without methodological detail
• Summarize the most important results and their significance
• Not exceed 300 words

Abstracts should not include:

• Citations
• Abbreviations, if possible

Introduction

The introduction should:

• Provide background that puts the manuscript into context and allows readers outside the field to understand the purpose and significance of the study
• Define the problem addressed and why it is important
• Include a brief review of the key literature
• Note any relevant controversies or disagreements in the field
• Conclude with a brief statement of the overall aim of the work and a comment about whether that aim was achieved

Materials and Methods

The Materials and Methods section should provide enough detail to allow suitably skilled investigators to fully replicate your study. Specific information and/or protocols for new methods should be included in detail. If materials, methods, and protocols are well established, authors may cite articles where those protocols are described in detail, but the submission should include sufficient information to be understood independent of these references.

Supporting reproducibility with protocols

To enhance the reproducibility of your results, we recommend and encourage you to make your protocols public. There are several options:

Protocols associated with Research Articles

Protocol documents may be uploaded as Supporting Information or linked from the Methods section of the article. For laboratory protocols, we recommend protocols.io. Include the DOI link in the Methods section of your manuscript using the following format: http://dx.doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.[PROTOCOL DOI]. This allows editors and reviewers to consult the detailed step-by-step protocol when evaluating your manuscript. You can choose to keep the protocol private on the protocols.io platform until your article is published—at which time it will be published automatically. 

Protocols published in their own right

In case you have protocols published in own-right, please send us an email to ventas@infomedicint.com so assist you. 

Results, Discussion, Conclusions

These sections may all be separate, or may be combined to create a mixed Results/Discussion section (commonly labeled “Results and Discussion”) or a mixed Discussion/Conclusions section (commonly labeled “Discussion”). These sections may be further divided into subsections, each with a concise subheading, as appropriate. These sections have no word limit, but the language should be clear and concise.

Together, these sections should describe the results of the experiments, the interpretation of these results, and the conclusions that can be drawn.

Authors should explain how the results relate to the hypothesis presented as the basis of the study and provide a succinct explanation of the implications of the findings, particularly in relation to previous related studies and potential future directions for research.

The Journal does not rely on perceived significance or impact, so authors should avoid overstating their conclusions.

Acknowledgments

Those who contributed to the work but do not meet our authorship criteria should be listed in the Acknowledgments with a description of the contribution.

Authors are responsible for ensuring that anyone named in the Acknowledgments agrees to be named.

Do not include editors or peer reviewers—named or unnamed—in the Acknowledgments.

Do not include funding sources in the Acknowledgments or anywhere else in the manuscript file. Funding information should only be entered in the financial disclosure section of the submission system.

References

Any and all available works can be cited in the reference list. Acceptable sources include:

• Published or accepted manuscripts
• Manuscripts on preprint servers, providing the manuscript has a citable DOI or arXiv URL.

Do not cite the following sources in the reference list:

• Unavailable and unpublished work, including manuscripts that have been submitted but not yet accepted (e.g., “unpublished work,” “data not shown”). Instead, include those data as supplementary material or deposit the data in a publicly available database.
• Personal communications (these should be supported by a letter from the relevant authors but not included in the reference list)
• Submitted research should not rely upon retracted research. You should avoid citing retracted articles unless you need to discuss retracted work to provide historical context for your submitted research. If it is necessary to discuss retracted work, state the article’s retracted status in your article’s text and reference list.

Ensure that your reference list includes full and current bibliography details for every cited work at the time of your article’s submission (and publication, if accepted). If cited work is corrected, retracted, or marked with an expression of concern before your article is published, and if you feel it is appropriate to cite the work even in light of the post-publication notice, include in your manuscript citations and full references for both the affected article and the post-publication notice.

References are listed at the end of the manuscript and numbered in the order that they appear in the text. In the text, cite the reference number in square brackets (e.g., “We used the techniques developed by our colleagues [19] to analyze the data”). The Journal uses the numbered citation (citation-sequence) method and first three authors, et al.

Do not include citations in abstracts. 

Make sure the parts of the manuscript are in the correct order before ordering the citations.

You may use Citation management software as Zotero or EndNote.

​Formatting references

Because all references will be linked electronically as much as possible to the papers they cite, proper formatting of references is crucial. 

The Journal uses the reference style outlined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), also referred to as the “Vancouver” style.

A reference management tool, EndNote, offers a current style file that can assist you with the formatting of your references. If you have problems with any reference management program, please contact the source company's technical support.

Journal name abbreviations should be those found in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) databases. 

Example

Hou WR, Hou YL, Wu GF, Song Y, Su XL, Sun B, et al. cDNA, genomic sequence cloning and overexpression of ribosomal protein gene L9 (rpL9) of the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca). Genet Mol Res. 2011;10: 1576-1588.

Supporting information

Authors can submit essential supporting files and multimedia files along with their manuscripts. All supporting information will be subject to peer review. All file types can be submitted, but files must be smaller than 20 MB in size.

Send a single file for all text or images within an Word Document. Media may be included if possible.

Authors may use almost any description as the item name for a supporting information file as long as it contains an “S” and number. For example, “S1 Appendix” and “S2 Appendix,” “S1 Table” and “S2 Table,” and so forth.  

Supporting information files are published exactly as provided, and are not copyedited.

Supporting information captions

List supporting information captions with each image or table. Do not submit captions in a separate file.

The file number and name are required in a caption, and we highly recommend including a one-line title as well. You may also include a legend in your caption, but it is not required.

Example caption

S1 Text. Title is strongly recommended. Legend is optional.

In-text citations

We recommend that you cite supporting information in the manuscript text, but this is not a requirement. If you cite supporting information in the text, citations do not need to be in numerical order.

Figures and tables

Figures

Do not include figures in the main manuscript file. Each figure must be prepared and submitted as an individual file.

Cite figures in ascending numeric order at first appearance in the manuscript file.

Figure captions

Figure captions must be inserted in the text of the manuscript, immediately following the paragraph in which the figure is first cited (read order). Do not include captions as part of the figure files themselves or submit them in a separate document.

At a minimum, include the following in your figure captions:

• A figure label with Arabic numerals, and “Figure”, no abbreviation. Match the label of your figure with the name of the file uploaded at submission (e.g. a figure citation of “Figure 1” must refer to a figure file named “Figure1.tif”).
• A concise, descriptive title

The caption may also include a legend as needed.

Images of radiography and ultrasound usually does not require high resolution.  Nevertheless, some images such as diagrams that contains text and arrows must be done as Vectors or high resolution.  For this, consider using Powerpoint and exporting as a TIFF.  All images or figures must have a print size width of 3.2 inches (for one column) or 6.5 inches (for two color).

Tables

Use smaller text size, 10pt for all content in the table.  Tables also should be 3.2 inches or 6.5 inches width.

Cite tables in ascending numeric order upon first appearance in the manuscript file.

Place each table in your manuscript file directly after the paragraph in which it is first cited (read order). Do not submit your tables in separate files.

Tables require a label (e.g., “Table 1”) and brief descriptive title to be placed above the table. Place legends, footnotes, and other text below the table. 

Do not use space to align the text. Do not use enter to create a new line.  Use new columns and multi-columns grid to separate each item/cell.

Statistical reporting

The Journal is expected to report statistical methods in sufficient detail for others to replicate the analysis performed. Ensure that results are rigorously reported in accordance with community standards and that statistical methods employed are appropriate for the study design.

Reporting of statistical methods

In the methods, include a section on statistical analysis that reports a detailed description of the statistical methods. In this section:

• List the name and version of any software package used, alongside any relevant references
• Describe technical details or procedures required to reproduce the analysis
• Provide the repository identifier for any code used in the analysis.

Statistical reporting guidelines:

• Identify research design and independent variables as being between- or within-subjects
• For pre-processed data:
• Describe any analysis carried out to confirm the data meets the assumptions of the analysis performed (e.g. linearity, co-linearity, normality of the distribution).
• If data were transformed include this information, with a reason for doing so and a description of the transformation performed
• Provide details of how outliers were treated and your analysis, both with the full dataset and with the outliers removed
• If relevant, describe how missing/excluded data were handled
• Define the threshold for significance (alpha)
• If appropriate, provide sample sizes, along with a description of how they were determined. If a sample size calculation was performed, specify the inputs for power, effect size and alpha. Where relevant, report the number of independent replications for each experiment.
• For analyses of variance (ANOVAs), detail any post hoc tests that were performed
• Include details of any corrections applied to account for multiple comparisons. If corrections were not applied, include a justification for not doing so
• Describe all options for statistical procedures. For example, if t-tests were performed, state whether these were one- or two-tailed. Include details of the type of t-test conducted (e.g. one sample, within-/between-subjects).
• For step-wise multiple regression analyses:
• Report the alpha level used
• Discuss whether the variables were assessed for collinearity and interaction
• Describe the variable selection process by which the final model was developed (e.g., forward-stepwise; best subset).
• For Bayesian analysis explain the choice of prior trial probabilities and how they were selected. Markov chain Monte Carlo settings should be reported.

Reporting of statistical results

Results must be rigorously and appropriately reported, in keeping with community standards.

• Units of measurement. Clearly define measurement units in all tables and figures.
• Properties of distribution. It should be clear from the text which measures of variance (standard deviation, standard error of the mean, confidence intervals) and central tendency (mean, median) are being presented.
• Regression analyses. Include the full results of any regression analysis performed as a supplementary file. Include all estimated regression coefficients, their standard error, p-values, and confidence intervals, as well as the measures of goodness of fit.
• Reporting parameters. Test statistics (F/t/r) and associated degrees of freedom should be provided. Effect sizes and confidence intervals should be reported where appropriate. If percentages are provided, the numerator and denominator should also be given.
• P-values. Report exact p-values for all values greater than or equal to 0.001. P-values less than 0.001 may be expressed as p < 0.001, or as exponentials in studies of genetic associations.
• Displaying data in plots. Format plots so that they accurately depict the sample distribution. 3D effects in plots can bias and hinder interpretation of values, so avoid them in cases where regular plots are sufficient to display the data.
• Open data. Be sure to make individual data points, underlying graphs and summary statistics available at the time of publication. Data can be deposited in a repository or included within the Supporting Information files.

Data reporting

All data and related metadata underlying the findings reported in a submitted manuscript should be deposited in an appropriate public repository, unless already provided as part of the submitted article.

Repositories may be either subject-specific (where these exist) and accept specific types of structured data, or generalist repositories that accept multiple data types. We recommend that authors select repositories appropriate to their field. Repositories may be subject-specific (e.g., GenBank for sequences and PDB for structures), general, or institutional, as long as DOIs or accession numbers are provided and the data are at least as open as CC BY. Authors are encouraged to select repositories that meet accepted criteria as trustworthy digital repositories, such as criteria of the Centre for Research Libraries or Data Seal of Approval. Large, international databases are more likely to persist than small, local ones.

To support data sharing and author compliance data policy, we have integrated our submission process with a select set of data repositories. The list is neither representative nor exhaustive of the suitable repositories available to authors.

Instructions for submissions with data deposited in an integration partner repository:

• Deposit data in the integrated repository of choice.
• Once deposition is final and complete, the repository will provide you with a dataset DOI (provisional) and private URL for reviewers to gain access to the data.
• Enter the given data DOI into the full Data Availability Statement, when submitting your manuscript.

Accession numbers

All appropriate data sets, images, and information should be deposited in an appropriate public repository.

Accession numbers (and version numbers, if appropriate) should be provided in the Data Availability Statement. Accession numbers or a citation to the DOI should also be provided when the data set is mentioned within the manuscript.

In some cases authors may not be able to obtain accession numbers of DOIs until the manuscript is accepted; in these cases, the authors must provide these numbers at acceptance. In all other cases, these numbers must be provided at full submission.

Striking image

You can choose to upload a “Striking Image” that we may use to represent your article online in places like the journal homepage or in search results.

The striking image must be derived from a figure or supporting information file from the submission, i.e., a cropped portion of an image or the entire image. Striking images should ideally be high resolution, eye-catching, single panel images, and should ideally avoid containing added details such as text, scale bars, and arrows.

If no striking image is uploaded, we will designate a figure from the submission as the striking image.

Striking images should not contain potentially identifying images of people.