Author Guidelines

AUTHOR GUIDELINES

• Submission of Manuscripts:

 All manuscripts must be submitted on-line through the website http://www.frontierjournals.org. First time users will have to register at this site. Registration is free but mandatory. Registered authors can keep track of their articles after logging into the site using their user name and password. If you experience any problems, please contact the editorial office by e-mail at editor@frontierjournals.org. The submitted manuscripts that are not as per the “Instructions to Authors” would be returned to the authors for technical correction, before they undergo editorial/ peer-review.

• Preparation of Manuscripts:

Manuscripts must be prepared in accordance with specific requirement are summarized below. Before submitting a manuscript, contributors are requested to check for the latest instructions available at journal site. Frontier Journals only accepts manuscripts written in American English Language only.

• Submission checklist:

You can use this list to carry out a final check of your submission before you send it to the journal for  review. Please check the relevant section in this Guide for Authors for more details.

Ensure that the following items are present:

One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:
Telephone
E-mail address
Full postal address Signed by all contributors
Source of funding mentioned
Conflicts of interest disclosed Authors

Manuscript:

• Include keywords
• Introduction of 75-100 words
• Headings in title case (not ALL CAPITALS)
• Manuscript Presentation and format:
•  Page numbers included at bottom.
• Title page contains all the desired information, Running title provided (not more than 50 characters). Abstract page contains the full title of the manuscript. An Abstract provided (structured abstract of 250 words for original articles, unstructured abstracts of about 150 words for all other manuscripts excluding letters to the Editor).
• The references cited in the text should be after punctuation marks, in superscript without square bracket. References according to the journal's instructions, Only in APA style.
• Write the full term for each abbreviation at its first use in the title, abstract, keywords and text separately unless it is a standard unit of measure. Numerals from 1 to 10 spelt out. Numerals at the beginning of the sentence spelt out.
• Check the manuscript for spelling, grammar and punctuation errors.
• If a brand name is cited, supply the manufacturer's name and address (city and state/country).
• Species names should be in italics Tables and figures.
• No repetition of data in tables and graphs and in text, Actual numbers from which graphs drawn, provided. 
• Ensure all figure and table citations in the text match the files provided
• Patients' privacy maintained (if not permission taken), Credit note for borrowed figures/tables provided. Write the full term for each abbreviation used in the table as a footnote essay and of good quality (color).
• Manuscripts Submission Type:

Article Structure:

Subdivision - numbered sections

Divide your article into clearly defined and numbered sections. Any subsection may be given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line. 

Essential title page information:

• Title. Concise and informative. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible.

• Author names and affiliations. Please clearly indicate the given name(s) and family name(s) of each author and check that all names are accurately spelled. You can add your name between parentheses in your own script behind the English transliteration. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lowercase superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address.

Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.

• Corresponding author. Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication. This responsibility includes answering any future queries about Methodology and Materials. Ensure that the e-mail address and telephone are given and that contact details are kept up to date by the corresponding author.
• Present / Permanent address. If an author has moved since the work described in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, a 'Present address' (or 'Permanent address') may be indicated as a footnote to that author's name. The address at which the author actually did the work must be retained as the main, affiliation address. 

Abstract:

A concise and factual abstract is required. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separately from the article, so it must be able to stand alone. For this reason, References should be avoided, but if essential, then cite the author(s) and year(s). Also, non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself. All the contents of abstract should be in one paragraph and are not be divided into several parts.

Keywords:

Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of 6 keywords, using American spelling and avoiding general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, 'and', 'of').These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.

Introduction:

State the purpose and summarize the rationale for the study or observation and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results. 

Materials and Methods:

Provide sufficient details to allow the work to be reproduced by an independent researcher. Methods that are already published should be summarized, and indicated by a reference. Any modifications to existing methods should also be described. A statement on ethics committee permission and ethical practices must be included in all research articles under the ‘Materials and Methods’ section. The journal will not consider any paper which is ethically unacceptable.

Studies in Humans and Animals :

The manuscript should be in line with the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals and aim for the inclusion of representative human populations (sex, age and ethnicity) as per those recommendations. The terms sex and gender should be used correctly.

Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for the experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed. For prospective studies involving human participants, authors are expected to mention about approval of (regional/ national/ institutional or independent Ethics Committee or Review Board, obtaining informed consent from adult research participants and obtaining assent for children aged over 7 years participating in the trial. The age beyond which assent would be required could vary as per regional and/ or national guidelines.

Ensure confidentiality of subjects by desisting from mentioning participants’ names, initials or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material. When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether the institution’s or a national research council’s guide for, or any national law on the care and use of laboratory animals was followed. Evidence for approval by a local Ethics Committee (for both human as well as animal studies) must be supplied by the authors on demand. Animal experimental procedures should be as humane as possible and the details of anesthetics and analgesics used should be clearly stated. The ethical standards of experiments must be in accordance with the guidelines provided by the CCSEA and World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki on Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Humans. 

Results and Discussion:

A combined Results and Discussion section is often appropriate. Results should be clear and concise. Discussion should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. Avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature.

Describe your selection of the observational or experimental participants (patients or laboratory animals, including controls) clearly, including eligibility and exclusion criteria and a description of the source population. Present your results in a logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations, giving the main or most important findings first.

Do not repeat in the text all the data in the tables or illustrations; emphasize or summarize only important observations. Extra- or supplementary materials and technical detail can be placed in an appendix where it will be accessible but will not interrupt the flow of the text; alternatively, it can be published only in the electronic version of the journal.

When data are summarized in the Results section, give numeric results not only as derivatives (for example, percentages) but also as the absolute numbers from which the derivatives were calculated, and specify the statistical methods used to analyze them. Use graphs as an alternative to tables with many entries; do not duplicate data in graphs and tables.

Where scientifically appropriate, analyses of the data by variables such as age and sex should be included. Include summary of key findings (primary outcome measures, secondary outcome measures, results as they relate to a prior hypothesis); Strengths and limitations of the study (study question, study design, data collection, analysis and interpretation); Interpretation and implications in the context of the totality of evidence (is there a systematic review to refer to, if not, could one be reasonably done here and now?, what this study adds to the available evidence, effects on patient care and health policy, possible mechanisms); Controversies raised by this study; and Future research directions (for this particular research collaboration, underlying mechanisms, clinical research).

Do not repeat in detail data or other material given in the Introduction or the Results section. In particular, contributors should avoid making statements on economic benefits and costs unless their manuscript includes economic data and analyses. Avoid claiming priority and alluding to work that has not been completed. New hypotheses may be stated if needed, however they should be clearly labeled as such. About 80  references can be included as maximum limit and a minimum of 20 references.

These articles generally should not have more than six authors. Data in the Tables should be expressed as Mean SD. The data of the reference formulation should be provided as comparison. Please submit tables as editable text, not as images. Tables can be placed either next to the relevant text in the article, or on separate page (s) at the end. Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text and place any table notes below the table body. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in them do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article. 

• Tables should be self-explanatory and should not duplicate textual material. Tables with more than 10 columns and 25 rows are not acceptable. Number tables, in  numerals, consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text and supply a brief title for each.
• Place explanatory matter in footnotes, not in the heading. Explain in footnotes all non-standard abbreviations that are used in each table. Obtain permission for all fully borrowed, adapted, and modified tables and provide a credit line in the footnote. For footnotes use the following symbols, in this sequence: *, †, ‡, §, ||,¶ , **, ††, ‡‡
• Tables with their legends should be provided at the end of the text after the references. The tables along with their number should be cited at the relevant place in the text Illustrations (Figures). Upload the images in JPEG format. The file size should be within 1024 kb in size while uploading. Figures should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which they have been first cited in the text.
• Labels, numbers, and symbols should be clear and of uniform size. The lettering for figures should be large enough to be legible after reduction to fit the width of a printed column. Symbols, arrows, or letters used in photomicrographs should contrast with the background and should be marked neatly with transfer type or by tissue overlay and not by pen.
• Titles and detailed explanations belong in the legends for illustrations not on the illustrations themselves. When graphs, scatter-grams or histograms are submitted the numerical data on which they are based should also be supplied. The photographs and figures should be trimmed to remove all the unwanted areas. If photographs of individuals are used, their pictures must be accompanied by written permission to use the photograph.
• If a figure has been published elsewhere, acknowledge the original source and submit written permission from the copyright holder to reproduce the material. A credit line should appear in the legend for such figures.

Statistics: 

Whenever possible quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty. Authors should report losses to observation (such as, dropouts from a clinical trial). When data are summarized in the Results section, specify the statistical methods used to analyze them.

Avoid non-technical uses of technical terms in statistics, such as 'random' (which implies a randomizing device), 'normal', 'significant', 'correlations', and 'sample'. Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols. Specify the computer software used. For all P values include the exact value and not less than 0.05 or 0.001. Mean differences in continuous variables, proportions in categorical variables and relative risks including odds ratios and hazard ratios should be accompanied by their confidence intervals. For sample size, the "n" is an italicized lower case letter, with a space on either side: n = 36; For P values, the P is an italicized lower case letter, with a space on either side: P < 0.05, P = 0.562. Follow internationally accepted rules and conventions: use the international system of units (SI). If other units are mentioned, please give their equivalent in SI. You are urged to consult IUB: Biochemical Nomenclature and Related Documents: http://www.chem.qmw.ac.uk/iubmb/ for further information. Virgule (/) is used, e.g. ng/ml NOT ngml-1. Litre is always a lowercase letter "l", e.g. ml/sec, ng/ml, U/ml, g/l. Please shorten some words as follows: year(s) - y; day(s) - d; hour(s) - h; minute(s) - min; second (s) - sec; & - and. Most important, please pay attention to revise the units in the figures.

Math formulae:

Present simple formulae in the line of normal text where possible and use the solidus (/) instead of a horizontal line for small fractional terms, e.g., X/Y. In principle, variables are to be presented in italics. Powers of e are often more conveniently denoted by exp. Number consecutively any equations that have to be displayed separately from the text (if referred to explicitly in the text).

Conclusions:

The main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion or Results and Discussion section.

Acknowledgements:

Collate acknowledgements in a separate section at the end of the article before the references and do not, therefore, include them on the title page, as a footnote to the title or otherwise. List here those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g., providing language help, writing assistance or proof reading the article, etc.).

Funding Sources Role:

You are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement then this should be stated.

Funding body agreements and policies:

Frontier Publications has established a number of agreements with funding bodies which allow authors to comply with their funder's open access policies. Some funding bodies will reimburse the author for the gold open access publication fee. Details of existing agreements are available online. It is not necessary to include detailed descriptions on the program or type of grants and awards. When funding is from a block grant or other resources available to a university, college, or other research institution, submit the name of the institute or organization that provided the funding. If no funding has been provided for the research, please include the following sentence:

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Footnotes:

Footnotes should be used sparingly. Number them consecutively throughout the article. Many word processors can build footnotes into the text, and this feature may be used. Otherwise, please indicate the position of footnotes in the text and list the footnotes themselves separately at the end of the article. Do not include footnotes in the Reference list.

• References:

Citation in text

Please ensure that every reference  cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these references are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution of the publication date with either 'Unpublished results' or 'Personal communication'. Citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication. References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text (not in alphabetic order). Please ensure that every reference should be in APA  style.

Declaration of interest:

All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples of potential competing interests include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patents applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Authors must disclose any interests in two places:

1. A summary declaration of interest statement in the title page file (if double-blind) or the manuscript file (if single-blind). If there are no interests to declare then please state this: 'Declarations of interest: none'. This summary statement will be ultimately published if the article is accepted.
2. Detailed disclosures as part of a separate Declaration of Interest form, which forms part of the journal's official records. It is important for potential interests to be declared in both places and that the information matches.

Copyright:

Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a 'Journal Publishing Agreement'. Acceptance of the agreement will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. An e-mail will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' form or a link to the online version of this agreement. Subscribers may reproduce tables of contents or prepare lists of articles including abstracts for internal circulation within their institutions. Permission of the Publisher is required for resale or distribution outside the institution and for all other derivative works, including compilations and translations (please consult http://www.frontierjournals.com/permissions). If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has preprinted forms for use by authors in these cases: Please consult http://www.frontierjournals.com/permissions.

Referees:

Please submit the names and institutional e-mail addresses of several potential referees. For more details, visit our Support site. Note that the editor retains the sole right to decide whether or not the suggested reviewers are used.

• Author Inquiries:

Support Centre:

Visit the Support Center of Frontier Journals to find the answers you need over the phone/email  by 24*7.

Track your Manuscript:

You can also check the status of your submitted article or find out when your accepted article will be published via Manuscript Tracking status.