Guide for Authors

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                                                                                          Download Guide for Galley proof.pdf , Download copyright transfer.pdf

1-     Editorial policy                                                                                                           Download Guide to authors.pdf

Asia Oceania Journal of Nuclear Medicine & Biology (AOJNMB) is a peer-reviewed biannual journal and serves as the official publication of Asia Oceania Federation of Nuclear Medicine and Biology (AOFNMB). AOJNMB publishes material of interest to physicians and scientists working in the fields of nuclear medicine & biology.  The journal is an open-access free e-Journal that is published by Mashhad University of Medical Sciences in collaboration with AOFNMB and sponsored by the Nuclear Medicine Research Center (NMRC). A limited number of journals in print form was also published in the first few years, but it is discontinued in line with climate change policies and mitigation of paper printing.  AOJNMB publishes a variety of articles including original laboratory and clinical investigations, meta-analyses, short communications, technical notes, case reports, and letters to the editor. Also occasionally, invited reviews and continuing education will be published. In preparing manuscripts, authors should follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals. ( https://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf ). Manuscripts, including figures and tables, must be original and not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Ethics and malpractice statements of the Asia Oceania Journal of Nuclear Medicine & Biology are based on COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors and pertain to all parties involved in the publishing: the editor, the peer reviewer, and the author. If there is an allegation of plagiarism, scientific misconduct, or fraud, AOJNMB shall follow the recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals and reserves the right to present the allegations to the author’s institution or any other agency.

 

2-     Editorial office

Asia Oceania Journal of Nuclear Medicine & Biology, Nuclear Medicine Research Center, Ghaem Hospital, Ahmadabad Ave, Mashhad, Iran

Post Code: 91766-99199

Tel: +98-51-38400494 (Saturday-Wednesday; 8:00-14:00, Thursday: 8:00-12:00, Local time, GMT+3:30)

Fax: +98-51-38419521

E-mail: aojnmb@mums.ac.ir

All manuscripts should be submitted and tracked online. All other enquires should be made by E-mail to aojnmb@mums.ac.ir. Other correspondence may be sent to Prof. Seyed Rasoul Zakavi at the address of the editorial office.

 

3-     Legal and ethical issues

  • Submission of any manuscript to AOJNMB signifies that it is original and it has not been published anywhere before (except as a congress abstract of no more than 350 words) nor it is under consideration by another journal. By virtue of the submitted manuscript, the corresponding author acknowledges that all the co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript. The corresponding author should provide all co-authors with information regarding the manuscript, and obtain their approval as well as the approval of their institute before submitting any revisions. The editors consider that all submitted materials including text, figures or tables, and any other files are original. If it is not the case, the authors must provide both print and online permission from the copyright owner. The Asia Oceania Federation of Nuclear Medicine and Biology and the publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation. The authors are responsible for the whole scientific content as well as the accuracy of the bibliographic information.
  • At the time of submission of the manuscript, all authors must disclose any type of conflict of interest including but not limited to financial interests that may influence the submitted manuscript. Any company consultancy, product or stock ownership related to the manuscript must be disclosed. Affiliations of authors should include corporate appointments relating to or in connection with the products or companies mentioned in the article. Authors should declare sources of funding for the work undertaken. If there is no conflict of interest for all of the authors, the phrase ‘No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed’ should be written in the acknowledgment.
  • All manuscripts reporting the results of experimental investigations involving human subjects should include a statement, confirming that informed written consent was obtained from each subject or the subject’s guardian. The study must also be approved by the local ethics committee and the study must comply with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its subsequent revisions.
  • For animal studies, it must be in compliance with the regulation(s) of local institutions and with generally accepted guidelines governing such work.
  • All prospective clinical trials must be registered. Registration of prospective clinical trials must be done in one of the publicly accessible registries and the registration number must be provided at the end of the abstract.

4-     As an open-access journal, AOJNMB uses licenses that keep the copyright with the author, but the author transfers all commercial exploitation rights to the publisher (MUMS). The author(s) can post a copy of the published article on his/her own website or his/her institution’s website with no permission, provided that a full citation of the journal and a link to the AOJNMB website are included. Also, it can be used in educational materials by the author(s) with citations of the AOJNMB. The author(s) may republish the article in a book written or edited by himself/herself without permission, but with full acknowledgment of the first publisher. All authors must complete and sign the copyright transfer form and submit it with the manuscript to the editorial office.

5-     Article types

  • Original articles: Manuscripts reporting the results of original research in preclinical, clinical, or technical innovations.
  • Meta-analyses: Reporting combined results of individual studies, after a comprehensive search of the available database and using special statistical methods.
  • Short communications: A short report from a research work will be published as a short communication.
  • Case reports and case series: An important and rare presentation of a disease, relevant to nuclear medicine or an interesting or unusual nuclear medicine image which are either not reported before or infrequently reported. If the report includes more than 2 cases, it can be considered a case series.
  • Technical notes: A short report on new technical or procedural innovation or modification of established techniques or procedures in nuclear medicine.
  • Review articles: Invited reviews and educational materials will be published. The journal prefers systematic reviews. The author(s) of a review article must have at least two published original articles on that subject.
  • Letter to the AOJNMB: Letters to the editors on controversial issues which is published in the AOJNMB in the previous issues(no later than 12 months)
  • Others: Editorials, History and perspective, Survey, Opinion, Book reviews, Upcoming events, Meeting reports, and News items may be considered for publication.

 

 

6-     Manuscript submission

All manuscripts should be submitted online using the online submission system at http://aojnmb.mums.ac.ir  You need to sign up and log into the system for submission of your manuscript. Please follow the on-screen instructions during submission.

After completion of manuscript submission, you can track the status of the manuscript by logging into the system. For any further inquiries, you can send an email to aojnmb@mums.ac.ir

7-     Manuscript preparation: The manuscript should have the following sections: Title, Abstract, Main document, Acknowledgement, References, Figures, and Tables.

7-1: The Title page should include items in the following order: Title (please keep it short and informative), Full first name and surname (and middle name initials) of all authors, Affiliation (s), and e-mail address(es) of all authors, Corresponding author’s Full name, postal address, e-mail address, Telephone and Fax number(s). We encourage corresponding authors to include their ORCID number, if you do not have any, simply apply here. A short running title of fewer than 40 characters must be added at the end of the Title page.

7-2: Abstract: The abstract page begins with the Title of the article with no author(s) name. The abstract should contain a maximum of 350 words divided into 4 sections preceded by headings: Objective, Methods, Results, and conclusion. For review articles and case reports an unstructured abstract with a maximum of 200 words is required. Three to five keywords are necessary for all abstracts. Word count should be written at the bottom of the abstract page.

7-3: Main document :

7-3-1; The title (with no author's name) followed by the abstract must be on the first page of the Main document. For original articles, the following sections should be included: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion. For reporting Clinical Trials, please follow reporting requirements published by CONSORT:http://www.consort-statement.org/downloads/consort-statement (There is no maximum word limit, but it is preferable to keep the maximum word count at 6000 and Maximum references at 40).

7-3-2:For short communications and technical notes, the following sections should be included: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion.  (Maximum word count 3000 and Maximum references 20)

7-3-3: For case reports, three sections of Introduction, Case report, and Discussion are required. (Maximum word count 3000 and Maximum references 20)

7-3-4: For Meta-analyses, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion should be included. Please use the PRISMA statement for reporting your work: http://www.prisma-statement.org  (There is no maximum word limit, but it is preferable to keep the maximum word count at 6000 and Maximum references at 40)

7-3-5: For review articles; (There is no maximum word limit, but it is preferable to keep the maximum word count at 6000 and Maximum references at 40).

7-4: Formatting:

  • Use MS Word 97 or later versions.
  • Use plain normal fonts (12 Times New Roman) with double space formatting throughout the document including abstract, manuscript, and references.
  • Leave a 3 cm margin on each side of the page.
  • Number pages consecutively, beginning from the Abstract and put it in the right upper corner of the page.
  • Do not use the field function, do not use the space bar, instead use tab stops.
  • Cite every reference in the text in parenthesis using Vancouver style (parenthesis) in the order they appear in the text. Using Endnote for citation is encouraged.
  • Paragraphs should begin with an indentation (One tab of at least five spaces in length).
  • Use the equation editor or MathType for inserting equations.
  • The abbreviations should be used according to Système Internationale (SI) nomenclature and units and they should be explained the first time they are used in the manuscript. All units of radioactivity should be based on the SI system i.e., Bq, Gy, Sv, etc. Chemical formulae should be written according to the recommendations of the American Chemical Society.

 

7-5: Acknowledgement:   Acknowledgements, Conflict of interest, Funding (sponsorship or grants), and ethical considerations should be written after the main text and before the references in all articles. The ethical code (if applicable), and author's contribution should be written too.

7-6: References:

The references should be listed consecutively in the order of citation in the manuscript. All references must be cited either in text, table, or figures. Unpublished data and personal communications cannot be cited. The AOJNMB uses the Vancouver style for references. For citation of journals, all authors should be listed if the number of authors were 6 or less. If there were more than 6 authors, please list the first 6 authors followed by et al.  A paper published online but not in print can be cited using the Digital Object Identifier (DOI). A web document can be cited using the URL address and mentioning the date of access. Using ENDNOTE or similar software and selecting the Vancouver style (parenthesis) in Bibliographic Output Style will facilitate correct reference citation.

 

Here are samples of citation styles:

 

a)     Journal article (With 6 or fewer authors)

Palestro CJ. In vivo leukocyte labeling: The quest continues. J Nucl Med. 2007;48(3):332-4.

 

b)     Journal article (With more than 6 authors)

Intenzo C, Jabbour S, Miller JL, Ahmed I, Furlong K, Kushen M, et al. Subclinical hyperthyroidism: Current concepts and scintigraphic imaging. Clin Nucl Med. 2011;36(9):e107-e113.

 

c)     Book

Walsh G. Proteins: biochemistry and biotechnology. 2nd ed. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons; 2002.

 

d)     Book chapter

Moallem SA, Balali Mood K. Opioids and opiates. In: Mozayani A, Raymon LP, editors. Handbook of drug interactions: A clinical and forensic guide. 1st ed. Totowa: Humana Press Inc; 2004. p. 123-149.

 

e)      Epub; Article by DOI:

Daliri M, Shafiei S, Zakavi SR, Dabbagh Kakhki VR, Sadeghi R. Application of (99m)Tc-denatured red blood cells scintigraphy in the evaluation of post-traumatic spleen auto-transplantation. Rev Esp Med Nucl Imagen Mol. 2012 Nov 12. doi:10.1016/j.remn.2012.09.004 

 

f)       Online document:

RCT critical appraisal sheet In: Critical Appraisal Sheets, Center for Evidence Based Medicine 2012. http://www.cebm.net/index.aspx?o=1157. Accessed 3 Dec 2012.

 

 

7-7: Figure legends; Figure legends should be written after references, each in a separate sheet preceding with figure number (Figure 1). The figure legends will be published below the figure. The legend should not be included in the figure file. All figures must be cited in the manuscript and numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals.  

 

 

7-8: Tables; Tables should not be sent as figures or as separate files, they should be inserted at the end of the manuscript, each in a separate sheet. Tables are expected to be self-explanatory, should supplement and not duplicate the text, and numbered consecutively in the order of appearance in the text and using Arabic numerals. Put horizontal lines at the top of the table, below column headings, and at the bottom of it. Do not use vertical lines in the tables.

 

8: Figures and artworks:

            Figures and artwork should be submitted as separate files in JPG or TIFF format. Figures should be utilized only if they augment the understandability of the text. Drawings and graphs should be professionally prepared in deep black and white with no shading. Professionally designed computer-generated graphs with a minimum of 300 DPI laser printer output are preferable. Color photographs are welcomed. Vector graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the files. For lettering, the figures, use 8-12 point (only one size)  Helvetica fonts. Name each figure with the word “Fig” followed by the figure number without punctuation:  “Fig1”. If you include a figure from a previous publication, you must provide permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format.

 

9: Supplementary materials;

Video clips, sound records, excel or SPSS files and other supplementary materials could be sent for electronic linking to the manuscript on the website. MPEG-1 format (.mpg) should be used for video clips. Supplementary documents are encouraged to be sent as PDF files if possible. Please name each supplementary file beginning with the name of the first author (eg. Bom-video.mpg, Sadeghi-data.xls, etc). In the text files, you should enter the full name of the article and the authors as a header.

 

10: Cover letter; All manuscripts should be accompanied by a cover letter. In the cover letter signed by the corresponding author on behalf of all authors, it must be mentioned that the article is not submitted to any other journal.  A sample of the cover letter could be found here.

 

11: Peer review process: All manuscripts will be peer-reviewed prior to publication. Authors are encouraged to suggest names of three expert reviewers, but selection remains a prerogative of the Editor. The whole review process depends on receiving referees’ comments and revising the manuscripts based on these comments to the author and may take a few months. AOJNMB will try to make the time between submission and final decision as short as possible. Once the article is revised by the author, and after final approval by the referees, the letter of acceptance is issued to the author.

 

12: Acceptance/Rejection: You will be notified regarding acceptance or rejection of the article by e-mail. Upon acceptance and after editorial amendments, galley proof will be sent to the corresponding author for final correction. No major change in content or title is accepted at this stage without the editor’s approval. Any request for the addition or removal of an author from the list of authors cannot be accepted after acceptance.