Submissions

Author Guidelines

Introduction

Biomedicine & Healthcare Research is an international, peer-reviewed journal publishing high quality research. Please see the journal's scope for information about its focus and peer-review policy. 

Please note that this journal only publishes manuscripts in English. 

Biomedicine & Healthcare Research accepts the following types of articles: original articles, reviews, case reports, editorials, commentary, perspectives, debate, opinion, or clinical images.  

Open Access policy 

All articles published in Biomedicine & Healthcare Research are fully open access: immediately freely available to read, download and share. Articles are published under the terms of a Creative Commons license which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Definition of Open Access Publication from Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing: An Open Access Publication is one that meets the following two conditions:

1. The author(s) and copyright holder(s) grant(s) to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship, as well as the right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal use.
2. A complete version of the work and all supplemental materials, including a copy of the permission as stated above, in a suitable standard electronic format is deposited immediately upon initial publication in at least one online repository that is supported by an academic institution, scholarly society, government agency, or other well-established organization that seeks to enable open access, unrestricted distribution, interoperability, and long-term archiving (for the biomedical sciences, PubMed Central is such a repository).

Instructions for authors 

Submission Preparation Checklist 

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items. Submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines: 

• The submission has not been previously published or under consideration by another journal. 
• The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, or RTF document file format. 
• Where available, URLs for the references have been provided. 
• The text is double-spaced; uses a 12-point (Times New Roman); employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed at the end of the manuscript. 
• The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines. 
• Title page and main manuscript are prepared in separate files

Page charges 

There are no submission fees, publication fees or page charges for this journal. 

Online submission 

Our online submission system guides you stepwise through the process of entering your manuscript details and uploading your files. The system converts your article files to a single PDF file used in the peer-review process. Editable files (e.g., Word) are required to typeset your article for final publication. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, is sent by e-mail. 

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.  

Before submission, please ensure that the following items are present: 

One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details: 

• E-mail address 
• Full postal address 

All necessary files have been uploaded: 

Manuscript: 

• Include keywords 
• All figures (include relevant captions) 
• All tables (including titles, description, footnotes) 
• Ensure all figure and table citations in the text match the files provided 

Graphical Abstracts / Highlights files (where applicable) 

Supplemental files (where applicable) 

Further considerations should be made:

• Manuscript has been 'spell checked' and 'grammar checked'
• All references mentioned in the Reference List are cited in the text, and vice versa
• Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Internet)
• A competing interests statement is provided, even if the authors have no competing interests to declare
• Journal policies detailed in this guide have been reviewed
• Referee suggestions and contact details provided, based on journal requirements

Suggesting reviewers

Please submit the names and institutional e-mail addresses of at least two potential reviewers. You should not suggest reviewers who are colleagues, or who have co-authored or collaborated with you during the last three years. Editors do not invite reviewers who have potential competing interests with the authors. Further, in order to provide a broad and balanced assessment of the work, and ensure scientific rigor, please suggest diverse candidate reviewers who are located in different countries/regions from the author group. Also, consider other diversity attributes e.g. gender, race and ethnicity, career stage, etc. Finally, you should not include existing members of the journal's editorial team.

Note: the editor decides whether or not to invite your suggested reviewers.

Peer review

This journal operates a single anonymized review process. All contributions will be initially assessed by the editor for suitability for the journal. Papers deemed suitable are then typically sent to a minimum of two independent expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper. The Editor is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles. The Editor's decision is final. Editors are not involved in decisions about papers which they have written themselves or have been written by family members or colleagues or which relate to products or services in which the editor has an interest. Any such submission is subject to all of the journal's usual procedures, with peer review handled independently of the relevant editor and their research groups.

Article structure

Subdivision - unnumbered sections

Divide your article into clearly defined sections. Each subsection is given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line. Subsections should be used as much as possible when cross-referencing text: refer to the subsection by heading as opposed to simply 'the text'.

Introduction
State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.

Material 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. If quoting directly from a previously published method, use quotation marks and also cite the source. Any modifications to existing methods should also be described.

Results
Results should be clear and concise.

Discussion
This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. Avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature.

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.

Appendices
If there is more than one appendix, they should be identified as A, B, etc. Formulae and equations in appendices should be given separate numbering: Eq. (A.1), Eq. (A.2), etc.; in a subsequent appendix, Eq. (B.1) and so on.

Essential title page information (Separated file):

Title.The title should be 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. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case 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. If available, the 16-digit ORCID of the author(s) should be mentioned.

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 is 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. Superscript Arabic numerals are used for such footnotes.

Statements and Declarations: The following statements should be included under the heading "Statements and Declarations" for inclusion in the published paper. Please note that submissions that do not include relevant declarations will be returned as incomplete. 

Competing Interests:Authors are required to disclose financial or non-financial interests that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication. Please refer to “Competing Interests and Funding” below for more information on how to complete this section.

Please see the relevant sections in the submission guidelines for further information as well as various examples of wording. Please revise/customize the sample statements according to your own needs.

 Manuscript (Please don't include page title)

Abstract
A concise and factual abstract is required. Please provide an abstract of 150 to 250 words. 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. Also, non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself.

Graphical abstract

Although a graphical abstract is optional, its use is encouraged as it draws more attention to the online article. The graphical abstract should summarize the contents of the article in a concise, pictorial form designed to capture the attention of a wide readership. Graphical abstracts should be submitted as a separate file in the online submission system. Image size: Please provide an image with a minimum of 531 × 1328 pixels (h × w) or proportionally more. The image should be readable at a size of 5 × 13 cm using a regular screen resolution of 96 dpi. Preferred file types: TIFF, EPS, PDF or MS Office files. 

Keywords
Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of 6 keywords, avoiding general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, 'and', 'of'). Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly established in the field may be eligible. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes (Medical Subject Headings of the National Library of Medicine - https://meshb.nlm.nih.gov/). 

Abbreviations 
Define abbreviations that are not standard in this field in a footnote to be placed on the first page of the article. Such abbreviations that are unavoidable in the abstract must be defined at their first mention there, as well as in the footnote. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the article. 

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 proofreading the article, etc.). 

Units 
Follow internationally accepted rules and conventions: use the international system of units (SI). If other units are mentioned, please give their equivalent in SI. 

Math formulae 

Please submit math equations as editable text and not as images. Present simple formulae in line with 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). 

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. 

Artwork 

Image manipulation 

Whilst it is accepted that authors sometimes need to manipulate images for clarity, manipulation for purposes of deception or fraud will be seen as scientific ethical abuse and will be dealt with accordingly. For graphical images, this journal is applying the following policy: no specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced. Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are acceptable if and as long as they do not obscure or eliminate any information present in the original. Nonlinear adjustments (e.g., changes to gamma settings) must be disclosed in the figure legend. 

Electronic artwork 

General points 

• Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork. 
• Embed the used fonts if the application provides that option. 
• Aim to use the following fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Times New Roman, Symbol, or use fonts that look similar. 
• Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text. 
• Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files. 
• Provide captions to illustrations separately. 
• Size the illustrations close to the desired dimensions of the published version. 
• Submit each illustration as a separate file. 
• Name your figure files with "Fig" and the figure number, e.g., Fig1.eps. 
• Ensure that color images are accessible to all, including those with impaired color vision. 

Formats 
If your electronic artwork is created in a Microsoft Office application (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) then please supply 'as is' in the native document format. 

Regardless of the application used other than Microsoft Office, when your electronic artwork is finalized, please 'Save as' or convert the images to one of the following formats (note the resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below): 
EPS (or PDF): Vector drawings, embed all used fonts. 

TIFF (or JPEG): Color or grayscale photographs (halftones), keep to a minimum of 300 dpi. 
TIFF (or JPEG): Bitmapped (pure black & white pixels) line drawings, keep to a minimum of 1000 dpi. 

TIFF (or JPEG): Combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (color or grayscale), keep to a minimum of 500 dpi. 

Please do not: 

• Supply files that are optimized for screen use (e.g., GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); these typically have a low number of pixels and limited set of colors; 
• Supply files that are too low in resolution; 
• Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content. 

Color artwork 

Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format (TIFF (or JPEG), EPS (or PDF) or MS Office files) and with the correct resolution. 

Figure captions 

Ensure that each illustration has a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached to the figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used. 

Figure Numbering 

• All figures are to be numbered using Arabic numerals. 
• Figures should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order. 
• Figure parts should be denoted by lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.). 
• If an appendix appears in your article and it contains one or more figures, continue the consecutive numbering of the main text. Do not number the appendix figures,"A1, A2, A3, etc." Figures in online appendices [Supplementary Information (SI)] should, however, be numbered separately. 

Tables
Please, submit tables as editable text and not as images. Tables should be placed on separate page(s) at the end of the manuscript. Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text and place any table notes below the table body. All tables should be numbered using Arabic numerals. For each table, please supply a table caption (title) explaining the components of the table. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in them do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article. Please avoid using vertical rules and shading in table cells. Identify any previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference at the end of the table caption.

References

Citation in text

Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Any references cited in the abstract must be given in full. Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the text. Citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication.

Reference links

Increased discoverability of research and high-quality peer review are ensured by online links to the sources cited. In order to allow us to create links to abstracting and indexing services, such as Scopus, Crossref and PubMed, please ensure that data provided in the references are correct. Please note that incorrect surnames, journal/book titles, publication year and pagination may prevent link creation. When copying references, please be careful as they may already contain errors. Use of the DOI is highly encouraged.

A DOI is guaranteed never to change, so you can use it as a permanent link to any electronic article. An example of a citation using DOI for an article not yet in an issue is:

Tabka Z, Ben Jebria A, Vergeret J, Guenard H. Effect of dry warm air on respiratory water loss in children with exercise-induced asthma. Chest. 1988; http://doi.org/10.1378/chest.94.1.81.

Please note the format of such citations should be in the same style as all other references in the paper.

Web references

As a minimum, the full URL should be given and the date when the reference was last accessed. Any further information, if known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.

Data references

This journal encourages you to cite underlying or relevant datasets in your manuscript by citing them in your text and including a data reference in your Reference List. Data references should include the following elements: author name(s), dataset title, data repository, version (where available), year, and global persistent identifier. Add [dataset] immediately before the reference so we can properly identify it as a data reference. The [dataset] identifier will not appear in your published article.

Preprint references

Where a preprint has subsequently become available as a peer-reviewed publication, the formal publication should be used as the reference. If there are preprints that are central to your work or that cover crucial developments in the topic, but are not yet formally published, these may be referenced. Preprints should be clearly marked as such, for example by including the word preprint, or the name of the preprint server, as part of the reference. The preprint DOI should also be provided.

References in a special issue

Please ensure that the words 'this issue' are added to any references in the list (and any citations in the text) to other articles in the same Special Issue.

Reference style

Text: Indicate references by number(s) in square brackets in line with the text. The actual authors can be referred to, but the reference number(s) must always be given.

Example: '..... as demonstrated [3,6]. Barnaby and Jones [8] obtained a different result ....'

List: Number the references (numbers in square brackets) in the list in the order in which they appear in the text.

• Journal article

Ghanem N, Soua Z, Zhang XG, Zijun M, Zhiwei Y, Lefranc G, Lefranc MP. Polymorphism of the T-cell receptor gamma variable and constant region genes in a Chinese population. Hum Genet. 1991;86(5):450-6. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00194632. 

Ideally, the names of all authors should be provided, but the usage of “et al” in long author lists will also be accepted:

Zhong FL, Mamaï O, Sborgi L, Boussofara L, Hopkins R, Robinson K, et al. Germline NLRP1 Mutations Cause Skin Inflammatory and Cancer Susceptibility Syndromes via Inflammasome Activation. Cell. 2016;167(1):187-202.e17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2016.09.001.

• Article by DOI

Letaïef A, Souissi J, Trabelsi H, Ghannem H, Jemni L. Evaluation of clinical diagnosis scores for Boutonneuse fever. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2003; https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2003.tb07383.x

• Book

South J, Blass B. The future of modern genomics. Blackwell, London, 2000.

• Book chapter

Brown B, Aaron M. The politics of nature. In: Smith J (ed) The rise of modern genomics, 3rd edn. Wiley, New York, 2001, pp. 230-57.

• Online document

Cartwright J. Big stars have weather too. IOP Publishing PhysicsWeb, 2007. http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/11/6/16/1.  Accessed 26 June 2007.

• Dissertation

Trent JW. Experimental acute renal failure. Dissertation, University of California, 1975.

• Dataset[dataset]

Oguro M, Imahiro S, Saito S, Nakashizuka T. Mortality data for Japanese oak wilt disease and surrounding forest compositions, Mendeley Data, v1, 2015. https://doi.org/10.17632/xwj98nb39r.1.

Journal abbreviations source

Always use the standard abbreviation of a journal’s name according to the ISSN List of Title Word Abbreviations. 

Supplementary material

Supplementary material such as applications, images and sound clips, can be published with your article to enhance it. Submitted supplementary items are published exactly as they are received (Excel or PowerPoint files will appear as such online). Please submit your material together with the article and supply a concise, descriptive caption for each supplementary file. If you wish to make changes to supplementary material during any stage of the process, please make sure to provide an updated file. Do not annotate any corrections on a previous version. Please switch off the 'Track Changes' option in Microsoft Office files as these will appear in the published version.

Research data

This journal encourages and enables you to share data that supports your research publication where appropriate, and enables you to interlink the data with your published articles. Research data refers to the results of observations or experimentation that validate research findings. To facilitate reproducibility and data reuse, this journal also encourages you to share your software, code, models, algorithms, protocols, methods and other useful materials related to the project.

Below are a number of ways in which you can associate data with your article or make a statement about the availability of your data when submitting your manuscript. If you are sharing data in one of these ways, you are encouraged to cite the data in your manuscript and reference list. Please refer to the "References" section for more information about data citation. 

Use of word processing software 

It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the word processor used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the word processor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. The electronic text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts. Note that source files of figures, tables and text graphics will be required whether or not you embed your figures in the text. See also the section on Electronic artwork.  

To avoid unnecessary errors, you are strongly advised to use the 'spell-check' and 'grammar-check' functions of your word processor. 

Language  
Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these). 

Informed consent and patient details 

Studies on patients or volunteers require ethics committee approval and informed consent, which should be documented in the paper. Appropriate consents, permissions and releases must be obtained where an author wishes to include case details or other personal information or images of patients and any other individuals. Written consents must be retained by the author but copies should not be provided to the journal. Only if specifically requested by the journal in exceptional circumstances (for example if a legal issue arises), the author must provide copies of the consents or evidence that such consents have been obtained. Unless you have written permission from the patient, the personal details of any patient included in any part of the article and in any supplementary materials (including all illustrations and videos) must be removed before submission. 

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, patent 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 there are no interests to declare, then please state this: 'Declarations of interest: none'.  
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. 

Submission declaration and verification 

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract, a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, including electronically without the written consent of the copyright-holder. To verify compliance, your article will be checked by originality or duplicate checking software (Turnitin Plagiarism Checker or other software). 

Author contributions 

For transparency, we encourage authors to submit an author statement file outlining their individual contributions to the paper using the relevant CRediT roles: Conceptualization; Data curation; Formal analysis; Funding acquisition; Investigation; Methodology; Project administration; Resources; Software; Supervision; Validation; Visualization; Roles/Writing - original draft; Writing - review & editing. Authorship statements should be formatted with the names of authors first and CRediT role(s) following. 

Changes to authorship 

Authors are expected to carefully consider the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the journal Editor. To request such a change, the Editor must receive the following from the corresponding author: (a) the reason for the change in author list and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed. 
Only in exceptional circumstances will the Editor consider the addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors after the manuscript has been accepted. While the Editor considers the request, publication of the manuscript will be suspended. If the manuscript has already been published in an online issue, any requests approved by the Editor will result in a corrigendum. 

Role of the funding source 

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, it is recommended to state this. 

Online proof correction 

To ensure a fast publication process of the article, we kindly ask authors to provide us with their proof corrections within three days. Corresponding authors will receive an e-mail with a link to our online proofing system, allowing annotation and correction of proofs online. The environment is similar to MS Word: in addition to editing text, you can also comment on figures/tables and answer questions from the Copy Editor. Web-based proofing provides a faster and less error-prone process by allowing you to directly type your corrections, eliminating the potential introduction of errors. 

If preferred, you can still choose to annotate and upload your edits on the PDF version. All instructions for proofing will be given in the e-mail we send to authors, including alternative methods to the online version and PDF. 

 We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables, and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor. It is important to ensure that all corrections are sent back to us in one communication. Please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. 

Editorial Board Members and Editors are required to declare any competing interests and may be excluded from the peer review process if a competing interest exists. In addition, they should exclude themselves from handling manuscripts in cases where there is a competing interest. This may include – but is not limited to – having previously published with one or more of the authors and sharing the same institution as one or more of the authors. Where an Editor or Editorial Board Member is on the author list, they must declare this in the competing interests' section on the submitted manuscript. If they are an author or have any other competing interest regarding a specific manuscript, another Editor or member of the Editorial Board will be assigned to assume responsibility for overseeing peer review. These submissions are subject to the exact review process as any other manuscript. Editorial Board Members are welcome to submit papers to the journal. These submissions are not given any priority over other manuscripts, and Editorial Board Member status has no bearing on editorial consideration.