Author Instructions
Submission Overview
Before you decide to publish with us, please read the following items carefully and make sure that you are well aware of the following requirements.
Topic Suitability
The topic of the manuscript must fit the scope of the journal. Please refer to Focus and Scope for more information.
Plagiarism prevention policy
All manuscripts will be rechecked using "iThenticate" after submission, and offers with high repetition rates (>30%) will be returned for further revision or rejection. Repeat rate qualified (≤30%) submissions will be reviewed in the next step.
Submission Preparation
Cover Letter
All the submissions need to provide a letter of commitment to briefly stating the significance of research, the type of manuscript, number of figures and tables, and supplementary information.
Also, include the name, address, e-mail, and telephone number of the corresponding author to maintain communication. Template for Cover Letter.
Manuscript Category
There is no restriction on the length of manuscripts, number of figures, tables and references, provided that the manuscript is concise and comprehensive. The journal publishes Research Article, Review Article, Case Reports, Editorials, Opinions, Commentary, Letters to Editor, etc. For more details about manuscript type, please refer to the following instructions.
Research Article
Originality and clinical impact are essential for acceptance of Research Article. The abstract should contain the following subheadings: Background, Methods, Results and Conclusions. Structured abstract is limited to 300 words. Provide three to eight key words. The main content should include four sections: Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion.
Meta-analysis will be categorized into this type.
Review Article
A Review Article is a timely, in-depth focus of an issue. Review articles are generally solicited by the editors, but unsolicited materials may be considered. Proposals for reviews should be submitted with an outline for initial consideration. Both solicited and unsolicited review articles will undergo peer review prior to acceptance. Review articles must be no longer than 6000 words excluding title page, abstract, text, tables, figures, figure legends, and references. Abstracts are limited to 300 words. Provide three to eight key words. The main text may consist of several sections with unfixed section titles. We suggest that the author include an "Introduction" section at the beginning, several sections with unfixed titles in the middle part, and a "Conclusion" section in the end.
Case Reports
A Case Report details symptoms, signs, diagnosis, treatment, and follows up an individual patient. The goal of a Case Report is to make other researchers aware of the possibility that a specific phenomenon might occur. Unstructured abstract. No more than 300 words. The main text consists of three sections with fixed section titles: Introduction, Case Report, and Discussion.
Editorials
Editorials is written by recognized leader(s) in the field. Editorials is generally solicited by the (Deputy) Editor(s)-in-Chief. Length should be 2,500 words maximum excluding references, tables and figures with no more than 25 references and no more than 2 figures/tables. No abstracts are required.
Opinions
An Opinion usually presents personal thoughts, beliefs, or feelings on a topic. Unstructured abstract (optional). No more than 300 words. Provide three to eight key words.
Letters to Editor
A Letter to Editor is usually an open post-publication review of a paper from its readers, often critical of some aspect of a published paper. Controversial papers often attract numerous Letters to Editor. Unstructured abstract (optional). No more than 300 words. Three to eight keywords. (optional)
Commentary
A Commentary is to provide comments on a newly published article or an alternative viewpoint on a certain topic. Unstructured abstract. No more than 300 words. Provide three to eight key words.
Manuscript Submission Requirement
All articles are now submitted electronically, and the total review process is electronic. The electronic format is through OJS system. Accordingly, the system is well designed and functions very well with minimal difficulties. New users will find it user friendly, but if problems arise, there is a web link to the managing editor. Just contact us (support@antpublisher.com), and we will help solve the problem.
Please note that change of author information (except for grammatical error) and retraction of manuscript are not allowed after the manuscript is accepted.
Front Matter
Title Page
The title page should consist of the following sections: (a) the title of the article. The title of the manuscript should be concise, specific and relevant, with no more than 16 words if possible. When gene or protein names are included, the abbreviated name rather than full name should be used. (b) authors’ names with institutional affiliations. Authors' full names should be listed. The initials of middle names can be provided. Institutional addresses for all authors should be listed; (c) corresponding author’s name with phone and fax numbers, street address and E-mail address. At least one author should be designated as corresponding author. (d) A running title of no more than 60 characters including spaces.
Abstract
The abstract should be a single paragraph with word limitation and specific structure requirements (for more details please see instructions for specific categories above). It usually describes the main objective(s) of the study, explains how the study was done, including any model organisms used, without methodological detail, and summarizes the most important results and their significance. The abstract must be an objective representation of the study: it is not allowed to contain results which are not presented and substantiated in the manuscript, or exaggerate the main conclusions. Citations should not be included in the abstract.
Keywords
Three to eight keywords should be provided, which are specific to the article, yet reasonably common within the subject discipline.
Main Text
Manuscripts of different types are structured with different sections of content. Please refer to instructions for specific categories above to make sure which sections should be included in the manuscripts.
Introduction
The introduction should contain background that puts the manuscript into context, allow readers to understand why the study is important, include a brief review of key literature, and conclude with a brief statement of the overall aim of the work and a comment about whether that aim was achieved. Relevant controversies or disagreements in the field should be introduced as well.
Methods
Methods should contain sufficient details to allow others to fully replicate the study. New methods and protocols should be described in detail while well-established methods can be briefly described or appropriately cited. Experimental participants selected, the drugs and chemicals used, the statistical methods taken, and the computer software used should be identified precisely. Statistical terms, abbreviations, and all symbols used should be defined clearly. Protocol documents for clinical trials, observational studies, and other non-laboratory
investigations may be uploaded as supplementary materials.
Results
This section contains the findings of the study. Results of statistical analysis should also be included either as text or as tables or figures if appropriate. Authors should emphasize and summarize only the most important observations. Data on all primary and secondary outcomes identified in the section Methods should also be provided. Extra or supplementary materials and technical details can be placed in supplementary documents.
Discussion
This section should discuss the implications of the findings in context of existing research and highlight limitations of the study. Future research directions may also be mentioned.
Conclusion
It should state clearly the main conclusions and include the explanation of their relevance or importance to the field.
Back Matter
Acknowledgments
Anyone who contributed towards the article but does not meet the criteria for authorship, including those who provided professional writing services or materials, should be acknowledged. Authors should obtain permission to acknowledge from all those mentioned in the Acknowledgments section. This section is not added if the author does not have anyone to acknowledge.
Authors' Contributions
Each author is expected to have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data, or the creation of new software used in the work, or have drafted the work or substantively revised it.
Please use Surname and Initial of Forename to refer to an author's contribution. For example: made substantial contributions to conception and design of the study and performed data analysis and interpretation: Salas H, Castaneda WV; performed data acquisition, as well as provided administrative, technical, and material support: Castillo N, Young V.
If an article is single-authored, please include "The author contributed solely to the article." in this section.
Availability of Data and Materials
In order to maintain the integrity, transparency and reproducibility of research records, authors should include this section in their manuscripts, detailing where the data supporting their findings can be found. Data can be deposited into data repositories or published as supplementary information in the journal. Authors who cannot share their data should state that the data will not be shared and explain it. If a manuscript does not involve such issue, please state "Not applicable." in this section.
Financial Support and Sponsorship
All sources of funding for the study reported should be declared. The role of the funding body in the experiment design, collection, analysis and interpretation of data, and writing of the manuscript should be declared. Any relevant grant numbers and the link of funder's website should be provided if any. If the study is not involved with this issue, state "None." in this section.
Conflicts of Interest
Authors must declare any potential conflicts of interest that may be perceived as inappropriately influencing the representation or interpretation of reported research results. If there are no conflicts of interest, please state "All authors declared that there are no conflicts of interest." in this section. Some authors may be bound by confidentiality agreements. In such cases, in place of itemized disclosures, we will require authors to state "All authors declare that they are bound by confidentiality agreements that prevent them from disclosing their conflicts of interest in this work.".
Ethical Approval and Informed consent
Research involving human subjects, human material or human data must be performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by an appropriate ethics committee. An informed consent to participate in the study should also be obtained from participants, or their parents or legal guardians for children under 16. A statement detailing the name of the ethics committee (including the reference number where appropriate) and the informed consent obtained must appear in the manuscripts reporting such research.
Studies involving animals and cell lines must include a statement on ethical approval.
If the manuscript does not involve such issue, please state "Not applicable." in this section.
Consent for Publication
Manuscripts containing individual details, images or videos, must obtain consent for publication from that person, or in the case of children, their parents or legal guardians. If the person has died, consent for publication must be obtained from the next of kin of the participant. Manuscripts must include a statement that a written informed consent for publication was obtained. Authors do not have to submit such content accompanying the manuscript. However, these documents must be available if requested. If the manuscript does not involve this issue, state "Not applicable." in this section.
Copyright
Authors retain copyright of their works through a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License that clearly states how readers can copy, distribute, and use their attributed research, free of charge. Authors are required to sign License to Publish before formal publication.
References
Identify references in the text by alphabetic numerals e. g. [1-3] or [1, 2]. The reference list should be separated from the text; references must be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are mentioned in the text. Use the style of the examples below, which are based on the formats used by the NLM in Index Medicus. The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the style used in Index Medicus. Use complete name of the journal for non-indexed journals. Avoid using abstracts as references. Information from manuscripts submitted but not accepted should be cited in the text as "unpublished observations" with written permission from the source. Avoid citing a "personal communication" unless it provides essential information not available from a public source, in which case the name of the person and date of communication should be cited in parentheses in the text.
Reference to a journal publication:
King, V. M., Armstrong, D. M., Apps, R., & Trott, J. R. (1998). Numerical aspects of pontine, lateral reticular, and inferior olivary projections to two paravermal cortical zones of the cat cerebellum. Journal of Comparative Neurology, 390(4), 537-551.
Reference to a book
Voet D, Voet JG. Biochemistry. New York: John Wiley & Sons 1990. 1223 p.
Reference to a website
Cancer Research UK, 1975. Cancer statistics reports for the UK. http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/aboutcancer/statistics/cancerstatsreport/ (accessed 13.03.03).
For other types of references, please refer to U.S. National Library of Medicine.
The journal also recommends that authors prepare references with a bibliography software package, such as EndNote to avoid typing mistakes and duplicated references.
Supplementary Materials
Additional data and information can be uploaded as Supplementary Materials to accompany the manuscripts. The supplementary materials will also be available to the referees as part of the peer-review process. Any file format is acceptable, such as data sheet (word, excel, csv, cdx, fasta, pdf or zip files), presentation (powerpoint, pdf or zip files), image (cdx, eps, jpeg, pdf, png or tiff), table (word, excel, csv or pdf), audio (mp3, wav or wma) or video (avi, divx, flv, mov, mp4, mpeg, mpg or wmv). All information should be clearly presented. Supplementary materials should be cited in the main text in numeric order (e.g., Supplementary Figure 1, Supplementary Figure 2, Supplementary Table 1, Supplementary Table 2, etc.). The style of supplementary figures or tables complies with the same requirements on figures or tables in main text. Videos and audios should be prepared in English, and limited to a size of 500 MB or a duration of 3 minutes.
Manuscript Format
File Format
Manuscript files can be in DOC and DOCX formats and should not be locked or protected.
Length
There are no restrictions on paper length, number of figures, or number of supporting documents. Authors are encouraged to present and discuss their findings concisely.
Language
Manuscripts must be written in English.
Multimedia Files
The journal supports manuscripts with multimedia files. The requirements are listed as follows:
- · Video or audio files are only acceptable in English. The presentation and introduction should be easy to understand. The frames should be clear, and the speech speed should be moderate.
- · A brief overview of the video or audio files should be given in the manuscript text.
- · The video or audio files should be limited to a duration of 3 min and a size of up to 500 MB.
- · Please use professional software to produce high-quality video files, to facilitate acceptance and publication along with the submitted article. Upload the videos in mp4, wmv, or rm format (preferably mp4) and audio files in mp3 or wav format.
Figures
- · Figures should be cited in numeric order (e.g., Figure 1, Figure 2) and placed after the paragraph where it is first cited;
- · Figures can be submitted in format of tiff, psd, AI or jpeg, with resolution of 300-600 dpi;
- · Figure caption is placed under the Figure;
- · Diagrams with describing words (including, flow chart, coordinate diagram, bar chart, line chart, and scatter diagram, etc.) should be editable in word, excel or powerpoint format. Non-English information should be avoided;
- · Labels, numbers, letters, arrows, and symbols in figure should be clear, of uniform size, and contrast with the background;
- · Symbols, arrows, numbers, or letters used to identify parts of the illustrations must be identified and explained in the legend;
- · Internal scale (magnification) should be explained and the staining method in photomicrographs should be identified;
- · All non-standard abbreviations should be explained in the legend;
- · Permission for use of copyrighted materials from other sources, including re-published, adapted, modified, or partial figures and images from the internet, must be obtained. It is authors’ responsibility to acquire the licenses, to follow any citation instruction requested by third-party rights holders, and cover any supplementary charges.
Tables
- · Tables should be cited in numeric order and placed after the paragraph where it is first cited;
- · The table caption should be placed above the table and labeled sequentially (e.g., Table 1, Table 2);
- · Tables should be provided in editable form like DOC or DOCX format (picture is not allowed);
- · Abbreviations and symbols used in table should be explained in footnote;
- · Explanatory matter should also be placed in footnotes;
- · Permission for use of copyrighted materials from other sources, including re-published, adapted, modified, or partial tables from the internet, must be obtained. It is authors' responsibility to acquire the licenses, to follow any citation instruction requested by third-party rights holders, and cover any supplementary charges.
Abbreviations
Abbreviations should be defined upon first appearance in the abstract, main text, and in figure or table captions and used consistently thereafter. Non-standard abbreviations are not allowed unless they appear at least three times in the text. Commonly-used abbreviations, such as DNA, RNA, ATP, etc., can be used directly without definition. Abbreviations in titles and keywords should be avoided, except for the ones which are widely used.
Italics
General italic words like vs., et al., etc., in vivo, in vitro; t test, F test, U test; related coefficient as r, sample number as n, and probability as P; names of genes; names of bacteria and biology species in Latin.
Units
SI Units should be used. Imperial, US customary and other units should be converted to SI units whenever possible. There is a space between the number and the unit (i.e., 23 mL). Hour, minute, second should be written as h, min, s.
Numbers
Numbers appearing at the beginning of sentences should be expressed in English. When there are two or more numbers in a paragraph, they should be expressed as Arabic numerals; when there is only one number in a paragraph, number < 10 should be expressed in English and number > 10 should be expressed as Arabic numerals. 12345678 should be written as 12,345,678.
Corrections and retractions
Corrections
Changes to published articles that affect the interpretation and conclusion of the article, but do not fully invalidate the article, will, at the Editor(s)’ discretion, be corrected via publication of a Correction that is indexed and bidirectionally linked to the original article.
Retractions
On rare occasions, when the interpretation or conclusion of an article is substantially undermined, it may be necessary for published articles to be retracted. We will follow the COPE guidelines in such cases. Retraction notices are indexed and bidirectionally linked to the original article. The original article is watermarked as retracted and the title is amended with the prefix “Retracted article:”