Submissions

Author Guidelines

AUTHOR GUIDELINES

 Instructions to Authors:

The IJHACR is an international multidisciplinaryQuarterly  Journal, which publishes original research article, short communications, invited reviews, Opinions & Perspectives and Book Reviews in Medical and Biomedical Studies.

Authors are highly encouraged to read instructions carefully before submitting the manuscript. For submitting the manuscript authors are encouraged to use online submission process by logging in to www.ijhacr.com where they also can keep track with the status of the manuscript. Submitted manuscripts are subject to peer review. Submitted articles will be typically peer reviewed and published within 10-15 days after acceptance. Prior to publication, the final version of the edited article will be sent to authors for approval. Authors must check for accuracy of all content at this time.

Journal publishes Manuscript of following types:

Original research article:

Original Research article should include Title, Abstract, Methods and Materials, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, Acknowledgements and References. Manuscript should not be exceeding 15 typewritten pages including tables and figures.

Short communications:

Short communications presenting important new finding and cannot be elaborated as full research paper can be communicated whose average length is not more than 6 type-written pages (Approx-2500 words), including abstract and title page.

Invited reviews:

Reviews on special topics of current interest in biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences are welcomed. Length of review article should be same as that of original research article.

Opinions & Perspectives:

Opinions & perspectives on topics of current and future interest by renowned scientist, researchers are welcomed.

Book Reviews in Medical and Biomedical :

Books for review should be sent to the Reviews Editor

Preparation of Manuscripts: General requirements

Manuscripts must be prepared in accordance with "Uniform requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journals" developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (October 2006).

Manuscripts should be type written in Times New Roman, font 12, Title shall be in a font size 14. All section titles in the manuscript shall be in font size 12, bold face capitals. Subtitles in each section shall be in font size 12, bold face lower case followed by a colon. Double spacing all portions of the manuscript— including the title page, abstract, text, acknowledgments, references, individual tables, and legends—and margins 2.5 cm each side. Authors should number all of the pages of the manuscript consecutively, beginning with the title page.

 Authors, in their cover letter to the Editor, should clearly mention whether the manuscript shall be considered as a original Research article, Short Communication or Review Article and also confirm that the manuscript has not been submitted to any other Journal for publication. Authors publishing results from in vivo experiments involving animals or humans should state whether due permission for conduction of these experiments was obtained, from the relevant ethics committees, in the Materials and Methods section.

 Ethics

Foranimal and clinical experiments – There must be a clear statement while submitting that, investigations using experimental animals were conducted in accordance with the internationally accepted principles for laboratory animal use and care as found in for example the European Community guidelines (EEC Directive of 1986; 86/609/EEC) or the US guidelines (NIH publication #85-23, revised in 1985). Investigations with human subjects must state that the research followed guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki and Tokyo for humans, and was approved by the institutional human experimentation committee or equivalent, and that informed consent was obtained. For reports of randomized, controlled trials, authors should refer to the CONSORT statement. This guideline provides a set of recommendations comprising a list of items to report and a patient flow diagram.

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 CPCSEA (animal) and ICMR (human). The journal will not consider any paper which is ethically unacceptable. A statement on ethics committee permission and ethical practices must be included in all research articles under the ‘Materials and Methods’ section

Preparation of Manuscripts: Original Research Article

Original research article should be divided into the following sections:

• Title page
• Abstract
• Introduction,
• Methods,
• Results,
• Discussion.
• Acknowledgement
• References

Title Page

The title page should have the following information:

1. Article title. Concise titles are easier to read than long, convoluted ones. Titles that are too short may, however, lack important information, such as study design (which is particularly important in identifying randomized, controlled trials). Authors should include all information in the title that will make electronic retrieval of the article both sensitive and specific.

2. Authors’ names and institutional affiliations. Some journals publish each author’s highest academic degree(s), while others do not.

3. The name of the department(s) and institution(s) to which the work should be attributed.

4. Disclaimers, if any.

5. Contact information for corresponding authors.

The name, mailing address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address of the author responsible for correspondence about the manuscript (the “corresponding author;” this author may or may not be the “guarantor” for the integrity of the study).

7. Source(s) of support in the form of grants, equipment, drugs, or all of these.

8. A running head.

9. The number of figures and tables.

Conflict-of-Interest Notification

To prevent the information on potential conflicts of interest from being overlooked or misplaced, it needs to be part of the manuscript. However, it should also be included on a separate page or pages immediately following the title page.

Abstract

The abstract should follow the title page. It should provide the context or background for the study and should state the study’s purpose, basic procedures (selection of study subjects or laboratory animals, observational and analytical methods), main findings (giving specific effect sizes and their statistical significance, if possible), and principal conclusions. It should emphasize new and important aspects of the study or observations. Articles on clinical trials should contain abstracts that include the items that the CONSORT group has identified as essential (www.consort-statement.org/?_1190).

 Introduction

Provide a context or background for the study (that is, the nature of the problem and its significance). State the specific purpose or research objective of, or hypothesis tested by, the study or observation; the research objective is often more sharply focused when stated as a question. Both the main and secondary objectives should be clear, and any prespecified subgroup analyses should be described. Provide only directly pertinent references, and do not include data or conclusions from the work being reported.

Methods

The Methods section should include only information that was available at the time the plan or protocol for the study was being written; all information obtained during the study belongs in the Results section.

• Selection and Description of Participants

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. The guiding principle should be of clarity about how and why a study was done in a particular way.

• Technical Information

Identify the methods, apparatus (give the manufacturer’s name and address in parentheses), and procedures in sufficient detail to allow others to reproduce the results. Give references to established methods, including statistical methods (see below); provide references and brief descriptions for methods that have been published but are not well-known; describe new or substantially modified methods, give the reasons for using them, and evaluate their limitations. Identify precisely all drugs and chemicals used, including generic name(s), dose(s), and route(s) of administration.

Authors submitting review manuscripts should include a section describing the methods used for locating, selecting, extracting, and synthesizing data. These methods should also be summarized in the abstract.

• Statistics

Describe statistical methods with enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results. When possible, quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). Avoid relying solely on statistical hypothesis testing, such as P values, which fail to convey important information about effect size. References for the design of the study and statistical methods should be to standard works when possible (with pages stated). Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols. Specify the computer software used.

Results

Present your results in logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations, giving the main or most important findings first. Do not repeat all the data in the tables or illustrations in the text; emphasize or summarize only the most important observations. Extra or supplementary materials and technical detail can be placed in an appendix where they will be accessible but will not interrupt the flow of the text, or they can be published solely 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. Restrict tables and figures to those needed to explain the argument of the paper and to assess supporting data.

Discussion

Emphasize the new and important aspects of the study and the conclusions that follow from them. Do not repeat in detail data or other information given in the Introduction or the Results section. For experimental studies, it is useful to begin the discussion by summarizing briefly the main findings, then explore possible mechanisms or explanations for these findings, compare and contrast the results with other relevant studies, state the limitations of the study, and explore the implications of the findings for future research and for clinical practice. Link the conclusions with the goals of the study but avoid unqualified statements and conclusions not adequately supported by the data. In particular, avoid making statements on economic benefits and costs unless the manuscript includes the appropriate economic data and analyses.

References

• General Considerations Related to References

Small numbers of references to key original papers often serve as well as more exhaustive lists, particularly since references can now be added to the electronic version of published papers, and since electronic literature searching allows readers to retrieve published literature efficiently.

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 Style and Format

Authors should consult NLM’s Citing Medicine for information on its recommended formats for a variety of reference types. References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Identify references in text, tables, and legends by Arabic numerals in parentheses. References cited only in tables or figure legends should be numbered in accordance with the sequence established by the first identification in the text of the particular table or figure. The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the style used in the list of Journals Indexed for MEDLINE, posted by the NLM on the Library’s Web site.

For quick review of style authors can use following referencing format

1. Davidoff F, for the CSE Task Force on Authorship. Who’s the author? Problems with biomedical authorship, and some possible solutions. Science Editor. 2000; 23:111-9.

2. Yank V, Rennie D. Disclosure of researcher contributions: a study of original research articles in The Lancet. Ann Intern Med. 1999;130:661-70.

3. Flanagin A, Fontanarosa PB, DeAngelis CD. Authorship for research groups.JAMA. 2002;288:3166-8.

4. Godlee F, Jefferson T. Peer Review in Health Sciences. London: BMJ Books; 1999.

5. World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki. Ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects.JAMA. 2000;284:3043-5.

6. Pitkin RM, Branagan MA, Burmeister LF. Accuracy of data in abstracts of published research articles. JAMA. 1999;281:1110-1.