ISSN (Print):
2214-0832
ISSN (Online):
2214-0840

Epigenetic Diagnosis & Therapy (Discontinued)

Volume 1 , Issues 2, 2015


Author Guidelines


ONLINE MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION

An online submission and tracking service via Internet facilitates a speedy and cost-effective submission of manuscripts. The full manuscript has to be submitted online via Bentham's Journal Management System (JMS) at http://jms.eurekaselect.com/journals/edt / ( View Submission Instructions).

Manuscripts must be submitted by one of the authors of the manuscript, and should not be submitted by anyone on their behalf. The principal/corresponding author will be required to submit a Copyright Letter along with the manuscript, on behalf of all the co-authors (if any). The author(s) will confirm that the manuscript (or any part of it) has not been published previously or is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Furthermore, any illustration, structure or table that has been published elsewhere must be reported, and copyright permission for reproduction must be obtained.

For all online submissions, please provide soft copies of all the materials (main text in MS Word or Tex/LaTeX), figures/illustrations in TIFF, PDF or JPEG, and chemical structures drawn in ChemDraw (CDX) / ISISDraw (TGF) as separate files, while a PDF version of the entire manuscript must also be included, embedded with all the figures/illustrations/tables/chemical structures etc. It is advisable that the document files related to a manuscript submission should always have the name of the corresponding author as part of the file name, i.e., “Cilli MS text.doc, “Cilli MS Figure 1, etc.

It is imperative that before submission, authors should carefully proofread the files for special characters, mathematical symbols, Greek letters, equations, tables, references and images, to ensure that they appear in proper format.

References, figures, tables, chemical structures etc. should be referred to in the text at the appropriate place where they are first discussed. Figure legends/captions should also be provided.

A successful electronic submission of a manuscript will be followed by a system-generated acknowledgement to the principal/corresponding author. Any queries therein should be addressed to info@benthamscience.org

EDITORIAL POLICIES

For journals and eBooks, the following publication policies are applied by Bentham Science .

Peer Review

Bentham Science Publishers follows the single blind peer-review procedure for submissions of all manuscripts to its journals, except for a selected number of patent journals where double blind review is followed.

All submitted articles/eBook chapters are subjected to an extensive peer review in consultation with members of the journal’s editorial board and independent external referees (usually three reviewers). All manuscripts/chapters are assessed rapidly and the decision based on all the peer reviewers' comments, taken by the journal’s Editor-in-Chief/eBook Editor, is then conveyed to the author(s).

Submissions from the Editor-in-Chief will undergo independent peer-review and will be submitted to another Editor for his decision on acceptance.

Reprints

High-quality, bound/unbound, print/e-prints can be purchased for all published articles and book chapters.

Editorial Policies

Articles/chapters must be submitted by one of the authors of the manuscript, and should not be submitted by anyone on their behalf. The principal/corresponding author will be required to submit a Copyright Letter along with the manuscript, on behalf of all the co-authors (if any). The author(s) will confirm that the manuscript (or any part of it) has not been published previously or is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Furthermore, any illustration, structure or table that has been published elsewhere must be reported, and copyright permission for reproduction must be obtained.

Appeals and Complaints

Authors who wish to make a complaint should refer it to the Editor-in-Chief of the relevant journal. For edited eBook series, the chapter contributors may direct their complaints to the Editor of the eBook. Complaints to the Publisher may be forwarded to Jalil@benthamscience.org

Conflict of Interest

Financial contributions to the work being reported should be clearly acknowledged, as should any potential conflict of interest.

Plagiarism Prevention

Bentham Science uses the iThenticate software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. iThenticate software checks content against a database of periodicals, the Internet, and a comprehensive article database. It generates a similarity report, highlighting the percentage of overlap between the uploaded article and the published material. Any instance of content overlap is further scrutinized for suspected plagiarism according to the publisher’s Editorial Policies. Bentham Science allows an overall similarity of 20% for a manuscript to be considered for publication. The similarity percentage is further checked keeping the following important points in view

Low Text Similarity

The text of every submitted manuscript is checked using the Content Tracking mode in iThenticate. The Content Tracking mode ensures that manuscripts with an overall low percentage similarity (but may have a higher similarity from a single source) are not overlooked. The acceptable limit for similarity of text from a single source is 5%. If the similarity level is above 5%, the manuscript is returned to the author for paraphrasing the text and citing the original source of the copied material.

It is important to mention that the text taken from different sources with an overall low similarity percentage will be considered as a plagiarized content if the majority of the article is a combination of copied material.

High Text Similarity

There may be some manuscripts with an overall low similarity percentage, but a higher percentage from a single source. A manuscript may have less than 20% overall similarity but there may be 15% similar text taken from a single article. The similarity index in such cases is higher than the approved limit for a single source. Authors are advised to thoroughly rephrase the similar text and properly cite the original source to avoid plagiarism and copyright violation.

Types of Plagiarism

We all know that scholarly manuscripts are written after a thorough review of previously published articles. It is therefore, not easy to draw a clear boundary between legitimate representation and plagiarism. However, the following important features can assist in identifying different kinds of plagiarized content. These are:

Reproduction of others words, sentences, ideas or findings as one’s own without proper acknowledgement.

Text recycling, also known as self-plagiarism. It is an author’s use of a previous publication in another paper without proper citation and acknowledgment of the original source.

Poor paraphrasing: Copying complete paragraphs and modifying a few words without changing the structure of original sentences or changing the sentence structure but not the words.

Verbatim copying of text without putting quotation marks and not acknowledging the work of the original author.

Properly citing a work but poorly paraphrasing the original text is considered as unintentional plagiarism. Similarly, manuscripts with language somewhere between paraphrasing and quoting are not acceptable. Authors should either paraphrase properly or quote and in both cases, cite the original source.

Higher similarity in the abstract, introduction, materials and methods, and discussion and conclusion sections indicates that the manuscript may contain plagiarized text. Authors can easily explain these parts of the manuscript in many ways. However, technical terms and sometimes standard procedures cannot be rephrased; therefore Editors must review these sections carefully before making a decision.

Plagiarism in Published Manuscripts

Published manuscripts which are found to contain plagiarized text are retracted from the journal’s website after careful investigation and approval by the Editor-in-Chief of the journal. A ‘Retraction Note’ as well as a link to the original article is published on the electronic version of the plagiarized manuscript and an addendum with retraction notification in the particular journal.

For further details, please visit: https://www.eurekaselect.com/research-misconduct

Copyright and License Gold Open Access (Subscription Journals and eBooks)

Accepted articles can be published online for free open access. Open access publishing provides maximum dissemination of the article to the largest audience. All authors will be asked to indicate whether or not they wish to pay to have their paper made freely available on publication. If authors do not select the 'Gold Open Access' option, then their article will be published with standard subscription-based access.

Copyright (Subscription Journals and eBooks)

Editors/Authors who contribute in a Bentham’s Journal/eBook will transfer copyright to their work to Bentham Science Publishers. Submission of a manuscript to the respective journals implies that all editors/authors have read and agreed to the content of the copyright letter.

Ethical Approval of Studies and Informed Consent

For human or animal experimental investigations, it is a prerequisite to provide a formal review and approval, or review and waiver, by an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee, which should be documented in the paper. For investigations undertaken on human subjects, the manner in which the informed consent was obtained from the study participants (i.e., oral or written) should be stated in the Methods section.

Authors are encouraged to obtain patient consent when they use confidential case material. Consent is not necessary in the case of very brief case vignettes which do not contain identifying information or if the case material is disguised sufficiently to prevent identification of the patient.

In obtaining consent, the author(s) should discuss the purpose(s) of publication, the possible risks and benefits to the patient and the patient's right to withhold or withdraw consent. In the case of a minor patient, consent should be obtained from the parent(s) or guardian(s).

Standard Protocol on Approvals, Registrations, Patients Consents & Animal Protection

All clinical investigations must be conducted according to the Declaration of Helsinki principles. Authors must comply with the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (www.icmje.org) with regard to the patient’s consent for research or participation in a study. Patients' names, initials, or hospital numbers must not be mentioned anywhere in the manuscript (including figures). Editors may request that authors provide documentation of the formal review and recommendation from the institutional review board or ethics committee responsible for oversight of the study.

Errata and Corrections in Published Articles

Authors and readers are encouraged to notify the Editor-in-Chief if they find errors in published content, authors’ names and affiliations or if they have reasons for concern over the legitimacy of a publication. In such cases the journal will publish an ERRATUM in consultation with Editor-in-Chief and authors of the article, and/or replace or retract the article.

Article Withdrawal

Articles in Press (articles that have been accepted for publication or published as E-pub Ahead of Schedule but which have not been formally published with volume/issue/page information) that include errors, or are determined to violate the publishing ethics guidelines such as multiple submission, fake claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like, may be “Withdrawn” from the journal. Withdrawal means that the article files are removed and replaced with a PDF stating that the article has been withdrawn from the journal in accordance with BSP Editorial Policies.

Article Retraction

Published articles (with volume/issue/page information) which may contain infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like are retracted.

A retraction note titled “Retraction: [article title]” signed by the authors and/or the Editor-in-Chief is published in the paginated part of a subsequent issue of the journal and listed in the contents list.

In the electronic version, a link is made to the original article.

The online article is preceded by a screen containing the retraction note. It is to this screen that the link resolves; the reader can then proceed to the article itself.

The original article is retained unchanged with a watermark on the PDF indicating on each page that it is “retracted.”

The HTML version of the document is removed.

Redundant (multiple) publication/ Re-publication

Abstracts and posters of conferences, results presented at meetings (for example, to inform investigators or participants about findings), results databases (data without interpretation, discussion, context or conclusions in the form of tables and text to describe data/information where this is not easily presented in tabular form) are not considered prior publication.

Authors who wish to publish translations of the articles that have been published elsewhere should ensure that they have appropriate permission(s), indicate clearly that the material has been translated and re-published, and indicate clearly the original source of the material. The Editor-in-Chief may request copies of related publications if he/she is concerned about overlap and possible redundancy.

PERMISSION FOR REPRODUCTION

Permission to Reuse Bentham Content

Bentham Science has collaborated with the Copyright Clearance Center to meet our customer’s licensing, besides rights & permission needs.

The Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink® service makes it faster and easier to secure permission from Bentham Science’s journal titles. Visit Journals by Title and locate the desired content. Then go to the article’s abstract and click on “Rights and Permissions” to open the RightsLink’s page. If authors can't find the content they are looking for or can't get the rights they need, please contact us at permissions@benthamscience.net

Third-Party Permissions

Authors are responsible for managing the inclusion of third-party content as an author/editor of a work. We refer to 'third party content' as any work that authors haven't developed themselves and have copied or adapted from other sources. Text, figures, photographs, tables, screenshots, and other items may be included.

Unless the figure is in the public domain (copyright-free) or permitted for use under Creative Commons or other open licences, the author must get permission from the copyright holder(s).

Published/reproduced material should not be included unless written permission has been obtained from the copyright holder, which should be forwarded to the Editorial Office in case of acceptance of the article for publication.

Open Access Articles

Articles are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode), which permits unrestricted distribution and reproduction in any medium, as long as the work is properly credited/attributed. For more details, please visit Open Access Policy

Disclaimer

Responsibility for the content published by Bentham Science Publishers in any of its journals, including any opinions expressed therein, rests exclusively with the author(s) of such content. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, BSP (on its own behalf, and on behalf of its staff and members of its editorial board) disclaims responsibility for any and all injury and/or damage (whether financial or otherwise) to persons or property, resulting directly or indirectly from any ideas, methods, instructions or products (including errors in the same) referred to in the content of any of BSP’s journals. Any dispute arising, including any claim shall be governed exclusively by the laws of the United Arab Emirates, as applied in the Emirate of Sharjah.

COPYRIGHT / SELF-ARCHIVING POLICY COPYRIGHT

Authors who publish in Bentham Science print & online journals will transfer copyright to their work to Bentham Science Publishers. Submission of a manuscript to the respective journals implies that all authors have read and agreed to the content of the Copyright Letter or the Terms and Conditions. It is a condition of publication that manuscripts submitted to this journal have not been published and will not be simultaneously submitted or published elsewhere. Plagiarism is strictly forbidden, and by submitting the article for publication the authors agree that the publishers have the legal right to take appropriate action against the authors, if plagiarism or fabricated information is discovered. By submitting a manuscript the authors agree that the copyright of their article is transferred to the publishers if and when the article is accepted for publication. Once submitted to the journal, the author will not withdraw their manuscript at any stage prior to publication.

Copyright Letter

Authors who publish in Bentham Science print & online journals will transfer copyright to their work to Bentham Science Publishers. Submission of a manuscript to the respective journals implies that all authors have read and agreed to the content of the Copyright Letter or the Terms and Conditions. It is a condition of publication that manuscripts submitted to this journal have not been published and will not be simultaneously submitted or published elsewhere. Plagiarism is strictly forbidden, and by submitting the article for publication the authors agree that the publishers have the legal right to take appropriate action against the authors, if plagiarism or fabricated information is discovered. By submitting a manuscript, the authors agree that the copyright of their article is transferred to the publishers if and when the article is accepted for publication. Once submitted to the journal, the author will not withdraw their manuscript at any stage prior to publication.

It is mandatory that a signed copyright letter also be submitted along with the manuscript by the author to whom correspondence is to be addressed. The article should not contain any such material or information that may be unlawful, defamatory, fabricated, plagiarized, or which would, if published, in any way whatsoever, violate the terms and conditions as laid down in the copyright agreement. Copyright letter can be downloaded from the journal's Web site. Download the Copyright letter.

PERMISSION FOR REPRODUCTION

Permission to Reuse Bentham Content

Bentham Science has collaborated with the Copyright Clearance Center to meet our customer’s licensing, besides rights & permission needs.

The Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink® service makes it faster and easier to secure permission from Bentham Science’s journal titles. Visit Journals by Title and locate the desired content. Then go to the article’s abstract and click on “Rights and Permissions” to open the RightsLink’s page. If authors can't find the content they are looking for or can't get the rights they need, please contact us at permissions@benthamscience.net

Third-Party Permissions

Authors are responsible for managing the inclusion of third-party content as an author/editor of a work. We refer to 'third party content' as any work that authors haven't developed themselves and have copied or adapted from other sources. Text, figures, photographs, tables, screenshots, and other items may be included.

Unless the figure is in the public domain (copyright-free) or permitted for use under Creative Commons or other open licences, the author must get permission from the copyright holder(s).

Published/reproduced material should not be included unless written permission has been obtained from the copyright holder, which should be forwarded to the Editorial Office in case of acceptance of the article for publication.

Open Access Articles

Articles are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode), which permits unrestricted distribution and reproduction in any medium, as long as the work is properly credited/attributed. For more details, please visit Open Access Policy

SELF-ARCHIVING

By signing the Copyright Letter the authors retain the rights of self-archiving. Following are the important features of self-archiving policy of Bentham Science journals

Authors can deposit the first draft of a submitted article on their personal websites, their institution’s repositories or any non-commercial repository for personal use, internal institutional use or for permitted scholarly posting.

Authors may deposit the ACCEPTED VERSION of the peer-reviewed article on their personal websites, their institution’s repository or any non-commercial repository such as PMC, arXiv after 12 MONTHS of publication on the journal website. In addition, an acknowledgement must be given to the original source of publication and a link should be inserted to the published article on the journal's/publisher’s website.

If the research is funded by NIH, Wellcome Trust or any other Open Access Mandate, authors are allowed the archiving of published version of manuscripts in an institutional repository after the mandatory embargo period. Authors should first contact the Editorial Office of the journal for information about depositing a copy of the manuscript to a repository. Consistent with the copyright agreement, Bentham Science does not allow archiving of FINAL PUBLISHED VERSION of manuscripts.

The link to the original source of publication should be provided by inserting the DOI number of the article in the following sentence: “The published manuscript is available at EurekaSelect via https://www.eurekaselect.com/openurl/content.php?genre=article&doi=.

There is no embargo on the archiving of articles published under the OPEN ACCESS PLUS (GOLD OPEN ACCESS) category. Authors are allowed deposition of such articles on institutional, non-commercial repositories and personal websites immediately after publication on the journal website.

MANUSCRIPTS PUBLISHED

The Journal accepts mini- and full-length reviews, original research articles and drug clinical trial studies written in English. Single topic/thematic issues may also be considered for publication.

Single Topic Issues

These peer-reviewed issues will either contain invited review/uninvited review/mini-review articles. A Single Topic Issue Editor will offer a short perspective and co-ordinate the solicitation of manuscripts between 3-5 (for a mini-thematic Issue) to 6-10 (for full-length thematic Issue) from leading scientists. Authors interested in editing a single topic issue in an emerging topic on epigenetic medicine may submit their proposal to the Editor-in-Chief at edt@benthamscience.org for consideration.

Conference Proceedings

For proposals to publish conference proceedings in this journal, please contact us at email: proceedings@benthamscience.org

MANUSCRIPT LENGTH Review Articles

The length of a published comprehensive review article is from 6000-10000 words with 100 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables, etc.

Mini-Reviews

Mini-reviews should be 3000- 6000 words with 75 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables etc.

Systematic Reviews

Systematic Reviews include systematic updates on review protocols, methods, research, and results from all relevant fields for any studies and updates on already published issues. The total number of words for a published systematic review is from 4000 to 6000 words with 100 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables etc.

Registration of Systematic Reviews

Bentham Science Publishers supports retrospective registration of systematic reviews, in a suitable registry (such as PROSPERO). The registered systematic review must include the registration number as the last line of the manuscript abstract.

Research Articles

Research articles should be of 4000-6000 words with 75 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables, etc.

Case Reports

Case reports should describe new observations of findings or novel/unique outcomes relevant to the field. The total number of words for a published case report is 1500 to 2500 words with 40 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables etc.

Randomized Drug Clinical Trial Studies

Trial studies should be 4000 to 6000 words with 50 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables, etc.

There is no restriction on the number of figures, tables or additional files e.g. video clips, animation and datasets, that can be included with each article online. Authors should include all relevant supporting data with each article (Refer to Supplementary Material section).

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

The manuscript should be written in English in a clear, direct and active style. All pages must be numbered sequentially, facilitating in the reviewing and editing of the manuscript.

MICROSOFT WORD TEMPLATE

It is advisable that authors prepare their manuscript using the template available on the Web, which will assist in preparation of the manuscript according to journal’s format. Download the Template.

Our contracted service provider Eureka Science can, if needed, provide professional assistance to authors for the improvement of English language and figures in manuscripts.

SECTIONS IN MANUSCRIPTS

Manuscripts submitted for research and review articles in the journal should be divided into the following sections:

Title

Title Page

Structured Abstract

Graphical Abstract

Keywords

Text Organization

Conclusion

List of Abbreviations (if any)

Consent for Publication

Conflict of Interest

Acknowledgements

References

Appendices

Figures/Illustrations (if any)

Tables

Supportive/Supplementary Material (if any)

Title

The title of the article should be precise and brief and must not be more than 120 characters. Authors should avoid the use of non-standard abbreviations and question marks in titles. The first letter of each word should be in capital letters except for articles, conjunctions and prepositions.

Authors should also provide a short ‘running title’. Title, running title, byline, correspondent footnote and keywords should be written as presented in original manuscripts.

Title Page

Title page should include paper title, author(s) full name and affiliation, corresponding author(s) names complete affiliation/address, along with phone, fax and email.

Structured Abstract

The abstract of an article should be its clear, concise and accurate summary, having no more than 250 words, and including the explicit sub-headings (as in-line or run-in headings in bold). Use of abbreviations should be avoided and the references should not be cited in the abstract. Ideally, each abstract should include the following sub-headings, but these may vary according to requirements of the article.

Background

Objective

Method

Results

Conclusion

Graphical Abstract

A Graphical Abstract is a single, concise, pictorial and visual summary of the main findings of the article. This could either be the concluding figure from the article or a figure that is specially designed for the purpose, which captures the content of the article for readers at a single glance. Please find enclosed the example.

The Graphical Abstract will be displayed in online search result lists, the online contents list and the online article, but will not appear in the article PDF file.

Please find below the important points:

Authors must supply a graphical abstract when the paper is first submitted. The graphical abstract should summarize the contents of the paper in a concise, pictorial form useful for rapid scanning of the journal.

The Graphical Abstract should include one or two sentences from which a reader can understand the contents of the main discovery reported in the paper. The structure / formulae may be included. For further details please visit: eurekaselect.com/119209

The manuscript title, authors and affiliations should be identical to those in the main paper. An example can be found in the journal following these instructions. Graphical abstracts must fit within the area shown in the example.

You can view a few examples of the Graphical Abstracts on our website.

Keywords

6 to 8 keywords must be provided. Choose important and relevant keywords that researchers in your field will be searching for so that your paper will appear in a database search. The keywords should be contained in the title and they should appear several times in the article. In biomedical fields, MeSH terms are a good ‘common vocabulary’ source to draw keywords from https://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html.

Text Organization

The main text should begin on a separate page and should be divided into title page, abstract and the main text. The text may be subdivided further according to the areas to be discussed, which should be followed by the List of Abbreviations, Conflict of Interest, Acknowledgements and Reference section. For Research Articles, the manuscript should begin with the title page and abstract followed by the main text, which must be structured into separate sections as Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion, List of Abbreviations, Conflict of Interest, Acknowledgements, and References. For Reviews, the manuscript should be divided into title page, abstract and the main text. The text may be subdivided further according to the areas to be discussed, which should be followed by the Acknowledgements and Reference sections. The review article should mention any previous important reviews in the field and contain a comprehensive discussion starting with the general background of the field. It should then go on to discuss the salient features of recent developments. The authors should avoid presenting material which has already been published in a previous review. The authors are advised to present and discuss their observations in brief. The manuscript style must be uniform throughout the text and 10 pt Times New Roman fonts should be used. The full term for an abbreviation should precede its first appearance in the text unless it is a standard unit of measurement. The reference numbers should be given in square brackets in the text. Italics should be used for Binomial names of organisms (Genus and Species), for emphasis and for unfamiliar words or phrases. Non-assimilated words from Latin or other languages should also be italicized e.g. in vivo, in vitro, per se, et al. etc.

SECTION HEADINGS

Section headings should be numbered sequentially, left aligned and have the first letter capitalized, starting with the introduction. Sub-section headings however, should be in lower-case and italicized with their initials capitalized. They should be numbered as 1.1, 1.2, etc.

INTRODUCTION

The Introduction section should include the background and aims of the research in a comprehensive manner.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This section provides details of the methodology used along with information on any previous efforts with corresponding references. Any details for further modifications and research should be included.

EXPERIMENTAL

Repeated information should not be reported in the text of an article. A calculation section must include experimental data, facts and practical development from a theoretical perspective.

RESULTS

The important and main findings of the study should come first in the Results Section. The tables, figures and references should be given in sequence to emphasize the important information or observations related to the research. The repetition of data in tables and figures should be avoided. Results should be precise.

DISCUSSION

This should explore the significance of the results of the work, present a reproducible procedure and emphasis the importance of the article in the light of recent developments in the field. Extensive citations and discussion of published literature should be avoided.

This section of research articles should discuss the implications of the findings in the context of existing research and highlight the study's limitations. The authors should justify the sample size according to the study purpose and methods.

The Results and Discussion may be presented together under one heading of “Results and Discussion”. Alternatively, they may be presented under two separate sections (“Results” section and “Discussion” Sections). Short sub-headings may be added in each section if required.

CONCLUSION

A small paragraph summarizing the contents of the article, presenting the final outcome of the research or proposing further study on the subject, may be given at the end of the article under the Conclusion section.

Greek Symbols and Special Characters

Greek symbols and special characters often undergo formatting changes and get corrupted or lost during preparation of manuscript for publication. To ensure that all special characters used are embedded in the text, these special characters should be inserted as a symbol but should not be a result of any format styling (Symbol font face) otherwise they will be lost during conversion to PDF/XML.

Authors are encouraged to consult reporting guidelines. These guidelines provide a set of recommendations comprising a list of items relevant to their specific research design. Chemical equations, chemical names, mathematical usage, unit of measurements, chemical and physical quantity & units must conform to SI and Chemical Abstracts or IUPAC.

All kinds of measurements should be reported only in International System of Units (SI).

Appendices

In case there is a need to present lengthy, but essential methodological details, use appendices, which can be a part of the article. An appendix must not exceed three pages (Times New Roman, 10 point fonts, 900 max. words per page).The information should be provided in a condensed form, ruling out the need of full sentences. A single appendix should be titled APPENDIX, while more than one can be titled APPENDIX A, APPENDIX B, and so on.

Supportive/Supplementary Material

We do encourage to append supportive material, for example a PowerPoint file containing a talk about the study, a PowerPoint file containing additional screenshots, a Word, RTF, or PDF document showing the original instrument(s) used, a video, or the original data (SAS/SPSS files, Excel files, Access Db files etc.) provided it is inevitable or endorsed by the journal's Editor.

Supportive/Supplementary material intended for publication must be numbered and referred to in the manuscript but should not be a part of the submitted paper. In-text citations as well as a section with the heading "Supportive/Supplementary Material" before the "References" section should be provided. Here, list all Supportive/Supplementary Material and include a brief caption line for each file describing its contents.

Any additional files will be linked into the final published article in the form supplied by the author, but will not be displayed within the paper. They will be made available in exactly the same form as originally provided only on our Web site. Please also make sure that each additional file is a single table, figure or movie (please do not upload linked worksheets or PDF files larger than one sheet). Supportive/Supplementary material must be provided in a single zipped file not larger than 4 MB.

Authors must clearly indicate if these files are not for publication but meant for the reviewers'/editors' perusal only.

List of Abbreviations

If abbreviations are used in the text either they should be defined in the text where first used, or a list of abbreviations can be provided.

DECLARATION OF INTEREST/FUNDING SOURCES Conflict of Interest

Financial contributions and any potential conflict of interest must be clearly acknowledged under the heading ‘Conflict of Interest’. Authors must list the source(s) of funding for the study. This should be done for each author.

Acknowledgements

Any research assistants or other individuals who assisted with the research but are not listed as authors, such as those who carried out the literature review, produced, computerized, and analyzed the data, or helped with the language, writing, or proofreading of the article, or offered any comments or suggestions, should be acknowledged. Briefly, everyone who has contributed significantly to the improvement of the paper should be acknowledged. It is recommended to mention the "Declared None" if there is no acknowledgement for the study.

Guest or honorary authorship based solely on position (e.g. research supervisor, departmental head) is discouraged.

The specific requirements for authorship have been defined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE; www.icmje.org). Examples of authors' contributions are: 'designed research/study', 'performed research/study', 'contributed important reagents', 'collected data', 'analyzed data', 'wrote paper' etc. This information must be included in the submitted manuscript as a separate paragraph under the heading 'Authors' Contribution'. The corresponding author is responsible for obtaining permission from all co-authors for the submission of any version of the manuscript and for any changes in the authorship.

Standard Protocol on Approvals, Registrations, Patient Consents & Animal Protection

All clinical investigations must be conducted according to the Declaration of Helsinki principles. For all manuscripts reporting data from studies involving human participants, formal review and approval by an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee is required. For research involving animals, the authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the standards set forth in the eighth edition of Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (grants.nih.gov/grants/olaw/guide-for-the-care-and-use-of-laboratory-animals_prepub.pdf; published by the National Academy of Sciences, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.).

Research Involving Animals

Research work on animals should be carried out in accordance with the NC3Rs ARRIVE Guidelines. For In Vivo Experiments, visit https://www.nc3rs.org.uk/arrive-guidelines

Authors must clearly state the name of the approval committee, highlighting that legal and ethical approval was obtained prior to initiation of the research work carried out on animals, and that the experiments were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations stated below.

US authors should cite compliance with the US National Research Council's "Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals"

The US Public Health Service's "Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals" and "Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals"

UK authors should conform to UK legislation under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 Amendment Regulations (SI 2012/3039).

European authors outside the UK should conform to Directive 2010/63/EU.

Research in animals must adhere to ethical guidelines of The International Council for Laboratory Animal Science (ICLAS) has also published ethical guidelines.

The manuscript must clearly include a declaration of compliance with relevant guidelines (e.g. the revised Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 in the UK and Directive 2010/63/EU in Europe) and/or relevant permissions or licences obtained by the IUCN Policy Statement on Research Involving Species at Risk of Extinction and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Research Involving Plants

All experimental research on plants (either cultivated or wild), must comply with international guidelines. The manuscript must clearly include a declaration of compliance of field studies with relevant guidelines and/or relevant permissions or licences obtained by the IUCN Policy Statement on Research Involving Species at Risk of Extinction and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Consent for Publication

If the manuscript has an individuals’ data, such as personal detail, audio-video material etc., consent should be obtained from that individual. In case of children, consent should be obtained from the parent or the legal guardian.

A specific declaration of such approval must be made in the copyright letter and in a stand-alone paragraph at the end of the Methods section especially in the case of human studies where inclusion of a statement regarding obtaining the written informed consent from each subject or subject's guardian is a must. The original should be retained by the guarantor or corresponding author. Editors may request to provide the original forms by fax or email.

All such case reports should be followed by a proper consent prior to publishing.

RANDOMIZED DRUG CLINICAL TRIAL STUDIES

Randomized drug clinical trial studies are biomedical or health-related interventional and/or observational research studies conducted in phases in human beings who are randomly allocated to receive or not receive a preventive, therapeutic, or diagnostic intervention that follows a pre-defined protocol. The study is intended to determine the safety and efficacy of approaches to disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment.

Authors of randomized controlled trials are encouraged to submit trial protocols along with their manuscripts. All clinical trials must be registered (before recruitment of the first participant) at an appropriate online public trial registry that must be independent of for-profit interest (e.g.,www.clinicaltrials.gov). If you wish the editor(s) to consider an unregistered trial, please explain briefly why the trial has not been registered.

All randomized clinical trials should include a flow diagram and authors should provide a completed randomized trial checklist (see CONSORT Flow Diagram and Checklist; www.consort-statement.org) and a trial protocol. For further details, please visit complete guidelines at: http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/clinical-trial-registration.html

Studies of diagnostic accuracy must be reported according to STARD guidelines; (http://www.stard-statement.org)

Observational studies (cohort, case-control, or cross-sectional designs) must be reported according to the STROBE statement, and should be submitted with their protocols; (www.strobe-statement.org).

Genetic association studies must be reported according to STREGA guidelines; (www.medicine.uottawa.ca)

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses must be reported according to PRISMA guidelines; (www.prisma-statement.org)

To find the reporting guidelines see (http:// www.equator-network.org)

Important points to remember while submitting clinical trials:

Each manuscript should clearly state an objective or hypothesis; the design and methods (including the study setting and dates, patients or participants with inclusion and exclusion criteria, or data sources, and how these were selected for the study); the essential features of any interventions; the main outcome measures; the main results of the study; a comment section placing the results in context with the published literature and addressing study limitations; and the conclusions. Data included in research reports must be original.

Trial registry name, registration identification number, and the URL for the registry should be included at the end of the abstract and also in the space provided on the online manuscript submission form. If your research article reports the results of a controlled health care intervention, list the trial registry, along with the unique identifying number (Please note that there should be no space between the letters and numbers of your trial registration number). Studies designed for other purposes, such as to study pharmacokinetics or major toxicity (e.g., phase 1 trials), are exempted.

All reports of randomized trials should include a section entitled “Randomization and Masking”, within the Methods section.

The manuscript must include a statement identifying the institutional and/or licensing committee that has approved the experiments, including any relevant details.

The SI system of units and the recommended international non-proprietary name (rINN) for drug names must be used. Kindly ensure that the dose, route, and frequency of administration of any drug you mention are correct.

Please ensure that the clinical trials sponsored by pharmaceutical companies follow the guidelines on good publication practice: (http://www.gpp-guidelines.org)

The editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned requirements. The author will be held responsible for false statements or failure to fulfill the above-mentioned requirements.

REFERENCES

References must be listed in the Vancouver Style only. All references should be numbered sequentially [in square brackets] in the text and listed in the same numerical order in the reference section. The reference numbers must be finalized and the bibliography must be fully formatted before submission.

See below few examples of references listed in the correct Vancouver Style

Typical Paper Reference

Skelton JA, Cook SR, Auinger P, Klein JD, Barlow SE. Prevalence and trends of severe obesity among US children and adolescents. Acad Pediatr 2009; 9: 322-9.

Kirkham TC. Cannabinoids and appetite: food craving and food pleasure. Int Rev Psychiatry 2009; 21: 163-71.

Typical Chapter Reference

Serpe L. Conventional chemotherapeutic drug nanoparticles for cancer treatment. In: Challa SSR Kumar Ed. Nanomaterials for cancer therapy. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH &Co., Weinheim, 2006; Chap. 1: pp. 1-39.

Book Reference

Crabtree RH. The Organometallic Chemistry of the Transition Metals. 3rd ed. Wiley & Sons: New York 2001.

Book Chapter Reference

Wheeler DMS, Wheeler MM. In: Studies in Natural Products Chemistry; Atta-ur-Rahman, Ed. Elsevier Science B. V: Amsterdam 1994; 14: pp. 3-46.

Conference Proceedings

Bengtsson S, Solheim BG. Enforcement of data protection, privacy and security in medical informatics. In: Lun KC, Degoulet P, Piemme TE, Rienhoff O, Eds. MEDINFO 92. Proceedings of the 7th World Congress on Medical Informatics; 1992 Sep 6-10; Geneva, Switzerland. Amsterdam: North-Holland 1992; pp. 1561-5.

Kimura J, Shibasaki H, Eds. Recent advances in clinical neurophysiology. Proceedings of the 10th International Congress of EMG and Clinical Neurophysiology; 1995 Oct 15-19; Kyoto, Japan. Amsterdam: Elsevier 1996.

URL (WebPage)

National Library of Medicine. Specialized Information Services: Toxicology and Environmental Health. sis.nlm.nih.gov/Tox/ToxMain.html (Accessed May 23, 2004).

Patent

Hoch JA, Huang S. Screening methods for the identification of novel antibiotics. US Patent 6,043,045, March 28, 2000.

Thesis

Mackel H. Capturing the Spectra of Silicon Solar Cells. PhD Thesis, The Australian National University: Canberra, December 2004.

E-citations

Citations for articles/material published exclusively online or in open access (free-to-view) , must contain the exact Web addresses (URLs) at the end of the reference(s), except those posted on an author’s Web site unless editorially essential, e.g. ‘Reference: Available from: URL’.

Some important points to remember:

All references must be complete and accurate.

If the number of authors exceeds six then et al. will be used after three names (the term “et al.” should be in italics).

Date of access should be provided for online citations

Journal names should be abbreviated according to the Index Medicus/MEDLINE.

Punctuation should be properly applied as mentioned in the examples given above.

Superscript in the in-text citations and reference section should be avoided.

Abstracts, unpublished data and personal communications (which can only be included if prior permission has been obtained) should not be given in the references section. The details may however appear in the footnotes.

The authors are encouraged to use a recent version of EndNote (version 5 and above) or Reference Manager (version 10) when formatting their reference list, as this allows references to be automatically extracted.

FIGURES/TABLES Figures/Illustrations

All authors must strictly follow the guidelines below for preparing illustrations for publication in Epigenetic Diagnosis & Therapy . If the figures are found to be sub-standard, then the manuscripts will be rejected and the authors offered the option of figure improvement professionally by Eureka Science. The costs for such improvement will be charged to the authors.

Illustrations should be embedded in the text file, and must be numbered consecutively in the order of their appearance. Each figure should include only a single illustration which should be cropped to minimize the amount of space occupied by the illustration.

If a figure is in separate parts, all parts of the figure must be provided in a single composite illustration file.

Photographs should be provided with a scale bar if appropriate, as well as high-resolution component files.

Scaling/Resolution

Line Art image type is normally an image based on lines and text. It does not contain tonal or shaded areas. The preferred file format should be TIFF or EPS, with the color mode being Monochrome 1-bit or RGB, in a resolution of 900-1200 dpi.

Halftone image type is a continuous tone photograph containing no text. It should have the preferred file format TIFF, with color mode being RGB or Grayscale, in a resolution of 300 dpi.

Combination image type is an image containing halftone , text or line art elements. It should have the preferred file format TIFF, with color mode being RGB or Grayscale, in a resolution of 500-900 dpi.

Formats

Illustrations may be submitted in the following file formats:

Illustrator

EPS (preferred format for diagrams)

PDF (also especially suitable for diagrams)

PNG (preferred format for photos or images)

Microsoft Word (version 5 and above; figures must be a single page)

PowerPoint (figures must be a single page)

TIFF

JPEG (conversion should be done using the original file)

BMP

CDX (ChemDraw)

TGF (ISISDraw)

Bentham Science does not process figures submitted in GIF format.

For TIFF or EPS figures with considerably large file size restricting the file size in online submissions is advisable. Authors may therefore convert to JPEG format before submission as this results in significantly reduced file size and upload time, while retaining acceptable quality. JPEG is a ‘lossy’ format. However, in order to maintain acceptable image quality, it is recommended that JPEG files are saved at High or Maximum quality.

Zipit or Stuffit tools should not be used to compress files prior to submission as the resulting compression through these tools is always negligible.

Please refrain from supplying:

Graphics embedded in word processor (spreadsheet, presentation) document.

Optimized files optimized for screen use (like GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG) because of the low resolution.

Files with too low a resolution.

Graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.

Image Conversion Tools

There are many software packages, many of them freeware or shareware, capable of converting to and from different graphics formats, including PNG.

General tools for image conversion include Graphic Converter on the Macintosh, Paint Shop Pro, for Windows, and ImageMagick, available on Macintosh, Windows and UNIX platforms.

Bitmap images (e.g. screenshots) should not be converted to EPS as they result in a much larger file size than the equivalent JPEG, TIFF, PNG or BMP, and poor quality. EPS should only be used for images produced by vector-drawing applications such as Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw. Most vector-drawing applications can be saved in, or exported as, EPS format. If the images were originally prepared in an Office application, such as Word or PowerPoint, original Office files should be directly uploaded to the site, instead of being converted to JPEG or another format of low quality.

Color Figures/Illustrations

The cost for color figures/plates/illustrations is US$ 515 per article for up to 3 colour pages and subsequently US$ 205.00 per page for any additional colour pages.

Color figures should be supplied in CMYK and not RGB colors.

Note for authors To maintain publication quality, figures submitted in colour will be published in colour only.

Chemical Structures

Chemical structures must be prepared in ChemDraw/CDX and provided as separate file.

Structure Drawing Preferences

[As according to the ACS style sheet]

Drawing Settings
Chain angle 120°
Bond spacing 18% of width
Fixed length 14.4 pt (0.500cm, 0.2in)
Bold width 2.0 pt (0.071cm, 0.0278in)
Line width 0.6 pt (0.021cm, 0.0084in)
Margin width 1.6 pt (0.096cm)
Hash spacing 2.5 pt (0.088cm, 0.0347in)
Text settings
Font Times New Roman
Size 8 pt
Under the Preference Choose
Units points
Tolerances 3 pixels
Under Page Setup Use
Paper US letter
Scale 100%
Tables

Data Tables should be submitted in Microsoft Word table format.

Each table should include a title/caption being explanatory in itself with respect to the details discussed in the table. Detailed legends may then follow.

Table number in bold font i.e. Table 1, should follow a title. The title should be in small case with the first letter in caps. A full stop should be placed at the end of the title.

Tables should be embedded in the text exactly according to their appropriate placement in the submitted manuscript.

Columns and rows of data should be made visibly distinct by ensuring that the borders of each cell are displayed as black lines.

Tables should be numbered in Arabic numerals sequentially in order of their citation in the body of the text.

If a reference is cited in both the table and text, please insert a lettered footnote in the table to refer to the numbered reference in the text.

Tabular data provided as additional files can be submitted as an Excel spreadsheet.

AUTHORSHIP AUTHORSHIP CRITERIA

Bentham Science Publishers requires that all individuals listed as authors must have made a substantial contribution to the design, performance, analysis, or reporting of the work. The role of authors is judged on the basis of ICMJE and COPE guidelines.

Authorship Declaration

All contributing authors are required to sign a copyright letter, mentioning complete details, including full name, affiliation, email address, ORCID ID and their role in the article. After successful electronic submission of a manuscript, a system-generated acknowledgement will be sent to all authors on their provided email addresses.

AUTHORS AND INSTITUTIONAL AFFILIATIONS

The Corresponding Author must provide a final list of authors at the time of submission, ensuring the correct sequence of the names of authors, which will not be considered for any addition, deletion or rearrangement after final submission of the manuscript. The email address of the principal author should be provided with an asterisk. However, the complete address, business telephone numbers, fax numbers and e-mail address of the corresponding author must be stated to receive correspondence and galley proofs. Bentham Science Publishers recommends that all contributors regularly update their profiles on SCOPUS/ORCID and other databases.

The corresponding author must have the approval of all other listed authors for the submission and publication of all versions of the manuscript.

AUTHOR IDENTIFICATION

Authors are strongly recommended to use their ORCID ID when submitting an article for consideration. Alternatively, they can acquire an ORCID ID via the submission process. For more information about ORCID IDs, visit here.

CHANGES TO AUTHORSHIP

At the time of initial submission, the finalized list of authors in correct sequence should be provided, which will not be changed once the publication process has started.

If any change is essential, then it can only be done after the approval of the Editor-in-Chief upon receiving the following details from the corresponding author:

  1. The reason for the change in the author list and/or their sequence
    • A proper justification should be provided for changes in authorship.
    • Correction of existing names should be accompanied by a notice to the Editor-in-Chief of the journal.
  2. A written confirmation from all the co-authors is a prerequisite for any amendment or removal.

Any amendment to the authors' list will only be considered and approved by the Editor-in-Chief after complete verification. Publication of the manuscript will be withheld during consideration of the request. However, if the manuscript has already been published online, requests approved thereafter by the Editor-in-Chief will result in an erratum or corrigendum. The corresponding author is responsible for obtaining permission from all co-authors for any changes in the authorship.

Here is some advice by COPE on authorship issues. Bentham strives to follow these guidelines.

AUTHORSHIP AND AI TOOLS

Bentham Science Publishers recognizes that authors use a variety of tools for preparing articles related to their scientific works, ranging from simple ones to very sophisticated ones.

According to the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) guidelines, "AI tools cannot meet the requirements for authorship as they cannot take responsibility for the submitted work. As non-legal entities, they cannot assert the presence or absence of conflicts of interest nor manage copyright and license agreements".

The pertinence of such tools may vary and evolve with public opinion, due to which the use of AI-powered language tools has led to a significant debate. These tools may generate useful results, but they can also lead to errors or misleading results; therefore, it is important to know which tools were used for evaluating and interpreting a particular scientific work.

Considering the above we require that:

  1. The authors to report any significant use of such tools in their works, such as instruments and software along with text-to-text generative AI consistent with subject standards for methodology.
  2. All co-authors should sign a declaration that they take full responsibility for all of its contents, regardless of how the contents were generated. Inappropriate language, plagiarized and biased contents, errors, mistakes, incorrect references, or misleading content generated by AI language tools and the relevant results reported in scientific works are the full and shared responsibility of all the authors, including co-authors.
  3. AI language tools should not be listed as an author; instead, authors should follow clause (1) above.
General Advice:

Advice on how to spot authorship problems

Before Publication:

Corresponding author requests addition of extra author before publication

Corresponding author requests removal of the author before publication

After publication:

Request for addition of extra author after publication

Request for removal of author after publication

NON-AUTHOR CONTRIBUTORS

Activities such as the acquisition of funding, general supervision of a research group or general administrative support, writing assistance, technical editing, language editing, and proofreading alone do not qualify any contributor for authorship. Such contributors may be acknowledged individually or together as a group in the acknowledgement section. Further details for writing acknowledgements are available here. Persons not meeting authorship criteria can be acknowledged in the acknowledgement section of the article rather than being enlisted as authors.

GUEST OR HONORARY AUTHORSHIP

All contributing authors should contribute substantially to the article and sign the copyright letter. Bentham Science Publishers discourages authorship based solely on position (e.g., a research supervisor or a departmental head). We use COPE guidelines for identifying any suspected ghost, guest or gift authorship.

APPEALS AND COMPLAINTS

Generally, the editorial decisions are not reverted. However, authors who think that their manuscript was rejected due to a misunderstanding or mistake may seek an explanation for the decision. Appeals must give sound reasoning and compelling evidence against the criticism raised in the rejection letter. A difference of opinion as to the interest, novelty, or suitability of the manuscript for the journal will not be considered as an appeal. The EIC and other relevant editors will consider the appeal and the decision thereafter taken by the journal will be deemed final. Acceptance of the manuscript is not guaranteed even if the journal agrees to reconsider the manuscript, and the reconsideration process may involve previous or new reviewers or editors and substantive revision.

Authors who wish to make a complaint should refer them to the Editor-in-Chief of the journal concerned. Complaints to the Publisher may be emailed to info@benthamscience.org

PAGE CHARGES/QUICK TRACK PUBLICATION PAGE CHARGES

No page charges will be levied to authors for the publication of their article. However, the authors may decide for some paid-for editorial services such as open access publication and/or a faster overall publication for their article(s).

QUICK TRACK PUBLICATION

For this journal an optional fast publication fee-based service called QUICK TRACK is available to authors for their submitted manuscripts.

QUICK TRACK allows online publication within 2 weeks of receipt of the final approved galley proofs from the authors. Similarly the manuscript can be published in the next forthcoming PRINT issue of the journal. The total publication time, from date of first receipt of manuscript to its online publication is 12 weeks, subject to its acceptance by the referees and modification (if any) by the authors within one week.

Authors who have availed QUICK TRACK services in a BSP journal will be entitled for an exclusive 30% discount if they again wish to avail the same services in any Bentham journal.

For more information please contact the Editorial Office by e-mail at edt@benthamscience.org.

REFUND POLICY

Bentham Science offers three major services related to its publications:

  • Subscription services (to subscribers, institutes, libraries, customers, etc.): Involving access to published content based on certain charges for corporates, academic institutes, and individuals.
  • Editorial / Author Pre-publication services (to editors, authors, etc.): Quick track processing, language editing, etc.
  • Editorial / Author Post-publication Promotional Services (to authors, institutions and organizations): Open Access Plus, Animated Abstracts, Sharing PDF on KUDOS, reprints, etc.

Since these services are optional in nature and are offered for specific services rendered, hence refunds are not allowed against the availed and charged services, except under special cases.

LANGUAGE AND EDITING

Authors should seek professional assistance for the correction of grammatical, scientific, and typographical errors before submission of the revised version of the article for publication.

You may use the professional editing services of our nominated English Language editing organizations TopEdit or Eureka Science.

Please note that we accept a language certificate, only from one of the above two language editing organizations.

PROOF CORRECTIONS

Authors will receive page proofs of their accepted paper before publications. To avoid delays in publication, proofs should be checked immediately for typographical errors and returned within 48 hours. Major changes are not acceptable at the proof stage.

The corresponding author will be solely responsible for ensuring that the revised version of the manuscript incorporating all the submitted corrections receives the approval of all the co-authors of the manuscript.

OPEN ACCESS PLUS (GOLD OPEN ACCESS)/REPRINTS OPEN ACCESS PLUS (GOLD OPEN ACCESS)

Bentham Science also offers authors the choice of “Open Access Plus (Gold Open Access)” publication of articles at a fee of US $750 per article. This paid service allows for articles to be disseminated to a much wider audience, on the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). Authors are asked to indicate whether or not they wish to pay to have their article made more widely available on this “Open Access Plus (Gold Open Access)” basis. Where an author does not opt-in to this paid service, then the author’s article will be published only on Bentham Science’s standard subscription-based access, at no additional cost to the author.

Authors who select the “Quick Track” publication option (see below) and also wish to have their article made available on an “Open Access Plus (Gold Open Access)” basis will be entitled to a 50% discount on the “Open Access Plus (Gold Open Access)” publication fee.

For more information please contact us at e-mail: openaccess@benthamscience.org.

REPRINTS

Printed reprints and e-prints may be ordered from the Publisher prior to publication of the article. First named authors may also order a personal online subscription of the journal at 50% off the normal subscription rate by contacting the subscription department at e-mail: subscriptions@benthamscience.org.

REVIEWING AND PROMPTNESS OF PUBLICATION

All papers submitted for publication are immediately subjected to preliminary editorial scrutiny by the Editor-in-Chief regarding their suitability. The Editor-in-Chief determines if the manuscript

(a) falls within the scope of the journal and

(b) meets the editorial criteria of Bentham Science Publishers in terms of originality and quality.

Manuscripts that appear to be suitable are then subjected to single/ double blind peer-review by, usually two, neutral eminent experts. The services of eminent international experts are sought through invitations to conduct the peer-review of a submitted manuscript, keeping in view the scope of the manuscript and the expertise of the reviewers. The identity of the reviewers is not disclosed to the authors. The anonymity of reviewers ensures objective and unbiased assessment of the manuscript by the reviewers.

Before sending the manuscripts to reviewers, Bentham Science seeks consent from potential reviewers about their availability and willingness to review. Correspondence between the editorial office of the journal and the reviewers is kept confidential. The reviewers are expected to provide their reports in a timely fashion since a prompt review leads to timely publication of a manuscript which is beneficial not only to the authors but to the scientific community as well.

The editorial process and peer-review workflow for each journal are taken care of by a team of Senior Editors, Editorial Board Members (EBMs) and dedicated Journal managers who have the required expertise in their specific fields.

Bentham Science Publishers carries out independent review of all articles. The reviewers are selected according to their expertise, from our, regularly updated, referee database.

On the basis of reviewer comments, the Editors may recommend acceptance, revision or rejection of a manuscript.

After review of the manuscript by at least two independent experts, in addition to the views of the Editor, the decision is relayed to the authors, which may be categorized as:

Accept without changes

Revisions Required

Reject

Bentham Science requests not to have the manuscripts peer-reviewed by those experts who may have competing interest with the author(s) of a submitted manuscript. It is not possible for Editors to be aware of all competing interests; it is therefore expected that the reviewers would inform the Editor-in-Chief/Handling Editor if they notice any potential competing interest during the course of review of a manuscript. Moreover, the reviewers are expected to inform the Editors or editorial office of the journal if they have a conflict of interest in carrying out the review of a manuscript submitted by any author/contributor of the manuscript.

Papers which are delayed by the authors in revision for more than 30 days are required to be re-submitted as a new submission. Papers accepted for publication are typeset and proofs are dispatched to authors for any corrections prior to final publication.

PLAGIARISM PREVENTION

Bentham Science Publishers uses the iThenticate software which detects instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. This software checks content against a database of periodicals, the Internet, and a comprehensive article database. It generates a similarity report, highlighting the percentage overlap between the uploaded article and the published material. Any instance of content overlap is further scrutinized for suspected plagiarism according to the publisher’s Editorial Policies. If the similarity seems legitimate, the article will be proceeded for further review process; however, in cases of superfluous plagiarism, the authors have to revise the text as per editorial instructions.

Bentham Science Publishers strictly follows the COPE guidelines to detect plagiarism; for more clear insight, authors may refer to flowcharts provided by COPE by clicking here or by visiting COPE website.

Low Text Similarity

The text of every submitted manuscript is checked by using the Content Tracking mode in iThenticate. The Content Tracking mode ensures that manuscripts with an overall low percentage similarity (but which may have a higher similarity from a single source) are not overlooked. If the similarity level is significantly high, then the manuscript is returned to the author for paraphrasing the text and citing the original source of the copied material.

It is important to mention that the text taken from different sources with an overall low similarity percentage will be considered as a plagiarized content if the majority of the article is a combination of copied material.

High Text Similarity

There may be some manuscripts with an overall low similarity percentage, but a higher percentage from a single source. For instance, a manuscript may have less than 20% overall similarity but there may be 15 % similar text taken from a single article; the similarity index in such cases is higher than the approved limit for a single source. Authors are advised to thoroughly rephrase the similar text and properly cite the original source to avoid plagiarism and copyright violation.

Types of Plagiarism

We all know that scholarly manuscripts are written after a thorough review of previously published articles. It is therefore, not easy to draw a clear boundary between legitimate representation and plagiarism. However, the following important features can assist in identifying different kinds of plagiarized content. These are:

Reproduction of others words, sentences, ideas or findings as one’s own without proper acknowledgement.

Text recycling, also known as self-plagiarism. It is an author’s use of a previous publication in another paper without proper citation and acknowledgment of the original source.

Paraphrasing poorly: Copying complete paragraphs and modifying a few words without changing the structure of original sentences or changing the sentence structure but not the words.

Verbatim copying of text without putting quotation marks and not acknowledging the work of the original author.

Properly citing a work but poorly paraphrasing the original text is considered as unintentional plagiarism. Similarly, manuscripts with language somewhere between paraphrasing and quoting are not acceptable. Authors should either paraphrase properly or quote and in both cases, cite the original source.

Higher similarity in the abstract, introduction, materials and methods, and discussion and conclusion sections indicates that the manuscript may contain plagiarized text. Authors can easily explain these parts of the manuscript in many ways. However, technical terms and sometimes standard procedures cannot be rephrased; therefore Editors must review these sections carefully before making a decision.

Plagiarism in Published Manuscripts

Published manuscripts which are found to contain plagiarized text are retracted from the journal website after careful investigation and approval by the Editor-in-Chief of the journal. A ‘Retraction Note’ as well as a link to the original article is published on the electronic version of the plagiarized manuscript and an addendum with retraction notification in the journal concerned.

For further details, please visit: https://www.eurekaselect.com/research-misconduct

E-PUB AHEAD OF SCHEDULE

Bentham Science Publishers is pleased to offer electronic publication of accepted papers prior to scheduled publication. These peer-reviewed papers can be cited using the date of access and the unique DOI number. Any final changes in manuscripts will be made at the time of print publication and will be reflected in the final electronic version of the issue. Articles ahead of schedule may be ordered by pay-per-view at the relevant links by each article stated via the E-Pub Ahead of Schedule.

Disclaimer

Articles appearing in E-Pub Ahead-of-Schedule sections have been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication in this journal and posted online before scheduled publication. Articles appearing here may contain statements, opinions, and information that have errors in facts, figures, or interpretation. Accordingly, Bentham Science Publishers, the editors , authors and their respective employees are not responsible or liable for the use of any such inaccurate or misleading data, opinion or information contained of articles in the E-Pub Ahead-of-Schedule.

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