Submissions

Author Guidelines

To submit a new paper to our journal:

1. Register on the Journal website; we encourage you to register also as a Reviewer at the same time;
2. Download and follow the Guidelines for Authors;
3. Read our Editorial Policies and our Competing Interest policies.
4. Log in;
5. Click on the "MAKE A SUBMISSION" button to start the online procedure.

To submit a revised version:

1. Log in;
2. Click on the title of your paper;
3. Next to the heading "REVISIONS", upload your revised paper by using the "UPLOAD FILE" button;
4. Inform the Editors that a revised version has been uploaded.

Guidelines for Authors

Manuscripts have to be double-spaced with one-inch margins. Headings must be used to designate the major divisions of the paper. To facilitate the review process, manuscripts should contain page and line numbering. Manuscripts must be written in English. Authors whose native language is not English are strongly advised to have their manuscript checked by a language editing service, or by an English mother-tongue colleague prior to submission.

As an option, PAGEPress offers its own professional copyediting service. Professional copyediting can help authors improve the presentation of their work and increase its chances of being taken on by a publisher. In case you feel that your manuscript needs a professional English language copyediting checking language grammar and style, you can find a reliable revision service at:

Manuscript preparation

First and second pages

The first page must contain:

1. title (lowercase), without acronyms;
2. first name and family name of each author, separated by commas;
3. affiliation(s) of each author (in English);
4. acknowledgments;
5. full name and full postal address of the corresponding author. Phone, fax number and e-mail address for the correspondence should also be included;
6. three to five key words.

The second page should contain:

1. authors' contributions, e.g., information about the contributions of each person named as having participated in the study (http://www.icmje.org/#author);
2. disclosures about potential conflict of interests;
3. further information (e.g., funding, conference presentation ...).

Tables and Figures

If tables are used, they should be double-spaced on separate pages. They should be numbered and cited in the text of the manuscript.
If figures are used, they must be submitted as .tiff or .jpg files, with the following digital resolution:

1. color (saved as CMYK): minimum 300 dpi;
2. black and white/grays: minimum 600 dpi;
3. one column width (8.5 cm) or 2 column widths (17.5 cm).

A different caption for each figure must be provided at the end of the manuscript, not included in the figure file.
Authors must obtain written permission for the reproduction and adaptation of material which has already been published. A copy of the written permission has to be provided before publication (otherwise the paper cannot be published) and appropriately cited in the figure caption. The procedure for requesting the permission is the responsibility of the Authors; PAGEPress will not refund any costs incurred in obtaining permission. Alternatively, it is advisable to use materials from other (free) sources.

Other

If abbreviations are used in the text, authors are required to write full name+abbreviation in brackets [e.g. Multiple Myeloma (MM)] the first time they are used, then only abbreviations can be written (apart from titles; in this case authors have to write always the full name).
If names of equipment or substances are mentioned in the text, brand, company names and locations (city and state) for equipment and substances should be included in parentheses within the text.

Journal Sections

• Original Articles (3500 words max, abstract 180 words max, 30 references max, 3/5 tables and/or figures): In general, this kind of publication should be divided into an Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions and References. A maximum of 10 authors is permitted and additional authors should be listed in an ad hoc Appendix.
• Reviews (4000 words max, abstract 250 words max, minimum 40 references, 3/5 tables and/or figures): They should be introduced by a general summary of content in the form of an Abstract. Following a short introduction, putting the study into context and defining the aim, reviews will concentrate on the most recent developments in the field. A review should clearly describe the search strategy followed (key words, inclusion, exclusion criteria, search engines, ...). No particular format is required; headings should be used to designate the major divisions of the paper.
• Brief Reports (about 2000 words, abstract 150 words max, 20 references max, 3 tables and/or figures): Short reports of results from original researches. They should be introduced by a general summary of content in the form of an Abstract. They must provide conclusive findings: preliminary observations or incomplete findings cannot be considered for publication.
• Case Reports (about 2000 words, abstract 150 words max, 20 references max, 3 tables and/or figures): Reports describing observations on clinical cases that can be educational, including adverse effects of drugs or outcomes of a specific treatment. They should be divided into: Abstract, Introduction (optional), Case report(s), Discussion, Conclusions and References.
• Letters to the Editor (800 words max): These are written on invitation, short essays that express the authors’ viewpoint, may respond to published manuscripts in our journals, or deliver information or news regarding an issue related to the Journal scope. If the letter relates to a published manuscript, the authors of the original manuscript will be given the opportunity to provide a respond. Authors of Letters to the Editor should provide a short title.
• Book Reviews (no abstract, no references needed): They should be a short critical analysis and evaluation of the quality, meaning, and significance of a short book which addressed at least one of main topics of the Journal (the authors should contact the Editor-in-Chief of the journal for his/her approval before submitting a Book review).

For further details on the specific layout to follow for the different types of papers published by the Journal, please refer to the Section Policies.

References

Citations in the main text
The Journal follows the "author, year" style of citation. When a citation has one or two authors, cite the reference throughout using the name(s) and the date. When a citation has more than two authors, cite the reference throughout the text with et al. following the last name of the first author. When two or more references are included in a grouping within a sentence, they are arranged and separated by a semicolon. The first criterion is the year (former citations precede recent ones); multiple citations for a given year are further arranged alphabetically and multiple citations for the same initial letter are arranged as follows: first the citation with one author, secondly the citation with two authors, then the other (with et al.). When the same author has two references with different dates, cite them in chronological order, separating the dates with a comma; when the same author has two references with the same date, arrange the dates as a and b (also in the reference list) and separated by a comma. Journal titles mentioned in the reference list should be abbreviated according to the following website: ISI Journal Abbreviations Index (http://library.caltech.edu/reference/abbreviations/).

Citations in the References list (examples)
1. Journal articles
Hennighausen, L. G., Sippel, A. E., 1982. Characterization and cloning of the mRNAs specific for the lactating mouse mammary gland. Eur. J. Biochem. 125:131-141.
2. Books
National Research Council, 2001. Nutrient Requirements of Dairy Cattle. 7th rev. ed. National Academy Press, Washington, DC, USA.
3. Book Chapters
Brouwer, I., 1965. Report of the sub-committee on constants and factors. In: K.L. Blaxter (ed.) Energy metabolism. EAAP Publ. N. 11, Academic Press Ltd., London, UK, pp 441-443.
4. Proceedings
Blanco P., Nigro B. 1970. Not numbered volumes. Page 127 (or pp 12-18) in Proc. 3rd Int. Conf. Cattle Dis., Philadelphia, PA, USA.
5. Materials from the Internet
Food and Drug Administration, 2001. Available from: http://www.fda.gov
6. Materials In press
Manuscripts that have been accepted for publication but are not yet published can be listed in the literature cited with the designation (In press) following the journal title.

Peer-review policy

All manuscripts submitted to our journal are critically assessed by external and/or in-house experts in accordance with the principles of peer review (http://www.icmje.org/#peer), which is fundamental to the scientific publication process and the dissemination of sound science. Each paper is first assigned by the Editors to an appropriate Associate Editor who has knowledge of the field discussed in the manuscript. The first step of manuscript selection takes place entirely in-house and has two major objectives: i) to establish the article appropriateness for our journals readership; ii) to define the manuscript priority ranking relative to other manuscripts under consideration, since the number of papers that the journal receives is much greater than it can publish. If a manuscript does not receive a sufficiently high priority score to warrant publication, the editors will proceed to a quick rejection. The remaining articles are reviewed by at least two different external referees (second step or classical peer review). Manuscripts should be prepared according to the Uniform Requirements established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (http://www.icmje.org/#prepare).

Authorship
All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship according to the ICMJE criteria (http://www.icmje.org/ethical_1author.html). Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content. Authorship credit should only be based on substantial contributions to i) conception and design, or analysis and interpretation of data; and to ii) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and on iii) final approval of the version to be published. These three conditions must all be met. Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not justify authorship. General supervision of the research group is not sufficient for authorship. Any part of an article critical to its main conclusions must be the responsibility of at least one author. Authors should provide a brief description of their individual contributions.

Obligation to Register Clinical Trials (http://www.icmje.org/#clin_trials)
The ICMJE believes that it is important to foster a comprehensive, publicly available database of clinical trials. The ICMJE defines a clinical trial as any research project that prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention or concurrent comparison or control groups to study the cause-and-effect relationship between a medical intervention and a health outcome. Medical interventions include drugs, surgical procedures, devices, behavioral treatments, process-of-care changes, etc. Our journals require, as a condition of consideration for publication, registration in a public trials registry. The journal considers a trial for publication only if it has been registered before the enrollment of the first patient. The journal does not advocate one particular registry, but requires authors to register their trial in a registry that meets several criteria. The registry must be accessible to the public at no charge. It must be open to all prospective registrants and managed by a non-profit organization. There must be a mechanism to ensure the validity of the registration data, and the registry should be electronically searchable. An acceptable registry must include a minimum of data elements (http://www.icmje.org/#clin_trials). For example, ClinicalTrials.gov (http://www.clinicaltrials.gov), sponsored by the United States National Library of Medicine, meets these requirements.

Protection of Human Subjects and Animals in Research
When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2013 (https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects). If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether institutional and national standards for the care and use of laboratory animals were followed. Further guidance on animal research ethics is available from the World Medical Association (2016 revision, https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-statement-on-animal-use-in-biomedical-research) and from the International Association of Veterinary Editors’ Consensus Author Guidelines on Animal Ethics and Welfare (http://www.veteditors.org/consensus-author-guidelines-on-animal-ethics-and-welfare-for-editors). When reporting experiments on ecosystems involving non-native species, Authors are bound to ensure compliance with the institutional and national guide for the preservation of native biodiversity.