Guidelines to Authors

Types of Manuscripts Published

Manuscripts submitted for publication in the SQU Journal for Science must be based on original work and have not been published, accepted or submitted for publication elsewhere. The journal accepts the following types of manuscripts:

Editorial (by invitation only)
Review (Review paper not exceeding 15,000 words or 30 printed pages including figures)
Mini Review (Mini Review paper not exceeding 6,000 words or 14 printed pages including figures)
Research Article (Original study/research not exceeding 6000 words or 14 printed pages including figures)
Rapid Communication (Original study/research not exceeding 3000 words or 6 printed pages including figures)
Perspective (Short paper not exceeding 2000 words or 4 printed pages, that present an opinion or a novel interpretation of an existing idea)
Science Education Article (Original study/research not exceeding 6000 words or 14 printed pages including figures)
Snapshot (Single page paper focusing on a high-quality illustration with limited references (up to 5)
Special Issue Article (by invitation only, original study/research article by invitation from the Editorial Board, not exceeding 6000 words or 14 printed pages including figures)
Case Study (Case study not exceeding 3000 words or 7 printed pages including figures)
Letter to Editor (Short views, not exceeding 2000 words or 4 printed pages, that present an opinion on an article or a novel or critical interpretation of existing ideas)
Book Review
Erratum/Corrigendum (Any error(s) or mistake(s) of a published paper in the SQUJS)

Submission Procedure

Manuscripts should be submitted online through the Editorial Management System (EMS) (https://www.editorialmanager.com/squjs). Authors who are not registered with the EMS, need to first create an identity by registering on the journal website (https://www.editorialmanager.com/squjs). Once registered, corresponding/submitting authors can login with their chosen username and password.

Review Policy

The SQU Journal for Science uses a single-blind review process in which the peer reviewers’ names are not disclosed to the authors. Before sending a manuscript for review the editors will make a similarity check, evaluate the suitability of the manuscript for the journal (language, readership, format, etc.), ensure completeness of the submission and make an initial assessment of the manuscript.
If the manuscript is suitable for the journal, the editor will select 2-3 reviewers among researchers working in a similar field listed in the journal database. The selection of reviewers is based on several factors: expertise, reputation, specific recommendation of the author or of a reviewer, and our own previous experience of a reviewer’s characteristics. The editor will request a minimum of two independent reviews but can, if necessary, request additional evaluations, particularly if 2 reviewers have significantly contradictory opinions on a particular manuscript.
Following the reviews, the subject editor will place the manuscript among one of four categories:

Accepted: The paper is accepted in its current form or requires minor editorial and typographic corrections.
Minor revision: The paper requires minor revision following the recommendations and specific comments or concerns of the reviewers (incomplete or unclear statements that need to be revised; some of the results may need to be reinterpreted or some figures redrawn; part of the discussion may need some additional work & so on).
Major revision: The paper requires major revision of its structure or significant changes in its presentation. The author will receive the reviewers’ comments and will be requested to submit a revised version of the paper addressing the comments and concerns of the reviewers.
Rejected: The paper does not align with the scope of the journal or is not of a suitable scientific standard for publication in the journal. There are major flaws in the experimental design, sampling protocol or analytical protocol that preclude a sound analysis or the editors/reviewers found significant overlap with published results.

The editor will inform the submitting author of his/her decision and send the comments and suggestions of the reviewers to which the author has to respond within 2 weeks in case of minor revision and within 4 weeks for major revision. Authors may contact the editor through the EMS if they require an extension.
After reception of a revised manuscript, it may be subjected to an additional round of reviews, if the manuscript was placed in the “major revision” category. The final decision of acceptance or rejection lies with the Editor-in-Chief in coordination with the subject editor. All communications between authors, editors and reviewers are made using the EMS at: https://www.editorialmanager.com/squjs

Authorship

Authorship must be based on all of the following criteria: (1) substantial contribution to the conception and design of the study, data acquisition, analysis and interpretation of the data; (2) drafting the article or revising it critically and; (3) final approval of the version of the manuscript to be published. Contributors who do not meet all 3 of these criteria should be listed in the acknowledgements section of the manuscript. The submitting author is responsible for taking all necessary coordinating actions for revising the manuscript, receiving authorization from other authors, etc.

Scientific misconduct

According to standard practices in scientific journals, SQU Journal for Science follows the recommendations of the Council of Science Editors (www.councilscienceeditors.org) and defines misconduct as:

Data Corruption: Manipulating data (e.g., falsifying data, ignoring part of the data purposefully, or any form of omission, suppression or distortion of data).
Plagiarism: Using published or unpublished texts, ideas or thoughts of another writer without acknowledgements and presenting them as one’s own. Plagiarism includes duplicate publications or submissions in the same or in another language. The journal will follow COPE guidelines to identify and manage cases of plagiarism.
Authorship misconduct: Exclusion of involved researchers, or inclusion of researchers who have not contributed significantly to the work (see section on authors), or publication without the consent of all authors.
Ethical misconduct: Failure to follow legal requirements in acquiring the necessary permission to sample, collect, export or import specimens, collect data, use chemicals or obtain ethical permits in the country of the author’s institution.

SQU Journal for Science takes all forms of misconduct very seriously. It follows the Committee for Publication Ethics (COPE) recommendations and guidelines. The Editor-in-Chief will form a committee led by the Managing Editor to assess the misconduct and submit recommendation. Final decision regarding scientific misconduct is taken by the Editor-in-Chief.

Types of articles

The journal accepts several types of articles and recommends the following submission length and subsections:

Editorial (by invitation only)

Editorial should not exceed 2000 words and a maximum of 25 references.

Review

Review should not exceed 15000 words or 30 pages and 150 references. Authors who would like to submit a review are requested to send to the Editor-in-Chief (msk@squ.edu.om) a one-page Pre-proposal outlining the focus and scope of the projected review article and get his approval/acceptance before submitting their review article. The sections of the review may be made based on the topic and rational.

Mini Review

Mini review should not exceed 3000 words or 7 pages and 50 References. Authors who would like to submit a mini review are requested to send to the Editor-in-Chief (msk@squ.edu.om) a one-page letter of intention outlining the focus and scope of the proposed mini review and get his approval/acceptance before submitting their mini review. The sections could be made based on the topic and rational.

Research Article (original study not exceeding 6000 words)

Research article should not exceed 6000 words or 14 pages and 50 references. It should be divided into the following 6 sections: Abstract, Introduction, Methodology, Results and Discussion, Conclusion and References. Additional section such as Acknowledgement should also be included before the Reference section.

Rapid Communication (original study not exceeding 6 printed pages)

Rapid Communication is short original research article. It should not exceed 2000 words or 4 printed pages and 25 References. It should have the same overall structure as Research Article including a structured abstract.

Perspective (short paper, not exceeding 3000 words)

Perspective paper is short paper that presents an opinion or novel interpretation of existing ideas or data. It may also present an historical perspective on one of the themes of the journal. The manuscript should follow a structure and a logical sequence of sections related to the content and purpose of the paper.

Science Education Article (original study not exceeding 6000 words)

Science education article should not exceed 6000 words or 14 pages and 50 references. It should be divided into the following 6 sections: Abstract, Introduction, Methodology, Results and Discussion, Conclusion and References. Additional section such as Acknowledgement should also be included before the Reference section.

Snapshot

A snapshot paper is a single-page paper focusing on a high-quality illustration. The paper should not exceed one page and lists only a maximum of 5 references. Snapshot paper illustrates the common saying “One picture is worth a thousand words”. The topic of the paper should be based on high-quality photographic evidence of rare organisms, new records, unusual observation, severe pathology, etc. Because of the short nature, snapshot does not have an Abstract. The illustration needs to have an accompanying legend.

Special Issue Article (by invitation from the Editorial Board, original study not exceeding 6000 words)

Case Study

Case study should not exceed 3000 words or 7 printed pages including Figures, and 20 References. This should have description of a case, followed by analysis and critical evaluations of different aspects of the case.

Letter to Editor

Letter to Editor should include short summary of any current issue in the field of Science. It could also include critical evaluation of any paper published in the SQUJS.

Book Review

Book review should include an evaluation of a recently published book in a major discipline of Science. A cover photo of the book should be included.

Erratum/Corrigendum

Any error(s) or mistake(s) of a published paper in the SQUJS)

Language and Translation

The Journal publishes papers in English with Arabic translation of the title, authors, abstract and keywords of all papers. Arabic speaking authors are invited to provide an Arabic translation of the title, abstract and keywords. For non-Arabic speaking authors, the Editorial board will provide a translation.

Editing

Papers accepted for publication will be edited by the Journal Editorial Office for conciseness, clarity, grammar, spelling and style. Should the editing be extensive and possibly alter the intended meaning of the author(s), queries will be sent by email to the corresponding/submitting author requesting professional English editing and clarifications.

Style

The Journal follows the overall evolution of the scientific language. When preparing manuscripts please avoid jargon and long or complex sentences and use clear, concise and simple grammatical structures. The Editorial Board encourages the use of the active voice when it is appropriate.

Abstract

The Editorial Board recommends the use of a “structured abstract” not exceeding 300 words. The abstract, although composed of a single paragraph, includes 5 sections that summarize the content of the paper: Introduction, Methodology, Results, Discussion and Conclusion.

Preparation of the manuscript

All papers will be typeset by the Editorial Office of the journal at publication time. Therefore, the Editorial Board requests the authors to follow a clear and simple format for their manuscript to facilitate the Editorial Processes. Templates for Microsoft Word™ and Latex are provided to assist authors in preparing their manuscripts.

The Editorial Board recommends the use of a classic typeface (Times, Helvetica, Garamond, Myriad-Pro, …) with 12-point size and at least 14-16 points leading (line spacing) for the text of the manuscript with minimum formatting as most of layout and typographical formats will be applied at the typesetting stage. The manuscript page size should be A4 and the Editorial Board recommends that a margin of at least 3 cm be included on all sides of the paper.

To facilitate the review process, the text of the submission should have line numbers in the left-hand margin and a page number in the footer of the document. Use standard typographic conventions for the text presentation: italic typeface for species names (not underline), bold face for vectors, superscript and subscripts when necessary. Emphasis is better marked through italic rather than bold face.

Typography

The journal uses standard typographic convention throughout. The Editorial Board recommends that authors follow these in the preparation of the manuscript.

Italic should be used throughout for the Latin name of species (please do not use underlined text). Emphasis can be placed on some elements of text using bold face.< /p>

Abbreviations: Avoid non-standard abbreviations whenever possible, particularly in headings and subheading. If, for the sake of conciseness, the author wishes to use abbreviations, define each abbreviation when they first appear in each section of the man¬uscript. Standard abbreviation such as RNA, DNA, ATP, ADP, EDTA… do not need to be defined as most readers will be familiar with them. Others such as PAH (Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon) or ICP (Inductively Coupled Plasma) should be defined as most reader may not be familiar with their meaning.< /p>

Units: Always use the International System of Units (SI) for all units. For large or small units use the standard multiplier prefix for the units (k for 1000, M for 1000000, m for 10-3 and μ for 10-6). Prefer whenever possible negative exponents to slash: kg·m-2 rather than kg/m2. To separate units, use either a mid-line point (· =ASCII code 183 – Unicode U+00B7) or a non-breaking space. The abbreviated symbols (k, kg, s, P, W, etc.) should be used whenever possible and combined with Arabic numbers (5 kg, 2 m2, 5.2 MP, 6.78 MW·h). The only exception is when a number is grammatically placed at the beginning of the sentence. A non-breaking space (Unicode U+00A0) should be used between the number and its units to ensure that they stay together in the final document. The SI unit of time is s (second), min for minute, h for hour, d for day and a for annum (year).
When necessary, non-SI units can be added between parenthesis to allow comparison with older literature or traditional systems of measurements. This includes usual units, such as surface of farming units (faddan, acres, areas, hectares), or traditional depth units (fathoms, brasses,) or distance (nautical miles, miles) or other non-SI units (gallons, inch, foot, bushels, etc.). < /p>

Illustrations

Illustrations should be numbered consecutively and embedded with their legend captions in appropriate positions in the article where they appear in the text. To ensure compatibility, the journal accepts the following file format: JPEG, TIFF, PNG, EPS and SVG. Although the journal is normally published in black and white, color illustrations can be used when color is clearly necessary to convey the intended message. Although the authors can suggest the inclusion of color figures in the paper, the final decision to include them or not is left to the Editorial Board. The editorial team will strive to provide the best possible graphic output from the material submitted by the authors or may request the authors to provide high-resolution illustration(s). Typically, black and white line figures should have a resolution of at least 600 dpi (at the final printed size) and color figures or photographs 300 dpi (at the final printed size) but should not exceed 10 MB. For line graphics, vector-based file formats (SVG, EPS) are preferred as they are resolution independent.

In the Figure, use Helvetica as the standard typeface for all texts (axis, legend, axis legend, equations, labels, etc.) and ensure that all texts remain legible even after size reduction for final printing. Figures will be printed either as a single column (7 cm wide) or double column (14 cm) figure.

Macro-photographs, Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) photographs, anatomical drawings, morphological illustrations, should have an appropriately labeled scale bar. Avoid multiplication factors (x100, x10000) as these will change with the rescaling of the figure when printed.

Tables

Tables should be presented in a clear manner and designed to fit on the width of a page. Exceptionally wide tables may be typeset in landscape, along the height of a printed page. All decimals should represent significant figures accurately. Tables with their legend captions should be incorporated in appropriate places where they appear in the text.

Equations

Equations should be placed on separate lines and numbered sequentially at the end of the line. They should be typeset using an equation editor. The Journal uses the modern scientific number styles recommended by the Council of Science Editors. The style uses digit numbers (1, 2, etc..) for all numeric representations, even single digit ones. The main exceptions are when a digit starts a sentence, or when the single digit number is part of an idiomatic expression such as in “one or both”, a “zero-tolerance policy”, a “one-to-one interview”, “one has to agree that”.

In-text citations

Please cite references in the text by number only enclosed in parentheses in sequential numerical order.

End of Text References

The bibliographic information for all cited references in the articles is listed at the end of the paper under the heading “References”. Arrange the cited references in the order they appear in the text in sequential numerical order. References should be in full and should provide the reader with the needed information to retrieve the cited reference. Please follow the examples shown below, including punctuation. The Journal names follow a “Title case” capitalization - all words are capitalized except for articles (a, an, the); for prepositions (against, of, in, to), for conjunctions (and, for, not, or) and should NOT be abbreviated. Titles of articles, books, on the other hand follow a sentence case capitalization (i.e., words are capitalized according to the grammar of the language of publication): the first word, the first word that follows a colon or a semi colon, name of geographic location, or proper noun, etc. For articles published in non-English languages, provide the original title if the language uses roman characters or a translation of the title for other languages (Arabic for instance) and add the name of language between 2 periods at the end of the reference.

For online references, follow the overall same standard as for print publication, but include the DOI number. If unpublished results are included in the reference list, they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution of the publication date with “Unpublished results/data”. Citation of a reference as “in press” implies that the item has been accepted for publication.

Volume and issues, if available, follow directly the Title of the Journal with the issue number between parenthesis. Page numbers follow a colon and are separated by a hyphen. For books, the total page number is used with the abbreviation “pp.” whereas for chapter/section of books, the abbreviation is “p.” followed by the range of pages of the section (p. 25-44). All references end with a period.

Following are some examples of common references:

Single authored paper

Yallaoui, B. Filter representation of normal lattices. Sultan Qaboos University Journal for Scientific Research - Science and Technology, 1997, 1, 63-67.

Multi authored paper

Al-Rumhy, M., Al-Bimani, A. and Boukadi, F. Effect of compositional grading on reservoir performance. Sultan Qaboos University Journal for Scientific Research - Science and Technology, 1997, 1, 37-45.

Book

Parsons, T.R., Maita, Y. and Lalli, C.M. (1984). A manual of chemical and biological methods for seawater analysis. Pergamon Press. New York, 1980, 173 pp.

Chapter in a book

Brooks, H.A., Probert, T.H.. (1984). Let’s ask GMDH what effect the environment has on fisheries. In Self-organizing methods in modeling. Gmdh type algorithms. Ed. Farlow, S.J., Marcel Dekker, New York and Basel, 1984, p.169-178.

Bulletin

Page, C.H. and Vigoureaux, P. (Eds). The International System of Units (SI). National Bureau of Standards Special Publication No. 330 (rev.), U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1986.

Conference Proceedings

Stirm, M., Oceanographic conditions and pelagic biological processes in Omani waters. Proceedings of FAO Workshop “Mesopelagic Fish Stocks of NW Indian Ocean”, 29-31 October 1994, Muscat, Oman.

Conference Presentation

Elbualy, M.S. Sero-prevalence of Rubella, Cytomegalovirus, Measles and Toxoplasmosis among Pregnant Women in Oman. 7th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, 12-30 March, 1995, Vienna, Austria.

Thesis

Al-Masroori, H.S., Trap ghost fishing problem in the area between Muscat and Barka (Sultanate of Oman); an evaluation study. M.Sc. Thesis, Sultan Qaboos University, 2002, Muscat, Oman.

Full transparency in declaring these interests is crucial for maintaining the integrity of the scientific record and ensuring the objectivity of the published research. Authors must explicitly state if there are no conflicts of interest.

Statements and Declaration

Includes authors’ contribution, ethical approval, if necessary, conflict of interest, funding sources and data availability.
The following statements must be included in your submitted manuscript under the heading 'Statements and Declarations'. This should be placed after the References section. Please note that submissions that do not include required statements will be returned as incomplete.

Funding

Please describe any sources of funding that have supported the work. The statement should include details of any grants received (please give the name of the funding agency and grant number).
Example statements:
“This work was supported by […] (Grant numbers […] and […]). Author A.B. has received research support from Company A.”
“The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.”

Conflicts of Interest Disclosure

SQUJS mandates that all authors disclose any potential conflicts of interest that could influence or be perceived to influence their work. This encompasses:

Financial Interests: Any significant financial support, such as grants, sponsorships, or investments, related to the subject matter of the manuscript.
Affiliations: Current affiliations or involvements with organizations or entities that have a direct interest in the research outcomes.
Personal Relationships: Authors must disclose any personal relationships or associations with individuals or entities that could affect their objectivity in conducting or reporting the research.
Intellectual Property: Authors should disclose any intellectual property rights or patents related to the research findings that could create a conflict of interest.
Other Interests: Authors should disclose any other interests or circumstances that could present a potential conflict of interest, even if they are not directly financial or organizational in nature.

Authors are required to disclose financial or non-financial interests that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication. Interests within the last 3 years of beginning the work (conducting the research and preparing the work for submission) should be reported. Interests outside the 3-year time frame must be disclosed if they could reasonably be perceived as influencing the submitted work.
Example statements:
“Financial interests: Author A and B declare they have no financial interests. Author C has received speaker and consultant honoraria from Company M. Dr. C has received speaker honorarium and research funding from Company M and Company N. Author D has received travel support from Company O. Non-financial interests: Author D has served on advisory boards for Company M and Company N.”
“The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.”
Please refer to the “Competing Interests” section below for more information on how to complete these sections.

Author Contributions

Authors are encouraged to include a statement that specifies the contribution of every author to the research and preparation of the manuscript.
Example statement:
“All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by [full name], [full name] and [full name]. The first draft of the manuscript was written by [full name] and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.” Please refer to the “Authorship Principles” section below for more information on how to complete this section.

Data Availability Statement

In line with the principle of transparency in research, SQUJS requires authors to provide a clear statement on the availability of the data supporting their study’s findings. It could be mentioned that data are available on request, if not presented all data. Authors should specify the location of their data as follows:

Publicly Archived Datasets: If the data are available in a recognized public repository, authors must include the relevant hyperlinks or digital object identifiers (DOIs).
Institutional Repositories: For data housed in institutional databases, authors should provide the name of the repository and any access conditions.
Upon Request: If the data are not publicly available but can be accessed upon request, authors must outline the process for requesting access. This should include contact information and any specific requirements for access.

Authors are expected to provide a valid explanation if their data cannot be made available. This may include reasons such as legal or ethical restrictions, or considerations related to commercial confidentiality. This policy ensures that the research published in SQUJS is supported by accessible data, promoting reproducibility and transparency in scientific inquiry.
This journal encourages authors to provide an optional statement of data availability in their article. Data Availability Statements should include information on where data supporting the results reported in the article can be found, including, where applicable, hyperlinks to publicly archived datasets analysed or generated during the study. Data availability statements can also indicate whether data are available on request from the authors and where no data are available, if appropriate.
Example statements:
“The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available in the [NAME] repository, [PERSISTENT LINK TO DATASETS]”
“The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.”
Please refer to the “Research Data Policy and Data Availability” section below for more information on how to complete this section.

In addition to the above, manuscripts that report the results of studies involving humans and/or animals should include the following declarations:

Ethics approval

Authors of research involving human or animal subjects should include a statement that confirms that the study was approved (or granted exemption) by the appropriate institutional and/or national research ethics committee (including the name of the ethics committee and reference number, if available). For research involving animals, their data or biological material, authors should supply detailed information on the ethical treatment of their animals in their submission. If a study was granted exemption or did not require ethics approval, this should also be detailed in the manuscript.

“This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the Ethics Committee of University B (Date.../No....).”
“This is an observational study. The XYZ Research Ethics Committee has confirmed that no ethical approval is required.”
For detailed information on relevant ethical standards and criteria, please refer to the sections on “Research involving human participants, their data or biological material”, “Research involving animals, their data or biological material”.

Consent to participate

For all research involving human subjects, freely-given, informed consent to participate in the study must be obtained from participants (or their parent or legal guardian in the case of children under 16) and a statement to this effect should appear in the manuscript.
Example statement:
“Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.”
“Written informed consent was obtained from the parents.”
Please refer to the section on “Informed Consent” for additional help with completing this information.

Consent to publish

Individuals may consent to participate in a study, but object to having their data published in a journal article. If your manuscript contains any individual person’s data in any form (including any individual details, images or videos), consent for publication must be obtained from that person, or in the case of children, their parent or legal guardian. This is in particular applicable to case studies. A statement confirming that consent to publish has been received from all participants should appear in the manuscript.

Example statement:
“The authors affirm that human research participants provided informed consent for publication of the images in Figure(s) 1a, 1b and 1c.”
Please refer to the section on “Informed Consent” for additional help with completing this information.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Declaration by the author(s) about the “Content Generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI)" in preparing the Manuscript.

Ethical Guidelines

In any study on human or animal subjects, the following ethical guidelines must be observed. For any experiments on humans, all work must be conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki (1964). Manuscripts describing experimental work which carries a risk of harm to human subjects must include a statement that the experiment was conducted with the human subjects’ understanding and consent, as well as a statement that the responsible Ethical Committee has approved the experiments. In the case of any animal experiments, the authors must provide a full description of any anesthetic or surgical procedure used, as well as evidence that all possible steps were taken to avoid animal suffering at each stage of the experiment.

Complying with Ethics of Experimentation

Please ensure that all research reported in submitted papers has been conducted in an ethical and responsible manner, and is in full compliance with all relevant codes of experimentation and legislation. All original research papers involving humans, animals, plants, biological material, protected or non-public datasets, collections or sites, must include a written statement under an Ethics Approval section including the following:

The name of the ethics committee(s) or institutional review board(s) involved.
The number or ID of the ethics approval(s).
A statement that human participants have provided informed consent before taking part in the research.
Research involving animals must adhere to ethical standards concerning animal welfare. All original research papers involving animals must:
- Follow international, national, and institutional guidelines for the humane treatment of animals.
- Receive approval by the ethics review committee at the institution or practice at which the research was conducted and provide details on the approval process, names of the ethics committee(s) or institutional review board(s) involved, and the number or ID of the ethics approval(s) in the Ethics Approval section.
- Provide justification for use of animals and the species selected.
- Provide information about housing, feeding, and environmental enrichment, and steps taken to minimize suffering.
- Provide mode of anesthesia and euthanasia.

Studies in humans and animals

If the work involves the use of human subjects, the author should ensure that the work described has been carried out in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans. The manuscript should be in line with the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals and aim for the inclusion of representative human populations (sex, age, and ethnicity) as per those recommendations. The terms sex and gender should be used correctly.

Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.

All animal experiments should comply with the ARRIVE guidelines and should be carried out in accordance with the U.K. Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, 1986 and associated guidelines,EU Directive 2010/63/EU for animal experiments, or the National Research Council's Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and the authors should clearly indicate in the manuscript that such guidelines have been followed. The sex of animals must be indicated, and where appropriate, the influence (or association) of sex on the results of the study.

Submission checklist

The current submission has not been previously published nor is it currently submitted to another journal for consideration.
The submission text files are in Microsoft Office (.docx) or Latex.
The text of the document uses a 12-point standard font with a 14-16 point leading (space between lines) on A4 or US-Letter format pages with page numbers and line numbers. Manuscript conforms to the journal recommended style, length and number of sections.
The Abstract of the paper follows the structured format described in the Guide for Authors and includes 5 sections that summarize the content of the paper: Introduction, Methodology, Results, Discussion and Conclusion.
Include up to five keywords.
Photography (or photographic plates) are submitted in the jpeg (.jpg) file format at 300 dots per inch (dpi) with 80% compression quality or better. Line drawings and other figures should be preferably submitted as vector graphics such as eps or svg files. Alternatively, high resolution (600 dpi) image format is acceptable (PNG, TIFF, GIF).
All tables including legend, description and footnotes and all figure captions are part of the submission main text file.
The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in this document which can also be found in the Journal website.
The manuscript has been “spell-checked” and “grammar-checked”.

Copyright

The content of the journal is licensed under the Creative Common (CC-BY-ND) licensing schemes, the details of which can be found at Deed - Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International - Creative Commons. The CC BY-ND 4.0 license from Creative Commons allows others to redistribute the work, including for commercial purposes, as long as they give proper credit to the original creator. However, it prohibits any modifications or derivative works based on the original material. This ensures that the work is shared widely in its original form, without alterations, while still providing recognition to the creator.

Proof

The galley proof of an accepted article is emailed in PDF format to the submitting/corresponding author for typographical checking only. It should be returned within 72 hours of receipt.

After acceptance

Upon acceptance, your article will be exported to production to undergo typesetting. once the typesetting is complete, you will receive the proofs.

Article Publishing Charge

There are no Article Processing Charges (APC) for publication in the journal.