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Author Guidelines

updated 20/09/2022

Original research should be designed in accordance with the IMRAD format.

The editorial board strongly recommends observing the following standards for the presentation of their scientific research, depending on its type:

• parallel group randomized trials – CONSORT standard;
• observational studies – STROBE standard;
• clinical trials – SPIRIT standard;
• diagnostic accuracy studies – STARD standard;
• clinical case reporting – CARE standard;
• clinical practice guidelines – AGREE standard;
• qualitative research – SRQR standard;
• preclinical animal studies – ARRIVE standard;
• quality improvement reporting SQUIRE standard;
• health economic evaluation reporting – CHEERS

All clinical and preclinical studies must be approved by the ethics committee.

All studies involving vulnerable populations should be conducted in accordance with international ethical principles.

The conclusion of the ethics committee is obligatory if any biomaterials were collected.

The editorial board has the right to request from the authors a copy of the conclusion of the ethics committee. Researchers must obtain voluntary informed consent from patients or their legal representatives to participate in the study.

Consent form-must be approved by the ethics committee.

Full information is presented in the Ethical Code of the "Eco-Vector" publishing house.

1. MANUSCRIPT 

We accept submissions strictly online, via the form available at our website.

Please fill in complete information about the authors in the authors’ section.

Please upload your manuscript as a Microsoft Office Word document (*.doc, *.docx or *.rtf formats).

Supplementary materials (figures) should be submitted as separate files with an appropriate caption (e.g.: “Fig. 3. Mutation rate”).

1.1. Manuscript length for review articles should not exceed 60000 characters (incl. spaces), original research papers should not exceed 40000 characters (incl. spaces), together with tables, list of references, figure legends and summary.

1.2. Text formatting. Lettering in Times New Roman is preferable in all cases (font size 14 pt with 1.5 line spacing and 2 cm margins). Kindly refrain from using underlining in your document (italic and bold formatting is acceptable). Remove all repeated spaces between words and extra spaces between paragraphs.

1.3. File structure. The journal editorial board prefers to receive a manuscript as a single complete file with all figures, tables and any additional supplemental materials. Requirements for figures and tables are listed in section 2.2.

2. MANUSCRIPT STRUCTURE

Please organize your text according to the following:

2.1. The title should be short (maximum of 200 characters, incl. spaces) and reflect the content of the article.

Abstract of an original study should start with some brief background information and statement of the study’s GOALS, followed by MATERIALS & METHODS and finishing with the RESULTS. The closing sentence should outline the main CONCLUSIONS of the study in the most comprehensible terms. Please note that your abstract should not exceed 250 words (1500-2000 characters) or less.

Abstracts are not needed when publishing reports devoted to remarkable scientists, reports of conferences, newsletters.

Keywords. MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) thesaurus is a preferred source for choosing keywords (3-10). For recently introduced terms (without suitable notations) choose the closest one available.

2.2. Main body

The body of the text should start with a brief Introduction, describing the paper’s significance. In the case of an original study, the body of the paper should follow a common structured approach to the description of the studies aim, its materials, methods and results, as well as Discussion and Conclusions sections.

Materials and Methods section identifies methods and procedures in sufficient detail to allow other scientists to reproduce the results. Identify the manufacturer of drugs, chemicals and equipment. When indicating binomial nomenclature of an organism for the first time, spell out the entire genus and species names and the author’s name. Subsequently the genus may be shortened to the first letter, followed by the entire species name.

Identify statistical procedures in sufficient detail to allow the reader to reproduce the results using the stock data. The descriptions such as “the results were assessed with the standard methods of variation statistics” are unacceptable.  Description of statistical procedures should be followed by references to standard editions (the page number is mandatory) or to public websites where used formulae are described in detail. Define all specific terms, abbreviation and symbols. For measurements, use SI units.

Results should include a quantitative assessment of the observations which must be proved by accuracy indices (standard error or confidence interval). For example: 27.9±0.47; _27.46 27.9 _28.40; 0 + 0.78, 100 – 0.53. Indicate precise p-value, unless p<0.001. When assessing a hypothesis, note that p-value shows no information concerning the effect size, probability of replicating an effect (Prep), probability of a significant effect in replication (Psrep), Likelihood Ratio or probability that the null hypothesis is true.

Figures. A maximum of five figures is allowed. All curves, numbers, letters and other symbols should be explained in the figure legend. All figures should be embedded into the text and also submitted as separate image files suitable for black-and-white or grayscale printing prepared in a pixel format tiff (tagged image file format 300–600 dpi), bmp, or a vector format Adobe Illustrator (ai, eps). Maximum width of the image is 18 cm.

Tables. Enumerate your tables, give those a heading and clearly marked all columns that would be easy to read and comprehend. Do not duplicate data in the text, figures and tables.

Discussion section should be finalized by general conclusions.

In review papers the Materials and Methods section may be replaced by the main content of the manuscript followed by “Conclusion”, “Acknowledgments” and “References” sections.

2.3. Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements section should comprise the following:

clarification regarding any potential or actual conflicts of interest of the authors. Any affiliations, financial relations, financial or political interests in the manuscript as a whole or in part, including employment and other liabilities that may result in withholding or deliberate corruption of data or adversely influenced interpretation, are considered a conflict of interest and must be explicitly stated as such. Please note that conflicts of interest do not impede a publication, though failure to disclose one does. If there are no interests to declare, this should be stated as “The authors declare no conflict of interest” or similar wording.

a brief list of funding sources for the results reported in the paper, as well as the publication process itself (e.g. a commercial organization, a foundation or government grant, etc.).

an optional note describing the roles or responsibilities of the authors. You may also place here an acknowledgment for any individuals or organizations that assisted in your work.

2.4. References

List of References should be organized according to the guidelines by U.S. National Information Standards Organization NISO Z39.29-2005 [R2010]) in AMA style (Journal of American Medical Association style. For detailed instructions on bibliographic formatting, see «References list guidelines». The following are the principal points you should be aware of while preparing your manuscript for submission:

references should be numbered in the order in which they are cited;

"self-citing" should be minimized with the exceptions of urgent necessity (absence of other references or because of continuation of cited researches);

within the body of the text references should be provided in Arabic numerals enclosed in square brackets;

a complete list of all references should be presented according to the guidelines by U.S. National Information Standards Organization NISO Z39.29-2005 [R2010]) in AMA style. For detailed instructions on bibliographic formatting, see «References list guidelines». Do not shorten titles of your citations. Shortened journal titles should correspond to the MedLine catalogue. If the journal is not indexed by MedLine, please provide its full title.

If the article you cite has a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), paste it in the end of the reference. You can check DOI availability on http://search.crossref.org/ or https://www.citethisforme.com. You can also search for DOI by the title of the article. The second web site automatically generates citations in AMA referencing style in English. The absolute majority of international journals (since 2000) and many Russian journals (published after 2013) are registered in the CrossRef system and have unique DOI.

When citing online sources please indicate in the following order: the date when the source was posted (“posted 10.05.2013”), the date of update (“updated 10.01.2014”), the date when the source is cited (“cited 01.06.2014”), information on the access restrictions (if any), URL or DOI. It is possible to abbreviate a long reference, for example a long link to Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man database may be shown as (Online Mendelian … , 25.10.2013). Link to HWE calculator including analysis for ascertainment bias site may be represented as (HWE calculator … , 25.10.2013). Please note that ellipses replacing part of the link are not punctuation marks and therefore should been closed by spaces. Indicate “posted …” and “updated …” only if these dates are available from the website. The date when the source is cited is the day when the manuscript’s author accessed the document.

Information on the access restrictions is required if the source can be accessed only from a local net or after the registration or from a certain organization etc. In this case, state “Access from …” or “Access for …” etc. Web documents whose authors are known are cited just like printed sources.

Communications from specific Internet forums are cited by specifying Author's last name and initials or the nickname, and the topic of the message. Then indicate website name (In: molbiol.ru), date and time when the message was posted, date when the message is cited and message size (how many lines, paragraphs or bytes).

2.5. CONTACT INFORMATION (supplementary file)

Contact information (an e-mail address) for all authors should be presented in the next order:

family name, name, middle name (if applicable);

scientific degree, author’s affiliation (position, department, full name of the organization)

full postal address, e-mail, phone number (working) with the country and city codes, plus mobile phone for corresponding author (only for urgent contacts with editors if necessary without transfer to third parties)

Author’s ID (ORCID, Scopus or others)

3. Completing submission.

Please check the list of attached files prior to finishing the procedure. Within next 14 days, the editorial board will check out your submission. If it corresponds to the requirements, manuscript status change to “in review”. You may find it at “summary” tab at your account.

Feel free to contact the editors should you have any questions regarding the processing of your manuscript. Accessing your personal account on-site will allow you to monitor its progress online.

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with each of the following items, and submissions that do not adhere to these guidelines may be returned to the authors.

• • Absence of plagiarism

  The authors guarantee that this article has not been published in whole or in part, and is not under consideration or in the process of publication in another publication.

• • Correct manuscript format

  Manuscript file format is Microsoft Word (has the extension *.doc, *.docx, *.rtf). The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.

• • Anonymity

  All information allowing to identify authors is removed from the text of the manuscript and from the metadata of the file

• • Structure

  Abstract is designed in accordance with the requirements and do not exceed the limit.

• • Illustrations

  Tables and figures were placed within the text of the manuscript and have their titles.

• • Bibliography

  The list of references is formatted in accordance with the requirements. All the cited sources were checked for DOI

• • Supplementary files

  The authors have prepared for transfer to the editor:

  • file containing full information about the authors (Surname, first name, place of work, e-mail address);
  • graphic files (photos, satellite images, graphics, etc.).
  • the authors are ready to upload these files to the journal website in Step 4 during the manuscript submission process.
• • Authorship

  The authors confirm that:

  • all participants who have made a significant contribution to the study are presented as co-Authors;
  • those who did not participate in the study are not listed as co-Authors;
  • all co-Authors have seen and approved the final version of the work and agreed to submit it for publication.

Copyright Notice

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal exclusive license to first publication.
2. Authors are able to distribute the manuscript and/or the article in accordance with Self-Archiving policy of the journal (see details).
3. The manuscript can be accepted for publication only by decision of the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial board of the journal in accordance with the Manuscript stelection policy of the journal (see details).
4. Published Article will be distributed in print and electronic version an will be available under subscription with Delayed Open Access or in Immediate Open Access under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). The access model depends on the publisher's decision or is determined by a separate Open Access publishing agreement with the authors.

An exclusive license for publication granted by authors allows the publisher to use the article in the following ways:

• Reproduction of the Article or its sections or parts, as well as the metadata of the Article in any languages, in any material form, including on paper and electronic media, as a separate work in the journal and/or databases (local or in the Internet) of the publisher and/or other persons, at the discretion of the publisher;
• Distribution of the Article or its sections or parts, as well as the metadata of the Article in any languages, on any medium as part of the journal and/or databases of the publisher or other persons, at the discretion of the publisher, or as an independent work around the world whether on Open-Access terms or for a fee without remuneration to the Author;
• Making the Article or any of its sections or parts, as well as the Article’s metadata in any languages, publicly available in such a way that any person can access the Article from any place, including via the Internet, and at any time of their own choosing;
• Granting permission/s for the use of the Article or its sections or parts, as well as its metadata in any languages, to third parties with notice to the Author made by posting relevant information on the journal’s website, without paying remuneration to the Author;
• Processing the Article (i.e., editing, correcting, annotating, tagging, translating to any languages, typesetting) and using the revised (translated) Article in the aforementioned ways.

Other rights not directly transferred to the publisher under this License Agreement, including patent rights to any process, method etc., described by the Authors in the manuscript, as well as trademark rights, are reserved for the Authors.

All the Copyright statements for authors are present in the standart Publishing Agreement (Public Offer) to Publish an Article in an Academic Periodical 'HERALD of North-Western State Medical University named after I.I. Mechnikov'.

- DOWNLOAD the print-version of the License Agreement.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party

Author Fees

General information about paid services available to the authors of the journal

The review of the author's manuscripts submitted for publication in the journal is carried out on a fee basis.

Payment for the review of the manuscript does not guarantee the publication of the article and provides the editorial board with complete freedom to select materials for publication in the journal.

Manuscripts approved by the editorial board are published without charging additional fees to the authors.

The fee for reviewing the manuscript does not lead to the formation of any financial interest of the editorial staff in the number of published articles and, therefore, does not reduce the quality of the selection of manuscripts.

In addition to paying for the review of the manuscript, the publisher offers the authors a number of additional paid services, the choice of which also does not affect the outcome of the review of the manuscript and the decision of the editorial board to publish the article.

The editor-in-chief has the right to compile a list of categories of authors:

1. The publication fee is not charged
2. Eligible for a discount

Article Submission Charge

OBLIGATORY PAYMENT

Publisher requires single Article Submission Charge (ASC) per submitted manuscript to defray its editorial consideration costs. 

ACS is for the manuscript consideration process that includes:

• initial manuscript consideration by editors for compliance with Guidelines for Authors and Editorial Policies;
• checking for plagiarism;
• manuscript processing for double-blind peer-review, administration of authors-to-reviewers-to-authors communication;
• presentation of an article and the peer-review results for the Editorial board;
• communication with authors on all the Editorial board's decisions.

ATTENTION! ASC does not guarantee the publication of a manuscript! The fee is not refundable in the case of refusal to publish after peer-reviewing or failure to review the paper for publication by objective reasons (failure to comply with the authors of author's copyright provisions; negative reviews; author(s) failure to meet a deadline for manuscript corrections; refusal to adopt/correct/update the manuscript in accordance with the requirements of the editorial board; violation of publication ethics guidelines.

Payment can be made by:

1. Online processing — directly from the submission profile in the editorial workflow system of the journal.
2. In case of previous protocol failing:

• Fill in the “request waive” panel with “invoice request”
• download and fill in invoice request template and send it to the Editorial Board vestnikszgmu@eco-vector.com

Do not forget to press “complete submission” panel at the bottom of the screen.

Fast-Track:

NON-OBLIGATORY PAYMENT

The Fast-Track is a review process and editorial workflow to authors seeking a very fast editorial decision and rapid publication at a higher submission fee to compensate the extreme fast referees and editorial work.

If you choose “Fast-Track” for your manuscript the fee is US$1100.

Please note, that the “Fast-Track” option does not guarantee a positive review and acceptance of a manuscript itself. It's only brings an extreme fast time schedule for manuscript processing through all editorial procedures. Thus, if the manuscript receives negative reviews, and if the editorial board will take the side of reviewers, the manuscript will be rejected. If the reviewers recommend revisions of the manuscript, the final decision on publication will be only after revised manuscript submission and the second round of review.

For the Fast-Track users we guarantee:

• the response time (report and decision letter) is 21 days, starting from the first business day on which valid payment information has been received from the submitting author.
• publication (in case of manuscript acceptance) is a nearest upcoming issue of the journal.

The Fast-Track option does not exclude the necessary for correct manuscript formatting. Please ensure that the manuscript corresponds to the formatting guidelines for this journal (you can find them on Author Guidelines page).

Payment can be made by:

1. Online processing — directly from the submission profile in the editorial workflow system of the journal.
2. In case of previous protocol failing, download and fill in invoice request and send it to the Editorial Board vestnikszgmu@eco-vector.com

After making the payment and sending the notification to the editor, the authors will receive confirmation by email and within the next 21 days — the results of the article reviewing and the editorial decision.

Immediate Open Access:

OPTIONAL PAYMENT

(this will NOT abrogate the Peer-Review decesion-based article selection).

Through Optional Open Access, authors of accepted papers are given the option of paying an open access publication charge to make their paper freely available online immediately via the journal website, meaning that readers will not need a journal subscription to view open access content. If an author does not choose to pay the open access publication charge, their paper will be published in the normal manner (available by subscription), and will not be made freely available online immediately.

Therefore there will be a mixture of non-open access and open access articles within each journal issue. Open access articles will be clearly indicated on the journal's online contents page. In order to view the non-open access content, a current subscription to the journal will be required. Online, print and combined subscription options will continue to be available to institutions. 

Payment can be made by:

1. Online processing — directly from the submission profile in the editorial workflow system of the journal.
2. In case of previous protocol failing, download and fill in invoice request and send it to the Editorial Board vestnikszgmu@eco-vector.com

Submission fee waivers and discounts

The fee for paid editorial services can be reduced or voided at the request of any authors team.

If the author is a member of the editorial board or a reviewer of 'HERALD of North-Western State Medical University named after I.I. Mechnikov', a graduate student, or Ph.D. student, the Eco-Vector Publishing House provides a discount for ASC:

• 100% for single-author publication;
• proportionally, depending on the number of authors in the manuscript, but not less than 10%.

To receive a discount, please, select “Request an Exception” on the Step 7 of the Manuscript submission precess and write a message to the editor in the appropriate field. With the filled request the author will be able to complete the manuscript submition process without simultaneously paying online.

Decisions on all the waivers requests are for Editor-in-Chief consideration. If the discount is approved, authors will be informed of the final total cost and further payment instructions.