Journal of Current Toxicology and Venomics

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These special issues are peer-reviewed and may contain invited or 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 field of venoms and toxins may submit their proposal to the Editor-in-Chief at thematicissue@benthamscience.net for consideration.

For proposals to publish conference proceedings in this journal, please contact us at email proceedings@benthamscience.net for consideration.

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

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;http://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.

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.

In addition to the standard patient consent for participation in research, authors are responsible for obtaining patient consent-to-disclose forms for all recognizable patients in photographs, videos, or other information that may be published in the Journal, in derivative works, or on the journal’s web site and for providing the manuscript to the recognizable patient for review before submission. The consent-to-disclose form should indicate specific use (publication in the medical literature in print and online, with the understanding that patients and the public will have access) of the patient's information and any images in figures or videos, and must contain the patient's signature or that of a legal guardian along with a statement that the patient or legal guardian has been offered the opportunity to review the identifying materials and the accompanying manuscript.

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 work on animals should be carried out in accordance with the NC3Rs ARRIVE Guidelines. For In Vivo Experiments, please 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.

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.

Any unusual risks associated with the use of any chemicals, procedures, or equipment used in the work must be explicitly stated by the author in the manuscript, preferably in both the materials and methods section and the declaration section. For more information, visit The World Medical Association (https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/public-health/chemicals)

We strive to promote gender and sex equity in research and adhere to the guidelines of Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) to ensure inclusivity and rigor of the work. All authors submitting research papers are required to follow the Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) guidelines. These guidelines are intended to encourage the inclusion of sex and gender considerations in research in order to improve the rigor and relevance of our publications.

The SAGER guidelines for reporting sex and gender information in methodology or study design, data analysis, results, and interpretation of findings are strongly encouraged. Authors of review articles are advised to address the methods used for selecting, locating, extracting, and synthesizing data; systematic reviews are required to do so.

Bentham Science expects all contributors to respect values of justice, benevolence, and autonomy when conducting research. We understand that certain situations such as medical emergencies or humanitarian crises may differ from non-emergency scenarios. Bentham Science recommends that research efforts should not hurt human subjects/respondents or the researchers, and should be conducted with sufficient scientific rigor as permissible in these situations, respectively. Care should be taken to address potential problems faced by persons who may be victims of disasters or involved in a medical emergency. These are vulnerable individuals and their privacy and dignity should be respected. Researchers should make note of this in their research and identify potential issues in their work that may arise because of such situations. Research directed in emergency circumstances should be to the greatest advantage of survivors involved in the research and with the goal of minimizing any future casualties. For guidance, the essential requirements of research in emergency situation are the preservation of human life, wellbeing and security, along with the rights to protection, privacy and confidentiality of subjects.

Manuscripts on venom peptide and toxins must include the following:

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.

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 cover 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.

Post-publication discussions are well-timed and engaging scientific remarks and justifications on research articles published in "Venoms and Toxins". These remarks must be based on the information concurrent with the original study and not on the scientific advancements being made subsequently.

Manuscript Preparation, Submission & Editorial Process:

• Post-publication discussion should commence with a short paragraph that outlines the summary of the article.
• Authors are advised to avoid using inciting tone in the comments and keep the message clear and concise.
• The main text should not exceed 1200 words with up to 15 references and may include one or two figures and/or tables.
• References should be submitted in the ACS or Vancouver style.
• The correspondents are recommended to contact the original authors first prior to submitting their comments to the journal as this may resolve the issues that may have arisen due to some misunderstanding.
• The correspondence that has been done with the authors should also be submitted as an attachment with the manuscript.

Any queries therein should be addressed to info@benthamscience.net

In ACS style, all references should be numbered sequentially [in square brackets] in the text and listed in the same numerical order in the reference section. Superscript in the in-text citations and reference section should be avoided.

In Vancouver style, all references should be numbered sequentially [in square brackets] in the text and listed in the same numerical order in the reference section. Punctuation should be properly applied as mentioned in the examples given above.

The four types of research data policies are mentioned below.

Wherever appropriate and possible, the journal encourages authors to publish data to support their research findings in a public repository. Any datasets mentioned in the article that are available in external repositories should be cited.

How to Cite the Data?

Whether the data was developed by the author(s) or researcher(s), all publicly available data referenced in the preparation of an article should be cited in the text and reference list. The references relating to the data availability should be presented in the following format:

Example: Name of author(s), the title of data set, data repository, document version (e.g., most recent updated version), Digital Object Identifier (DOI), and Bentham Science reference style should be included in data citations.

When authors submit a paper to a journal, the authors agree that the data provided in the publication, including the relevant raw data, will be freely available to any researcher who wants to use these for non-commercial reasons without jeopardising participant anonymity.

Data availability declarations are required under Bentham Science research data policy types.

The statement relating to the data availability should be presented in the following format under a separate section for ‘Availability of Data and Materials’ in the manuscript:

Additional Data Availability Statements

Authors can add or change the statement(s) above, to fit their work the best. Depending on the nature of the research, several assertions may need to be merged.

All datasets on which the paper's conclusions are based must be made accessible to reviewers and readers, according to the journal's rules. Prior to peer review, authors must either deposit their datasets in publicly accessible repositories or provide them as supplementary materials with their submission. For further details, please visit complete guidelines at: http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/clinical-trial-registration.html

Authors may provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data. if practicable, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

All authors must strictly follow the guidelines below for preparing illustrations for publication in Venoms and Toxins . If the figures are found to be sub-standard, then the manuscripts will be rejected.

The authors are expected to submit good quality figure(s) in PDF, PPT, MS Word, TIFF or JPEG versions, which, if required, should be improved yourself or by professional graphic designers of your organization/country. You may even consider approaching our contracted service provider Eureka Science for Graphics Enhancement Services.

The Graphics Designing team at Eureka Science can assist in improving the quality of your images at affordable rates. Eureka Science has contracted special rates with us of US $155 for the improvement of up to five figures, with any additional figures being charged at US $25 each.

The quality of Graphic Enhancement Services offered by Eureka Science can be viewed at http://www.eureka-science.com/images/Binder1.pdf, along with valuable feedback on their services at http://www.eureka-science.com/testimonials.php. You may contact Eureka Science at info@eurekascience.net

Note: Availing Graphics Enhancement Services do not guarantee acceptance of the manuscript for publication. The final acceptance/decision on the manuscript is taken by the EiC.

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.

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 acknowledgements will be sent to all authors on their provided email addresses.

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.

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.

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

In exceptional cases, requests for the addition/deletion of an author may be considered by the publisher subject to a) written approval from all co-authors and b) a strong justification (which may or may not be accepted by the Publisher).

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

Advice on how to spot authorship problems

Corresponding author requests addition of extra author before publication

Corresponding author requests removal of the author before publication

Request for addition of extra author after publication

Request for removal of author after publication

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.

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.

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).

For this journal an optional fast publication fee-based service called QUICK TRACK is available to authors for their submitted manuscripts. Authors who opt for this fee-based service do not have to pay any additional page charges.

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.

The author will be initially charged a small fee on receipt of the agreement form for Quick Track publication to partially cover the initial costs incurred for expedited processing of the submitted manuscript. Later, the full Quick Track publication fee (US $ per article charges) will be payable in advance, after acceptance of the manuscript, before online publication of the article. However, if the article is rejected at the peer-review stage, then the US $ per article charges will not be charged.

Please note that whether the author opts for the QUICK TRACK facility or not, standard reviewing practices will be followed, which will not in any way affect the acceptance or rejection of the manuscript by the reviewers.

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 jctv@benthamscience.net

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• Subscription services (to subscribers, institutes, libraries, customers, etc.): Involving access to published content based on certain charges for corporates, academic institutes, and individuals.
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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.

As a special promotion to the authors, the below mentioned OA charges are waived, on submitting articles till 31st December, 2024.

Bentham Science also offers authors the option of “Open Access Plus (Gold Open Access)” for publishing their articles. The article processing charges are US $ per article for general submissions and US $1080 per article for those published within thematic issues.

This paid service allows authors to disseminate their work to a much wider audience in compliance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License(CC-BY 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). Under this license, authors are asked to indicate whether they wish to pay for the service in order to make their article more widely avJuneailable on an “Open Access Plus (Gold Open Access)” basis. Where an author does not opt-in for this paid service, the article will be published under the standard subscription-based mode.

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.net

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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 print and online subscription of the journal at 50% off the normal subscription rate by contacting the subscription department at e-mail: subscriptions@benthamscience.net.

The study of an author has to be original. If there are credible sources of the content referred to in the manuscript, the author needs to cite all of them. Authors are advised to use iThenticate before submitting a manuscript to ensure that there are no instances of plagiarism. Authors are required to provide proper consent from the individuals and contributions of other authors should be acknowledged.

Bentham Science has different editorial policies for authors who have more than one publication. Following those policies, the authors need to specify the sources of the submission in their recent work. For further details, please visit the following link of Editorial Policies for Concurrent Publication/Simultaneous Submission at https://benthamscience.com/pages/editorial-policies-main

Bentham Science strictly follows COPE guidelines to detect plagiarism. For clearer insight, authors may refer to the flowcharts provided by COPE by clicking here or visiting the COPE website.

Articles appearing in Early View 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 Early View.