An online submission and tracking service
Manuscripts must be submitted by one of the authors of the manuscript, and should not be submitted by anyone on their behalf. The principal/corresponding author will be required to submit a Copyright Letter along with the manuscript, on behalf of all the co-authors (if any). The author(s) will confirm that the manuscript (or any part of it) has not been published previously or is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Furthermore, any illustration, structure or table that has been published elsewhere must be reported, and copyright permission for reproduction must be obtained.
The author's time is valuable and should not be wasted on research formatting. Free Format Submission makes it easier and faster to prepare text for submission.
When submitting to any Bentham journal, authors are not required to follow any formatting guidelines. When an article is accepted for publication, authors can submit it in the format of their choice, and Bentham will convert it into a journal-specific format for them.
If the submission is accepted for publication, Bentham will format it in accordance with the style and format of the journal.
For all online submissions, please provide soft copies ofall the materials (main text in MS Word or
Tex/LaTeX), figures/illustrations in TIFF, PDF or JPEG, and chemical structures drawn in ChemDraw
(CDX) / ISISDraw (TGF) as separate files, while a PDF version of the entire manuscript must also be
included, embedded with all the figures/illustrations/tables/chemical structures etc. It is
advisable that the document files related to a manuscript submission should always have the name of the
corresponding author as part of the file name,
It is imperative that before submission, authors should carefully proofread the files for special characters, mathematical symbols, Greek letters, equations, tables, references and images, to ensure that they appear in proper format.
References, figures, tables, chemical structures etc. should be referred to in the text at the appropriate place where they are first discussed. Figure legends/captions should also be provided.
A successful electronic submission of a manuscript will be followed by a system-generated acknowledgement to the principal/corresponding author. Any queries therein should be addressed to info@benthamscience.org
For journals and eBooks, the following publication policies are applied by
Bentham Science Publishers follows the single blind peer-review procedure for submissions of all manuscripts to its journals, except for a selected number of patent journals where double blind review is followed.
All submitted articles/eBook chapters are subjected to an extensive peer review in consultation with members of the journal s editorial board and independent external referees (usually three reviewers). All manuscripts/chapters are assessed rapidly and the decision based on all the peer reviewers' comments, taken by the journal s Editor-in-Chief/eBook Editor, is then conveyed to the author(s).
Submissions from the Editor-in-Chief will undergo independent peer-review and will be submitted to another Editor for his decision on acceptance.
High-quality, bound/unbound, print/e-prints can be purchased for all published articles and book chapters.
Articles/chapters must be submitted by one of the authors of the manuscript, and should not be submitted by anyone on their behalf. The principal/corresponding author will be required to submit a Copyright Letter along with the manuscript, on behalf of all the co-authors (if any). The author(s) will confirm that the manuscript (or any part of it) has not been published previously or is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Furthermore, any illustration, structure or table that has been published elsewhere must be reported, and copyright permission for reproduction must be obtained.
Generally, the editorial decisions are not reverted. However, authors who think that their manuscript was rejected due to a misunderstanding or mistake may seek an explanation for the decision. Appeals must give sound reasoning and compelling evidence against the criticism raised in the rejection letter. A difference of opinion as to the interest, novelty, or suitability of the manuscript for the journal will not be considered as an appeal. The EIC and other relevant editors will consider the appeal and the decision thereafter taken by the journal will be deemed final. Acceptance of the manuscript is not guaranteed even if the journal agrees to reconsider the manuscript, and the reconsideration process may involve previous or new reviewers or editors and substantive revision.
Authors who wish to make a complaint should refer them to the Editor-in-Chief of the journal concerned. Complaints to the Publisher may be emailed to info@benthamscience.org
Financial contributions to the work being reported should be clearly acknowledged, as should any potential conflict of interest.
Bentham Science uses the iThenticate software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. iThenticate software checks content against a database of periodicals, the Internet, and a comprehensive article database. It generates a similarity report, highlighting the percentage of overlap between the uploaded article and the published material. Any instance of content overlap is further scrutinized for suspected plagiarism according to the publisher s Editorial Policies. Bentham Science allows an overall similarity of 20% for a manuscript to be considered for publication. The similarity percentage is further checked keeping the following important points in view
The text of every submitted manuscript is checked using the Content Tracking mode in iThenticate. The Content Tracking mode ensures that manuscripts with an overall low percentage similarity (but may have a higher similarity from a single source) are not overlooked. The acceptable limit for similarity of text from a single source is 5%. If the similarity level is above 5%, the manuscript is returned to the author for paraphrasing the text and citing the original source of the copied material.
It is important to mention that the text taken from different sources with an overall low similarity percentage will be considered as a plagiarized content if the majority of the article is a combination of copied material.
There may be some manuscripts with an overall low similarity percentage, but a higher percentage from a single source. A manuscript may have less than 20% overall similarity but there may be 15% similar text taken from a single article. The similarity index in such cases is higher than the approved limit for a single source. Authors are advised to thoroughly rephrase the similar text and properly cite the original source to avoid plagiarism and copyright violation.
We all know that scholarly manuscripts are written after a thorough review of previously published articles. It is therefore, not easy to draw a clear boundary between legitimate representation and plagiarism. However, the following important features can assist in identifying different kinds of plagiarized content. These are:
Reproduction of others words, sentences, ideas or findings as one s own without proper acknowledgement.
Text recycling, also known as self-plagiarism. It is an author s use of a previous publication in another paper without proper citation and acknowledgement of the original source.
Poor paraphrasing: Copying complete paragraphs and modifying a few words without changing the structure of original sentences or changing the sentence structure but not the words.
Verbatim copying of text without putting quotation marks and not acknowledging the work of the original author.
Properly citing a work but poorly paraphrasing the original text is considered as unintentional plagiarism. Similarly, manuscripts with language somewhere between paraphrasing and quoting are not acceptable. Authors should either paraphrase properly or quote and in both cases, cite the original source.
Higher similarity in the abstract, introduction, materials and methods, and discussion and conclusion sections indicates that the manuscript may contain plagiarized text. Authors can easily explain these parts of the manuscript in many ways. However, technical terms and sometimes standard procedures cannot be rephrased; therefore Editors must review these sections carefully before making a decision.
Published manuscripts which are found to contain plagiarized text are retracted from the journal s website after careful investigation and approval by the Editor-in-Chief of the journal. A Retraction Note as well as a link to the original article is published on the electronic version of the plagiarized manuscript and an addendum with retraction notification in the particular journal.
Accepted articles can be published online for free open access. Open access publishing provides maximum dissemination of the article to the largest audience. All authors will be asked to indicate whether or not they wish to pay to have their paper made freely available on publication. If authors do not select the 'Gold Open Access' option, then their article will be published with standard subscription-based access.
Editors/Authors who contribute in a Bentham s Journal/eBook will transfer copyright to their work to Bentham Science Publishers. Submission of a manuscript to the respective journals implies that all editors/authors have read and agreed to the content of the copyright letter.
For human or animal experimental investigations, it is a prerequisite to provide a formal review and approval, or review and waiver, by an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee, which should be documented in the paper. For investigations undertaken on human subjects, the manner in which the informed consent was obtained from the study participants (i.e., oral or written) should be stated in the Methods section.
Authors are encouraged to obtain patient consent when they use confidential case material. Consent is not necessary in the case of very brief case vignettes which do not contain identifying information or if the case material is disguised sufficiently to prevent identification of the patient.
In obtaining consent, the author(s) should discuss the purpose(s) of publication, the possible risks and benefits to the patient and the patient's right to withhold or withdraw consent. In the case of a minor patient, consent should be obtained from the parent(s) or guardian(s).
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.
Authors and readers are encouraged to notify the Editor-in-Chief if they find errors in published content, authors names and affiliations or if they have reasons for concern over the legitimacy of a publication. In such cases the journal will publish an ERRATUM in consultation with Editor-in-Chief and authors of the article, and/or replace or retract the article.
Articles in Press (articles that have been accepted for publication or published as E-pub Ahead of Schedule but which have not been formally published with volume/issue/page information) that include errors, or are determined to violate the publishing ethics guidelines such as multiple submission, fake claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like, may be Withdrawn from the journal. Withdrawal means that the article files are removed and replaced with a PDF stating that the article has been withdrawn from the journal in accordance with BSP Editorial Policies.
Published articles (with volume/issue/page information) which may contain infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like are retracted.
A retraction note titled Retraction: [article title] signed by the authors and/or the Editor-in-Chief is published in the paginated part of a subsequent issue of the journal and listed in the contents list.
In the electronic version, a link is made to the original article.
The online article is preceded by a screen containing the retraction note. It is to this screen that the link resolves; the reader can then proceed to the article itself.
The original article is retained unchanged with a watermark on the PDF indicating on each page that it is retracted.
The HTML version of the document is removed.
Abstracts and posters of conferences, results presented at meetings (for example, to inform investigators or participants about findings), results databases (data without interpretation, discussion, context or conclusions in the form of tables and text to describe data/information where this is not easily presented in tabular form) are not considered prior publication.
Authors who wish to publish translations of the articles that have been published elsewhere should ensure that they have appropriate permission(s), indicate clearly that the material has been translated and re-published, and indicate clearly the original source of the material. The Editor-in-Chief may request copies of related publications if he/she is concerned about overlap and possible redundancy.
Permission to Reuse Bentham Content
Bentham Science has collaborated with the Copyright Clearance Center to meet our customer’s licensing, besides rights & permission needs.
The Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink® service makes it faster and easier to secure permission from Bentham Science’s journal titles. Visit Journals by Title and locate the desired content. Then go to the article’s abstract and click on “Rights and Permissions” to open the RightsLink’s page. If authors can't find the content they are looking for or can't get the rights they need, please contact us at permissions@benthamscience.net
Third-Party Permissions
Authors are responsible for managing the inclusion of third-party content as an author/editor of a work. We refer to 'third party content' as any work that authors haven't developed themselves and have copied or adapted from other sources. Text, figures, photographs, tables, screenshots, and other items may be included.
Unless the figure is in the public domain (copyright-free) or permitted for use under Creative Commons or other open licences, the author must get permission from the copyright holder(s).
Published/reproduced material should not be included unless written permission has been obtained from the copyright holder, which should be forwarded to the Editorial Office in case of acceptance of the article for publication.
Articles are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode), which permits unrestricted distribution and reproduction in any medium, as long as the work is properly credited/attributed. For more details, please visit Open Access Policy
Responsibility for the content published by Bentham Science Publishers in any of its journals, including any opinions expressed therein, rests exclusively with the author(s) of such content. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, BSP (on its own behalf, and on behalf of its staff and members of its editorial board) disclaims responsibility for any and all injury and/or damage (whether financial or otherwise) to persons or property, resulting directly or indirectly from any ideas, methods, instructions or products (including errors in the same) referred to in the content of any of BSP s journals. Any dispute arising, including any claim shall be governed exclusively by the laws of the United Arab Emirates, as applied in the Emirate of Sharjah.
Authors who publish in Bentham Science print & online journals will transfer copyright to their work to Bentham Science Publishers. Submission of a manuscript to the respective journals implies that all authors have read and agreed to the content of the Copyright Letter or the Terms and Conditions. It is a condition of publication that manuscripts submitted to this journal have not been published and will not be simultaneously submitted or published elsewhere. Plagiarism is strictly forbidden, and by submitting the article for publication the authors agree that the publishers have the legal right to take appropriate action against the authors, if plagiarism or fabricated information is discovered. By submitting a manuscript, the authors agree that the copyright of their article is transferred to the publishers if and when the article is accepted for publication. Once submitted to the journal, the author will not withdraw their manuscript at any stage prior to publication.
It is mandatory that a signed copyright letter also be submitted along with the manuscript by the author to whom correspondence is to be addressed. The article should not contain any such material or information that may be unlawful, defamatory, fabricated, plagiarized, or which would, if published, in any way whatsoever, violate the terms and conditions as laid down in the copyright agreement. Copyright letter can be downloaded from the journal's Web site. Download the Copyright letter.
Permission to Reuse Bentham Content
Bentham Science has collaborated with the Copyright Clearance Center to meet our customer’s licensing, besides rights & permission needs.
The Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink® service makes it faster and easier to secure permission from Bentham Science’s journal titles. Visit Journals by Title and locate the desired content. Then go to the article’s abstract and click on “Rights and Permissions” to open the RightsLink’s page. If authors can't find the content they are looking for or can't get the rights they need, please contact us at permissions@benthamscience.net
Third-Party Permissions
Authors are responsible for managing the inclusion of third-party content as an author/editor of a work. We refer to 'third party content' as any work that authors haven't developed themselves and have copied or adapted from other sources. Text, figures, photographs, tables, screenshots, and other items may be included.
Unless the figure is in the public domain (copyright-free) or permitted for use under Creative Commons or other open licences, the author must get permission from the copyright holder(s).
Published/reproduced material should not be included unless written permission has been obtained from the copyright holder, which should be forwarded to the Editorial Office in case of acceptance of the article for publication.
Articles are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode), which permits unrestricted distribution and reproduction in any medium, as long as the work is properly credited/attributed. For more details, please visit Open Access Policy
By signing the Copyright Letter, the authors retain the rights of self-archiving (subject to certain restrictions).
Following are the important features of the self-archiving policy of Bentham Science journals:
Authors can deposit the first draft of a submitted article on their personal websites or their institution's repositories for personal use, internal institutional use, or for permitted scholarly posting only.
Authors may deposit the ACCEPTED VERSION of the peer-reviewed article on their personal websites, their institution's repository or the non-commercial repositories, PMC and arXiv, after 12 MONTHS of publication on the journal website. For personal use, internal institutional use, or for permitted scholarly posting only.
In case of (b) above, an acknowledgement must be given to the original source of publication and a link must be inserted to the published article on the journal's/publisher's website. The link to the original source of publication should be provided by inserting the DOI number of the article in the following sentence: "The published manuscript is available at EurekaSelect via https://www.eurekaselect.com/openurl/content.php?genre=article&doi=
If the research is funded by NIH, Wellcome Trust or any other Open Access Mandate, authors are allowed the archiving of published versions of manuscripts in the nominated institutional repositories, after the mandatory embargo period. Authors should first contact the Editorial Office of the journal for information about depositing a copy of the manuscript to a repository. Consistent with the copyright agreement, Bentham Science does not allow archiving of FINAL PUBLISHED VERSION of manuscripts unless under an Open Access mandate as above. Archiving, under any of the above mentioned Open Access mandates, is done under the terms of the Creative Commons License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 - Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International.
There is no embargo on the archiving of articles published under the OPEN ACCESS PLUS category. Authors are allowed deposition of such articles on institutional, non-commercial repositories and personal websites immediately after publication on the journal website. This is done under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License CC-BY 4.0.
In case of any form of archiving, an acknowledgement must be given to the original source of publication and a link must be inserted to the published article on the journal's/publisher's website. The link to the original source of publication should be provided by inserting the DOI number of the article in the following sentence: "The published manuscript is available at EurekaSelect via https://www.eurekaselect.com/openurl/content.php?genre=article&doi=
The journal publishes peer reviewed mini- and full-length review articles, meta-analyses and drug clinical trial studies written in English. Single topic/thematic issues may also be considered for publication.
These peer reviewed issues will be restricted to invited review/mini-review articles. The Guest Editor will offer a short perspective and co-ordinate the solicitation of about 10 to 13 manuscripts from leading scientists, with a total page limit ranging between 100 to 150 printed journal pages. Each printed journal page is on average 900 words (excluding any figures, plates and diagrams). Authors interested in editing a single topic issue in an emerging field of drug abuse may submit their proposal to the Editor-in-Chief at thematicissue@benthamscience.org for consideration.
For proposals to publish conference proceedings in this journal, please contact us at email: proceedings@benthamscience.org
The length of a published comprehensive review article is from 6000-10000 words with 100 or
more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables,
Mini-reviews should be 3000- 6000 words with 75 or more references excluding figures, structures,
photographs, schemes, tables
Systematic Reviews include systematic updates on review protocols, methods, research, and results
from all relevant fields for any studies and updates on already published issues. The total
number of words for a published systematic review is from 4000 to 6000 words with 100 or more
references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables
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.
Case reports should describe new observations of findings or novel/unique outcomes relevant to
the field. The total number of words for a published case report is 1500 to 2500 words with 40
or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables
The maximum total page length for a Meta-Analysis published in the journal is four journal pages. Each journal page is on average 900 words.
Trial studies should be 4000 to 6000 words with 50 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables etc.
There is no restriction on the number of figures, tables or additional files e.g. video clips, animation and datasets, that can be included with each article online. Authors should include all relevant supporting data with each article (Refer to Supplementary Material section).
The manuscript should be written in English in a clear, direct and active style. All pages must be numbered sequentially, facilitating in the reviewing and editing of the manuscript.
It is advisable that authors prepare their manuscript using the template available on the Web, which will assist in preparation of the manuscript according to journal’s format. Download the Template.
Professional editing services may be availed by the team available at Bentham Science, for the correction of grammatical, scientific and typographical errors.
Manuscripts submitted for research and review articles in the journal should be divided into the
following sections: Title Title Page Structured Abstract Graphical Abstract Keywords Text Organization Conclusion List of Abbreviations (if any) Consent for Publication Conflict of Interest Acknowledgements References Appendices Figures/Illustrations (if any) Chemical Structures (if any) Tables (if any) Supportive/Supplementary Material (if any) The title of the article should be precise and brief and must not be more than 120
characters. Authors should avoid the use of non-standard abbreviations and question marks in
titles. The first letter of each word should be in capital letters except for articles,
conjunctions and prepositions. Authors should also provide a short 'running title with no more than 80 characters'. Title,
running title, byline, correspondent footnote, and keywords should be written as presented
in the original manuscript. Title page should include paper title, author(s) full name and affiliation, corresponding
author(s) names and complete affiliation/address, along with phone, fax and email. The abstract of an article should be its clear, concise and accurate summary, having no more
than 250 words, and including the explicit sub-headings (as in-line or run-in headings in
bold). Use of abbreviations should be avoided and the references should not be cited in the
abstract. Ideally, each abstract should include the following sub-headings, but these may
vary according to requirements of the article. Background Objective Method Results Conclusion A graphic must be included with each manuscript for use in the Table of Contents (TOC). This
must be submitted separately as an electronic file (preferred file types are EPS, PDF, TIFF,
Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and CDX etc.). A graphical abstract, not exceeding 30 words along
with the illustration, helps to summarize the contents of the manuscript in a concise
pictorial form. It is meant as an aid for the rapid viewing of the journals' contents and to
help capture the readers’ attention. The graphical abstract may feature a key structure,
reaction, equation, Graphical Abstracts should be submitted as a separate file (must clearly mention graphical
abstract within the file) online via Bentham's Content Management System by selecting the
option “Supplementary material”. You can view a few examples of the Graphical Abstracts on
our website. 6 to 8 keywords must be provided. Choose important and relevant keywords that researchers in
your field will be searching for so that your paper will appear in a database search. The
keywords should be contained in the title and they should appear several times in the
article. In biomedical fields, MeSH terms are a good ‘common vocabulary’ source to draw
keywords from https://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html.
The main text should begin on a separate page and should be divided into title page, abstract
and the main text. The text may be subdivided further according to the areas to be
discussed, which should be followed by the Acknowledgements and Reference sections.
Manuscripts for meta-analysis should be divided as: Title page, abstract and the main text.
The text may be subdivided further into Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. This
should be followed by the Acknowledgements and Reference sections. The first page should
contain the title, the authors names (initials and surname only), with an asterisk in front
of the name of the principal author. The manuscript should be organized according to PRISMA
guidelines for meta-analysis (www.prisma-statement.org). Authors of reports
of meta-analyses of randomized trials are encouraged to submit the PRISMA 27-item checklist
and a four-phase flow diagram. Authors of meta-analyses of observational studies are
encouraged to submit the proposed MOOSE checklist (DF Stroup et al. Meta-analysis of
observational studies in epidemiology. JAMA 2000, 283:2008-2012). The Review Article should
mention any previous important recent and old reviews in the field and contain a
comprehensive discussion starting with the general background of the field. It should then
go on to discuss the salient features of recent developments. The authors should avoid
presenting material which has already been published in a previous review. The authors are
advised to present and discuss their observations in brief. The manuscript style must be
uniform throughout the text and 10 pt Times New Roman fonts should be used. The full term
for an abbreviation should precede its first appearance in the text unless it is a standard
unit of measurement. The reference numbers should be given in square brackets in the text.
Italics should be used for Binomial names of organisms (Genus and Species), for emphasis and
for unfamiliar words or phrases. Non-assimilated words from Latin or other languages should
also be italicized e.g. Section headings should be numbered sequentially, left aligned and have the first letter
capitalized, starting with the introduction. Sub-section headings however, should be in
lower-case and italicized with their initials capitalized. They should be numbered as
1.1, 1.2, The Introduction section should include the background and aims of the research in a
comprehensive manner. This section provides details of the methodology used along with information on any
previous efforts with corresponding references. Any details for further modifications
and research should be included. Repeated information should not be reported in the text of an article. A calculation
section must include experimental data, facts and practical development from a
theoretical perspective. The important and main findings of the study should come first in the Results Section. The tables, figures and references should be given in sequence to emphasize the important information or observations related to the research. The repetition of data in tables and figures should be avoided. Results should be precise. This should explore the significance of the results of the work, present a reproducible
procedure and emphasis the importance of the article in the light of recent developments
in the field. Extensive citations and discussion of published literature should be
avoided. This section of research articles should discuss the implications of the findings in the context of existing research and highlight the study's limitations. The authors should justify the sample size according to the study purpose and methods. The Results and Discussion may be presented together under one heading of “Results and
Discussion”. Alternatively, they may be presented under two separate sections (“Results”
section and “Discussion” Sections). Short sub-headings may be added in each section if
required. A small paragraph summarizing the contents of the article, presenting the final outcome
of the research or proposing further study on the subject, may be given at the end of
the article under the Conclusion section. Greek symbols and special characters often undergo formatting changes and get corrupted
or lost during preparation of manuscript for publication. To ensure that all special
characters used are embedded in the text, these special characters should be inserted as
a symbol but should not be a result of any format styling (Symbol font face) otherwise
they will be lost during conversion to PDF/XML. Authors are encouraged to consult reporting guidelines. These guidelines provide a set of
recommendations comprising a list of items relevant to their specific research design.
Chemical equations, chemical names, mathematical usage, unit of measurements, chemical
and physical quantity & units must conform to SI and Chemical Abstracts or IUPAC.
All kinds of measurements should be reported only in International System of Units (SI).
In case there is a need to present lengthy, but essential methodological details, use
appendices, which can be a part of the article. An appendix must not exceed three pages
(Times New Roman, 10 point fonts, 900 max. words per page). The information should be
provided in a condensed form, ruling out the need of full sentences. A single appendix
should be titled APPENDIX, while more than one can be titled APPENDIX A, APPENDIX B, and
so on. We do encourage to append supportive material, for example a PowerPoint file containing
information about the study, a PowerPoint file containing additional screenshots, a
Word, RTF, or PDF document showing the original instrument(s) used, a video, or the
original data (SAS/SPSS files, Ms Excel files, Access Db files etc.) provided it is
inevitable or endorsed by the journal's Editor. Supportive/Supplementary material intended for publication must be numbered and referred
to in the manuscript but should not be a part of the submitted paper. In-text citations
as well as a section with the heading "Supportive/Supplementary Material" before the
"References" section should be provided. Here, list all Supportive/Supplementary
Material and include a brief caption line for each file describing its contents. Any additional files will be linked to the final published article in the form supplied
by the author, but will not be displayed within the paper. They will be made available
in exactly the same form as originally provided only on our Web site. Please also make
sure that each additional file is a single table, figure or movie (please do not upload
linked worksheets or PDF files larger than one sheet). Supportive/Supplementary
material must be provided in a single zipped file not larger than 4 MB. Authors must clearly indicate if these files are not for publication but meant for the
reviewers'/editors' perusal only. If abbreviations are used in the text either they should be defined in the text where
first used, or a list of abbreviations can be provided.
All potential conflicts of interest (competing interests) that could have a direct or indirect influence on the work must be disclosed by the authors. Even if an author does not have a conflict, disclosing affiliations and interests allows for a more comprehensive and open approach, which leads to a more accurate and objective evaluation of the work. Conflicts of interest, whether genuine or imagined, are a perspective to which the readers are entitled.
The publication of a conflict statement in the article itself, as well as the submission of the conflict disclosure form, is required for all types of papers. It is not necessarily the case that a monetary relationship with examination support or funding for counseling work is inappropriate. Even if the authors do not have any conflict of interest, they still need to provide a confirmation statement in their manuscripts, i.e., “The author(s) confirm(s) that there is no conflict of interest related to the manuscript.”
The following are some examples of potential conflicts of interest that are directly or indirectly related to the research:
Type of support/grant number
Institutional Conflicts of Interest
Funds received by the author
Funds received by the institution
Travel allowances for the research
Funds received for article preparation and reviewing
Funds for conducting review activities
Support provided for article writing assistance, for drugs, equipment, etc
Paid lectures
Pending fund or grant
Financial conflicts of interest can be personal as well as institutional. Personal conflict of interest occurs when a contributor involved in the publication process either receives an amount of money or expects to receive some financial help (including any other financial benefits such as patents or stocks, gifts or services) that may impact the work related to a specific publication. More importantly, in academic research, such financial relationships can lead to institutional conflicts of interest (COIs) because the economic interests of the institution or institutional representatives may unsuitably affect the decision-making process.
An institutional conflict of interest arises in a situation when financial interests of an institution or any institutional official (e.g., investments held by the university in a company) have the potential to unduly influence the research conducted by its employees or students, or pose an unacceptable risk to human subjects. Such conflicts usually arise in a state of affairs where a research project directly offers assistance or a benefit to an external entity via evaluation, validation, trial or test of an invention, product, drug, service or technology, and the institution holds a financial interest with the external entity. Such financial interests incorporate, but are not limited to, receipt of licensing payments or royalties from the external entity, or ownership interest with the external entity. When human subjects are involved in any research project, and the institution supports such a financial interest, the conflict of interest is speculated to be unreasonable.
In addition, interests other than monetary and any funding (non-financial interests) should be declared if they are relevant to readers. Personal relationships or conflicting interests directly or indirectly related to research, as well as professional interests or personal opinions that may impact your research, are examples of these.
Intellectual property, in basic terms, refers to any intangible property that is the result of creativity, such as patents, copyrights, etc. Similarly, this section seeks to know about copyright and patent (licensed patent, pending or issued) and any payment received for intellectual property, such as:
Patent
Licensed Patent
Issued Patent
Pending Patent
Royalties
Licensee
Remarks
All conflict of interest disclosure forms are collected by the corresponding author. It is sufficient for the corresponding author to sign the disclosure form on behalf of all authors in author collaborations when legal agreements for representation allow it. The templates of the form can be found here.
Before the reference list, the corresponding author will include a summary statement in the text of the article that reflects what is reported in the potential conflict of interest disclosure form (s). Author(s) may declare(s) names of reviewers who they think might have a potential conflict of interest; therefore, Editorial Office could avoid inviting such reviewers for an unbiased opinion.
Undisclosed conflict of interest cases before or after the publication of an article are dealt with as per the guidelines of COPE.
Undisclosed conflict of interest in a submitted article (View COPE guidelines)
Undisclosed conflict of interest in a published article (View COPE guidelines)
For more information on COIs, see the guidance from the ICMJE.
Bentham Science tries to conduct a transparent peer-review process with the help of the reviewers who do not have any conflict of interest with the authors. In this connection, reviewers who belong to the same institute or countries as authors are not invited to review manuscripts. However, it is not possible for the Editorial Office to be aware of all competing interests; therefore, it is expected from authors to submit:
List of reviewers who they think have a conflict of interest to ensure a transparent and unbiased review process.
The Editorial Office expects reviewers:
Not to accept manuscript review requests if they have any potential conflict of interest and inform the Editorial Office accordingly.
To decline review requests if they have recently published or submitted an article with any of the authors listed in the manuscript.
To inform the Editorial Office if they have any personal relationship with the authors or work in the same institutes as of authors, which could affect the review transparency.
To abstain from reviewing and informing the Editorial Office/Editor-in-Chief/Handling Editors about any scientific misconduct or fraud, plagiarism, conflict of interest, or any other unethical behavior related to the manuscript, which they found while reviewing it.
During the submission of review comments, reviewers are asked to reconfirm that they do not have any conflict of interest related to the article. After confirming the below statement, they can submit their comments.
“I hereby confirm that I don’t have any conflict of interest related to the manuscript.”
If, however, there are still any remaining interests, then reviewers must mention those in the ‘Confidential’ section of the review form.
Reviewers are not encouraged to contact authors directly regarding any of their conflicts of interest. Peer reviewers should follow journals’ policies in situations they consider to represent a conflict to reviewing.
If reviewers intentionally undisclosed any conflict of interest, then they will be blacklisted for any future peer reviewing activity of the journal.
The Editorial Office always ensures that an author, if added after peer review activity of a manuscript, is not part of the reviewers’ list who have conducted a peer review of the same manuscript.
Editors must not review submitted manuscripts if they have any personal, professional or financial involvement/conflict of interest with the authors of the manuscript. Every participant involved in the peer review process, including editorial board members, reviewers, and editors, must declare any potential conflicts of interest to ensure a transparent and unbiased review activity.
Editors-in-Chief or Editors who are responsible for the initial and final decision should recuse themselves to review or take decisions on any manuscript that is written by authors affiliated to the same institute as of editor, or if they have been a family member, competitor, collaborator, or have published any manuscript in last 3 years with the authors associated with the manuscript. They can however nominate someone else on the Board who could provide a neutral opinion on the manuscript.
The Editorial office recommends editors to follow COPE and WAME guidelines to process such manuscripts which involves their personal relationship.
The initial and final decision on the manuscripts submitted by an Editor/Editor-in-Chief will be taken by any other member of the Board. The Editorial Office will identify members who do not have any potential conflict of interest with the Editor or Editor-in-Chief.
Any research assistants or other individuals who assisted with the research but are not listed as authors, such as those who carried out the literature review, produced, computerized, and analyzed the data, or helped with the language, writing, or proofreading of the article, or offered any comments or suggestions, should be acknowledged. Briefly, everyone who has contributed significantly to the improvement of the paper should be acknowledged. It is recommended to mention the "Declared None" if there is no acknowledgement for the study.
Guest or honorary authorship based solely on position (e.g. research supervisor, departmental head) is discouraged.
The specific requirements for authorship have been defined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE; www.icmje.org). Examples of authors' contributions are: 'designed research/study', 'performed research/study', 'contributed important reagents', 'collected data', 'analyzed data', 'wrote paper' etc. This information must be included in the submitted manuscript as a separate paragraph under the heading 'Authors' Contribution'. The corresponding author is responsible for obtaining permission from all co-authors for the submission of any version of the manuscript and for any changes in the authorship.
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 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
Authors must clearly state the name of the approval committee, highlighting that legal and ethical approval was obtained prior to initiation of the research work carried out on animals, and that the experiments were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations stated below.
US authors should cite compliance with the US National Research Council's "Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals"
The US Public Health Service's "Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals" and "Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals"
UK authors should conform to UK legislation under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 Amendment Regulations (SI 2012/3039).
European authors outside the UK should conform to Directive 2010/63/EU.
Research in animals must adhere to ethical guidelines of The International Council for Laboratory Animal Science (ICLAS) has also published ethical guidelines.
The manuscript must clearly include a declaration of compliance with relevant guidelines (e.g. the revised Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 in the UK and Directive 2010/63/EU in Europe) and/or relevant permissions or licences obtained by the IUCN Policy Statement on Research Involving Species at Risk of Extinction and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
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.
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 and consent-to-disclose form must be made in the copyright letter and in a stand-alone paragraph at the end of the Methods section especially in the case of human studies where inclusion of a statement regarding obtaining the written informed consent from each subject or subject's guardian is a must. The original should be retained by the guarantor or corresponding author. Editors may request to provide the original forms by fax or email.
All such case reports should be followed by a proper consent prior to publishing.
Randomized drug clinical trial studies are biomedical or health-related interventional and/or observational research studies conducted in phases in human beings who are randomly allocated to receive or not receive a preventive, therapeutic, or diagnostic intervention that follows a pre-defined protocol. The study is intended to determine the safety and efficacy of approaches to disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment.
Authors of randomized controlled trials are encouraged to submit trial protocols along with their manuscripts. All clinical trials must be registered (before recruitment of the first participant) at an appropriate online public trial registry that must be independent of for-profit interest (e.g.,www.clinicaltrials.gov). If you wish the editor(s) to consider an unregistered trial, please explain briefly why the trial has not been registered.
All randomized clinical trials should include a flow diagram and authors should provide a completed randomized trial checklist (see CONSORT Flow Diagram and Checklist; www.consort-statement.org) and a trial protocol. For further details, please visit complete guidelines at: http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/clinical-trial-registration.html
Studies of diagnostic accuracy must be reported according to STARD guidelines; (www.stard-statement.org)
Observational studies (cohort, case-control, or cross-sectional designs) must be reported according to the STROBE statement, and should be submitted with their protocols; (www.strobe-statement.org).
Genetic association studies must be reported according to STREGA guidelines; (www.medicine.uottawa.ca)
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses must be reported according to PRISMA guidelines; (www.prisma-statement.org)
To find the reporting guidelines see ( www.equator-network.org)
Important points to remember while submitting clinical trials:
Each manuscript should clearly state an objective or hypothesis; the design and methods (including the study setting and dates, patients or participants with inclusion and exclusion criteria, or data sources, and how these were selected for the study); the essential features of any interventions; the main outcome measures; the main results of the study; a comment section placing the results in context with the published literature and addressing study limitations; and the conclusions. Data included in research reports must be original.
Trial registry name, registration identification number, and the URL for the registry should be included at the end of the abstract and also in the space provided on the online manuscript submission form. If your research article reports the results of a controlled health care intervention, list the trial registry, along with the unique identifying number (Please note that there should be no space between the letters and numbers of your trial registration number). Studies designed for other purposes, such as to study pharmacokinetics or major toxicity (e.g., phase 1 trials), are exempted.
All reports of randomized trials should include a section entitled “Randomization and Masking”, within the Methods section.
The manuscript must include a statement identifying the institutional and/or licensing committee that has approved the experiments, including any relevant details.
The SI system of units and the recommended international non-proprietary name (rINN) for drug names must be used. Kindly ensure that the dose, route, and frequency of administration of any drug you mention are correct.
Please ensure that the clinical trials sponsored by pharmaceutical companies follow the guidelines on good publication practice: (www.gpp-guidelines.org)
The editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned requirements. The author will be held responsible for false statements or failure to fulfill the above-mentioned requirements.
References must be listed in the Vancouver Style only. References should be numbered sequentially [in square brackets] in the text and listed in the same numerical order in the reference section. The reference numbers must be finalized and the bibliography must be fully formatted before submission.
See below few examples of references listed in the correct Vancouver Style
Boehm M, Nabel EG. Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2-a new cardiac regulator. N Engl J Med 2002; 347: 1795-7.
Frankel AE, Zuckero SL, Mankin AA,
Stevenson WG, Friedman PL. In: Hennekens CH, Ed. Clinical trials in cardiovascular disease. Philadelphia: WB Saunders Co. 1999; pp. 217-30.
Carlson BM. Human embryology and developmental biology. 3rd ed. St. Louis: Mosby 2004.
Brown AM, Stubbs DW, Eds. Medical physiology. New York: Wiley 1983.
Bengtsson S, Solheim BG. Enforcement of data protection, privacy and security in medical informatics. In: Lun KC, Degoulet P, Piemme TE, Rienhoff O, Eds. MEDINFO 92. Proceedings of the 7th World Congress on Medical Informatics; 1992 Sep 6-10; Geneva, Switzerland. Amsterdam: North-Holland 1992; pp. 1561-5.
Kimura J, Shibasaki H, Eds. Recent advances in clinical neurophysiology. Proceedings of the 10th International Congress of EMG and Clinical Neurophysiology; 1995 Oct 15-19; Kyoto, Japan. Amsterdam: Elsevier 1996.
Aylin P, Bottle A, Jarman B, Elliott, P. Paediatric cardiac surgical mortality in England after Bristol: descriptive analysis of hospital episode statistics 1991-2002. BMJ [serial on the Internet]. 2004 Oct 9; [cited 2004 October 15]; 329: [about 10 screens]. Available from: bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/329/7470/825
Donaldson MS, Ed. Measuring the quality of health care [monograph on the internet]. Washington: National Academy Press 1999 [cited 2004 Oct 8]. Available from: legacy.netlibrary.com/
HeartCentreOnline [homepage on the Internet]. Boca Raton, FL: HeartCentreOnline, Inc.; c2000-2004 [updated 2004 May 23; cited 2004 Oct 15]. Available from: www.heartcenteronline.com/
If a journal carries continuous pagination throughout the volume, then the issue number can be omitted.
Glauser TA. Integrating clinical trial data into clinical practice. Neurology 2002; 58(12 Suppl 7): S6-12.
Abend SM, Kulish N. The psychoanalytic method from an epistemological viewpoint. Int J Psychoanal 2002; 83(Pt 2): 491-5.
Ahrar K, Madoff DC, Gupta S, Wallace MJ, Price RE, Wright KC. Development of a large animal model for lung tumors. J Vasc Interv Radiol 2002; 13(9 Pt 1): 923-8.
Pagedas AC, inventor; Ancel Surgical R&D Inc., assignee. Flexible endoscopic grasping and cutting device and positioning tool assembly. United States patent US 20020103498. 2002 Aug.
Citations for articles/material published exclusively online or in open access (free-to-view), must contain the exact Web addresses (URLs) at the end of the reference(s), except those posted on an author’s Web site unless editorially essential, e.g. ‘Reference: Available from: URL’.
Some important points to remember:
All references must be complete and accurate.
It is necessary to list all authors if the total number of authors is 6 or less and for more
than 6 authors use 3 authors and thenet al. (the term “
Date of access should be provided for online citations.
Journal names should be abbreviated according to the Index Medicus/MEDLINE.
Punctuation should be properly applied as mentioned in the examples given above.
Superscript in the in-text citations and reference section should be avoided
Abstracts, unpublished data and personal communications (which can only be included if prior permission has been obtained) should not be given in the references section. The details may however appear in the footnotes.
The authors are encouraged to use a recent version of EndNote (version 5 and above) or Reference Manager (version 10) when formatting their reference list, as this allows references to be automatically extracted.
All authors must strictly follow the guidelines below for preparing illustrations for publication in
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 providers 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 $125 for the improvement of up to five figures, with any additional figures being charged at US $20 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@eureka-science.com
Illustrations must be provided according to the following guideline:
Illustrations should be embedded in the text file, and must be numbered consecutively in the order of their appearance. Each figure should include only a single illustration which should be cropped to minimize the amount of space occupied by the illustration.
If a figure is in separate parts, all parts of the figure must be provided in a single composite illustration file.
Photographs should be provided with a scale bar if appropriate, as well as high-resolution component files.
Line Art image type is normally an image based on lines and text. It does not contain tonal or shaded areas. The preferred file format should be TIFF or EPS, with the color mode being Monochrome 1-bit or RGB, in a resolution of 900-1200 dpi.
Halftone image type is a continuous tone photograph containing no text. It should have the preferred file format TIFF, with color mode being RGB or Grayscale, in a resolution of 300 dpi.
Combination image type is an image containing halftone , text or line art elements. It should have the preferred file format TIFF, with color mode being RGB or Grayscale, in a resolution of 500-900 dpi.
Illustrations may be submitted in the following file formats:
Bentham Science does not process figures submitted in GIF format.
For TIFF or EPS figures with considerably large file size restricting the file size in online submissions is advisable. Authors may therefore convert to JPEG format before submission as this results in significantly reduced file size and upload time, while retaining acceptable quality. JPEG is a ‘lossy’ format. However, in order to maintain acceptable image quality, it is recommended that JPEG files are saved at High or Maximum quality.
Zipit or Stuffit tools should not be used to compress files prior to submission as the resulting compression through these tools is always negligible.
Please refrain from supplying:
Graphics embedded in word processor (spreadsheet, presentation) document.
Optimized files optimized for screen use (like GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG) because of the low resolution.
Files with too low a resolution.
Graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.
Requirement
Width = 8.5 inches (In-between the required size)
Height = 11 inches (In-between the required size)
Pixels/Inches = 300 (minimum dpi)
All figures should be in vector scale (except half tone, photograph.)
There are many software packages, many of them freeware or shareware, capable of converting to and from different graphics formats, including PNG.
General tools for image conversion include Graphic Converter on the Macintosh, Paint Shop Pro, for Windows, and ImageMagick, available on Macintosh, Windows and UNIX platforms
Bitmap images (e.g. screenshots) should not be converted to EPS as they result in a much larger file size than the equivalent JPEG, TIFF, PNG or BMP, and poor quality. EPS should only be used for images produced by vector-drawing applications such as Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw. Most vector-drawing applications can be saved in, or exported as, EPS format. If the images were originally prepared in an Office application, such as Word or PowerPoint, original Office files should be directly uploaded to the site, instead of being converted to JPEG or another format of low quality.
The cost for color figures/plates/illustrations is
Color figures should be supplied in CMYK and not RGB colors.
Chemical structures must be prepared in ChemDraw/CDX and provided as separate file.
[As according to the ACS style sheet]
Chain angle
120°
Bond spacing
18% of width
Fixed length
14.4 pt (0.500cm, 0.2in)
Bold width
2.0 pt (0.071cm, 0.0278in)
Line width
0.6 pt (0.021cm, 0.0084in)
Margin width
1.6 pt (0.096cm)
Hash spacing
2.5 pt (0.088cm, 0.0347in)
Font
Times New Roman
Size
10 pt
Units
points
Tolerances
3 pixels
Paper
US letter
Scale
100%
Data Tables should be submitted in Microsoft Word table format.
Each table should include a title/caption being explanatory in itself with respect to the details discussed in the table. Detailed legends may then follow.
Table number in bold font
Tables should be embedded in the text exactly according to their appropriate placement in the submitted manuscript.
Columns and rows of data should be made visibly distinct by ensuring that the borders of each cell are displayed as black lines.
Tables should be numbered in Arabic numerals sequentially in order of their citation in the body of the text.
If a reference is cited in both the table and text, please insert a lettered footnote in the table to refer to the numbered reference in the text.
Tabular data provided as additional files can be submitted as an Excel spreadsheet.
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 acknowledgement 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 correct sequence should be provided, which will not be changed once the publication process has started.
If any change is essential, then it can only be done after the approval of the Editor-in-Chief upon receiving the following details from the corresponding author:
- The reason for the change in the author list and/or their sequence
- A proper justification should be provided for changes in authorship.
- Correction of existing names should be accompanied by a notice to the Editor-in-Chief of the journal.
- A written confirmation from all the co-authors is a prerequisite for any amendment or removal.
Any amendment to the authors' list will only be considered and approved by the Editor-in-Chief after complete verification. Publication of the manuscript will be withheld during consideration of the request. However, if the manuscript has already been published online, requests approved thereafter by the Editor-in-Chief will result in an erratum or corrigendum. The corresponding author is responsible for obtaining permission from all co-authors for any changes in the authorship.
Here is some advice by COPE on authorship issues. Bentham strives to follow these guidelines.
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:
- 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.
- 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.
- AI language tools should not be listed as an author; instead, authors should follow clause (1) above.
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
Activities such as the acquisition of funding, general supervision of a research group or general administrative support, writing assistance, technical editing, language editing, and proofreading alone do not qualify any contributor for authorship. Such contributors may be acknowledged individually or together as a group in the acknowledgement section. Further details for writing acknowledgements are available here. Persons not meeting authorship criteria can be acknowledged in the acknowledgement section of the article rather than being enlisted as authors.
All contributing authors should contribute substantially to the article and sign the copyright letter. Bentham Science Publishers discourages authorship based solely on position (e.g., a research supervisor or a departmental head). We use COPE guidelines for identifying any suspected ghost, guest or gift authorship.
Generally, the editorial decisions are not reverted. However, authors who think that their manuscript was rejected due to a misunderstanding or mistake may seek an explanation for the decision. Appeals must give sound reasoning and compelling evidence against the criticism raised in the rejection letter. A difference of opinion as to the interest, novelty, or suitability of the manuscript for the journal will not be considered as an appeal. The EIC and other relevant editors will consider the appeal and the decision thereafter taken by the journal will be deemed final. Acceptance of the manuscript is not guaranteed even if the journal agrees to reconsider the manuscript, and the reconsideration process may involve previous or new reviewers or editors and substantive revision.
Authors who wish to make a complaint should refer them to the Editor-in-Chief of the journal concerned. Complaints to the Publisher may be emailed to info@benthamscience.org
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.
QUICK TRACK allows online publication within 2 weeks of receipt of the final approved galley proofs from the authors. Similarly, the manuscript can be published in the next forthcoming PRINT issue of the journal. The total publication time, from date of first receipt of manuscript to its online publication is 12 weeks, subject to its acceptance by the referees and modification (if any) by the authors within one week.
Authors who have availed QUICK TRACK services in a BSP journal will be entitled for an exclusive 30% discount if they again wish to avail the same services in any Bentham journal.
For more information, please contact the Editorial Office by e-mail at cdar@benthamscience.org.
Bentham Science offers three major services related to its publications:
- Subscription services (to subscribers, institutes, libraries, customers, etc.): Involving access to published content based on certain charges for corporates, academic institutes, and individuals.
- Editorial / Author Pre-publication services (to editors, authors, etc.): Quick track processing, language editing, etc.
- Editorial / Author Post-publication Promotional Services (to authors, institutions and organizations): Open Access Plus, Animated Abstracts, Sharing PDF on KUDOS, reprints, etc.
Since these services are optional in nature and are offered for specific services rendered, hence refunds are not allowed against the availed and charged services, except under special cases.
Authors should seek professional assistance for the correction of grammatical, scientific, and typographical errors before submission of the revised version of the article for publication.
You may use the professional editing services of our nominated English Language editing organizations TopEdit or Eureka Science.
Please note that we accept a language certificate, only from one of the above two language editing organizations.
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
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.
Bentham Science also offers authors the choice of “Open Access Plus (Gold Open Access)” publication
of articles at a fee of
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
For more information please contact us at e-mail: openaccess@benthamscience.org
Printed reprints and e-prints may be ordered from the Publisher prior to publication of the article. First named authors may also order a personal online subscription of the journal at 50% off the normal subscription rate by contacting the subscription department at e-mail: subscriptions@benthamscience.org.
All papers submitted for publication are immediately subjected to preliminary editorial scrutiny by the Editor-in-Chief regarding their suitability. The Editor-in-Chief determines if the manuscript
(a) falls within the scope of the journal and
(b) meets the editorial criteria of Bentham Science Publishers in terms of originality and quality.
Manuscripts that appear to be suitable are then subjected to single/ double blind peer-review by, usually two, neutral eminent experts. The services of eminent international experts are sought through invitations to conduct the peer-review of a submitted manuscript, keeping in view the scope of the manuscript and the expertise of the reviewers. The identity of the reviewers is not disclosed to the authors. The anonymity of reviewers ensures objective and unbiased assessment of the manuscript by the reviewers.
Before sending the manuscripts to reviewers, Bentham Science seeks consent from potential reviewers about their availability and willingness to review. Correspondence between the editorial office of the journal and the reviewers is kept confidential. The reviewers are expected to provide their reports in a timely fashion since a prompt review leads to timely publication of a manuscript which is beneficial not only to the authors but to the scientific community as well.
The editorial process and peer-review workflow for each journal are taken care of by a team of Senior Editors, Editorial Board Members (EBMs) and dedicated Journal managers who have the required expertise in their specific fields.
Bentham Science Publishers carries out independent review of all articles. The reviewers are selected according to their expertise, from our, regularly updated, referee database.
On the basis of reviewer comments, the Editors may recommend acceptance, revision or rejection of a manuscript.
After review of the manuscript by at least two independent experts, in addition to the views of the Editor, the decision is relayed to the authors, which may be categorized as:
Accept without changes
Revisions Required
Reject
Bentham Science requests not to have the manuscripts peer-reviewed by those experts who may have competing interest with the author(s) of a submitted manuscript. It is not possible for Editors to be aware of all competing interests; it is therefore expected that the reviewers would inform the Editor-in-Chief/Handling Editor if they notice any potential competing interest during the course of review of a manuscript. Moreover, the reviewers are expected to inform the Editors or editorial office of the journal if they have a conflict of interest in carrying out the review of a manuscript submitted by any author/contributor of the manuscript.
Papers which are delayed by the authors in revision for more than 30 days are required to be re-submitted as a new submission. Papers accepted for publication are typeset and proofs are dispatched to authors for any corrections prior to final publication.
All peer-reviewing will be conducted
Bentham Science Publishers uses the iThenticate software which detects instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. This software checks content against a database of periodicals, the Internet, and a comprehensive article database. It generates a similarity report, highlighting the percentage overlap between the uploaded article and the published material. Any instance of content overlap is further scrutinized for suspected plagiarism according to the publisher’s Editorial Policies. If the similarity seems legitimate, the article will be proceeded for further review process; however, in cases of superfluous plagiarism, the authors have to revise the text as per editorial instructions.
Bentham Science Publishers strictly follows the COPE guidelines to detect plagiarism; for more clear insight, authors may refer to flowcharts provided by COPE by clicking here or by visiting COPE website.
The text of every submitted manuscript is checked by using the Content Tracking mode in iThenticate. The Content Tracking mode ensures that manuscripts with an overall low percentage similarity (but which may have a higher similarity from a single source) are not overlooked. If the similarity level is significantly high, then the manuscript is returned to the author for paraphrasing the text and citing the original source of the copied material.
It is important to mention that the text taken from different sources with an overall low similarity percentage will be considered as a plagiarized content if the majority of the article is a combination of copied material.
There may be some manuscripts with an overall low similarity percentage, but a higher percentage from a single source. For instance, a manuscript may have less than 20% overall similarity but there may be 15 % similar text taken from a single article; the similarity index in such cases is higher than the approved limit for a single source. Authors are advised to thoroughly rephrase the similar text and properly cite the original source to avoid plagiarism and copyright violation.
We all know that scholarly manuscripts are written after a thorough review of previously published articles. It is therefore, not easy to draw a clear boundary between legitimate representation and plagiarism. However, the following important features can assist in identifying different kinds of plagiarized content. These are:
Reproduction of others words, sentences, ideas or findings as one’s own without proper acknowledgement.
Text recycling, also known as self-plagiarism. It is an author’s use of a previous publication in another paper without proper citation and acknowledgment of the original source.
Paraphrasing poorly: Copying complete paragraphs and modifying a few words without changing the structure of original sentences or changing the sentence structure but not the words.
Verbatim copying of text without putting quotation marks and not acknowledging the work of the original author.
Properly citing a work but poorly paraphrasing the original text is considered as unintentional plagiarism. Similarly, manuscripts with language somewhere between paraphrasing and quoting are not acceptable. Authors should either paraphrase properly or quote and in both cases, cite the original source.
Higher similarity in the abstract, introduction, materials and methods, and discussion and conclusion sections indicates that the manuscript may contain plagiarized text. Authors can easily explain these parts of the manuscript in many ways. However, technical terms and sometimes standard procedures cannot be rephrased; therefore Editors must review these sections carefully before making a decision.
Published manuscripts which are found to contain plagiarized text are retracted from the journal website after careful investigation and approval by the Editor-in-Chief of the journal. A ‘Retraction Note’ as well as a link to the original article is published on the electronic version of the plagiarized manuscript and an addendum with retraction notification in the journal concerned.
For further details, please visit: https://www.eurekaselect.com/research-misconduct
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