Submission Process:

Manuscripts should be sent through the online submission system: (http://jbpe.sums.ac.ir/contacts?_action=signup)

Important: If you created an account before due to the submission of manuscript file, it is not necessary to make a new one; otherwise, an account must be created. 

Dear author,

Please be informed that the manuscript will only enter the arbitration process if it meets all of the following conditions:

Manuscript:

Papers submitted for publication should be an original work, not previously published, totally or partly and submission is only acceptable through online peer review system.

Manuscripts must be in English and Microsoft Word format (.doc/.docx). The manuscript (including references, tables and figures accompanied by legends) must be typed using 12-point Times New Roman font, 3.5 cm margins, line spacing of 1.5 and left justification. Each line and page of the manuscript must be numbered.

Formulas must be typed in the text, and images of them are not acceptable.

In all types of articles, equations and mathematical relationships must have references.

Manuscript must include a covering letter to the Editor-in-Chief, including title and author(s) name and affiliation, undertaking that this paper has not been published or submitted.

It would be highly appreciated if the authors suggest at least one reviewer for their manuscript during submission.

The title page of paper also should consist of the title, name of authors(s), academic titles such as PhD, MSc, BSc and so on, affiliation(s) and address (the corresponding author's telephone number and e-mail address) of all authors and ORCID of first and corresponding Authors.

In original articles, it is necessary to mention the type of study in the first sentence of Materials and Methods section.

In all articles, a section entitled "Ethical Considerations" must be considered with an Ethic code, name of university, city, and country; if there is no code of ethics, the authors should explain reasons precisely, and be prepared to provide documentation when requested by editors.

The exact place of figures, accompanied by the number and the legend, must be specified in the main manuscript file. All of the figures (charts, pictures, etc.) must be uploaded as a RAR file in the submission process. Each figure must be shown in TIFF format with a resolution of 300 dpi. The dimensions of each figure should not exceed 1200 pixels.

Further, a section entitled "Authors' contribution" must be mentioned to show the role of each author based on the following rules.

-          The Use of the first letter of the name and complete surname of authors.

-          Name of an author could be mentioned multiple times.

-          Name of all authors must be mentioned at least once.

Consider the following example:

1)      A. & B. Authors: gathering the data.

2)       C., D., and A. Authors: analyzing the data.

3)      All authors wrote and reviewed the manuscript

The texts of the tables should be typed continuously (in one line or paragraph without any Enter key on keyboard) and in the left-to-right direction.

All of tables and figures must be numbered and had a legend.

All authors are required to upload their plagiarism report along with other files on the site when submitting a manuscript. To receive the report of plagiarism, you can use the following link for free:  
https://ppc.research.ac.ir/

Persian users can also watch the instructional video of using this system through the following link:
https://ppc.research.ac.ir/docs/help/movie/PPC-Faculty-Members.mp4

Requirements for Different Types of Articles

Original articles: Should contain a structured abstract, 3-5 keywords, introduction, materials (patients) and methods, results, discussion, conclusion, acknowledgement (if applicable), and references sections, and maximum 4 tables and 4 figures. The length should not exceed 3000-3500 words excluding the references, abstract, figures and tables. 15-40 references should be stated for original articles.

Clinical trials: The format is similar to original articles. However, the CONSORT flow diagram should be added as a figure. RCTs should be registered at any RCT Registry approved by the https://www.who.int/clinical-trials-registry-platform and their registration number should be mentioned in the title page. RCTs done in Iran must be registered at www.irct.ir.

Brief Communication: Should contain a non-structured abstract, 3-5 keywords, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, conclusion, acknowledgement (if applicable), and references sections, and maximum 2 tables and figures. The word count should not exceed 2000 words. 10-15 references should be stated.

Technical notes: Should contain a non-structured abstract, 3-5 keywords, introduction, technical presentation (if applicable), discussion, conclusion, results (if applicable), acknowledgement (if applicable), and references sections, and maximum 1 table and 3 figures. 5-10 references should be stated. Technical note should optimally be accompanied by relevant figures to document findings.

Review articles:

-Narrative/Mini reviews, or Black Board: Aim of this type of paper is educational. It should contain minimum of 30 references. Should contain a non-structured abstract, 3-5 keywords, introduction, discussion (if applicable), conclusion. The word count should not exceed 4500 words. Narrative reviews should critically assess the current knowledge of the field.

-Systematic reviews: Systematic reviews of RCTs or Observational Studies will be accepted by the Journal. The protocol of the study should adhere to PRISMA or MOOSE guidelines for systematic reviews of RCTs or Observational studies, respectively. Up to 40 references can be stated. Abstracts should be structured.

Letters to the Editor: Letters should be less than 750 words. Letters discussing articles published in JBPE should be submitted within 4 months following the publication of the main article. Letters will undergo peer review and will be edited for clarity. Up to 5 references should be stated.

Covering letter

All the submitted manuscripts must be accompanied by a covering letter including title and author(s) name and exclusively indicates that the manuscript has not been published or under review elsewhere.

File formats

The manuscript files should be in MS Word and the graphs in MS Excel. The photos must be sent with high resolution (600 dpi or higher) in JPEG, TIFF, GIF, PDF or PSD format. Color photos should be in CMYK mode.

Manuscript preparation

All manuscripts should be arranged according to the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals. The submitted manuscripts should have the following sections:

Cover letter should contain the rationale of performing the research and selecting JBPE as well as a statement that you will not resubmit your article to another journal until the reviewing process will be completed. Also please indicate whether the authors have published or submitted any related papers from the same study.

First (title) page

The first page should contain: a) the article title; b) full names (first names; middle-name initials, if applicable; and last names) of all authors; c) their affiliations; d) a short running title not more than 40 characters (including spaces); e) the name and contact details of the corresponding author. ORCID of first and corresponding author should be available.

Any potential conflict of interests or any source of financial support should also be disclosed on this page.

Second page

The second page should contain the Abstract and five to ten keywords preferably selected from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) list of the Index Medicus.

Abstract for original articles should be structured and contain Background, explaining why the study was done; Objective, stating explicitly the specific objectives of this research; Methods, explaining how the study was conducted; Results, presenting the main findings; and Conclusion, describing the main points and potential implications. Minimize the use of abbreviations and do not cite references in the Abstract. The Abstract for Review articles and Case reports is non-structured. The Abstract length should not be more than 250 words.

Other pages

The text of original articles should have the following sections: Introduction, Materials and Methods or Patients and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, Acknowledgments, if necessary, and References. Tables and Figures should be self-explanatory and along with their legends be started on a new page.

According to ICMJE recommendations, at submission, the authors should disclose whether they used artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted technologies (such as Large Language Models [LLMs], chatbots, or image creators) in the production of submitted work. Authors who use such technology should describe, in both the cover letter and the submitted work in the appropriate section if applicable, how they used it. For example, if AI was used for writing assistance, describe this in the acknowledgment section. If AI was used for data collection, analysis, or figure generation, authors should describe this use in the methods. Chatbots (such as ChatGPT) should not be listed as authors because they cannot be responsible for the accuracy, integrity, and originality of the work. Authors should carefully review and edit the result because AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete, or biased. Authors should not list AI and AI assisted technologies as an author or co-author, nor cite AI as an author. Authors should be able to assert that there is no plagiarism in their paper, including in text and images produced by the AI. Humans must ensure there is appropriate attribution of all quoted material, including full citations.

Methods section must indicate clearly the steps taken to acquire the data. Be sure that it includes only information that was available at the time the plan or protocol for the study was written. It should be detailed (including: controls, inclusion and exclusion criteria, etc) and may be separated into subsections. Repeating the details of standard techniques is best avoided.

For reports of randomized controlled trials, authors should refer to the CONSORT statement.

Reporting guidelines such as STROBE, STARD, and PRISMA would help you report high quality research and provide all required information and evidence for related methodology. Authors are encouraged to refer to the SAGER guidelines for reporting of sex and gender information in study design, data analyses, results, and interpretation of findings: www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/sager-guidelines/.

EQUATOR Network website would help you in using these guidelines.

The software used for statistical analysis and description of the actual method should be mentioned.

Authors who used AI technology to conduct the study should describe its use in the methods section in sufficient detail to enable replication of the approach including the tool used, version, and prompts where applicable.

Results should be presented in chronological sequence in the text, table, and illustration. Organize the results according to their importance. They should be based on your own findings.

Tables and illustrations must be cited in order which they appear in the text using Arabic numerals. Tables should be simple and should not duplicate information in the text of the paper. Figures should be provided only if they add further information. For radiographic films, scans, and other diagnostic images, as well as pictures of pathology specimens or photomicrographs, send high resolution figures in JPEG or Bitmap format. Type legends for illustrations on a separate page, and explain the internal scale and identify the method of staining in photomicrographs. Arrows should be put in place for specific sections of the pathology figures and radiographs.

Discussion should challenge the findings of the study with other available evidences in the format of arguments and counterarguments. It should emphasize the new and important aspects of the study and the conclusions that follow them. Possible mechanisms or explanations for these findings should be explored. The limitations of the study and the implications of the findings for future research or clinical practice should be explored.

Conclusion should state the final result and recommendation that the author(s) has (have) reached. Such results and recommendations should be derived from the researcher’s own study and the results of other studies should not be stated in this section.

Acknowledgement

Acknowledgement of Sources

Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.

The use of AI for writing assistance should be reported in the acknowledgment section.

Conflicts of Interest/Competing Interest

We request all authors and reviewers to inform us about any kinds of “Conflict of Interest” (such as financial, personal, political, or academic) that would potentially affect their judgment. Authors are preferably asked to fill the uniform disclosure form available through:

(http://www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf)

Find out more: publicationethics.org/competinginterests

General institutional support for an author's time on the work should be distinguished from direct overall funding of the work. An appropriate funding statement might be: “This study was funded by A; Dr. F's time on the work was supported by B.”

Supplementary materials such as movie clips, questionnaires, etc may be published on the online version of the Journal.

Any technical, general, financial, and material support or contributions that need acknowledging but do not justify authorship, can be cited at the end of the text as Acknowledgments.

References should be complied numerically according to the order of citation in the text in Vancouver style. The numbers of references should preferably not exceed 40 for original articles (References should be made to published articles rather than to abstracts whenever possible.), 15 for brief, and 10 for case reports. References should optimally be prepared with EndNote software.

For the references credited to more than 6 authors please provide the name of the first six authors and represent the remaining authors by the phrase “et al.”

For various references please refer to “the NLM style guide for authors, editors, and publishers”. 

Examples of commonly used references are:

Journal Article:

Sutherland JG, Thomson RM, Rogers DW. Changes in dose with segmentation of breast tissues in Monte Carlo calculations for low-energy brachytherapy. Med Phys 2011;38:4858-65.

Section in Book:

Kürbitz G. Electro-optic imaging. In: Brown ThG, Creath K, Kogelnik H, eds. The Optics Encyclopedia: Basic Foundations and Practical Applications. vol 1. Weinheim, Wiley-VCH, 2004: 549-85.

Book:

Hendee WR, Ibbott GS, Hendee EG.Radiation Therapy Physics. 3rd ed. New York, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2004.

The authors are responsible for the accuracy of the References provided. Use of reference manager software programs such as EndNote is encouraged.

References in the text, Tables and legends should be numbered consecutively in order of citation in square brackets.

Review articles are usually solicited by the Editor. The authors of Review articles are invited to contact the Editorial Office before preparing one. Both solicited and unsolicited Review articles will undergo the peer review process.

JBPE welcomes Letters to the Editor. Letters, up to 500 words, should discuss materials published in the journal in previous six months. Letters are subjected to editorial review and editing for clarity and space.

Note: 

• Referencing AI-generated material as the primary source is not acceptable.
• References should be made to published articles rather than to abstracts whenever possible. 

Preprint Policy 

The Journal of Biomedical Physics and Engineering Policies about Preprints:

• Authors are allowed to submit their preprint in the journal.
• Authors should Inform the journal at the early step of publication about the preprint version of their article via "Cover Letter" during submission.
• If this preprinted article is accepted for publication, the corresponding author must link from the preprint version to their formal publication via its Digital Object Identifier (DOI), provided by SalivaPub company. Authors must update their preprints on the related preprint server with their accepted manuscript within tow weeks after acceptance.
• Licensing implications: Authors should not assign copyright during the preprint process. The authors should retain copyright in their work when posting to a preprint server.
• The journal will assign a new DOI after acceptance to a preprinted article. It is the corresponding author's responsibility to link the unique DOI to the preprinted version of the same article through the publisher of the preprint server.

Author Fees

This journal charges the following author fees.

Authors sometimes have to meet publication deadlines, e.g. for promotion & tenure or thesis defense, grant proposals, spending of research funds before a certain deadline, publication of follow-up papers, or because the findings are deemed important. To facilitate a speedy turn-around when a rapid decision is required, JBPE offers a review model in which selected peer reviewers may be paid to deliver high-quality and speedy peer-review reports. This is entirely optional - if you do not wish to pay for a fast-track peer review process, just submit your paper normally as described before in the instruction for authors. If you opt for fast-track review, you are guaranteed: a rapid editorial decision and peer-review comments within 3 weeks (plus any additional holidays within that period) after submission and payment of the fee.In addition, you would be asked to pay more due to publishing your manuscript in the first issue and out of turn, in form of premium publishing fee (PPF).

Open access publishing proposes a relatively new model for scholarly journal publishing that provides immediate, worldwide, barrier-free access to the full-text of all published articles. Open access allows all interested readers to view, download, print, and redistribute any article without a subscription, enabling far greater distribution of an author's work than the traditional subscription-based publishing model. Many authors in a variety of fields have begun to realize the benefits that open access publishing can provide in terms of increasing the impact of their work.

In an open access model, the publication costs of an article are paid from an author's research budget, or by their supporting institution, in the form of Article Processing Charges (APC). These APC replace subscription charges and allow publishers to make the full-text of every published article freely available to all interested readers. In addition, authors who publish in our open access journals retain the copyright of their work, which is released under a “Creative Commons Attribution License,” enabling the unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction of an article in any medium, provided that the original work is properly cited.

Journal of Biomedical Physics and Engineering (JBPE) is an Open Access journal. Publishing an article in JBPE requires APC that will be billed to the submitting author following the acceptance of an article for publication. Apart from these APC, there are no submission charges, page charges, or color charges. To follow the instructions for payment please follow here. 

Scientific and Initial Screening:

JBPE staff would check the structure and content of manuscripts to ensure compliance with standard structures (based on the type of study), the scope of the Journal, standard guidelines, quality, novelty, and adherence to ethical issues. In this step, articles would be screened and triaged in the shortest possible time. As a result, such screening would assist the editor in making fair final decisions on articles and ultimately improve the final quality of published articles.

Informed Consent:

All patients and participants in a research project should be thoroughly informed about the aims of the study and any possible side effects of the drugs and interventions. Written informed consent from the participants or their legal guardians is necessary for any such studies. The Journal reserves the right to request the related documents.

Plagiarism:

Authors are not allowed to utilize verbatim text of previously published papers or manuscripts submitted elsewhere. COPE’s flowcharts and guidelines are approached in cases in which plagiarism is detected. We use iThenticate plagiarism checker software.

Open Access Policy:

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

 Image Manipulation:

JBPE encourages authors to send their original images. All digital images in manuscripts accepted for publication will be checked for inappropriate manipulation. No specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced. Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are acceptable as long as they are applied to the entire image and do not misrepresent any information present in the original, including the background. The editors will request the original data from the authors to compare the manipulated figures in cases suspected of inappropriate manipulation.