Submissions

Submission Preparation Checklist

All submissions must meet the following requirements.

• Formatting: The text must be presented in size 12pt, with 1.5 of spacing in between the lines, in a single column, as to fit a standard A4 vertical sheet. Please, employ the metric system.

• Tables, figures, charts, graphs, datasets etc: Questionnaire forms, interviews, tables, figures, graphs, charts and datasets must be submitted separately as supplementary files with the proper identification and numbering. Additionally, tables, figures, charts and graphs must also be placed in the manuscript in their proper places.

• File extensions: Text files must have a .doc extension. Tables may have a .xls or .doc extension. Datasets must have a .xls extension. Figures and graphs must have a .jpg, .png or .tiff extension with 300dpi of resolution. No file may exceed 4Mb of size.

• Title, abstract and keywords: Providing title, abstract and keywords in the manuscript text file and in the appropriate form fields whenever requested by the submission system is a requirement for it to be considered for peer review.

  The title must be objective and accurate.

  The keywords, ranging from 3 to 5, must come from the controlled vocabulary available in the Medical Subject Headings / MeSH database.

  The abstracts must be structured, with no more than 250 words long, to include the following labeled sections: introduction, objectives, methods and materials, results and conclusion.

• Authorship: Up to ten (10) authors can be listed in a single report, except when it comes to reporting research activities of cooperating research centers, laboratories and institutions, when more authors may be listed. Case reports, experience reports and reviews may list no more than six (06) authors. Providing the following metadata for each listed author in the appropriate form fields when requested by the submission system is a requirement for the paper to be considered for peer review: a) all authors with full name (no abbreviation allowed), b) main affiliation, c) city, state, country, d) email and e) ORCID. E.g.: Jennifer Smith. Federal University of Bahia. Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. jennifersmith@email.edu.br (ORCID XXXX-0000-XX00-X1X5). The system will automatically send out messages to each author with a link for them to authenticate their ORCIDs. The authentication for all authors is a condition for the article to be evaluated by editors and reviewers. The contribution of each author must be listed in a separated text file which must be then submitted as supplementary file, e.g.: Smith KFA and Smith DB designed the experiments. Smith JLW wrote the code. Smith JLW and Smith YW analyzed the data. Smith MC and Smith PP prepared samples for sequencing and performed all sequencing. Smith VS cultured the cell lines. Smith XW contributed with critical intellectual content. Smith KFA, Smith MC, Smith YW, and Smith JLW wrote the manuscript. All authors reviewed and approved the final version of the paper. We comply with the ICMJE criteria for defining authorship.

• Social media integration: Each author in a submission may supply no more than one social media handle that will be published along with their authorship information in case of acceptance of their submission. This is an opt-in feature only and it is not a condition for text evaluation. The provided social media profile must be aimed at scientific debate and dissemination only.

• Competing interests: Authors are required to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest including any financial, personal or other relationships that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence their work in the field "Comments for the editor".

• Financing sources: All funding received by the authors for carrying out the research, including scholarships, grants, courtesies and fees, must be informed in the "Comments to the editor" field.

• References: References must be cited and formatted according to the Vancouver Style. The Digital Object Identifiers (doi®) of a published work must be included in the reference whenever the published work have had a doi® assigned to it.

• Research Ethics: Any research on, related to, or involving human subjects should state that the they had been approved by the ethics committee of the institution where the research was conducted in compliance with the international requirements, standards and procedures, such as stated in the Declaration of Helsinki. The research registration number in the Plataforma Brasil / Brazilian Ministry of Health (Brazilian National System of Research Ethics) database or in the similar international research ethics database must be included in the paper.

  No form of participant identification, such as disclosure of initials, full name and registration number, is permitted. The local ethics on research committee authorization and, whenever applicable, the authorization for use of image and voice for scientific purposes signed by the participant allowing their medical conditions and anonymized clinical records to be made public for the purpose of scientific research reporting must be provided by authors as supplementary files.

  Any studies on, related to or involving other vertebrates must have had been conducted in compliance with international ethical recommendations for experimentation on animals. They must have had been approved by the proper research committee, and the documentation of that process must be sent as an additional file as well.

  All registration of clinical trials must be in a public trials registry at or before the time of first participant enrollment. The trial registration number must be provided in the manuscript and at the end of the abstract. The WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) or the ClinicalTrials.gov or any national platform for clinical trials registration may be employed.

  All reviews must have been previously registered in the PROSPERO database and the PRISMA checklist must be submitted as supplementary file.

  More information about clinical trials registration here.

• Reproduction of copyrighted material: The first mention of a trademark must include the name of the manufacturer and the country of origin.

  When reproducing any copyrighted material, the authors must provide the authorization by the respective copyright owners, including but not limited to charts, figures and graphs.

• Overlapping publications: They are discouraged, except in the situations allowed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors - ICMJE.

  If the prerequisites for second publication described by the ICMJE are met, the authors must upload the permission granted by the first publication rights owner as supplementary file.

  The first publication must be cited in a footnote.

  Uploading papers to preprint servers for peer review is encouraged and it will not be considered as overlapping publication.

• Reporting transparency: When available for the type of report submitted, the filled out EQUATOR checklist, informing on which page of the manuscript each requested item per study design appears, must be uploaded as a supplementary file at the time of submission. While we enforce the mandatory checklist, we also respect the author's autonomy regarding their final reporting, provided that any choice is duly justified when questioned by reviewers and editors.

Checklist last updated in August 29th, 2023.