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The Tohoku Journal of Experimental Medicine

Guidelines for Authors

(Version September 20, 2024)


Aims and Scope
The Tohoku Journal of Experimental Medicine (TJEM) is one of the oldest and the most prestigious periodicals in Japan and the world. The TJEM is an international general medical journal founded in 1920, and is published online (Open Access) and with a monthly print issue by the Tohoku University Medical Press.

Our mission is to publish peer-reviewed papers in all branches of medical sciences, including basic medicine, social medicine, clinical medicine, nursing sciences, disaster medicine, and education for healthcare professionals, and to present new information of exceptional novelty, importance, and interest to a broad readership of the TJEM.

The TJEM is open to Original articles in all branches of medical sciences from authors throughout the world. The TJEM also covers the fields of disaster science that include health aspects. Case reports, which advance significantly our knowledge of medical sciences or practice, are also accepted. Review articles, including systematic or scoping reviews, which synthesize the evidence, are welcome. Registration to a database for systematic reviews and following the guidelines are preferable. News and Views, which can be a case study of a disaster or public health emergency, contribute to health policy and education are welcome.
Letters to the Editor are open discussions with the editor and authors on specific articles published in TJEM. A letter should cite the specific article and should not have more than three references.
In particular, the TJEM welcomes full papers requiring prompt publication.

Ethical Issues
Author’s Responsibility
Papers that will be simultaneously or have been published in any other periodicals or proceedings will not be accepted. Manuscripts submitted under multiple authorships are reviewed on the assumption that all listed authors concur in the submission and that the final version of the manuscript has been seen and approved by all authors.

Each author should have participated in conceptions and design, execution, analysis, or interpretation of data. Each author must agree to the terms stated in the Authors’ Responsibility Form and sign on this form. The corresponding author is required to submit a copy of the completed Authors’ Responsibility Form to the Editorial Office online via TJEM Editorial Manager® when submitting a revised manuscript.

Experimental Subjects
Scientific investigations involving human subjects must follow the ethical standards formulated in the Helsinki Declaration of 1964. They must have been formally approved by the appropriate institutional review board, ethical review committee, or equivalent.

Experimental Animals
Animal experiments must follow ethical standards, and measures taken to protect animals from pain or discomfort should be mentioned. All research animals must be acquired and used per national legislation and local institutional review board requirements.

Conflict of Interest
Authors/reviewers should declare any conflicts of interest.

Scientific Misconduct
All work must be free of falsification, fabrication, and plagiarism. The Editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts describing research that does not meet acceptable standards of research behavior as determined by the Helsinki Declaration, national or local legislations on human studies or animal experiments, institutional review board, or equivalent.

The Editor-in-Chief of the TJEM reserves the right to withdraw a published paper without consent of the author(s), in case of any misconduct of the author(s) relating to a published article. The decision of withdrawal by the Editor-in-Chief and its reason will be notified to the author(s) by e-mail. However, publication fees already paid by the authors cannot be refunded.

Manuscript Preparation Guidelines
Before Writing a Manuscript
Authors are advised to consult recent issues of the TJEM for the general format, such as layout of tables and citation of references.
http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/tjem/list/-char/en

Repositories and Preprint Servers
The TJEM welcomes manuscripts based on a large scale of data posted to the Repository or the Database. However, the TJEM does not welcome manuscripts that have been posted to preprint servers before the submission to the TJEM.

Writing a Manuscript
General Preparation

The Title Page

The Abstract Page

The Main Text
Each type of paper should contain sections, as shown below:

PRISMA Guidelines (Use updated statements)

Moher, D., Shamseer, L., Clarke, M., Ghersi, D., Liberati, A., Petticrew, M., Shekelle, P., Stewart, L. A., & PRISMA-P Group (2015). Preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis protocols (PRISMA-P) 2015 statement. Systematic reviews, 4, 1. https://doi.org/10.1186/2046-4053-4-1

Tricco, A. C., Lillie, E., Zarin, W., O'Brien, K. K., Colquhoun, H., Levac, D., Moher, D., Peters, M. D. J., Horsley, T., Weeks, L., Hempel, S., Akl, E. A., Chang, C., McGowan, J., Stewart, L., et al. (2018). PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR): Checklist and Explanation. Annals of Internal Medicine, 169, 467-473. https://doi.org/10.7326/M18-0850

  • Letter to the Editor: A rapid communication to articles published in the TJEM without Figure(s) or Table(s). It should be no longer than 300 words and three or fewer references, including the specific article in TJEM. The article processing fee for the Letter to the Editor is free of charge.
  • Regardless of the article type, the background and the aim of the study should be clearly written in the introduction for a broad readership of the TJEM.

    Informed Consent and Animal Welfare
    In cases where a study deals with human subjects or live animals, the Methods section of the manuscript must include a statement that all experiments were performed in compliance with the relevant laws and/or institutional guidelines, and a statement that the study was approved by the institutional review board, if necessary. A statement must also be included that informed consent was obtained from human subjects.

    Acknowledgments (Optional), Author Contributions (Optional) and Conflict of Interest are placed at the end of the main text. All sources of funding should be declared in the Acknowledgments.

    References
    References are cited in the main text by the first author’s last name and year of publication in parenthesis, as shown below.

    References are listed after the main text in alphabetical order under the first author’s name: Last name(s), followed by initials of first and middle names; year of publication (in parentheses); the title of the article; the title of periodical (abbreviated according to Index Medicus and italic); number of volume (bold); and the first and last pages. Attach the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) as much as possible. Publications by the same author(s) in the same year should be listed as 2007a, 2007b, etc. In the reference with more than fifteen authors, give the first fifteen authors and then use et al. Do not put serial numbers on reference lists.

    When a book is referred to, the reference should include the author’s name, year of publication (in parentheses), the title of the book (capitalized and italicized), edition (if any), publisher, place of publication, and page(s). Attach the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) or DOI.

    When a website is referred to, indicate the relevant page rather than the top page of an organization. The website reference should include the author (publisher)'s name, year of publication (in parenthesis), the title of the page (capitalized and italicized), and URL.

    Confirm that all references are traceable.

    A reference management tool, EndNote, offers a current Output Style file that can assist you with the formatting of your references. In case of submitting, Do Not Remove “EndNote Add-In” from the Word file (DOC, DOCX).

    Personal communications or unpublished papers should not be included in the list of references.

    Please note the following examples.
    1) A journal article:
    Misu, T., Fujihara, K., Nakamura, M., Murakami, K., Endo, M., Konno, H., & Itoyama, Y. (2006) Loss of aquaporin-4 in active perivascular lesions in neuromyelitis optica: a case report. Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 209, 269-275. https://doi.org/10.1620/tjem.209.269

    2) A chapter in an edited book:
    Klaus, S.N. (2006) A History of the Science of Pigmentation. In The Pigmentary System, edited by Nordlund, J.J., Boissy, R.E., Hearing, V.J., King, R.A., Oetting, W.S. & Ortonne, J.-P. Blackwell Publishing Ltd., New York, pp. 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470987100.ch1

    3) A book:
    Nordlund, J.J., Boissy, R.E., Hearing, V.J., King, R.A., Oetting, W.S. & Ortonne, J. P. (2006) The Pigmentary System. Physiology and Pathophysiology, 2nd ed., Blackwell Publishing, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470987100

    4) Website:
    World Health Organization (2022) WHO Guidance on Research Methods for Health Emergency and Disaster Risk Management.
    https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/363502/9789240057968-eng.pdf
    [Accessed: September 9, 2024].

    Tables

    Figures

    Graphical Abstract

    Supplementary Materials

    Manuscript Submission
    Authors should submit their manuscript files online via Editorial Manager® for the TJEM.
    https://www.editorialmanager.com/tjem/

    The manuscript files should be provided in the Word version of a manuscript (the title page, the abstract, the main text, references, and legends to figures), the Word or Excel version of Tables, and the PowerPoint, J-PEG or PDF version of the Figures. Tables and Figures should be uploaded separately as individual files.

    When the conversion of the manuscript files to a PDF file is completed after uploading files in the Editorial Manager® of the TJEM, authors should carefully check the quality of the manuscript PDF before the final submission, particularly Tables and Figures.

    Authors should suggest qualified reviewers with complete mailing addresses. In an effort to expedite the review process, please provide us with the e-mail addresses and affiliations of the potential reviewers. Please note that the final decision on reviewers used is at the discretion of the Editorial Board.

    The TJEM requests no submission charges.

    Peer Review
    All the submitted manuscripts, including the Invited Review articles, are subject to initial review by Editor(s), and Similarity Check plagiarism screening. The Editor(s) will determine if a submitted manuscript should be returned without peer review or sent for peer review. If the manuscript is returned without peer review, the author is notified immediately.

    If the manuscript warrants full peer review, the Editor assigns two independent reviewers, including the Editorial Board Members. All reviewers who review a manuscript remain unknown to the authors. Every manuscript is treated as privileged information. The Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision based on the comments and the recommendations of the reviewers.

    The primary criteria for judging the acceptability of a manuscript are its novelty and/or scientific importance. In addition, manuscripts should be written clearly and simply for readers outside the discipline or non-specialist readers. Manuscripts judged lacking in these respects are declined, even if the experimental work appears technically sound.

    Submission of the Revised Manuscript
    Please indicate the corrections and changes made in red in the revised manuscript. The response letter should summarize the changes made and include a list of your point-to-point responses to the critiques of reviewers. The revised manuscript and the response letter should be uploaded with a Word version.

    When submitting a revised manuscript online, the corresponding author is required to submit a copy of the completed AUTHORS’ RESPONSIBILITY FORM and AUTHORS’ AGREEMENT FORM to the Editorial Office online via Editorial Manager® for the TJEM. Please note that these submission forms do not guarantee acceptance of your paper.

    > Authors’ Responsibility Form

    > AUTHORS’ AGREEMENT FORM

    Changes to Authorship
    Any addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list must be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the Editor-in-Chief of the TJEM. The corresponding author must write the reason for the change in the author list and the agreement of all authors with the addition, removal, or rearrangement on the accompanying letter of the revised manuscript. In the case of removal of the author(s), the confirmation letter from the author(s) being removed must be accompanied by the revised manuscript.

    Post Acceptance
    The Advance Publication was introduced in April 2022. Along with the payment of the Article Processing Charge (APC), the PDF of your accepted manuscript will be uploaded soon with DOI in the Advance Publication by J-STAGE.
    https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/tjem/ The corrections of the PDF of your accepted manuscript are not welcome.

    Your accepted paper may be substantially edited by the Editor(s) or requested to be partly re-written after acceptance to ensure that your publication is accurate, clear, and understandable to a broad readership of the TJEM. Editors reserve the right to request authors to revise the manuscript when required.

    A copyedited proof will be sent to the corresponding author within a few weeks. Authors should review the proof and return the requested corrections within 48 hours. Tables are adapted to the TJEM style in our Production Department. Authors should, therefore, check carefully the correctness of your Tables in the proof.

    Significant changes to the article at this stage will only be considered with permission from the Editor-in-Chief. Processing fees may be charged to the authors if many corrections are requested at this stage. Changing the authorship after acceptance is not permitted. If you do not pay the APC, the editorial office retains the right to withdraw the article without the consent of the authors. The decision of withdrawal by the Editor-in-Chief and its reason will be notified to the author(s) by e-mail.

    Copyright and Permissions
    Copyright
    As a condition of publication, all authors must transfer copyright to the Tohoku University Medical Press.

    The articles published in the TJEM after January 2020 are marked by the Creative Commons (CC) License and the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International) License. Anyone may download, reuse, copy, reprint, or distribute the article marked by the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 without modifications or adaptations for non-profit purposes if they cite the original authors and source properly.

    Permissions for Reuse and Reproduction
    It is our policy that authors reserve the right to reuse or reproduce their own article, in whole or in part, for non-commercial use, provided the acknowledgement is given to the original source of publication. The non-commercial use includes the uses in the author’s own thesis, dissertation, textbook, review article, deposit in any repository, Websites, lectures at the conference or other meetings, and so on. Authors are not requested to obtain permission by the Tohoku University Medical Press in such cases.

    Please refer to the supplement Permissions if you request other types of permissions for reuse and reproduction.

    > Permissions


    Article Processing Charges (APC)
    The TJEM is an Open Access Journal. All the publications are published with the Creative Commons (CC) License; CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial NoDerivatives 4.0 International).

    Effective October 1, 2024, a new APC for articles will be applied.

    The price is 230,000 JPY+ 10% consumption tax for all article types (Original Article, Case Report, News and Views, and Review Article) regardless of the number of pages. The Letter to the Editor is free of charge.

    Additionally, all prices are subject to consumption tax, except for Bank Charges. Color figures will appear in color on the Web (both PDF and HTML images) at no additional charge, providing that these appear suitably as greyscale figures in the print version and reprints.

    Prices are subject to change without notice.

    Color Figure Charge
    TJEM no longer publishes color figures in the printed version. Color figures appear in color on the Web (both PDF and HTML images) at no additional charge. Reprints can be color printed with an additional charge upon request. Ask prices for reprints to the journal office. The 10% tax will apply to the prices.

    Bank Charge: In the international transfer of money, the Bank charge (4,000 JPY per article, no tax) is added to the charge in advance for intermediary and beneficiary bank fees.

    Support of Article Processing Charges
    The TJEM has a support system for article processing charges. Please contact the TJEM Editorial Office if you need financial support for publication.

    Reprints
    Reprints are available upon request. Please contact the TJEM Editorial Office.

     

    The TJEM Editorial Office
    The Tohoku Journal of Experimental Medicine
    Tohoku University Medical Press
    Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8575, JAPAN
    Tel: 81-22-717-8183/8184
    e-mail: office@journal.med.tohoku.ac.jp


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