Guidelines for Authors

          The merit of the publication lies in its quality and content.Contributions are invited on any aspect of pulmonary and critical care medicine, Articles are accepted on the basis of significance, scientific perfection and applicabiIity. Authors are requested to base their papers on the basis of original work carried out by themselves or their groups. Manuscripts should not be submitted to more than one journal at a time.

All articles are processed through a system of refereeing.Each article is assessed independently and blindly by at least two referees and comments sent back to the authors for revision as required. The final decision lies with the Editor.

In order to widen the area of communications the following formats are made available. Editorials, original articles, case reports, clinical reviews, practical applications, clinical problem series, clinicopathological conferences and correspondence column.

The original manuscript with illustrations and three copies should be sent to the Editor-in-Chief.

Presentation of manuscripts should conform with theUniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical  Journals (see Ann Intern Med 1997; 126: 36-47). Salient features of these recommendations are as follows:

Preperation of Manuscript

Type or print out the manuscript on white bond paper,216 x 279 mm (8.5 x 11 inches), or ISO A4 (212 x 297mm),with margins of at least 25mm (1 inch). Type or print on only one side of the paper. Use double spacing throughout,including for the title page, abstract, text,acknowledgements,references, individual tables, and legends.Number pages consecutievely, begining with the title page.Put the page number in the upper or lower right-hand cornerof each page.

Title Page

The title page should carry 1) the title of the article, 2)the name by which each author is known, with his or herhighest academic degree (s) and institutional affiliation; 3)the name of the department (s) and institution (s) to whichthe work should be attributed; 4) disclaimers, if any; 5)the name and address of the author responsible for correspondenceabout the manuscript- 6) the name and addressof the author to whom requests for reprints should be addressed; 7) source (s) of support in the form of grants,equipment, drugs, or all of these; and 8) a short running head or footline of no more than 40 characters (count letters and spaces) at the foot of the title page.

Abstract and Key Words

The second page should carry an abstract (of no more than 150 words for unstructured abstracts or 250 words for structured abstracts). The abstract should state the purposes of the study or investigation, basic procedures (selection of study subjects or laboratory animals; observational and analytical methods), main findings (giving specific data and their statistical significance, if possible), and the principal conclusions. It should emphasize new and important aspects of the study or observations.

Below the abstract authors should provide and identify as such, 3 to 10 key words or short phrases that will assist indexers in cross - indexing the article and may be published with the abstract.

Introduction

State the purpose of the article and summarize the rationale for the study or observation. Give only strictly pertinent references and do not include data or conclusions from the work being reported.

Methods

Describe your selection of the observational or experimental subjects (patients or laboratory animals, including controls) clearly. Identify the age, sex, and other important characteristics of the subject. The definition and relevance of race and ethnicity are ambiguous. Authors should be particularly careful about using these categories.

Identify the methods, apparatus (give the manufacturer’s name and address in parentheses), and procedures in sufficient detail to allow other workers to reproduce the results. Give references to established methods, including statistical methods. Provide references and brief descriptions for methods that have been published but are not well known; describe new or substantially modified methods, give reasons for using them, and evaluate their limitations. Identify precisely all drugs and chemicals used, including generic name (s), does (s). and route (s) of administration.

Reports of randomized clinical trails should present information on all major study elements, including the protocol (study population, interventions or exposures, outcomes and the rationale for statistical analysis), assignment of interventions (methods of randomization, concealment of allocation to treatment groups), and the method’of in masking (blinding).

Authors submiting review manuscripts should include a section describing the methods used for locating, selecting, extracting, and synthesizing data. These methods should also be summarised in the abstract.

Ethics

When reporting experiments on human subjects, indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 as revised in 1983. Do not use patients names, initials, or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material. When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether the institution’s or a national research council’s guide for, or any national law on, the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

Statistics

Describe statistical methods with enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results. When possible quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertaintly (such as confidence intervals). Avoid relying solely on statistical hypothesis testing, such as the use of P values, which fails to convey important Quantitative information. Discuss the eligibility of experimental subjects. Give details about randomization. Describe the methods for and success of any blinding of observations. report complications of treatment.Give numbers of observations. Report losses to observation (such as dropouts from a clinical trial). References for the design of the Study and statistical methods should be standard works when possible (with pages stated) rather than to papers in which the designs or methods were originally reported. Specify any general-use computer programs used.

Results

Present your results in logical sequence in the text,tables, and illustrations. Do not repeat in the text all the data in the tables or illustrations; emphasizes or summarize only important observations.

Discussion

Emphasis the new and important aspects of the study and the conclusions that follow from them. Do not repeat in detail data or other material given in the introduction or the results section. Include in the discussion section the implications of the findings and their limitations, including implications for future research. Relate the observations to other relevant studies.

      Link the conclusion,the goals of the study but avoid unqualified statements and conclusions not completely supported by the data. In particular authors should avoid making statements on economic benefits and costs unless their manuscript includes economic data and analysis. Avoid claiming priority and aluding to work that has not been completed. State the new hypotheses when warranted, but clearly label them as such Recommendations, when appropriate, may be included.

Acknowledgements

At an appropriate place in the article (the title page footnote or an appendix to the text, see the journal’s requirments), one or more statements should specify 1) contributions that need acknowledging but do not justify authorship, such as general support by a departmental chair; 2) acknowledgements of technical help; 3) acknowledgements of financial and material support, which should specify the nature of the support; and 4) relationships that may pose a conflict of interest.

        Persons who have contributed intellectually to the paper but whose contributions do not justify authorship may be named and their fuction or contribution described for example, “scientific adviser”, “crtical review of study proposal”, “data collection” or “participation in clinical trial.” Such persons must have given their permission to be named. Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission from person acknowledged by name, because readers may infer their endorsment of the data and conclusions.

Technical help should be acknowledged in a paragraphseparate from that acknowledging other contributions.

References

References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Identify references in text, tables, and legends by Arabic numerals in parentheses. References cited only in tables or figure Legends should be numbered in accordance with the sequence established by the first identification in the text of the particular table or figure.

Guidelines

Use the style of the examples below. The titles of jourmals should be abbreviated according to the style used in Index Medicus. Avoid using abstracts as references. References of papers accepted but not yet published should be designated as “in press” or “forthcoming”, authors should obtain written permission to cite such papers as well as verification that they have been accepted for publication. Information from manuscripts submitted but not accepted should be cited in the text as “unpublished observations” with written permission from the source.

Avoid citing a “personal communication” unless it provides essential information not available from a public source, in which case the name of the person and date of communication should be cited in parentheses in the text. For scientific articles, authors should obtain written permission and confirmation of accuracy from the source of a personal communication.

The references must be verified by the author(s) against the original documents

Article in Journals

List the first six authors followed by et al.

Vega KJ, Pina I, Krevsky B. Heart transplanation is associated with an increased risk for pancreatobiliary disease. Ann Intern Med 1996; 124:980-3.

The Cardiac Society of Australia and NewZealand. Clinical exercise stress testing. Safety and performance guidelines. Med J Aust 1996; 124:282-4.

Books and other Monographs

Ringsven MK, Bond D. Gerontology and leadership skills for nurses. 2nd ed. Albany (NY): Delmar Publishers; 1996.

Norman IJ, Redfern SJ. editors. Mental health care for elderly people. New York: Churchill Livingstone; 1996.

Philips SJ, Whisnant JP. Hypertension and stroke. In: Laragh JH, Brenner BM, editors. Hypertension: pathophysiology, diagnosis, and management. 2nd ed. New York: Raven Press; 1995.p. 465-78.

Unpublished Material

Leshner Al. Molecular mechanisms of cocaine addiction.N Engl J Med. In Press 1996.

Electronic Material

Morse SS. Factors in the emergence of infectious diseases.Emerge Infect Dis [serial online] 1995 Jan-Mar (cited 1996 Jun 5); 1 (1): [24 screens]. Available from: URL: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/eid.htm.

Tables

Type or print out each table with double spacing on a separate sheet of paper. Do not submit tables as photographs.Number tables consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text and supply a brief title for each.Give each column a short or abbreviated heading. Place explanatory matter in footnotes, not in the heading. Explain in footnotes all nonstandard abreviations that are used in each table.

Illustrations (Figures)

Submit the required number of complete sets of figures.Figures should be professionally drawn and photographed;freehand or typewritten lettering is unacceptable.Instead of original drawings, X-ray films, and other material, send sharp, glossy, black and white photographic prints, usually 127 x 173 mm (5 x 7 inches) but no larger than 203 x 254 mm (8 x 10 inches). Letters, numbers and symbols should be clear and even throughout and of sufficient size that when reduced for publication each item will still be legible. Titles and detailed explanations belong in the legends for illustrations not on the illustrations themselves.

     Each figure should have a label pasted on its back indicating the number of the figure, author’s name, and top of the figure. Do not write on the back of figures or scratch or mar them by using paper clips. Do not bend figures or mount them on cardboard.

    Photomicrographs should have internal scale markers.Symbols, arrows, or letters used in photomicrographs should contrast with the background.

     If photographs of people are used, either the subjects must not be identifiable or their pictures must be accompanied by written permission to use the photograph.

    Figures should be numbered consecutievely according to the order in which they have been first citied in the text.If a figure has been published, acknowledge the original source and submit written permission from the copyright holder to reproduce the material. Permission is required irrespective of authorship or publisher except for documents in the public domain.

Legends for Illustrations

Type or print out legends for illustrations using double spacing, starting on a separate page, with Arabic numerals corresponding to the illustrations. When symbols, arrows, numbers, or letters are used to identify parts of the illustrations, identify and explain each one clearly in the legend. Explain the internal scale and identify the method of staining in photomicrographs.

Units of Measurements

Measurements of length, height, weight, and volume should be reported in metric units (meter, kilogram, or liter) or their decimal multiples.

Temperatures should be given in degrees Celsius. Bloodpressures should be given in millimeters of mercury.

All hematologic and clinical chemistry measurements should be reported in the metric system in terms of the International System of Unts (SI). Editors may request that alternative or non-SI units be added by the authors before publication.

Abbreviations and Symbols

Use only standard abbreviations. Avoid abbreviationsin the title and abstract. The full term for which an abbreviation stands should precede its first use in the text unless it is a standard unit of measurements.

Manuscripts must be accompanied by a covering letter signed by all coauthors. This must include 1) information on prior or duplicate publication or submission elsewhere of any part of the work as defined earlier in this document; 2) a statement of financial or other relationships  that might lead to a conflict of interest; 3) a statement that the manuscript has been read and approved by all the authors, that the requirements for authorship as stated earlier in this document have been met, and that each author believes that the manuscript represents honest work; and 4) the name, address, and telephone number of the corresponding author, who is responsible for communicating with the other authors about revisions and final approval of the proofs. The letter should give any additional information that may be helpful to the editor, such as the type of article in the particular joumal that the manuscript represents and whether the author(s) would be willing to meet the cost of reproducing color illustrations.

The manuscript must be accompanied by copies of any permissions to reproduce published material, to use illustrations or report information about identifiable people, or to name people for their contributions.

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