Journal of Medical Physics:: Instructions for authors

The official journal of Association of Medical Physicists of India

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Instructions to Authors

Scope

The scope of this journal covers all aspects of the application of radiation physics to biological sciences, radiotherapy, radiodiagnosis, nuclear medicine, dosimetry, radiation standards and radiation protection. Papers / manuscripts on radiobiology, pertaining to cancer therapy also fall within the scope of the journal. Apart from the original research work, papers which are of practical importance to medical physicists e.g., those describing practices (performance and quality assurance tests, clinical investigations and follow-ups with novel ideas), radiation accidents and emergencies are also published in the journal. Reviews of other publications (e.g., ICRP / ICRU reports) also fi nd a place in the journal. Manuscripts with no or oblique relevance to the scope may not fi nd a place.

Refereeing Process

Manuscripts submitted to the Journal of Medical Physics are reviewed by two independent referees who are experts in their specialty. JMP follows double blind review process i.e. neither the referees nor the authors are provided the names and the details of each other. On receipt of the referees’ reports, if needed, authors are requested to revise the manuscript along the lines of the suggestions of the referees. It is important for the authors to respond to the referees’ comments and to submit the revised version along with a report (Author Comment File) indicating point to point reply to the comments of the referees and differences of opinions with the referees. The Editor carries out the fi nal review and communicates the decision to the authors. Revised version must be uploaded in the specifi ed time failing which it will be rejected presuming that the authors are no more interested in publishing. A resubmission at a later date will be considered as a fresh submission to under go the whole process of refereeing again. No manuscript will go through without a peer review.

Language of Manuscript

Manuscripts should be in English only and should be typed double-spaced with 1 inch margin on all sides and a font size of 12. All pages should be numbered.

Online Submission of the Manuscripts

Manuscripts are to be submitted online from http://www.journalonweb.com . New authors will have to register as author by providing Login Name and a Pass Word. This is a simple two-step procedure.

Step 1 – Go to http://www.journalonweb.com/jmp

Click “signup as author”
Fill the registration form and submit

Step 2 - Open your email box

Click “verify my email”
Go again to http://www.journalonweb.com/jmp
Login as author with your user name and password
Follow the instructions on the window

Format of the Manuscript

Title of the manuscript and a minimum of 3 Key Words related to the contents need to be provided in the relevant columns of the submission form. Type of article has to be selected such as Editorial, Original Article, Review Article, Technical Note, Letter to the Editor, News, Book Review etc. The manuscripts have to be prepared in two fi les (First page fi le and Article fi le). Large size Images should be submitted separately as “Image(s)”.

First Page File: 'First Page' ‘First Page’ file (use text / rtf / doc / pdf file format) should contain 1- the title of the manuscript (in running letters except the first letter of the fi rst word), 2- names and affiliations of all the authors (titles such as Dr., Mr. etc. and degrees such as PhD, MD, MSc etc. must not be given), 3- mailing address and 4- the email address of the corresponding author. The text / contents of the article should not be included in this file. All information which can reveal the identity of the authors such as Acknowledgements etc. should be included in this ‘First page’ file. Do not zip the files.
Article file: 'Article Text File' ‘Article Text File’ (use text / rtf / doc / pdf file format) should contain the title (do not give name of institute or the place work in any form / part of the title), and a text from abstract onwards (do not include names of the authors anywhere in the ‘Article File’). The abstract not exceeding 200 words (with no subheads) should briefl y summarize the aims, the approach or methods and the important findings supported by data and the inferences. Proprietary terms and abbreviations should not be used in the abstract. The text following the abstract should be under sections such as Introduction, Experimental / Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions etc. and if needed Subsections may be added for the clarity of the presentation. Tables, Graphs or Figures could be included in this file, if the size of the file remains less than 400 kb. If the size exceeds, the Graphs / Figures can be submitted separately as ‘Image(s)’ without incorporating them in the Article File (no repetition). No information which can reveal contributors’ identity (e.g. acknowledgements or any other information) should be included in the Article File or Image(s). Do not zip the files.
Refereneces: References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are referred (not in alphabetic order) as superscripts in Arabic numerals in square bracket as superscript in text, tables, and legends at the appropriate places. References cited only in tables or figure legends should also be numbered in accordance with the sequence established in the text. Use the style of the examples below, which are based on the formats used by the NLM in Index Medicus. The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the style used in Index Medicus. For non-indexed journals, use complete name of the journal. References to the abstracts (published as abstracts only) may be avoided. Information from manuscripts submitted but not accepted should be cited in the text as “unpublished observations” with written permission from the source. Avoid citing “personal communication” unless it provides essential information not available from normal sources, in which case the name of the person and date of communication should be cited in parentheses in the text. For scientific articles, contributors should obtain written permission and confirmation of accuracy from the source of a personal communication. The accuracy of references is the responsibility of the authors. The commonly cited types of references are shown below, for other types of references such as electronic media; newspaper items, etc. please refer to ICMJE Guidelines (http://www.icmje.org or http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html).
1. Journal paper
  1. Pradhan AS. Photon energy response of luminescence dosimeters and its impact on assessment of Hp(10) and Hp(0.07) in mixed fi elds of varying energies of photons and beta radiation. Radiat. Prot. Dosim. 2002; 101: 173-178.
  2. Pradhan AS, Lee JI, Kim JL. Further Studies on Higher Temperature TL Glow Peaks of 7LiF:Mg,Ti. Applied. Radiation and Isotopes. 2009; http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apradiso.2009.01.004
  3. Sharma DS, Sharma SD, Sanu KK, Saju S, Deshpande DD, Kannan S. Performance evaluation of a dedicated computed tomography scanner used for virtual Performance evaluation of a dedicated computed tomography scanner used for virtual simulation using in-house fabricated CT phantoms, J. Med. Phys.2006; 31: 28-35.
  For more than 6 authors in any reference, list the first six contributors followed by et al.
2. Conference Proceedings
  1. Iyer PS, Bhutani ML, Pradhan AS, Sasane JB and Sawant SG. Current trend of diagnostic radiology practices and associated radiation safety in India. Med. Physik, Edited by Jurgen Richter, Roentgen Gedachtnis Kongress, Deutschen Gesselschat fur Med. Physik, Wurzburg, Germany; 1995. pp.130-131.
3. Books and Other Monographs
  1. Huang HK, Elements of Digital Radiology. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cifts. New Jersey; 1987.
4. Article /Chapter in book
  1. Casten L, Tritium in the environment. In: Advances in Radiation Biology (JT Lett and H Adler. Eds.) Vol. 8, 419- 456, Academic Press. New York; 1979.
Tables: Tables should be numbered consecutively with Roman numerals. Each table should have a caption with sufficient details to make it self-explanatory. The tables should be typed double-spaced. The proportion of the printed page should be considered in designing the table. Footnotes to tables should be identified with superscript lower case letters a, b, etc. and placed at the bottom of the page containing the table.
Legends: Legends / captions for the figures/images (with sufficient details to make it self-explanatory) should be included at the end of the article file.
Images: Submit good quality color images. Each image should be less than 400 kb in size. Size of the image can be reduced by decreasing the actual height and width of the images (keep up to 1024x760 pixels or 5 inches). All image formats (jpeg, tiff, gif, bmp, png, eps, etc.) are acceptable; jpeg is most suitable. Do not zip the files. They should be numbered in sequence with Arabic numerals. Legends for fi gures should be typed double-spaced on a separate page. Mathematical expressions should be set out clearly. No images / figure / illustration will appear in colour in the print form except for the electronic / online version of the journal. After the acceptance of the manuscript, if needed, low resolution figures may be replaced with high resolution and high quality figures for the final printing.

The contributors’ form and copyright transfer form has to be submitted.

S1 Units

Authors should use the International System of units (S1) with traditional units in parenthesis. Any manuscript received which does not employ the S1 system will be returned for revision without review.

Proofs

Proofs will be sent to the corresponding author and these should be returned as early as possible, preferably within 3 days. Signifi cant alterations in the proofs by the authors would not be permitted.

The contributors’ form and copyright transfer form has to be submitted.

Journal office

Editor-in-Chief,
Journal of Medical Physics, Association of Medical Physicists of India,
C/o. Radiological Physics & Advisory Division,Bhabha Atomic Research Centre,
CT & CRS Building, Anushaktinagar, Mumbai 400 094, India.