Submissions

Author Guidelines

The Journal of Biomedical Photonics & Engineering is online journal that publishes peer-reviewed papers in all areas of biomedical photonics and engineering. See Aims & Scope page for more information.

Manuscript Types

The journal publishes regular research papers, letters, and reviews. In addition to contributed research articles, JBPE often publishes special sections in key areas of technology. Special sections are assembled by guest editors.

Regular Paper is a full-length manuscript presenting original work intended as a regular contribution to the journal. A length of about 4,000 words excluding references is recommended.

Letter must be a short technical communication of significant interest intended for rapid publication in the JBPE Letters section of the journal. The typical size of a Letter should be 3–4 printed pages. This corresponds to a maximum length of about 14,000 characters (with spaces) or 2,300 words plus 1–3 figures and a short reference list.

Review Papers will usually written by at the invitation of Editor. Unsolicited reviews will be highly welcome but authors wishing to submit a review are requested to consult the Editors prior to commence-ment. The size of a Review may differ, a length of about 45,000 characters (with spaces) or 7,000 words excluding figures is recommended. 

Submission Requirements

Publication Policies

The following requirements will permit you to determine if you can submit a paper to JBPE.

Rights and Permissions: Prior to submission, authors should obtain all clearances, authorizations, and licenses needed for submission and publication.

Significance: Contributions should be substantial and significant in content. Papers that report only incremental progress may be declined. Although a paper may be correct and appropriate for JBPE, if it does not demonstrate, in the estimation of the reviewers and editor, sufficient new and important information to warrant publication, or provide a comprehensive review of the current state of the art, it will be declined. Manuscripts that are commercial in nature will not be considered.

Originality: Papers should describe the original work of the authors that has not been previously published in a refereed journal and is not currently under consideration for publication in another refereed journal. Any copying of text, figures, data, or results of other authors without giving credit is defined as plagiarism and is a breach of professional ethics. Such papers will be rejected and other penalties may be assessed.

Double Publication: Papers should not report work that the author has already published in another refereed journal. This is also an ethical violation. Such papers will be rejected and other penalties may be assessed.

Previously Rejected Papers: If you are submitting a new version of a paper that was previously submitted to JBPE and was declined, you need to indicate in a cover letter the paper number and title, and briefly describe the changes that have been made to warrant a new submission. Copies of rejected manuscripts are retained in the journal's editorial system.

Authorship

All listed authors should have contributed to the manuscript substantially and have agreed to the final submitted version. Other individuals who have contributed to the study should be acknowledged, but not identified as authors. The sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Every coauthor should have the opportunity to review the manuscript before its submission. All coauthors have an obligation to provide prompt retractions or correction of errors in published works. Any individual unwilling or unable to accept appropriate responsibility for a paper should not be a coauthor.

ORCID ID

While not required, ORCID IDs are strongly encouraged for all authors submitting to the journal. ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers and ensures proper attribution of their work. We encourage all authors to register for an ORCID ID and use it consistently across all publications.

Funding

Author(s) should list all funding sources in the Acknowledgments section. You are responsible for the accuracy of their funder designation.

Data Sharing and Data Availability

The data supporting the results in the paper may be archived in an appropriate public repository. When data have been shared, authors are required to include a link to the repository they have used, and to cite the data they have shared. Whenever possible the scripts and other artefacts used to generate the analyses presented in the paper should also be publicly archived. If sharing data compromises ethical standards or legal requirements then authors are not expected to share it.

Reproduction of Copyright Material

If excerpts from copyrighted works owned by third parties are included, credit must be shown in the contribution. It is the author’s responsibility to also obtain written permission for reproduction from the copyright owners.

The corresponding author is responsible for obtaining written permission to reproduce the material "in print and other media" from the publisher of the original source, and for supplying JBPE with that permission upon submission. Permissions should be uploaded during submission as Supplemental files (not for Review).

Large Language Models

Use of Large Language Models (LLMs) and other AI tools must be disclosed along with all other tools used in the study. The disclosure should describe which AI tool was used, how it was used, and the prompts that were used. AI tools must be disclosed even for general uses, such as cleaning up language and grammar. AI tools used in such methodologies as data collection and figure creation should be disclosed in the Materials and Methods section of the paper. Use for language and grammar clean-up should be disclosed in the Acknowledgments.

Submission Process

JBPE uses an online submission system. If you are submitting via this system for the first time, you will first be required to register. From the account you create, you will be able to monitor your submission and make subsequent submissions. Authors should prepare and format a manuscript prior to submission. Any manuscript, which does not conform to the instructions, may be returned to authors for revision before publication. Authors should also read the journal policies prior to submission to ensure their manuscript meets the journal requirements.

Manuscripts should be submitted in English, and the presentation should be as succinct as comprehension will permit. If you are not a native English speaker, JBPE recommends that your manuscript be professionally edited prior to submission. Manuscripts are reviewed and refereed. Those accepted for publication are edited for conformance to the journal's style. Metric units should be used unless to do so is not feasible or would result in a serious loss of clarity. 

Parts of a Manuscript

Title. A brief informative title (up to 150 characters) containing the major key words. The title should not contain abbreviations.
Authors and Affiliations. Provide full author names, including given name and family name, and ORCID ID. These names will be used in official databases and indexes. Initials are not allowed for the given name. Provide affiliations, including institution and country. An email address should be provided for the corresponding author.
Abstract. Authors are required to use structured abstracts in their manuscript submissions to JBPE. The abstract should be a summary of the paper (200 words maximum). It should be self-contained and substantive in nature, presenting significance, aim, approach, results, conclusion.
Subject terms or keywords. Keywords are required. Please provide 3-6 keywords related to your paper.
Main body. formatted as introduction, materials & methods, results, discussion, conclusion.
Disclosures. Conflicts of interest should be declared under a "Disclosures" header. If the authors have no competing interests to declare, then a statement should be included declaring no conflicts of interest.
Code and Data (if relevant). Data and Code Availability statements should provide access information regarding the computer code and data that would be required to replicate or interpret the findings reported in the paper.
Acknowledgments. Use this section to identify people who have aided the authors in accomplishing the work presented and to acknowledge sources of funding. Include grant numbers and the full name of the funding body.
References numbered in the order of appearance in the text.
Appendices (if relevant). Any figures, tables, or equations in Appendices should continue the numbering sequence established in the body of the paper. Appendices may not comprise only tables and figures; they must also include explanatory text and captions.

File formats

The text may be prepared using Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) or Latex. Manuscripts must conform to the following requirements:

• Title page. List the paper title; the name(s) of the author(s); and the affiliation, complete mailing address, phone number, fax number, and E-mail address (if available) of each author. List sponsorship information in an acknowledgment section at the end of the paper
• Abstract. It should be self-contained (contains no footnotes or numerical references) and should not exceed 200 words.
• Keywords are required. Select from three to ten keywords that do not duplicate words in the title. Composite words can be selected and will be counted as one keyword. Do not abbreviate keywords.
• Text. Type manuscript double-spaced, in a single column, using a readable font size (for example, 12-point type). Please add page numbers. All photos, graphs, illustrations and diagrams are referred to as "figures" and the abbreviation "Fig." is used in the text. (Where the word "Figure" begins a sentence, it should be spelt in full.)
• Equations should be numbered consecutively, with the equation number flushed (i.e., right-justified) and enclosed in parentheses. Equations should be referred in the text as Eq. (x), where x is the equation number. In multiple-line equations, the number should be given on the last line. Please ensure that the equations are numbered correctly, without repetition, and that no important equations are omitted from the numbering scheme. Mathematical operation signs indicating continuity of the expression should be placed at the left hand of the second and succeeding lines.
• Footnotes. Use textual footnotes only when necessary to present important documentary or explanatory material whose inclusion in the text would be distracting.
• Tables should be typed neatly, each on a separate sheet, with title above and any notes below. Explain all abbreviations. Tables should be numbered in the order of their appearance by Roman numerals. The units of measure must be indicated clearly in the column headings of the table. If the unit of measure is the same for all data in a table, it may be given in the table title or in a footnote to be printed directly below the table.
• Figures must be submitted in PS, EPS, TIFF, PNG, JPG or GIF format. If the files are large, please compress them using zip, tar or gzip. Line art/graphics exported from a drawing program should be saved in vector format. Number all figures in the order that they appear in the text. All figure parts must be labeled (a), (b), etc. Submit high-resolution figures. Avoid submitting illustrations containing small axes with oversized labels. Ensure that line weights will be 0.5 points or greater in the final published size. The graphic should be sent with the correct orientation. Set the graphic for 600 dpi resolution for for line drawings (black and white), 300 dpi for halftones (gray scale), and 300 dpi for color images. Must be in CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black) for color separation or RGB (Red, Green and Blue).
• References to published literature must be typed double-spaced and numbered consecutively in the order of their citation in the text. Private communications or unpublished reports should be treated as references. For references with three or fewer authors, list all authors. For references with four or more authors, list the first author only followed by "et al.". It is highly recommended to check your references with CrossRef.

Normal book (authors). E. S. Koay, and N. Walmsley, A Primer of Chemical Pathology, World Scientific Publishing, Singapore (1996).

Chapter in a book (editors). N. B. Slepecky, "Structure of the mammalian cochlea," Chap. 2 in The Cochlea, P. Dallos, A. N. Popper, R. R. Fay (Eds.), Springer-Verlag, New York, 45-129 (1996).

Edition. A. S. M. Lim, and I. J. Constable, A Colour Atlas of Ophthalmology, 4th Edition, World Scientific Publishing, Singapore (2001).

Journal article. A. Hildersheim, and P. H. Levine, "Etiology of nasopharyngeal carconoma: A review," Epidemiol. Rev. 15(2), 466-485 (1996).

Electronic resources. W. S. Rasband, ImageJ, U. S. National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA, http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/ (1997-2006).

To be published. X. Xu, J. A. Spencer, K. K. Lin, E. I. Kudryavtseva, and B. Andersen, "Characterization of mice expressing a dominant negative Clim in epithelial tissues," to be published.

Supplemental material

Authors may submit supplementary material supporting original research articles. Please indicate whether the supplementary material is intended for publication.
If intended for publication, supplementary material such as notes, figures, and tables should be compiled by the author into a single PDF file, to be linked to the parent article upon publication.
Countable supplementary items mentioned in the primary text should be numbered sequentially with an uppercase S to identify them as supplementary, i.e. Figure S1, Figure S2, etc.
References cited in the supplementary material must be included in the full list of references in the main article.

Initial submission. For initial peer review you will need to upload a single, complete manuscript file that contains both the article text (including references, tables, and captions) and the figures (either within the manuscript near each figure callout, or grouped at the end). Your uploaded source file will be converted to PDF format, which will be used for the review process.

Reviewing. All contributions will be evaluated according to the standard procedures of peer review, usually by two referees. To facilitate the refereeing process, please provide the names and email addresses of at least three referees capable of reviewing your manuscript. Please make sure that the suggested referees are not too closely related to your own publications.

Revised manuscripts must be uploaded within 2 weeks (for minor revisions) or 4 weeks (for major revisions) of authors being notified of conditional acceptance pending satisfactory revision. 

Proofs. Prior to publication, authors will receive page proofs by e-mail in PDF format. Authors should keep in mind that reading proofs is their responsibility. Corrections should therefore be clear and unambiguous. Corrections listed in an electronic file should be sorted by line numbers. The main aim of proofreading is to correct errors that may have occurred during the production process, and not to modify the content of the paper. The reproduction of artwork, the layout of the pages and breaks in equations introduced by the production staff should be checked carefully. Corrections that may lead to a change in the page layout should be avoided. Proof corrections should be returned to the publisher within 3 working days.

English Language Editing

If you are not a native English speaker, the Journal of Biomedical Photonics & Engineering recommends that your manuscript be professionally edited prior to submission. You may connect with journal’s Editorial Board for language editing services provided during article submission or editing. Please, connect for more detailed to journals contact.