Submissions

Author Guidelines

Peer Review

This journal follows a double-blinded peer review process. Your submission will initially be assessed by our editors to determine suitability for publication in this journal. If your submission is deemed suitable, it will typically be sent to a minimum of two reviewers for an independent expert assessment of the scientific quality. The decision as to whether your article is accepted or rejected will be taken by our editors. Authors who wish to appeal the editorial decision for their manuscript may submit a formal appeal request to the EiC. Only one appeal per submission will be considered and the appeal decision will be final.

Our editors are not involved in making decisions about papers which:

• they have written themselves.
• have been written by family members or colleagues.
• relate to products or services in which they have an interest.

Any such submissions will be subject to the journal's usual procedures and peer review will be handled independently of the editor involved and their research group. 

Special Issues and Article Collections

The peer review process for special issues and article collections follows the same process as outlined above for regular submissions, except, a guest editor will send the submissions out to the reviewers and may recommend a decision to the journal editor. The journal editor oversees the peer review process of all special issues and article collections to ensure the high standards of publishing ethics and responsiveness are respected and is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles.

Open Access

EMR is a fully OA (Open Access) journal. It means that authors of an accepted paper will pay the APC (Article Processing Charge) before finalized publication.

Submission Declaration

When authors submit an article to an Elsevier journal it is implied that:

• the work described has not been published previously except in the form of a preprint, an abstract, a published lecture, academic thesis or registered report.
• the article is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.
• the article's publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out.
• if accepted, the article will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, including electronically, without the written consent of the copyright-holder.

To verify compliance with our journal publishing policies, we may check your manuscript with our screening tools.

Authorship

All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following:

• The conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data.
• Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
• Final approval of the version to be submitted.

Authors should appoint a corresponding author to communicate with the journal during the editorial process. All authors should agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work to ensure that the questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Changes to Authorship

The editors of this journal generally will not consider changes to authorship once a manuscript has been submitted. It is important that authors carefully consider the authorship list and order of authors and provide a definitive author list at original submission.

The policy of this journal around authorship changes:

• All authors must be listed in the manuscript and their details entered into the submission system.
• Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should only be made prior to acceptance, and only if approved by the journal editor.
• Requests to change authorship should be made by the corresponding author, who must provide the reason for the request to the journal editor with written confirmation from all authors, including any authors being added or removed, that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement.
• All requests to change authorship must be submitted using this form. Requests which do not comply with the instructions outlined in the form will not be considered.
• Only in exceptional circumstances will the journal editor consider the addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors post acceptance.
• Publication of the manuscript may be paused while a change in authorship request is being considered.
• Any authorship changes requests approved by the journal editor will result in a corrigendum if the manuscript has already been published.
• Any unauthorized authorship changes may result in the rejection of the article, or retraction, if the article has already been published.

Declaration of Interests

All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence or bias their work. Examples of potential competing interests include:

• Employment
• Consultancies
• Stock ownership
• Honoraria
• Paid expert testimony
• Patent applications or registrations
• Grants or any other funding

The Declaration of Interests tool should always be completed.

Funding Sources

Authors must disclose any funding sources who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article. The role of sponsors, if any, should be declared in relation to the study design, collection, analysis and interpretation of data, writing of the report and decision to submit the article for publication. If funding sources had no such involvement this should be stated in your submission.

List funding sources in this standard way to facilitate compliance to funder's requirements:

Funding: This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]; the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA [grant number zzzz]; and the United States Institutes of Peace [grant number aaaa].

It is not necessary to include detailed descriptions on the program or type of grants, scholarships and awards. When funding is from a block grant or other resources available to a university, college, or other research institution, submit the name of the institute or organization that provided the funding.

If no funding has been provided for the research, it is recommended to include the following sentence:

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Declaration of Generative AI in Scientific Writing

Authors must declare the use of generative AI in scientific writing upon submission of the paper. The following guidance refers only to the writing process, and not to the use of AI tools to analyze and draw insights from data as part of the research process:

• Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies should only be used in the writing process to improve the readability and language of the manuscript.
• The technology must be applied with human oversight and control and authors should carefully review and edit the result, as AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete or biased. Authors are ultimately responsible and accountable for the contents of the work.
• Authors must not list or cite AI and AI-assisted technologies as an author or co-author on the manuscript since authorship implies responsibilities and tasks that can only be attributed to and performed by humans.

The use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in scientific writing must be declared by adding a statement at the end of the manuscript when the paper is first submitted. The statement will appear in the published work and should be placed in a new section before the references list. An example:

• Title of new section: Declaration of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process.
• Statement: During the preparation of this work the author(s) used [NAME TOOL / SERVICE] in order to [REASON]. After using this tool/service, the author(s) reviewed and edited the content as needed and take(s) full responsibility for the content of the published article.

The declaration does not apply to the use of basic tools, such as tools used to check grammar, spelling and references. If you have nothing to disclose, you do not need to add a statement.

Use of Inclusive language

Inclusive language acknowledges diversity, conveys respect to all people, is sensitive to differences, and promotes equal opportunities. Authors should ensure their work uses inclusive language throughout and contains nothing which might imply one individual is superior to another on the grounds of:

• Age
• Gender
• Race
• Ethnicity
• Culture
• Sexual Orientation
• disability or Health Condition

We recommend avoiding the use of descriptors about personal attributes unless they are relevant and valid. Write for gender neutrality with the use of plural nouns ("clinicians, patients/clients") as default. Wherever possible, avoid using "he, she," or "he/she."

No assumptions should be made about the beliefs of readers and writing should be free from bias, stereotypes, slang, reference to dominant culture and/or cultural assumptions.

These guidelines are meant as a point of reference to help you identify appropriate language but are by no means exhaustive or definitive.

Writing and Formatting

File format

We ask you to provide editable source files for your entire submission (including figures, tables and text graphics). Some guidelines:

• Save files in an editable format, using the extension .doc/.docx for Word files and .pdf for PDF files.
• Lay out text in a single-column format.
• Remove any strikethrough and underlined text from your manuscript, unless it has scientific significance related to your article.
• Use spell-check and grammar-check functions to avoid errors.

Title Page

You are required to include the following details in the title page information:

• Article title. Article titles should be concise and informative. Please avoid abbreviations and formulae, where possible, unless they are established and widely understood, e.g., DNA).
• Author names. Provide the given name(s) and family name(s) of each author. The order of authors should match the order in the submission system. Carefully check that all names are accurately spelled. If needed, you can add your name between parentheses in your own script after the English transliteration.
• Add affiliation addresses, referring to where the work was carried out, below the author names. Indicate affiliations using a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the corresponding address. Ensure that you provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name and, if available, the email address of each author.
• Corresponding author. Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence for your article at all stages of the refereeing and publication process and also post-publication. This responsibility includes answering any future queries about your results, data, methodology and materials. It is important that the email address and contact details of your corresponding author are kept up to date during the submission and publication process.
• Present/permanent address. If an author has moved since the work described in your article was carried out, or the author was visiting during that time, a "present address" (or "permanent address") can be indicated by a footnote to the author's name. The address where the author carried out the work must be retained as their main affiliation address.

Abstract

You are required to provide a concise and factual abstract which does not exceed 250 words. The abstract should briefly state the purpose of your research, principal results and major conclusions. Some guidelines:

• Abstracts must be able to stand alone as abstracts are often presented separately from the article.
• Avoid references. If any are essential to include, ensure that you cite the author(s) and year(s).
• Avoid non-standard or uncommon abbreviations. If any are essential to include, ensure they are defined within your abstract at first mention.

Keywords

You are required to provide 1 to 7 keywords for indexing purposes. Keywords should be written in English. Please try to avoid keywords consisting of multiple words (using "and" or "of").

We recommend that you only use abbreviations in keywords if they are firmly established in the field.

Math Formulae

• Submit math equations as editable text, not as images.
• Present simple formulae in line with normal text, where possible.
• Use the solidus (/) instead of a horizontal line for small fractional terms such as X/Y.
• Present variables in italics.
• Denote powers of e by exp.
• Display equations separately from your text, numbering them consecutively in the order they are referred to within your text.

Tables

Tables must be submitted as editable text, not as images. Some guidelines:

• Place tables next to the relevant text of your article.
• Cite all tables in the manuscript text.
• Number tables consecutively according to their appearance in the text.
• Please provide captions along with the tables.
• Place any table notes below the table body.
• Avoid vertical rules and shading within table cells.

We recommend that you use tables sparingly, ensuring that any data presented in tables is not duplicating results described elsewhere in the article.

Figures, Images and Artwork

When submitting artwork:

• Cite all images in the manuscript text.
• Number images according to the sequence they appear within your article.
• Submit each image as a separate file using a logical naming convention for your files (for example, Figure 1, Figure 2 etc).
• Please provide captions for all figures, images, and artwork.
• Text graphics may be embedded in the text at the appropriate position.

Artwork Formats

When your artwork is finalized, "save as" or convert your electronic artwork to the formats listed below taking into account the given resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations:

• Vector drawings: Save as EPS or PDF files embedding the font or saving the text as "graphics."
• Color or grayscale photographs (halftones): Save as TIFF, JPG or PNG files using a minimum of 300 dpi (for single column: min. 1063 pixels, full page width: 2244 pixels).
• Bitmapped line drawings: Save as TIFF, JPG or PNG files using a minimum of 1000 dpi (for single column: min. 3543 pixels, full page width: 7480 pixels).
• Combinations bitmapped line/halftones (color or grayscale): Save as TIFF, JPG or PNG files using a minimum of 500 dpi (for single column: min. 1772 pixels, full page width: 3740 pixels).

Please do not submit:

• files that are too low in resolution (for example, files optimized for screen use such as GIF, BMP, PICT or WPG files).
• disproportionally large images compared to font size, as text may become unreadable.

Figure Captions

All images must have a caption. A caption should consist of a brief title (not displayed on the figure itself) and a description of the image. We advise you to keep the amount of text in any image to a minimum, though any symbols and abbreviations used should be explained.

Provide captions in a separate file.

Color Artwork

If you submit usable color figures with your accepted article, we will ensure that they appear in color online.

Please ensure that color images are accessible to all, including those with impaired color vision.

For articles appearing in print, you will be sent information on costs to reproduce color in the printed version, after your accepted article has been sent to production. At this stage, please indicate if your preference is to have color only in the online version of your article or also in the printed version.

Generative AI and Figures, Images and Artwork

Please read our policy on the use of generative AI and AI-assisted tools in figures, images and artwork. This policy states:

• We do not permit the use of Generative AI or AI-assisted tools to create or alter images in submitted manuscripts.
• The only exception is if the use of AI or AI-assisted tools is part of the research design or methods (for example, in the field of biomedical imaging). If this is the case, such use must be described in a reproducible manner in the methods section, including the name of the model or tool, version and extension numbers, and manufacturer.
• The use of generative AI or AI-assisted tools in the production of artwork such as for graphical abstracts is not permitted. The use of generative AI in the production of cover art may in some cases be allowed, if the author obtains prior permission from the journal editor and publisher, can demonstrate that all necessary rights have been cleared for the use of the relevant material, and ensures that there is correct content attribution.

Supplementary Material

We encourage the use of supplementary materials such as applications, images and sound clips to enhance research. Some guidelines:

• Cite all supplementary files in the manuscript text.
• Submit supplementary materials at the same time as your article. Be aware that all supplementary materials provided will appear online in the exact same file type as received. These files will not be formatted or typeset by the production team.
• Include a concise, descriptive caption for each supplementary file describing its content.
• Provide updated files if at any stage of the publication process you wish to make changes to submitted supplementary materials.
• Do not make annotations or corrections to a previous version of a supplementary file.
• Switch off the option to track changes in Microsoft Office files. If tracked changes are left on, they will appear in your published version.

Video

This journal accepts video material and animation sequences to support and enhance your scientific research. We encourage you to include links to video or animation files within articles. Some guidelines:

• When including video or animation file links within your article, refer to the video or animation content by adding a note in your text where the file should be placed.
• Clearly label files ensuring the given file name is directly related to the file content.
• Provide files in one of our recommended file formats. Files should be within our preferred maximum file size of 150 MB per file, 1 GB in total.
• Provide "stills" for each of your files. These will be used as standard icons to personalize the link to your video data. You can choose any frame from your video or animation or make a separate image.
• Provide text (for both the electronic and the print version) to be placed in the portions of your article that refer to the video content. This is essential text, as video and animation files cannot be embedded in the print version of the journal.

We publish all video and animation files supplied in the electronic version of your article.

Research Data

We are committed to supporting the storage of, access to and discovery of research data, and our research data policy sets out the principles guiding how we work with the research community to support a more efficient and transparent research process.

Research data refers to the results of observations or experimentation that validate research findings, which may also include software, code, models, algorithms, protocols, methods and other useful materials related to the project.

Data Statement

To foster transparency, you are required to state the availability of any data at submission.

Ensuring data is available may be a requirement of your funding body or institution. If your data is unavailable to access or unsuitable to post, you can state the reason why (e.g., your research data includes sensitive or confidential information such as patient data) during the submission process.

Data Linking

Linking to the data underlying your work increases your exposure and may lead to new collaborations. It also provides readers with a better understanding of the described research.

If your research data has been made available in a data repository there are a number of ways your article can be linked directly to the dataset:

• Provide a link to your dataset when prompted during the online submission process.
• For some data repositories, a repository banner will automatically appear next to your published article on ScienceDirect.
• You can also link relevant data or entities within the text of your article through the use of identifiers. Use the following format: Database: 12345 (e.g. TAIR: AT1G01020; CCDC: 734053; PDB: 1XFN).

Research Elements

This journal enables the publication of research objects (e.g., data, methods, protocols, software and hardware) related to original research.

Research Elements are peer-reviewed, open access journals which make research objects findable, accessible and reusable. By providing detailed descriptions of objects and their application with links to the original research article, your research objects can be placed into context within your article.

Article Structure

Article sections

• Divide your article into clearly defined and numbered sections. Number subsections 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, ...), then 1.2, etc.
• Use the numbering format when cross-referencing within your article. Do not just refer to "the text."
• You may give subsections a brief heading. Headings should appear on a separate line.
• Do not include the article abstract within section numbering.

Theory and Calculation

The theory section should lay the foundation for further work by extending the background you provided in the introduction to your article. The calculation section should represent a practical development from a theoretical basis.

Glossary

Please provide definitions of field-specific terms used in your article, in a separate list.

Footnotes

We advise you to use footnotes sparingly. If you include footnotes in your article, ensure that they are numbered consecutively.

You may use system features that automatically build footnotes into text. Alternatively, you can indicate the position of footnotes within the text and present them in a separate section at the end of your article.

Acknowledgements

Include any individuals who provided you with help during your research, such as help with language, writing or proof reading, in the acknowledgements section. Acknowledgements should be placed in a separate section which appears directly before the reference list. Do not include acknowledgements on your title page, as a footnote to your title, or anywhere else in your article other than in the separate acknowledgements section.

Author Contributions

Corresponding authors are required to acknowledge co-author contributions:

• Conceptualization
• Data curation
• Formal analysis
• Funding acquisition
• Investigation
• Methodology
• Project administration
• Resources
• Software
• Supervision
• Validation
• Visualization
• Writing – original draft
• Writing – review and editing

Funding Sources

Authors must disclose any funding sources who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article. The role of sponsors, if any, should be declared in relation to the study design, collection, analysis and interpretation of data, writing of the report and decision to submit the article for publication. If funding sources had no such involvement this should be stated in your submission.

List funding sources in this standard way to facilitate compliance to funder's requirements:

Funding: This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]; the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA [grant number zzzz]; and the United States Institutes of Peace [grant number aaaa].

It is not necessary to include detailed descriptions on the program or type of grants, scholarships and awards. When funding is from a block grant or other resources available to a university, college, or other research institution, submit the name of the institute or organization that provided the funding.

If no funding has been provided for the research, it is recommended to include the following sentence:

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Appendices

We ask you to use the following format for appendices:

• Identify individual appendices within your article using the format: A, B, etc.
• Give separate numbering to formulae and equations within appendices using formats such as Eq. (A.1), Eq. (A.2), etc. and in subsequent appendices, Eq. (B.1), Eq. (B. 2) etc. In a similar way, give separate numbering to tables and figures using formats such as Table A.1; Fig. A.1, etc.

References

References within text

Any references cited within your article should also be present in your reference list and vice versa. Some guidelines:

• References cited in your abstract must be given in full.
• We recommend that you do not include unpublished results and personal communications in your reference list, though you may mention them in the text of your article.
• Any unpublished results and personal communications included in your reference list must follow the standard reference style of the journal. In substitution of the publication date add "unpublished results" or "personal communication."
• References cited as "in press" imply that the item has been accepted for publication.

Linking to cited sources will increase the discoverability of your research.

Before submission, check that all data provided in your reference list are correct, including any references which have been copied. Providing correct reference data allows us to link to abstracting and indexing services such as Scopus, Crossref and PubMed. Any incorrect surnames, journal or book titles, publication years or pagination within your references may prevent link creation.

We encourage the use of Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) as reference links as they provide a permanent link to the electronic article referenced.

Reference Style

The format of the references is APA style. You can check the following REFERENCES for guidance.

In the REFERENCES, number order is not necessary. The order of the selected articles is placed alphabetically.

If an article has an DOI, which is preferrable.

Examples:

Reference to a journal publication:

[1] Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J. A. J., & Lupton, R. A. (2000). The art of writing a scientific article. J. Sci. Commun, 163(2), 51-59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sc.2020.00372.

Reference to a journal publication with an article number:

[2] Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J. A. J., & Lupton, R. A. (2018). The art of writing a scientific article. Heliyon. 19, e00205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e00205.

Reference to a book:

[3] Strunk Jr, W., & White, E. B. (2007). The elements of style illustrated. Penguin.

Reference to a chapter in a book:

[4] Matthew, T. D., & Allen, R. F. (2016). How to prepare an electronic version of your article. Introduction to the electronic age, in: B.S. Jones, R.Z. Smith (Eds.), Introduction to the Electronic Age, E-Publishing Inc., New York, 2020, pp. 281 - 304.

Reference to a website:

[5] Cancer Research UK, Cancer statistics reports for the UK. http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/aboutcancer/statistics/cancerstatsreport/, 2023 (accessed 13 March 2023).

Reference to a dataset:

[6] Oguro, M., Imahiro, S., Saito, S., & Nakashizuka, T. Mortality data for Japanese oak wilt disease and surrounding forest compositions, Mendeley Data, v1; 2015. External link http://dx. doi. org/10.17632/xwj98nb39r, 1.

Data references

We encourage you to cite underlying or relevant datasets within article text and to list data references in the reference list.

When citing data references, you should include:

• author name(s)
• dataset title
• data repository
• version (where available)
• year

Add [dataset] immediately before your reference. This will help us to properly identify the dataset. The [dataset] identifier will not appear in your published article.

Submitting Your Manuscript

Submission checklist

Before completing the submission of your manuscript, we advise you to read our submission checklist:

• All authors understand that they are responsible for payment of the article publishing charge (APC) if the manuscript is accepted. Payment of the APC may be covered by the corresponding author's institution, or the research funder.
• The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
• The submission file is in Microsoft Word or PDF format.
• Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
• The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
• One author has been designated as the corresponding author and their full contact details (email address, full postal address and phone numbers) have been provided.
• All files have been uploaded, including keywords, figure captions and tables (including a title, description and footnotes) included.
• Spelling and grammar checks have been carried out.
• The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.

Language and Editing Services

We recommend that you write in American or British English but not a combination of both.

We offer professional editing services to the manuscript and the relevant materials.