Author Instructions
1. Manuscript Guidelines
1.1. Open access and copyright
All Frontiers articles from July 2012 onwards are published with open access under the CC-BY Creative Commons attribution license (the current version is CC-BY, version 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This means that the author(s) retain copyright, but the content is free to download, distribute and adapt for commercial or non-commercial purposes, given appropriate attribution to the original article.
1.2. Registration with Frontiers
Please note that the corresponding and all submitting authors MUST register with Frontiers before submitting an article. You must be logged in to your personal Frontiers Account to submit an article.
1.3. Manuscript Requirements and Style Guide
1.3.1. General standards
Word Files
If working with Word please use Frontiers Word templates.
LaTeX Files
If you wish to submit your article as LaTeX, we recommend our Frontiers LaTeX templates. These templates are meant as a guide, you are of course welcome to use any style or formatting and Frontiers journal style will be applied during typesetting.
1.3.1.1. Article Type
Frontiers requires authors to carefully select the appropriate article type for their manuscript, and to comply with the article-type descriptions defined in the journal’s "Article Types", which can be seen from the "For Authors" menu on any Frontiers journal page. Please note that not all articles types are available for all journals/specialties. Please contact us if you have any questions. Please pay close attention to the word count limits.
1.3.1.2. Manuscript Length
Frontiers encourages its authors to closely follow the article word count lengths given in the Summary Table. The manuscript length includes only the main body of the text, footnotes and all citations within it, and excludes abstract, section titles, figure and table captions, funding statements, acknowledgments and references in the bibliography. Please indicate the number of words and the number of figures included in your manuscript on the first page.
1.3.1.3. Language Editing
Frontiers requires manuscripts submitted to meet international standards for English language to be considered for publication.
1.3.1.4. Language Style
The default language style at Frontiers is American English. If you prefer your article to be formatted in British English, please specify this on your manuscript first page. For any questions regarding style Frontiers recommends authors to consult the Chicago Manual of Style.
1.3.1.5. Title
The title is written in title case, centred, and in 16 point bold Times New Roman font at the top of page.
The title should be concise, omitting terms that are implicit and, where possible, be a statement of the main result or conclusion presented in the manuscript. Abbreviations should be avoided within the title.
Witty or creative titles are welcome, but only if relevant and within measure. Consider if a title meant to be thought-provoking might be misinterpreted as offensive or alarming. In extreme cases, the editorial office may veto a title and propose an alternative.
Authors should try to avoid, if possible:
· Titles that are a mere question without giving the answer.
· Unambitious titles, for example starting with "Towards", "A description of", "A characterization of", "Preliminary study on".
· Vague titles, for example starting with "Role of...", "Link between...", "Effect of..." that do not specify the role, link, or effect.
· Include terms that are out of place, for example the taxonomic affiliation apart from species name.
For Corrigenda, Book Reviews, General Commentaries and Editorials, the title of your manuscript should have the following format:
· "Corrigendum: Title of original article"
· "Book Review: Title of book"
· General Commentaries
o "Commentary: Title of original article" (This does not apply to Frontiers Commentaries)
o "Response: Commentary: Title of original article"
· "Editorial: Title of Research Topic"
For article types requiring it, the running title should be a maximum of 5 words in length. (see Summary Table)
1.3.1.6. Authors and Affiliations
All names are listed together and separated by commas. Provide exact and correct author names as these will be indexed in official archives. Affiliations should be keyed to the author's name with superscript numbers and be listed as follows: Laboratory, Institute, Department, Organization, City, State abbreviation (USA, Canada, Australia), and Country (without detailed address information such as city zip codes or street names).
Example: Max Maximus, Department of Excellence, International University of Science, New York, NY, USA.
The Corresponding Author(s) should be marked with an asterisk. Provide the exact contact email address of the corresponding author(s) in a separate section.
Correspondence:
Dr. Max Maximus
maximus@gmail.com
If any authors wish to include a change of address, list the present address(es) below the correspondence details using a unique superscript symbol keyed to the author(s) in the author list.
1.3.1.7. Consortium/Group and Collaborative Authors
Consortium/group authorship should be listed in the manuscript with the other author(s). In cases where authorship is retained by the consortium/group, the consortium/group should be listed as an author separated by 「,」 or 「and」. Consortium/group members can be listed in a separate section at the end of the manuscript.
Example: John Smith, Barbara Smith and The Collaborative Working Group.
1.3.1.8. Headings and Sub-headings
Except for special names (e.g. GABAergic), capitalize only the first letter of headings and subheadings. Headings and subheadings need to be defined in Times New Roman, 12, bold. You may insert up to 5 heading levels into your manuscript (not more than for example: 3.2.2.1.2 Heading title).
1.3.1.9. Abstract
As a primary goal, the abstract should render the general significance and conceptual advance of the work clearly accessible to a broad readership. In the abstract, minimize the use of abbreviations and do not cite references. The text of the abstract section should be in 12 point normal Times New Roman. See Summary Table for abstract requirement and length according to article type.
For Clinical Trial article types, please include the Unique Identifier and the URL of the publicly accessible website on which the trial is registered.
1.3.1.10. Keywords
All article types: you may provide up to 8 keywords; at least 5 are mandatory.
1.3.1.11. Text
The entire document should be single-spaced and must contain page and line numbers in order to facilitate the review process. Your manuscript should be written using either LaTeX or MS-Word.
1.3.1.12. Sections
Your manuscript is organized by headings and subheadings. For Original Research Articles, Clinical Trial Articles, and Technology Reports the section headings should be those appropriate for your field and the research itself.
For Original Research Articles, it is recommended to organize your manuscript in the following sections or their equivalents for your field:
Introduction
Succinct, with no subheadings.
Materials and Methods
This section may be divided by subheadings. This section should contain sufficient detail so that when read in conjunction with cited references, all procedures can be repeated. For experiments reporting results on animal or human subject research, an ethics approval statement should be included in this section (for further information, see section Materials and Data Policies)
Results
This section may be divided by subheadings. Footnotes should not be used and have to be transferred into the main text.
Discussion
This section may be divided by subheadings. Discussions should cover the key findings of the study: discuss any prior art related to the subject so to place the novelty of the discovery in the appropriate context; discuss the potential short-comings and limitations on their interpretations; discuss their integration into the current understanding of the problem and how this advances the current views; speculate on the future direction of the research and freely postulate theories that could be tested in the future.
For further information, please see Additional Requirements for specific article types including Focused Reviews, General Commentaries, Case Reports and Data Reports amongst others or you can check the descriptions defined in the journal’s "Article Types", which can be seen from the "For Authors" menu on any Frontiers journal page.
1.3.1.13. Acknowledgments
This is a short text to acknowledge the contributions of specific colleagues, institutions, or agencies that aided the efforts of the authors.
1.3.1.14. Author Contributions Statement
The Author Contributions Statement is mandatory and should represent all the authors. It can be up to several sentences long and should briefly describe the tasks of individual authors. Please list only 2 initials for each author, without full stops, but separated by commas (e.g. JC, JS). In the case of two authors with the same initials, please use their middle initial to differentiate between them (e.g. REW, RSW). The Author Contributions Statement should be included at the end of the manuscript before the References.
1.3.1.15. Conflict of Interest Statement
A Conflict of Interest Statement needs to be included at the end of the manuscript before the references. Here, the authors need to declare whether or not the submitted work was carried out in the presence of any personal, professional or financial relationships that could potentially be construed as a conflict of interest.
1.3.1.16. Cover Letter
When you submit your manuscript, you will be required to add a cover letter directed to the Editor.
1.3.2. References
All citations in the text, figures or tables must be in the reference list and vice-versa. The references should only include articles that are published or accepted. Data sets that have been deposited to an online repository should be included in the reference list, include the version and unique identifier when available. For accepted but unpublished works use "in press" instead of page numbers. Unpublished data, submitted manuscripts, or personal communications should be cited within the text only, for the article types that allow such inclusions. Personal communications should be documented by a letter of permission. Website urls should be included as footnotes. Any inclusion of verbatim text must be contained in quotation marks and clearly reference the original source. Preprints can be cited as long as a DOI or archive URL is available, and the citation clearly mentions that the contribution is a preprint. If a peer-reviewed journal publication for the same preprint exists, the official journal publication is the preferred source.
The following formatting styles are meant as a guide, as long as the full citation is complete and clear, Frontiers referencing style will be applied during typesetting.
· SCIENCE, ENGINEERING, and HUMANITIES: For articles submitted in the domains of SCIENCE, ENGINEERING and HUMANITIES please apply Author-Year system for in-text citations.
Reference list: provide the names of the first six authors followed by et al. and doi when available.
In-text citations should be called according to the surname of the first author, followed by the year. For works by 2 authors include both surnames, followed by the year. For works by more than 2 authors include only the surname of the first author, followed by et al., followed by the year. For Humanities and Social Sciences articles please include page numbers in the in-text citations.
Article in a print journal:
Sondheimer, N., and Lindquist, S. (2000). Rnq1: an epigenetic modifier of protein function in yeast. Mol. Cell. 5, 163-172.
Article in an online journal:
Tahimic, C.G.T., Wang, Y., Bikle, D.D. (2013). Anabolic effects of IGF-1 signaling on the skeleton. Front. Endocrinol. 4:6. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2013.00006
Article or chapter in a book:
Sorenson, P. W., and Caprio, J. C. (1998). "Chemoreception," in The Physiology of Fishes, ed. D. H. Evans (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press), 375-405.
Book:
Cowan, W. M., Jessell, T. M., and Zipursky, S. L. (1997). Molecular and Cellular Approaches to Neural Development. New York: Oxford University Press.
Abstract:
Hendricks, J., Applebaum, R., and Kunkel, S. (2010). A world apart? Bridging the gap between theory and applied social gerontology. Gerontologist 50, 284-293. Abstract retrieved from Abstracts in Social Gerontology database. (Accession No. 50360869)
Patent:
Marshall, S. P. (2000). Method and apparatus for eye tracking and monitoring pupil dilation to evaluate cognitive activity. U.S. Patent No 6,090,051. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Data:
Perdiguero P, Venturas M, Cervera MT, Gil L, Collada C. Data from: Massive sequencing of Ulms minor's transcriptome provides new molecular tools for a genus under the constant threat of Dutch elm disease. Dryad Digital Repository. (2015) http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.ps837
Theses and Dissertations:
Smith, J. (2008) Post-structuralist discourse relative to phenomological pursuits in the deconstructivist arena. [dissertation/master’s thesis]. [Chicago (IL)]: University of Chicago
Preprint:
Smith, J. (2008). Title of the document. Preprint repository name [Preprint]. Available at: https://persistent-url (Accessed March 15, 2018).
For examples of citing other documents and general questions regarding reference style, please refer to the Chicago Manual of Style.
Frontiers Science Endnote Style
Frontiers Science, Engineering and Humanities Bibstyle
· HEALTH, PHYSICS AND MATHEMATICS: For articles submitted in the domain of HEALTH or the journal Frontiers in Physics and Frontiers in Applied Mathematics and Statistics please apply the Vancouver system for in-text citations.
Reference list: provide the names of the first six authors followed by et al. and doi when available.
In-text citations should be numbered consecutively in order of appearance in the text – identified by Arabic numerals in the parenthesis for Health articles, and in square brackets for Physics and Mathematics articles.
Reference examples
Article in a print journal:
Sondheimer N, Lindquist S. Rnq1: an epigenetic modifier of protein function in yeast. Mol Cell (2000) 5:163-72.
Article in an online journal:
Tahimic CGT, Wang Y, Bikle DD. Anabolic effects of IGF-1 signaling on the skeleton. Front Endocrinol (2013) 4:6. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2013.00006
Article or chapter in a book:
Sorenson PW, Caprio JC. "Chemoreception,". In: Evans DH, editor. The Physiology of Fishes. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press (1998). p. 375-405.
Book:
Cowan WM, Jessell TM, Zipursky SL. Molecular and Cellular Approaches to Neural Development. New York: Oxford University Press (1997). 345 p.
Abstract:
Christensen S, Oppacher F. An analysis of Koza's computational effort statistic for genetic programming. In: Foster JA, editor. Genetic Programming. EuroGP 2002: Proceedings of the 5th European Conference on Genetic Programming; 2002 Apr 3–5; Kinsdale, Ireland. Berlin: Springer (2002). p. 182–91.
Patent:
Pagedas AC, inventor; Ancel Surgical R&D Inc., assignee. Flexible Endoscopic Grasping and Cutting Device and Positioning Tool Assembly. United States patent US 20020103498 (2002).
Data:
Perdiguero P, Venturas M, Cervera MT, Gil L, Collada C. Data from: Massive sequencing of Ulms minor's transcriptome provides new molecular tools for a genus under the constant threat of Dutch elm disease. Dryad Digital Repository. (2015) http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.ps837
Theses and Dissertations:
Smith, J. (2008) Post-structuralist discourse relative to phenomological pursuits in the deconstructivist arena. [dissertation/master’s thesis]. [Chicago (IL)]: University of Chicago
Preprint:
Smith, J. Title of the document. Preprint repository name [Preprint] (2008). Available at: https://persistent-url (Accessed March 15, 2018).
For examples of citing other documents and general questions regarding reference style, please refer to Citing Medicine.
Frontiers Health Endnote Style
Frontiers Health and Physics Bibstyle
1.3.3. Disclaimer
Any necessary disclaimers which must be included in the published article should be clearly indicated in the manuscript.
1.3.4. Supplementary Material
Frontiers journals do not support pushing important results and information into supplementary sections. However, data that are not of primary importance to the text, or which cannot be included in the article because it is too large or the current format does not permit it (such as movies, raw data traces, power point presentations, etc.) can be uploaded during the submission procedure and will be displayed along with the published article. All supplementary files are deposited to FigShare for permanent storage, during the publication stage of the article, and receive a DOI.
The Supplementary Material can be uploaded as Data Sheet (word, excel, csv, cdx, fasta, pdf or zip files), Presentation (power point, pdf or zip files), Supplementary Image (cdx, eps, jpeg, pdf, png or tif), Supplementary Table (word, excel, csv or pdf), Audio (mp3, wav or wma) or Video (avi, divx, flv, mov, mp4, mpeg, mpg or wmv).
Supplementary material is not typeset so please ensure that all information is clearly presented, the appropriate caption is included in the file and not in the manuscript, and that the style conforms to the rest of the article. To avoid discrepancies between the published article and the supplementary material, please do not add the title, author list, affiliations or correspondence in the supplementary files. For Supplementary Material templates (LaTex and Word) see Supplementary Material for Frontiers.
Suggested Fonts
The title is written in title case, centred, and in 16 point bold Times New Roman font at the top of page.
Headings and subheadings need to be defined in Times New Roman, 12, bold.
The text of the abstract section should be in 12 point normal Times New Roman.
The body text is in 12 point normal Times New Roman.
1.3.5. File Requirements
For Latex Files, when submitting your article please ensure to upload all relevant manuscript files including:
· tex file
· .bib file (if the bibliography is not already included in the .tex file)
1.3.6. Additional Requirements per article types
1.3.6.1. CrossMark Policy
CrossMark is a multi-publisher initiative to provide a standard way for readers to locate the current version of a piece of content. By applying the CrossMark logo Frontiers is committing to maintaining the content it publishes and to alerting readers to changes if and when they occur. Clicking on the CrossMark logo will tell you the current status of a document and may also give you additional publication record information about the document.
1.3.6.2. Commentaries on Articles
For General Commentaries, the title of your manuscript must have the following format: "Commentary: Title of the original article". At the beginning of your Commentary, please provide the complete citation of the article commented on. Authors commenting on a Frontiers article must submit their commentary for consideration to the same Journal and Specialty as the original article.
Rebuttals may be submitted in response to Commentaries; our limit in place is one commentary and one response. Rebuttals should be submitted as General Commentary articles and the title should have the following format: "Response: Commentary: Title of original article".
1.3.6.3. Book Reviews
The title of a book review needs to follow the format "Book Review: Title of book". For book Reviews, you must also provide the full book details at the beginning of the article in this format: "Book Review: Full book reference"
1.3.6.4. Focused Reviews
For Tier 2 invited Focused Reviews, to shape the paper on the importance of the research to the field, we recommend structuring the Review to discuss the paper's Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion. In addition the authors must submit a short biography of the corresponding author(s). This short biography has a maximum of 600 characters, including spaces
A picture (5 x 5 cm, in *.tif or *.jpg, min 300 dpi) must be submitted along with the biography in the manuscript and separately during figure upload.
Focused Reviews highlight and explain key concepts of your work. Please highlight a minimum of four and a maximum of ten key concepts in bold in your manuscript and provide the definitions/explanations at the end of your manuscript under 「Key Concepts」. Each definition has a maximum of 400 characters, including spaces.
1.3.6.5 Systematic Reviews
For Systematic Reviews, the following article structure applies.
o Title: include systematic review/meta-synthesis/meta-analysis as appropriate in the title
Each of the sections should include specific sub-sections as follows
o Abstract
§ Background
§ Methods
§ Results
§ Conclusions
o Introduction
§ Rationale
§ Objectives
§ Research question
o Methods
§ Study design
§ Participants, interventions, comparators
§ Systematic review protocol
§ Search strategy
§ Data sources, studies sections and data extraction
§ Data analysis
o Results
§ Provide a flow diagram of the studies retrieved for the review
§ Study selection and characteristics
§ Synthesized findings
§ Risk of bias
o Discussion
§ Summary of main findings
§ Limitations
§ Conclusions
1.3.6.6. Data Reports
For Data Reports, please make sure to follow these additional specific guidelines.
1. The data sets (defined as a collection of data that contains individual data units organized in a standardized reusable format, including pre-processed or raw data) must be deposited in a public repository for long-term data preservation prior to submission of the Data Report. The data set(s) is to be fixed and made publicly available upon publication of the Data Report.
2. Our data sharing policy also requires that the dataset be made available to the Frontiers editors and reviewers during the review process of the manuscript. Prior to submission of your Data Report manuscript, please ensure that the repository you have selected supports confidential peer-review. If it does not, we recommend that the authors deposit the datasets to figshare or Dryad Digital Repository for the peer-review process. The data set(s) can then be transferred to another relevant repository before final publication, should the article be accepted for publication at Frontiers.
Note that it is the authors』 responsibility to maintain the data sets after publication of the Data Report. Any published Frontiers Data Report article will be considered for retraction should the data be removed from the final selected repository after publication or the access become restricted.
3. The submitted manuscript must include the following details:
· Detailed cover letter (including a link to the data set)
· Name of the data set
· Name of the database/repository where the data set has been submitted
· Link to the data set for confidential peer-review (which can be updated after acceptance, prior to publication once the data is made public)
· Description of how the data was acquired, data collection period
· Filters applied to the data
· Overview of the data files and their formats
· Reference to and/or description of the protocols or methods used to collect the data
· Information on how readers may interpret the data set and reuse the data
All these elements will be peer-reviewed and are required for the publication of the Data Report.
Any future updates to the data set(s) should be deposited as independent versions in a repository and the relevant information may be published as General Commentaries linked on the Frontiers website to the initial Data Report.
Any detailed analyses or new scientific insights relating to the Data Report can be submitted as independent research articles which can also be linked on the Frontiers website to the Data Report article. The protocols and methodology used to collect the data can also be submitted as Methods articles.
1.3.6.7. Case Reports
Case Reports should include the following:
· Background
· Case Presentation
For human patients: age, sex and occupation of the patient, presenting symptoms, the patient’s history and any relevant family or social history, and relevant clinical findings
· For animal patients: age, sex, and breed of the animal, presenting problems, the animal's history, and relevant clinical findings.
Description of laboratory investigations and diagnostic tests.
· Discussion of the underlying pathophysiology and the novelty or significance of the case. Authors are required to obtain written informed consent from the patients (or their legal representatives) for the publication.
1.3.6.8. Policy & Practice Reviews
For Policy and Practice Reviews, the following article structure applies:
· Abstract
· Introduction
· Sections on assessment of policy/guidelines options and implications
· Actionable Recommendations and Conclusions
1.3.6.9. Policy Briefs
For Policy Briefs, the following article structure applies:
· Abstract (bullet point format)
· Introduction
· Sections on Policy Options and Implications
· Section on Actionable Recommendations
· Conclusions
1.3.6.10. Protocols
For Protocols articles, please make sure to follow these additional specific guidelines.
1. The submitted manuscript must include the following sections:
o An Abstract.
o An Introduction outlining the protocol and summarizing its possible applications.
o A Materials and Equipment section providing a list of reagents or other materials and/or equipment required to carry out the protocol. For basic-science protocols, the formulation of any solutions, e.g. buffers, should be clearly indicated in the Materials and Equipment section.
o A Stepwise Procedures section listing, stepwise, the stages of the protocol. The timing of each step or related series of steps should be indicated, as should points at which it is possible to pause or halt the procedure without adversely influencing the outcome. For steps requiring repeated measurements, details of precision and accuracy should be presented. Limits of detection or quantification should also be stipulated where appropriate.
o An Anticipated Results section describing, and illustrating with figures, where possible, the expected outcome of the protocol. Any analytical software or methods should be presented in detail in this section, as should possible pitfalls and artifacts of the procedure and any troubleshooting measures to counteract them. These last may also be described in an optional Notes section.
o Code or training data sets referenced by the protocol and useful in its execution should be hosted in an online repository; their accession numbers or other stable identifiers should be referenced in the Anticipated Results.
2. The following additional information should be presented in the cover letter accompanying your manuscript:
o Significance of the protocol and references to any relevant primary research manuscript(s) in which it has been previously employed.
o Any advance represented by the method compared with other, similar methods.
o Appropriateness of the manuscript to the Specialty Section to which it has been submitted.
o Associate Editors with suitable expertise to handle the manuscript.
1.4. Figure and Table Guidelines
1.4.1. General Style Guidelines for Figures
The maximum number of figures and tables for all article types are shown in the Summary Table. Frontiers requires figures to be submitted individually, in the same order as they are referred to in the manuscript, the figures will then be automatically embedded at the end of the submitted manuscript. Kindly ensure that each table and figure is mentioned in the text and in numerical order.
For graphs, there must be a self-explanatory label (including units) along each axis. For figures with more than one panel, panels should be clearly indicated using labels (A), (B), (C), (D), etc. However, do not embed the part labels over any part of the image, these labels will be added during typesetting according to Frontiers journal style. Please note that figures which are not according to the guidelines will cause substantial delay during the production process.
Permissions may be necessary in the following scenarios:
· Republishing
· Modifying/adapting
· Partial Figures
It is the responsibility of the authors to acquire the licenses, to follow any citation instructions requested by third-party rights holders, and cover any supplementary charges.
1.4.2. General Style Guidelines for Tables
Tables should be inserted at the end of the manuscript. If you use a word processor, build your table in word. If you use a LaTeX processor, build your table in LaTeX. An empty line should be left before and after the table.
Please note that large tables covering several pages cannot be included in the final PDF for formatting reasons. These tables will be published as supplementary material on the online article abstract page at the time of acceptance. The author will notified during the typesetting of the final article if this is the case. A link in the final PDF will direct to the online material.
For additional information, please see our Editorial Policies: 3.5 Image Manipulation.
1.4.3. Figure and Table Requirements
Legends
Legends should be preceded by the appropriate label, for example "Figure 1" or "Table 4". Figure legends should be placed at the end of the manuscript (for supplementary images you must include the caption with the figure, uploaded as a separate file). Table legends must be placed immediately before the table. Please use only a single paragraph for the legend. Figure panels are referred to by bold capital letters in brackets: (A), (B), (C), (D), etc.
Image Size
Figure images should be prepared with the PDF layout in mind, individual figures should not be longer than one page and with a width that corresponds to 1 column or 2 columns.
· All articles are prepared using the 2 column layout: 2 column articles can contain images 85 mm or 180 mm wide.
1.4.4. Format
The following formats are accepted:
TIFF (.tif) TIFF files should be saved using LZW compression or any other non-lossy compression method.
JPEG (.jpg)
EPS (.eps) EPS files can be uploaded upon acceptance
Color Image Mode
Images must be submitted in the color mode RGB.
Resolution Requirements
All images must be uploaded separately in the submission procedure and have a resolution of 300 dpi at final size. Check the resolution of your figure by enlarging it to 150%. If the resolution is too low, the image will appear blurry, jagged or have a stair-stepped effect.
Please note saving a figure directly as an image file (JPEG, TIF) can greatly affect the resolution of your image. To avoid this, one option is to export the file as PDF, then convert into TIFF or EPS using a graphics software. EPS files can be uploaded upon acceptance.
Chemical Structures
Chemical structures should be prepared using ChemDraw or a similar program. If working with ChemDraw please use Frontiers ChemDraw Template, if working with another program please follow the guidelines given below:
Drawing settings: chain angle, 120° bond spacing, 18% of width; fixed length, 14.4 pt; bold width, 2.0 pt; line width, 0.6 pt; margin width 1.6 pt; hash spacing 2.5 pt. Scale 100% Atom Label settings: font, Arial; size, 8 pt.
Assign all chemical compounds a bold, Arabic numeral in the order in which the compounds are presented in the manuscript text. Figures containing chemical structures should be submitted in a size appropriate for incorporation into the manuscript.
Legibility
Figures must be legible. Check the following:
· The smallest visible text is no less than 8 points in height, when viewed at actual size.
· Solid lines are not broken up.
· Image areas are not pixilated or stair stepped.
· Text is legible and of high quality.
· Any lines in the graphic are no smaller than 2 points width.
1.5. Funding disclosure
Details of all funding sources must be provided in the funding section of the manuscript including grant numbers, if applicable. All Frontiers articles are published with open access under the CC-BY Creative Commons attribution license. Articles published with Frontiers automatically fulfil or exceed the requirements for open access mandated by many institutions and funding bodies, including the National Institutes of Health, the Medical Research Council, Research Councils UK, and the Wellcome Trust. Frontiers submits funding data to the Open Funder Registry which is a funder identification service from CrossRef resulting from collaboration between scholarly publishers and funding agencies.
1.6. Materials and Data Policies
Frontiers is committed to open science and open data, and we strongly encourage authors to maximize the availability of data included in their articles by making generated data publicly available where possible, and ensuring that published data sets are cited in accordance with our data citation guidelines. We aim to achieve the best community standards regarding data availability, ensuring increased levels of transparency and reproducibility in our published articles.
Our policies on data availability are informed by community-driven standards, which Frontiers endorses, such as the Transparency and Openness (TOP) guidelines, and the joint declaration of data citation principles produced by FORCE 11.
1.7. Statistics
Frontiers requires that all statements concerning quantitative differences should be based on quantitative data and statistical testing. For example, if a quantitative statement is made regarding the abundance of a certain protein based on a western blot, we request that the blot be scanned and the abundance assessed quantitatively using the correct analytic software (e.g. ImageJ) and statistics in order to support that statement.
Statistics should/must be applied for independent experiments. The number of independent samples and the deviation parameters (e.g. Standard Error of the Mean, Standard Deviation, Confidence Intervals) should be clearly stated in the Methods or the Figure legends. In general, technical replicates within a single experiment are not considered to be independent samples. Where multiple comparisons are employed (e.g. microarray data or Genome-wide association studies), any analysis should correct for false positive results. Descriptions of statistical procedures should include the software and analysis used, and must be sufficiently detailed to be reproduced.
2. Editorial Policies and Publication Ethics
Frontiers』 ethical policies are a fundamental element of our commitment to the scholarly community. These policies apply to all the Frontiers in journal series. Frontiers has been a member of the Committee of Publication Ethics since January 2015 and follows COPE guidelines where applicable.
2.1. Conflicts of Interest
A conflict of interest can be anything potentially interfering with, or that could reasonably be perceived as interfering with, full and objective peer review, decision-making or publication of articles submitted to Frontiers. Personal, financial and professional affiliations or relationships can be perceived as conflicts of interest.
All authors and members of Frontiers Editorial Boards are required to disclose any actual and potential conflicts of interest at submission or upon accepting an editorial or review assignment.
The Frontiers review system is designed to guarantee the most transparent and objective editorial and review process, and because handling editor and reviewers' names are made public upon the publication of articles, conflicts of interest will be widely apparent.
2.2. Bioethics
All research submitted to Frontiers for consideration must have been conducted in accordance with Frontiers guidelines on study ethics. In accordance with COPE guidelines, Frontiers reserves the right to reject any manuscript that editors believe does not uphold high ethical standards, even if authors have obtained ethical approval or if ethical approval is not required.