Instructions for Authors

PHYSIOLOGICAL RESEARCH - Instructions for Authors

Manuscript preparation

The content of submitted manuscripts must fall into the field of normal and pathological physiology, biochemistry, biophysics, and pharmacology. Authors must submit papers reporting on original work, which had not previously been published elsewhere. Papers will be accepted by the editors upon the recommendation of two referees. All papers will be published in English.

Each animal experimentation should be in accordance with the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (1985), NIH, Bethesda, or European Guidelines on Laboratory Animal Care, whereas human studies must be in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki (2000) of the World Medical Association. In both cases the approval by the Ethics Committee of the respective institution is required. The adherence to the above principals should be explicitly mentioned in the Section Methods of each original article published in Physiological Research.

Papers concerning biology, immunology, or genetics should be sent to Folia Biologica (Prague), an international journal specialized in these research topics. The address for manuscript submission is folia.biologica@lf1.cuni.cz and their web site is http://fb.cuni.cz.

Three types of manuscripts will be considered for publication:

Review giving personal views presented by prominent scientists on contemporary developments in their field of interest. It should not exceed 9000 words (altogether with Title page, References and figure and table legends) with a maximum of 3 figures or 3 tables.
Full Length Paper published in the journal are usually between six and eight printed pages including references and a maximum of 5 figures or tables, this is about 4500 words of the entire manuscript.
Rapid Communication or Short Communication should not exceed 2000 words, with a maximum of 2 figures or tables, i.e. 4 printed pages (including figures and tables).

Manuscript style

Review must be sub-divided into the following sections:

Title page should comprise:

- A title of the paper,
- First name(s) and surname of author(s)
- Institutes - author's workplace (affiliation to be indicated by numbers)
- Full address of corresponding author
- Short title (reduced title of the article, that will appear as a page heading in the journal at the top of the printed pages, not more than 60 type-written strokes including spaces ).

Summary. Each paper should contain summary of the main points (not more than 200 words).
Key words. Immediately following the summary, up to 5 key words should be supplied for subject indexing. Key words should be taken from the Index Medicus (Medical Subject Headings) or be composed on the same principle.
(Text) Main text is divided into sections according to the topics.
References

Full paper must be sub-divided into the following sections:

Title page should comprise:

- A title of the paper,
- First name(s) and surname of author(s)
- Institutes - author's workplace (affiliation to be indicated by numbers)
- Full address of corresponding author
- Short title (reduced title of the article, that will appear as a page heading in the journal at the top of the printed pages, not more than 60 type-written strokes including spaces ).

Summary. Each paper should contain summary of the main points (not more than 200 words).
Key words. Immediately following the summary, up to 5 key words should be supplied for subject indexing. Key words should be taken from the Index Medicus (Medical Subject Headings) or be composed on the same principle.
Introduction should contain background of the subject matter and explanation, why the research was carried out.
Methods. In this section, all materials and methods must be clearly described.
Results
Discussion should be well-arranged and concise.
Acknowledgments of financial support or technical assistance may follow the main body of the paper.
References are to be listed in alphabetical order, are not numbered, and must correspond to citations in the text. They must include: name and initials of all authors (in Capital letters), full title of paper, name of journal abbreviated according to Index Medicus (in Italics), volume number (in bold), first and last page and year of publication, e.g.:

GREGOR M, MEJSNAR J, JANOVSKÁ A, ŽURMANOVÁ J, BENADA O, MEJSNAROVÁ B: Creatine kinase reaction in skinned rat psoas muscle fibers and their myofibrils. Physiol Res 48: 27-35, 1999.
HATLE LK, APPLETON CHP, POPP RL: Differentiation of constrictive pericarditis and restrictive cardiomyopathy by Doppler echocardiography. Circulation 79: 357-376, 1989.

(Please, take notice, that there are NO empty line between two references)

References to monographs should be supplemented by the name of publishers, place of publication and in the case of a conference or symposial proceedings also by the name of editors, e.g.:
OLNEY JW: Neurocytology of excitatory amino acids. In: Kainic Acid as a Tool in Neurobiology. EG MCGEER, JW OLNEY, PL MCGEER (eds), Raven Press, New York, 1978, pp 95-121.

References should be referred to in the text by the name of author and year of publication, e.g. (Carlsson 1987) or (Schnermann and Briggs 1985). If there are more than two authors, then only the first should be given in the text, e.g.: (Gregor et al. 1999). A reference cited "in press" should include "accepted by" with the name of the journal in which it was accepted.

Rapid or Short communicaton will be subdivided into the following sections:

Summary
Main body of the text
References

Units. It is necessary to use the Systeme International d'Unites (SI) for the numerical expression of the results of measurements. In cases in which the SI unit is different from the conventional one, the conventional unit should be added in parentheses. In our journal, "liter" is marked as "l", not "L".

Text format

The manuscripts should be typed in double-line spacing. The form and contents should be carefully checked to correspond with our Instructions for Authors. The text of the manuscript sent to the Editors should be considered as final.
Electronic version should be sent via e-mail. Prepare your manuscripts using Word, preferably Word 97. Required file formats for text are rtf or doc. Apple/Macintosh files should be avoided. Submit graphic files separately from the text.

Figure Format

The number of illustrations should be kept to a minimum required for clarification of the text, the maximum of 5 for a full-length paper.
Prepare high-quality figures (photographs, graphs or diagrams): Captions will be in English, decimal place must be denoted by a point (not comma!). Figures should be sharp unmounted glossy photographs or computer-generated laser print.
Figures should be prepared for either single-column width (8 cm), whenever possible, or for double-column width (17 cm). All drawings for reduction to a given size should be drawn and lettered to the same scale. Lettering must be proportionate to the size of the figure (not to be less than 2 mm high after the reduction). Freehand, typewritten or dot-matrix lettering is not acceptable.
Each figure will contain a caption. An explanatory text, making the general meaning clear without reference to the text, should be at the end of a manuscript text, in the text file.
Color illustration will be accepted. However, the author will be expected to make a contribution towards the additional costs.
Required file formats for figures or images: jpg, cdr, or gif.

Manuscript submission

on-line as an attachment to our e-mail address. Both PDF (with tables and figures in one document) and Word versions (rtf or doc, and separate figures) are required. The files will be named after the first author, for example: nowak.doc, nowak.pdf, nowak_fig1.jpg.

Authors are asked to submit a proposal of four foreign referees and to give their names and e-mail addresses. The editorial board will then choose one or two from the proposed referees. This will speed up the whole editing process.
Revised manuscripts should be sent in a three-month time. After this time, the manuscript will be handled as a new paper submission.
Submitted manuscripts or manuscripts after author's revision that do not follow these Instructions will not be included into the peer-review process.

Proofreading

Major changes in the proofs are not permitted.

Authors should check if the text is complete and tables or figures are included.

Authors will receive either hard-copy or PDF file (in e-mail attachment) of the proofs. PDF proofreading should be print out. Authors will make corrections in a printout version using black pen. The corrected proofs should be send immediately back to the Editorial Office or faxed on our fax number +420 241 062 164.

Page charge

NEW: Change in payment

60 EUR as a processing fee will be asked for each article submitted after February 14, 2009.
Simultaneously, these articles will be exempted from the duty to pay a page charge (except for color page that will be charged 150 EUR per printed color page).
Page charge (20 Euro per printed page, including VAT, and additional 150 Euro per printed color page) will be preserved for all articles in press (i.e. accepted for publication before February 14, 2009) as well as for the articles that were submitted before this date if they will be accepted for publication after the reviewing process.
The review process will start after the Editorial Office receives the respective check or documents indicating bank transfer. If you are not sure whether the topic of your article is compatible with the scope of Physiological Research, please, wait with the payment until Editorial Office contact you.
The page charge for publishing abstracts from Meetings covers editorial and publishing expenses and will be set by the Editorial Office. Overall price for one abstract is 12 EUR / 300 CZK.