Instruction for Authors

Author Guidelines

Submission of a manuscript implies that the work described has not been published elsewhere (except for conference abstracts). Furthermore, the work is not under consideration for publication anywhere else and its publication has been approved by all co-authors, if any, as well as by the responsible authorities tacitly or explicitly at the institute where the work has been carried out. 

Before you decide to publish with IJDDP, please read the following items carefully and make sure that you are well aware of Open Access Policies and Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. 

Types of Articles

IJDDP does not require special formatting during the initial submission. Authors may follow any scholarly format or layout. This also includes references, as long as the citation style is consistent throughout the entire manuscript. However, authors are required to follow the specific guidelines based on the article type outlined below: 

IJDDP welcomes novel, timely, substantial contributions in the following 5 types: 

Article 

Original research articles are based on primary data collected through a systematic study and can be interventional or observational in nature. Special attention should be given to the description of the methods (i.e., the intervention). Cohort studies may only be considered if the activities of the cohort are described in detail and conclusions are presented. The content of the study should be described concisely in the title of the paper. Furthermore, research articles must provide an abstract as well as a summary box presenting the key facts of the paper. Pre-registration for original research is recommended and mandatory for clinical trials. The registration ID should be reported in the manuscript. Authors of RCT’s are also asked to follow the CONSORT statement when drafting the manuscript and to upload the CONSORT checklist. In case the work does not comprise a randomized design, modifications to the CONSORT guidelines should be reported. Please consult the CONSORT webpage for further information: http://www.consort-statement.org. Cohort studies should follow the STROBE guidelines, the corresponding checklist should be uploaded. This may be found on the following webpage: https://www.strobe-statement.org/index.php?id=available-checklists. 

The structure of original articles should be as follows: 

Abstract structure (up to 250 words): Objectives, Methods, Results and Conclusion. 

Manuscript structure and order of sections: Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion. 

Word count: The suggested minimum word count is 3500 words, not including references, affiliations, tables and figures. 

Review Article

Review submissions should (1) summarize recent research results on emerging topics in a well-organized way; (2) integrate in-depth understanding of the recent advances in the area; and (3) provide insightful overview of research trends for future topics. 

Systematic Survey/review articles should follow the detailed guidelines outlined below: 

Wherever possible, systematic survey/review articles should be supported by meta-analytical data. 

The literature search should have been completed within 12 months of manuscript submission. 

Manuscripts should follow the PRISMA checklist, and each item should be addressed. Submission should also include a flow diagram. 

Systematic survey/review articles should be registered, and the number and registry must be provided in the manuscript. 

Description: Reviews are comprehensive analyses of the pharmacological literature. Authors of unsolicited reviews must submit them directly via online submission system, following the standard submission procedure. As per IJDDP editorial policy, authors are not allowed to include any original data in reviews.

Short Communication

Short communication should comprise of novel findings, which may also be based on secondary analyses and/or preliminary data but provide a high impact for the field. 

Invited Mini Review

Mini-reviews provide a concise summary of a specific research topic or relevant field. They put previous research and findings in context and present current developments in a critical and focused manner.

Key aims of mini-reviews are to provide coverage of mature or emerging subjects, evaluations of progress in specified areas, and/or critical assessments of new technologies.

Commentary

Commentaries are short, narrowly focused articles that are usually commissioned by the journal. These articles are generally not peer-reviewed. A Commentary generally takes one of two forms:

The first form aims to highlight one or more exciting research articles or clinical trials, to discuss specific issues within a subject area rather than the whole field, and to explain the clinical implications of the article to place the new findings into context. Opinions are welcome as long as they are factually based.

The second form is more editorial in nature and covers an aspect of an issue that is relevant to the journal's scope. Examples of this type of Commentary could be a discussion of the impact of new technology on research and treatment, or a discussion of changes in peer review or grant application procedures and their effect on research. By their nature, the second form of Commentary is less frequent. Commentaries are usually commissioned from recognized experts in a particular field, and authors are asked to provide a balanced overview of the field, to cover only work that has been published (or is still in press at the time of writing), and not to discuss and cite primarily their own work or that of their close colleagues.

Commentaries should be a maximum of 1000 words and have a maximum of ten references. Typically, Commentaries do not contain abstract, figures or tables.

Letter to the Editor

A Letter to the Editor (LTE) is a brief communication to a journal’s editor or editorial team. LTEs enable prospective writers to directly interact with a manuscript’s authors and the journal’s readership and editorial team. LTEs should only be undertaken where there is genuine purpose and merit to readers and to scientific knowledge. It is usually written in response to a recent publication within the journal but can also be on an unrelated topic of interest to the journal’s readership. IJDDP accepts Letters to the Editor are where they are a comment on a paper published in the journal or relate to current issues pertinent to the field of automotive engineering. Word limit: 800 words, excluding references. Typically, LTEs does not contain abstract, figures or tables. 

The manuscript should be in the following order:

Cover Letter
Title
Authors and Affiliations
Abstract
Graphical Abstract
Keywords
Main Text
Figures and Tables
Supplementary Materials
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability and Statistical Reporting
Acknowledgements (if any)
Conflict of Interest Disclosure
References

1. Cover Letter

A cover letter must be included with each manuscript submission. It should be concise and explain why the content of the paper is significant, placing the findings in the context of existing work. It should explain why the manuscript fits the scope of the journal.

All cover letters are required to include the statements:

  • We confirm that neither the manuscript nor any parts of its content are currently under consideration or published in another journal.
  • All authors have approved the manuscript and agree with its submission to IJDDP.

2. Front Matter

2.1. Title

The title of the manuscript should be concise, specific and relevant. When gene or protein names are included, the abbreviated name rather than full name should be used. 

2.2. Authors and Affiliations

Authors' full names should be listed. The initials of middle names can be provided. Institutional addresses and email addresses for all authors should be listed. At least one author should be designated as corresponding author. In addition, corresponding authors are suggested to provide their Open Researcher and Contributor ID upon submission. Please note that any change to authorship is not allowed after manuscript acceptance. 

2.3. Abstract

Abstracts are required for all types of manuscripts (except for opinions, commentaries, and letters to the editor) and should consist of no more than 250 words. Abstracts should include the following structure: Objectives, Methods, Results and Conclusion.  

2.4. Graphical Abstract

A graphical abstract (GA) is an image that appears alongside the text abstract in the Table of Contents. In addition to summarizing the content, it should represent the topic of the article in an attention-grabbing way. Moreover, it should not be exactly the same as the Figure in the paper or just a simple superposition of several subfigures. Note that the GA must be original and unpublished artwork. Any postage stamps, currency from any country, or trademarked items should not be included in it. 

The GA should be a high-quality illustration or diagram in any of the following formats: PNG, JPEG, or TIFF. Written text in a GA should be clear and easy to read, using one of the following fonts: Times, Arial, Courier, Helvetica, Ubuntu or Calibri. 

The minimum required size for the GA is 198 × 280 pixels (height × width). The size should be of high quality in order to reproduce well. 

2.5. Keywords

Two to six keywords should be provided, which are specific to the article, yet reasonably common within the subject discipline.

3. Main Text

Manuscripts should be structured according to the Type of Article (see above). 

3.1. Figures and Tables

Figures and tables should appear in the body of the paper near the place where they are mentioned. High-resolution images should also be uploaded separately as figure files. The figures and tables should be cited in numeric order in the text.

All image files for figures should be labeled with the figure number (label each part if figures include multiple parts, e.g., 2A, 2B). The figure legend should be placed below each figure and should include descriptions of each figure part and identify the meaning of any symbols or arrows. Terms used for labels and in the legend must be consistent with those in the text.

Color will be used in the Journal where needed (e.g., histology slides or surgical photographs). All other figures, such as bar graphs and charts, should be submitted in black and white.

Figures for papers accepted for publication must meet the image resolution requirements. Files for line-based drawings (no grayscale) should ideally be submitted in the format they were originally created; if submitting scanned versions, files should be 1200 dots per inch (dpi). Color photos should be submitted at 600 dpi and black-and-white photos at 300 dpi.

Charts and graphs can be submitted in the original form created (e.g., Word, Excel, or PowerPoint). Photographs or scanned drawings embedded in Word or PowerPoint are not acceptable for publication. 

All photographs of patients that disclose their identity must be accompanied by a signed photographic release granting permission for their likeness to be reproduced in the article. If this is not provided, the patient’s eyes must be occluded to prevent recognition. 

For tables, the system accepts most common word processing formats. Tables should have a title that describes the content and purpose of the table. Tables should enhance, not duplicate, information in the text.

If you include figures that have already been published elsewhere, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner(s).

4. Back Matter

4.1. Supplementary Materials

Additional data and information can be uploaded as Supplementary Materials to accompany the manuscripts. The supplementary materials will also be available to the referees as part of the peer-review process. Any file format is acceptable, such as data sheet (word, excel, csv, cdx, fasta, pdf or zip files), presentation (powerpoint, pdf or zip files), image (cdx, eps, jpeg, pdf, png or tiff), table (word, excel, csv or pdf), audio (mp3, wav or wma) or video (avi, divx, flv, mov, mp4, mpeg, mpg or wmv). All information should be clearly presented. Supplementary materials should be cited in the main text in numeric order (e.g., Supplementary Figure 1, Supplementary Figure 2, Supplementary Table 1, Supplementary Table 2, etc.). The style of supplementary figures or tables complies with the same requirements on figures or tables in main text. Videos and audios should be prepared in English, and limited to a size of 500 MB.

4.2. Author Contributions

Each author is expected to have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work; or have drafted the work or substantively revised it; AND has approved the submitted version (and version substantially edited by journal staff that involves the author’s contribution to the study); AND agrees to be personally accountable for the author’s own contributions and for ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even ones in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and documented in the literature. 

For research articles with several authors, a short paragraph specifying their individual contributions must be provided. The following statements should be used "Conceptualization, X.X. and Y.Y.; Methodology, X.X.; Software, X.X.; Validation, X.X., Y.Y. and Z.Z.; Formal Analysis, X.X.; Investigation, X.X.; Resources, X.X.; Data Curation, X.X.; Writing – Original Draft Preparation, X.X.; Writing – Review & Editing, X.X.; Visualization, X.X.; Supervision, X.X.; Project Administration, X.X.; Funding Acquisition, Y.Y.”. Authorship statements should be formatted with the names of authors first and CRediT role(s) following. For more background on CRediT, see here. 

4.3. Funding

All sources of funding of the study should be disclosed. Clearly indicate grants that you have received in support of your research work and if you received funds to cover publication costs. Note that some funders will not refund article processing charges (APC) if the funder and grant number are not clearly and correctly identified in the paper.  

Please add: “This research received no external funding” or “This research was funded by [name of funder] grant number [xxx]” and “The APC was funded by [XXX]” in this section. Check carefully that the details given are accurate and use the standard spelling of funding agency names at https://search.crossref.org/funding, any errors may affect your future funding. 

4.4. Institutional Review Board Statement

In this section, please add the Institutional Review Board Statement and approval number for studies involving humans or animals. Please note that the Editorial Office might ask you for further information. Please add “The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Institutional Review Board (or Ethics Committee) of NAME OF INSTITUTE (protocol code XXX and date of approval).” OR “Ethical review and approval were waived for this study, due to REASON (please provide a detailed justification).” OR “Not applicable” for studies not involving humans or animals. You might also choose to exclude this statement if the study did not involve humans or animals.

4.5. Informed Consent Statement

Any research article describing a study involving humans should contain this statement. Please add “Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.” OR “Patient consent was waived due to REASON (please provide a detailed justifica-tion).” OR “Not applicable.” for studies not involving humans. You might also choose to exclude this statement if the study did not involve humans.

Written informed consent for publication must be obtained from participating patients who can be identified (including by the patients themselves). Please state “Written informed consent has been obtained from the patient(s) to publish this paper” if applicable.

4.6. Data Availability and Statistical Reporting

IJDDP aims to publish both experimental and observational research. Submission of study protocols is highly recommended, alongside the statistical codes underpinning the results (ideally available in web repositories, i.e., GitHub, OSF). Results should be reported alongside measures of uncertainty (confidence or credible intervals) and emphasis given on the effect size rather than “statistical significance.” Categorizing of continuous data is not recommended. Authors should clearly state how missing data and multiple testing have been handled and the statistical section should report the software used to perform the analysis, including non-routine packages/commands. Sensitivity analyses are encouraged to assess the robustness of the results. 

Authors may be asked to provide the raw data of their study together with the manuscript for editorial review and should be prepared to make the data publicly available if practicable. In any event, authors should ensure accessibility of such data to other competent professionals for at least 10 years after publication (preferably via an institutional or subject-based data repository or other data center), provided that the confidentiality of the participants can be protected and legal rights concerning proprietary data do not preclude their release. 

4.7. Acknowledgements (if any)

In this section you can acknowledge any support given which is not covered by the author contribution or funding sections. This may include administrative and technical support, or donations in kind (e.g., materials used for experiments). Authors should obtain permission to acknowledge from all those mentioned in the Acknowledgments section. 

4.8. Conflict of Interest Disclosure

Any interest or relationship, financial or otherwise that might be perceived as influencing an author's objectivity is considered a potential source of conflict of interest. These must be disclosed when directly relevant or directly related to the work that the authors describe in their manuscript. The existence of a conflict of interest does not preclude publication. If the authors have no conflict of interest to declare, they must also state this at submission. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to review this policy with all authors and collectively to disclose all pertinent commercial and other relationships during submission. 

4.9. References

References must be numbered in order of appearance in the text (including table captions and figure legends) and listed individually at the end of the manuscript. We recommend preparing the references with a bibliography software package, such as EndNote, Reference Manager or Zotero to avoid typing mistakes and duplicated references. We encourage citations to data, computer code and other citable research material. If available online, you may use reference style 9. below. 

Citations and References in Supplementary files are permitted provided that they also appear in the main text and in the reference list. 

In the text, reference numbers should be placed in square brackets [ ], and placed before the punctuation; for example [1], [1–3] or [1,3]. For embedded citations in the text with pagination, use both parentheses and brackets to indicate the reference number and page numbers; for example [5] (p. 10). or [6] (pp. 101–105). 

The reference list should include the full title, as recommended by the ACS style guide. Style files for Endnote and Zotero are available. 

References should be described as follows, depending on the type of work: 

  • Journal Articles:
    Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C.D. Title of the article. Abbreviated Journal Name Year, Volume, page range. 
  • Books and Book Chapters:
    Author 1, A.; Author 2, B. Book Title, 3rd ed.; Publisher: Publisher Location, Country, Year; pp. 154–196. 
    Author 1, A.; Author 2, B. Title of the chapter. In Book Title, 2nd ed.; Editor 1, A., Editor 2, B., Eds.; Publisher: Publisher Location, Country, Year; Volume 3, pp. 154–196. 
  • Unpublished materials intended for publication:
    Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C. Title of Unpublished Work (optional). Correspondence Affiliation, City, State, Country. year, status (manuscript in preparation; to be submitted). 
    Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C. Title of Unpublished Work. Abbreviated Journal Name year, phrase indicating stage of publication (submitted; accepted; in press). 
  • Unpublished materials not intended for publication:
    Author 1, A.B. (Affiliation, City, State, Country); Author 2, C. (Affiliation, City, State, Country). Phase describing the material, year. (phase: Personal communication; Private communication; Unpublished work; etc.) 
  • Conference Proceedings:
    Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C.D.; Author 3, E.F. Title of Presentation. In Title of the Collected Work (if available), Proceedings of the Name of the Conference, Location of Conference, Country, Date of Conference; Editor 1, Editor 2, Eds. (if available); Publisher: City, Country, Year (if available); Abstract Number (optional), Pagination (optional). 
  • Thesis:
    Author 1, A.B. Title of Thesis. Level of Thesis, Degree-Granting University, Location of University, Date of Completion. 
  • Websites:
    Title of Site. Available online: URL (accessed on Day Month Year). 
    Unlike published works, websites may change over time or disappear, so we encourage you create an archive of the cited website using a service such as WebCite. Archived websites should be cited using the link provided as follows: 
    Title of Site. URL (archived on Day Month Year). 

5. Authorship

IJDDP follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines which state that, in order to qualify for authorship of a manuscript, the following criteria should be observed:

  • Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
  • Drafting the work or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content; AND
  • Final approval of the version to be published; AND
  • Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Those who contributed to the work but do not qualify for authorship should be listed in the acknowledgments. More detailed guidance on authorship is given by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Any change to the author list should be approved by all authors including any who have been removed from the list. The corresponding author should act as a point of contact between the editor and the other authors and should keep co-authors informed and involve them in major decisions about the publication. We reserve the right to request confirmation that all authors meet the authorship conditions.

For more details about authorship please check Publication Ethics website.

6. Ethics Approval Statement

Our policy is to ensure that all articles published by IJDDP report on work that is morally acceptable and expects authors to follow the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki. To achieve this, we aim to appraise the ethical aspects of any submitted work that involves human participants, whatever descriptive label is given to that work including research, audit, and sometimes debate. If your study involves human subjects and/or animals, and also if your manuscript includes case reports/case series, you need to provide the following:

Authors must provide the name of the ethical approval committee/Institutional Review Board they have obtained consent form along with the approval number/ID.

Authors should specifically mention if a waiver was obtained for the study and the reason for the waiver. They should confirm that the study was conducted in accordance with Helsinki Declaration as revised in 2013.

Authors must state that written informed consent was obtained from the participants of the study (and the relevant document(s) must be provided when requested by the journal). If verbal informed consent was obtained, the reason(s) for the absence of written consent must be provided.

In addition, we welcome detailed explanations of how investigators and authors have considered and justified the ethical and moral basis of their work. If such detail does not easily fit into the manuscript, please provide it in the covering letter or upload it as a supplemental file when submitting the article. We will also be pleased to see copies of explanatory information given to participants. Even if we do not include such detailed information in a final published version, we may make it available to peer reviewers and editorial committees. We have already asked peer reviewers to consider and comment on the ethics of the submitted work.

IJDDP fully adheres to the Code of Conduct and the Guidelines of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The Editors of this journal have an obligation to assist the scientific community in all aspects of publishing ethics, including plagiarism. As such, we endeavor to ensure the transparent and quality peer review process. More details, please refer to our Publishing Policy. Authors should conform to the publication ethics.  

6.1. Research Involving Human Subjects

When reporting on research that involves human subjects, human material, human tissues, or human data, authors must declare that the investigations were carried out following the rules of the Declaration of Helsinki of 1975 (https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki/), revised in 2013. According to point 23 of this declaration, an approval from the local institutional review board (IRB) or other appropriate ethics committee must be obtained before undertaking the research to confirm the study meets national and international guidelines. As a minimum, a statement including the project identification code, date of approval, and name of the ethics committee or institutional review board must be stated in Section ‘Institutional Review Board Statement’ of the article.

Example of an ethical statement: "All subjects gave their informed consent for inclusion before they participated in the study. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of XXX (Project identification code)."

For non-interventional studies (e.g. surveys, questionnaires, social media research), all participants must be fully informed if the anonymity is assured, why the research is being conducted, how their data will be used and if there are any risks associated. As with all research involving humans, ethical approval from an appropriate ethics committee must be obtained prior to conducting the study. If ethical approval is not required, authors must either provide an exemption from the ethics committee or are encouraged to cite the local or national legislation that indicates ethics approval is not required for this type of study. Where a study has been granted exemption, the name of the ethics committee which provided this should be stated in Section ‘Institutional Review Board Statement’ with a full explanation regarding why ethical approval was not required.

A written informed consent for publication must be obtained from participating patients. Data relating to individual participants must be described in detail, but private information identifying participants need not be included unless the identifiable materials are of relevance to the research (for example, photographs of participants’ faces that show a particular symptom). Patients’ initials or other personal identifiers must not appear in any images. For manuscripts that include any case details, personal information, and/or images of patients, authors must obtain signed informed consent for publication from patients (or their relatives/guardians) before submitting to IJDDP. Patient details must be anonymized as far as possible, e.g., do not mention specific age, ethnicity, or occupation where they are not relevant to the conclusions. A blank version of the form used to obtain permission (without the patient names or signature) must be uploaded with your submission. Editors reserve the right to reject any submission that does not meet these requirements.

You may refer to our sample form and provide an appropriate form after consulting with your affiliated institution. For the purposes of publishing in IJDDP, a consent, permission, or release form should include unlimited permission for publication in all formats (including print, electronic, and online), in sublicensed and reprinted versions (including translations and derived works), and in other works and products under open access license. To respect patients’ and any other individual’s privacy, please do not send signed forms. The journal reserves the right to ask authors to provide signed forms if necessary.

If the study reports research involving vulnerable groups, an additional check may be performed. The submitted manuscript will be scrutinized by the editorial office and upon request, documentary evidence (blank consent forms and any related discussion documents from the ethics board) must be supplied. Additionally, when studies describe groups by race, ethnicity, gender, disability, disease, etc., explanation regarding why such categorization was needed must be clearly stated in the article.

6.2. Ethical Guidelines for the Use of Animals in Research

The editors will require that the benefits potentially derived from any research causing harm to animals are significant in relation to any cost endured by animals, and that procedures followed are unlikely to cause offense to the majority of readers. Authors should particularly ensure that their research complies with the commonly-accepted '3Rs [1]':

  • Replacement of animals by alternatives wherever possible,
  • Reduction in number of animals used, and
  • Refinement of experimental conditions and procedures to minimize the harm to animals.

Authors must include details on housing, husbandry and pain management in their manuscript.

For further guidance authors should refer to the Code of Practice for the Housing and Care of Animals Used in Scientific Procedures [2], American Association for Laboratory Animal Science [3] or European Animal Research Association [4].

If national legislation requires it, studies involving vertebrates or higher invertebrates must only be carried out after obtaining approval from the appropriate ethics committee. As a minimum, the project identification code, date of approval and name of the ethics committee or institutional review board should be stated in Section ‘Institutional Review Board Statement’. Research procedures must be carried out in accordance with national and institutional regulations. Statements on animal welfare should confirm that the study complied with all relevant legislation. Clinical studies involving animals and interventions outside of routine care require ethics committee oversight as per the American Veterinary Medical Association. If the study involved client-owned animals, informed client consent must be obtained and certified in the manuscript report of the research. Owners must be fully informed if there are any risks associated with the procedures and that the research will be published. If available, a high standard of veterinary care must be provided. Authors are responsible for correctness of the statements provided in the manuscript.

If ethical approval is not required by national laws, authors must provide an exemption from the ethics committee, if one is available. Where a study has been granted exemption, the name of the ethics committee that provided this should be stated in Section ‘Institutional Review Board Statement’ with a full explanation on why the ethical approval was not required.

If no animal ethics committee is available to review applications, authors should be aware that the ethics of their research will be evaluated by reviewers and editors. Authors should provide a statement justifying the work from an ethical perspective, using the same utilitarian framework that is used by ethics committees. Authors may be asked to provide this even if they have received ethical approval.

IJDDP endorses the ARRIVE guidelines (https://arriveguidelines.org/) for reporting experiments using live animals. Authors and reviewers must use the ARRIVE guidelines as a checklist, which can be found at https://arriveguidelines.org/sites/arrive/files/documents/ARRIVE%20Compliance%20Questionnaire.pdf. Editors reserve the right to ask for the checklist and to reject submissions that do not adhere to these guidelines, to reject submissions based on ethical or animal welfare concerns or if the procedure described does not appear to be justified by the value of the work presented.

6.3. Research Involving Cell Lines

Methods sections for submissions reporting on research with cell lines should state the origin of any cell lines. For established cell lines the provenance should be stated and references must also be given to either a published paper or to a commercial source. If previously unpublished de novo cell lines were used, including those gifted from another laboratory, details of institutional review board or ethics committee approval must be given, and confirmation of written informed consent must be provided if the line is of human origin.

An example of Ethical Statements:

The HCT116 cell line was obtained from XXXX. The MLH1+ cell line was provided by XXXXX, Ltd. The DLD-1 cell line was obtained from Dr. XXXX. The DR-GFP and SA-GFP reporter plasmids were obtained from Dr. XXX and the Rad51K133A expression vector was obtained from Dr. XXXX.

6.4. Research Involving Plants

Experimental research on plants (either cultivated or wild) including collection of plant material, must comply with institutional, national, or international guidelines. We recommend that authors comply with the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

For each submitted manuscript supporting genetic information and origin must be provided. For research manuscripts involving rare and non-model plants (other than, e.g., Arabidopsis thaliana, Nicotiana benthamiana, Oryza sativa, or many other typical model plants), voucher specimens must be deposited in an accessible herbarium or museum. Vouchers may be requested for review by future investigators to verify the identity of the material used in the study (especially if taxonomic rearrangements occur in the future). They should include details of the populations sampled on the site of collection (GPS coordinates), date of collection, and document the part(s) used in the study where appropriate. For rare, threatened or endangered species this can be waived but it is necessary for the author to describe this in the cover letter.

Editors reserve the rights to reject any submission that does not meet these requirements.

An example of Ethical Statements:

Torenia fournieri plants were used in this study. White-flowered Crown White (CrW) and violet-flowered Crown Violet (CrV) cultivars selected from ‘Crown Mix’ (XXX Company, City, Country) were kindly provided by Dr. XXX (XXX Institute, City, Country).

Arabidopis mutant lines (SALKxxxx, SAILxxxx,…) were kindly provided by Dr. XXX, institute, city, country).

7. Copyright and Permission to Reproduce Material

If your article makes use of any previously published material (including figures/diagrams, or short extracts, or content taken from websites) then you must first obtain the written permission of the copyright owner. The copyright owner is usually the publisher (for material taken from journal or proceedings articles), website owner/company (for material taken from websites) or the author or their employer (if the work is unpublished). Some publishers will also require that you seek the permission of the original author. You will need to check the terms of the publisher’s permission. 

We ask you to submit written evidence: 

  • That all necessary permissions have been obtained by providing the actual written permission granted by the copyright owner, or
  • That permission is not required, e.g., where the material is available under one of the Creative Commons licenses which allow commercial reuse and suits the purpose for which you want to reuse the content.

More details please check our Open Access Policy. 

8. Preprints and Conference Papers

IJDDP accepts submissions that have previously been made available as preprints provided that they have not undergone peer review. A preprint is a draft version of a paper made available online before submission to a journal. 

Expanded and high-quality conference papers can be considered as articles if they fulfill the following requirements: (1) the paper should be expanded to the size of a research article; (2) the conference paper should be cited and noted on the first page of the paper; (3) if the authors do not hold the copyright of the published conference paper, authors should seek the appropriate permission from the copyright holder; (4) authors are asked to disclose that it is conference paper in their cover letter and include a statement on what has been changed compared to the original conference paper. IJDDP does not publish pilot studies or studies with inadequate statistical power.