Corrections and retractions Policy
General Information
Biophysics Reports is an international open-access journal launched in August 2015. The journal offers a worldwide forum for publishing novel theories, methods, protocols and significant improvements on basic research techniques in multidisciplinary areas of the biological and biomedical sciences.
The journal welcomes submissions reporting on methods and/or techniques including but not limited to those used in: biophysics, cell biology, immunology, membrane biology, redox biology, photobiology, neurobiology, oncology, biochemistry, biomechanics and mechanobiology, structural biology, biomedical imaging, electron microscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, computational biology, bioinformatics, nano biomedicine, genetics, model organisms, protein science, developmental biology, omics and biomedical big data. We also encourage authors to submit research articles that include data based on specific methods or techniques. The article types include: Methods, Protocols, Research Articles, opinion and Reviews/Minireviews.
As the official journal of the Biophysical Society of China, Biophysics Reports ensures an unbiased and expedient peer-reviewing process and offers open access publishing. The article-processing charges for this journal are kindly sponsored by the Biophysical Society of China and the Institute of Biophysics, CAS. As such, authors can publish in the journal without any additional charges.
Policies
Authorship
The co-authors of a paper should include all persons who have made significant scientific contributions to the reported work and who share responsibility and accountability for it. Inclusion of a name as an author is a statement that this person did make substantial contributions. Other contributors should be indicated in the Acknowledgments section.
The corresponding author(s) is responsible for ensuring that all appropriate contributors are listed as authors and that all authors have agreed to the manuscript's content and its submission to BPR. All authors will be notified that the paper has been submitted. To ensure acknowledgment of submission, current email addresses must be provided for all authors on the paper. The corresponding author(s) is also responsible for ensuring adherence to all editorial and submission policies and informing all co-authors of any matters arising and to deal promptly with such matters.
Equal contribution designations are only permitted for the first author position. There is no limitation on the number of first authors that can be designated as equal contributors.
Authors are welcome to suggest suitable independent reviewers when they submit their manuscripts, but these suggestions may not be followed by the journal. Authors may also request the journal to exclude a few (usually not more than two) individuals or laboratories. The journal sympathetically considers such exclusion requests and usually honours them, but the editor's decision on the choice of peer-reviewers is final.
Conflict of Interest
BPR requires all authors to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest that might be construed to influence either the results or the interpretation of their manuscript, such as financial, personal or other relationships with other people or organizations with related interests. Authors must declare such conflicts both in the cover letter and in the COMPLIANCE WITH ETHICS GUIDELINES section of the manuscript itself. This policy applies to all submitted manuscripts and review materials.
Databases
Sequences of nucleic acids and proteins, molecular structures from X-ray crystallography and NMR, as well as molecular models, electron microscopic reconstructions, and microarray data should be deposited in the appropriate database prior to publication. These data must be accessible without restriction upon publication of the submitted paper. Entry names or accession numbers must be included in the paper before its publication. Microarray data must be MIAME compliant.
Duplicate Publication
Manuscripts submitted to BPR must be original and not published or submitted for publication elsewhere. This rule applies to manuscripts previously submitted to BPR, as well as material submitted elsewhere while BPR is considering the contribution.
If any part of the contribution that an author wishes to submit to BPR has appeared or will appear elsewhere, the author must specify the details in the covering letter accompanying the submission.
BPR is happy to consider submissions containing material that has been published previously in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis which has been published according to the requirements of the institution awarding the qualification.
BPR allows prior publication on recognized community preprint servers (such as ArXiv) for review by other scientists in the field before formal submission to the journal. The details of the preprint server concerned and any accession numbers should be included in the cover letter accompanying submission of the manuscript to BPR. This policy does not extend to preprints available to the media or that are otherwise publicised outside the scientific community before or during the submission and consideration process at BPR.
All in-press or submitted works that are pertinent to the manuscript under consideration by the journal (including those cited in the manuscript under consideration) must accompany the submission. Related manuscripts that have been submitted elsewhere during the period of revision and any information that will aid in the review process must accompany revised manuscripts. Failure to provide copies of related manuscripts under consideration elsewhere may delay the review process and may be grounds for rejection.
Under no circumstances will any paper be considered that contains any data that have been submitted for publication elsewhere.
If an author of a submission is re-using figure(s) published elsewhere, or that is copyrighted, the author must provide documentation that the previous publisher or copyright holder has given permission for the figure to be re-published. The editors of BPR consider all material in good faith that the journal has full permission to publish every part of the submitted material, including illustrations.
Human and Animal Rights
Manuscripts describing any experimental work with humans should include a statement that the research has been carried out in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki (2013) of the World Medical Association. Authors should confirm that the Ethical Committee of the Institution in which the work was performed has approved it, and that the subjects have been given informed consent to the work.
Experiments involving animals should be performed in accordance with relevant institutional and national guidelines and regulations and a statement to this effect must also be included. In the manuscript, a statement identifying the committee approving the experiments and confirming that all experiments conform to the relevant regulatory standards must be included in the COMPLIANCE WITH ETHICS GUIDELINES section. For additional information on the reporting of work in animals, please refer to the ARRIVE Guidelines.
Language
All submitted papers should be written in clear, proper English. Authors who are not native English speakers may ask an English-speaking colleague to proofread your paper. Papers that fail to meet basic standards of literacy are likely be declined immediately by the editors.
Open Access Policy
Biophysics Reports is an international open-access peer reviewed journal. We DO NOT currently charge an article processing fee to authors upon publication of their works. Biophysics Reports operates as a non-profit, volunteer and donation-based publication.
All articles published in the Biophysics Reports Journal are published under a Creative Commons license: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License
With this license, Authors retain copyright, but allow any user to share, copy, distribute, transmit, adapt and make commercial use of the work without needing to provide additional permission, provided appropriate attribution is made to the original Biophysics Reports author(‘s).
By using this license, all articles meet or exceed all funder and institutional requirements for being considered Open Access.
Authors cannot use copyrighted material within their article, such as previously published figures, unless that material has also been made available under a similarly liberal license or been given permission for reuse by the owners.
Plagiarism Policy
Biophysics Reports follows a strong plagiarism policy. It ensures that none of the parts of the manuscript is plagiarized from other sources and proper reference is provided for all contents extracted from other sources.
All the papers submitted have to pass through an initial screening and will be checked through the Advanced Plagiarism Detection Software (CrossCheck by iThenticate)
Plagiarism is the copying of ideas, text, data and other creative work (e.g. tables, figures, and graphs) and presenting it as original research without proper citation. Separate from the issue of plagiarism is the need for authors to obtain permission to reuse previously published work (even if properly cited) from the holder of the copyright (which is typically not the author).
It is essential that editors and reviewers be told by the authors when any portion of a paper is based heavily on previous work, even if this work has been written by one or more of the authors of the paper. It is the responsibility of the author not only to cite the previous work, including their own but to provide an indication of the extent to which a paper depends on this work.
Biophysics Reports will not tolerate plagiarism in submitted manuscripts. Passages quoted or closely paraphrased from other authors (or from the submitting authors' own published work) must be identified as quotations or paraphrases, and the sources of the quoted or paraphrased material must be acknowledged. Use of unacknowledged sources will be construed as plagiarism. If any manuscript is found to contain plagiarized material, the peer-review process will be halted immediately. For information on Ethics in publishing and Ethical guidelines for journal publication, please refer to the links below:
Council of scientific editors
http://www.councilscienceeditors.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3331
COPE
http://www.publicationethics.org/files/International%20standards_authors_for%20website_11_Nov_2011.pdf
Peer Review Policy
Biophysics Reports uses a double-blind peer-review process. This means that the journal’s peer-reviewers do not know the names and affiliations of the authors and that the reviewer reports provided to authors are anonymous. All submissions are initially evaluated in depth by a team of scientific editors. Papers that are not deemed by the editors to be strong candidates for publication will be returned to the authors without detailed review, typically within 1–7 days. Otherwise, manuscripts will be sent to reviewers who have agreed to assess the paper rapidly. The editors will make every effort to reach decisions on these papers within 2–3 weeks of the submission date. If revisions are a condition of publication, editors will carefully evaluate the reviewers' comments and, whenever possible, will provide guidance on the important concerns to be addressed. We generally allow 3 months for revisions and consider only one revised version of the paper. Evaluations of conceptual advance and significance are made based on the literature available on the day of the final decision, not the day of submission. Accepted papers will be published in print within 2 months of acceptance and, in most cases, earlier in print or online. Any major changes after acceptance are subject to review and may delay publication.
Advertising Policy
These principles are applied by Biophysics Reports in order to adhere to ethical standards of advertising and to assure the independence of Biophysics Reports-produced content.
·Biophysics Reports does not allow advertising to influence editorial decisions.
·Biophysics Reports accepts advertising for products and services that are of interest to users in their personal and as well as professional lives. Advertisements must be legal, decent and truthful and comply with the relevant laws, regulations and industry codes for the geographic area in which they appear.
·Biophysics Reports will not accept advertising for products or services known to be harmful to health (e.g. tobacco and alcohol products).
·All advertisements for drug specific campaigns should encourage correct and rational use and must not be misleading.
·Advertisements may not be deceptive or misleading, and must be verifiable. Advertisements should clearly identify the advertiser and the product or service being offered. Exaggerated or extravagantly worded copy will not be allowed. Advertisements will not be accepted if they appear to be indecent or offensive in either text or artwork, or if they relate to content of a personal, racial, ethnic, sexual orientation, or religious nature.
Corrections and retractions Policy
Biophysics Reports operates the following policy for making corrections to its peer-reviewed content.
Publishable amendments must be represented by a formal online notice because they affect the publication record and/or the scientific accuracy of published information. Where these amendments concern peer-reviewed material, they fall into the following categories:
Publisher Corrections (formerly Errata) concern the amendment of mistakes introduced by the journal in production, including errors of omission such as failure to make factual proof corrections requested by authors within the deadline provided by the journal and within journal policy. Publisher Corrections are generally not published for simple, obvious typographical errors, but are published when an apparently simple error is significant (e.g. a typographical error in the corresponding author's name).
If there is an error in the lettering on a figure, the usual procedure is to publish a sentence of rectification. A significant error in the figure itself is corrected by publication of a new corrected figure as a Publisher Correction. The figure is republished only if the Editors consider it necessary for a reader to understand it.
Author Corrections (formerly Corrigenda) are judged on their relevance to readers and their importance for the published record. Author Corrections are published after discussion among the Editorial Board Members, Editorial Advisory Panel and the publishing team. All co-authors must sign an agreed wording.
Author Corrections submitted by the original authors are published if the academic accuracy or reproducibility of the original paper is compromised; occasionally, on investigation, these may be published as Retractions. In cases where some co-authors decline to sign an Author Correction or Retraction, we reserve the right to publish it with the dissenting author(s) identified. The journal publishes Author Corrections if there is an error in the published author list, but not for overlooked acknowledgements.
Readers wishing to draw the journal's attention to a significant published error should contact the publishing team.
Retractions are judged according to whether the main conclusion of the paper no longer holds or is seriously undermined as a result of subsequent information coming to light of which the authors were not aware at the time of publication. In the case of experimental papers, this can include further experiments by the authors or by others that do not confirm the main experimental conclusion of the original publication. Readers wishing to draw the Editors’ attention to published work requiring retraction should first contact the authors of the original paper and then write to the publishing team, including copies of the correspondence with the authors (whether or not the correspondence has been answered). The publishing team and Editorial Board Member will seek advice from referees if they judge that the information is likely to draw into question the main conclusions of the published paper.
Addenda (singular: Addendum) are notifications of additional information about a paper, usually in response to readers' requests for clarification. Addenda, including Editorial Expressions of Concern, are published when the in-house editors decide that the addendum is crucial to the reader's understanding of a significant part of the published contribution.
Editorial decision-making Decisions about types of correction are made by the journal's in-house editors, sometimes with the advice of referees, Editorial Board members. This process involves consultation with the authors of the paper, but the in-house editors make the final decision about whether an amendment is required and the category in which the amendment is published.
When an amendment is published, it is linked bi-directionally to and from the article being corrected.
Authors sometimes request a correction to their published contribution that does not affect the contribution in a significant way or impair the reader's understanding of the contribution (e.g. a spelling mistake or grammatical error). The journal does not publish such corrections. The online article is part of the published record and hence its original published version is preserved. The journal does, however, correct the online version of a contribution if the wording in the html version does not make sense when compared with the PDF version (e.g. 'see left' for a figure that is an appropriate phrase for the PDF but not for the html version). In these cases, the fact that a correction has been made is stated in a footnote so that readers are aware that the originally published text has been amended.
Submission
Article Types
Puncta
Puncta are essentially auto-commentary. The Editorial Board will solicit authors of the most significant recent and forthcoming papers, published elsewhere, to provide a short summary with additional insights, new interpretations or speculation on the relevant topic. The puncta should not include data, but model figures are acceptable. The first paragraph will constitute the abstract and the text is limited to 1,000 words. Puncta will have no references, but the original paper will still be noted on the first page.
Methods
Method is a methodological report of primary research data on a new technique that is likely to be influential. Include detailed descriptions of the method, and all the technical details necessary to its reproducibility, and the results of a validation study. Show an application of the new method to an important biological question and demonstrate its advantage over existing approaches Validation of the new method and demonstration of its superiority over existing techniques most often involve novel biologically relevant data.
Begin with an unreferenced abstract and followed by separate sections for Introduction, Results, Discussion and supporting information (SI) of Methods. Introduction and Discussion are brief and focused, the Results section usually contains a general description of the method followed by its validation, and the SI section provides all technical details necessary for the independent reproduction of the methodology. The main text (excluding abstract, SI, references and figure legends) should reach 2,500 – 3,500 words.
Protocols
Protocols contain a summary, followed by separate sections comprising a brief introduction, materials, procedure (with critical steps highlighted), timing information, troubleshooting, anticipated results and references. Figures and diagrams are included, where appropriate.
Reviews
Authors of reviews and mini-reviews should follow the instructions above regarding abstract, font, spacing figures, tables and references. The text can be divided into sections such as “introduction” or “background” followed by section titles appropriate to the subject. The main text (excluding abstract, SI, references and figure legends) should reach 3,000 – 5,000 words.
Research Articles
Original articles reporting the application of new methods that address to certain important biological questions, and results shall demonstrate the significance of new methods in comparison with existed approaches or techniques.
Format
We use Microsoft Word (any editions) in the Editorial office. File sizes should be as small as possible, with a maximum size of 20 MB, so that they can be downloaded quickly. The combined total size of all files must not exceed 50 MB.
The following format for the text is recommended but not required for submission.
Title The title should be informative and concise, and not longer than 150 characters (including spaces). It should describe the topic of the manuscript in terms understandable to a broad readership.
Running title The running title describes the key aspect of the paper and should be 60 characters or less (including spaces). Authors Authors should be listed with full names, beginning with the given name, and followed by the family name. Affiliations (including department/unit, institution, city, state/region, postal code and country) should be provided for each author. If the authors are affiliated to different units, the affiliation sequence should be in the same order of author list, marked at the right upper corner of the author names using 1, 2, 3, etc. Corresponding author’s name, full postal address, telephone and fax numbers and e-mail address need to be provided.
Keywords Up to 6 words separated by commas.
Abstract The abstract (up to 250 words) should be written in one paragraph, clearly indicating the objectives, the key methods, major results and their significance. Extensive experimental detail and reference should be avoided.
Introduction The introduction should include the background of the research through literature citation, the questions needed to be resolved, the objectives of the research, and the main methods used.
Results Results can be described using text, tables and figures. The text should complement material given in Tables and/or Figures but should not directly repeat it. Please give full details of statistical analysis either in the text or in Tables and/or Figure legends. Please include the type of test, the precise data to which it was applied, the value of the relevant statistics, the sample size and/or degrees of freedom, and the probability level.
Discussion The main purpose of the Discussion is to comment on the significance of the results and set them in the context of previous work. Hypothesis should be rational and evidence-based. Please avoid repeating information in the Results section. Materials and methods Methods must be described in sufficient detail to permit other laboratories to replicate experiments and verify claims. Generally, standard procedures should be referenced, though significant variations should be described. Appropriate experimental design and statistical methods should be applied and described wherever necessary for proper interpretation of data and verification of claims. All novel materials and procedures should be described in sufficient detail to allow their reproduction (e.g., DNA constructs, genetic stocks, enzyme preparations, and analytical software).
Acknowledgements A list of contributions, credits, potential conflicts of interests, and previous presentation of the information reported in the manuscript.
Abbreviations Abbreviations used in the text should be defined. However, some common names, such as GTP, RNA, PBS, PCR need not be defined. All nomenclature, including gene names and symbols, should be used in a scientifically accurate manner following the nomenclature conventions adopted by the scientific community.
Figure legends Every figure should have a title, and the figure legend should follow the title closely. Figure legends should provide enough information to make the figures understandable without frequently referring to the text. Do not describe methods in figure legends unless they are necessary to interpret the results conveyed by the figure. Define in the legend all symbols and abbreviations that are used in the figure.
Tables Tables should be self-contained and self-explanatory. All tables should be cited in the text and numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals. Label each table at the top with an Arabic numeral followed by the table title. Insert explanatory material and footnotes below the table. Designate footnotes using lowercase superscript letters (a, b, c) reading horizontally across the table. Abbreviations that are used in a table should be defined in the footnotes. Please prepare the tables in MS Word with a single-space format. Do not embed tables as graphic files, document objects, or pictures.
Figures Figures (graphs, charts, photographs, and illustrations) should be self-explanatory and labeled professionally.
Dimensional drawings and diagrams should include only the essential details and as little lettering as possible. The magnification for micrographs should be indicated by scale bars, inscriptions should be legible, and the symbols and letters should be consistent among the panels.
Please make sure that the letters, labels and symbols are in proportion to the figure and are easily readable after the figures are reduced to printable size. For example, the final text should be at least 2 mm in size and the graph lines should be at least 0.5 pt in weight. We recommend that all graphs are submitted in the intended publication size. The options include:
1 column width: 3.3 inches (8.4 cm)
2 column width: 6.7 inches (17 cm)
Maximum height: 9 inches (23.0 cm)
Figures should be prepared in a publication quality resolution. The minimal resolution is:
300 dpi for grayscale and color image
900 dpi for line art
Compliance with Ethics Guidelines In order to comply with the ethical requirements, the following sentences should be included in a separate section of each article just before the reference list. The section should be called “Compliance with Ethics Guidelines”.
Conflict of Interest:
When an author or the institution of the author has a relationship, financial or otherwise, with individuals or organizations that could influence the author’s work inappropriately, a conflict of interest may exist. Examples of potential conflicts of interest may include but are not limited to academic, personal, or political relationships; employment; consultancies or honoraria; and finical connections such as stock ownership and funding. Although an author may not feel that there are conflicts, disclosure of relationships and interests that could be viewed by others as conflicts of interest affords a more transparent and prudent process. General collective statements like “The authors declare that there is no Conflict of Interest” is NOT sufficient. The Conflict of Interest statements should list each author separately by name:
John Smith declares that he has no conflict of interest.
Paula Taylor has received research grants from Drug Company A.
Mike Schultz has received a speaker honorarium from Drug Company B and owns stock in Drug Company C.
If multiple authors declare no conflict, this can be done in one sentence:
John Smith, Paula Taylor, and Mike Schultz declare that they have no conflict of interest
For studies with human subjects include the following:
All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (5). Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.
If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach, and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study.
If any identifying information about patients is included in the article, the following sentence should also be included:
Additional informed consent was obtained from all patients for which identifying information is included in this article.
For studies with animals include the following sentence:
All institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals were followed.
For articles that do not contain studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors:
While it is not absolutely necessary, we recommend to include the following sentence, just to make sure that readers are aware that there are no ethical issues with human or animal subjects:
This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by the any of the authors.
References Biophysics Reports reference style can be downloaded from “Guidelines--Templates--Endnote output style for Biophysics Reports”.
Supplementary Materials Supplementary materials that are directly related to the conclusion are welcomed. However, unrelated data may be removed by editors. Depending on the nature of the supplementary data, they can be in plain text, MS Word, MS Excel, JPEG, TIFF, video etc.. We encourage authors to submit supplementary documents in PDF format if applicable.
Publication Charges
We do not charge submission fee or publication fee. Color figures, if considered essential for comprehension of the work, will be accepted and published for free.
Requirements
Cover letter
A cover letter from the corresponding author must accompany the manuscript and should provide a brief description of what was known in the field, the conceptual breakthrough, and the significance of the reported findings. The authors are encouraged to suggest appropriate reviewers and are permitted to make request for reviewer exclusions. The cover letter should state that the submitted material is original research, has not been previously published, and has not been submitted elsewhere while under review by Biophysics Reports. The cover letter is confidential and will not be sent to the reviewers.
Manuscript components
Manuscript should be arranged in the following order: (a) Title section, including Title, Running Title, Keywords, Authors, Author Affiliations, and Correspondence. (b) Abstract. (c) Introduction. (d) Results. (e) Discussion. (f) Materials and Methods. (g) Footnotes, including acknowledgement and abbreviation. (h) References. (i) Figure legends. (j) Tables. (k) Figures. (l) Supplementary data.
Text components of the manuscripts (a-i) should be prepared with Microsoft Word in double spacing and size 12 Times New Roman font, with all pages numbered. Tables should be prepared in Microsoft Word with single space. Figures (k) should be converted to PDF format if submitted through email (biophysics-reports@ibp.ac.cn) or uploaded individually through the online submission system:
https://mc03.manuscriptcentral.com/bpr