Research on Biomedical Engineering
/instructions
Research on Biomedical Engineering

Guidelines and Policies

Research on Biomedical Engineering is an English-language journal and publishes original research, reviews, technical communications and letters to the editor on current topics in all fields of Biomedical Engineering. Prospective authors should follow the general instructions given below. Submission of a manuscript implies that it has not been published or is currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. For more information, please contact the editorial office.

Submit a Manuscript

Manuscripts must be submitted in a single file containing the body of the text and all graphics, figures and tables (see guidelines below).

Submission of manuscripts should be accompanied by the following documents (PDF format or scanned image files and compressed in ZIP format):

  1. ;
  2.  - this form must be signed by all authors and should contain a declaration of copyright transfer and any financial or similar relationship that may lead to possible conflict of interest - financial and/or professional relation with organizations associated with the products and/or equipment involved in the research (sponsorship, financing, ownership etc);
  3. Approved protocol of an accredited Ethics Committee - for research involving humans or animals;
  4. IV. Clinical trials must provide registration that satisfies the requirements of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), e.g.  and/or . The complete list of all clinical trial registries can be found at: .

Electronic Submission

Research on Biomedical Engineering uses ScholarOne Manuscripts for paper submission and peer review.

Log in to 

You will need an User ID and a Password. If you are not already registered, you can register by clicking on the New User / Register here on the login screen and following the on-screen instructions.

To submit a new manuscript, go to the Author Center, and click on Click here (Author Resources towards the bottom of the page) to submit a New Manuscript, and then follow the on-screen instructions.

There are up to 7 steps for you to follow to submit your manuscript. 
You move from one step to the next by clicking on the Save and Continue button on each screen or back to the previous screen by clicking on the Previous button. 
Please note that if you click on theBack or Forward buttons on your browser, the information you have entered will not be saved.

To return to the submission process at a later date, you can click on the manuscript title in the Unsubmitted Manuscripts section in your Author Center. 
You may like to have the original electronic file available so that you can copy and paste the title and abstract into the required fields.

Publication Fees

RBE does not charge for submission, processing or publication of manuscripts.

Plagiarism Checking

Papers submitted to RBE will be screened for plagiarism using electronic detection tools.
Manuscripts leading to plagiarism or self-plagiarism will be immediately reject.

Instructions to Authors

Manuscripts Categories

Research on Biomedical Engineering encourages submissions of Original articles, Reviews, Technical communications and Letters to the editor, written in English.

Original articles

These articles describe significant methods and results of original research and developments in the area.

Reviews

Review articles should cover themes that are relevant to the area, describing the state of the art with a critical view of recent developments and/or introducing original points of view : they should not be limited to a review of the literature. The submission of this type of article must be made upon invitation or previous consult to the Editor-in-Chief.

Technical communication

Technical communications are considered important tools for disseminating ingenious solutions for design, maintenance, experimental techniques and applied informatics. While not considered as a full scientific article, a technical communication allows readers to benefit from the ingenuity and creativity of the authors.

Letters to the editor

Those letters normally should contain comments or discussion of previously published papers or other topics of interest to the community. Whenever necessary, we shall give the opportunity to authors, organizations or individuals, mentioned in the letter, to respond. The letters are not submitted to peer review and are published at the discretion of the Editorial Board.

Peer Review

Manuscripts submitted in the first three categories (Original Articles, Reviews and Technical Communications) are reviewed by at least two expert consultants, chosen by the associate editor appointed for each article. In addition to the reviewers, the Editor may issue comments and criticism regarding the style and/or the content of the manuscript.

Upon submission of the revised manuscript, authors must provide responses to all of the reviewers´ and editor’s comments and recommendations on a point-to-point basis.

Language

Manuscripts must be submitted in English.

Clear English phrasing is mandatory for review and publication.

The authors are the sole responsible for the contents of the text, including the appropriate use of English language. Submitted manuscripts may be turned out or rejected for poor use of language.

For nonnative speakers, professional English editing services may help improve the presentation of the manuscript prior to journal submission and publication. Examples of such external professional services (not excluding others) are: American Journal Experts (); Scribendi (); Nature Publishing Groups Language Editing (); Enago (); Edanz (); Editage (). Authors are free to use the service that best suits their needs.

Even when external services are used, the sole and final responsibility regarding the manuscript contents remains with the authors.

Manuscript Preparation

  • Manuscripts must be posted in a single ".doc", ".docx" or ".rtf" file, containing the main text, references, figures and tables.
  • Adjust paper size to A4, margins 2.0 cm, single column, double spaced and Times New Roman font - size 12.
  • All pages and lines must be numbered continuously.
  • Manuscripts must begin with a front page containing: title of the article, full names and addresses (department, faculty, university, city and country) of all authors, full address and email of the corresponding author, and a running title (short title).
  • Please use no more than three heading sublevels (unnumbered). Some examples of heading formats are:
    • Heading level 1: Times New Roman, 12pt, bold
    • Heading level 2: Times New Roman, 12pt, bold, italic.
    • Heading level 3: Times New Roman, 12pt, italic.
  • Figures and Tables must be numbered as they appear in the text and come, in the body of the text, immediately after being cited for the first time. Legends must contain all relevant information, including the definition of all abbreviations used in the figure or table, independent of their previous definition in the manuscript text. You may use lower resolution figures in the body of the text, as long as they can be read accurately. However, when submitting your manuscript, you must also submit the figures in a separated file with at least 300 dpi resolution.
  • When using previously published illustrations, authors should upload permission for reproduction from the copyright owner of the original source during submission of the manuscript.
  • Metric units (System of International Units - SI) must be used for equations, figures, tables and throughout the text.
  • Equations must be numbered consecutively, e.g. (1), (2), (3a), (3b), and justified to the right:

(1)

Letters to the editor

Although there is no specific format for those letters, they may be edited for clarity or length at the editor´s discretion. Manuscripts must be limited to 4 pages of text, including references, but not figures and tables (limited to 2).

Reviews

Must be limited to 25 pages, including the references. Figures and tables must be limited to 8.

These manuscripts must be structured as follows:

  1. Front page: as described above;
  2. Abstract:: provide a concise presentation of no more than 250 words, in a single paragraph, followed by three to six keywords. Do not use references, footnotes and undefined abbreviations. The abstract must be written in structured format, according to the main headings of the text (e.g. “Introduction”, “Methods” and “Discussion”);
  3. Review: the main body of the text can be divided in headings, subheadings and paragraph titles at the discretion of the authors. However, the final structure may be adjusted by the editorial board, if necessary;
  4. Acknowledgments please include financial support; and
  5. References: see below for reference and citation styles.

Original articles and Technical communications

Original articles must be limited to 25 pages, including the references. Figures and tables must be limited to 8.

Technical communications must be limited to 10 pages, including the references. Figures and tables must be limited to 6.

These manuscripts must be structured as follows:

  1. Front page: as described above;
  2. Abstract: provide a concise presentation of no more than 250 words, in a single paragraph, and followed by three to six keywords. Do not use references, footnotes and undefined abbreviations. The abstract must be written in structured format, according to the following headings: “Introduction”, “Methods”, “Results” and “Conclusion”;
  3. Introduction: describe the subject of investigation, with a brief review of the literature, showing how it relates to other studies in the field, along with the objectives of the work;
  4. Methods: give clear and sufficient information to allow other researchers to replicate the work;
  5. Results: present the results clearly, including the results of the statistical analysis when applicable;
  6. Discussion: the discussion should present a critical analysis of the new findings in the light of existing knowledge and available literature. Repeating information provided earlier should be avoided. The limitations of the study and its implications should be provided here. This section should be concluded with the major scientific contribution of work and its relevance to the current state of the art.
  7. Acknowledgments: please include financial support; and
  8. References: see below for reference and citation styles.

References and Citations

Research on Biomedical Engineering adopts a style based on the standards of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) -  - for references.

List of references

Only citations that appear in the text should be referenced.

The list of references should be arranged in alphabetical order according to the surname of the first author. In case of more than one paper of the same first author and the same year, distinguish them with a lowercase letter after the year (2010a, 2010b). The surnames of all the authors are listed if six or fewer, followed by their initials, and, if there are more than six authors, only the first six authors are listed followed by ‘et al.’. Journal titles should be written in abbreviated form. 

Format of the references

Some examples:

Journal article

Author(s). Article title. Journal Title. Year of Publication; Volume(Issue):page numbers. 

Moraes MC, Furuie SS. An approach to automatically segment the media-adventitia borders in IVUS. Rev Bras Eng Biomed. 2010; 26(3):219-33. 

Hallal AH, Amortegui JD, Jeroukhimov IM, Casillas J, Schulman CI, Manning RJ, et al. Magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography accurately detects common bile duct stones in resolving gallstone pancreatitis. J Am Coll Surg. 2005; 200(6):869-75. 

Zaphiropoulos PG, Soderkvist P, Hedblad MA, Toftgard R. Genetic instability of microsatellite markers in region q22.3-q31 of chromosome 9 in skin squamous cell carcinomas. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 1994; 201:1495-501. DOI: 10.1006/bbrc.1994.1873. 

Agarwal S, Rao A. Modulation of chromatin structure regulates cytokine gene expression during T-cell differentiation. Immunity. 1998; 9(6):765-75. PubMed: PMID 12000309. 

Yu WM, Hawley TS, Hawley RG, Qu CK. Immortalization of yolk sac-derived precursor cells. Blood. 2002; 100(10):3828-31. Epub 2002 Jul 5.

Online Journal Article

Author(s). Article title. Journal Title [Medium]. Date of publication [cited Date];Volume Number(Issue Number):Page numbers. Available from: URL 

Abood S. Quality improvement initiative in nursing homes: the ANA acts in an advisory role. Am J Nurs [internet]. 2002 Jun [cited 2002 Aug 12]; 102(6):[about 1 p.]. Available from: http://www.nursingworld.org/AJN/2002/june/Wawatch.htmArticle.

Journal article with organization as author

Organization. Article title. Journal Title. Date of Publication;Volume(Issue):page numbers.
(Omit any “the” at the beginning of an organization’s name). 

Parkinson Study Group. A randomized placebo-controlled trial of rasagiline in levodopa-treated patients with Parkinson disease and motor fluctuations: the PRESTO study. Arch Neurol. 2005; 62(2):241-8.

Conference

Author(s). Title of paper. In: Editor A, Editor B, Editors. Title of Published Proceedings: Proceedings of the Title of Conference: subtitle of Conference; Year Month Date; Location. Place of publication: Publisher; Year. p. inclusive page numbers. 

Christensen S, Oppacher F. An analysis of Koza's computational effort statistic for genetic programming. In: Foster JA, Lutton E, Miller J, Ryan C, Tettamanzi AG, editors. EuroGP 2002: Proceedings of the 5th European Conference on Genetic Programming; 2002 Apr 3-5; Kinsdale, Ireland. Berlin: Springer; 2002. p. 182-91.

Book

Author(s). Title. Edition. Place of Publication: Publisher; Date of Publication. 

Murray PR, Rosenthal KS, Kobayashi GS, Pfaller MA. Medical microbiology. 4th ed. St. Louis: Mosby; 2002.

Book with Organization as Author/Editor

Organization. Title. Edition. Place of Publication: Publisher; Date of Publication. 

Advanced Life Support Group. Acute medical emergencies: the practical approach. London: BMJ Books; 2001.

Book chapter

Author(s). Title of chapter or part. In: Editor A, Editor B, editors. Title: subtitle of book. Edition(if not the first). Place of publication: Publisher; Year. p. page numbers. 

Meltzer PS, Kallioniemi A, Trent JM. Chromosome alterations in human solid tumors. In: Vogelstein B, Kinzler KW, editors. The genetic basis of human cancer. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2002. p. 93-113.

Thesis, dissertation and monograph

Author. Title of thesis: subtitle. Unpublished thesis type [format]. Location of University: University; Year. 

Borkowski MM. Infant sleep and feeding: a telephone survey of Hispanic Americans. PhD [dissertation]. Mount Pleasant (MI): Central Micihigan University; 2002. 

Hincks CL. The detection and characterisation of novel papillomaviruses. Biomedical Science, Honours [thesis]. Murdoch (WA): Murdoch University; 2001.

Database on the Internet

Author/Organization. Database [internet]. Institution; City, Country; year [cited year month day]. Available from: web address. 

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo. Bireme. Scielo [Internet]. Botucatu: FAPESP; São Paulo: Bireme; 2000. [cited 2011 Jul 06]. Available from: www.scielo.br.

Citation

References must be cited in the text using the style “author data”, e.g., citations should indicate the surname of the authors and year of publication.

Some examples:

  • single author: Sayers (1970); (Sayers, 1970).
  • two authors: Moraes and Furuie (2010); (Moraes and Furuie, 2010).
  • more than two authors: Ferreira et al. (1984); (Ferreira et al., 1984).
  • multiple citation: Ferreira et al. (1984), Moraes and Furuie (2010) and Sayers (1970); (Sayers, 1970; Ferreira et al., 1984; Moraes and Furuie, 2010).
  • multiple citation of the same author and year: Santos (2003a; 2003b; 2007); (Santos, 2003a; 2003b; 2007).

Authors are responsible for the accuracy of the references and their correct citation in the text.

Instructions to Referees

Principles of peer review

Peer review is one of the most critical elements for publication of scientific works, ensuring the excellence of the researches published by Research on Biomedical Engineering (RBE).

The submitted manuscript is always considered a confidential document. Therefore, no one is allowed to share the manuscript without the explicit permission of the Editor, who should ask for the permission of the authors, if necessary.

For an in-depth review, at least two referees are consulted and their identity will not be disclosed. The reviewers´ comments and recommendations should be shared only with the authors, and possibly with other reviewers and the Editorial Board of RBE.

Before you begin the review, please consider:

  • Are you qualified to evaluate the article? If not, please inform the Editor as soon as possible.
  • Can you return the evaluation by the deadline established by the Editor? If not, please inform the Editor as soon as possible.
  • Are there any conflicts of interest involved in reviewing the manuscript? For instance: is it from a colleague or have you ever co-authored other papers with one of the authors? Those aspects will not necessarily rule out a reviewer, however, you should let the Editor know as soon as possible.

Reviewing the manuscript

Reviewing is a confidential process. Hence the manuscript cannot be disclosed or presented to others. If, by any chance, you consider the necessity of knowing the opinion of others, in order to help you with the review, get in touch with the Editor. Also, you should not contact the authors – this is restricted to the Editorial board.

The evaluation of the manuscript must be made against a number of guidelines, including, but not limited to:

  • Originality: Does the article contribute to knowledge in the field? Does it add to the canon of knowledge? Have the results reported in the article been published elsewhere?
  • Relevance: Is it sufficiently novel and interesting to warrant publication? Answers an important research question?
  • Organization and structure: Does the manuscript adhere to the RBE´s guidelines? Is it cleared laid out?
  • Language: Is it presented in an intelligible fashion? Is the language clear and unambiguous?
  • Abstract: Does it reflect the work exposed in the main text?
  • Problem definition: Does it have enough information (specially the introduction) regarding the problem under investigation? What are the main claims?
  • Methods: Does the manuscript contain enough information about the experiments? Is there enough information so that the work can be reproduced? Are the methods explained with the necessary scientific rigor, ensuring that the results are meaningful and defensible?
  • Results: Do the authors thoroughly explain the results and the discoveries obtained from their experiments? Are the statistical analyses correct? Does the discussion carry sufficient debate and is supported by other works (if possible)? Does the conclusion summarize the main scientific contributions of the work?
  • References: Are they appropriate and sufficient to support the discussion and to position the research against the state of the art?

Furthermore, the revision must observe:

  • Is there enough information to support the discussion (especially if the work is based on previous researches)? Is there any important information, or references to key works, that have been omitted?
  • Are the figures and tables clear, legible and consistent (scales, measures, etc.)?
  • Ethical aspects:
    • Plagiarism: Although it is not a primary purpose of peer review to detect plagiarism, whenever you suspect that the article contains substantial parts of other works, please get in touch with the Editor, providing as much detail as possible.
    • Fraud: If you suspect that the results of the paper are not entirely true, please let the Editor know, providing as much detail as possible.
    • Researches involving humans or animals: Is there an approved protocol of an accredited Ethics Committee? Information about people involved in the research (volunteers/patients) are kept confidential or are been published with their explicit permission?

Sending you evaluation to the Editor

Upon completing your evaluation, please write a report with your comments to the authors and to the Editor – to do so, you must access the Electronic Management System of the journal and use the appropriate forms in the “Reviewer Center”.

Your report should include all those relevant aspects described above. Try to support your claims and whenever possible, make it clear if the comments reflect just a personal opinion or are based on other works published in the literature.

Also, remember that reviews should be constructive and courteous and the reviewer should respect the intellectual independence of the author. Reviewers should avoid personal comments - RBE reserves the right to edit out comments that may hinder constructive discussion of manuscripts.

Once you have finished the report, conclude the evaluation by selecting one of the following “Recommendations”:

  • The manuscript can be accepted as is.
  • The manuscript can be accepted after minor modifications – no need for further review.
  • The manuscript may be accepted after major modifications – it needs further review.
  • The manuscript should be framed as a Technical Communication.
  • The manuscript should be rejected.
  • The manuscript is more suitable for publication elsewhere.

Acceptance (1) indicates that the manuscript represents an important scientific contribution. In this sense, theoretical, experimental or clinical works are welcomed. Technical communications, tutorials or critical reviews can also be accepted, providing they reflect the 'state of the art' in relevant topics to the area.

Acceptance for publication after small modifications without further review (2) applies to those cases in which minor adjustments, indicated in the review (correction of graphical errors, grammar mistakes, duplication of information or omission of references), could improve the text, but do not interfere with the central issues and do not involve omissions of text or quotes that, when incorporated, would lead to further discussion.

Possible acceptance after major modifications and subjected to further review (3) should be an option when there are suggestions for reducing the text, inclusion of experimental or theoretical results or other items relevant to answer important questions or supplement the discussion. Also, it must be included in this category, those manuscripts with significant errors that can be corrected, or those with serious difficulties of understanding and inadequate presentation of information about materials, methods or mathematical formulations.

If the work is not set up as a full article, in accordance with the aspects discussed above, but it could allow readers to benefit from the ingenuity and creativity of his colleagues, the reviewer may suggest reducing it to a "Technical Communication" (4).

Recommendation for rejecting the article (5) applies in cases of poor quality. Although involving some subjectivity, this decision must be justified by claims such as: duplication of work already published; when the reviewer finds a theoretical or analytical mistake that invalidate the results and conclusions presented; contradictory results in the work itself or in relation to other issues, without presenting a thorough discussion about the discrepancies; lack of sufficient amount of new information in comparison to recently published articles; etc.

Rejection should be avoided when there are no capital flaws that can be pointed or solely due to differences of opinion in controversial fields such as choosing a model or a particular method for processing data.

Relevant articles, but without any affinity with Biomedical Engineering, could be classified as option (6) – recommending publication elsewhere.


Res. Biomed. Eng.

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