INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS
Scope and Editorial Policy
(formerly the Archivos de Biología y Medicina Experimentales) is
the official journal of the Sociedad de Biología de Chile (Chilean
Biology Society). This journal, founded in 1964 and renamed in 1992, is
a quarterly publication that spans the broad spectrum of experimental
Style and Preparation of Manuscripts
COSTS OF PUBLICATION
To facilitate the review process and editorial processing, authors should carefully comply with the following instructions.
This statement must be signed and dated by all of the authors and accompanied by their printed names. Authors from different countries or institutions may sign separate copies of the same statement.
1b) Authors’ Names (in upper-case letters). All authors must have directly and substantially participated in the reported study. Authors should be listed by full first name, middle initial, and full last name (e.g.: JOHN C JONES).
Commonly used equipment should be identified generically. However, special equipment that could have a bearing on the results obtained should be identified by manufacturer, serial number, and place of origin.
For chemical nomenclature, the conventions adopted by the Biochemical Society should be followed (see Biochem J 209: 1-27,1983). Drugs must be identified by their generic names (in lower case). If it is necessary to provide brand names and their sources, place them in parentheses (capitalized when appropriate). Enzymes should be identified when first mentioned and in accordance with the Enzyme Commissions (EC) of the International Union of Biochemistry.
The Methods section should include precise information on the statistical analyses performed. Indicate the manner in which results are expressed (means, ± SDs or SEMs; or medians and ranges or confidence limits); whether parametric (chi-square, Student’s t-tests, ANOVA) or nonparametric (Wilcoxon, Kruskall-Wallis, Friedman, Quade, Kolmogorov-Smirnoff) tests were used, correlation coefficients (Pearson-s product-moment or Spearman’s rank) were employed, etc.
3c) RESULTS. Findings should be described in this section without discussion of their significance. Tell the reader clearly and exactly what your findings were. Try to quantify whenever possible.
Decimal values should be limited to three decimal places and indicated with a period, not a comma (e.g.: p<0.001). Algebraic notation is recommended for smaller values (e.g.: p = 7±10-5). Large numbers (thousands, millions, etc.) should be separated every three places by commas.
Provide information on the variability and statistical significance of data reported. Mean values must be accompanied by standard deviations (SDs) or standard errors of the means (SEMs), but not both. Indicate which of the statistics is employed and the number of observations from which they were derived. Statistics related to the same variable (e.g.: mean and SEM) must be expressed to the same number of decimal places.
Data may be presented in Tables or Figures (see below) when strictly necessary, but the same data should not be reported under both forms. Do not repeat in the Text all the data appearing in the Tables and Illustrations.
3d) DISCUSSION. TThis section should be concise and emphasize the new and significant aspects of the study, as well as the conclusions that follow from them.
The discussion should focus on the interpretation of the results obtained. Emphasis should be placed on the biological significance of statistically significant effects. State whether the results obtained provide an answer to the questions posed by the study or support the hypothesis presented in the Introduction.
Discussion of previous observations must be related to the present findings and speculations must rest upon these findings. Negative results may provide useful conclusions and merit publication if these results were obtained from carefully designed and performed experiments.
3e) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. Specify grant support. Acknowledge only those individuals who have made substantial contributions to the study and who agree to be mentioned.
Bibliographical references should be listed in alphabetical order by author’s last name. If there is more than one reference for an author or a group of authors, the references should be listed chronologically, with the earliest publication first. In two-author papers with the same first author, the order must be alphabetical by the second author’s last name. When three or more authors are listed, the order will be chronological according to the first author only (disregarding the order of subsequent authors’ names), as these references will be cited in the text by the principal author only, followed by the abbreviation “et al.”.
Each reference should include last names and initials of all authors, entirely in upper case letters. There should be no punctuation used within the name and no space between initials (e.g.: OBRIEN or MCDONALD, rather than O’BRIEN or MC DONALD), and the names of individual authors should be separated by commas (e.g.: DOE JJ, JONES SE, SMITH BW). The names are followed by the publication year in parentheses, complete title of the article (capitalizing only the first letter of the first word), abbreviated name of the journal (initials in upper case, no periods), volume number followed by a colon, and the page numbers of the article. Do not include issue or part numbers.
In the case of book chapters, give the names of the editors (last name and initials) in upper case followed by “(ed)” or “(eds)” in parentheses, the name of the book (capitalizing only the first letter of the first word), city, colon, publisher, the abbreviation “pp” followed by the beginning and ending page numbers of the pertinent chapter. Avoid all unnecessary periods and commas.
EYZAGUIRRE C, KOYANO H (1965) Effects of hypoxia, hypercapnia, and pH on the chemoreceptor activity of the carotid body in vitro. J Physio, London 178:385-409.
LOWRY OH, ROSEBROUGH NJ, FARR AL, RANDALL RJ (1951) Protein measurement with the Folin phenol reagent. J Biol Chem 193:265-275.
REYES JG, SANTANDER M, MARTÍNEZ PL, ARCE R, BENOS DJ (1994) A fluorescence method to determine picomole amounts of Zn (II) in biological systems. Biol Res 27 (in press).
ROGERS DW (1983) BASEC Microcomputing and Biostatistics. Clifton NJ: Humana Press. pp:105-174. SIEGLBAUM SA, KOESTER J (1991) Ionic channels. In: KANDEL ER, CHWARTZ JH, JESSEL TM (eds) Principles of Neural Science. 3rd ed. Amsterdam: Elsevier. pp:66-79.
URETA T, MEDINA C, PRELLER A (1987) The evolution of hexokinases. Arch Biol Med Exp 20:343-357.
4.1 REFERENCES IN TEXT
References should be cited in the text of the journal with the authors’ last names and year of publication appear in parentheses [e.g.: (Miller, 2001)], or as part of the sentence [e.g.: “ ...Miller (2001) reported that ...”]. When citing two-author papers, give both last names [e.g.: (Eyzaguirre and Koyano, 1999)]. Papers with three or more authors should be cited by the first author’s last name followed by the abbreviation “et al.” separated from the year by a comma (e.g.: Lowry et al., 2000).
All citations in the text should appear in the list of references. Authors are responsible for verifying the references against the original documents.
Manuscripts that have been accepted for publication but not yet released should be included in the Reference section by indicating “in press” in parentheses after the journal name of the journal in which it will be published. Information from manuscripts submitted but not yet accepted should be cited only in the text as “unpublished observations,” or “manuscript in preparation” or “personal communication” within parentheses. This type of citation must be verified by the author against the original document and approved by those named; the editors may request their written authorization. If the content of papers in press, submitted or in preparation is essential for the understanding of the present paper, they should accompany the manuscript submitted herein.
Table should be numbered consecutively with Roman numerals, and each must be submitted on a separate page.
Each table must include a brief title and sufficient experimental detail to be intelligible without reference to the text. Column headings must clearly express their respective contents and units of measurement. Furthermore, data that remain the same should not be repeated on each line of the table, but rather should appear as footnotes under each table.
Mean values and dispersion measures (standard deviation, range) are preferred to individual observations, but the number of individuals contributing to the statistics must be included. The significance of differences between tabulated values may be indicated by asterisks, specifying their levels at the footnote to the table, along with the probability test used (e.g.: paired Student’s t-test: *p<0.005; **p<0.01; ***p<0.001).
6. LEGENDS FOR ILLUSTRATIONS & FIGURES
Legends for all figures and illustrations must be typed on separate pages (one per page). Figures should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals. Each figure must include a title and a legend describing the results in sufficient detail for comprehension without reference to the text. However, do not repeat general information that has been properly placed in the Methods section or conclusions to be derived from data presented in the figure that are described in the Results section.
Illustrations should be cited within the text by the unabbreviated word “Figure,” when written as part of a sentence and as “(Fig.)” when appearing within parentheses. The preferred location of each figure should be indicated on the left margin of the text.
The preferred method to submit illustrations is in digitalized format and sent either attached to an e-mail or on a disk submitted with hard copies of the text. Figure illustrations should be submitted separately in pdf, png or jpg format. Each figure should be submitted in a separate file and the name of these files should include the corresponding author’s last name as well as the corresponding figure number (i.e., Smith_Fig1.png). Alternatively, they may be supplied on paper no larger than 21 by 27 cm and presented as original drawings, black-and-white glossy photographs or computer-generated laser prints on highgloss paper. Numbers and lettering should be large enough to allow for a minimum height of 1.5 mm after photographic reduction for a 7 cm column width. Each figure should be marked on the reverse side with number, title of the paper, and authors’ names.
If a hard copy if sent, the manuscript must be accompanied by at least one set of original illustrations for the printer. Each copy of the manuscript must include photocopies of the illustrations (originals, in the case of photomicrographs).
Histograms composed of different bars (solid, open, stippled, hatched, crosshatched, horizontally striped, vertically striped) must be explained in the legends, which should also indicate whether superior vertical lines represent SDs or SEMs. If the number of observations is the same for all groups, it may be so indicated in an inset (n = ##). In the event of different numbers for groups, they should be indicated at the bottom or top of the bars.
For graphs where curves are fitted, the legends should indicate whether the fit line was adjusted by sight, calculated from a certain equation, or constructed by a specific computer program.
Photomicrographs should be prepared with letters, arrows, and asterisks that contrast with the background and highlighted with a contrasting shadow if necessary. Length scales on photomicrographs are preferable to indications of enlargements on the legends.
Authors who wish to compose their photomicrographs to the final size of reproductions should consider that the figures themselves should be 7 cm wide for a single column and 15 cm wide for a double column. Height should not surpass 22 cm, although less is preferable to allow for the placement of legends at the bottom of the figures. Authors should indicate on the back of these illustrations that they should be reproduced at 100%.
When previously published illustrations are used, authors must obtain written permission from the copyright holder (author, journal, society, or publisher), which must then be submitted to the editor of Biological Research along with the manuscript. The manuscript must include the appropriate credit line with the corresponding figure legend, as well as mention in the Acknowledgements section.
SHORT COMMUNICATIONS are brief reports of concise but complete and relevant scientific findings or innovations in methods and instrumentation. They should not be preliminary publication of full-length reports in preparation.
Short Communications should be written for non-specialist readers and with a minimum of technical jargon. The text must not exceed eight double-spaced, typed pages, with a maximum of two figures or tables and 25 references. A very brief initial abstract should summarize the rationale, main finding(s) and conclusion. The following text must be presented without subheadings, and the first and last paragraphs must be devoted to the introduction and conclusion, respectively.
Methods may be restricted to the experimental design, mentioning common procedures and references to previous use of special techniques. Results and discussion may be combined. References should be complete and follow the style acceptable for full-length papers.
REVIEWS may present a comprehensive overview of a given subject or may focus on a particular aspect. Reviews are solicited by the editor and are restricted to authors with recognized expertise in the subject area. Nonetheless, authors may propose reviews on a given subject.
MANUSCRIPTS SENT TO THE AUTHORS FOR REVISION OR ADDITIONAL EXPERIMENTS SHOULD BE RETURNED WITHIN TWO MONTHS; OTHERWISE THEY WILL BE TREATED AS NEW SUBMISSIONS.
Submission of Manuscripts
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Sociedad de Biología de Chile
Canadá #253, Piso 3º, Depto. F.
P.O. Box 16164
Santiago - Chile
Tel.: (56-2) 2093503
Fax: (56-2) 2258427