THE REQUIREMENTS AND CONDITIONS FOR THE PUBLICATION OF ARTICLES IN THE JOURNAL «EXPERIMENTAL AND CLINICAL GASTROENTEROLOGY»

(compiled with regard to the «Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals») developed by the International Committee of medical journal editors)

Journal “Experimental and Clinical Gastroenterology”

(ISSN:1682-8658 (Print); 1682-8658 (Linking)) publishes papers on basic and clinical research in the field of disorders of the digestive system, as well as related problems with other medical specialties. The journal publishes: advanced and original papers, editorials, reviews and special articles, new methods and materials, congress proceedings, short clinical cases. All submitted manuscripts are reviewed and discussed by the Editorial Board. INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS The Journal's format is in accordance with the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the 2008 guidelines of the Council of Science Editors (CSE) to promote integrity in scientific publications. For details see: http://www.icmje.org/ , http://www.councilscienceeditors.org

CATEGORIES OF MANUSCRIPTS

Original Papers
Original Articles are full-length reports of original research. Article should cover one (or several) of the following topics in the area of gastroenterology and hepatology:

• cell biology,
• molecular biology,
• genetics,
• morphology,
• physiology,
• pathophysiology,
• epidemiology,
• nutrition,
• imaging,
• diagnostic,
• therapy

Both adult and pediatric problems are included. The maximum length is 5,000 words, excluding the abstract, references, tables and figures. The abstract should be structured and not exceed 250 words.
Randomized controlled trials must be presented according to the CONSORT guidelines (http://www.consort-statement.org).
Observational studies must be presented according to the STROBE guidelines (http://www.strobe-statement.org).
Meta-analyses must be presented according to the PRISMA guidelines (http://prisma-statement.org/statement.htm).
Human trials. Manuscripts reporting data from research conducted on humans must include a statement of assurance in the methods section of the manuscript reading that:

• informed consent was obtained from each patient enrolled in the study;
• the study protocol conforms to the ethical guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki (6th revision, 2008) as reflected in a priori approval by the institution's human research committee.

Reviews Articles
Review articles are usually considered only upon invitation from the Editorial Board. No more than 7 authors may be listed as contributors. Manuscript should contain a non-structured abstract of no more than 250 words; text should not exceed 4,000 words, excluding the abstract, references, tables and figures.

Editorials and Commentaries
These manuscripts are accepted only upon invitation from the Editorial Board. The maximum length is 1500 words.

New Methods and Materials
Report of experience with new developments in the gastroenterology and hepatology arena, given in no more than 1000 words and no more than 20 references. The report should contain truly novel information. Articles describing only a minor change to an existing procedure will be rejected.

Other Publications
Congress proceedings, generally in the form of selected abstracts, supplements to the journal containing extended abstracts, or full papers may be considered for publication only upon invitation from the Editorial Board.

Single case reports
In general Case Reports are not published unless they contain highly innovative findings. Case reports could be accepted also upon invitation from the Editorial Board.

SUBMISSION OF ARTICLES

NOTE TO AUTHORS: SUBMISSIONS NOT MEETING THE FORMATTING GUIDELINES REQUIREMENTS WILL NOT BE PROCESSED, AND WILL BE SENT BACK TO THE CORRESPONDING AUTHOR.

Submission to Experimental and Clinical Gastroenterology proceeds totally on-line, sending your manuscript to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Submission of an article implies that the work described:

• has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis);
• is not under consideration (in whole or in part) for publication elsewhere;
• that its publication is approved by all Authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out;
• if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the copyright-holder.

Only an acknowledgment from the editorial office officially establishes the date of receipt. Further correspondence and proofs will be sent to the corresponding author before publication unless otherwise indicated. It is a condition of submission of a paper that the authors permit editing of the paper for readability. All enquiries concerning the publication of accepted papers should be addressed to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Electronic format requirements for accepted articles
We accept most word-processing formats. It is important that the file is saved in the native format of the word processor used. The text should be in single-column format. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the word processor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. Do not import the figures into the text file.

Peer Review
All manuscripts are subject to peer review and are expected to meet standards of academic excellence. Submissions will be considered by an Editor and “if not rejected right away” by peer-reviewers, whose identities will remain anonymous to the authors.

Article Processing Charges
Experimental and Clinical Gastroenterology is not an open access journal. With the authors of the articles, including the post-graduate students, the fee for publication of manuscripts is not charged.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Manuscripts must be written in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these). Authors whose native language is not English are strongly advised to have their manuscripts checked by a native English speaker prior to submission. Manuscripts that do not conform to Standard English style, usage or grammar will be rejected.

USE OF ABBREVIATIONS
Title, Abstract, Table headers and Figure legends should not contain abbreviations. Standard abbreviations may be used in the text; they are to be placed in parentheses after the full term is used for the first time. All abbreviations contained in the Figures must be explained in the Figure legend, even if already explained in the text. All abbreviations contained in the Tables must be explained in a footnote below each table, even if already explained in the text.

COVER LETTER
A submission letter to the Editor should be sent as a separate document in addition to the manuscript. It should contain a summary of the strengths of the study, and should state that:

• The manuscript has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), and is not under consideration (in whole or in part) for publication elsewhere;
• The manuscript is approved by all Authors;
• In case of acceptance of the manuscript the copyright is transferred to Experimental and Clinical Gastroenterology

The submitted letter should end with the phrase:
“This letter is to pass the right to publish and declare that the material has not been published in other issues and does not contain information not subject to the publication.”

ARTICLE STRUCTURE

The General rules
The article text should be presented using Times New Roman 14 font in 1.5 interval on one side of the page size A4 (210 x 295 mm) with margins in 2.0 cm on both sides of the text. Pages should be numbered. All the materials should be submitted in electronic form. Divide your article into clearly defined sections. Subsections should be used as much as possible when cross-referencing text. Abbreviations must be defined at their first mention. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the article.

A manuscript should include
Title page; • Abstract; • Keywords; • Introduction; • Materials and methods; • Results; • Discussion; • Conflict of Interest Disclosure;
• Tables (optional); • Captions to drawings (optional); • Illustrations (optional); • Bibliography;

TITLE PAGE
The title should be descriptive, but not overly long. Do not include brand names or acronyms in the title. The title page should contain:

• the title of the article, which should be informative and not exceed 120 characters (no spaces);
• the surname(s), initials, place(s) of work and position(s) of all of the authors. Authorship should only be assumed by those workers who have contributed materially to the work and its report;
• full name of the institution and the division (department, laboratory), in which the work was performed;
• contact person: surname, name, patronymic name (optional), full postal address and e-mail, phone and fax (optional) number of the author, responsible for contacts with the editorial staff;
• electronic word count (excluding abstract, references, tables, figures)
• source(s) of support in the form of grants, equipment, drugs, or all of the above

ABSTRACT
Limit: 250 swords should use all of the following headings:

• Background and Aims;
• Methods;
• Results;
• Conclusions;
• Keywords

The abstract should be self-contained and citation-free. Abstracts should briefly describe the problem being addressed in the study. An abstract is often presented separate from the article, so it must be able to stand alone. References should therefore be avoided. Abbreviations should be avoided too.

KEYWORDS
Include up to 7 keywords to facilitate indexing articles in information retrieval systems. Use a semicolon for separation. Use terms from the Medical Subject Headings.

Body of Paper
Original articles should have the following structure:

The objective and need for the research should be formulated, providing an adequate background. Please avoid detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.
Materials and methods. Provide sufficient details to allow the work to be reproduced. Quantitative and qualitative characteristics should be included, as well as references to all the methods of the research used in the work, including the methods of statistical processing of the data (describe statistical methods with enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results; report levels of significance for all comparisons made, whether significant or not, with P-values or confidence intervals). At the mention of the equipment, the manufacturer and the country where they are located should be indicated in brackets. Drugs should be used by chemical name. If trademarks are used, the manufacturer's name and city should be given. Laboratory values should be presented in SI units. One of the two following statements has to be included: 1) This study received an Institutional Review Board (IRB, also known as an Ethical Review Board) approval; or 2) This study was excluded from Institutional Review Board review after institutional IRB review.
They should be presented in logical sequence in the text, tables and drawings. Results should be clear and concise.
It is necessary to allocate new and important aspects of the results of one's research, showing its added value to the existing body of knowledge. It is highly recommended to compare (if possible) the obtained data with the data of other researchers. One should not repeat the information already given in «Introduction» section, and detailed data from section «Results». In the discussion, one can include the well-founded recommendations and a brief conclusion.

REFERENCES
Bibliographic references in the text should be given in Arabic numerals in square brackets. Requirements for style:

• Article (list 4 authors followed by et al):

11. Lazebnik LB, Trubitsyna IE, Agafonov MA, Kniazev OV, et al. Mesenchymal stromal cells transplantation in acute and chronic pancreatitis in rats // Eksp Klin Gastroenterol. 2011;(7):28-31.

• Book

14. Derovs A. The clinical significance of the excavated lesions in the small bowel. LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing, 2012.

• Article in Book

17. Sleisenger & Fordtran’s Gastrointestinal and liver disease 9th edition. Saunders Elsevier, 2010; 745-770

Figures and Tables
Figures are published without charge to authors. Figure images should be provided in EPS, PDF (vector drawings) or TIFF format ONLY and should not be putted into the manuscript. Ensure that each illustration has a caption. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration so that figures can be interpreted without reference to the text. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum, but explain all symbols and abbreviations used. Drawings should not be overloaded with the text labels. Give staining and magnification for photomicrographs of histologic slides. All patient identifiers have to be removed from the images.
Please submit tables as editable text and not as images. All the data in tables and drawings should not be repeated in the text; only the most important of them should be mentioned. Tables should be placed on separate page(s) at the end. Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text and place any table notes below the table body. Do not add color to tables. All explanations, including decryption of abbreviations and acronyms should be placed in footnotes.
The place, where a drawing or table in the text should be presented, is to be marked on the page field with a square, inside which the number of the drawing or table should be placed.

Conflict of Interest Disclosure
Each submission must include a full conflict of interest disclosure. A potential conflict of interest exists when an author or the author's institution has financial or personal relationships that could influence or could be perceived to influence the work. We require that our authors reveal any possible conflict of interests in their submitted manuscripts. Otherwise, authors should declare that there is no conflict of interests regarding the publication of this article.

Copyright
Authors, when quoting from someone else's work or when considering reproducing an illustration or table from a book or journal article, should make sure that they are not infringing a copyright. Material in unpublished letters and manuscripts is also protected and must not be published unless permission has been obtained. A suitable acknowledgement of any borrowed material must always be made.

The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, and so forth in this publication, even if not specifically identified, does not imply that these names are not protected by the relevant laws and regulations.

While the advice and information in this journal are believed to be true and accurate on the date of its going to press, neither the authors, the editors, nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein.

PLAGIARISM

Plagiarism means unreferenced use of published and unpublished ideas. If the plagiarism is detected in the manuscript, the following sanctions will be applied:

• Official letter from the journal Editorial Board to the corresponding author;
• Official letter from the journal Editorial Board to the author's institution, employer, or funding body;
• Publication of a notice in the journal;
• Refusal to accept submissions from this authors group for up to three-five years (according to the severity of the infraction).

MANUSCRIPT PROCESSING AND REVIEW

• Submission to Experimental and Clinical Gastroenterology proceeds totally on-line, sending your manuscript to , This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Each manuscript receives a unique number. The Editorial Office will e-mail a letter to the corresponding author acknowledging receipt of a manuscript. Should you have any questions, use this number to communicate with the Editorial staff.

Review process.
Each manuscript is assigned to an associate editor who has expertise on the subject of the paper. After review by the associate editor, if the manuscript is judged to be satisfactory for publication, it is sent to experts in the appropriate area for peer review. Reviewers are remaining anonymous. Reviewers have to declare to the editor any possible conflicts of interest, before start the peer-review process.

• Decisions on peer-reviewed papers are e-mailed to the authors an average of three-four weeks from the date of submission. Corresponding author will be informed in one week, if the manuscript is rejected internally without review.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. Available at: http://www.icmje.org. Accessed February 9, 2015.
• Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials. The CONSORT Statement. Available at: http://www.consort-statement.org. Accessed February 9, 2015.
• STrengthening the Reporting of OBservational studies in Epidemiology. Available at: http://www.strobe-statement.org. Accessed February 9, 2015.
• Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses. The PRISMA Statement. Available at: http://prisma-statement.org/statement.htm. Accessed February 9, 2015.
• World Medical Association. WMA Declaration of Helsinki - Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects. Revised October 2013. Available at: http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/index.html. Accessed February 9, 2015.
• S. Food and Drug Administration. Institutional Review Boards Frequently Asked Questions. Available at: http://www.fda.gov/RegulatoryInformation/Guidances/ucm126420.htm. Accessed February 9, 2015.
• Iverson CL, Flanagin A, Fontanarosa PB, Glass RM, Giltman P, Lantz JC,et al. American Medical Association manual of style: a guide forauthors and editors. 9th ed. Baltimore, MD: Williams Wilkins; 1998.p. 319-28.