1.  Aims and Scopes

Iranian Journal of Radiation Research (IJRR) is a scientific quarterly journal that publishes original scientific research and clinical investigations related to radiation oncology, radiation biology, and Medical and health physics. The clinical studies submitted for publication include experimental studies of combined modality treatment, especially chemoradiotherapy approaches, and relevant innovations in hyperthermia, brachytherapy, high LET irradiation, nuclear medicine, dosimetry, tumor imaging, radiation treatment planning, radiosensitizers, and radioprotectors. All manuscripts must pass stringent peer-review and only papers that are rated of high scientific quality are accepted.

Contributions may be of the following types:

Papers reporting results of original fundamental research

Review articles from authorized persons

Short communications

Case reports

Technical Innovations

2. Submission of Manuscripts:

Contributions should be in English. Manuscripts should be written in clear, concise English; papers that cannot be assessed due to inadequate standard of English or incorrect formatting will be returned, and the submission date changed to the date that the correctly formatted paper is returned. Send an original plus 2 copy, double- spaced and typewritten on 8×11 inch high quality paper, and 3 copies of each illustration to Hossein Mozdarani, Ph.D., Editor-in-chief, to IJRR, Editorial Office, #29, 4^th floor, Chamran Medical Building, Parvaneh St. Ale-Ahmad Highway, P.O.Box: 14399-14141, Tehran, Iran. Fax: +98-21-88631199, E-mail: Info@ijrr.com. Retain a copy for your files. Manuscripts are received with the understanding that it reports unpublished work and is not under consideration elsewhere; you own the copyright; you have secured the permission of all named co-authors and have agreed the order of names and you will transfer copyright to IJRR if the paper is accepted for publication. The author is responsible for all statements in his work, including minor textual changes made by the copy editors. Accepted manuscripts become the property of the Journal and may not be published elsewhere without written permission of both the editor and publisher. Neither manuscript nor figures will be returned after review.

Electronic Submission: In this form of submission, the manuscript should be on a floppy diskette or CD accompanied by a matched hard copy. Manuscript should be in Microsoft word for PC. Single file saved as Word 2004 or lower version. NOTE: this journal does not accept Microsoft Word 2007 documents (.docx) at present. The entire article should be submitted as a single file. Do not insert tabs in references. Papers can also be submitted on line via the journal’s website (www.ijrr.com) or as attachment to Email (info@ijrr.com).

3. General Arrangement of Papers: 

Structure of articles:

Text of the original articles should include title page, abstract, keywords, introduction, materials/patients and methods, results, discussion, acknowledgment, references, tables, figures, and legends, enumerated from the title page. The length of the text should not exceed twelve printed pages including all tables and figures. Case reports and short communications should be limited to 750 words. Case report should include abstract, keywords, case presentation, discussion, acknowledgment, and references. With the exception of blood pressure, all units of measurements and laboratory values must be expressed in SI units; conventional units may be included parenthetically. Please express radiation doses in Gray unit rather than rad (1 rad = 1 cGy). All radiation treatment factors must be listed.

Title Page:  Make title brief and specific. It should include title of the article, correct names of each author plus highest academic degree, department and institution affiliation,  running title (≤50 characters, including spaces), name, address, telephone and fax numbers and email address of author to whom correspondence and reprint requests should be addressed.

Abstract:  All original articles must contain an abstract of not more than 250 words. It should include the Background, Materials and Methods, Results, and Conclusion section separately. It is not necessary for abstract of the review articles, case reports, clinical notes, and short communications to have the above mentioned subdivisions.

Keywords: A list of up to five indexing phrases (keywords) should be included to the title page after the abstract.

Introduction: The Introduction section should include the background and rationale for the study, a clear purpose or hypothesis statement, and a brief description of the experimental design.

Materials/Patients and Methods: The Methods and Materials section should describe the materials used and the experimental and statistical methods. Previously described methods should not be included, only cited, with significant modifications stated. Clinical studies should be identified as retrospective or prospective. Methods should not be included in the Results section or figure legends.

Statistical Validation: When describing statistical analyses that have been performed, tests that were used to evaluate a specific data set must be clearly indicated. When data are presented in tables, indicate the statistical test(s) that was used to evaluate the data with a footnote. When possible, quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols.

Results:  The Results section should describe only the most important results of the study and include as little discussion as possible. Measures of statistical significance must be clearly indicated, and tables and figures should be cited in numerical order.

Discussion: The Discussion section should begin with a statement of the conclusions based on the study's findings and include an interpretation of the results in the context of other published studies. The study's limitations and implications should also be stated. The conclusions can be included in this section or presented separately under the heading "Conclusions." They should be clearly tied to the purpose of the study. Background information, methods, and results should not be repeated in detail in the Discussion.

Acknowledgement:   All sources of funding should be declared as an acknowledgment at the end of the text. Persons who have contributed intellectually to the paper but whose contributions do not justify authorship may be named and their function or contribution described, e.g. "scientific adviser," "data collections," or "participation in clinical trial." Such persons must have given their permission to be named.

References: List references in consecutive numerical order (the order of citation in the manuscript, and not alphabetically) inserted between square brackets, e.g. [1], [3-5]. Once a reference is cited, all subsequent citations should be to the original number. All references must be cited in the text or tables. References to journal articles should be formatted in "Vancouver" style ( http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html ). References to material on the internet should include the date of access. References should not be given to personal communications, unpublished data, manuscript in preparation, letters, company publications and patent pending. Abstracts of papers presented at meetings are not permissible. These references should appear as parenthetical expressions in the text, e.g., (unpublished data). The author is responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the references and for their correct textual citation. Example of reference citation:

Journals:

1. Mothersill C and Seymour C (2003) Possible implications of radiation-induced ‘bystander effects’ for radiation protection. Int J Low Radiat, 1: 34-38.

2. Rezvani M, Ross GA, Lamb K, Wilkinson JH (2004) Effects of Pentoxifylline on the healing of irradiated wounds in pig skin. Iran J Radiat Res, 2: 1-7.

Books:

3. Noz ME and Maguire Jr GQ (1995) Radiation protection in the health sciences. World Scientific Publishing Co. Ltd, Singapore.

Book Chapter:

4. Laramore GE and Austin-Seymour MM (1992) Fast neutron radiotherapy in relation to the radiation sensitivity of human organ systems. In: Advances in Radiation Biology, (Altman KI and Lett JT, eds.), Academic Press Inc., New York, USA.

Tables: Enumerate tables with Arabic numerals. They should be self-explanatory, clearly arranged, and supplemental to the text. Tables should provide easier understanding and not duplicate information already include in the text or figures.

Illustrations: Figures should be utilized only if they augment understandability of the text. Drawing and graphs should be professionally prepared in deep black and submitted as glossy, black-and-white clean photo state. Professionally designed computer-generated graphs with minimum of 300 DPI laser printer output is also acceptable. Each figure should have a label on the back, listing the figure number, title of manuscripts, first author, and an arrow indicating the top. Illustrations should be numbered as cited in the sequential order in the text, and each should have a legend on a separate sheet. Color photographs are welcome at no extra charge.

Legends: Captions for the figures must be typed double spaced, and must not appear on the figures. For photomicrographs, the legend should include the original magnification and stain used.

4. Proof reading:  The corresponding author will receive an edited manuscript for “final author approval”. Proofs are automatically sent to the corresponding author. Only printer's errors may be corrected, no changes in or additions to the edited manuscript will be accepted. IJRR will do everything possible to get your article corrected and published as quickly and accurately as possible. Therefore, it is important to ensure that all of your corrections are sent back to us in one communication. Subsequent corrections will not be possible, so please ensure your first sending is complete.

5.  Authorship: According to the "Uniform Requirements", all persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for its content. Authorship credit should be based only on substantial contributions to (1) conception and design, or analysis and interpretation of data, and to (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, and to (3) final approval of the version to be published. Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not justify authorship. General supervision of the research group does not justify authorship. Any part of an article critical to its main conclusions must be the responsibility of at least one author. Any changes in authorship after submission of a manuscript must be explained in a letter to the Editor-in-Chief that is signed by all co-authors to indicate their consent to the change. These changes include the deletion and addition of authors as well as any change in the order of authors. Changes can be expected to delay publication.

6. Ethics:  When reporting on human subjects, please indicate in the text whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Patient anonymity must be ensured at all times; do not use patient names, initials, hospital numbers, or other identification in the manuscript, tables, or figures. In clinical photographs, identities of patients should be masked or otherwise cropped. Written consent forms from patients must accompany all photographs in which there is any possibility of identification of the patient. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should state clearly in the text that the experiments were carried out in compliance with the relevant national laws relating to the conduct of animal experimentation. Papers disregarding animal welfare would be rejected.

7. Abbreviations and Symbols:  Use only standard abbreviations. Avoid using abbreviations in the title and abstract. The full term for which an abbreviation stands should precede its first use in the text unless it is a standard unit of measurement.

8. Conflict of interest: A conflict of interest statement is to be included in the author's cover letter. All conflict of interest (financial or otherwise) and all sources of financial support must be listed on the title page. These include providers of supplies and services from a commercial organization. All commercial affiliations must be disclosed, regardless of whether they are a source of funding. The presence of a conflict of interest does not necessarily prevent publication of the manuscript, but may result in publication of the conflict as a footnote.

9. Duplicate publication:  All papers that are submitted must report unpublished work and cannot be under consideration for publication elsewhere. If a manuscript contains more than 200 words of previously published text or if previously published figures or tables are submitted, written permission must be obtained from the holder of the copyright. Copies of permission letters must be submitted with the original manuscript. Material that is published without permission from the copyright holder will be considered duplicate publication, which is a serious offense. Previously published material can be cited in a manuscript, but it must be indicated by quotation marks. If more than 200 words from a previously published manuscript appear in a manuscript that is submitted as an original work and if this material is not indicated with quotation marks, the material will be considered to be plagiarized. Plagiarism is also a serious offense.

10. Copyright: The entire contents of Iranian Journal of Radiation Research (IJRR) are protected under international copyrights. Accepted manuscripts become the property of the Journal and may not be distributed, transmitted, displayed or published elsewhere without written permission of both the editor and publisher.

11. Review and Action: The first step of manuscript selection takes place entirely in house and has two major objectives: a) to establish the article’s appropriateness for IJRR readership; b) to define the manuscript’s priority ranking relative to other manuscript under consideration, since the number of papers that the journal receives is greater than that it can publish. If the editors’ judge that a manuscript contains no new information or it dose not adhere to the relevant standards for reporting, or is poorly written, they will proceed to a quick rejection. The remaining articles are reviewed by at least two different external referees (second step or classical peer review). After this peer evaluation, the final decision on a paper’s acceptability for publication is made by the editorial board. 

12. Disposal of material: Once published, all copies of the manuscript, correspondence and artwork will be held for 6 months before disposal. Rejected manuscripts will be disposed under safe conditions after notification to the corresponding author regarding the rejection of manuscript.

13. Reprints:  The senior author will receive a PDF file of the published article or 10 reprints free of charge. Larger quantities may be ordered when returning the proof at a special discount price. 

14. Page charge:  There are no page charges for publication in IJRR.

General: The authors are entirely responsible for accuracy of all statements and data (including drug dosages) contained in the manuscript, accuracy of all references and for obtaining and submitting permission from the author and publisher of any previously published material included in the submitted manuscript. In order to ensure rapid publication it is most important that all of the above instructions are compiled with in full. Failure to comply may result in considerable delay in publication or the return of manuscripts to the author.