Author Guidelines
Journal Information
Human, Health and Halal Metrics (HHHM) is a multi-disciplinary peer-review journal in English waiting for approval by Journals’ Commission of Iran Ministry of Health and Medical Education. The review process is conducted by a double-blind procedure. The Editorial team invites authors to submit their high-quality manuscript to HHHM. The journal provides a platform for publication of advanced research in the field and publishes original articles, reviews articles, short communication, and letter to editor. The published works are open access to the all readers.
The major criteria in review process by the referees concern the significance of contribution to the journal’s scope and most advanced findings. It is clearly stated that the journal does not guarantee the acceptance of papers transferred to the review process until the paper will be accepted by the peer-reviewers and further verified by the Editor In Chief for publication.
HHHM is owned and published by “Halal Research Center of the Islamic Republic of Iran”.
Aims and Scope: The major outlines of the areas are as follows.
Instructions for Author
Manuscript Submission: All manuscripts should be submitted electronically through http://jhhhm.halal.ac.ir
Covering letter
A cover letter containing the information outlined below must be sent to the Editor in Chief.
1) General information including the manuscript title, name and address of the corresponding author and his signature. This author will be responsible for editing proofs and ordering reprints where applicable.
2) A brief description about the reason of submission in HHHM.
3) The data and information have not been published previously and is not under consideration by another journal. The corresponding author should adhere to publication requirements that submitted work has not been plagiarized and published elsewhere.
4) The corresponding author should declare that “In consideration of the editors of HHHM taking action in processing of this submission, the author undersigned hereby transfer, assign or convey all copyright ownership to the HHHM in the event that current work is published in that Journal.”
Ethical consideration for human and animal subjects
1) If human subjects are used then they have to be registered with the Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials website (www.irct.ir) or the related country and ethical committee of the research center or university where the study was carried out.
2) Research with human subjects should be conducted in full accordance with ethical principles, including the WMA Declaration of Helsinki-Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects (2008) http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/index.html
3) The submitted manuscripts must transparently state this in their materials and methods including a statement outlining whether the study has been independently reviewed and approved by an ethical board.
4) Moreover, where human subjects are used, the informed consent explaining the nature of the procedure and possible discomforts and risks should be obtained from all patients who participated in the experimental investigation and subjects should be able to freely reject participation.
5) If animals are used, a statement protocol approval by the institutional animal care and use committee must be included. Methods section must clearly show that adequate measures were taken to minimize pain and/or distress, for example the administration of local anesthetics or general anesthesia. Experiments should be carried out in accordance with EC Directive 86/609/EEC for animal experiments http://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/lab_animals/legislation_en.htm or with the guidelines laid down by the Institute for Laboratory Animal Research in the USA regarding the care and use of animals for experimental procedures https://grants.nih.gov/grants/olaw/guide-for-the-care-and-use-of-laboratory-animals.pdf.
6) HHHM retains the right to reject any manuscript on the basis of unethical conduct of either human or animal studies.
Authors
• The research should have been conducted in an ethical and responsible manner and should comply with all relevant legislation.
• Authors should present their results clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation.
• Authors should strive to describe their methods clearly and unambiguously so that they can be repeated/reproduced by other researchers and their findings can be confirmed by others.
• The authorship of publications should accurately reflect individuals’ contributions to the work.
• Authors must list just references directly used in/for the article preparation and should not copy references from other publications if they have not read the cited work.
• Funding sources under the heading of “Acknowledgement” and relevant “Conflicts of interest” should be in turn disclosed separately before references.
• Disclosure of a potential conflict of interest does not necessarily exclude the manuscript from consideration for publication; the goal of disclosure is transparency. Any financial arrangements between authors and other parts should be brought to the attention of Editors at manuscript submission.
• Potential conflicts of interest include 1) Having a close relative or a professional associate with financial interest in the research outcome, 2) Serving as an officer, director, member, owner, trustee, employee, expert witness, advisor, consultant, or public advocate (with or without compensation) on behalf of an organization with a financial interest in the outcome, 3) Receiving support including grants, contracts or subcontracts, fellowships, consulting agreements, or gifts (e.g., chemicals, experimental diets, trips) from a company or organization having a financial interest in the outcome at present, during the time the research was conducted, the near past and the near future.
Author’s responsibility
• Only people who contributed substantially to the research and/or article can be listed as ‘author’. Eligibility to authorship is defined as 1) conceptualization and designing the study, 2) acquisition, analysis and interpretation of data, 3) paper preparation and its final approval for submission. Those who contributed in a lesser role must be acknowledged as ‘contributor’.
• Authors are obliged to follow publisher’s requirements.
• Authors should inform the editor if they withdraw their work from review or choose not to respond to reviewers comment after receiving a conditional acceptance.
• Authors should respond to reviewers’ comments point by point in a professional and timely manner.
• Authors should use appropriate methods of data analysis and should state that all data in article is real and authentic.
• Authors should check the steps carefully all the time including calculations, data presentations, typescripts/submissions and proofs to ensure that all requisites are reported accurately.
• Authors should respond appropriately to post-publication comments and published correspondence. They should attempt to answer correspondents’ questions and supply clarification or additional details where needed.
• Authors should alert the editor promptly if they discover an error in any submitted, accepted or published work. Authors should cooperate with editors in issuing corrections or retractions when required.
• Authors should work with the editor or publisher to correct their work promptly if errors or omissions are discovered after publication.
Changes to authorship
Before publication of accepted manuscript: Requests of any changes including addition, remove, or rearrangement of authors’ name must be sent to the Editor in Chief from the corresponding author. This letter must include a) the reason of this request and b) written confirmation (by e-mail, fax or official letter) from all authors that they agree with the new changes. In the case of addition or removal, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed. Requests that are received from authors not responsible for correspondence will be forwarded by the Journal Manager to the corresponding author to follow the procedure as described above.
Note:
1) Journal Managers will inform the editorial team of any such requests.
2) Publication of the accepted manuscript is suspended until authorship has been agreed.
After publication of accepted manuscript: any requests of addition, remove, or rearrangement of authors’ name in the article published will follow the same policies as mentioned above and result in a corrigendum.
Publishing ethics
• The editorial board will monitor and safeguard the publishing ethics of the journal.
• The guidelines for retracting articles are as follows.
- Articles that are seriously unreliable will be retracted. Redundant articles (published in other journals) will be retracted. Minor errors or authorship changes will not lead to retraction but require a correction notice.
- Notices of retraction will clearly state the reason and the retracted article will be clearly marked in all electronic versions of the journal, and a retraction notice will be published in the print copy of the journal.
• The journal will not compromise intellectual or ethical standards in favor of the business needs of the journal.
• The editorial board will maintain the integrity of the academic record of the journal.
• The editorial board will always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.
• No plagiarism and no fraudulent data will be tolerated in this journal.
Notes: HHHM accepts all terms and conditions of COPE about plagiarism, fabrication and falsification. Similarity (plagiarism) check is done by Paper Plagiarism Checker system at https://ppc.research.ac.ir/
Preparation of manuscript
Manuscripts that do not adhere to the following instructions will be returned to the corresponding author for technical revision before undergoing peer review. Please write your manuscript in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these). Authors who are not confident with their English, should check their manuscript by the expert on their own responsibility. Submissions should be double-spaced and line-numbered word-processing files (doc.). The top, bottom and side margins should be 30 mm. All pages should be numbered consecutively in the center of bottom, beginning with the title page.
Divide the manuscript into clearly defined and numbered sections. Subsections should be numbered 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, ...), 1.2, etc. Abstract is not included in section numbering. Any subsection may be given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line.
The length of original paper should be less than 4000 words excluding figures, tables and references. Figures and tables within 8 combined are permitted. For review paper, the maximum word count of 6000 words including Figures and Tables is allowed. Short communication and letter to editor should contain up to 3000 and 1000 words, respectively.
Nomenclature and units
Follow internationally accepted rules and conventions: use the international system of units (SI). If other quantities are mentioned, give their equivalent in SI.
Title page
Title page has to be submitted separately and should be arranged as follows.
1) Title, which should be concise and informative as well as descriptive.
2) Full first and last names of each author. Indicate all affiliations with a number superscript immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address.
3) Name and address of department and institution to which work should be attributed below the authors’ name.
4) Full name, full postal address, official Tel. and Fax numbers and academic e-mail address of the author responsible for correspondence. Contact details must be kept up to date by the corresponding author.
5) Running title (not more than 40 characters with space).
Note: Main manuscript has to be submitted as the main document file and it must not be included the title page items (name of authors and their affiliations, email/airmail addresses, Tel./Fax) to ensure the blind revision. Main document should be started with the title followed by the abstract etc. All figures must be re-submitted by original format such as excel, SPSS, or any other statistical software after acceptance.
Abstract
The abstract should include separate items as follows.
1) A summary of the complete manuscript containing Background and Objective, Materials and Methods, Results and Conclusion. All of these items should be included as a separate heading within the abstract. The abstract must be factual and comprehensive.
2) The abstract should include 200-300 words.
3) A maximum of 6 but at least 4 key words or phrases (in alphabetical order) should be included at the end of the abstract. Only key words firmly established in the field may be eligible. These will be used for indexing purposes.
An abstract is often presented separate from the article. Therefore, it must be able to stand alone. References should be avoided in the abstract. Non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should also be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself.
A Graphical Abstract is a single, concise, pictorial and visual summary of the main findings of the article to captures the content of the article for readers at a single glance. It could either be the concluding figure from the article or a figure that is specially designed for the purpose. The high resolution graphical abstract should be exclusively prepared by the authors and submitted in PDF, JPEG, JPG, TIFF. The resolution should be set to at least 300 dpi (dots per inch).
Article body
Organize the manuscript into seven main headings.
1) Introduction should provide enough information for reader to understand the objectives of the study. Avoid addressing to a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results. This part should clearly state the novelty and gap of knowledge in the field.
2) Materials and methods should describe the detail of study, methods, instrument and techniques used, and statistical methods. Ethical considerations should be mentioned here. This section should provide sufficient detail to allow the work to be reproduced. Methods already published should be indicated by a reference. Relevant modifications should be described.
3) Results and discussion. Results must be clear, concise and describe the findings of the study clearly. Discussion should focus on the findings in current work and compare the results with other studies. It should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them.
4) Conclusion should describe and summarize the major finding(s) of the study.
5) Acknowledgements may contain all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship e.g. editing help and departmental head that provided general support. Financial support must also be acknowledged.
6) Conflict of interest
7) References
Maximum 20 and 40 references for short communication and original research paper/case study, respectively. Using reference management software such as Endnote, Reference Manager and Mendeley is recommended.
Citation in text
Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). All references should be mentioned by ascending numerical format (Vancouver style) in the manuscript. Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these references are included in the reference list, they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution of the publication date with either 'Unpublished results' or 'Personal communication'. Citation of a reference as “In press” implies that the item has been accepted for publication.
Web references
As a minimum, the full URL should be given and the date when the reference was last accessed. Any further information, if known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given.
Reference style
Text: All citations in the text should refer by numerical format (Vancouver style) inside the [ ]. For example, "The same results were observed at previous studies [1]."
List: References should be arranged in ascending order. More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be identified by the letters 'a', 'b', 'c', etc., placed after the year of publication.
Examples:
Reference to a journal publication:
§ Journals:
1. Asgary S, Eghbal MJ, Parirokh M, Ghoddusi J, Kheirieh S, Brink F. Comparison of mineral trioxide aggregate's composition with Portland cements and a new endodontic cement. J Endod. 2009; 35 (4): 243-250.
§ Books Chapter:
Rosenberg PA. Case selection and treatment planning. In: Cohen S, Hargreaves KM. Pathway of the pulp, 9th Edition. St. Louis, CV Mosby, 2006: 80-96.
§ Books:
South J, Blass B. The future of modern genomics. Blackwell, London, 2001: 30-45.
§ Web pages and e-books: (Avoid citing to Wikipedia/Wikimedia as a reference or source)
Smith W. Qualitative research methods, London, National Centre for Social Research. Available from: http://www.natcen.ac.uk/natcen/pages/hw_qualitative.htm [Accessed 14 August 2006].
§ Legislation:
USDA. ‘Food contact system notification system: final rule’, Federal Register 2002; 67 (98), 36582-36596.
Add DOI to the end of each references, if it is available:
A digital object identifier (DOI) is a unique alphanumeric string assigned by a registration agency (the International DOI Foundation) to identify content and provide a persistent link to its location on the Internet. The publisher assigns a DOI when your article is published and made available electronically.
All DOI numbers begin with a 10 and contain a prefix and a suffix separated by a slash. The prefix is a unique number of four or more digits assigned to organizations; the suffix is assigned by the publisher and was designed to be flexible with publisher identification standards.
Figures and tables
Figures should be created/scanned then saved and submitted as either a TIFF, JPEG, JPG, and Excel file. Line art must have a resolution of at least 300 dpi. All scanned images including electronic photographs/radiographs, CT scans, etc., must have a resolution of at least 300 dpi. If fonts are used in the artwork, they must be converted to paths or outlines, or they must be embedded in the files. Each table with its title must be typed double-spaced on a separate page at the end of the manuscript. Tables should not have the vertical lines and horizontal lines within the tables should be removed.
Original figures (with at least 300 dpi) and charts can be submitted separately or inserted at the end of manuscript
All figure captions and table titles should be unique so that it shows the aim and general information of the study. Avoid using abbreviation in figure captions/table titles. Statistical information including significant letters, replication and p-value is needed as footnote.
• Ensure that display items are self-explanatory. Some readers and certainly reviewers and journal editors turn their attention to the tables and figures before they read the entire text, so these display items should be self-contained.
• Refer, but don’t repeat: Use the text to draw the reader’s attention to the significance and key points of the table/figure, but do not repeat details in both table ad figure.
• Be consistent: Ensure consistency between values or details in a table/figure (e.g., abbreviations, group names, treatment names) and those in the text.
Graphs
The charts should be drawn with following characters (excel software is preferable).
• Line: 1.25, black, Tickmark: inside, Without chart border.
• Legends: Times new roman, size 9, un-bold with standard error bars.
• Without gridline
Color images
Publication of color illustrations is possible at the editors’ discretion. Color images must be created/scanned then saved and submitted as CMYK files.
Publication cost
Accepted papers are free of charge for publication in HHHM journal.
Copyright notice
The author(s) certify that:
1. The submitted manuscript has not been published in any other journals and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.
2. Contents of the submitted manuscript have been read and approved by all authors.
3. All data presented in the submitted manuscript is true, carefully checked and conforms to accredited facts, sciences and knowledge.
4. There is no one other than those who have been listed above in the role of authorship in the submitted manuscript.
5. Any people, who contributed in preparation of the submitted manuscript but has not had eligibility of authorship, has been appreciated in the acknowledgement.
6. Any financial contributions to the work have been clearly reported and appreciated in the acknowledgment.
7. The submitted manuscript does not contain any material against any existing copyright and does not infringe the rights of others.
8. Copyright of the submitted manuscript is transferred to the publisher if it is accepted for publication. Hereby, further use including any adaptation, derivation and distribution of science/knowledge produced or transmitted by the published article is permitted.
9. No responsibility is assumed by "Journal of Human, Health and Halal Metrics" for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability and/or performance negligence through data/information contained in the article published and disseminated by the Journal.
10. The publisher is privileged to take required legal actions against ethical violations that are strictly forbidden by the journal including Plagiarism, Fabrication and Falsification in the submitted manuscript.
Note: By signing the copyright notice form through the submission process, the author(s) agree that the Journal of Human, Health and Halal Metrics is the copyright holder after acceptance and publication of the paper.
Privacy statement
The names and e-mail addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of the journal and will not be made available for any other purpose.
Special issue
In order to better serve our academic community and concentrate on highly interest, special issues of relevant subjects in science are welcome at any time. A special issue should be organized by accomplished experts in a given area and it should attract articles of the highest quality.
Proposals of special issue should include the following information.
1. A suggested title for the special issue
2. Proposed aims and scope and a list of the topics to be covered.
3. Names of guest editors who are willing to manage the special issue with their emails, affiliations, and one-paragraph biography.
All proposals should be submitted to jhhhm@halal.ac.ir, and they are subjected to approval by the journal editorial board.