The Fractal Laboratory Journal

The Fractal Laboratory Journal - Instructions for Authors

Types of Articles

Original Research Articles: Original Research Articles describe the hypothesis, study, and methods of original research. These Articles have an approximate word count of 8,000, are peer-reviewed, published in PDF format, and submitted for indexing in digital archives.
Technical notes: Technical notes present a cutting-edge fractal technology and/or software that open new avenues for experimental investigation of important issues in medicine and biology. Technical Notes have an approximate word count of 3,000, are peer-reviewed, published in PDF format, and submitted for indexing in digital archives.
Reviews: Review Articles cover topics that have seen significant development or progress in recent years with comprehensive depth, balanced perspective, intellectual insight, and broad general interest. Reviews do not merely recap the literature, but critique fundamental concepts, issues, and problems that define the field, highlighting the "state of the art" aimed to the future "work in progress" . Reviews have an approximate word count of 12,000, are peer-reviewed, published in PDF format, and submitted for indexing in digital archives.
Viewpoints: Viewpoints allow researchers to publish an opinion on the interpretation of facts, value of methods used, weaknesses and strengths of any scientific theory or on any topic relevant to the field of research. Viewpoints have an approximate word count of 3,000, are peer-reviewed, published in PDF format, and submitted for indexing in digital archives.
Editorials: Editorials are submitted by the host Editor(s) of a Special Topic, and are an excellent way to introduce the topic, and summarize its contributing articles. Editorials have an approximate word count of 3,000, are peer-reviewed, published in PDF format, and submitted for indexing in digital archives.
Book Reviews: These articles are one page literary criticisms analyzing content, style, and merit. Book Reviews have an approximate word count of 1,000, are peer-reviewed, are published in PDF format, and submitted for indexing in digital archives.
Correspondence to the Editors: These articles call attention to papers of particular note - published in The Fractal Laboratory Journal. They have an approximate word count of 1,000, are peer-reviewed, published in PDF format, and submitted for indexing in digital archives.

Instructions for "The Fractal Laboratory Journal" Authors
General information

Submission process
Manuscripts must be submitted by one of the Authors of the manuscript. The submitting author takes responsibility for the article during submission and peer review. To facilitate rapid publication The Fractal Laboratory Journal accepts only online submissions. A cover letter should explain why the manuscript should be published in The Fractal Laboratory Journal.
Assistance with the process of manuscript preparation and submission is available from the cu"stomer support team (info@fractal-lab.org).

Publication and peer review processes
The Fractal Laboratory Journal uses online peer review to speed up the publication process. The time taken to reach a final decision depends on whether Reviewers request revisions, and how quickly the Authors are able to respond. Once an article is accepted, it is published in The Fractal Laboratory Journal immediately as a provisional PDF file. The ultimate responsibility for any decision lies with the Honorary and Senior Editors, to whom any appeals against rejection should be addressed. Submission of a manuscript implies: that the work described has not been published before; that it is not under consideration for publication anywhere else and that its publication has been approved by all co-Authors. Currently, The Fractal Laboratory Journal can only accept manuscripts written in English. Spelling in US or British English are acceptable, but not both.

Article-processing charges
There are NO page charges for accepted articles.

Manuscript sections for Research articles
Manuscripts for Research articles submitted to The Fractal Laboratory Journal should be divided into the following sections:

Title page
This should list the title of the article. The full names, institutional addresses, and e-mail addresses for all Authors must be included on the title page. The corresponding author should also be indicated. An "author" is generally considered to be someone who has made substantive intellectual contributions to a published study. To qualify as an author one should a) have made substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; b) have been involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and c) have given final approval of the version to be published. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, alone, does not justify authorship.

Abstract
The abstract of the manuscript should not exceed 300 words and must be structured into separate sections: Background, the context and purpose of the study; Methods, how the study was performed and statistical tests used; Results, the main findings; Conclusions, brief summary and potential implications. Please minimize the use of abbreviations and do not cite references in the abstract.

Background
The background section should be written from the standpoint of researchers without specialist knowledge in that area and must clearly state - and, if helpful, illustrate - the background to the research and its aims. The section should end with a very brief statement of what is being reported in the article.

Methods
This should include the design of the study, the setting, the type of participants or materials involved, a clear description of all interventions and comparisons, and the type of analysis used, including a power calculation if appropriate.

Results and Discussion
The Results and Discussion may be combined into a single section or presented separately. Results of statistical analysis should include, where appropriate, relative and absolute risks or risk reductions, and confidence intervals. The results and discussion sections may also be broken into subsections with short, informative headings.

Conclusions
This section should state clearly the main conclusions of the research and give a clear explanation of their importance and relevance. Summary illustrations may be included.

List of abbreviations
Abbreviations in the text, should be either defined in the text where first used, or in a list of abbreviations, which should precede the competing interests and Authors' contributions.

Competing interests
A competing interest exists when your interpretation of data or presentation of information may be influenced by a personal or financial relationship with other people or organizations. Authors should disclose any financial competing interests but also any non-financial competing interests that could cause them embarrassment were they to become public after the publication of the manuscript.

Authors' contributions
In order to give appropriate credit to each author of a paper, the individual contributions of Authors to the manuscript should be specified in this section.

Acknowledgements and Funding
This section should acknowledge those who contributed towards the study by making substantial contributions to conception, design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, or who were involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content, but do not meet the criteria for Authorship.
Source(s) of funding or materials can also be acknowledged in this section.


References
All references must be numbered consecutively, in square brackets, in the order in which they are cited in the text, followed by any in tables or legends. Reference citations should not appear in titles, headings or abstract. Excessive referencing should be avoided.
Only articles and abstracts that have been published or are in press, or are available through public e-print/preprint servers, may be cited; unpublished abstracts, unpublished data and personal communications should not be included in the reference list, but may be included in the text and referred to as "unpublished data", "unpublished observations", or "personal communications" giving the names of the involved researchers and the date. Obtaining permission to quote personal communications and unpublished data from the cited author(s) is the sole responsibility of the author. Journal abbreviations follow Index Medicus/MEDLINE. Citations in the reference list should contain all named Authors, regardless of how many there are.

Article within a journal
Dey P, Sharma N, Samanta S: Fractal dimension of cervical intraepithelial lesions on cytology smear. Anal Quant Cytol Histol 2010, 32: 320-322.

Book chapter, or article within a book
Schnepf E: From prey via endosymbiont to plastids: comparative studies in dinoflagellates. In Origins of Plastids. Volume 2. 2nd edition. Edited by Lewin RA. New York: Chapman and Hall; 1993:53-76.

Complete book
Mandelbrot BB: The Fractal Geometry of Nature. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company; 1982.

PhD thesis
Kohavi R: Wrappers for performance enhancement and oblivious decision graphs. PhD thesis. Stanford University, Computer Science Department; 1995.

Link / URL
The Mouse Tumor Biology Database [http://tumor.informatics.jax.org/mtbwi/index.do]

Link / URL with author(s)
Neylon, C: Open Research Computation: an ordinary journal with extraordinary aims. [http://blogs.openaccesscentral.com/blogs/bmcblog/entry/open_research_computation_an_ordinary]

Illustrations and figures
Figures should be provided as separate files and should not be included in the main text of the submitted manuscript. Each figure should comprise only a single file. There is no charge for the use of color. The following file formats can be accepted: Microsoft Word (figures must be a single page), PowerPoint (figures must be a single page), TIFF and BMP.

Figure legends
The legends should be included in the main manuscript text file and not as part of the figure files. For each figure, the following information should be provided: Figure number (in sequence, using Arabic numerals); detailed legend, up to 150 words. Please note that it is the responsibility of the author(s) to obtain permission from the copyright holder to reproduce figures or tables that have previously been published elsewhere.