Author Guidelines

1.        Authors guideline of the Journal

1.1.          Information for Authors       

The East African Journal of Biophysical and Computational Sciences (EAJBCS) will provide sufficient information for all authors, including those invited to submit articles for publication (Appendix I). The information, as summarized hereunder, will cover the authorship policy, publication ethics and general requirement during the preparation of the manuscript.

All articles as well as the Editorials published in the East African Journal of Biophysical and Computational Sciences (EAJBCS) represent the opinion of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official view of the Hawassa University and/or College of Natural and Computation Science, the Editorial Board or the institution within which the author(s) is/are affiliated unless this is clearly stated. Furthermore, the author(s) is/are fully responsible for the contents of the manuscript and for any claim or disclaim therein.

1.2.          Authorship Policy

Authorship should incorporate and should be restricted to those who have contributed substantially to work in one or more of the following categories:

• Conceived of or designed the study
• Performed research
• Analyzed data
• Contributed new methods or models
• Wrote the paper

It is the responsibility of the corresponding authors that the names, addresses, and affiliations of all authors are correct and in the right order, that institutional approvals have been obtained and that all authors have seen and agreed to a submission. This includes single authorship papers where appropriate. If at all in doubt, please double-check with e.g., Supervisors, line managers, department heads etc.

1.3.          Publication ethics

The Journal requires an author or authors of a manuscript to sign a form of submission prepared for this purpose (Appendix II). The submission to the Journal means that the author(s) agree(s) to all of the contents of the form. The corresponding author for a co-authored manuscript is solely responsible for ensuring the agreement and managing all communications between the Journal and the co-author(s) before and after publication. Before submission, the corresponding author should ensure that the names of all authors of the manuscript are included on the author list, the order of the names of the authors should appear as agreed by all authors, and that all authors are aware that the paper was submitted. Any changes to the author's list after submissions, such as a change in the order of the author, or the deletion or addition of authors, needs to be approved by a signed letter from every author.

After acceptance, the proof is sent to the corresponding author to circulate it to all co-authors and deal with the Journal on their behalf. The Journal shall not necessarily correct errors after publication. The corresponding author is responsible for the accuracy of all contents in the proof, particularly including the correct spelling of the names of co-authors and their current addresses and affiliations.

After publication, the Journal regards the corresponding author as the point of contact for queries about the published manuscript and that it is his/her full responsibility to inform all co-authors about matters arising from the publication processes and that such matter is dealt with promptly. The corresponding author’s role is to ensure that inquiries are answered promptly on behalf of all the co-authors. The names and email addresses of the author will be published in the paper. With prior permission of the Editorial Board, authors have the right to retract submitted manuscripts in case they decide to do so. Authors of a published material have the responsibility to inform the Journal promptly if they become aware of any part of their manuscript that requires correcting. The corrected part of the article will be mentioned in the next issue. In fact, any published correction requires the consent of all co-authors, so time is saved if requests for corrections are accompanied by a signed agreement by all authors (in the form of a scanned attachment to an email).

1.4.  Editorial Policy and Working Principles

The Editorial policy deals with the work ethics and principles of the Editorial Board that govern the work relationships between members of the Editorial Board, editors, and the author(s).

Confidentiality

The Journal editors treat the submitted manuscript and all communications with referees and corresponding authors as confidential. Authors must also treat communication with the Journal as confidential. Confidential materials, correspondence with the Journal, and reviewers’ reports must not be posted on any website or publicized without prior permission from the editors whether or not the submission is eventually polished. The editors themselves are not allowed to discuss manuscripts with third parties or to reveal information about correspondences and other interactions with authors and referees. In other words, editors of the Journal should not release reviewers’ identities to authors or to other reviewers. Editors prefer that reviewers should remain anonymous throughout the review process. Referees of manuscripts submitted to the Journal also undertake in advance to maintain the confidentiality of manuscripts and any associated supplementary data. It is highly obliged that reviewers are requested not to identify themselves to authors even with the editors’ knowledge.

Editorial responsibilities

Editors (mainly the Editor-in Chief (EIC) and Associate Editors) hold full authority to reject/accept an article; only accept a paper when reasonably certain; promote publication of correction or retraction when errors are found; preserve anonymity of reviewers; and have no conflict of interest with respect to articles they reject/accept.

If the EIC and /or Associate editor feel/s that there is likely to be a perception of a conflict of interest in relation to their handling of a submission, they will declare it to the other Editors. The other Editorial members will select referees and make all decisions on the paper. This procedure also applies if a paper is submitted (as a corresponding author) by one of the Editors, if the Editor(s) is/are coauthor of the submitted manuscript, if a paper is submitted by an author whose relationship with one of the Editors might create the perception of bias (e.g. in terms of close friendship, co-authorship or conflict/rivalry) and the Editor declares a potential conflict of interest.

Editorial Freedom

Interference with the editorial freedom of editors construes misconduct. Editors and other Editorial Board members have total freedom in performing their duties. Any form of interference

Publication decisions

The editor-in-chief is responsible for deciding which of the papers submitted to the journal will be processed further (sent for associate editor, reviewers and then published, if acceptable). The EIC will evaluate manuscripts without regard to the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy. The decision will merely be based on the paper’s relevance, depth of study, originality and clarity, and the study’s validity and its relevance to the journal's scope. However, all the legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement, conflict of interest among the authors, ethical clearance issues and plagiarism will be strictly considered at any stage in the article processing course.

Plagiarism policy

Before submitting any manuscript, the authors should ensure that they have prepared entirely original works (i.e. not plagiarized from others or from their previous published works). If the work of others is used in any form (such as words, phrases, paragraphs or pictures), the original work should be acknowledged and appropriately cited or quoted. In general, the journal strongly condemns the act of plagiarism and applies different Plagiarism Checking softwares to reduce such fraud. If the plagiarism is detected at any stage of the publication process by our esteemed peer reviewers or Editorial board members, the manuscript could be automatically rejected.

Reviewers will notify the editor of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

1.5. General requirements

Upon submission of a manuscript, the author(s) required to state that the paper has not been submitted for publication by any other journal or will not be submitted to any other journal by signing the manuscript submission and copyright transfer form (Appendix II).

Manuscripts should be written in English, with spelling according to recent editions of the Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English, Oxford University Press. The manuscript should include the following: title, author’s name(s), Affiliation (company or institute), abstract, and keywords. The main parts of the manuscript should consist of INTRODUCTION, clear objective(s), MATERIALS AND METHODS, RESULTS, DISCUSSION (or results and discussion merged), CONCLUSION, Acknowledgement, References, Figures, and Tables with captions and descriptions, in which detailed quantity, formatting, and unit are given under the following sub-heading.

General text formatting

Manuscripts should be submitted as Microsoft Word documents (docx, doc, rtf) and /or Latex. The manuscript’s font size for the text is 12-point, Times New Roman, 1.5 point line spacing with a minimum of 2.5 cm margins on all sides. All pages in the manuscript should be numbered by using the automatic page numbering function.

Permitted length of articles

Original research articles and review articles should not exceed 6000 words in length, starting from the title page to the reference section. Generally, 3-4 tables and 5-6 figures are permitted.  Short communications contain news of interest to researchers, including progress reports on ongoing research of unique nature, records of observations, short comments, corrections, and reinterpretation of articles previously published in EAJBCS etc. The maximum permissible length is 1500words, including title, abstract, and references; they may contain no more than two figures and/or two tables. Book reviews with critical evaluation of recently published books in areas of Natural and Computational Sciences will be published under this column. The maximum permissible length of a book review is 1500 words, including any references.

Title Page

The title page should include the title, author(s)’ name and affiliation, email address of the corresponding author, and a suggested running head (Maximum 50 characters).

ABSTRACT

An informative abstract shorter than 300 words is included. Informative abstracts include the purpose of the research, the main methods used, the most important results, and the most significant conclusions. The abstract should be in one paragraph and without any abbreviations.

Keywords

Supply 3 to 7 keywords that describe the main content of the article, each separated with semicolons. Select words different than those in the title and list them alphabetically.

Text

The text should be precise, clear, and concise. Avoid verbiage, excessive citations of the literature (especially to support well-known statements), discussions marginally relevant to the paper, and other information that adds length but little substance to the paper. All tables and figures should be relevant and necessary; do not present the same data in tables and figures, and do not use short tables for information that can be easily presented using text.

INTRODUCTION

The introduction should give the pertinent background to the study and should explain why the work was done. The author(s) should clearly show the research gap, state the objectives of the work and avoid a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The nomenclature, the source of material and equipment used, with the manufacturers’ details in parenthesis, should be clearly mentioned. The procedures adopted should be explicitly stated to enable other workers to reproduce the results, if necessary. New methods may be described in sufficient detail and indicating their limitations. Established methods can be just mentioned with authentic references and significant deviations, if any given, with reasons for adopting them. While reporting experiments on human subjects and animals, it should be clearly mentioned that procedures followed are in accordance with the ethical standards laid down by the national bodies or organizations of the particular country.

The statistical analysis done and statistical significance of the findings, when appropriate, should be mentioned. Unless absolutely necessary for a clear understanding of the article, a detailed description of statistical treatment/analysis may be avoided. Articles based heavily on statistical considerations, however, need to give details particularly when new or uncommon methods are employed. Standard and routine statistical methods employed need to give only authentic references.

RESULTS

Only such data as are essential for understanding the discussion and main conclusions emerging from the study should be included and arrange in a unified and coherent sequence so that the report develops clearly and logically. Data presented in tables and figures should not be repeated in the text. Only important observations need to be emphasized or summarized. The same data should not be presented both in tabular and graphic forms. Interpretation of the data should be made under the discussion section.

DISCUSSION

The discussion should deal with the interpretation of results without repeating information already presented under Results. It should relate new findings to the known ones and include logical deductions. It should also mention any weaknesses or limitations of the study.

The conclusions can be linked with the goals of the study, but unqualified statements and conclusions not completely supported by the data should be avoided. Claiming of priority on work that is ongoing should also be avoided. All hypotheses should, if warranted, clearly be identified as such; recommendations may be included as part of the discussion, only when considered absolutely necessary and relevant.

Acknowledgment

Acknowledgment should be brief and made for specific scientific/technical assistance and financial support only and not for providing routine departmental facilities and encouragement or for help in the preparation of the manuscripts (including typing or secretarial assistance).

Tables

Tables should be prepared in MS Word’s Table Editor, using (as far as possible) “Simple1” as the model:

(Table … Insert … Table … Auto format …Simple 1). Tables taken directly from Microsoft Excel are not generally acceptable for publication.

Use Arabic (1, 2, 3 …), not Roman (I, II, III …), numerals for tables. Footnotes in tables should be indicated by superscript letters beginning with “a” in each table. Descriptive material not designated as a footnote maybe placed under a table as a Note.

Illustrations

Preparation: Similar figures should be arranged into plates whenever possible; leave very little space between adjoining illustrations or separate them with a thin white line. Line art should be scanned at 900 dpi, photographs (halftone or color) at 300 dpi, and figures with line art and halftones at 600 dpi. Crop the illustrations to remove non-printing borders. Make lines thick enough and text large enough to compensate for the reduction. Dimensions of the original artwork should not exceed 28 cm x 21.5 cm; the printed area of the journal page measures 20.3 x 14 cm. Submission: TIFF or JPG files of figures should be of high quality and readable in Adobe Photoshop. Do not embed figures in the manuscript document.

The figures will be evaluated during the Editorial reading of the article, and if necessary, instructions will be provided for the submission of adequate illustrations.

Insert … Symbol … Special characters

All data should be given in the metric system, using SI units of measurement.

Use ‟.”  (point) as the decimal symbol. Thousands are shown spaced, thus: 1 000 000. Use a leading zero with all numbers <1, including probability values (e.g. p< 0.001).

Numbers from one to nine should be written out in the text, except when used with units or in percentages (e.g. two occasions, 10 samples, Five seconds, 3.5%). At the beginning of a sentence, always spell out numbers (e.g. ‟Twenty-one trees were sampled... ”).

Use the 24-hour time format, with a colon “:” as separator (e.g. 12:15 h). Use day/month/year as the full date format (e.g. 12 August 2001, or 12/08/01 for brevity in tables or figures). Give years in full (e.g. “1994–2001”, never “94–01”). Use the form “1990s”, not “1990‟s” or “1990ies”.

Use the en-dash – for ranges, as in “1994–2001” (Insert … Symbol … Special characters En dash).

In stating temperatures, use the degree symbol “ º ”, thus “ ºC ”, not a super script zero “ 0 ”. (Insert … Symbol … Normal text),

Define all symbols, abbreviations and acronyms the first time they are used, e.g. diameter at breast height (DBH), meters above sea-level (masl). In the text, use negative exponents, e.g. g m^-2, g m^-2 sec^-1, m³ ha^-1 as appropriate. Use “h” for hours; do not abbreviate “day”.

If possible, format mathematical expressions in their final version (e.g. by means of Equation Editor in MS Word or its equivalent in Word Perfect or Open Office); otherwise, make them understandable enough to be formatted during typesetting (e.g. use underlining for fractions and type the numerator and denominator on different lines).

MS word equations can be used for all mathematical equations and formulae (Insert….Equations).

References

All kinds of literature referred to in the text should be cited as exemplified below.

Please inspect the examples below carefully, and adhere to the styles and punctuation shown.

Capitalize only proper names (“Miocene”,  “Afar”,  “The Netherlands”) and the initial letter of the title of papers and books, e.g. write “Principles and procedures of statistics”, not “Principles and Procedures of Statistics”.

Do not italicize Latin abbreviations: write “et al.”, not “et al.”

References in the text should use the ‘author-year’ (Harvard) format:

(Darwin and Morgan, 1993) or, if more than two authors, (Anderson et al., 1993). Arrange multiple citations chronologically (Hartman and Kester, 1975; Anderson et al., 1993; Darwin and Morgan, 1994).

References in the list should be in alphabetical order, in the following formats:

Journal article

Kalb J.E. 1978. Miocene to Pleistocene deposits in the Afar depression, Ethiopia. SINET: Ethiop. J. Sci. 1: 87-98.

Books

Whitmore T.C. 1996. An introduction to tropical rain forests. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 226 pp.

Steel R.G.D. and Torrie J.H. 1980.Principles and procedures of statistics. 2^nd ed. McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York.633 pp.

Book chapter

Dubin H.J. and Grinkel M. 1991.The status of wheat disease and disease research in warmer areas. In: Lange L.O., Nose1 P.S. and Zeigler H. (Eds.) Encyclopedia of plant physiology. Vol. 2 A Physiological plant ecology. Springer-Verlag, Berlin. pp. 57-107.

Conference /workshop/seminar proceedings

Demel Teketay. 2001. Ecological effects of eucalyptus: ground for making wise and informed decision. Proceedings of a national workshop on the Eucalyptus dilemma, 15November 2000, Part II: 1-45, Addis Ababa.

Daniel L.E. and Stubbs R.W. 1992.Virulenceof yellow rust races and types of resistance in wheat cultivars in Kenya. In: Tanner D.G. and Mwangi W. (eds.). Seventh regional wheat workshop for eastern, central and southern Africa. September 16-19, 1991. Nakuru, Kenya: CIMMYT. pp. 165-175.

Publications of organizations

WHO (World Health Organization) 2005. Make every mother and child count: The 2005World Health Report. WHO, Geneva, Switzerland.

CSA (Central Statistical Authority) 1991.Agricultural Statistics. 1991. Addis Ababa, CTA Publications. 250 pp.

Dissertation or Thesis

Roumen E.C.1991. Partial resistance to blast and how to select for it. Ph.D. Thesis. Agricultural University, Wageningen. The Netherlands.108 pp.

Gatluak Gatkuoth 2008. Agroforestry potentials of under-exploited multipurpose trees and shrubs (MPTS) in Lare district of Gambella region. MSc. Thesis, College of Agriculture, Hawassa University, Hawassa.92 pp.

Publications from websites (URLs)

FAO 2000. Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission to Ethiopia. FAOIWFP. Rome. (http://www. fao. or~/GIE WS). (Accessed on 21 July 2000).