Note: Average publication time of 18 days between final acceptance of revised manuscript and its publication
The Open Transportation Journal is an Open Access online journal, which publishes Research articles, Reviews and Letters in the field of transportation, aiming at providing the most complete and reliable source of information on current developments in the field.
Each peer-reviewed article that is published in a Bentham OPEN Journal is universally and freely accessible via the Internet in an easily readable and printable PDF format.
An online submission and tracking service via Internet facilitates a speedy and cost-effective submission of manuscripts. The full manuscript has to be submitted online via Bentham's Journals Management System (JMS) at https://bentham.manuscriptpoint.com/journals/totj / View Instructions
Authors should ONLY submit their articles directly through our online system as we do not accept articles through intermediary companies or agents.
Manuscripts must be submitted by one of the authors of the manuscript, and should not be submitted by anyone on their behalf. The principal/corresponding author will be required to submit a Covering Letter along with the manuscript, on behalf of all the co-authors (if any). The author(s) will confirm that the manuscript (or any part of it) has not been published previously or is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Furthermore, any illustration, structure or table that has been published elsewhere must be reported, and copyright permission for reproduction must be obtained.
For all online submissions, please provide soft copies of all the materials (main text in MS Word or Tex/LaTeX), figures / illustrations in TIFF, PDF or JPEG, and chemical structures drawn in ChemDraw (CDX) / ISISDraw (TGF) as separate files, while a PDF version of the entire manuscript must also be included, embedded with all the figures / illustrations / tables / chemical structures etc. It is advisable that the document files related to a manuscript submission should always have the name of the corresponding author as part of the file name, i.e., "Cilli MS text.doc" , "Cilli MS Figure 1", etc.
It is imperative that before submission, authors should carefully proofread the files for special characters, mathematical symbols, Greek letters, equations, tables and images, to ensure that they appear in proper format.
References, figures, tables, structures etc. should be referred to in the text at the place where they have been discussed. Figure legends/caption should also be provided.
A successful electronic submission of a manuscript will be followed by a system-generated acknowledgement to the principal/corresponding author within 72 hours of the dispatch of the manuscript. Any questions with regards to the preparation of and submission of your manuscript to the journal should be addressed to totj@benthamopen.net and copied to info@benthamopen.net
NOTE: Any queries therein should be addressed to oa@benthamopen.net and copied to Jalil@benthamopen.net
Authors who publish in Bentham OPEN Journals retain copyright to their work. It is a condition of publication that manuscripts submitted to this journal have not been published and will not be simultaneously submitted or published elsewhere. Plagiarism is strictly forbidden, and by submitting the article for publication the authors agree that the publishers have the legal right to take appropriate action against the authors, if plagiarism or fabricated information is discovered. Once submitted to the journal, the author may not withdraw their manuscript at any stage prior to publication.
Articles are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode), which permits the copying and redistribution of the material in any medium or format, as well as remixing, transformation, and building upon the material for any purpose, even commercially, provided appropriate credit is given, a link to the licence is provided, and provided it is indicated if any changes were made.
It is a mandatory requirement that a signed copyright letter also be submitted along with the manuscript by the author to whom correspondence is to be addressed, delineating the scope of the submitted article declaring the potential competing interests, acknowledging contributions from authors and funding agencies, and certifying that the paper is prepared according to the 'Instructions for Authors'. All inconsistencies in the text and in the reference section, and any typographical errors must be carefully checked and corrected before the submission of the manuscript. The article contains no such material or information that may be unlawful, defamatory, fabricated, plagiarized, or which would, if published, in any way whatsoever, violate the terms and conditions as laid down in the agreement. The authors acknowledge that the publishers have the legal right to take appropriate action against the authors for any such violation of the terms and conditions as laid down in the agreement. Download the Copyright Letter
Published/reproduced material should not be included unless you have obtained written permission from the copyright holder, which should be forwarded to the Editorial Office in case of acceptance of your article for publication.
For obtaining permission for reproducing any material published in an article by Bentham OPEN, please fill in the request FORM and send to info@benthamopen.net for consideration.
The manuscript should be written in English in a clear, direct and active style. All pages must be numbered sequentially, facilitating in the reviewing and editing of the manuscript.
Professional editing services may be availed by the team available at Bentham OPEN, for the correction of grammatical, scientific and typographical errors.
The journal accepts original research articles, review/mini-review articles and letters written in English. Single topic/thematic issues may also be considered for publication.
Research articles should be of 4000-6000 words with 75 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables, etc.
The length of a published comprehensive review article is from 35000 to 40000 words with 100 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables etc.
Letters should be 3000-6000 words with 40 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables, etc.
A perspective should provide a short overview of a research topic relevant to the field. The length of a published perspective ranges from 1500 to 1800 words with 20 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables, etc.
There is no restriction on the number of figures, tables or additional files e.g. video clips, animation and datasets, that can be included with each article online. Authors should include all relevant supporting data with each article.
Technical notes, also termed as technical innovations or technical developments are a publication which gives a brief account and supporting information for one or more case studies, a particular development, method or a tool or it could be a report highlighting modification to a study, a development, a method or a tool. It is essential that the development, method or tool should have contributed to problems diagnosis or management and have concrete significance.
Technical notes based on originality of theory, rationality of procedure, with prospective scientific applications are accepted for publication. Technical notes should be of 2000-4000 words with 15 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables, etc.
This journal publishes open access reviews on recently published books (both print and electronic) relevant to the journal. Publishers and authors of books are invited to contact our book reviews editor at totj@benthamopen.net with book review requests. All submitted books will be reviewed by an independent expert in the field.
For proposals to publish conference proceedings in this journal, please contact us at email: proceedings@benthamopen.net.
The journal also considers Supplements/Single topic issues for publication. The Guest Edited Thematic Issues are published free of charge.
A Supplement/Single topic will be a collection of articles (minimum of 6, maximum of 20 articles) based on a contemporary theme or topic of great importance to the field. Mini-supplements consisting of between 3 to 5 articles are also welcome. The Guest Editors' main editorial task is to invite the contributors to the Supplement and to manage the peer review of submitted manuscripts. A short summary or proposal for editing a supplement should be submitted to the Editor-in-Chief at e-mail to specialissue@benthamopen.net.
Manuscripts submitted for research and review articles in the respective journal should be divided into the following sections:
The title should be precise and brief and must not be more than 120 characters. Authors should avoid the use of non standard abbreviations and question marks in titles. The title must be written in title case except for articles, conjunctions and prepositions.
As recommended by the Reporting guidelines information about the study should be a part of the title (particularly for randomized or clinical trials, systematic reviews and meta analyses).
Authors should also provide a short ‘running title’. Title, running title, by line correspondent footnote and key words should be written as presented in the original manuscript.
The abstract of an article should be its clear, concise and accurate summary, having no more than 250 words, and including the explicit sub-headings (as in-line or run-in headings in bold). Use of abbreviations should be avoided and the references should not be cited in the abstract.
All the original research articles, systemic reviews and meta analyses must be accompanied with a structured abstract. Ideally, each abstract should include the following sub-headings, but these may vary according to requirements of the article.
The headings can vary, but must state the purpose of the study, details of the participants, measurements, methods, main findings and conclusion.
The clinical trial studies should have the registration number at the end of the study.
6 to 8 keywords must be provided. Choose important and relevant keywords that researchers in your field will be searching for so that your paper will appear in a database search.
The main text should begin on a separate page and should be divided into title page, abstract and the main text. The text may be subdivided further according to the areas to be discussed, which should be followed by the List of Abbreviations (if any), Conflict of Interest, Acknowledgements and Reference sections. For review, the manuscript should be divided into title page, abstract and the main text. The text may be subdivided further according to the areas to be discussed, which should be followed by the Acknowledgements and Reference sections. The Review Article should mention any previous important recent and old reviews in the field and contain a comprehensive discussion starting with the general background of the field. It should then go on to discuss the salient features of recent developments. The authors should avoid presenting material which has already been published in a previous review. The authors are advised to present and discuss their observations in brief.
For Research Articles the manuscript should begin with the title page and abstract followed by the main text, which must be structured into separate sections as Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, Conflict of Interest, Acknowledgements and References.
The manuscript style must be uniform throughout the text and 10 pt Times New Roman fonts should be used. The full term for an abbreviation should precede its first appearance in the text unless it is a standard unit of measurement. The reference numbers should be given in square brackets in the text. Italics should be used for Binomial names of organisms (Genus and Species), for emphasis and for unfamiliar words or phrases. Non-assimilated words from Latin or other languages should also be italicized e.g. per se, et al., etc.
Section headings should be numbered sequentially, left aligned and have the first letter capitalized, starting with the introduction. Sub-section headings however, should be in lower-case and italicized with their initials capitalized. They should be numbered as 1.1, 1.2, etc.
The Introduction section should include the background and aims of the research in a comprehensive manner.
This section provides details of the methodology used along with information on any previous efforts with corresponding references. Any details for further modifications and research should be included. Sufficient details should be provided to the reader about the original data source in order to enable the analysis, appropriateness and verification of the results reported in the study.
It is important for the Method Section should be sufficiently detailed in respect of the data presented, and the results produced from it. This section should include all the information and protocol gathered for the study at the time when it was being written. If the study is funded or financially supported by an organization to conduct the research, then it should be mentioned in the Method Section. Methods must be result-oriented.
Repeated information should not be reported in the text of an article. A calculation section must include experimental data, facts and practical development from a theoretical perspective.
The important and main findings of the study should come first in the Results Section. The tables, figures and references should be given in sequence to emphasize the important information or observations related to the research. The repetition of data in tables and figures should be avoided. Results should be precise.
This should explore the significance of the results of the work, and present reproducible procedure. Extensive citations and discussion of published literature should be avoided.
The Results and discussions may be presented individually or combined in a single section with short and informative headings.
A small paragraph summarizing the contents of the article, presenting the final outcome of the research or proposing further study on the subject, may be given at the end of the article under the Conclusion section.
Greek symbols and special characters often undergo formatting changes and get corrupted or lost during preparation of a manuscript for publication. To ensure that all special characters used are embedded in the text, these special characters should be inserted as a symbol but should not be a result of any format styling (Symbol font face) otherwise they will be lost during conversion to PDF/XML2.
Authors are encouraged to consult reporting guidelines. These guidelines provide a set of recommendations comprising a list of items relevant to their specific research design.
Only ISO symbols, written in italic, should be used for the various parameters. All kinds of measurements should be reported only in International System of Units (SI). SI units should always be written in roman and separated from the numerical value by a space (whatever the language). The µ in µg or µm should be in roman. The symbol for liter is L and that for minute is min. For temperatures, please note the use of °C and °F but K. As the Ångström (1 Å = 10-10 m) is not an SI unit, it should be replaced by the nanometer (1 nm = 10-9 m) or by the picometer (1 pm = 10-12 m): 1 Å = 0.1 nm = 100 pm. Multiple units should be written with negative superscripts (for example, 25 mguL-1us-1). The list of notations should appear just before the first paragraph of full text.
A list of symbols and units should be provided if used extensively throughout the text.
The following guidelines for using units should be observed.
Mathematical symbols must be defined immediately where they are introduced.
The italic font should be used for mathematical symbols (this is the default font in TeX/LaTeX is math mode). In addition to variables and constants, the italic font should be used for particle symbols, symbols of quantum states, and group-theoretic designations.
A diacritical sign is a marking placed directly above or below symbols, e.g., the arrow in
.
All available characters can be used as subscripts or superscripts. Position of a subscript or superscript is dictated by standard notation.
Examples:
Some abbreviations, such as those for mathematical functions and those used in superscripts or subscripts require special handling and are discussed below.
Mathematical expressions often need to be displayed on two or more lines (“broken”)
The best place for a break is just before an operator or sign of relation. These signs should begin the next line of the equation.
A principal equation and subordinate equations may be numbered (1), (1a), (1b), etc.
For the purpose of grouping, the sequence of bracketing preferred is {[()]}, working outwards in sets ( ), [ ], and {}.
{ [ ( { [ ( ) ] } ) ] }
In text, however, space limitations require that single limit sums or integrals use subscripts and superscripts, for example,
Fractions can be “built up” with a fraction bar,
, “slashed” with a solidus, (a + b)/c, or written with a negative exponent, (a + b)c-1. In text all fractions must be either slashed or written with a negative exponent.
The primary use of the multiplication sign is to indicate a vector product of three-vectors (e.g., k x A). Do not use it to express a simple product.
The center dot (·) should not be used to mean a simple product. Use the dot to represent inner products of vectors (k · r).
The use of the following standard symbols is recommended.
If abbreviations are used in the text either they should be defined in the text where first used, or a list of abbreviations should be provided.
In case there is a need to present lengthy, but essential methodological details, use appendices, which can be a part of the article. An appendix must not exceed three pages (Times New Roman, 10 point fonts, 900 max. words per page).The information should be provided in a condensed form, ruling out the need of full sentences. A single appendix should be titled APPENDIX, while more than one can be titled APPENDIX A, APPENDIX B, and so on.
We do encourage to append supportive material, for example a PowerPoint file containing a talk about the study, a PowerPoint file containing additional screenshots, a Word, RTF, or PDF document showing the original instrument(s) used, a video, or the original data (SAS/SPSS files, Excel files, Access Db files etc.) provided it is inevitable or endorsed by the journal's Editor.
Supportive/Supplementary Material intended for publication must be numbered and referred to in the manuscript but should not be a part of the submitted paper. In-text citations as well as a section with the heading "Supportive/Supplementary Material" before the "References" section should be provided. Here, list all Supportive/Supplementary Material and include a brief caption line for each file describing its contents.
Any additional files will be linked into the final published article in the form supplied by the author, but will not be displayed within the paper. They will be made available in exactly the same form as originally provided only on our Web site. Please also make sure that each additional file is a single table, figure or movie (please do not upload linked worksheets or PDF files larger than one sheet). Supportive/Supplementary material must be provided in a single zipped file not larger than 4 MB.
Authors must clearly indicate if these files are not for publication but meant for the reviewers'/editors' perusal only.
Financial contributions and any potential conflict of interest must be clearly acknowledged under the heading ‘Conflict of Interest’. Authors must list the source(s) of funding for the study. This should be done for each author.
All individuals listed as authors must have contributed substantially to the design, performance, analysis, or reporting of the work and are required to indicate their specific contribution. Anyone (individual/company/institution) who has substantially contributed to the study for important intellectual content, or was involved in the in drafting or revising the manuscript must also be acknowledged.
Guest or honorary authorship based solely on position (e.g. research supervisor, departmental head) is discouraged.
If the manuscript has an individuals’ data, such as personal detail, audio-video material etc., consent should be obtained from that individual. In case of children, consent should be obtained from the parent or the legal guardian.
All such case reports should be followed by a proper consent prior to publishing.
A specific declaration of such approval and consent-to-disclose form must be made in the copyright letter and in a stand-alone paragraph at the end of the article especially in the case of human studies where inclusion of a statement regarding obtaining the written informed consent from each subject or subject's guardian is a must. The original should be retained by the guarantor or corresponding author. Editors may request to provide the original forms by fax or email.
References must be listed in IEEE style only. All references should be numbered sequentially [in square brackets] in the text and listed in the same numerical order in the reference section. The reference numbers must be finalized and the bibliography must be fully formatted before submission.
The references should be relevant to the study and should refer to the original research sources. Self-citation and self-interest should be avoided by the authors, editors and peer-reviewers.
The author will be responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the references.
See below few examples of references listed in the correct IEEE style:
Some important points to remember:
The source of data and materials should be mentioned in the manuscript, in support of the findings. If the data source is not revealed, the authors need to clearly state the reasons. Authors who do not wish to share their data should clearly state that the data will not be shared, and give the reasons.
The statement relating to the data should be presented in the following format under a separate ‘Availability of Data and Materials’ section in the manuscript:
"The data supporting the findings of the article is available in the [repository name] at [URL], reference number [reference number]”.
All authors must strictly follow the guidelines below for preparing illustrations for publication in The Open Transportation Journal. If the figures are found to be sub-standard, then the manuscripts will be rejected.
The authors are expected to submit good quality figure(s) in PDF, PPT, MS Word, TIFF or JPEG versions, which, if required, should be improved yourself or by professional graphic designers of your organization/ country. You may even consider approaching our contracted service providers Eureka Science for Graphics Enhancement Services.
The Graphics Designing team at Eureka Science can assist in improving the quality of your images at affordable rates. Eureka Science has contracted special rates with us of US $130 for the improvement of up to five figures, with any additional figures being charged at US $20 each.
The quality of Graphic Enhancement Services offered by Eureka Science can be viewed at http://www.eureka-science.com/images/Binder1.pdf, along with valuable feedback on their services at http://www.eureka-science.com/testimonials.php. You may contact Eureka Science at info@eurekascience.net
Note: Availing Graphics Enhancement Services do not guarantee acceptance of the manuscript for publication. The final acceptance/decision on the manuscript is taken by the EiC.
Illustrations must be provided according to the following guideline:
Line Art image type is normally an image based on lines and text. It does not contain tonal or shaded areas. The preferred file format should be TIFF or EPS, with the color mode being Monochrome 1-bit or RGB, in a resolution of 900-1200 dpi.
Halftone image type is a continuous tone photograph containing no text. It should have the preferred file format TIFF, with color mode being RGB or Grayscale, in a resolution of 300 dpi.
Combination image type is an image containing halftone , text or line art elements. It should have the preferred file format TIFF, with color mode being RGB or Grayscale, in a resolution of 500-900 dpi.
Illustrations may be submitted in the following file formats:
Bentham Open does not process figures submitted in GIF format.
For TIFF or EPS figures with considerably large file size restricting the file size in online submissions is advisable. Authors may therefore convert to JPEG format before submission as this results in significantly reduced file size and upload time, while retaining acceptable quality. JPEG is a lossy format. However, in order to maintain acceptable image quality, it is recommended that JPEG files are saved at High or Maximum quality.
Zipit or Stuffit tools should not be used to compress files prior to submission as the resulting compression through these tools is always negligible.
Please refrain from supplying:
Technical requirements for graphic/ figure submissions.
There are many software packages, many of them freeware or shareware, capable of converting to and from different graphics formats, including PNG.
General tools for image conversion include Graphic Converter on the Macintosh, Paint Shop Pro, for Windows, and ImageMagick, available on Macintosh, Windows and UNIX platforms.
Bitmap images (e.g. screenshots) should not be converted to EPS as they result in a much larger file size than the equivalent JPEG, TIFF, PNG or BMP, and poor quality. EPS should only be used for images produced by vector-drawing applications such as Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw. Most vector-drawing applications can be saved in, or exported as, EPS format. If the images were originally prepared in an Office application, such as Word or PowerPoint, original Office files should be directly uploaded to the site, instead of being converted to JPEG or another format of low quality.
Chemical structures MUST be prepared in ChemDraw/CDX and provided as separate file.
[As according to the ACS style sheet]
| Drawing Settings | |
| Chain angle | 120° |
| Bond spacing | 18% of width |
| Fixed length | 14.4 pt (0.500cm, 0.2in) |
| Bold width | 2.0 pt (0.071cm, 0.0278in) |
| Line width | 0.6 pt (0.021cm, 0.0084in) |
| Margin width | 1.6 pt (0.096cm) |
| Hash spacing | 2.5 pt (0.088cm, 0.0347in) |
| Text settings | |
| Font | Times New Roman |
| Size | 10 pt |
| Under the Preference Choose | |
| Units | points |
| Tolerances | 3 pixels |
| Under Page Setup Use | |
| Paper | US letter |
| Scale | 100% |
The names of the authors should be provided according to the previous citations or as the authors would want them to be published along with the institutional affiliations, current address, telephone, cell & fax numbers and the email address. Email address must be provided with an asterisk in front of the name of the principal author. The corresponding author(s) should be designated and their complete address, business telephone and fax numbers and e-mail address must be stated to receive correspondence and galley proofs. Also it is suggested to regularly update the profile on SCOPUS and other databases.
Authors must provide a final list of authors at the time of submission, ensuring the correct sequence of the names of authors, which will not be considered for any addition, deletion or rearrangement after final submission of the manuscript. If a change is essentially required, it can only be done on Editor’s approval, for which the Editor must receive the following from the corresponding author:
(a) the reason for change in the author list and the sequence
(b) a confirmation is a prerequisite from all the co-authors for any amendment or removal.
Any amendment to the authors list will only be considered by the Editor if it is a MUST. Publication of the manuscript will be withheld during consideration of the request. However, if the manuscript has already been published online, requests approved thereafter by the Editor will result in an erratum or corrigendum.
Manuscripts containing language inconsistencies will not be published. Authors should seek professional assistance for correction of grammatical, scientific and typographical errors before submission of the revised version of the article for publication. Professional editing services may also be sought by the team available at Bentham Open.
Authors are required to proofread the PDF versions of their manuscripts before submission. To avoid delays in publication, proofs should be checked immediately for typographical errors and returned within 48 hours. Major changes are not acceptable at the proof stage. If unable to send corrections within 48 hours due to some reason, the author(s) must at least send an acknowledgement on receiving the galley proofs or the article will be published exactly as received and the publishers will not be responsible for any error occurring in the manuscript in this regard.
The corresponding author will be solely responsible for ensuring that the revised version of the manuscript incorporating all the submitted corrections receives the approval of all the authors of the manuscript.
All papers submitted for publication are immediately subjected to preliminary editorial scrutiny by the Editor-in-Chief regarding their suitability. The Editor-in-Chief determines if the manuscript:
(a) falls within the scope of the journal and
(b) meets the editorial criteria of Bentham Open Publishers in terms of originality and quality.
Manuscripts that appear to be suitable are then subjected to single-blind peer-review by, usually three, neutral eminent experts. The services of eminent international experts are sought through invitations to conduct the peer-review of a submitted manuscript, keeping in view the scope of the manuscript and the expertise of the reviewers. The identity of the reviewers is not disclosed to the authors. The anonymity of reviewers ensures objective and unbiased assessment of the manuscript by the reviewers.
Before sending the manuscripts to reviewers, Bentham Open seeks consent from potential reviewers about their availability and willingness to review. Correspondence between the editorial office of the journal and the reviewers is kept confidential. The reviewers are expected to provide their reports in a timely fashion since a prompt review leads to timely publication of a manuscript which is beneficial not only to the authors but to the scientific community as well.
The editorial process and peer-review workflow for each journal are taken care of by a team of Senior Editors, Editorial Board Members (EBMs) and dedicated Journal managers who have the required expertise in their specific fields.
The Editor-in-Chief may recommend the acceptance or rejection of a manuscript after considering the opinions of the independent referees, or he/she may take assistance and advice from other experts in the field, if needed.
The Editor-in-Chief and Senior Editors of a journal have the right to select reviewers for a particular manuscript considering the knowledge and experience of the reviewers.
After reviewing of the manuscript by at least two independent experts, in addition to the assessment of the Editor, the decision is relayed to the authors, which may be categorized as:
Bentham Open requests not to have the manuscripts peer-reviewed by those experts who may have competing interest with the author(s) of a submitted manuscript. It is not possible for Editors to be aware of all competing interests; it is therefore expected that the reviewers would inform the Editor-in-Chief/Handling Editor if they notice any potential competing interest during the course of review of a manuscript. Moreover, the reviewers are expected to inform the Editors or editorial office of the journal if they have a conflict of interest in carrying out the review of a manuscript submitted by any author/contributor of the manuscript.
Papers which are delayed by the authors in revision for more than 30 days are required to be re-submitted as a new submission. Papers accepted for publication are typeset and proofs are dispatched to authors for any corrections prior to final publication.
Peer review is the most important activity of the publication process. Bentham Open follows single-blind and Open peer review procedures for submissions of all manuscripts to its journals.
In Single-Blind review, the reviewers’ names are not disclosed to the author but the reviewers are aware of the identity of the author(s).
In the Open Review model the referee’s report may be published together with the article if the author(s) and the referees agree. The identity of the referee may or may not be revealed, according to the opinion of the referee.
Authors may opt for “Open Peer-Review”, which highlights the review process undertaken to publish the research. Optional Open Peer-Review entails publication of all reviewers’ assessments as well as the approval of the Editor on the manuscript together with the article. The reviewers may or may not choose to sign their assessment form and identify themselves in the published reports. The names of the reviewers will be disclosed only if they agree to reveal their identities. The final decision of whether we publish the review or not lies with the Editor and the Publisher.
Bentham OPEN uses the iThenticate software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. iThenticate software checks content against a database of periodicals, the Internet, and a comprehensive article database. It generates a similarity report, highlighting the percentage overlap between the uploaded article and the published material. Any instance of content overlap is further scrutinized for suspected plagiarism according to the publisher’s Editorial Policies. Bentham OPEN allows an overall similarity of 20% for a manuscript to be considered for publication. The similarity percentage is further checked keeping the following important points in view:
The text of every submitted manuscript is checked using the Content Tracking mode in iThenticate. The Content Tracking mode ensures that manuscripts with an overall low percentage similarity (but which may have a higher similarity from a single source) are not overlooked. The acceptable limit for similarity of text from a single source is 5%. If the similarity level is above 5%, the manuscript is returned to the author for paraphrasing the text and citing the original source of the copied material.
It is important to mention that the text taken from different sources with an overall low similarity percentage will be considered as a plagiarized content if the majority of the article is a combination of copied material.
There may be some manuscripts with an overall low similarity percentage, but a higher percentage from a single source. A manuscript may have less than 20% overall similarity but there may be 15 % similar text taken from a single article. The similarity index in such cases is higher than the approved limit for a single source. Authors are advised to thoroughly rephrase the similar text and properly cite the original source to avoid plagiarism and copyright violation.
We all know that scholarly manuscripts are written after thorough review of previously published articles. It is therefore not easy to draw a clear boundary between legitimate representation and plagiarism. However, the following important features can assist in identifying different kinds of plagiarized content.
These are:
Published manuscripts which are found to contain plagiarized text are retracted from the journal website after careful investigation and approval by the Editor-in-Chief of the journal. A ‘Retraction Note’ as well as a link to the original article is published on the electronic version of the plagiarized manuscript and an addendum with retraction notification in the journal concerned.
Generally, the editorial decisions are not reverted. However, authors who think that their manuscript was rejected due to a misunderstanding or mistake may seek an explanation for the decision. Appeals must give sound reasoning and compelling evidence against the criticism raised in the rejection letter. A difference of opinion as to the interest, novelty, or suitability of the manuscript for the journal will not be considered as an appeal. The EIC and other relevant editors will consider the appeal and the decision thereafter taken by the journal will be deemed final. Acceptance of the manuscript is not guaranteed even if the journal agrees to reconsider the manuscript, and the reconsideration process may involve previous or new reviewers or editors and substantive revision.
Authors who wish to make a complaint should refer them to the Editor-in-Chief of the journal concerned. Complaints to the Publisher may be emailed to info@benthamopen.net
The publication fee details for each article published in the journal are given below:
The publication fee for each published Research article is US $960.
The publication fee for each published Review article is US $1,060.
The publication fee for each published Mini Review article is US $750.
The publication fee for each published letter article / short communication / case report submitted is US $750.
The publication fee includes the professional copy editing charges. Once the paper is accepted for publication, the author will receive an electronic invoice via email. Subsequent submissions from the Bentham OPEN Authors will receive a discount of US$ 100 on the total publication charges providing their previous submission did not avail any discount off the listed full author open access fee rate. Please click here to download the Fee Form.
An optional fast publication fee-based service called “QUICK TRACK” is available to authors for their submitted manuscripts.
QUICK TRACK allows online publication within 1 week of receipt of the final approved galley proofs from the authors. The total publication time, from date of first receipt of manuscript to its online publication is only 6 weeks, subject to its acceptance by the referees and modification (if any) by the authors within one week.
The Authors will be charged US $300 processing fee (non-refundable) and an additional $450 publication fee (refundable if paper is not accepted for publication). The quick track publication fee together with the Bentham Open publication charges, will be payable before online publication of the paper. If the paper is rejected, there will be no further charges other than the $300 already paid.
Please note that whether the author opts for the QUICK TRACK facility or not, standard reviewing practices will be followed, which will not in any way affect the acceptance or rejection of the manuscript by the reviewers.
Authors who have availed QUICK TRACK services in a Bentham Open journal will be entitled for an exclusive 30% discount if they again wish to avail the same services in any Bentham Open journal within the next 12 months.
For more information please contact the Editorial Office by e-mail at quicktrack@benthamopen.net
Authors may extend the scope and visibility of their research by creating an animated abstract. Bentham Open has collaborated with Focus Medica, a reputable publisher of expert animated atlases and videos in medicine and science, to create the animated abstracts. An animated abstract summarise the essential discoveries/ key findings of the published research or review article in simple readily understandable form. Each professionally produced full-coloured animated abstract in video format (length 3 – 5 minutes) is accompanied by a commentary in English. The animated abstract may be published online along with the published article as an additional paid option.
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Antimicrobial resistance represents a significant challenge to future healthcare provision.An acronym ESKAPEE has been derived from the names of the organisms recognised as the major threats although there are a number of other organisms, notably Neisseria gonorrhoeae, that have become equally challenging to treat in the clinic. These pathogens are characterised by the ability to rapidly develop and/or acquire resistance mechanisms in response to exposure to different antimicrobial agents. A key part of the armoury of these pathogens is a series of efflux pumps, which effectively exclude or reduce the intracellular concentration of a large number of antibiotics, making the pathogens significantly more resistant. These efflux pumps are the topic of considerable interest, both from the perspective of basic understanding of efflux pump function, and its role in drug resistance but also as targets for the development of novel adjunct therapies. The necessity to overcome antimicrobial resistance has encouraged investigations into the characterisation of resistance-modifying efflux pump inhibitors to block the mechanisms of drug extrusion, thereby restoring antibacterial susceptibility and returning existing antibiotics into the clinic. A greater understanding of drug recognition and transport by multidrug efflux pumps is needed to develop clinically useful inhibitors, given the breadth of molecules that can be effluxed by these systems. This review discusses different bacterial EPIs originating from both natural source and chemical synthesis and examines the challenges to designing successful EPIs that can be useful against multidrug resistant bacteria.
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Bentham Science is a publishing partner of Kudos. All authors who publish in this journal will receive an invitation to join the Kudos platform, an entirely free service for authors. Kudos enables authors to help broaden their audience and readers, increase their professional profile and reputation, and establish an impact for their publications. The website link is www.growkudos.com.
Kudos provides a free platform to researchers to have their publications accessible, read and cited across multiple networks and channels available to researchers for the dissemination of their work. It takes on average 15 minutes and leads to 23% higher growth in full-text downloads.
Authors are encouraged to explain their work in clear English and to attract researchers of the relevant communities, share a trackable link that you can email to your existing network of contacts, or share on social media and academic websites, and track how well the articles are performing through the summary of views, downloads, citations, and altmetrics on the Kudos dashboard.
Authors may also use the new shareable PDF (S-PDF) service. The S-PDF provides researchers with the means to write and share a high-level overview for each of their publications. Kudos thereby provides researchers, and their publishers and institutions, with a rich understanding of which channels and activities are most effective for broadening the reach and impact of published science.
High quality printed reprints of published articles are available for purchase, if ordered, with a minimum number of 25 reprints.
