Instructions for Authors

The Journal of Iraqi Society of Hypertension for Academic Research, ISHTAR, is issued biannually by the Iraqi Hypertension Society. ISHTAR Journal is an Open Access Journal and will not charge readers, or their institutions for access and also the fee for publishing an accepted manuscript at this journal is Free . The journal is not financially supported by any governmental or non-governmental organization.

ISHTAR Medical Journal is an open access, peer-reviewed publication and it is listed in the International Standard Serial Number ISSN (Print) : 2959-765X and it is highly committed for hypertension and cardiovascular diseases and related disorders and their burden on the patients, medical personnel and community as a whole and authors are invited to submit their publications and articles that are focused on different scopes of this subject. Basic research with clear clinical implications will also be considered. Review articles of current interest and high standard, Systematic Review, Case Series, Case Reports, are welcomed for consideration as well. ISHTAR journal is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial License (CC BY-4). This license requires that reusers give credit to the creator. It allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, even for commercial purposes. Credit must be given to the creator.

Submission of Manuscripts:

Manuscripts, or the essence of their content, must be previously unpublished and should not be under simultaneous consideration by another journal. The authors should also declare if any similar work has been submitted to or published by another journal. They should also declare that it has not been submitted published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the Publisher. If any article is already made publicly available on an institute website or repository, this will not affect our decision to publish, but we do need to know this. Failure to disclose this is unethical. Following publication, the author should update the repository and include a citation to the published work. The authors should also declare that the paper is the original work of the author(s) and not copied (in whole or in part) from any other work. All papers will be automatically checked for duplicate publication and plagiarism. If detected, appropriate action will be taken in accordance with International Ethical Guidelines. All Tables and Figures must be original and not adapted from other work unless specified and with the appropriate references and copyright permission. By virtue of the submitted manuscript, the corresponding author acknowledges that all the co-authors have seen

and approved the final version of the manuscript. The corresponding author should provide all co-authors with information regarding the manuscript, and obtain their approval before submitting any revisions. Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not justify authorship. Manuscripts are only accepted for publication on the understanding that the authors will permit editorial amendments, though proofs will always be submitted to the corresponding author before being sent finally to press.

Electronic submission of Manuscripts:

All manuscripts must be submitted on-line through the website https://journal.iraqhs.com. First time users will have to register at this site. Registration is free but mandatory. Registered authors can keep track of their articles after logging into the site using their user name and password.

Title Page/First Page File/covering letter:

This file should provide

1.The type of manuscript (original article, case report, review article, Letter to editor, Images, etc.) title of the manuscript, running title, names of all authors/ contributors (with their highest academic degrees, designation and affiliations) and name(s) of department(s) and/ or institution(s) to which the work should be credited. All information which can reveal your identity should be here. Use text/rtf/doc files. Do not zip the files.

2.The total number of pages, total number of photographs and word counts separately for abstract and for the text (excluding the references, tables and abstract), word counts for introduction + discussion in case of an original article;

3. Source(s) of support in the form of grants, equipment, drugs, or all of these;
4. Acknowledgement, if any. One or more statements should specify 1) contributions that need acknowledging but do not justify authorship, such as general support by a departmental chair; 2) acknowledgments of technical help; and 3) acknowledgments of financial and material support, which should specify the nature of the support. This should be included in the title page of the manuscript and not in the main article file.
5. If the manuscript was presented as part at a meeting, the organization, place, and exact date on which it was read. A full statement to the editor about all submissions and previous reports that might be regarded as redundant publication of the same or very similar work. Any such work should be referred to specifically, and referenced in the new paper. Copies of such material should be included with the submitted paper, to help the editor decide how to handle the matter.
6. Registration number in case of a clinical trial and where it is registered (name of the registry and its URL)
7. Conflicts of Interest of each author/ contributor. A statement of financial or other relationships that might lead to a conflict of interest, if that information is not included in the manuscript itself or in an authors' form
8. Criteria for inclusion in the authors’/ contributors’ list
9. A statement that the manuscript has been read and approved by all the authors, that the requirements for authorship as stated earlier in this document have been met, and that each author believes that the manuscript represents honest work, if that information is not provided in another form; and
10. The name, address, e-mail, and telephone number of the corresponding author, who is responsible for communicating with the other authors about revisions and final approval of the proofs, if that information is not included on the manuscript itself.

Blinded Article file:

 The main text of the article, beginning from Abstract till References (including tables) should be in this file. The file must not contain any mention of the authors' names or initials or the institution at which the study was done or acknowledgements. Page headers/running title can include the title but not the authors' names. Manuscripts not in compliance with the Journal's blinding policy will be returned to the corresponding author. Use rtf/doc files. Do not zip the files. Limit the file size to 2 MB. Do not incorporate images in the file. If file size is large, graphs can be submitted as images separately without incorporating them in the article file to reduce the size of the file. The pages should be numbered consecutively, beginning with the first page of the blinded article file.

Ethical standards:

All information will be treated in a confidential, factual, and non-judgmental manner. ISHTAR Journal will also retain the right to pursue any issues of ethical misconduct even after rejection or withdrawal of a manuscript from the journal.

Withdrawal policy:

By submission, the author grants the journal right of first publication. Therefore, the journal discourages unethical withdrawal of manuscript from the publication process after peer review. The corresponding author should send a formal request signed by all co-authors stating the reason for withdrawing the manuscript. Withdrawal of manuscript is only considered valid when the editor accepts, or approves the reason to withdraw the manuscript from publication. Subsequently, the author must receive a confirmation from the editorial office. Only at that stage, authors are free to submit the manuscript elsewhere. No response from the authors to all journal communication after review and acceptance is also considered unethical withdrawal. Withdrawn manuscripts noted to have already been submitted or published in another journal will be subjected to sanctions in accordance with the journal policy. Figures and Illustrations should be provided in jpeg format (resolution 300 DPI). Titles and detailed explanations belong in the legends for illustrations (on a separate sheet), not on the illustrations themselves. Upon acceptance of the manuscript for publication, authors are required to provide the original copy of the assignment of copyright dully signed by all authors.

Manuscript Preparation:

 For Research articles (original article): The journal embraces the so-called “IMRAD” structure (Introduction,

Methods, Results, And Discussion). Manuscripts including tables, references and figure legends, must be typewritten on 8 1/2 x 11 inch (21.5 x 28 cm) or size A4 paper, with margins of at least 1 inch (2.5 cm). Pages should be numbered consecutively, beginning with the title page and continuing through the last page of typewritten material. Manuscripts must be accompanied by a covering letter signed by the author and all co-authors. All Case Reports must include at least one figure.

Word Limits:

Review and Original articles should be no longer than 4000 words (excluding abstract and references). Review articles may include up to 90 references, and Original articles may include up to 40 references. Articles may include a maximum of 7 tables and/or figures in total.The title page must contain (1) title of the article in  English, (2) correct first name, middle initial and family name of each author plus highest degrees, not more than 2, in that specific order (3)  any disclaimers, and (4) a short running title of no more than 40 characters (count letters and spaces). The second page should include (1) address of the department(s) and institution(s) from where the research was carried out for each author; affiliation address should be a record of where an author is currently working. If the study was previously carried out at another institute this should appears as “formerly of ….” (2) current position and affiliation address for the corresponding author and (3) first name, address, telephone number and e-mail address of author to whom correspondence should be sent if it differs from the first author. Review articles should consist of one or 2 authors, only Clinical Review or Meta-analysis may include multiple authors. Case Reports should preferably not exceed 4 authors.

Abstracts:

Abstracts for Review articles and Case reports should be unstructured of not more than 150 words. All original articles must contain a structured abstract of not more than 250 words. The following are typical headings: Objectives (background), Methods (settings, design), including where and when the study took place, Results, Conclusion.

Keywords

Provide 3 to 5 keywords which can be used for indexing purposes. Keywords should not repeat the words of the manuscript title or contain abbreviations and shall be written in alphabetical order as separated by semicolon. Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used consistently thereafter through the text.

Highlights

A highlight is mandatory A highlight is a concise, short phraseو conveying the core findings of your research. Please use 'Highlights' in the file name and include 3 to 4 items. The approximate length of a highlight item may be within one to one and half lines.

Introduction:

The introductory section of Case Reports should always include the objective and reason why the author is presenting this case.

Methods:

In studies of diagnostic accuracy, the methods section should include the inclusion and exclusion criteria of patients involved in the study together with information on patient recruitment. Textual re-use of portions of an authors previous work in the methods section will be considered, providing that an explanatory note is included with appropriate referencing: “The methods are exactly as published in the previous publication….”.

Statistical Analysis:

The author(s) should adequately describe or reference all statistical procedures used in a paragraph at the end of the methods section. It is expected that the statistical tests used are appropriately selected and applied, with an indication of the related assumptions and how they have been tested. The ambiguous use of statistical terms should be avoided such as random with the meaning of haphazard, correlation instead of association, etc. In presenting results, all the participants in the study must be accounted for. Exact p-values and confidence intervals are to be used. The results of bivariate analyses should not be presented in tables when multivariate analysis is used. Standard guidelines must be used in reporting the results of clinical trials, studies assessing diagnostic tests, etc. The statistical software package used must be specified and properly referenced.

Results

Present the results and their significance clearly. Graphs and tables should be self-explanatory. Do not repeat in figures or in the text the data presented in tables. Tables and figures should be numbered in the order of their mention in the text.

Discussion

Deals with critical review and interpretations of the results, and supported by relevant updated references. Repetition of data should be avoided. It should end with brief conclusions. In Short Communications, Results and Discussion may be combined.

Conclusion

This section should highlight the major, firm discoveries, and state what the added value of the main finding is, without literature references.

Acknowledgment:

Acknowledgment should conform with the Uniform Requirements for Biomedical Journals which states: List all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship, such as a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a department chair who provided only general support. Financial and material support should also be acknowledged. Groups of persons who have contributed materially to the paper but whose contributions do not justify authorship may be listed under a heading such as “clinical investigators” or “participating investigators,” and their function or contribution should be described, for example, “served as scientific advisors,” “critically reviewed the study proposal,” “collected data,” or “provided and cared for study patients.” Because readers may infer their endorsement of the data and conclusions, all persons must have given written permission to be acknowledged.

References:

References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text, not alphabetically, and formatted according in Vancouver style (http://library.vcc.ca/downloads/VCC_VancouverStyleGuide.pdf). References must be highlighted in bold throughout the text of the manuscript. List all authors when there are 6 or fewer; when there are 7 or more, list only the first 6 and add “et al”. References older than year 2014 should be updated to the most recent. Acceptable references are from year 2014 to present, however, one or 2 historical references may be used if necessary. All references must be cited in the text or tables. Where references are cited in tables only, the first reference number used in the table should follow on numerically from the last reference number used in the main text of the article. Where previous studies are mentioned in a table the authors names should appear in Vancouver style, with the names and reference numbers appearing in one column, and any other necessary information appearing in a separate column. Unpublished data and personal communications will not be accepted as references. Please try to avoid using conference papers or abstracts as references, these can only be allowed if published by journals included in Index Medicus or a well-known publishing company and are within one year from the submission date of the manuscript. Only 1-2 up to date references should be used for each particular point in the text. References to journal articles should include, in this order: (1) authors surname initials, (2) title of the article, (3) journal name (as abbreviated in Index Medicus, if not included in Index Medicus journal title should be given in full), (4) year of publication, (5) volume number, (6) full page numbers (start and end). Volume and edition numbers and specific page numbers should be included when appropriate. URLs and DOI should be provided. Secondary references are not acceptable. The author is responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the references and for their correct textual citation. When a citation is referred to in the text by name, the accompanying reference must be from the original source. Upon acceptance of a paper all authors must be able to provide the full paper for each reference cited upon request at any time up to publication. Failure to do so may result in the paper being withdrawn from the journal. Review Articles should include an extended bibliography. Original Articles and Case Reports should include up to date references, preferably not exceeding 15 for Case Reports. Brief Communication should include a maximum of 5 references.

Tables:

Tables should be double spaced on a separate sheet of paper. Do not submit tables as photographs. Number tables consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text and supply a brief “stand-alone” title for each. Give each column a short or abbreviated heading. Place explanatory matter in footnotes, not in the heading. Explain in footnotes all non-standard abbreviations that are used in each table. For footnotes use the following symbols, in this sequence *, †, ‡, §, **, ††, ‡‡, §§ etc. Bar graphs and pie charts should only be used where absolutely indicated and should be provided in color, where possible the information should be presented in table format.

Illustrations:

All figures or photographs should be submitted in a high resolution (minimum 300 DPI) electronic version saved in jpeg or tiff format. Original hard copies of all figures may be requested when necessary. Photographs will be accepted at the discretion of the Editorial Board. All lettering, arrows, or other artwork must be done by an artist or draftsman. If arrows are used please ensure they appear in a different color to the background color, preferably black with a white border, or white with a black border. If arrows distinguish different items on the figure then different arrow styles should be used i.e. long, short, wide, narrow. Written informed consent for publication must accompany any photograph in which the subject can be identified. Written copyright permission, from the publishers, must accompany any illustration that has been previously published. All illustrations (“figures”) must be numbered as cited in the text in consecutive numeric order. With color illustrations, the author must bear part of the expense for color reproduction. Titles and detailed explanations belong in the legends for illustrations, (on a separate sheet), not on the illustrations themselves. If the authorship does not include a radiologist, please ensure that all radiology figures are reviewed and written approval submitted from a radiologist. Please note, this will not qualify for authorship, however, an acknowledgment may be included. In addition to still images, the journal will consider video as supplementary material to an article. All submitted videos will be peer-reviewed by the editorial board. Necessary permission and consent for a video material to be published is mandatory and should be provided during submission. For technical requirements, videos should be narrated in English not exceeding 10 minutes in length, high definition maximum 1080p, file size not exceeding 1 GB in MP4 format. Other details such as name of speaker in the video, keywords, date and place of recording, captions should also be provided.

Units of Measurement:

Le Système International d’ Unités (SI) are preferred Equivalent values in traditional units should be given if thought to be necessary.

Conflict of interest:

Conflict of interest for a given manuscript exists when a participant in the peer review and publication process - author, reviewer, and editor - has ties to activities that could inappropriately influence his and her judgment, whether or not judgment is in fact affected. Financial relationships with industry (for example, through employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, expert testimony), either directly or through immediate family, are usually considered to be the most important conflicts of interest. However, conflicts can occur for other reasons, such as personal relationships, academic competition, and intellectual passion. Public trust in the peer review process and the credibility of published articles depends in part on how well conflict of interest is handled during writing, peer review, and editorial decision making. Bias can often be identified and eliminated by careful attention to the scientific methods and conclusions of the work. Financial relationships and their efforts are less easily detected than other conflicts of interest. Participants in peer review and publication should disclose their conflicting interests, and the information should be made available so that others can judge their effects for themselves. Because readers may be less able to detect bias in review articles and editorials than in reports of original research, some journals do not accept reviews and editorials from authors with a conflict of interest.

Authors:

When they submit a manuscript, whether an article or a letter, authors are responsible for recognizing and disclosing financial and other conflicts of interest that might bias their work. They should acknowledge in the manuscript all financial support for the work and other financial or personal connections to the work.

Permission to Reprint:

Whenever a manuscript contains material (text, tables dosages, figures etc.), which is protected by copyright, it is the obligation of the author to secure written permission from the holder of the copyright.

Galley Proofs:

The research team of any study should assign one of the authors as the corresponding author. The Editorial Office will send proofs of the manuscript to the corresponding author for final proof reading and it will be the responsibility of the corresponding author to return the galley proof materials appropriately corrected within the stipulated time, proofs will not be accepted from any other of the authors without an accompanying authorization letter from the corresponding author. After the corresponding author has signed the galley proof, they will bear the burden of
responsibility for any publication errors missed on the galley proof found after publication. No major changes such as deletion, shortening or expansion of sentences in the text will be accepted at this time. During the proofing process, no addition of information is allowed, however, if there is new relevant information to be added to the manuscript, this can be included as an addendum to the article. The corresponding author(s) is required to sign on each page of the galley proof indicating their approval of any Editorial amendments and agree that the meaning of their article has not been altered. The author should review this carefully, as he is responsible for all changes in his work, including changes made by the copy editor. It is the duty of the corresponding author to respond promptly to any query from the Editing Department as failure to do so may result not only in delay of the article but also return of the article to the author without publication. Papers will be published only when the finally accepted manuscript signed by the corresponding author or designated corresponding author is received in the Editorial Office. If a manuscript is sent out for proofing and no response is received from the corresponding author, this manuscript will be deferred for one issue only. The proof will then be resent after one month and if there is still no response from the corresponding author at that time the paper may be withdrawn from the Journal. If the Editorial Office is able to proofread the article and answer any outstanding queries, it will be at the Editor’s discretion to proceed with the publishing of the paper including a statement that this has not been proofread by the corresponding author. If there are a substantial number of unresolved queries then the paper may be withdrawn from the Journal.