Guide to the authors in PDF format file.

BIOPHYSICS (ON-LINE JOURNAL)

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

BIOPHYSICS is the official on-line (e-)journal of The Biophysical Society of Japan (BSJ). The BSJ has decided to publish a journal in English to promote biophysical research in the Asian-Pacific Area. Scientists in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, India and Australia as well as Japan have been invited as members of the Editorial Board. The field, which BIOPHYSICS covers, is broad, and includes both experimental and theoretical biophysics as presented in the Annual Meeting of the BSJ, and as published in Seibutsu butsuri, which has been published bimonthly for more than 40 years as a Journal of the BSJ (in Japanese). To help make the Asian-Pacific region, a world center of biophysical research, the submission of the papers is encouraged not only from the Asian-Pacific region but also from all over the world.

The articles that BIOPHYSICS publishes are categorized into regular articles, review articles and notes. Regular articles are the main category of this journal and must be prepared according to the directions provided below. Review articles summarize an overview of biophysical research. Most reviews are invited, but contributed reviews will also be welcome (please send inquiries with an outline to the Editor-in-Chief before sending the manuscript). Notes are short articles that are not necessarily categorized into regular articles because of the content, containing important information on new devices and/or new ideas (comments) that are useful for researchers working in the field of biophysics.

EDITORIAL BOARD

Editors-in-Chief

Shin´ichi Ishiwata (Waseda Univ.)

Associate Editors

Hideo Akutsu (Osaka Univ.) Donald C. Chang (Hong Kong Univ. Sci. Tech.) Yoshinori Fujiyoshi (Kyoto Univ.)
Mitiko Go (Ochanomizu Univ.) Nobuhiro Go (JAEA) Yuzuru Husimi (Saitama Univ.)
Toshiaki Kakitani (Meijo Univ.) Kunihiko Kaneko (Univ. Tokyo) Sa-Ouk Kang (Seoul Natl. Univ.)
Michiki Kasai (Osaka Univ.) Kazuhiko Kinosita, Jr. (Waseda Univ.) Akihiro Kusumi (Nagoya Univ.)
Kunihiro Kuwajima (Univ. Tokyo) Rabi Majumdar (Univ. Culcutta) Shigeki Mitaku (Nagoya Univ.)
Kuniaki Nagayama (NINS) Haruki Nakamura (Osaka Univ.) Keiichi Namba (Osaka Univ.)
Raymond S. Norton (Walter Eliza Hall Inst. Med. Res.) Cristobal G. dos Remedios(Univ.Sydney) Frances Separovic (Univ. Melbourne)
Jun-Xian Shen (Chinese Acad. Sci.) Yoshinori Shichida (Kyoto Univ.) Masahiro Sokabe (Nagoya Univ.)
Jeremy Tame (Yokohama City Univ.) Motoyuki Tsuda (Univ. Hyogo) Andrew H.J. Wang (Natl. Taiwan Univ.)
Toshio Yanagida (Osaka Univ.) Masasuke Yoshida (Tokyo Inst. Tech.) Kenichi Yoshikawa (Kyoto Univ.)

Advisory Boards

Shin-Ichi Aizawa, Kazuyuki Akasaka, Koji Asami, Muneyuki Eiro, Koichi Fujimoto, Takahiro Fujiwara, Takashi Funatsu, Yuji Furutani, Kunihiko Gekko, Takashi Gojobori, Yuji Goto, Hisashi Haga, Toshio Hakoshima, Yoshie Harada, Junichi Higo, Jun Hirabayashi, Mitsuhiro Hirai, Michio Homma, Hajime Honda, Hisao Honda, Hiroshi Hori, Hirokazu Hotani, Michinori Ichikawa, Atsushi Ikai, Katsumi Imada, Hiroo Imai, Kiyohiro Imai, Yasushi Imamoto, Yuichi Inoue, Akihiko Ishijima, Masahiro Ishiura, Etsuro Ito, Shigeru Ito, Tatsuo Iwasa, Tatsuya Iwata, Hironari Kamikubo, Shinji Kamimura, Ritsu Kamiya, Hideki Kandori, Masato Katahira, Koichi Kato, Kazushige Kawabata, Ikuro Kawagishi, Kazunori Kawasaki, Suguru Kawato, Akinori Kidera, Shun-Ichi Kidokoro, Shuichi Kinosita, Teizo Kitagawa, Akio Kitao, Takao Kodama, Hidetoshi Kono, Yoshihiro Kubo, Fumio Kukita, Shigeichi Kumazaki, Takehiro Kusakabe, Yuichiro Maeda, Koichiro Matsuno, Katsumi Matsuzaki, Yoshihiro Miyake, Tsutomu Murata, Masashi Nagayama, Akira Naito, Chieko Nakada, Tetsuo Nakajima, Mamoru Nakanishi, Ken Nishikawa, Katsuyuki Nishimura, Osamu Nureki, Takashi Ogura, Kazuo Ohki, Yoshihiro Ohta, Shigetoshi Oiki, Manabu Sakakibara, Yasushi Sako, Minoru Sakurai, Akinori Sarai, Akitoshi Seiyama, Yasutaka Seki, Kazumi Shimono, Kenji Shiraishi, Yasuo Shirakihara, Kunitsugu Soda, Yuki Sudo, Kazuo Suto, Hideki Taguchi, Shoji Takada, Satoshi Takahashi, Mamoru Tamura, Masaru Tanokura, Katsuhisa Tawada, Akihisa Terakita, Motonari Tsubaki, Tomitake Tsukihara, Keiko Udaka, Masahiro Ueda, Jiro Usukura, Naohisa Wada, Katsuzo Wakabayashi, Masao Washizu, Naoto Yagi, Akihiko Yamagishi, Takahiro Yamashita, Masahito Yamazaki, Kenji Yasuda, Shinya Yoshikawa, Hideyuki Yoshimura, Kei Yura, Katsuhide Yutani

Initial Submission

The journal is published only in on-line form. Everyone in the world can read it (http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/biophysics). We welcome contributions from all over the world, from both BSJ society members and non-members. Submitted papers must be based on original research, and not published or under consideration for publication elsewhere. Submitted papers must conform in style to the instructions outlined below. Authors who are not native speakers of English should have their manuscripts checked by scientists whose native language is English. After acceptance, the manuscripts which are written in poor style to be published will be forwarded to a professional English proofreader, but this does not diminish the responsibility of the author to pay attention to the linguistic accuracy of the manuscript. If these conditions are not met, or other inadequacies are apparent, the Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to reject manuscripts without review. Manuscripts are handled through the peer review process and edited by one of the Associate Editors or the Editor-in-Chief. Manuscripts are sent out for peer review to two or more reviewers, often to members of the Editorial Board.

How to submit manuscript

Manuscripts should be submitted using the on-line submission system (http://ess.jstage.jst.go.jp/contrib/BIOPHYSICS/initialsubmission/). It is expected that the on-line submission process is carried out by the corresponding author, and therefore all correspondence, including an initial acknowledgement and the decision will be sent to the corresponding author by Email.

The followings are the general notice for using the on-line submission system;

  1. Use a conventional homepage browser to access the on-line submission system. During the submission process, do not use the "Back button" on your browser to check the previous page. Use the "Back button" provided at the end of each page instead, otherwise consistency in information cannot be guaranteed.
  2. Do not use the enter key on your keyboard for jumping to the next input field, use tab key or click the field instead. The enter key is recognized as jumping to the next page.
  3. If you leave the submission page for more than 30 minutes without any action, you will encounter timeout. This is for security reason and you need to start from the beginning.

The following materials are required for initial submission;

  1. Corresponding Author's information (affiliation, address, E-mail address),
  2. The title and the abstract of the manuscript,
  3. The manuscript file in the following format;
    1. Make a single PDF file including every text, reference list, tables, and figures.
    2. The resolution of the figures should be high enough for reviewing process.
    3. Do not include spaces and Japanese characters in the file name or a file path: use alphanumeric characters.
    4. The size of the file should be no more than 5 MB.
    5. Be sure that the extension .pdf appears at the end of the file name.
    6. If you cannot make PDF files, submission of a Microsoft Word file is allowed. In this case, tables and figures may be made as separate files from a text file.
  4. Supplementary materials (such as move files), if there are in the following format;
    1. An image file in JPEG, TIFF, EPS, PNG, PDF and a movie file in MPEG, AVI are accepted.
    2. An extension of the file should be one of the followings; jpg, jpeg, tif, tiff, eps, png, mpeg, avi and pdf.
    3. Do not include spaces and Japanese characters in the file name or a file path; use alphanumeric characters.
    4. Each figure should be saved in a separate file with less than 30MB.

If there is any problem in on-line submission, contact the editorial office below.

Go back to the top

Submission after Acceptance

Upon acceptance of the paper, the corresponding author is required to submit the final accepted version of the manuscript. Submit the following materials from the on-line submission web site at http://ess.jstage.jst.go.jp/contrib/BIOPHYSICS/main/.

  1. The title, abstract, text, references, figure legends and tables in Microsoft Word,
  2. Figures of resolution high enough for printing. Electronic files of photographs and illustrations in 300 dpi resolution in gray scale or color at the size be printed, and similarly in 1200 dpi in black and white for line drawings. We accept TIF, EPS and JPEG formats,
  3. Supplementary materials (such as videos) if there are. Follow the format described in How to submit manuscript,
  4. Copy-editing adjustments will be made to the accepted manuscripts. During proof reading, the corresponding author is required to check for any undesired changes that may have inadvertently occurred during copy-editing.

If there is any problem in on-line submission, contact the editorial office below.

Go back to the top

Manuscript Style

  1. Manuscripts should be double-spaced throughout, A4 (297 �~ 210 mm) size, and using approximately 25 mm (one inch) margins on all sides. Page 1 should contain the article title, author name(s), affiliation(s) and address(es), and suggested running title (not exceeding 50 characters (including spaces)). The complete mailing address, telephone number and e-mail address of the corresponding author should be indicated. Page 2 of regular and review articles, and notes should contain a short abstract of about 200 to 300 words. A list of up to five keywords (not used in the article title) should be provided below the abstract.
  2. Use only 1-byte and/or ASCII-code fonts for alphanumeric characters. Use Symbol fonts for Greek letters and special characters. Do not use 2-byte/multi-byte or country-specific codes such as �� and ��.
  3. Text footnotes are not allowed.
  4. Tables: All tables must be cited in the text. Number the tables consecutively with Arabic numerals, such as Table 3, in the order of appearance in the text. Supply a short explanatory title above the body of the table, and table footnotes lettered a, b, c, etc., below the body of the table. Do not use vertical rules.
  5. Figures: All figures must be cited in the text. Number the figures consecutively with Arabic numerals, such as Figure 3, in the order of appearance in the text. Dimensions of each illustration, photograph, or composite imagery should be no larger than the size of the manuscript page, and must be submitted complete and in final form. Photographs should be glossy prints or of equivalent quality. Figure legends should not be included on the paper sheets of figures themselves.
  6. Electronic supplementary materials (such as videos) will be permitted, although of course they cannot be printed. Acceptable file formats are those listed in How to submit manuscript.
  7. References: References are each numbered, sequentially as they appear in the text, methods, tables and figure legends. When cited in the text, reference numbers are superscript, not in brackets unless they are likely to be confused with a superscript number. References to �gunpublished data�h and �gpersonal communications�h should appear parenthetically in the text following the name(s) of the source of information [(Yamada, T., personal communication), (Suzuki, M. and Yoshida, M., unpublished data) etc.]. Be sure to verify the wording of any personal communication with the person who supplied the information and obtain his approval for the use of his name in connection with the quoted information. All references should be listed in numerical order typed double-spaced on a separate sheet under the heading REFERENCES. Please note the following examples.

    1. For a journal article:
      7. Harada, Y., Funatsu, T., Murakami, K., Nonoyama, Y., Ishihama, A. & Yanagida, T. Single-molecule imaging of RNA polymerase-DNA interactions in real time. Biophys. J. 76, 709-715 (1999).
    2. For a chapter in an edited book:
      12. Go, M. Protein structures and split genes. in Adv. Biophys. (Kotani, M. ed.) vol. 19, pp. 91-131 (Japan Sci. Soc. Press and Elsevier Sci. Pub., Tokyo and Limerick, 1985).
    3. For a book by one or more authors:
      15. Oosawa, F. & Asakura, S. Thermodynamics of the Polymerization of Proteins (Academic Press, New York, 1975).

    Text citations to references written by more than two authors should be styled for example as, Smith et al. In the reference list, however, the names of all authors (with initials) must be given. If an article has been accepted for publication by a journal but has not yet appeared in print, the reference should be styled as follows:
    29. Itoh, H., Takahashi, A., Adachi, K., Noji, H., Yasuda, R., Yoshida, M. & Kinosita, Jr., K. Mechanically driven ATP synthesis by F1-ATPase. Nature (in press).
    The use of �gin preparation�h and �gsubmitted for publication�h is not allowed in the reference list.

  8. For original research manuscripts (regular articles and notes) reporting experiments on live vertebrates and/or higher invertebrates, authors must include in the methods section, a brief statement identifying the institutional and/or licensing committee approving the experiments. For experiments involving human subjects, authors must identify the committee approving the experiments, and include with their submission a statement confirming that informed consent was obtained from all subjects.
Go back to the top

Limit of Revision Period

Authors who have been requested to revise their manuscript should send the revision to the handling editor within 3 months of reception of the editorial decision. Otherwise, the submitted manuscript will be regarded as withdrawn.

Go back to the top

Proofs

Proofs are sent to the corresponding author by e-mail as a PDF. These should be corrected and returned to the office within three business days of receipt.

Go back to the top

Charges

Publication charge: \15,000 for members of the Society / \30,000 for non-member authors per accepted manuscript.

Page charge: \5,000 per printed page.

Publication charges may be reduced provided a written explanation giving the reason for the request is made to the Editor-in-Chief.

Authors are charged for additional costs incurred by extra costs made by a professional English proofreader, final manuscripts lacking electronic files, figures redrawn due to bad quality, and excessive changes in proof.

Go back to the top

Reprints

Reprints may be ordered at cost by returning the order forms provided with the proofs. Costs for color pages will be charged to the author.

Go back to the top

Copyright

Papers published in BIOPHYSICS become the permanent property of the BSJ. No part of this journal may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission from BSJ. Authors, however, do not need to obtain permission to make copies of their own papers, or to use their original photographs and figures in their own future work.

This "Instructions to Authors" is revised in 9th, Jan., 2007.

Guide to the authors in PDF format file.