Guidelines for Authors

Medical Ultrasonography is the official publication of the Romanian Society for Ultrasonography in Medicine and Biology (SRUMB).

The journal aims to promote ultrasound diagnosis by publishing papers that deal with fundamental and clinical research, scientific reviews, clinical case reports, record in progress in ultrasound physics or in the field of medical technology and equipment, as well as methodological and educational papers.

The journal is published quarterly and papers are accepted for publication in English language.

The official title abbreviation is Med Ultrason. It should be used in citations, footnotes, legends for figures and all bibliographic references.

1. Copyright

Submitting a scientific paper to Medical Ultrasonography for publishing is subject to compliance with the following statements:

• the paper is original and has not been published in other journals or books;

• the paper has not been sent or is not under consideration for publication elsewhere;

• all authors agree upon publication of the paper.

The submission letter should be download from the journal site (www.medultrason.ro) and should be sent by regular mail to the Editorial Office (2nd Medical Clinic, 2-4 Clinicilor str, 400006 Cluj-Napoca, Romania) or by fax (004) 0264596912. In cases where the paper is accepted for publication, copyright will be transferred to Medical Ultrasonography and the "Iuliu Hatieganu" Medical Publishing House. Authors must agree to undertake all responsibility for the scientific content and originality of the paper; Medical Ultrasonography will take no responsibility whatsoever in this respect.

2. Preparing the manuscript

The papers submitted for publication must be write in Microsoft Word program, in 12p Times New Roman font, 1.5 line spacing. Margins must be 2 cm top, bottom and right and 3 cm left. Page numbering must begin with the title page.

Manuscripts should include a maximum of 8 text pages for original articles, 4 pages for clinical case reports and technical data and 2 text pages for letters to the editors.

Use only standard abbreviations. Avoid abbreviations in the title and abstract.

Measurements of length, height, weight, and volume should be reported in metric units All hematological and clinical chemistry measurements should be reported in the metric system in terms of the International System of Units (SI) Illustrations and tables should be grouped in a distinct section. They must be numbered according to the order in which they appear in the text- the illustrations in Arabic numeral (ex. fig 1) and the tables in Roman numeral (ex. tab I). Do not send them in PDF format!

The captions for figures (images) must be typed on a separate page entitled "Legend for figures". Each diagram (table) must have a title. Images or diagrams should not appear in the text; the desired location for insertion should be indicated by means of a paragraph, such as: (location for figure no….) or (location for table no…)

Only high quality images will be accepted for publication. File formats: BMP or TIFF for images, 300 dpi, image width 8 cm (single column) or 16 cm (double column), for color images color mode should be CMYK; Word, PowerPoint or Excel for diagrams.

In cases where reproduction of previously published images is intended, it is necessary to attach the written consent of the author and of the publishing house where it was formerly published. All prospective or experimental papers involving human subjects or experimental animals must include the agreement granted by the medical ethics commission of the institution where the research was conducted.

If the manuscript reports medical research involving human subjects, authors must include a statement confirming that informed consent was obtained from all subjects, according to the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki, revised in 2000, Edinburgh A commercial interest and financial disclosure statement must accompany every submitted paper (to be downloaded from the journal site). Papers submitted to Medical Ultrasonography for publication must be in English. Authors should consult someone proficient in the English language, if they feel it is necessary. If the manuscript is not conform to accepted standards of English usage, the authors will be required to bear the cost of English supervision/ translation: the charge is 5 RON (1,5 EUR)/ supervised page and 15 RON (3,5 EUR)/ translated page.

3. Structure of the manuscript

Title page (on a separate page) including: title of the paper, full names of the authors, department and institution(s) where the study was conducted, postal code, city, district, phone and/or fax number and/or e-mail address for contacting the first author, full postal address for correspondence and ordering reprints.

Abstract (on a separate page) preceding the text body. In the case of original papers, abstracts should not exceed 250 words and should have the following structure: 1) aims; 2) patients and methods; 3) results; 4) conclusions. Abstracts for literature reviews and educational papers should not exceed 200 words. For case reports, the abstract must not exceed 100 words and must underline the following: 1) purpose of the presentation; 2) peculiarities of the case; ranking of the issues approached within the general knowledge of the respective condition. Three to five key words must be selected for every paper from the Index Medicus (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=mesh); the key words should be inserted after the abstract.

Introduction – should define the topic of the paper and present the status of current knowledge in the field.

Patients and methods – should describe the equipment employed, the group of patients studied and the methodology. We recommend specification of the type of ultrasound equipment employed. The statistical analysis methodology used must also be described.

Results – should present the obtained data, in a concise manner, preferably in tables and diagrams.

Discussions – should present the interpretation of the researcher’s results from the perspective of relevant literature data.

Conclusions of the paper must be clearly stated in the end.

Acknowledgements - should be made only to those who have made a substantial contribution to the study

References must include only papers that are quoted in the text and that have been published. References must be numbered in Arabic numerals in the order in which they appear in the text (where they should be inserted between square brackets [ ]) and listed in numerical order. Titles of medical journals must be abbreviated according to the Index Medicus. All authors must be quoted for an article, if they are up to six. Over seven authors, only the first three will be quoted, followed by the "et al" indication. References should be listed according to the following format (examples):

a) Article:

• Marks WM, Filly RA, Callen PW. Real-time evaluation of pleural lesions: new observations regarding the probability of obtaining free fluid. Radiology 1982; 142: 163-164.

b) Papers published only with DOI numbers:

• Guerriero S, Alcazar JL, Pascual MA, Ajossa S, Olartecoechea B, Hereter L. The pre-operative diagnosis of metastatic ovarian tumors is related to the origin of the primary tumor. Ultrasound Obstet Gynecol 2011 Oct 13, doi: 10.1002/uog.10120.

c) Book:

• Talano JV, Gardin JM. Textbook of Two Dimensional Echocardiography. London: Gruene & Stratton, 1983.

d) Book chapter:

• Brooks M. The Liver. In: Goldberg BB, Pettersson H (eds). Ultrasonography. Oslo, The Nicer Year Book 1996:55–82.

4. Editorial policy

The Medical Ultrasonography promotes evaluation of all the original papers by independent reviewers

The Editor-in-chief or one of the editors first reads the manuscripts received and in about 1-3 weeks decide upon their priority level (sent to the reviewers, rejected without being sent for review and returned to authors with suggestions for improvement before submitting to reviewers).

The articles are sent to two reviewers with expertise in the ultrasonography area. Following the reviewers recommendations, the Editors decide if a paper is published or not. If there is a marked discrepancy in the decisions between two reviewers or between the opinions of the author and reviewer(s), the Editor may send the manuscript to another referee for additional comments and a recommended decision. All manuscripts are checked before printing by the English language Editor. Five reprints of the published articles and a copy of the Journal will be supplied free of charge. If required in a greater number, they will be available on payment of the necessary cost

5. Submitting manuscripts for publication

The journal introduced the electronic submission of manuscripts (see Online manuscript submission), but also accepts manuscripts submitted as attachments to electronic mail (text, figures and tables) With respect to developing an electronic manuscript, compliance with the following requirements is recommended:

• the text should be formatted in: - MS Word 2003 or 2007 compatible (.doc)

• instructions for images: - image formats: TIFF or BMP files; - resolution: 300 dpi; image width 8 cm (single column) or 16 cm (double column) - for color images, color mode should be CMYK - images must be stored and numbered in a separate folder (do not insert images within Word documents!)

The text document(s) and image(s) folder should be sent on line www.medultrason.ro or as attachments to medultrasonography@gmail.com, dfodor@ymail.ro.

Remark: Medical Ultrasonography cannot be held responsible for losing or damaging the files delivered through the Internet.

Summary:

 send the material in electronic format

 use 1.5 line spacing for the entire text

 attach an abstract at the beginning of the paper

 include full adress for correspondence  include a statement of agreement by all authors as to the content of the paper

 include a commercial interest and financial disclosure statement  fulfill the manuscript preparation and submission requirements