Instructions to Authors
Aims and scopes
Journal of Food Quality and Hazards Control (J. Food Qual. Hazards Control) is an international peer-reviewed quarterly journal that aims at publishing of high quality articles involved in food quality, food hygiene, food safety, and food control which scientists from all over the world may submit their manuscript. This academic journal aims to improve international exchange of new findings and recent developments in all aspects of agricultural and biological sciences. This free of charge journal is published in both online and print forms and welcomes the manuscripts that fulfill the general criteria of novelty and scientific importance. Among the most significant objectives of Journal of Food Quality and Hazards Control are to ensure that the articles reflect a wide range of topics regarding journal scopes; to do a fair, scientific, fast, as well as high quality peer-review process; to provide a wide and diverse geographical coverage of articles around the world; and to publish the articles having a trustable resource of scientific information for the audiences. The types of acceptable submissions include original article, review article, short communication, letter to the editor, case report, editorial, as well as book review. Journal of Food Quality and Hazards Control is an official journal of Research Center for Food Hygiene and Safety, School of Public Health, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran. This is an open access journal under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) that allows readers to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of its articles and allow readers to use them for any other lawful purpose. The scopes are as below:
- Food quality assurance and improvement
- Food preservation
- Food additives
- Food spoilage
- Food control
- Food safety
- Food toxicology
- Food bacteriology
- Food parasitology
- Food virology
- Food mycology
- Food chemistry and biochemistry
- Food biotechnology
- Novel methods for detection of food hazards
- Molecular identification of pathogens in food
- Nutrigenomics
- Drinking water safety
Editorial policies
This journal defines an author as a person who has made a substantive contributions to design of the work, or to analyze or interpret of data; and to draft or revise it; and to verify the approval of the version to be published and to agree for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. Those who do not meet at least one of the above criteria should be acknowledged. Any host, guest, honorary or anymous authors must be strictly avoided. In this journal, there is no limitation in authorship numbers.
Author list and their order should be finalized by all the authors prior to first submission. Corresponding author on behalf of all authors (if there is more than one author) should be responsible for:
- All communications
- Uploading all submissions
- Revisions of the work
- Submitting a brief description of all contributions to the manuscript in the title page
- Disclosing any information on prior or duplicate publication or submission elsewhere of any part of the work
Online submission
The manuscript should be submitted to journal office along with the completed “Authors' Statement and Copyright Form” by author(s) and a cover letter through online submission at journal website. If some additional information are needed, the corresponding author could contact with the Editor-in-Chief via journal email: jfqhc.ssu
gmail.com (alternative email: jfqhcssu.ac.ir). Cover letter signed by the author(s) must be indicated that the manuscript has not been previously published or submitted for publication in other journals in any languages. Also, full name, affiliation, academic degree, postal address, telephone, fax number and email address of all authors should be indicated. ORCID ID (https://orcid.org) of corresponding author must be given. The ordering of the authors should be discussed by authors and should be listed in the cover letter. On the other hand, any conflicts of interest should be declared obviously in the cover letter. Before online submission, registration has to be done at journal website by the corresponding author.Language and style
All submitted manuscripts should be in English. Nonnative English speakers may be advised to seek professional help with the language. All materials should be typed double line spacing numbered page in single column format with Times New Roman font (size 12). Do not justify the right margin in word processor.
Units of measurement
The authors should use the metric units for measurement units of weight, height, length, and volume. Temperature should be assigned using degree Celsius. Authors should use International System of Units (SI) for laboratory information. Editors have right to recommend non-SI if SI units would not be universe. Drug concentrations should be reported in SI or mass units.
Abbreviations/Acronyms and symbols
Authors should use the standard abbreviations. The abbreviations should not be used in the title. The terms or phrase of abbreviations should be spelled out at the first usage inside either abstract or text body and the abbreviation should be immediately appeared in parenthesis. No needs to mention the full words of standard units of measurement. Authors should mention any abbreviations and acronyms used at least three times in the manuscript in the title page. If the manuscript is accepted, the list of abbreviations and acronyms will be alphabetically included on the first page of the article.
Types of acceptable articles
A manuscript can be classified under one of the following categories:
- Original article
- Review article
- Short communication
- Letter to the editor
- Case report
- Editorial
- Book review
Preparation of manuscript
Original article
It should not exceed 7000 words, excluding references, and they should have the following format:
Title page: Title page of the manuscript should be in a separate page with no number. This page should include the title of the manuscript; authors' names and affiliations; name of the institution/university where the work was done; running title; full address of the corresponding author (email, telephone, fax, postal code); and also highlights. First character of all words in the manuscript title must be written in capital form with exception of prepositions and conjunctions words. The title should be clear, concise and informative. Running title, as short form of the main title, is presented at the top of pages in maximum 5 words with exception of prepositions and conjunctions words. Highlights are composed of three to five bullet points which provide core findings of the manuscript (especially, results and conclusion) to help readers to fast overview of the published article. Each bullet point must include up to 15 words with exception of prepositions and conjunctions words.
Abstract: Abstract should be structured providing background, methods, results and, conclusion altogether should be in the range of 150-300 words. Abbreviations should not be used for repeating up to twice.
Keywords: Keywords are used for indexing purpose. Each manuscript should provide 3 to 6 keywords according to the Medical Subject Headings, MESH (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/MBrowser.html).
Introduction: Introduction should provide a background and specifies the research objective of the study or observation. This section must emphasize the purpose and the rationale for the study. It should neither review the subject extensively nor should it have data or conclusions of the study.
Materials and methods: Materials and methods must indicate clearly the steps taken to acquire the information. It should be detailed. All materials should be mentioned by the company, country or city that they made. Repeating the details of standard techniques is best avoided. The software used for statistical analysis and description of the actual method should be mentioned. This section should have some subtitles. The subtitles must be inserted as italic form.
Results: Results should be clearly presented in chronological sequence in the text, table and figure. Table and illustrations have to be cited in order they appear in the text using Arabic numerals (more details have been mentioned in below).Using subtitles is voluntary in this section.
Discussion: Discussion should emphasize the new and important aspects of the study. Possible explanations for these findings should be mentioned. However, extensive citations and discussion of the previous studies in literature and also repletion of the results should be avoided.
Conclusion: In this section, overall conclusion of the author(s) from the research, the limitation of the work and the implications of the finding for future research should be noted.
Author contributions: In this section, each author’s contribution must be exactly declared using initials to indicate each author’s identity (for example, “J.C. and T.P. designed the study; J.C., D.N, and R.K. conducted the experimental work; B.A. analyzed the data; H.L. and B.A. wrote the manuscript, etc.”). Based on the recommendations by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors/ICMJE (http://www.icmje.org) about the conduct, reporting, editing and publication of scholarly work in medical journals, all authors should have made significant conceptual, intellectual, experimental, and analytical contributions to the research, as well as having participated in writing and revising the manuscript (please see “Authorship criteria and contributions” section in the current instruction).
Conflicts of interest: Submitting a manuscript must be accompanied with a statement from the authors disclosing all financial and personnel relationship that might bias their work, if any. Besides, they are requested to evident whether impending conflicts do or do not exist. A separate page should cover this proclamation and if there are further details, could be mentioned in covering letter. If an organization encompasses any financial interest in the outcome of the study, the authors are appealed to provide a declaration that has full excess to all data in the study and take complete responsibility for the integrity of data and the accuracy of data analysis.
Acknowledgments: Acknowledgments should be mentioned for any technical help or general, financial, and material support or contributions that need to be acknowledged. Funding source must be clearly identified. If there is no funding support in the study, it must be declared as: "This study did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or non-for-profit sectors". Authors must declare the ethical approval of the study in institutional review board (IRB) or independent ethics committee (IEC); (the approval code number should preferably be written).
References: Only credible scientific sources including journals, books, official websites, etc. are acceptable. Abstracts presented in the congresses or seminars, and also non-official websites should preferably not be used. The references should be noted by Harvard citation style indicating as follow:
A) Citation in text: Each reference cited in the text should be presented in the reference list (and vice versa). All citations in the text should follow the below principles:
1. Single author: the author's name and the year of publication (e.g., Smith, 2009)
2. Two authors: both authors' names and the year of publication (e.g., Jay and Reid, 2007)
3. Three or more authors: first author's name followed by 'et al.' and the year of publication (e.g., Ferguson et al., 2013)
Citations may be made directly (or parenthetically). Groups of references should be listed first alphabetically, then chronologically.
B) List: References should be arranged alphabetically by authors' names and should be as full as possible. It should be noted that journal full names must be capitalizes each word (exception of prepositions and conjunctions words) and italic. If two or more references belong to the same author (s) in the same year, the letters (a, b, c, etc.) must be placed after the year of publication. The DOI (Digital Object Identifier) of all references must be indicated (if any). If an in-press article (without volume number) is cited, insertion of DOI in enough. If a reference has more than 12 authors, the first 12 authors should be listed followed by 'et al.'. Some examples of references are as below:
- Journal: Marin S., Ramos A.J., Cano-Sancho G., Sanchis V. (2013). Mycotoxins: occurrence, toxicology, and exposure assessment. Food and Chemical Toxicology. 60: 218-237. [DOI: 10.1016/j.fct.2013.07.047]
- Book: Jay J.M., Loessner M.J., Golden D.A. (2005). Modern food microbiology. 7th edition. Springer Science, New York. pp: 42-67.
- Chapter in an edited book: Farouk M.M., Bekhit A.E. (2013). Processed camel meats. In: Kadim I.T., Mahgoub O., Faye B., Farouk M.M. (Editors). Camel meat and meat products. CAB International, London. pp: 186-191.
- Web: Institute of Standards and Industrial Research of Iran (ISIRI). (2007). Raw frozen hamburger. National Standard No. 2304. URL: http://www.isiri.org/portal/files/std/2304. pdf. Accessed 20 August 2013.
Figures: Each illustration should have a caption. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used. Figures should be presented only if they improve the manuscript. Legends must identify all symbols, abbreviations, acronyms, or letters that appear on the prints.
Tables: Tables capture information concisely and they should be titled and numbered consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. Title of each table should be self-explanatory. Footnotes should be placed below the table body. Tables should be sparing in the use and the data presented in tables should not be described elsewhere in the manuscript. Tables should be submitted as editable text (not image). Vertical rules are not allowed. Each column of the table must have a heading preferably as abbreviated heading that must be explained in footnotes. All the nonstandard abbreviation in footnotes should be assigned with symbols. References which mentioned in tables should be included in the main references list.
Short communication
These articles are like those of original ones except that these are shorter and prepared in minimum 1500 and maximum 3000 words. The results and discussion sections should preferably be merged.
Review article
It should be prepared according to one of the following styles:
− Systematic reviews: This kind of manuscripts should be in form of meta-analysis, meta-synthesis or without statistical analysis. These manuscripts contain original articles’ parts. They should contain 2500-7000 words.
− Non systematic reviews: This kind of manuscripts should be written by researchers who are expert in the related field. Different parts of such articles include abstract (with no structure), introduction, main text, and conclusion. They should contain at least 25 references and the range of 3000-10000 words including the references and captions.
Case report
This kind of manuscript should include abstract, keywords, introduction, case report, discussion, conclusion, author contributions, conflicts of interest, acknowledgment, and references. Case report should have 1500-3000 words. The title should include the words ‘case report’ as well as a description of the reported phenomenon (e.g., reporting of new and rare food borne pathogen).
Editorial
These manuscripts need no structure and have not abstract. But, the total words number should be at maximum 2000 including references and the references not exceeding more than 10.
Letter to the editor
It should be about criticism of previous articles in this journal or the others and analysis of a related scientific topic with journal scope. These manuscripts need no structure and have not abstract.
Book review
In this type of manuscript, a new published internationally and valuable book regarding to the scopes of the journal, is introduced in maximum 1000 words. These manuscripts need no structure and have not abstract.
Reporting guidelines
The Journal of Food Quality and Hazards control supports the work and reporting of health research. The authors should use the following guidelines for drafting their manuscripts:
-CONSORT for reporting randomized controlled trials: The authors should submit the completed CONSORT checklist which is available at http://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/consort/, and indicate the page number where the required information is provided.
- STROBE for reporting observational studies: Authors should submit the completed STROBE Checklist which is available at http://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/strobe/, and indicate the page number where the required information is provided.
- PRISMA for reporting meta-analyses and systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials: Authors should submit the completed PRISMA Checklist, which is available at http://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/prisma/, and indicate the page number where the required information is provided.
-PRISMA for harms for reporting harms in systematic reviews, whether harms are a primary or secondary outcome: Authors should submit the completed PRISMA harms checklist which is available at http://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/prisma-harms/, and indicate the page number where the required information is provided.
-STARD for reporting studies of diagnostic accuracy: Authors should submit the completed STARD Checklist which is available at http://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/stard/, and indicate the page number where the required information is provided.
-MOOSE for reporting meta-analyses and systematic reviews of observational studies: Authors should describe in the cover letter, how followed the MOOSE guidelines which is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.283.15.2008.
-CHEERS for reporting economic evaluations of health interventions: Authors should submit the completed CHEERS checklist which is available at http://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/cheers/, and indicate the page number where the required information is provided.
-SQUIRE 2.0 for reporting on quality improvement in health care: Authors should submit the completed SQUIRE 2.0 checklist which is available at http://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/squire/, and indicate the page number where the required information is provided.
Ethical guidelines
All studies must be approved by the relevant Ethics Committee/ Institution review boards of the respective institutions. Informed consent of the patients participating in the study should be undertaken. The study itself should follow the ethical standards of the Helsinki Declaration, as revised in 2013 and available at:
https://www.wma.net/policies-
Ethical considerations in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation must be addressed in the ‘Materials and methods’ section, if necessary. The journal will not consider any manuscript which is ethically unacceptable. It is the responsibility of the authors/contributors to obtain permissions for reproducing any copyrighted material. Evidence for approval by a local Ethics Committee (for both human as well as animal studies) must be supplied by the authors on demand. The related items should be inserted under the ‘Materials and methods’ section. A copy of the permission must accompany the manuscript. As mentioned previously, conflicts of interest should be declared obviously in each manuscript.
Plagiarism of text from a previously published manuscript by the same or another author is a serious publication offence. Small amounts of text may be used, but only where the source of the material quoted is clearly acknowledged and the text is inserted in quotation mark. If there is an allegation of plagiarism, scientific misconduct or fraud, the journal will follow the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics, COPE (http://publicationethics.org/) and International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, ICMJE (http://www.icmje.org/). The journal uses iThenticate plagiarism detection software to evaluate the originality of each manuscript. The journal reserves the right to report the allegations to the author’s institution or any other agency.
Once approved to be published in the journal, the manuscript cannot be published elsewhere (even local journals with non-English language). “The Authors' Statement and Copyright Form” should be filled and signed by all the authors, and then scanned and emailed by corresponding author to the journal office (jfqhc.ssu
gmail.com).Submitting a manuscript must be accompanied with a statement from the authors disclosing all financial, personnel or other relationships that might bias their work, if any. Besides, they are requested to evident whether impending conflicts do or do not exist. A separate page should cover this proclamation and if there are further details, could be mentioned in covering letter. If an organization encompasses any financial interest in the outcome of the study, the authors are appealed to provide a declaration that has full excess to all data in the study and take complete responsibility for the integrity of data and the accuracy of data analysis.
Authorship criteria and contributions: Based on the recommendations by the ICMJE about the conduct, reporting, editing and publication of scholarly work in medical journals, all authors should have made significant conceptual, intellectual, experimental, and analytical contributions to the research, as well as having participated in writing and revising the manuscript. Also each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to be responsible for its content. All authors should meet the mentioned criteria in ICMJE about authorship and if nobody meets them, they will be omitted from the list. The authors should ensure that all persons that have provided general support including, technical help, writing assistance, or a department chairperson are listed in the acknowledgment section. The copyright should be contained written authorization from all authors for publication of the manuscript. Authors should be agreed the order of author listed in the manuscript before submitting it.
Each author should follow all criteria recommended by the ICMJE as following conditions:
1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
All authors should meet all above criteria for authorship, and therefore the one who meet then should be identified as authors. Those who do not meet the mentioned criteria should be listed in the acknowledgement section. All authors listed in the submitted manuscript should be able to resolute the questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work. Therefore, the corresponding author should be cleared the authors and also the other persons that do not constitute authorship including the ones contribute funding, data collection, or general supervision of the research group. The corresponding author should write the order of authors in the cover letter and should be assigned by all authors.
Changes in authorship: Before submitting the manuscript in Journal of Food Quality and Hazards Control, the authors should be agreed with the authors listed in the manuscript. Any requested changes in authorship including, order, addition, and deletion should be explained in a letter to the editor signed by all authors or email from each author.
Clinical trial registration: According to the International Committee of Medical journal Editors (ICMJE) "a Clinical Trial is any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects on health outcomes". Authors from this kind of work should register their trial with one of the ICMJE-recognized trial registries. The number of clinical trial registration and the name of registry must be appeared in the "Materials and methods" section. All Iranian clinical trials must be registered in Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials (www.irct.ir) to consider for publication. The clinical trials that have been registered in any registration site approved by WHO, could be considered for publication. The registration site approved by WHO are as follow:
- http://rctregistry.tums.ac.ir
- http://www.clinicaltrials.gov
- http://www.anzctr.org.au
- http://isrctn.org
- http://www.trialregister.nl/trialreg/
- http://www.umin.ac.jp/ctr
Research involving animals: If animals are the goal group of the work, the authors should indicate the international and national guidelines for use of animals. Also, the study should be approved by a research committee at the organization/institution. For this kind of manuscript, an "Ethical approval" should be included in the "Materials and methods" section that the authors should mention the guidelines for the care and use of animals. Also, the ethical code should be added. If the authors have not results from the studies by any of the authors, they should clear it. This journal has right to request the related documents from the authors.
Research involving human: If human are the participants in the work, the authors should include the ethical approval code by ethical committee from institution/organization and should perform the research in accordance with standards based on Declaration of Helsinki in 1964 and its later amendments ethical standards. For this kind of manuscript, an "Ethical approval" should be included in the text before the "Materials and methods"section that the authors should declare that the study was performed in accordance with Helsinki declaration. This journal has right to request the related documents from the authors.
Informed consent: Both of the research with human participants and animals should have "Informed consent". It is necessary that all participants have informed consent prior to inclusion in the study. Any information about the participants should not be published by authors. This journal has right to request the related documents from the authors.
Ethics of scientific publishing: The Journal of Food Quality and Hazards Control will follow the COPE guidelines on dealing with any potential misconduct. In order to maintaining the research integrity, authors should follow the rules which include:
-Authors should clarify that they has not been submitted the manuscript in more than one journal (duplicate submission).
-Authors should not publish the submitted manuscript in the Journal of Food Quality and Hazards Control elsewhere previously as part or full (duplicate publication), unless some new results would be considered. In this situation, authors should clear the re-use of material in order to avoiding the self-plagiarism.
-Authors should avoid "salami-publishing". It means the authors should not split up the results of a work to publish them in more than one journal.
-Authors should not use the data that have been fabricated or manipulated such as images in order to support the conclusions.
-Authors should mention clearly the data, text, or theories by other authors using quotation marks or writing in acknowledgement.
-Authors should permit for using the material that is copyrighted and secured.
-All authors should have consent about the responsible authorities.
-Authors in the submitted manuscript should have sufficient contributions to the scientific work and have responsibility for the results.
-Authors should be informed that any changes in authorship or in the order of the authors in the submitted manuscript in Journal of Food Quality and Hazards Control would not be considered by this journal after acceptance of the manuscript. But, if all authors have a written approval with explanation in detail about deletion or adding another one(s), this journal will consider the changes.
-Authors should prepare and send to the journal the relevant documents or data to verify the validity of the results.
-This journal could not accept plagiarism. Authors should not copy or paraphrase any material from other authors without citation.
-Authors should avoid self-plagiarism. It means they do not use the previous own published materials without acknowledgment of the source.
-Authors should use the relevant references inside the manuscript.
-Authors should avoid fabrication and falsification.
If the Journal of Food Quality and Hazards Control finds the potential or suspicion of misconduct, this journal will follow the COPE guidelines. If the journal ensure about the misconduct, this journal will contact to the author and request the author to address the issue. After establishment of the doubt, Editor-in-Chief will follow:
-If the manuscript is under consideration, it may be returned to the author or rejected.
-If the article has been published, it may retract and therefore the reason in detail will be published as retraction note. Also, this journal may publish an erratum with explanation in detail.
-Finally, this journal will contact the author's institution.
Conflicts of interest: Authors should describe the relevant funding, patents, and stocks. The authors should disclose all sources of conflict of interest, including interest or relationship, financial or otherwise. The potential sources of conflict of interest comprises patent or stock ownership, membership of a company board of directors or advisory board, or receipt of speaker's fees from a company. If authors have not declared any conflict of interest, they should state it inside the manuscript. The corresponding author is responsible to review this policy with all other co-authors. The corresponding author should list the mentioned items in the cover letter (if applicable) to Editor-in-Chief.
Peer review process
Double blind peer reviewing: Each submitted manuscript is assessed by Editor-in-Chief, at first for its quality, accuracy, novelty, relevance and significance. If the manuscript meets the minimum standards, it enters the double blind peer review process in maximum two weeks. If submitted manuscript is considered out of journal's scope or inappropriate to publish, it will be rejected or returned to corresponding author without entering the peer-review process. The manuscript will then be sent at least to one in-office and two out of office reviewers for review. All the selected reviewers should be experienced researchers in agricultural and biological sciences. Also, the reviewers should be a faculty member in an academic organization or university around the world. The other important criteria for the reviewers are their suitable experiences in peer-reviewing, perfect academic skills, and effective international collaboration. All the reviewers must be advanced and proficient in English language levels. Authors can suggest to the journal office if they do not wish their manuscript to be reviewed by a particular reviewer because of potential conflicts of interest but, it is up to the Editor-in-Chief to accept it. Final decision pertaining to each manuscript is determined by Editor-in-Chief and after that the decision will be immediately sent to the corresponding author up to about two months. Editor can reject manuscript at any time before publication even after acceptance if concerns arise about the integrity of the work. In the peer review process, research protocols and plans for statistical analysis will be reviewed. Editorials, letters, and book reviews will not be entered to peer-review process.
Revision: Manuscripts may be returned to the corresponding author for modification of the scientific content and/or for language corrections. Revised manuscript and a letter listing point-for-point response to the reviewers must be submitted to the editor and must be accompanied by a copy of the original version. Suggestion by the editor about resubmission does not imply that a revised version will necessary be accepted. If a manuscript that is returned to the authors for modification is not resubmitted within two months it will be regarded as having been withdrawn and any revised version received subsequently will be treated as a new manuscript and the date of receipt will be altered accordingly. Authors who resubmit a manuscript that has previously been rejected must provide the original manuscript and a letter explaining in detail how the manuscript has been modified.
Proofs: A computer printout will be sent to the corresponding author to be checked for only typographical errors and other essential small changes before publication in order to avoid any mistakes. Major alternations to the text cannot be accepted at this stage. Proofs must be returned to the editor within 7 days of receipt.
Corrections or erratum: Journal of Food Quality and Hazards Control will be published corrections if important errors are found. The corrections should be distinguishable from retractions and statements of concern relating to misconduct. If errors would be enough fundamental to make invalid the work, the journal have right to retract the published paper. Also, this journal will be published correction if the author/contributor list would be incorrect including, a deserving author has been omitted or somebody who does not meet authorship criteria has been included.
Retraction and expression of concern: Retraction will be published by Journal of Food Quality and Hazards Control if errors affect the interpretation of the results or it is proven serious ethical misconduct, including duplication, redundant publication (publishing the data elsewhere without cross-referencing, permission or justification), disagreement of all authors for publication, plagiarism, miscalculation, experimental error. Expression of concern will be published by Journal of Food Quality and Hazards Control if editors receive inconclusive evidence of research or publication misconduct by the authors, unreliability of the findings, an investigation would be underway but a judgment will not be available for a considerable time.
Withdrawal of articles: If legal infringements, defamation, false on inaccurate data would be occurred especially those could pose a serious health risk, the Journal of Food Quality and Hazards Control have right to remove or withdraw the article. In this circumstance, a retraction statement will be published by this journal and an explanation will be given about the circumstances of removal or withdrawal.
Copyright
This open access (no charge) Journal of Food Quality and Hazards Control is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which allows users to read, copy, distribute and make derivative works for non-commercial purposes from the material, as long as the author of the original work is cited properly. The manuscript should not be copy or published any materials contained on the journal without the prior written permission of it or the appropriate copyright owner. The authors should sign the copyright agreement which presents inside the journal website and transfer it alongside with submitted manuscript. If authors submit any material to which they do not own copyright, they will need to secure permission to use the copyrighted materials.
Page charge
There is no page charge for publication in this journal.
Advertising policy
The journal does not carry advertising, neither print nor online.
Changes in authorship: Before submitting the manuscript in Journal of Food Quality and Hazards Control, the authors should be agreed with the authors listed in the manuscript. Any requested changes in authorship including, order, addition, and deletion should be explained in a letter to the editor signed by all authors or email from each author.
Clinical trial registration: According to the International Committee of Medical journal Editors (ICMJE) "a Clinical Trial is any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects on health outcomes". Authors from this kind of work should register their trial with one of the ICMJE-recognized trial registries. The number of clinical trial registration and the name of registry must be appeared in the "Materials and methods" section. All Iranian clinical trials must be registered in Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials (www.irct.ir) to consider for publication. The clinical trials that have been registered in any registration site approved by WHO, could be considered for publication. The registration site approved by WHO are as follow:
- http://rctregistry.tums.ac.ir
- http://www.clinicaltrials.gov
- http://www.anzctr.org.au
- http://isrctn.org
- http://www.trialregister.nl/trialreg/
- http://www.umin.ac.jp/ctr
Research involving animals: If animals are the goal group of the work, the authors should indicate the international and national guidelines for use of animals. Also, the study should be approved by a research committee at the organization/institution. For this kind of manuscript, an "Ethical approval" should be included in the "Materials and methods" section that the authors should mention the guidelines for the care and use of animals. Also, the ethical code should be added. If the authors have not results from the studies by any of the authors, they should clear it. This journal has right to request the related documents from the authors.
Research involving human: If human are the participants in the work, the authors should include the ethical approval code by ethical committee from institution/organization and should perform the research in accordance with standards based on Declaration of Helsinki in 1964 and its later amendments ethical standards. For this kind of manuscript, an "Ethical approval" should be included in the text before the "Materials and methods"section that the authors should declare that the study was performed in accordance with Helsinki declaration. This journal has right to request the related documents from the authors.
Informed consent: Both of the research with human participants and animals should have "Informed consent". It is necessary that all participants have informed consent prior to inclusion in the study. Any information about the participants should not be published by authors. This journal has right to request the related documents from the authors.
Ethics of scientific publishing: The Journal of Food Quality and Hazards Control will follow the COPE guidelines on dealing with any potential misconduct. In order to maintaining the research integrity, authors should follow the rules which include:
-Authors should clarify that they has not been submitted the manuscript in more than one journal (duplicate submission).
-Authors should not publish the submitted manuscript in the Journal of Food Quality and Hazards Control elsewhere previously as part or full (duplicate publication), unless some new results would be considered. In this situation, authors should clear the re-use of material in order to avoiding the self-plagiarism.
-Authors should avoid "salami-publishing". It means the authors should not split up the results of a work to publish them in more than one journal.
-Authors should not use the data that have been fabricated or manipulated such as images in order to support the conclusions.
-Authors should mention clearly the data, text, or theories by other authors using quotation marks or writing in acknowledgement.
-Authors should permit for using the material that is copyrighted and secured.
-All authors should have consent about the responsible authorities.
-Authors in the submitted manuscript should have sufficient contributions to the scientific work and have responsibility for the results.
-Authors should be informed that any changes in authorship or in the order of the authors in the submitted manuscript in Journal of Food Quality and Hazards Control would not be considered by this journal after acceptance of the manuscript. But, if all authors have a written approval with explanation in detail about deletion or adding another one(s), this journal will consider the changes.
-Authors should prepare and send to the journal the relevant documents or data to verify the validity of the results.
-This journal could not accept plagiarism. Authors should not copy or paraphrase any material from other authors without citation.
-Authors should avoid self-plagiarism. It means they do not use the previous own published materials without acknowledgment of the source.
-Authors should use the relevant references inside the manuscript.
-Authors should avoid fabrication and falsification.
If the Journal of Food Quality and Hazards Control finds the potential or suspicion of misconduct, this journal will follow the COPE guidelines. If the journal ensure about the misconduct, this journal will contact to the author and request the author to address the issue. After establishment of the doubt, Editor-in-Chief will follow:
-If the manuscript is under consideration, it may be returned to the author or rejected.
-If the article has been published, it may retract and therefore the reason in detail will be published as retraction note. Also, this journal may publish an erratum with explanation in detail.
-Finally, this journal will contact the author's institution.
Conflicts of interest: Authors should describe the relevant funding, patents, and stocks. The authors should disclose all sources of conflict of interest, including interest or relationship, financial or otherwise. The potential sources of conflict of interest comprises patent or stock ownership, membership of a company board of directors or advisory board, or receipt of speaker's fees from a company. If authors have not declared any conflict of interest, they should state it inside the manuscript. The corresponding author is responsible to review this policy with all other co-authors. The corresponding author should list the mentioned items in the cover letter (if applicable) to Editor-in-Chief.
Peer review process
Double blind peer reviewing: Each submitted manuscript is assessed by Editor-in-Chief, at first for its quality, accuracy, novelty, relevance and significance. If the manuscript meets the minimum standards, it enters the double blind peer review process in maximum two weeks. If submitted manuscript is considered out of journal's scope or inappropriate to publish, it will be rejected or returned to corresponding author without entering the peer-review process. The manuscript will then be sent at least to one in-office and two out of office reviewers for review. All the selected reviewers should be experienced researchers in agricultural and biological sciences. Also, the reviewers should be a faculty member in an academic organization or university around the world. The other important criteria for the reviewers are their suitable experiences in peer-reviewing, perfect academic skills, and effective international collaboration. All the reviewers must be advanced and proficient in English language levels. Authors can suggest to the journal office if they do not wish their manuscript to be reviewed by a particular reviewer because of potential conflicts of interest but, it is up to the Editor-in-Chief to accept it. Final decision pertaining to each manuscript is determined by Editor-in-Chief and after that the decision will be immediately sent to the corresponding author up to about two months. Editor can reject manuscript at any time before publication even after acceptance if concerns arise about the integrity of the work. In the peer review process, research protocols and plans for statistical analysis will be reviewed. Editorials, letters, and book reviews will not be entered to peer-review process.
Revision: Manuscripts may be returned to the corresponding author for modification of the scientific content and/or for language corrections. Revised manuscript and a letter listing point-for-point response to the reviewers must be submitted to the editor and must be accompanied by a copy of the original version. Suggestion by the editor about resubmission does not imply that a revised version will necessary be accepted. If a manuscript that is returned to the authors for modification is not resubmitted within two months it will be regarded as having been withdrawn and any revised version received subsequently will be treated as a new manuscript and the date of receipt will be altered accordingly. Authors who resubmit a manuscript that has previously been rejected must provide the original manuscript and a letter explaining in detail how the manuscript has been modified.
Proofs: A computer printout will be sent to the corresponding author to be checked for only typographical errors and other essential small changes before publication in order to avoid any mistakes. Major alternations to the text cannot be accepted at this stage. Proofs must be returned to the editor within 7 days of receipt.
Corrections or erratum: Journal of Food Quality and Hazards Control will be published corrections if important errors are found. The corrections should be distinguishable from retractions and statements of concern relating to misconduct. If errors would be enough fundamental to make invalid the work, the journal have right to retract the published paper. Also, this journal will be published correction if the author/contributor list would be incorrect including, a deserving author has been omitted or somebody who does not meet authorship criteria has been included.
Retraction and expression of concern: Retraction will be published by Journal of Food Quality and Hazards Control if errors affect the interpretation of the results or it is proven serious ethical misconduct, including duplication, redundant publication (publishing the data elsewhere without cross-referencing, permission or justification), disagreement of all authors for publication, plagiarism, miscalculation, experimental error. Expression of concern will be published by Journal of Food Quality and Hazards Control if editors receive inconclusive evidence of research or publication misconduct by the authors, unreliability of the findings, an investigation would be underway but a judgment will not be available for a considerable time.
Withdrawal of articles: If legal infringements, defamation, false on inaccurate data would be occurred especially those could pose a serious health risk, the Journal of Food Quality and Hazards Control have right to remove or withdraw the article. In this circumstance, a retraction statement will be published by this journal and an explanation will be given about the circumstances of removal or withdrawal.
Copyright
This open access (no charge) Journal of Food Quality and Hazards Control is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which allows users to read, copy, distribute and make derivative works for non-commercial purposes from the material, as long as the author of the original work is cited properly. The manuscript should not be copy or published any materials contained on the journal without the prior written permission of it or the appropriate copyright owner. The authors should sign the copyright agreement which presents inside the journal website and transfer it alongside with submitted manuscript. If authors submit any material to which they do not own copyright, they will need to secure permission to use the copyrighted materials.
Page charge
There is no page charge for publication in this journal.
Advertising policy
The journal does not carry advertising, neither print nor online.
View: 27619 Time(s) |
Print: 3554 Time(s) |
Email: 48 Time(s) |
0 Comment(s)
