Submission guidelines

1. Editorial Policies

Annals of Nuclear Medicine (ANM) publishes articles concerning the clinical application of radioisotopes and related subjects. Manuscripts should be written in English. Five types of articles are considered for publication: original articles, short communications, review articles, letters to the editor, and others. All manuscripts except review articles must be original, including figures and tables.

ANM follows the Recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals ( http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/ ). Authors are recommended to refer them in the due course of manuscript preparation and submission.

Instructions for Reviewers (Download pdf, 25 kB)

Policy of ANM on duplicate submission Form (Download pdf, 12 kB)

Policy of Institutional Repository (Download pdf, 10 kB)

2. Contents of Articles

2-1) Original articles: Presentations of important new research results and technical innovations in the area of nuclear medicine. Former technical notes are merged into original articles.

2-2) Short communications: Brief manuscripts on important, original studies Including technical development.

2-3) Review articles: Critical presentations of widely encompassing topics.

2-4) Letters to the editor: Questions and controversial opinions on articles that appeared previously in the journal. Replies to letters may be published at the editor’s discretion.

2-5) Case reports will not be considered for publication.

2-6) Others: Commentary, Data, Topics, News, and others to be decided.

3. Review Procedure

Submitted manuscripts are reviewed with regard to their originality, significance, and suitability of content. All manuscripts are initially assessed by the editors, and if they are judged suitable candidates for publishing, they are then reviewed by a minimum of two referees. Accepted manuscripts are subject to editorial revision for clarity of English expression in the editorial office.

4. Prerequisites for Publication

4-1) Legal Requirements

Submission of a manuscript implies that the work described has not been published before; that it is not under consideration for publication anywhere else; that its publication has been approved by all co-authors, if any, as well as by the responsible authorities – tacitly or explicitly – at the institute where the work has been carried out. The Japanese Society of Nuclear Medicine and the publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.

4-2) Conflict-of-Interest Policy

All authors are required to disclose commercial or similar relationships to products or companies mentioned in or related to the subject matter of the article being submitted at the time of submission. Affiliations of authors should include corporate appointments relating to or in connection with products or companies mentioned in the article, or otherwise bearing on the subject matter thereof. Other pertinent financial relationships, such as consultancies, stock ownership, or other equity interests or patent-licensing arrangements, also should be disclosed.

If any conflict of interest exists, it must be disclosed using the specified form (Form 2, which is posted on the ANM web site: http://www.springer.com/journal/12149/) at the time of submission, and the related company or organization with which there may be conflicts of interest should be acknowledged in the article. In cases where no regulated conflict of interest exists for all authors, the corresponding author may complete and submit the form on behalf of all authors. In addition, wording such as “No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed” is inserted in the Acknowledgments section of the article.

4-3) Permissions

Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.

4-4) Ethical Considerations

Manuscripts submitted for publication must contain a statement to the effect that all human studies have been approved by the appropriate ethics committee and have therefore been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and all subsequent revisions. It should also be stated clearly in the text that all persons gave their informed consent prior to their inclusion in the study. Details that might disclose the identity of the subjects under study should be omitted. The editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned requirements. The author will be held responsible for false statements or failure to fulfill these requirements.

4-5) Obligation to Register Clinical Trials

ANM adopts the WHO’s definition of clinical trial: 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. Therefore, ANM requires authors to register their trial in a registry when applicable. Clinical trial registries include: www.actr.org.au, www.clinicaltrials.gov, www.ISRCTN.org, www.umin.ac.jp/ctr/index/htm, and www.trialregister.nl. Any other registry which is publicly accessible is also eligible. Upon submission of manuscripts, the registration identification number for the trial’s registry must be indicated at the end of the abstract. This agreement applies to any manuscript about a clinical trial conducted outside Japan for which patient enrollment began on or after April 1, 2010. Although a prospective clinical trial already started before March 31, 2010 is not required to be registered in these registries, ANM recommends that authors indicate the commencement and termination dates of their trial in the Materials and Methods section of their manuscript.

Manuscripts of trials conducted in Japan should follow the regulations activated on April 1, 2009 by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan.

Although retrospective studies are not required to be registered, ANM recommends that authors indicate in the Materials and Methods section that their results were obtained by retrospective observation.

4-6) Certification Form

A Certification Form regarding Exclusive Publication Statement, Ethical Considerations, and Conflict-of-Interest Acknowledgment, included in each issue and which also may be downloaded from the online submission website (http://www.springeronline.com/journal/12149/), must be signed by the first author, on behalf of all coauthors of the submitted article. This form must bear the handwritten signature of the first author. Upon receipt of a Certification Form, manuscripts are officially recognized as submissions.

The Certification Form can be submitted to the journal’s Editorial Office through Editorial Manager as a scanned file (PDF, TIFF, or JPEG) of the original.

Conflict of Interest Form (Download pdf, 146 kB)

Certification Form (Download pdf, 188 kB)

5. Manuscript Submission via Editorial Manager

Authors should submit their manuscripts to Annals of Nuclear Medicine online. Please log in directly at: https://www.editorialmanager.com/anme/ and upload your manuscript following the instructions given on the screen. Please use the Help option to see the most recently updated system requirements.

https://www.editorialmanager.com/anme/

6. Preparation of Manuscript

Manuscripts should be organized as follows: title page, main document, acknowledgments, figures and tables (each figure and table should be on a separate page).

Original articles should contain no more than 6,000 words including all items. Short communications should contain no more than 3,000 words.

The length of review articles should be considered according to the topics. Letters should concern previously published articles within a year of its publication, and contain no more than 750 words, no figures or tables and up to 5 references.

Figures and tables may occupy different amounts of space depending on their sizes. For instance, a figure occupying a third of a page accounts for the space of approximately 250 words.

The authors are highly recommended to ask a native language proofreader to check their manuscript before submission.

6-1) Title Page

The title page should include:

- The first name(s) (spelled out in full), middle initial(s) (if any), and surname(s) of all author(s)

- A concise and informative title

- The affiliation(s) and address(es) of all author(s)

- The e-mail address, telephone and fax numbers of the corresponding author responsible for correspondence and reprints

- The type of article

- Sources of funding for the article, if any

6-2) Main Document

The main document should be organized as follows: abstract, manuscript text, references, figure legends, and tables (if you want to insert the tables into the main document).

Abstract

Except for review articles, the abstract should contain a maximum of 350 words and include four clearly identifiable elements of content: objective, methods, results, and conclusions. These sections should be preceded by headings (i.e., Objective, Methods, Results, and Conclusions). For review articles, an unstructured abstract consisting of one complete paragraph in no more than 200 words is required. All abstracts should be submitted with three to five key words.

Manuscript Text Formatting

The manuscript text (except for review articles) should be arranged under the following headings: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion. Authors are encouraged to keep them concise for short communications.

- Use a normal, plain font (e.g., 12-point Times Roman) for the manuscript text.

- Every page must be typewritten double-spaced, leaving a 3-cm margin on all sides.

- Use italics for emphasis.

- Do not use field functions.

- Use tab stops or other commands for indents, not the space bar.

- Number pages consecutively, beginning with the Abstract. Type the page number in the upper right-hand corner of each page.

- Type the short title of up to 30 characters in the header.

- Paragraphs should begin with an indentation of at least five-spaces length.

- Reference numbers in the text should be in parentheses.

- Footnotes on the text should be numbered consecutively.

- Use the table function, not spreadsheets, to make tables.

- Use the equation editor or MathType for equations. Note: If you use Word 2007, do not create the equations with the default equation editor but use MathType instead.

Abbreviations and Units

Abbreviations in the manuscript text should be defined the first time they are mentioned, unless they are common, easily recognizable ones such as cm, ml, g, min, s, Bq, Gy, Sv, R, etc. and should be used consistently thereafter. Nomenclature, units and abbreviations should conform to IUPAC recommendations and Système Internationale (SI). Chemical formulae should be in keeping with the guidelines of the American Chemical Society.

References

The list of references should only include works that are cited in the manuscript text and in any tables and figures that have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications, unpublished data, manuscripts in preparation, or manuscripts submitted for publication are not acceptable in the references but may be cited parenthetically in the manuscript text.

References must be typed double-spaced and numbered consecutively in order of appearance. Do not use footnotes or endnotes as a substitute for a reference list. Where there are six or fewer authors, all authors should be listed. Where there are seven or more authors, only the first six should be listed, followed by “et al.” The journal uses the Vancouver style for references. Journal names are abbreviated according to the list of journals indexed in Index Medicus. References should be cited using numbers in square brackets on the line, e.g., Ames et al. [1] reported…

Sample references are:

Print

Journal article

Smith JJ, Hamburger C, Geddes KO, Czapor SR, Labahn G, Broy M. The world of science. Am J Sci 1999;36:234-5.

Book

Blenkinsopp A, Paxton P. Symptoms in the pharmacy: a guide to the management of common illness. 3rd ed. Oxford: Blackwell Science; 1998.

Book chapter

Wyllie AH, Kerr JFR, Currie AR. Cell death: the significance of apoptosis. In: Bourne GH, Danielli JF, Jeon KW, editors. International review of cytology. London: Academic; 1980. p. 251-306.

Epub

A paper published online but not in print can be cited using the Digital Object Identifier (DOI). A web document can be cited as well, using the URL address.

Article by DOI

Slifka MK, Whitton JL. Clinical implications of dysregulated cytokine production. J Mol Med 2007. doi: 10.1007/s001090000086.

Online document

Doe J. Title of subordinate document. In: The dictionary of substances and their effects. Royal Society of Chemistry 2006. http://www.rsc.org/dose/title of subordinate document. Accessed 15 Jan 2006.

Figure Legends

Figure legends should be included in the manuscript text and not in the figure file.

6-3) Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments of people, grants, funds, etc. who contributed substantially to the work should be saved separately from the main document. The names of funding organizations should be written in full.

A conflict-of-interest statement should always be inserted in the Acknowledgments section, even when no such conflict exists.

6-4) Figures

- All figures including photographs, graphs, diagrams, etc. are to be cited in the manuscript text and numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals, and given titles.

- Figure parts should be denoted by lowercase roman letters (a, b, etc.). If figures are supplied with uppercase labeling, lowercase letters will still be used in the figure legends and citations.

- A figure legend should be supplied for each figure. All elements found in the figure must be identified in the legend. Any previously published material must be identified by citing the original source in the form of a reference at the end of the legend. The figure legends should be included in the manuscript text and not in the figure file.

- The number of the figures must be kept to the minimum required for clarity of the manuscript text.

- Color figures are free of charge for both print and online publication.

6-5) Tables

- All tables are to be numbered using Arabic numerals and given titles.

- Tables should always be cited in the text in consecutive numerical order.

- For each table, a table title should be supplied. The table title should explain clearly and concisely the components of the table.

- Any previously published material must be identified by citing the original source in the form of a reference at the end of the table title.

- Footnotes to tables should be indicated by superscript lowercase letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data) and included beneath the table body.

- Horizontal lines should be drawn below the title, below column headings, and at the end of the table. Do not use vertical lines.

7. Electronic Supplementary Material

Electronic supplementary material will be published in the online version only.

It may consist of

- Information that cannot be printed: animations, video clips, sound recordings

- Information that is more convenient in electronic form: sequences, spectral data, etc.

- Large original data, e.g. additional tables, illustrations, etc.

Submission

- Supply all supplementary material in standard file formats.

- Please include in each file the following information: article title, journal name, author names; affiliation and e-mail address of the corresponding author.

- To accommodate user downloads, please keep in mind that larger-sized files may require very long download times and that some users may experience other problems during downloading.

Audio, Video, and Animations

- Always use MPEG-1 (.mpg) format.

Text and Presentations

- Submit your material in PDF format; .doc or .ppt files are not suitable for long-term viability.

- A collection of figures may also be combined in a PDF file.

Spreadsheets

- Spreadsheets should be converted to PDF if no interaction with the data is intended.

- If the readers should be encouraged to make their own calculations, spreadsheets should be submitted as .xls files (MS Excel).

Specialized Formats

- Specialized formats such as .pdb (chemical), .wrl (VRML), .nb (Mathematica notebook), and .tex can also be supplied.

Collecting Multiple Files

- It is possible to collect multiple files in a .zip or .gz file.

Numbering

- If supplying any supplementary material, the text must make specific mention of the material as a citation, similar to that of figures and tables.

- Refer to the supplementary files as “Online Resource”, e.g., "... as shown in the animation (Online Resource 3)", “... additional data are given in Online Resource 4”.

- Name the files consecutively, e.g. “ESM_3.mpg”, “ESM_4.pdf”.

Captions

- For each supplementary material, please supply a concise caption describing the content of the file.

Processing of supplementary files

- Electronic supplementary material will be published as received from the author without any conversion, editing, or reformatting.

Accessibility

In order to give people of all abilities and disabilities access to the content of your supplementary files, please make sure that

- The manuscript contain a descriptive caption for each supplementary material

- Video files do not contain anything that flashes more than three times per second (so that users prone to seizures caused by such effects are not put at risk)

8. Revision

If you are required to revise your manuscript, when you submit the revision please submit a list of changes regarding each point raised by the reviewer(s) or editor or a rebuttal if you wish to contest a point(s). In addition, we require that the revised part be underlined or indicated in red.

9. After acceptance

Upon acceptance of your article you will receive a link to the special Author Query Application at Springer’s web page where you can sign the Copyright Transfer Statement online and indicate whether you wish to order OpenChoice and offprints. Once the Author Query Application has been completed, your article will be processed and you will receive the proofs.

9-1) Offprints

Offprints can be ordered by the corresponding author.

9-2) Open Choice

In addition to the normal publication process (whereby an article is submitted to the journal and access to that article is granted to customers who have purchased a subscription), Springer provides an alternative publishing option: Springer Open Choice.

A Springer Open Choice article receives all the benefits of a regular subscription-based article, but in addition is made available publicly through Springer’s online platform SpringerLink.

Springer Open Choice [http://springer.com/openchoice]

9-3) Copyright transfer

Authors will be asked to transfer copyright of their articles to the Japanese Society of Nuclear Medicine. This will ensure the widest possible protection and dissemination of information under copyright laws.

Open Choice articles do not require transfer of copyright as the copyright remains with the author.

9-4) Color illustrations

Publication of color illustrations is free of charge.

9-5) Proof reading

The purpose of the proof is to check for typesetting or conversion errors and the completeness and accuracy of the text, tables and figures. Substantial changes in content, e.g., new results, corrected values, title and authorship, are not allowed without the approval of the Editor. After online publication, further changes can only be made in the form of an Erratum, which will be hyperlinked to the article.

9-6) Online First

An article will be published online after receipt of the corrected proofs. This is the official first publication citable with the DOI. After release of the printed version, the article can also be cited by issue and page numbers.

10. Artwork Guidelines

Electronic figure submission

- Supply all figures electronically.

- Indicate what graphics program was used to create the artwork.

- For vector graphics, the preferred format is EPS; for halftones, please use TIFF format. MS Office files are also acceptable.

- Vector graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the files.

- Name your figure files with "Fig" and the figure number, e.g., Fig1.eps.

Line art

- Definition: black and white graphic with no shading.

- Do not use faint lines and/or lettering and check that all lines and lettering within the figures are legible at final size.

- All lines should be at least 0.1 mm (0.3 pt) wide.

- Scanned line drawings and line drawings in bitmap format should have a minimum resolution of 1200 dpi.

Halftone art

- Definition: photographs, drawings, or paintings with fine shading, etc.

- If any magnification is used in the photographs, indicate this by using scale bars within the figures themselves.

- Halftones should have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi.

Combination art

- Definition: a combination of halftone and line art, e.g., halftones containing line drawing, extensive lettering, color diagrams, etc.

- Combination artwork should have a minimum resolution of 600 dpi.

Color art

- Color art is free of charge for both print and online publication.

- Color illustrations should be submitted as RGB (8 bits per channel).

Figure lettering

- To add lettering, it is best to use Helvetica or Arial (sans serif fonts).

- Keep lettering consistently sized throughout your final-sized artwork, usually about 2–3 mm (8–12 pt).

- Variance of type size within an illustration should be minimal, e.g., do not use 8-pt type on an axis and 20-pt type for the axis label.

- Avoid effects such as shading, outline letters, etc.

- Do not include titles or captions into your illustrations.

Figure numbering

- All figures are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.

- Figures should always be cited in the text in consecutive numerical order.

- Figure parts should be denoted by lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.).

- If an appendix appears in your article/chapter and it contains one or more figures, continue the consecutive numbering of the main text. Do not number the appendix figures, "A1, A2, A3, etc." Figures in online appendices (Electronic supplementary Material) should, however, be numbered separately.

Figure captions

- Each figure should have a concise caption describing accurately what the figure depicts. Include the captions in the text file of the manuscript, not in the figure file.

- Figure captions begin with the term Fig. in bold type, followed by the figure number, also in bold type.

- No punctuation is to be included after the number, nor is any punctuation to be placed at the end of the caption.

- Identify all elements found in the figure in the figure caption; and use boxes, circles, etc., as coordinate points in graphs.

- Identify previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference citation at the end of the figure caption.

Figure placement and size

- When preparing your figures, size figures to fit in the column width.

- Figures should be 39 mm, 84 mm, 129 mm, or 174 mm wide and not higher than 234 mm.

- The publisher reserves the right to reduce or enlarge figures.

Permissions

If you include figures that have already been published elsewhere, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format. Please be aware that some publishers do not grant electronic rights for free and that Springer will not be able to refund any costs that may have occurred to receive these permissions. In such cases, material from other sources should be used.

Accessibility

In order to give people of all abilities and disabilities access to the content of your figures, please make sure that

- All figures have descriptive captions (blind users could then use a text-to-speech software or a text-to-Braille hardware)

- Patterns are used instead or in addition to colors for conveying information (color-blind users would then be able to distinguish the visual elements)

- Any figure lettering has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1.

11. Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

This journal is committed to upholding the integrity of the scientific record. As a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) the journal will follow the COPE guidelines on how to deal with potential acts of misconduct.

Authors should refrain from misrepresenting research results which could damage the trust in the journal, the professionalism of scientific authorship, and ultimately the entire scientific endeavour. Maintaining integrity of the research and its presentation can be achieved by following the rules of good scientific practice, which include:

• The manuscript has not been submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration.

• The manuscript has not been published previously (partly or in full), unless the new work concerns an expansion of previous work (please provide transparency on the re-use of material to avoid the hint of text-recycling (“self-plagiarism”)).

• A single study is not split up into several parts to increase the quantity of submissions and submitted to various journals or to one journal over time (e.g. “salami-publishing”).

• No data have been fabricated or manipulated (including images) to support your conclusions

• No data, text, or theories by others are presented as if they were the author’s own (“plagiarism”). Proper acknowledgements to other works must be given (this includes material that is closely copied (near verbatim), summarized and/or paraphrased), quotation marks are used for verbatim copying of material, and permissions are secured for material that is copyrighted.

Important note: the journal may use software to screen for plagiarism.

• Consent to submit has been received explicitly from all co-authors, as well as from the responsible authorities - tacitly or explicitly - at the institute/organization where the work has been carried out, before the work is submitted.

• Authors whose names appear on the submission have contributed sufficiently to the scientific work and therefore share collective responsibility and accountability for the results.

In addition:

• Changes of authorship or in the order of authors are not accepted after acceptance of a manuscript.

• Requesting to add or delete authors at revision stage, proof stage, or after publication is a serious matter and may be considered when justifiably warranted. Justification for changes in authorship must be compelling and may be considered only after receipt of written approval from all authors and a convincing, detailed explanation about the role/deletion of the new/deleted author. In case of changes at revision stage, a letter must accompany the revised manuscript. In case of changes after acceptance or publication, the request and documentation must be sent via the Publisher to the Editor-in-Chief. In all cases, further documentation may be required to support your request. The decision on accepting the change rests with the Editor-in-Chief of the journal and may be turned down. Therefore authors are strongly advised to ensure the correct author group, corresponding author, and order of authors at submission.

• Upon request authors should be prepared to send relevant documentation or data in order to verify the validity of the results. This could be in the form of raw data, samples, records, etc.

If there is a suspicion of misconduct, the journal will carry out an investigation following the COPE guidelines. If, after investigation, the allegation seems to raise valid concerns, the accused author will be contacted and given an opportunity to address the issue. If misconduct has been established beyond reasonable doubt, this may result in the Editor-in-Chief’s implementation of the following measures, including, but not limited to:

- If the article is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to the author.

- If the article has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the infraction, either an erratum will be placed with the article or in severe cases complete retraction of the article will occur. The reason must be given in the published erratum or retraction note.

- The author’s institution may be informed.

To find out more about publishing your work Open Access in Annals of Nuclear Medicine, including information on fees, funding and licenses, visit our Open access publishing page.