Instructions for Authors — Frontiers in Digital Health

Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/digital-health#/for-authors/author-guidelines

Submit your research

Start your submission and get more impact for your research by publishing with us.

Ready to publish? Check out our author guidelines for everything you need to know about submission, from choosing a journal and section to preparing your manuscript.

Reviewing a manuscript? See our editorial guidelines for everything you need to know about Frontiers’ peer review process.

Our rigorous, transparent peer review process combines expert review and constructive dialogue to strengthen your manuscript.

Article processing charges (APCs) apply to articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors, following rigorous peer review.

• björn wolfgang schuller- Imperial College London - London, United Kingdom - Field Chief Editor - Frontiers in Digital Health

• uwe aickelin- The University of Melbourne - Parkville, Australia - Specialty Chief Editor - Health Informatics

• lisette (je) van gemert-pijnen- University of Twente - Enschede, Netherlands - Specialty Chief Editor - Health Technology Implementation

• max a. little- University of Birmingham - Birmingham, United Kingdom - Specialty Chief Editor - Personalized Medicine

Author guidelines

Writing and formatting

Title

The title should be concise, omitting terms that are implicit and, where possible, be a statement of the main result or conclusion presented in the manuscript. Abbreviations should be avoided within the title.

Witty and creative titles are welcome, but only if relevant and within measure. Consider if a title meant to be thought-provoking might be misinterpreted as offensive or alarming. In extreme cases, the editorial office may veto a title and propose an alternative.

Authors should avoid:

• titles that are a mere question without giving the answer
• unambitious titles, for example starting with 'Towards,' 'A description of,' 'A characterization of' or 'Preliminary study on'
• vague titles, for example starting with 'Role of', 'Link between', or 'Effect of' that do not specify the role, link, or effect
• including terms that are out of place, for example the taxonomic affiliation apart from species name.

Abstract

As a primary goal, the abstract should make the general significance and conceptual advance of the work clearly accessible to a broad readership. The abstract should be no longer than a single paragraph and should be structured, for example, according to the IMRAD format. For the specific structure of the abstract, authors should follow the requirements of the article type or journal to which they're submitting. Minimize the use of abbreviations and do not cite references, figures or tables.

For clinical trial articles, please include the unique identifier and the URL of the publicly accessible website on which the trial is registered.

Manuscript length

We encourage you to closely follow the article word count lengths given in the 'Article types' page of the journals.

The manuscript length includes only the main body of the text, footnotes, and all citations within it. It excludes the abstract, section titles, figure and table captions, contents of tables and boxes, funding statement, acknowledgments, and references in the bibliography.

Please indicate the number of words and the number of figures and tables included in your manuscript on the first page.

Sections

The manuscript is organized by headings and subheadings. The section headings should be those appropriate for your field and the research itself. You may insert up to 5 heading levels into your manuscript (i.e.,: 3.2.2.1.2 Heading Title).

For Original Research articles, it is recommended to organize your manuscript in the following sections or their equivalents for your field.

Introduction

Succinct, with no subheadings.

Materials and methods

This section may be divided by subheadings and should contain sufficient detail so that when read in conjunction with cited references, all procedures can be repeated. For experiments reporting results on animal or human subject research, an ethics approval statement should be included in this section (for further information, see the 'Bioethics' section of our policies and publication ethics.)

Results

This section may be divided by subheadings. Footnotes should not be used and must be transferred to the main text.

Discussion

This section may be divided by subheadings. Discussions should cover the key findings of the study: discuss any prior research related to the subject to place the novelty of the discovery in the appropriate context, discuss the potential shortcomings and limitations on their interpretations, discuss their integration into the current understanding of the problem and how this advances the current views, speculate on the future direction of the research, and freely postulate theories that could be tested in the future.

For further information, please check the descriptions defined in the journal's 'Article types' page, in the 'For authors' menu on every journal page.

Templates

If working with Word please use our Word templates. If you wish to submit your article as LaTeX, we recommend our LaTeX templates.

For LaTeX files, please ensure all relevant manuscript files are uploaded: .tex file, PDF, and .bib file (if the bibliography is not already included in the .tex file).

During the interactive review, authors are encouraged to upload versions using track changes. Editors and reviewers can only download the PDF file of the submitted manuscript.

Language editing

Frontiers requires submitted manuscripts to meet international English language standards to be considered for publication. We recommend several external partners who provide language editing and proofreading services to improve the clarity of the manuscript and help highlight your research.

Note that sending your manuscript for language editing does not imply or guarantee that it will be accepted for publication: editorial decisions on the scientific content of a manuscript are independent of whether it has received language editing or proofreading by these partners or other services.

Editage

We recommend the language-editing service provided by our external partner Editage. These services may be particularly useful for researchers for whom English is not the primary language. They can help to improve the grammar, syntax, and flow of your manuscript prior to submission. Frontiers' authors can receive a 10% discount using this link: editage.com/frontiers.

The Charlesworth Group

The Charlesworth Group's author services, who has a long-standing track record in language editing and proofreading. This is a third-party service for which Frontiers' authors can receive a 10% discount using this link: www.cwauthors.com/frontiers.

Frontiers推荐您使用在英语语言编辑和校对领域具有悠久历史和良好口碑的查尔斯沃思作者服务。此项服务由第三方为您提供，Frontiers中国作者通过此链接提交稿件时可获得10％的特别优惠: www.cwauthors.com.cn/frontiers.

Language style

The default language style at Frontiers is American English. If you prefer your article to be formatted in British English, please specify this on the first page of your manuscript. For any questions regarding style, we recommend authors to consult the Chicago Manual of Style.

Inclusive language guidelines

Frontiers is an inclusive publisher and we ask that all submissions are in line with our inclusive language policy. When preparing your manuscript for submission, take a mindful approach towards personal biases and a concerted effort to limit their influence. Authors should remove any suggestion or implication of superiority or inferiority of one person over another based on age, gender, race, ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, disability, religion, or socio-economic class. We ask authors to use inclusive language practices and awareness of diversity, equity, and inclusion into their research and keep it at the forefront during the composition of their findings.

External guidance that may be useful is available at C4DISC’s Guidelines on Inclusive Language and Images in Scholarly Communication.

Furthermore, when drafting your work, please take into account the following considerations

In general, seek to avoid

• language that could be deemed insulting, profane, or derogatory.
• descriptors that identify personal attributes such as age, gender, race, ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, disability, or health conditions, where they are not critically relevant to the discussion.
• any form of language that suggests a particular culture or group as the default or standard.

And where feasible:

• proactively ask individuals or groups how they would prefer to be referenced.
• adhere to the SAGER guidelines for reference to sex and gender in research.

Remember, the language we use can influence perceptions, evoke emotions, and shape perspectives. Let’s work together to nurture an inclusive, respectful, and empowering discourse in science.

Guidelines for artificial intelligence and related technologies

These guidelines cover acceptable uses of generative AI technologies such as Large Language Models (ChatGPT, Jasper) and text-to-image generators (DALL-E 2, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion) in the writing or editing of manuscripts submitted to Frontiers.

Use of AI to create written or visual content

Authors should not list a generative AI technology as a co-author or author of any submitted manuscript. Generative AI technologies cannot be held accountable for all aspects of a manuscript and consequently do not meet the criteria required for authorship.

If the author of a submitted manuscript has used written or visual content produced by or edited using a generative AI technology, this use must follow all Frontiers guidelines and policies. Specifically, the author is responsible for checking the factual accuracy of any content created by the generative AI technology. This includes, but is not limited to, any quotes, citations or references. Figures produced by or edited using a generative AI technology must be checked to ensure they accurately reflect the data presented in the manuscript. Authors must also check that any written or visual content produced by or edited using a generative AI technology is free from plagiarism.

If the author of a submitted manuscript has used written or visual content produced by or edited using a generative AI technology, such use must be acknowledged in the acknowledgements section of the manuscript and the methods section if applicable. This explanation must list the name, version, model, and source of the generative AI technology.

We encourage authors to upload all input prompts provided to a generative AI technology and outputs received from a generative AI technology in the supplementary files for the manuscript.

The entire document should be single-spaced and must contain page and line numbers in order to facilitate the review process. The manuscript should be written using either Word or LaTeX. See above for templates.

Abbreviations and nomenclatures

The use of abbreviations should be kept to a minimum. Non-standard abbreviations should be avoided unless they appear at least four times, and must be defined upon first use in the main text. Consider also giving a list of non-standard abbreviations at the end, immediately before the acknowledgments.

Equations should be inserted in editable format from the equation editor.

Italicize gene symbols and use the approved gene nomenclature where it is available. For human genes, please refer to the HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC). New symbols for human genes should be submitted to the HGNC here. Common alternative gene aliases may also be reported, but should not be used alone in place of the HGNC symbol. Nomenclature committees for other species are listed here. Protein products are not italicized.

We encourage the use of Standard International Units in all manuscripts.

Chemical compounds and biomolecules should be referred to using systematic nomenclature, preferably using the recommendations by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC).

Astronomical objects should be referred to using the nomenclature given by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) provided here.

Life Science Identifiers (LSIDs) for ZOOBANK registered names or nomenclatural acts should be listed in the manuscript before the keywords. An LSID is represented as a uniform resource name (URN) with the following format: urn:lsid:::[:]

For more information on LSIDs please see the 'Code' section of our policies and publication ethics.

Enhancing search engine optimization (SEO)

There are a few simple ways to maximize your article's discoverability and search results.

• Include a few of your article's keywords in the title of the article
• Do not use long article titles
• Pick 5-8 keywords using a mix of generic and more specific terms on the article subject(s)
• Use the maximum amount of keywords in the first two sentences of the abstract
• Use some of the keywords in level 1 headings

Alternative text (alt text)

As part of our commitment to make science open for all, we are dedicated to accessibility in our publications. One way you can make your manuscript more accessible is by including alternative text (alt text) with all figures or images.

What is alt text?

Alt text is a short visual description of the contents of an image. Alt text is not the same as a caption, as it provides a description of the entire image. It is included in the manuscript alongside the image, but in the background, not visible on the page.

Good alt text will be specific, concise, and not overly descriptive. It should include any essential text or data that appears on the image and would be lost if a user couldn't see it.

See Harvard University's guide for more tips on writing good alt text.

Why is alt text important?

It allows people using screen reading technology to clearly understand the contents of an image, therefore making your manuscript more accessible for readers with visual impairments. This is also useful for anyone else who can't view the image - if it doesn't load quickly, for instance .

Alt text can also provide better descriptions to search engine crawlers, helping with article discoverability and indexing.

For more support, our partner AuthorMate offers an alt-text writing service.

References

Preparing and formatting references

Submissions to Frontiers must be grounded in relevant and up to date peer-reviewed, academic research, and this should be reflected in the accompanying reference lists.

Authors are welcome to use online referencing tools in preparation of their manuscript. Some useful resources include RefMe, Zotero, and Mendeley.

• The citation of non-academic and non-peer-reviewed sources (e.g. blog posts, website content), as well as anonymous sources or commercial websites should be avoided or kept to a minimum
• Authors should avoid citing content that is not directly relevant to the scope of the article and the journal
• Reference lists should reflect the current status of knowledge in the field, avoid bias, and not include a high proportion of citations to the same authors or sources, school of thought, etc.
• The length of the reference list should be appropriate depending on the article type, covering the relevant literature through sufficient referencing
• Authors should ensure that references are accurate, that all links are accessible, and that the citations/references adhere to the reference styles outlined below

Frontiers' journals use one of two reference styles, either Harvard (author-date) or Vancouver (numbered). These formats should be adhered to for the in-text citations and the reference lists. Please check our help center to find the correct style for the journal to which you're submitting.

• All citations of published works in the text, figures, or tables must be in the reference list and vice-versa.
• The names of the first six authors followed by et al. and the DOI (when available) should be provided.
• Given names of authors should be abbreviated to initials (e.g. Smith, J., Lewis, C.S., etc.).
• The reference list should only include articles that are published or accepted.
• Unpublished data, submitted manuscripts, or personal communications should be cited within the text only, for article types that allow such inclusions. Where additional details are available, these will be included as footnotes.
• For accepted but unpublished works use 'in press' instead of page numbers.
• Data sets that have been deposited to an online repository should be included in the reference list. Include the version and unique identifier when available.
• Personal communications should be documented by a letter of permission.
• Website URLs should be included as footnotes.
• Any inclusion of verbatim text must be contained in quotation marks and should clearly reference the original source.
• Preprints can be cited provided that a DOI or archive URL is available, and the citation clearly mentions that the contribution is a preprint. If a peer-reviewed journal publication for the same preprint exists, the official journal publication is the preferred source. See the preprints section for each reference style below for more information.

Harvard reference style (author-date)

Reference examples for Frontiers’ journals using the Harvard referencing system can be found below. For examples of other sources, and for general questions regarding the Harvard reference style, please refer to the Chicago Manual of Style.

• References should include the full last name and first name initials of the first six authors, followed by et al. and the year of publication in brackets.
• Alphabetical order is followed for the reference list.

Vancouver reference style (numbered)

Reference examples for Frontiers’ journals using the Vancouver referencing system can be found below. For more examples of citing other documents and general questions regarding the Vancouver reference style, please refer to Citing Medicine.

• In-text citations in the Vancouver reference style should be numbered consecutively in order of appearance in the text and identified by Arabic numerals in parenthesis.
• Use square brackets for physics and mathematics articles.
• The abbreviation ‘Ref’ should not be used, e.g.: [e.g., (1)] should NOT read [e.g. Ref. (1)].
• Style for comparing a citation should follow the number format, e.g. [cf. (1)]. The same applies when using ‘see’, e.g. [see (46)].
• References should be numbered and listed chronologically, according to the order they appear in the text.

Citation of retracted articles

Authors are responsible for ensuring the integrity of the references they cite, including verifying whether any article they intend to cite has been retracted. Citing retracted articles can undermine the credibility of your manuscript and should only occur where it is essential for the context of your discussion.

Guidelines for citing retracted articles:

• Verification:Authors are responsible for checking the status of all cited works before submission. Lists of retracted articles can often be found in databases such as PubMed and the Retraction Watch database. Authors can check the version of the record which is expected to include a visible notice of retraction.
• Disclosure:If it is necessary to cite a retracted article, authors must clearly indicate the retraction status in the reference list.
• Justification:Authors are encouraged to discuss the reasons for citing the retracted article in the manuscript, explaining its relevance and the implications of its retracted status on the discussion.

Adhering to these guidelines is considered best practice as it helps maintain the scientific integrity of the published literature and ensures that all references within the manuscript contribute validly to the scholarly discourse. Ensuring the accuracy and transparency of citations protects authors from inadvertently perpetuating misinformation and supports the overall trustworthiness of research publications.

Acknowledgements

This is a short text to acknowledge the contributions of specific colleagues, institutions, or agencies that aided the efforts of the authors. Should the content of the manuscript have previously appeared online, such as in a thesis or preprint, this should be mentioned here, in addition to listing the source within the reference list.

Acknowledgements are designed to recognize individuals directly involved in the research. We request that authors avoid personal expressions of gratitude toward figures or entities unrelated or indirectly related to the production of the manuscript. While such acknowledgements are understood to be significant to the authors, they are considered indirectly involved in the research unless they pertain to specific research activities. It remains the responsibility of the authors to ensure that these guidelines are adhered to in the final publication.

Preparing figures, tables, and images

Figures, tables, and images: rights and permissions

All figures, tables, and images will be published under a Creative Commons CC-BY license, and permission must be obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including re-published/adapted/modified/partial figures and images from the internet). It is the responsibility of the authors to acquire the licenses, follow any citation instructions requested by third-party rights holders, and cover any supplementary charges.

For additional information, please see the 'Image manipulation' section of our policies and publication ethics.

Figures and images: style guidelines

We require figures to be submitted individually, in the same order as they are referred to in the manuscript; the figures will then be automatically embedded at the end of the submitted manuscript. Ensure that each figure is mentioned in the text and in numerical order.

For figures with more than one panel, panels should be clearly indicated using labels (A), (B), (C), (D), etc. However, do not embed the part labels over any part of the image. These labels will be replaced during typesetting according to Frontiers' journal style. For graphs, there must be a self-explanatory label (including units) along each axis.

For LaTeX files, figures should be included in the provided PDF. In case of acceptance, our production office might require high-resolution files of the figures included in the manuscript in EPS, JPEG or TIF/TIFF format.

To upload more than one figure at a time, save the figures (labeled in order of appearance in the manuscript) in a zip file and upload them as 'Supplementary material presentation.'

Please note that figures not in accordance with the guidelines will cause substantial delay during the production process.

When selecting or preparing your images for your manuscript, authors should be aware of our policy on inclusive images.

Captions

Captions should be preceded by the appropriate label, for example 'Figure 1.' Figure captions should be placed at the end of the manuscript. Figure panels are referred to by bold capital letters in brackets: (A), (B), (C), (D), etc.

Image size and resolution requirements

Figures should be prepared with the PDF layout in mind. Individual figures should not be longer than one page and with a width that corresponds to one column (85 mm) or two columns (180 mm).

All images must have a resolution of 300 dpi at final size. Check the resolution of your figure by enlarging it to 150%. If the image appears blurry, jagged, or has a stair-stepped effect, the resolution is too low.

The text should be legible and of high quality. The smallest visible text should be no less than eight points in height when viewed at actual size.

Solid lines should not be broken up. Any lines in the graphic should be no smaller than two points wide.

Please note that saving a figure directly as an image file (JPEG, TIF) can greatly affect the resolution of your image. To avoid this, one option is to export the file as PDF, then convert into TIFF or EPS using a graphics software.

Format and color image mode

The following formats are accepted: TIF/TIFF (.tif/.tiff), JPEG (.jpg), and EPS (.eps) (upon acceptance). Images must be submitted in the color mode RGB.

Images of chemical structures

Chemical structures should be prepared using ChemDraw or a similar program. If working with ChemDraw please use our ChemDraw template. If working with another program please follow the guidelines below.

• Drawing settings: chain angle, 120° bond spacing, 18% width; fixed length, 14.4 pt; bold width, 2.0 pt; line width, 0.6 pt; margin width, 1.6 pt; hash spacing, 2.5 pt. Scale 100% Atom Label settings: font, Arial; size, 8 pt
• Assign all chemical compounds a bold, Arabic numeral in the order in which the compounds are presented in the manuscript text.

Table requirements and style guidelines

Tables should be inserted at the end of the manuscript in an editable format. If you use a word processor, build your table in Word. If you use a LaTeX processor, build your table in LaTeX. An empty line should be left before and after the table.

Table captions must be placed immediately before the table. Captions should be preceded by the appropriate label, for example 'Table 1.' Please use only a single paragraph for the caption.

Ensure that each table is mentioned in the text and in numerical order.

Large tables covering several pages cannot be included in the final PDF for formatting reasons. These tables will be published as supplementary material.

Tables which are not according to the above guidelines will cause substantial delay during the production process.

During production, tables will be formatted according to Frontiers' house style. Here is an example of a formatted table.

Accessibility

We encourage authors to make the figures and visual elements of their articles accessible for the visually impaired. Effective use of color can help people with low visual acuity, or color blindness, understand all the content of an article.

These guidelines are easy to implement and are in accordance with the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1), the standard for web accessibility best practices.

Ensure sufficient contrast between text and its background

People who have low visual acuity or color blindness could find it difficult to read text with low contrast background color. Try using colors that provide maximum contrast.

WC3 recommends the following contrast ratio levels:

• Level AA, contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1
• Level AAA, contrast ratio of at least 7:1

You can verify the contrast ratio of your palette with these online ratio checkers:

Avoid using red or green indicators

More than 99% of color-blind people have a red-green color vision deficiency.

Avoid using only color to communicate information

Elements with complex information like charts and graphs can be hard to read when only color is used to distinguish the data. Try to use other visual aspects to communicate information, such as shape, labels, and size. Incorporating patterns into the shape fills also make differences clearer; for an example please see below:

Supplementary material

Selecting supplementary material

Data that are not of primary importance to the text, or which cannot be included in the article because they are too large or the current format does not permit it (such as videos, raw data traces, and PowerPoint presentations), can be uploaded as supplementary material during the submission procedure and will be displayed along with the published article. All supplementary files are deposited to figshare for permanent storage and receive a DOI.

Supplementary material is not typeset, so please ensure that all information is clearly presented without tracked changes/highlighted text/line numbers, and the appropriate caption is included in the file. To avoid discrepancies between the published article and the supplementary material, please do not add the title, author list, affiliations or correspondence in the supplementary files.

Appendices

Appendices are optional and can be used to present further detail on information included in the main body of the article, such as the derivation of an equation, short supplementary tables, or supplementary methods.

Appendices should be no more than one page long and count towards the overall manuscript length and word count. Appendix content longer than one page should be included in the supplementary material section instead.

File type requirements

The supplementary material can be uploaded as:

• data sheet (Word, Excel, CSV, CDX, FASTA, PDF or Zip files)
• presentation (PowerPoint, PDF or Zip files)
• image (CDX, EPS, JPEG, PDF, PNG or TIF/TIFF),
• table (Word, Excel, CSV or PDF)
• audio (MP3, WAV or WMA)
• video (AVI, DIVX, FLV, MOV, MP4, MPEG, MPG or WMV).

Technical requirements for supplementary images:

• 300 DPIs
• RGB color mode.

For supplementary material templates (LaTeX and Word), see our supplementary material templates.

Submitting information

Choosing where to submit

Open access and copyright

All Frontiers' articles from July 2012 onwards are published with open access under the Creative Commons  CC-BY license (the current version is CC-BY, version 4.0). This means that the author(s) retains copyright, but the content is free to download, distribute, and adapt for commercial or non-commercial purposes, given appropriate attribution to the original article.

Upon submission, the author(s) grants Frontiers a license to publish, including to display, store, copy, and reuse the content. The CC-BY Creative Commons attribution license enables anyone to use the publication freely, given appropriate attribution to the author(s) and citing Frontiers as the original publisher. The CC-BY Creative Commons attribution license does not apply to third-party materials that display a copyright notice to prohibit copying. Unless the third-party content is also subject to a CC-BY Creative Commons attribution license, or an equally permissive license, the author(s) must comply with any third-party copyright notices.

Registration with Frontiers

Corresponding and all submitting authors must  register with Frontiers before submitting an article. You must be logged in to your personal Frontiers account to submit an article.

For any co-author who would like their name on the article abstract page and PDF to be linked to a Frontiers profile on the Loop network, please

before the final publication of the paper.

register### Article type

We require authors to select the appropriate article type for their manuscript and to comply with the article type descriptions defined in the journal's 'Article types' page, which can be found under the 'About journal' menu in 'For authors' on every Frontiers journal page. Please pay close attention to the word count limits.

Keywords

All article types require a minimum of five and a maximum of eight keywords.

CrossMark policy

CrossMark is a multi-publisher initiative to provide a standard way for readers to locate the current version of a piece of content. By applying the CrossMark logo, Frontiers commits to maintaining the content it publishes and to alerting readers to changes if and when they occur.

Clicking on the CrossMark logo will tell you the current status of a document and may also give you additional publication record information about the document.

For correction notices, general commentaries, and editorials, the title of your manuscript should have the following format.

• 'Correction: [Title of original article]'
• General commentaries: 'Commentary: [Title of original article]' 'Response: Commentary: [Title of original article]'
• 'Editorial: [Title of Research Topic]'

All names are listed together and separated by commas. Provide exact and correct author names as these will be indexed in official archives. Affiliations should be keyed to the author's name with superscript numbers and be listed as follows:

• Laboratory, Institute, Department, Organization, City, State abbreviation (only for United States, Canada, and Australia), and Country (without detailed address information such as city zip codes or street names).

Example: Max Maximus1

1 Department of Excellence, International University of Science, New York, NY, United States.

Correspondence

The corresponding author(s) should be marked with an asterisk in the author list. Provide the exact contact email address of the corresponding author(s) in a separate section.

Example: Max Maximus*

[email protected]

If any authors wish to include a change of address, list the present address(es) below the correspondence details using a unique superscript symbol keyed to the author(s) in the author list.

Equal contributions

The authors who have contributed equally should be marked with a symbol (†) in the author list of the doc/latex and pdf files of the manuscript uploaded at submission.

Please use the appropriate standard statement(s) to indicate equal contributions:

• Equal contribution:These authors contributed equally to this work
• First authorship:These authors share first authorship
• Senior authorship:These authors share senior authorship
• Last authorship:These authors share last authorship
• Equal contribution and first authorship:These authors contributed equally to this work and share first authorship
• Equal contribution and senior authorship:These authors contributed equally to this work and share senior authorship
• Equal contribution and last authorship:These authors contributed equally to this work and share last authorship

Example: Max Maximus 1†, John Smith2† and Barbara Smith1

†These authors contributed equally to this work and share first authorship

Consortium/group authorship should be listed in the manuscript with the other author(s).

In cases where authorship is retained by the consortium/group, the consortium/group should be listed as an author separated by a comma or 'and'. The consortium/group name will appear in the author list, in the citation, and in the copyright. If provided, the consortium/group members will be listed in a separate section at the end of the article.

For the collaborators of the consortium/group to be indexed in PubMed, they do not have to be inserted in the Frontiers submission system individually. However, in the manuscript itself, provide a section with the name of the consortium/group as the heading followed by the list of collaborators, so they can be tagged accordingly and indexed properly.

Example: John Smith, Barbara Smith and The Collaborative Working Group.

In cases where work is presented by the author(s) on behalf of a consortium/group, it should be included in the author list separated with the wording 'for' or 'on behalf of.' The consortium/group will not retain authorship and will only appear in the author list.

Example: John Smith and Barbara Smith on behalf of The Collaborative Working Group.

Scope statement

When you submit your manuscript, you will be required to summarize in 200 words your manuscript's scope and its relevance to the journal and/or specialty section you're submitting to. The aim is to convey to editors and reviewers how the contents of your manuscript fit within the selected journal's scope.

This statement will not be published with your article if it is accepted for publication. The information will be used during the initial validation and review processes to assess whether the manuscript is a suitable fit for the chosen journal and specialty.

We encourage you to consider carefully where to submit your manuscript, as submissions to an unsuitable journal or specialty will result in delays and increase the likelihood of manuscript rejection.

If you are submitting to a Research Topic, please also clarify how your submission is suited to the specific topic.

Editorial policies and publication ethics

In this section: information for authors, including how to make sure all contributors, their institutions, and their precise contributions are listed correctly on your article.

Our authorship policy ensures that all intellectual contributors are appropriately credited for their involvement in the work, as well as ensuring authors and contributors take responsibility for the final published material.

• All individuals contributing to academic work must be clearly defined as either named authors (published in the byline and details specified in the contributions statement) or contributors (credited for their contribution in the acknowledgments section)
• Only individuals who have made a substantial contribution to the research and writing of the manuscript may be listed as authors
• Any arrangement involving payment or compensation in exchange for authorship, without such contribution, is considered unethical and is prohibited

Authors must list the institution at the time that the research was conducted as their primary affiliation. Further affiliations can be listed subsequently in the submission system.

Providing a false, fabricated, or knowingly inaccurate affiliation, including listing a former or unaffiliated institution for the purposes of prestige or misrepresentation of where the work was conducted, may constitute a breach of publishing ethics and could lead to an investigation involving the relevant institution(s).

Frontiers follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines which state that, in order to qualify for authorship of a manuscript, the following criteria should be observed.

• Acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work
• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content
• Provide approval for publication of the content
• Agree 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

Contributors who do not meet these criteria but nonetheless provided important contributions to the final manuscript should be included in the acknowledgment section. It is the author's responsibility to get written approval from the persons named in the acknowledgment section.

Frontiers uses CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy), which provides a standardized framework for acknowledging individual contributions to research projects, including 14 roles that can be used to represent the roles typically played by contributors to research outputs.

During the submission process, the submitting author will be asked to specify each co-author's contributions to the manuscript by choosing from among the 14 CRediT roles (listed in the table below). The authors’ contributions statement will be generated automatically based on the information provided, for example: 'AB: Writing – review & editing, Conceptualization, Methodology, Project administration; CZD: Writing – review & editing, Conceptualization, Methodology; EF: Writing – original draft, Conceptualization, Methodology; CYD: Writing – review & editing, Formal Analysis; GH: Writing – review & editing; IJ: Writing – review & editing.'

To comply with Frontiers' policy and ICMJE authorship criteria, each of the co-authors must have participated in writing the original manuscript draft, and/or have critically reviewed and edited the manuscript. Contributors who do not fulfill all ICMJE authorship criteria must be included in the acknowledgments section of the manuscript with their permission.

| Conceptualization | Ideas; formulation or evolution of overarching research goals and aims. | | Data curation | Management activities to annotate (produce metadata), scrub data and maintain research data (including software code, where it is necessary for interpreting the data itself) for initial use and later re-use. | | Formal analysis | Application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyze or synthesize study data. | | Funding acquisition | Acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication. | | Investigation | Conducting a research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments, or data/evidence collection. | | Methodology | Development or design of methodology; creation of models. | | Project administration | Management and coordination responsibility for the research activity planning and execution. | | Resources | Provision of study materials, reagents, materials, patients, laboratory samples, animals, instrumentation, computing resources, or other analysis tools. | | Software | Programming, software development; designing computer programs; implementation of the computer code and supporting algorithms; testing of existing code components. | | Supervision | Oversight and leadership responsibility for the research activity planning and execution, including mentorship external to the core team. | | Validation | Verification, whether as a part of the activity or separate, of the overall replication/reproducibility of results/experiments and other research outputs. | | Visualization | Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically visualization/data presentation. | | Writing – original draft | Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically writing the initial draft (including substantive translation). | | Writing – review & editing | Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work by those from the original research group, specifically critical review, commentary, or revision – including pre or post-publication stages. |

The corresponding author takes primary responsibility for:

• communication with the journal and editorial office during the submission process, throughout peer review, and during publication
• ensuring that the submission adheres to all journal requirements, including, but not exclusive to, details of authorship, study ethics and ethics approval, clinical trial registration documents, and conflict of interest declaration
• being available post-publication to respond to any queries or critiques.

The submitting author is expected to include all co-authors on the submission system during the manuscript submission process. Requests to change the authors’ list will be considered only in exceptional circumstances and only where the authorship change is in adherence with Frontier's existing authorship policy. Requests to modify the authors’ list after submission should be made to the editorial office using the authorship change request form. Authorship changes requested post-acceptance will be denied except in exceptional circumstances. In case of any concerns regarding potential authorship manipulation, Frontiers reserves the right to contact the authors’ institution(s) for further investigation and/or decline the requested changes.

Publication ethics policies

In this section: best practices in publishing and definitions of scientific, academic or publishing misconduct, to ensure your work meets Frontiers’ high standards for publication ethics.

We advise that you review the policies below to ensure your submission meets the necessary requirements to ensure the integrity of submissions to Frontiers. Where evidence of misconduct is found, we reserve the right to take action that may include rejection, retraction, and/or further follow-up with the institution.

Inclusive language policy

Our mission at Frontiers is to make science open, and that means it should be accessible to everyone. We're committed to building an environment that champions diversity, equity, and inclusivity, and to ensure that every individual has an equal opportunity to be part of the scientific community.

To achieve this, our use of language must be culturally sensitive and inclusive of others - readers, authors, and staff alike. In recognition of the evolving nature of language, we must remain on top of cultural nuances and shifts over time, while continuously reviewing our unconscious biases. What is deemed acceptable may not always be universal and will differ across geography and time.

Authors, reviewers, editors, and Frontiers' staff have a shared responsibility to ensure that articles submitted and published use language that is appropriate for the respective field and is free from terminology that could be interpreted as hostile or offensive to people based on group differences such as ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age, or health.

We are committed to suggesting alternative language to ensure that all publications adhere to these requirements, and we expect all authors to be receptive to feedback from editors and reviewers on their choice of language. We will support authors to replace offensive, outdated or exclusionary terms during the review process, however, we reserve the right not to publish material that goes against this policy. In exceptional circumstances, and to uphold our commitment to diversity and equity, we may modify language pre and post publication to ensure compliance.

The process of using inclusive language relates to day-to-day communication as well as content published by Frontiers. As part of this, all individuals should be culturally sensitive and inclusive of others in all communications.* *

Inclusive image policy

We ask all contributors to take an ethically informed and inclusive approach to image selection - alongside adhering to our legal guidelines on image reuse. This means ensuring content is contextually appropriate, culturally sensitive, and reflective of global diversity.

When choosing images, please consider:

• cultural sensitivity:avoid stereotypes and ensure images respect cultural differences
• social impact:be mindful of how images might influence perceptions of individuals or groups
• representation and relevance:use images that reflect the subject matter accurately and inclusively, particularly by including underrepresented communities

Editors, authors, and reviewers share responsibility for upholding these principles. If concerns are raised, editors may request the authors seek alternative images to ensure ethical and inclusive representation.

We welcome feedback from our academic communities to help us refine and strengthen our practices. This policy balances academic freedom with our commitment to respectful, inclusive, and culturally aware publishing.

Plagiarism, redundant publication and ethical text-reuse policies

Material submitted to Frontiers must comply with the following policies to ensure ethical publication of academic work.

Originality of content and duplicate submission

Frontiers only publishes original content. Authors confirm that the content they're submitting is original in the terms and conditions upon submission. Manuscripts submitted to Frontiers must not have been previously published or be under consideration for publication elsewhere, either in whole or in part. If an article has been previously submitted for publication elsewhere, Frontiers will only consider publication if the article has been definitively rejected by the other publisher(s) at the point of submission to Frontiers.

Submitting to multiple journals is classified as duplicate submission and is considered publication misconduct. See our policy on preprints

Fabrication and falsification

Frontiers opposes both the fabrication of data or images (that is, fake or made-up data) and falsification of data or images (that is, the intentional misrepresentation or deceptive manipulation of data).

Manuscripts prepared and written by commercial entities (fake-paper factories, ‘paper mills’) on behalf of researchers listed as authors on the manuscript do not meet Frontiers' policies and will not be considered for publication. We will take proactive action to reject suspicious manuscripts before peer review.

Redundant publication

Redundant publication occurs when the same research (same or similar idea, data, results, and or drawn conclusions) is published more than once by the same or overlapping author groups. This includes adding small amounts of new data to an existing published paper and submitting it for review or publishing the same paper in multiple journals (sometimes known as salami slicing). This type of publication is unethical, and manuscripts where redundant publication is shown to have occurred will not be considered for publication in a Frontiers journal.

All submissions are screened for redundancy. To ensure the manuscript complies with our policy, authors must disclose any related publications and cite all related material where appropriate. It is advisable to discuss how the publication adds to the literature beyond any preliminary or related studies in the introduction.

Frontiers follows the COPE guidelines on redundant publication.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism occurs when an author attempts to present previously published work as original content. Every manuscript submitted to Frontiers is screened for textual overlap by the software CrossCheck, powered by iThenticate. Manuscripts found to contain textual overlap will not be considered for publication by Frontiers.

We check all submitted manuscripts for plagiarism and duplication and publish only original content. Those manuscripts where plagiarism or duplication is shown to have occurred will not be considered for publication in a Frontiers journal. It is required that all submissions consist of content that has not been published previously. In accordance with COPE guidelines, we expect that "original wording taken directly from publications by other researchers should appear in quotation marks with the appropriate citations." This condition also applies to an author's own work.

Ethical text re-use and permitted publications

Theses and dissertations

Frontiers allows the inclusion of content that first appeared in an author's thesis so long as this is the only form in which it has appeared, is in line with the author's university policy, and can be accessed online. If the thesis is not archived online, it is considered original, unpublished data and is subject to the unpublished data restrictions of some article types. Inclusion of material from theses or dissertations should be noted in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and cited accordingly in the reference list. For some examples, please check the 'References' section of our author guidelines.

Conferences, proceedings, and abstracts

Manuscripts that first appeared as conference papers must be expanded upon if they are to be considered as original work. Authors are required to add a substantial amount of original content in the form of new raw material (experiments, data) or new treatment of old data sets, which lead to original discussion and/or conclusions, providing value that significantly exceeds the original conference version. As a rule of thumb, at least 30% of the content must be original. Authors submitting such work are required to:

• seek permission for reuse of the published conference paper if the author does not hold the copyright
• cite the conference in the acknowledgments section or the references section if applicable.

Blogs

Although permissible, extended manuscript content that previously appeared online in non-academic media, such as blogs, should be declared at the time of submission in the acknowledgments section of the manuscript.

Preprints

Our supportive preprint policy encourages full open access at all stages of a research paper, to share and generate knowledge researchers need to support their work. Authors publishing in Frontiers' journals may share their work ahead of submission to a peer-reviewed journal, as well as during our review process, on repositories or preprint servers, provided that the server imposes no restrictions upon the author's full copyright and re-use rights. Also note that any manuscript files shared after submission to Frontiers journals, during the review process, cannot contain the Frontiers logo or branding.

Correct attribution of the original source in repositories or preprint servers must be included within the manuscript on submission or added at re-submission if the deposition is done during the review process. We ask that the preprint is both listed within the acknowledgement section and the full citation included in the reference list.

If the article is published, authors are then strongly encouraged to link from the preprint server to the Frontiers publication to enable readers to find, access, and cite the final peer-reviewed version. Please note that we cannot consider for publication content that has been previously published, or is already under review, within a scientific journal, book or similar entity.

Frontiers currently has integrations with ChemRxiv, Chronos, BioRxiv, and MedRxiv, improving the services offered to authors, and streamlining the publishing process.

Translations

We accept manuscript submissions that are exact translations of previously published work. This should be clearly stated in the manuscript upon submission. Permission from the original publisher and authors needs to be sought and stated in the manuscript. Relevant documents should be provided as supplementary material for verification by the editor and the editorial office. The original work from which the manuscript has been translated should be clearly referenced.

Example: 'This is a [LANGUAGE] language translation/reprint of [TITLE OF ORIGINAL] originally published in [PUBLICATION NAME]. [NAME] prepared this translation with support from [FUNDING SOURCE, if any]. Permission was granted by [NAME].'

Please note that Frontiers may request copies of related publications if there are any concerns about overlap or possible redundancy.

Image manipulation

Frontiers takes concerns regarding image manipulation seriously. We do not accept that individual features within an image are modified (including enhanced, obscured, moved, recycled, removed, or added). Image processing methods (such as changes to the brightness, contrast, or color balance) must be applied to every pixel in the image, and the changes should not alter the information illustrated in the figure. Cropped images should be avoided where possible for gels and blots. Where cropped images are shown in figures, a full scan of the entire original gel(s) must be submitted as part of the supplementary material. Where control images are re-used for illustrative purposes, this must be clearly declared in the figure legend. If any form of image processing is legitimately required for the interpretation of the data, the software and the enhancement technique must be declared in the methods section of the manuscript. Image grouping and splicing must be clearly stated in the manuscript and the figure text.

Our artificial intelligence review assistant (AIRA) is trained to detect specific types of recycling, modifications, and manipulation. Any concerns raised over undeclared image modifications will be investigated, and the authors will be asked to provide the original images and data (see more about providing raw data). Failure by authors to adequately address such concerns will result in rejection of the manuscript, and the issue may be raised with the authors' institutions. If it is brought to our attention post-publication, it will be investigated, and authors will be required to provide the original images. Failure to do so may result in retraction.

Falsification or fabrication of data

Peer review manipulation

Frontiers is a member of COPE and upholds COPE’s standards for ethical peer review.

Authors, editors, and reviewers are required to fulfill their responsibilities in the review process objectively, honestly, and in accordance with ethical standards. All parties must take action if they become aware of any attempt to manipulate the peer review process and alert the journal in such instances.

Any intentional deception, manipulation, or misrepresentation in the peer review process is a serious act of publishing misconduct. Activities that constitute peer review manipulation include any of the following;

• Falsifying reviewer and editor identities or credentials
• Colluding with other parties to manipulate review outcomes
• Fabricating or plagiarizing review reports
• Engaging in coercive or biased reviewing practices (including peer review rings)
• Recommending reviewers with conflicts of interest known to the author without disclosing these conflicts
• Obfuscation or non-disclosure of known COIs of editors, reviewers or authors.
• Coercing reviewers to provide favorable or biased evaluations
• Any other actions that may reasonably compromise the objectivity and integrity of the peer review process.

Where an investigation yields evidence of peer review manipulation, Frontiers will take necessary action, including retraction of the affected publication or revocation of acceptance if the manuscript is still under review. Determination of what is considered reasonable evidence to constitute peer review manipulation remains at the discretion of Frontiers, with the aim of ensuring fairness and objectivity in the investigation process.

All concerns and allegations will be investigated in accordance with COPE guidelines and further details on how to raise a concern about unethical practices in peer review can be found in the section on complaints and allegations.

Policy concerning fraudulent contributions ('paper mill' papers)

Paper mill definition

The term 'paper mill' is defined by COPE as the process by which manufactured manuscripts are prepared for submission to a journal for a fee on behalf of researchers in the unethical aim of providing an additional publication for them, or to offer authorship for sale. For the purpose of this policy, the term covers any process, activity or entity that systematically produces fake or fraudulent academic papers for submission to Frontiers' journals.

Our commitment to fighting against paper mills

This policy outlines the responsibilities of authors, and the proactive measures Frontiers takes to prevent fraudulent publication activities linked to paper mills.

As well as stringent author guidelines and rigorous submission checks, Frontiers is at the forefront of broader efforts to combat paper mill activity. Our research integrity team collaborates with industry leaders, subject experts, and academic bodies, including STM’s Integrity Groups, United2Act, and COPE to address this pervasive issue and support prevention efforts.

Policy requirements and best practices for authors

Authors are prohibited from submitting research that has been produced or influenced by paper mills. This includes any manuscripts involving fraudulent data generation, problematic authorship, or other unethical practices associated with the outsourcing of scientific research or manuscript production to third-party services that compromise the integrity and originality of the work.

All submissions must be the of the authors' genuine research efforts, adhering to ethical standards and avoiding services that enable academic misconduct. By adhering to this policy, authors uphold the integrity of scholarly publishing and support the dissemination of reliable, trustworthy scientific research.

To ensure your submission meets our quality integrity standards, we advise the following best practices for authors submitting to frontiers journals:

Third-party involvement disclosure: Employing third-party agents for manuscript writing, submission, or other publication processes is discouraged . Direct involvement by authors is essential to ensure transparency and compliance with ethical standards. If you have used a third-party agent, you must disclose in the acknowledgements and detail the extent of their involvement, and all authors must be included upon submission.

Adherence to our authorship policies: Our authorship policy strictly prohibits authors from purchasing authorship on papers for which they have not contributed. All named authors must have made substantial contributions to the research and manuscript preparation, consistent with the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship criteria.

Verification of co-author contributions: All authors are responsible for verifying the contributions of all co-authors listed on the manuscript before submission. In submitting to Frontiers, you are confirming that you are satisfied that each co-author is aware of and has agreed to their listed contribution.

Use of institutional email addresses: The use of institutional email addresses is preferable, and where the authors decide to use personal email accounts for submission, we may be in touch to request an institutional email for verification purposes. We understand some authors may not be able to use an institutional email address and, in these cases, we may need to request an additional verification. Where possible, we advise authors without institutional email addresses to link a verified ORCID profile to their Loop account.

Preventive measures and consequences for paper mill submissions

All Frontiers’ journals employ detection technologies and manual checks to identify submissions that exhibit characteristics of such misconduct. If any activity that warrants suspicion or undermines trust in the legitimacy of a paper, we will take decisive action, including rejection, retraction, and/or reporting of misconduct to institutions.

As part of our standard investigation process, authors may be asked to provide proof of collaboration, sources, raw data, or other assurances. If concerns remain further actions, including notifying affiliated institutions and other relevant bodies to investigate further, may also apply.

We may not disclose the specific reasons or details that contributed to a rejection decision. This is essential to safeguard our detection efforts and prevent manipulation by fraudulent actors and entities and is an established line of defense within the publishing industry.

Post publication allegations and breaches

Where we find evidence of a breach of this policy in an article post-publication, the journal will follow standard investigation procedure and retraction protocols, more details can be found in our retractions policy. If you have a concern about a published paper being a product of a paper mill, please contact the journal following our complaints and allegations procedures.

Transparency and disclosure policies

In this section: information about how to adhere to our policies on providing data and ensuring transparency about how your research was conducted.

Raw data requests and submissions

Frontiers may request raw or original data from authors as part of routine submission checks (eg in cases involving suspected image manipulation, text recycling, or indications of papermill involvement) or as part of formal investigations into the integrity of a manuscript or published article.

Authors are required to provide complete, unaltered datasets in a timely and secure manner when requested. Please follow our instructions for sharing raw data to ensure that your data is submitted in the correct format and in line with best practices for transparency and reproducibility.

Clinical trials reporting and registration

All clinical trials must comply with the policy details outlined below. Failure to meet the policy requirements at the time of submission may lead to the rejection of your manuscript.

Frontiers follow the World Health Organisation (WHO) definition of a 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. Interventions include but are not restricted to drugs, cells, and other biological products, surgical procedures, radiologic procedures, devices, behavioral treatments, process-of-care changes, preventive care, etc. This definition includes Phase I to Phase IV trials.”

Trial registration

In accordance with the recommendations and guidelines provided by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMEJ), WHO, and the Declaration of Helsinki, all clinical trials submitted to Frontiers must be registered prospectively in any Primary Registry in the WHO Registry Network or an ICMJE Approved Registry at or before the recruitment of the first subject. This applies to all clinical trials that began enrolment after 1 July 2005. Frontiers will reject retrospectively registered clinical trials.

Reporting standards

• Information on the clinical trial registration within the abstract, including the Clinical Trials Unique Identifier, Registry Name, and URL, must be presented in the abstract.
• Any changes made since the registration of the trial must be communicated using the - CONSERVE guidelines. Unreported discrepancies may lead to rejection of the manuscript.
• For randomized trials:Clinical trials with randomization should comply with the- Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials(CONSORT) 25-item checklist and include a CONSORT flow diagram in the figures or supplementary material.
• Clinical trials and artificial intelligence (AI): Clinical trials with AI components should adhere to the- Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials-Artificial Intelligence extension.
• N-of-1: Case reports investigating intervention effectiveness in a single participant should follow the- CONSORT extension for N-of-1.
• Clinical study protocols: Protocols must be registered in a public clinical trial registry and follow the- __Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials (SPIRIT)__guidelines and checklist.
• Clinical study protocols and artificial intelligence (AI):Clinical study protocols evaluating interventions with an AI component, should conform to the- Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials–Artificial Intelligence(SPIRIT-AI) extension.

For clinical protocols

All submissions should follow the Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials (SPIRIT) guidelines and checklist. For Study Protocols of Clinical Trials that use AI components, please follow the Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials–Artificial Intelligence extension.

Please include the registry name, unique identifier, and URL in the abstract.

Conflicts of interest policy

A conflict of interest can be anything potentially interfering with, or that could be perceived as interfering with, full and objective peer review, decision-making, or publication of articles submitted to Frontiers. Personal, financial, and professional affiliations or relationships can be perceived as conflicts of interest.

All authors and members of Frontiers' editorial boards are required to disclose any actual and potential conflicts of interest at submission or upon accepting an editorial or review assignment.

Frontiers' review system is designed to guarantee the most transparent and objective editorial and review process, and because the handling editor's and reviewers' names are made public upon the publication of articles, conflicts of interest will be widely apparent. Failure to declare competing interests can result in the rejection of a manuscript. If an undisclosed competing interest comes to light after publication, Frontiers will take action in accordance with internal policies and Committee on Publication Ethics guidelines.

Anything that can be perceived as a potential conflict of interest should be disclosed within the statements section during submission. A conflict of interest statement will be automatically generated, included in the generated PDF file for peer review, and in the final publication version of the article.

What should I disclose?

As an author, disclosure of any potential conflicts of interest should be done during the submission process. Consider the following questions and make sure you disclose any positive answers.

If you failed to disclose potential conflicts of interest during submission, or in case of doubt, please contact the Frontiers editorial office at [email protected] with the details of the potential conflicts as soon as possible.

For commercial affiliations, all authors must be accounted for. We recommend using the following template:

• [AUTHOR NAME] was employed by [COMPANY]. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

For commercial funding, the role of the funder must be declared. We recommend the following statements:

• The authors declare that this study received funding from [FUNDER NAME]. The funder had the following involvement with the study: [DESCRIPTION OF INVOLVEMENT]
• The authors declare that this study received funding from [FUNDER NAME]. The funder was not involved in the study design, collection, analysis, interpretation of data, the writing of this article, or the decision to submit it for publication.

What about editors and reviewers?

Handling editors (chief editors, associate editors, topic editors and guest editors) and reviewers will be asked to consider the following potential conflicts of interest before accepting any editing or review assignment.

| Family | Are any of the authors a spouse or significant other, a member of the same family, or a very close personal friend? Reviewers should also not be a member of the same family as the handling editor. | | Collaborations | Are you currently hosting a Research Topic (article collection) with any of the authors? Are you currently collaborating or have you collaborated on a research project or a publication with any of the authors within the past two years? Do you have a manuscript in review with any of the authors? Are you currently collaborating or have you collaborated with any of the authors as an advisor or in any other direct supervisory capacity in the past three years? Are you currently collaborating or have you collaborated with any of the authors as a student or in any other direct subordinate capacity in the past three years? Note:Reviewers should not accept assignments if they have a close professional relationship with the handling editor, which in their view could affect the objectivity of the review. | | Affiliation | Are you affiliated with the same institution as any of the authors? Are you affiliated with the same company as any of the authors? Do you, or does your affiliation, have any financial ties with any of the authors' affiliations? Are you a current member of a committee, consortium, or research group that coincides with any of the authors? | | Financial | Do you have a business relationship, financial ties, or a professional partnership with any author? Do you have financial interests or business relations with any organization involved in this research or in the preparation of the manuscript? Do you have any financial interest or competing interests in the content of the manuscript? Are you involved in a research grant related to an author? |

Submission of manuscripts by Frontiers’ editors

In line with guidance from The World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), editors can submit manuscripts to their journals. However, they must recuse themselves from any involvement in the peer review process, editorial handling or editorial decision-making for their own articles. To offer a greater assurance of impartiality, every effort will be made to remove any editorial bias from the process and another editor on the editorial board will handle these submissions (in line with COPE recommendations). A submitting editor will not be involved in reviewer selection and their paper will follow the same single-blind peer review process. Given that our peer review process is transparent since we publish the names of editors and reviewers, it reduces the risk of hidden conflict of interest.

Editors submitting their own work to Frontiers' journals are required to list their appointment at Frontiers in the conflicts of interests statement upon submission.

Submission of manuscripts by Frontiers’ employees

We acknowledge that some of our employees may also be active researchers and authors. In instances where a current employee submits a manuscript to a Frontiers journal, the following requirements apply:

• The employee must notify the research integrity team upon submission of the manuscript.
• The employee must recuse themselves from any involvement in the manuscript's peer review or processing.
• A Conflict of Interest (COI) statement must be included in the manuscript, stating:

"Since [Year], the co-author [XX] has been employed by Frontiers Media SA. [XX] has declared their affiliation with Frontiers. In accordance with company policy, they have not participated in the peer review process. The handling editor confirms that the peer review process adhered to the standards of fair and objective review."

Funding disclosure policy

Details of all funding sources must be provided in the funding section of the manuscript, including grant numbers, if applicable. All Frontiers articles are published with open access under the CC-BY Creative Commons attribution license. Articles published with Frontiers automatically fulfill or exceed the requirements for open access mandated by many institutions and funding bodies, including the National Institutes of Health, the Medical Research Council, Research Councils UK, and the Wellcome Trust. Frontiers submits funding data to the Open Funder Registry, which is a funder identification service from CrossRef resulting from collaboration between scholarly publishers and funding agencies.

Open science and open data policies

Frontiers’ open science and open data policies advocate for making research outputs freely accessible and transparent. We request that authors familiarise themselves with the following policies. We aim to achieve the best community standards regarding data availability, ensuring increased levels of transparency and reproducibility in our published articles.

Our policies on data availability are informed by community-driven standards, which we endorse, such as the Transparency and Openness (TOP) guidelines and the joint declaration of data citation principles produced by FORCE11.

Availability of materials

Authors are required to make all materials used to conduct their research available to other researchers. Research materials necessary to enable the reproduction of an experiment should be clearly indicated in the Materials and Methods section. Relevant materials such as protocols, analytic methods, and study material should preferably be uploaded to an online repository providing a global persistent link/identifier. If this is not possible, authors are strongly encouraged to make this material available upon request to interested researchers, and this should be stated in the manuscript.

Resource identification initiative

Authors wishing to participate in the FORCE11 Resource Identification Initiative should cite antibodies, genetically modified organisms, software tools, data, databases, and services using the corresponding catalog number and Research Resource Identifier (RRID) in your current manuscript. More information about the project and how to search for an RRID, is available here.

Availability of data

Frontiers requires that authors make the minimal data set (ie data underlying the findings described and used to reach the conclusions of the manuscript) available to any qualified researchers. The data should be FAIR – findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable – so that other researchers can locate and use the data.

Authors are required to deposit mandatory data types in public, community-supported repositories, such as those listed below, before publication. It is the authors' responsibility to ensure that their data is publicly available before their manuscript is published.

Issues found post-publication with inaccessible mandatory data types will be assessed in line with our policy and may lead to escalation to institutions or the publication of Correction and Expression of Concern articles.

Authors are encouraged to contact our data availability office at [email protected] before submission with any queries concerning data reporting.

We strongly encourage sharing the maximal amount of data; however where ethical, legal or privacy issues are present the data should not be shared. In cases where some or all data cannot be shared for legal, ethical or privacy restrictions, the authors should make these limitations clear in the Data Availability Statement at the time of submission. They include:

• Where there are ethical, legal, or privacy-related concerns with sharing the data
• Case reports or case series of fewer than three individuals

Authors are responsible for ensuring that the data shared are in accordance with the ethical consent provided by participants on the use of confidential/identifiable human data. We require that the authors demonstrate that publication of such data does not compromise the anonymity of the participants or breach local data protection laws.

In situations where access is restricted to protect confidential or proprietary information, authors are required to explain the restrictions on the dataset and make the data available upon request with permission of the third party. The Data Availability Statement should include all necessary contact information to request access to the dataset.

Data citation guidelines

Authors are encouraged to cite all datasets generated or analyzed in the study. Where datasets are cited, they should be included in the references list to maximize future usability.

The following format should be used:

[DATASET] Author names. (year) Data Title. Repository name. Version. Persistent identifier

Data availability statements

Data availability statements are required for all articles published with Frontiers. During the submission process, authors will be asked to detail the location of the raw data underlying the conclusions made in the manuscript, and whether it will be made available to other researchers following publication. Authors will also be asked for the details of any existing datasets that have been analyzed in the manuscript. These datasets should be cited in accordance with our data citation guidelines.

A statement will be automatically generated using the information provided in the submission form; however, manuscripts containing incomplete or incorrect statements will be prevented from entering the review process.

Examples of acceptable statements

• Original datasets are available in a publicly accessible repository: The original contributions presented in the study are publicly available. This data can be found here: [link/accession number].
• Existing datasets are available in a publicly accessible repository: Publicly available datasets were analyzed in this study. This data can be found here: [link/accession number].
• Information for existing publicly accessible datasets is contained within the article (such as for studies using more than 10 accession numbers): The datasets presented in this study can be found in online repositories. The names of the repository/repositories and accession number(s) can be found in the article/supplementary material.
• All relevant data is contained within the article: The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author/s.
• Restrictions apply to the datasets: The datasets presented in this article are not readily available because [VALID REASON]. Requests to access the datasets should be directed to [text input].
• Data has been obtained from a third party: The data analyzed in this study was obtained from [SOURCE], the following licenses/restrictions apply [RESTRICTIONS]. Requests to access these datasets should be directed to [NAME, EMAIL].
• Datasets are available on request: The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Mandatory data and recommended repositories

Authors are required to deposit the following mandatory data types in public, community-supported repositories, such as those listed below, before publication of an associated manuscript.

*Genetic sequence variants should be annotated according to the guidelines established by the Human Variome Project.

Authors are encouraged to consider deposition in public, community-supported repositories of the data-types listed below.

Inclusion of RNAseq data

Studies employing RNASeq for comparative transcriptomic analyses must contain at least three biological replicates (unless otherwise justified). Each biological replicate should be represented in an independent library, each with a unique barcode if libraries are multiplexed for sequencing. Validation on a number of key transcripts highlighted in the study is also highly recommended.

Full data accompanying these experiments must be made available to reviewers at the time of submission in a freely accessible resource, eg the Sequence Read Archive (SRA) or European Nucleotide Archive (ENA). Depending on the question addressed in a manuscript, de novo assemblies of transcriptomes may also require multiple replicates, and assembled sequences together with sequence annotation must be made freely available, such as in figshare or Dryad.

Inclusion of proteomics data

Authors should provide relevant information relating to how peptide/protein matches were undertaken, including methods used to process and analyze data, false discovery rates (FDR) for large-scale studies, and threshold or cut-off rates for peptide and protein matches. Further information should include software used, mass spectrometer type, sequence database and version, number of sequences in database, processing methods, mass tolerances used for matching, variable/fixed modifications, allowable missed cleavages, etc.

Authors should provide as supplementary material the information used to identify proteins and/or peptides. This should include information such as accession numbers, observed mass (m/z), charge, delta mass, matched mass, peptide/protein scores, peptide modification, miscleavages, peptide sequence, match rank, matched species (for cross-species matching), number of peptide matches, etc. Ambiguous protein/peptide matches should be indicated.

For quantitative proteomics analyses, authors should provide information to justify the statistical significance, including biological replicates, statistical methods, estimates of uncertainty, and the methods used for calculating error.

For peptide matches with biologically relevant post-translational modifications (PTMs) and for any protein match that has occurred using a single mass spectrum, authors should include this information as raw data or annotated spectra, or submit data to an online repository (recommended option; see table below).

Raw or matched data and 2-DE images should be submitted to public proteomics repositories such as those participating in ProteomeXchange. Submission codes and/or links to data should be provided within the manuscript.

Inclusion of enzymology and biocatalysis data

We encourage authors to consult the Standards for Reporting Enzymology Data (STRENDA) guidelines when reporting and publishing enzyme kinetics data. The STRENDA guidelines aim to support authors to comprehensively report kinetic and equilibrium data from their investigations of enzyme activities. The following is the prose description of those parameters that need to be provided in scientific publications.

All reports of kinetic and binding data must include a description of the identity of the catalytic or binding entity (enzyme, protein, nucleic acid or other molecule). This information should include the origin or source of the molecule, its purity, composition, and other characteristics such as post-translational modifications, mutations, and any modifications made to facilitate expression or purification. The assay methods and exact experimental conditions of the assay must be fully described if it is a new assay or provided as a reference to previously published work, with or without modifications.

The temperature, pH, and pressure (if other than atmospheric) of the assay must always be included, even if previously published. In instances where catalytic activity or binding cannot be detected, an estimate of the limit of detection based on the sensitivity and error analysis of the assay should be provided. Ambiguous terms such as “not detectable” should be avoided. A description of the software used for data analysis should be included along with calculated errors for all parameters.

First-order and second-order rate constants should be reported in units of s-1 and M-1•s-1, respectively. Equilibrium binding constants should normally be reported as dissociation constants with concentration units (M, mM, µM, nM). The values kcat, kcat/Km and Km from steady-state enzyme kinetics should be reported in units of s-1, M-1•s-1 and concentration (mM, µM, nM), respectively. The steady-state specific activity of an enzyme should normally be reported as a kcat. If there is considerable uncertainty in the molar concentration of the catalyst, the specific activity should be reported as a Vmax (nmol, µmol) of product formed per amount of protein per unit time (eg µmol•mg-1•s-1).

The minimum information required to correctly describe assay conditions can be found in List 1A, and enzyme activity data in List 1B.

Code

We strongly encourage authors to make available all statistical analysis code used to conduct their research available to other researchers. Code necessary to enable the reproduction of an experiment should be clearly indicated in the Materials and Methods section, and where possible code should be uploaded to an online repository (such as github.com or code ocean) providing a global persistent link/identifier.

We strongly encourage sharing original code where possible. In situations where custom code is proprietary, an exception will be granted providing that all relevant software needed to replicate the results of the study are available commercially for researchers. Details of the proprietary software used should be listed in the materials and methods section.

At submission, authors should declare any intellectual property relating to the code and themselves in a conflict of interest statement.

Statistics

Frontiers requires that all statements concerning quantitative differences should be based on quantitative data and statistical testing. For example, if a quantitative statement is made regarding the abundance of a certain protein based on a western blot, we request that the blot be scanned and the abundance assessed quantitatively using the correct analytic software (such as ImageJ) and statistics in order to support that statement.

Statistics should/must be applied for independent experiments. The number of independent samples and the deviation parameters (such as standard error of the mean, standard deviation, confidence intervals) should be clearly stated in the Methods or the Figure legends. In general, technical replicates within a single experiment are not considered to be independent samples. Where multiple comparisons are employed (such as microarray data or genome-wide association studies), any analysis should correct for false positive results. Descriptions of statistical procedures should include the software and analysis used, and must be sufficiently detailed to be reproduced.

Artificial intelligence: fair use and disclosure policy

This policy covers acceptable uses of generative AI technologies such as Large Language Models (ChatGPT, Jasper) and text-to-image generators (DALL-E 2, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion) in the writing or editing of manuscripts submitted to Frontiers.

AI generated text and authorship

If AI tools have been used to generate main text, then this must be clearly disclosed in the acknowledgments. Authors should not list a generative AI technology as a co-author or author of any submitted manuscript. Generative AI technologies cannot be held accountable for all aspects of a manuscript and consequently do not meet the ICMJE criteria required for authorship.

If the author of a submitted manuscript has used written or visual content produced by or edited using a generative AI technology, this use must comply to all Frontiers guidelines and policies. Specifically, the author remains responsible for checking the factual accuracy of all content created using generative AI technology. This includes, but is not limited to, any quotes, citations, or references.

AI generated figures and images

Figures produced by or edited using a generative AI technology must be checked to ensure they accurately reflect the data presented in the manuscript. Authors must also check that any written or visual content produced by or edited using a generative AI technology is free from plagiarism.

If the author of a submitted manuscript has used written or visual content produced by or edited using a generative AI technology, such use must be acknowledged in the acknowledgments section of the manuscript and the methods section, if applicable. This explanation must list the name, version, model, and source of the generative AI technology.

AI use by editors and reviewers

Frontiers adheres to WAME, EASE, and COPE guidelines on the use of AI in peer review. To protect confidentiality and intellectual property, manuscript content must not be uploaded to external generative AI tools.

To support peer reviewers, we provide an internal AI tool within the review forum, operating in a secure, closed environment. It helps by summarizing manuscript content, highlighting areas for analysis, and assisting in drafting constructive feedback - while fully preserving author privacy.

Importantly, this AI tool does not participate in editorial decision-making, and should not be used for that purpose.

Academic editors and invited community reviewers remain solely responsible for the accuracy, integrity, and relevance of their peer review reports and editorial decisions.

Any use of external AI tools must be discussed with the editorial team in advance, and - if approved - clearly disclosed to authors in the review.

Standards for research methodology

In this section: information about best practice in your research methodology and how it is reported within your article.

Experiments

Authors are required to disclose in their manuscript legends the number of times experiments were conducted, with a minimum of three replicates (n=3) generally required for statistical robustness. Additionally, the specific statistical analyses performed must be clearly stated, facilitating transparency and reproducibility in research findings.

Computational analyses and bioinformatics

Frontiers' journals require that manuscripts primarily comprising solely of bioinformatics analyses, computational studies of public data, or findings from Mendelian Randomisation studies must include appropriate validation. Acceptable forms of validation include:

• independent clinical or patient cohorts
• biological validation, either in vitro or in vivo
• multi-database queries (bibliometric studies only)

Manuscripts lacking such validation may risk being considered unsuitable for publication, as they do not meet the required evidence standards necessary for scientific conclusions.

Alignment with international reporting guidelines heading

Authors are strongly encouraged to align their research with internationally recognized reporting guidelines. Relevant reporting guidelines and checklists should be uploaded as supplemental materials upon submission.

Reporting guidelines for common article types and study designs can be found below and checklists for additional study designs are available on the Equator Network website. The Equator library contains a comprehensive searchable database of reporting guidelines and links to other resources relevant to enhance quality of research reporting.

• Randomized controlled trials (RCTs): - CONSORT guidelines, flowchart, and structured abstract checklist(see also:- Clinical trial reporting standards)
• Systematic reviews and meta-analyses: - PRISMA guidelines, flowchart, and structured abstract checklist
• Observational studies in epidemiology: - STROBE guidelines(also refer to- RECORDfor observational studies using routinely collected health data) and- MOOSE guidelines
• Animal pre-clinical studies: - ARRIVE guidelines
• Web-based surveys: - CHERRIES guidelines
• Studies using data from electronic health records: - CODE-EHR guidelines
• Reporting of sex and gender information: - SAGER guidelines

Ethical research conduct policies

In this section: All research submitted to Frontiers for consideration must have been conducted in accordance with Frontiers guidelines on study ethics. Read about our stance on ethical research and how to ensure your work meet our standards.

Research ethics and ethics approval

All research submitted to Frontiers for consideration must have been conducted in accordance with Frontiers guidelines on study ethics. In accordance with COPE guidelines, Frontiers reserves the right to reject any manuscript that editors believe does not uphold high ethical standards, even if authors have obtained ethical approval or if ethical approval is not required. Frontiers encourages authors to follow the ARRIVE guidelines for the design, analysis, and reporting of scientific research.

Animal subjects

Frontiers is committed to upholding the highest standards of ethical conduct in research involving animals. To ensure the wellbeing and ethical treatment of animals in scientific studies, we have established the following guidelines for authors submitting manuscripts involving animal research, which are in line with international standards.

Policy requirements for research involving animal subjects

All research involving regulated animals must have been reviewed and approved by an ethics committee prior to commencing the study and performed in accordance with relevant institutional and national guidelines and regulations. Frontiers reserves the right to reject a manuscript if evidence of ethics approval is not provided after request.

If the study is exempt from ethics approval, authors must state the reasons for exemption within the statement generated in the submission system.

Experimental considerations

Compliance with standards: Studies involving animals should be conducted according to internationally accepted standards and are expected to comply with the three Rs principle (Replace, Reduce, Refine). Frontiers endorses the Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments (ARRIVE) guidelines for reporting experiments involving live animals. Authors are encouraged to use the ARRIVE checklist and to submit this checklist with manuscripts involving animal research; Frontiers' editors reserve the right to request

Animal housing and husbandry: In accordance with the ARRIVE guidelines, authors are expected to provide details on the housing, husbandry and pain management of animals in their manuscript, along with steps taken to minimize suffering. For non-human primate research, authors should ensure that their reporting meets the standards outlined in__ __the NC3Rs primate guidelines, including information on social housing, feeding, and environmental enrichment.

Anesthesia and euthanasia of animals: Authors are advised to consult the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) guidelines for the Euthanasia of Animals (2020) for guidance on veterinary best practice for the anesthesia and euthanasia of animals. Studies featuring euthanasia protocols involving an overdose of chloral hydrate, ether or chloroform are not considered acceptable, as defined by AVMA, and will be rejected. Authors are encouraged to provide a full description of any anesthetic, surgical or euthanasia procedures performed during a study.

Humane endpoints

All manuscripts describing studies where death is an endpoint will be subject to additional ethical considerations. Frontiers reserves the right to reject manuscripts lacking appropriate justification.

Client-owned animals

Studies involving client-owned animals (non-commercially available animals such as pets or livestock) should demonstrate the best practice veterinary care and confirm that written informed consent has been granted by the owner(s), or the legal representative of the owner(s).

Field studies on free-living animals

Researchers studying free-living animals should take all possible precautions to minimize the impact of their study on the populations and ecosystems that their research is investigating. All field studies must have appropriate licences and permits, details of which should be included in the Methods section of the manuscript.

Endangered or threatened species should only be used in research where scientific benefit outweighs the harm, such as a direct conservational or welfare application. Frontiers endorses the IUCN Position Statement on research involving species at risk of extinction, which outlines that research using threatened species should only be conducted if the study is intended to positively contribute to the likelihood of survival of the species, or that research programmes involving such species that do not directly contribute to conservation should acknowledge an obligation to the species in another manner. Frontiers reserves the right to reject studies involving the use of species in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) database or on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List if protocols for the use of such species have not been adequately followed, or if insufficient justification for the use of the species has been provided. The conservation status of a species can be ascertained by consulting the CITES database or the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species

Editorial assessments for animal ethics

Frontiers’ editors and editorial staff independently evaluate research ethics, even where ethics approval is provided. Additional documentation may be requested if study details deviate from common animal research practices. Manuscripts may be rejected if there is any concern that protocols endanger animal welfare, or if the animal cost appears excessive compared to the intended scientific benefit. This may include scenarios where the quantity of animals used, severity of procedures, or compromises to animal welfare are not clearly justified. In severe cases, manuscripts may be rejected without further correspondence with authors and institution's may be contacted. Frontiers reserves the right to reject a manuscript if research involves protocols that are inconsistent with commonly accepted norms for animal welfare, irrespective of any ethics committee approval granted to the study or previous publications using such protocols.

Frontiers strongly opposes the use of any materials sourced via unethical animal welfare practices. Examples include, but are not limited to, materials sourced from bears, pangolins, tortoises and rhinoceroses, for which there are strong concerns regarding inhumane treatment of sampled animals and/or threat of extinction.

Studies involving human participants

Research involving human participants should have been conducted in accordance with the World Medical Association's Declaration of Helsinki. Studies involving human participants must be performed in accordance with relevant institutional and national guidelines, with the appropriate institutional ethics committee's prior approval and informed written consent from all human subjects involved in the study including for publication of the results. Confirmation of this approval is required upon submission of a manuscript to Frontiers; authors must provide ethics committee information within the submission system, which generates an ethics statement to be included in the submission. Information regarding subjects' (or when appropriate, the parent's or guardian's) consent for participation should be provided within the submission system.

Frontiers requires that consent for participation is both informed and written, unless waived by an ethics committee or otherwise not required as per local legislation. The submission system will generate an ethics statement in the following format (the statement will also be included in the final manuscript version for publication):

"The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by [Full name and affiliation of ethics committee]. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study."

If the study is exempt from ethics approval or consent procedures, authors need clearly to state the reasons in the generated statement. Frontiers may request a letter from the authors, obtained from an ethics committee in cases where full review and approval has been waived by the committee.

To protect subject anonymity, identifying information should not be included in the manuscript unless such information is absolutely necessary for scientific purposes AND explicit approval has been granted by the subjects.

Human organs and transplantation research

Frontiers opposes the use of unethically procured human organs and is guided by the principles set out in the Declaration of Istanbul and the WHO Guiding Principles on Human Cell, Tissue and Organ Transplantation.

Authors are expected to take an active role in ensuring that the provenance and sourcing of organs are transparent and ethically compliant. Any research involving human organs must have appropriate ethics approval.

To support transparency and traceability, we ask authors to publicly report organ provenance (including stating the procuring institution, location/country, consent process, and ethics oversight) in the ethics statement within the manuscript.

Frontiers relies on authors’ integrity and institutional oversight to uphold ethical standards before the research begins. If credible concerns arise that organs may have been procured unethically, the matter will be investigated in line with our publication ethics procedures. Retraction and/or other appropriate editorial action will be pursued where unethical procurement is confirmed, or where serious concerns remain unresolved after investigation due to insufficient or unverifiable provenance or consent information.

Studies involving vulnerable populations

Our research integrity team may request extra information from authors conducting research on vulnerable populations. This may include:

• the recruitment procedures and rationale for population use
• a copy of the consent form that was read and signed by participants
• the study protocol approved by the ethics committee
• any other standard documents such as ethical approval certificate of consent form(s).

For studies on vulnerable populations, authors must ensure that the data is summarised and does not include any individual data. The following data availability statement can be used to direct researchers to access your data: 'The datasets for this article are not publicly available due to concerns regarding participant/patient anonymity. Requests to access the datasets should be directed to the corresponding author.'

Inclusion of identifiable human data

Frontiers follows the ICMJE recommendations on the protection of research participants, which state that patients have a right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. We require nonessential identifiable details to be omitted from all manuscripts, and written informed consent will be required if there is any doubt that anonymity can be maintained.

It is the responsibility of the researchers and authors to ensure that these principles are complied with, including the obtaining of written informed consent for publication of any potentially identifiable data or images.

Written informed consent can be documented on a form provided by an institution or ethics committee, and it must clearly state how the identifiable data will be used. Frontiers' own consent form may be used for this purpose, although not required if an alternative form of consent, meeting the ICMJE recommendations, is used. We consider it to be the author's duty to encourage participants or patients whose consent for publication is required to read and understand the ICMJE guidelines, for their information prior to completing the consent form. Participants should also be encouraged to ask any questions and to ensure they are comfortable before they sign the consent form.

The completed consent forms should be stored by authors or their respective institutions, in accordance with institutional policies. Completed forms should not be included with your Frontiers submission. However, consent forms should be made available upon request from the editor or editorial office, during the review process or post-publication.

The determination of what constitutes identifiable data lies with our editors and editorial office staff, and manuscripts may be rejected if the required consent documents cannot be provided. Please note that written informed consent for publication is required for all case report articles where the patient or subject is identified or identifiable. Information regarding participant/patient consent for publication of identifiable data should be provided within the submission system. This will generate an ethics statement that will be directly included in the manuscript.

Experiments

Authors are required to specifically state in their legends how many times experiments were performed (in general we require n=3 as a minimum) and what specific statistical analysis was performed.

Inclusivity in global research

Authors conducting research outside of their own country or utilizing biological, geological material, conflict minerals, or any cultural resources outside of their community (such as those belonging to Indigenous communities) should be mindful of the potential or perceived power and resource differential, particularly in cases where research is conducted in limited-resource settings.

Authors are encouraged to adhere to the guidelines depicted in the Global Code of Conduct for Equitable Research Partnerships (TRUST Code) when conceptualizing, designing, performing, and reporting research on global settings. If permits/licenses were required for conducting research in a country outside of the authors’ country/countries of residence, authors should include the permit/license number, date and name of the authority that issued the permit/license in the Methods section of the manuscript.

Frontiers reserves the right to contact the authors to request any of this information at any time.

Post-publication changes policies

In this section: our responsibility to research integrity doesn't end once an article is published. Find out about policies and actions relevant after publication to safeguard quality.

Name change policy

Name and pronoun changes can occur for many reasons, including, but not limited to, marital status, religion, and gender identity. To request a name or pronoun change, please complete thename change request form and email it to [email protected]. Please make sure your request includes the following information.

• Reason for name change
• Your former name, new name, email address, and ORCID ID
• Your role as an author, editor, and/or reviewer
• A list of your Frontiers publications, and/or Frontiers editing/reviewing assignment
• Preference on whether this update is silent, or by means of a correction notice (see below for more information)

Once your form has been received and the change is confirmed, your previous publications and/or editing and reviewing assignments will be updated to reflect your new name/pronoun.

Depending on your preference, we’ll update your name/pronoun ‘silently’, ie, without requiring a new article or correction to be published or by means of a correction. You are free to notify your co-authors if you choose to do so; Frontiers will only notify the corresponding author of any silent name or pronoun updates.

Silent and non-silent updates will also be notified to PMC, PubMed, and CrossRef, however Frontiers cannot be held responsible for updates to third party databases, which may have their own policies regarding such changes. The requesting author takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal and editorial office. It is the author’s responsibility to ensure their Loop profile is updated.

Corrections

Frontiers recognizes its responsibility to correct scientifically relevant errors in previously published articles. Two types of corrections are available, depending on the nature of the error.

Major correction

Major corrections address scientifically relevant errors. When a major correction is processed, we will:

• publish a separate Correction article, linked to the original article
• correct the original article
• add a corrected date and a correction note to the original article
• send the corrected article for re-indexing with the relevant databases.

Examples of major corrections:

• An incorrect author/contributor list - for example a deserving author has been omitted or someone who does not meet - authorship criteriahas been included
• A statistical error that does not alter the article’s conclusions
• A missing author affiliation in the affiliation list

Major corrections must be submitted through our submission system. Visit our help center for detailed instructions on how to submit a correction, and use this MS Word correction template when preparing your submission. The submission title should follow the format: Correction: [Title of original article].

Minor correction

Errors in non-scientific content often do not require a separate correction article and are addressed as minor corrections. When a minor correction is processed, we will:

• correct the original article
• add a corrected date and a correction note to the original article
• send the corrected article for re-indexing with the relevant databases.

No separate Correction article is published.

Examples of minor corrections:

• Misspelled author names
• Text corrections that do not introduce new information or change the scientific content and meaning of the text
• A mismatch between figures in the online and PDF article versions

To request a minor correction, contact our production team at [email protected].

If you are unsure which correction type is appropriate, or if you have any questions, please contact our production team at [email protected] before submitting.

Retractions

As a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Frontiers abides by their guidelines and recommendations in cases of potential retraction.

We also abide by two other key principles, as recommended by COPE:

• Retractions are not about punishing authors
• Retraction statements should be public and linked to the original, retracted article.

All potential retractions will be judged on their own merits and will be the subject of an internal investigation or, where satisfactory, the recommendations from the institutional investigation of the author(s). Frontiers considers the following reasons as giving cause for concern and potential retraction.

• Clear evidence that findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (such as data fabrication) or honest error (such as miscalculation or experimental error)
• Findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper attribution, permission or justification (that is, cases of redundant publication)
• Major plagiarism
• The reporting of unethical research, the publication of an article that did not have the required ethics committee approval
• Legal issues pertaining to the content of the article, such as libelous content
• Major authorship issues, such as proven or strongly suspected cases of ghostwriting or sold ('gift') authorship
• Politically motivated articles where objectivity is a serious concern
• The singling out of individuals or organizations for attack
• Faith issues (such as intelligent design)
• Articles that have made extraordinary claims without concomitant scientific or statistical evidence (such as pseudoscience).

Readers who would like to draw the editors' attention to published work that might require retraction should contact the authors of the article and write to the journal, making sure to include copies of all correspondence with authors.

Rebuttals and appeals policy

Frontiers' rebuttals and appeals policy provides authors with a fair and impartial mechanism to raise concerns with the editorial process or decision-making. All rebuttals and appeals must adhere to the guidelines provided in this policy to be considered. Your submission will be reviewed objectively and in accordance with our established procedures to ensure the integrity of the peer review and publication process.

To submit a rebuttal or appeal, your submission must align with one of the following criteria:

Rebuttal to editor or reviewer feedback: If you disagree with specific points raised by the editor or reviewers in their feedback, you may submit a rebuttal to the points raised. In your rebuttal, you should articulate your points of disagreement and provide any additional information or clarifications that you believe are necessary to address their concerns.

Appealing compliance with policies: If you think your submission was rejected because the journal's policies were misapplied or your adherence was misunderstood, you can appeal. When submitting an appeal, please provide clear details showing compliance with our policies and point out any misunderstandings or alternate interpretations that you believe may have led to a false rejection.

Please be aware that we will not consider rebuttals or appeals under the following circumstances:

• When one appeal or rebuttal has already been evaluated for the manuscript
• Where authors display a lack of professionalism, courtesy, or respect towards any individuals or our editorial staff, such as containing personal criticisms, accusations, or inappropriate language.
• Solely appealing scope/fit for the journal
• Concerning a manuscript rejected due to legal complexities whereby it may require legal resources to determine if revisions can meet minimum legal requirements.
• Does not provide substantive evidence or detail to justify why the manuscript should be reinstated

Lastly, assessment of all rebuttals and appeals remains at the discretion of the journal and all decisions are final.

Complaints and allegations policy

Frontiers has an interactive and transparent publishing model established in part to engage all the players in academic publishing to act responsibly and professionally. All papers are published with the names of the handling editor and the reviewers, who have publicly validated each article.

However, our duty as a publisher includes correcting research whenever it is brought to our attention that an article contains scholarly errors or that authors have committed unethical or illegal acts in relation to their published work. Our comments and complaints policy reflects our founding principles by providing a mechanism that is community-driven through our editors, and that fosters scholarly debate. All complaints are handled in accordance with the guidelines published by the Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE).

If errors are identified in an article, the authors have the possibility of publishing a correction or amendment as a corrigendum. If ethical, legal, or scholarly concerns are raised or identified after publication of a nature that could warrant further action, including retraction, Frontiers follows the steps outlined below to consult the editors and carry out their decisions.

See our full comments and complaints policy

Acknowledging individuals who raise concerns

If concerns raised by an individual lead to an article being retracted, we may ask whether they would like to be acknowledged by name in the retraction notice. This is entirely optional, and anonymity will be maintained unless explicit consent is provided.

Handling of vexatious complaints

To ensure a fair and transparent handling of complaints while safeguarding against unwarranted disruptions, where we consider a complaint to be vexatious, we reserve the right to handle complaints outside of our standard processes. This may include replying outside of the usual time frames or, where necessary, closing down any further communications with the complainant to ensure the efficiency and professionalism of our editorial endeavors. Complaints will be classified as vexatious if they exhibit one or more of the following:

• Lack of substantive content or evidence.
• Repetitive nature without offering new information.
• Intent to harass or intimidate individuals or disrupt the editorial process.
• Failure to engage in constructive dialogue or refusal to accept reasonable resolutions.
• Include unreasonably personal details, derogatory language, or relate solely to allegations unrelated to editorial content or the responsibilities of Frontiers

Territorial disagreements

Frontiers remains neutral with regards to published territorial descriptions, maps, and author affiliations. All territorial claims are solely those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, the publisher, the editors, or reviewers.

Support

In our commitment to continue improving our user experience and support to the research community we welcome your feedback, questions, and suggestions.

• Visit our - help centerto find guidance on using our platform
• Contact us at - [email protected]

Submission checklist

Getting started

• The submitting and corresponding author(s) must - register and log in with Frontiersto be able to follow the review process
• Ensure that your manuscript fits the scope of the journal/section/Research Topic in which it will be submitted and that you have chosen the correct article type. Submission of the wrong article type or to a specialty that does not match the scope of your manuscript will result in delays and potentially rejection. For additional details about article types and manuscript guidelines, visit our - author guidelinesand journal pages.
• During submission, the submitting author will be required to answer questions regarding the manuscript and research, as well as provide information and consent for all authors. Below is a checklist detailing the information that will be required.

The following is mandatory when submitting to Frontiers:

Author information

a) All authors listed on the manuscript must be added in the relevant tab during submission. Please have ready the names, emails, and affiliations of all the authors, and ensure the authors all qualify for authorship.

b) During submission, you will be requested to provide an author(s) contribution statement briefly describing the tasks of all individual authors.

File requirements

a) A manuscript PDF file generated from the submitted manuscript, and the source file. For LaTeX only: The BIB file if the references were not included in the TEX.

b) All figures in TIFF or JPEG formats, RGB color mode, with a resolution of 300 dpi, and complying with CC-BY licence.

Permissions need to be obtained for re-published/adapted/modified/partial figures, and it is the responsibility of the authors to acquire the licenses, to follow any citation instructions requested by third-party rights holders, and cover any supplementary charges. Uploaded figures will be embedded at the end of the submitted manuscript. See here for more information.

c) Tables should be directly inserted into the manuscript and in source form (doc, tex), not as figures. You should prepare the files accordingly.

Statements

a ) Please ensure that the relevant ethical approval and consent details were received and are available on request by the editor or editorial office. You will be requested to declare involvement of any human or animal subjects, and inclusion of identifiable human data for the research during the submission process; declaration statements will be generated and automatically added to your manuscript. You do not need to include these statements in your source file.

b) Frontiers requires some types of data to be provide in manuscripts or deposited in public, community-supported repositories, prior to publication of an associated Frontiers manuscript.

During submission, you will be requested to reply to a series of questions on the availability of the data used for the research. Based on your answers, a data availability statement will be generated and added to your manuscript. You therefore do not need to include a data statement in your source file.

Contribution to the field

Ahead of submission, you should prepare a statement summarizing in 200 words your manuscript’s contribution to, and position in, the existing literature of your field. This should be written avoiding any technical language or non-standard acronyms. The aim should be to convey the meaning and importance of this research to a non-expert. (Note that you will NOT be able to provide a traditional cover letter.)

Funding and payment

a) Details of all funding sources will be requested during submission and must be provided in a funding section of the manuscript, including grant numbers, if applicable. You should also mention funds received for open access publication fees, from your institution, library, or other grants.

b) Prepare details ahead of submission on whom the invoice needs to be addressed to. If you are affiliated with a member institution, you will be able to select the institution in the submission system payment tile.

Editor guidelines

Frontiers' peer review is unique and quality-focused. Read on for a guide for reviewers on what to expect of our peer review process.

What is Frontiers' peer review model?

Frontiers operates a single anonymized model during the review process. This means the reviewers know who the authors are in order to offer a full assessment within the context of their research and to ensure they can avoid any potential competing interests in accepting a review invitation.

Reviewers should be acknowledged for their work in conducting peer review. We also believe in transparency and ensuring no bias during the peer review process. This is why we disclose the name of all endorsing reviewers upon publication, for every article we publish.

What to expect from our peer review

Our peer review platform unites authors, reviewers, and the handling editor in a direct online dialog, enabling quick iterations and facilitating consensus. Editors and reviewers work with the authors to improve their manuscript.

Independent review phase

Once a reviewer accepts the invitation to review, they are sent an email with a link to the online review forum. In the review forum, they can access and review the manuscript and supporting documents. During this first review phase the reviewers assess the paper independently from each other and the authors.

The review is completed by answering a review questionnaire provided in the review forum, and tailored for each article type (original research, review, study protocol, clinical trial, etc). When submitting their review report, a reviewer will also submit their recommendation to the editor. At this stage they are able to directly endorse the manuscript and finalize their review process, should the manuscript meet our acceptance criteria.

Once all reviewers have submitted their review report, the handling editor is responsible for reviewing their report comments before the next phase of the process begins: the interactive review. Even if the review reports are unfavorable to the authors, the collaborative review forum is activated to allow authors the opportunity of a rebuttal.

Interactive review phase

Once the interactive review phase is activated, authors are notified and are able to view and respond to reviewers' comments within the review forum. Reviewers are notified when the author has replied in full, and/or resubmitted their manuscript in line with reviewer comments.

If needed, reviewers can enter a dialog with the author to request clarifications or further revisions. They can also access and comment on other reviewers' review reports.

If the reviewer feels the authors have made the required changes and the paper is suitable for publication, they may endorse it. Alternatively, if it is felt that the authors have not or cannot bring the paper up to standard, reviewers can recommend that it be rejected.

How to peer review

Reviewers are the crucial facilitator between the author and the handling editor. From a position of expertise, reviewers guide and enable fellow researchers to get their work out into the world, in the best condition it can be.

To support our reviewers, we have put together some tips and lists of things to consider when getting ready to review, and in writing a fair and constructive review.

Before accepting the invitation

When you receive an invitation to review, it is important to consider the following points before accepting.

Is the manuscript within my expertise?

Think about whether the manuscript is suitably within your area of expertise. If not, please decline the invite, and consider helping us by suggesting alternative relevant experts.

Do I have the time?

We strive to keep our peer review process efficient and as such reviewers are requested to complete their reports within seven days after they accept the invite. You should let the editorial office know if you aren't able to provide a review but may be able to participate at another time.

Do I have a conflict of interest?

Once the invitation is accepted, as a reviewer you will be asked to complete a short questionnaire regarding conflicts of interest to establish any relationship with the author(s) of the manuscript which may make it inappropriate for you to review. Conflicts of interest are assessed on a case by case basis and may not be disqualifying, so please disclose all answers in full. Further details on this are available here.

Respond to the invitation

We ask reviewers to respond to the review invitation as soon as they can. You are of course free to decline to review if you feel that you lack the time or expertise, and we always appreciate recommendations for alternative reviewers.

If a reviewer realizes that seven days will be insufficient to complete their review, or if there will be a delay to the deadline after the invitation has been accepted, they can contact the editorial office. We will be happy to assist.

During peer review

Before a manuscript is sent for peer review, our research integrity team and the handling editor will already have carried out initial quality checks.

The aims of our reviewers should always be to:

• focus on the quality of the science objectively
• collaborate towards improvement and think constructively
• help the author and editor understand what is needed with clear comments.

Below are our tips for ensuring a quality report is produced.

What to do

Respect the scope

Authors provide a 'contribution to the field' statement with their manuscript to explain the article's intended scope and relevance. Keep the focus on what the manuscript is aiming to do, even if your expertise extends in a related direction. You should avoid recommending authors vastly expand the scope of the manuscript (e.g. "you only dealt with x, you need to deal with y"), or taking them outside their manuscript's intended scope.

Focus on science

Be objective – Frontiers discloses author names to reviewers for full transparency, however, reviewers are not asked to assess the author, only the manuscript. Also, it is not necessary to flag small copy-editing errors: our production team will ensure those are fixed during typesetting. Our processes ensure you should focus solely on the research itself.

Provide constructive feedback

Comments should seek to recommend reasonable improvements, in a polite and impersonal tone. Show professional courtesy by thinking about what you would want to receive on a paper of your own. And if it is good, say so – and also say why!

Consider field specifics

Are there elements of the research specific to the field you work in? If so, apply your expertise to give feedback on these. It will be helpful to all involved in the manuscript's review process.

What not to do

Don't be vague or too brief

Authors find precise and detailed feedback extremely helpful, and this tends to result in a timely and smoother review process. Whereas a brief report will often lead to additional questions from authors. Make sure recommendations and decisions are explained clearly. You should make good use of the detailed questionnaire provided in the collaborative review platform to provide a clear assessment.

Don't leave out key points in your initial report

The initial report should be thorough and provide all the necessary feedback upfront. While it is possible that further revisions to the paper will bring up new questions, be sure to include your key points in your initial report. Ensure you conclude your report with a clear recommendation for the handling editor. You are the expert and your guidance is highly valued.

Don't drop out of the peer review

To ensure an efficient process for all involved, please try to submit your responses on time. If you need to request an extension or to withdraw from the review process you can do this directly in the review forum at any time, or contact the editorial office for support. Try to place yourself in the authors' shoes, as they anxiously await feedback on their submission.

Keep in touch

Encountering any issues during review or have any concerns with the manuscript? Need assistance using our review platform? Need to request an extension to submit your review? For these or any other inquiries or updates, do not hesitate to contact your journal's office.

After peer review

Recognizing reviewers

Reviewers who endorse a manuscript for publication are recognized for their work by being named on the published article. The names are listed alongside the editor's both on the published article page, and the article final files.

But it is important to remember that if a reviewer recommends the rejection of a manuscript, or withdraws from the review process, their name will not be made available to the authors and is not published alongside the manuscript.

Irrespective of the reviewer's recommendation, when a report is submitted the reviewer will receive a confirmation email to acknowledge their work, including a copy of their report. While the report itself is not to be shared in any public forum, reviewers may use the confirmation email to obtain recognition for their involvement in the peer review process with their institution or other platforms. Their reports will also not be lost should they recommend rejection or withdraw from the review process later on.

Guidelines for authors

Frontiers encourages the authors to closely follow the article word count lengths given in the 'Article types' page of the journals. The manuscript length includes only the main body of the text, footnotes, and all citations within it, and excludes the abstract, section titles, figure and table captions, funding statement, acknowledgments, and references in the bibliography. Please indicate the number of words and the number of figures and tables included in your manuscript on the first page.

Introduction Succinct, with no subheadings.

Materials and methods This section may be divided by subheadings and should contain sufficient detail so that when read in conjunction with cited references, all procedures can be repeated. For experiments reporting results on animal or human subject research, an ethics approval statement should be included in this section (for further information, see the 'Bioethics' section of our policies and publication ethics.)

Results This section may be divided by subheadings. Footnotes should not be used and must be transferred to the main text.

Discussion This section may be divided by subheadings. Discussions should cover the key findings of the study: discuss any prior research related to the subject to place the novelty of the discovery in the appropriate context, discuss the potential shortcomings and limitations on their interpretations, discuss their integration into the current understanding of the problem and how this advances the current views, speculate on the future direction of the research, and freely postulate theories that could be tested in the future.

Templates

Frontiers requires manuscripts submitted to meet international English language standards to be considered for publication.

For authors who would like their manuscript to receive language editing or proofreading to improve the clarity of the manuscript and help highlight their research, Frontiers recommends the language-editing services provided by the following external partners.

Note that sending your manuscript for language editing does not imply or guarantee that it will be accepted for publication by a Frontiers journal. Editorial decisions on the scientific content of a manuscript are independent of whether it has received language editing or proofreading by these partner services or other services.

Editage We recommend the language-editing service provided by our external partner Editage to authors who believe their manuscripts would benefit from professional editing. These services may be particularly useful for researchers for whom English is not the primary language. They can help to improve the grammar, syntax, and flow of your manuscript prior to submission. Frontiers' authors will receive a 10% discount using this link: editage.com/frontiers.

The Charlesworth Group We recommend the Charlesworth Group's author services, with a long-standing track record in language editing and proofreading. This is a third-party service for which Frontiers' authors will receive a 10% discount using this link: www.cwauthors.com/frontiers.

Frontiers推荐您使用在英语语言编辑和校对领域具有悠久历史和良好口碑的查尔斯沃思作者服务。此项服务由第三方为您提供，Frontiers中国作者通过此链接提交稿件时可获得10％的特别优惠: www.cwauthors.com.cn/frontiers

Inclusive language

In general, seek to avoid:

Search engine optimization

Alt text

Guidelines for artificial intelligence

Abbreviations and nomenclature

For more information on LSIDs please see the 'Code' section of our polices and publication ethics.

Preparing and formatting references

Frontiers' journals use one of two reference styles, either Harvard (author-date) or Vancouver (numbered). Please check our help center to find the correct style for the journal to which you are submitting.

• All citations in the text, figures or tables must be in the reference list and vice-versa
• The names of the first six authors followed by et al. and the DOI (when available) should be provided
• Given names of authors should be abbreviated to initials (e.g., Smith, J., Lewis, C.S., etc.)
• The reference list should only include articles that are published or accepted
• Unpublished data, submitted manuscripts, or personal communications should be cited within the text only, for article types that allow such inclusions
• For accepted but unpublished works use 'in press' instead of page numbers
• Data sets that have been deposited to an online repository should be included in the reference list. Include the version and unique identifier when available
• Personal communications should be documented by a letter of permission
• Website URLs should be included as footnotes
• Any inclusion of verbatim text must be contained in quotation marks and clearly reference the original source
• Preprints can be cited as long as a DOI or archive URL is available, and the citation clearly mentions that the contribution is a preprint. If a peer-reviewed journal publication for the same preprint exists, the official journal publication is the preferred source. See the preprints section for each reference style below for more information.

Many Frontiers journals use the Harvard referencing system; to find the correct reference style and resources for the journal you are submitting to, please visit our help center. Reference examples are found below, for more examples of citing other documents and general questions regarding the Harvard reference style, please refer to the Chicago Manual of Style.

Reference examples

Article in a print journal Sondheimer, N., and Lindquist, S. (2000). Rnq1: an epigenetic modifier of protein function in yeast. Mol. Cell. 5, 163-172.

Article in an online journal Tahimic, C.G.T., Wang, Y., Bikle, D.D. (2013). Anabolic effects of IGF-1 signaling on the skeleton. Front. Endocrinol. 4:6. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2013.00006

Article or chapter in a book Sorenson, P. W., and Caprio, J. C. (1998). "Chemoreception," in The Physiology of Fishes, ed. D. H. Evans (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press), 375-405.

Book Cowan, W. M., Jessell, T. M., and Zipursky, S. L. (1997). Molecular and Cellular Approaches to Neural Development. New York: Oxford University Press.

Abstract Hendricks, J., Applebaum, R., and Kunkel, S. (2010). A world apart? Bridging the gap between theory and applied social gerontology. Gerontologist 50, 284-293. Abstract retrieved from Abstracts in Social Gerontology database. (Accession No. 50360869)

Website World Health Organization. (2018). E. coli. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/e-coli [Accessed March 15, 2018].

Patent Marshall, S. P. (2000). Method and apparatus for eye tracking and monitoring pupil dilation to evaluate cognitive activity. U.S. Patent No 6,090,051. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Data Perdiguero P, Venturas M, Cervera MT, Gil L, Collada C. Data from: Massive sequencing of Ulms minor's transcriptome provides new molecular tools for a genus under the constant threat of Dutch elm disease. Dryad Digital Repository. (2015) http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.ps837

Theses and dissertations Smith, J. (2008) Post-structuralist discourse relative to phenomological pursuits in the deconstructivist arena. [dissertation/master’s thesis]. [Chicago (IL)]: University of Chicago

Preprint Smith, J. (2008). Title of the document. Preprint repository name [Preprint]. Available at: https://persistent-url (Accessed March 15, 2018).

Many Frontiers journals use the numbered referencing system; to find the correct reference style and resources for the journal you are submitting to, please visit our help center.

Reference examples are found below, for more examples of citing other documents and general questions regarding the Vancouver reference style, please refer to Citing Medicine.

In-text citations

• In-text citations in the Vancouver reference style should be numbered consecutively in order of appearance in the text and identified by Arabic numerals in parenthesis
• Use square brackets for physics and mathematics articles
• The abbreviation ‘Ref’ should not be used, e.g.: [e.g., (1)] should NOT read [e.g. Ref. (1)]
• Style for comparing a citation should follow the number format, e.g. [cf. (1)]. The same applies when using ‘see’, e.g. [see (46)]
• References should be numbered and listed chronologically, according to the order they appear in the text

Article in a print journal Sondheimer N, Lindquist S. Rnq1: an epigenetic modifier of protein function in yeast. Mol Cell (2000) 5:163-72.

Article in an online journal Tahimic CGT, Wang Y, Bikle DD. Anabolic effects of IGF-1 signaling on the skeleton. Front Endocrinol (2013) 4:6. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2013.00006

Article or chapter in a book Sorenson PW, Caprio JC. "Chemoreception". In: Evans DH, editor. The Physiology of Fishes. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press (1998). p. 375-405.

Book Cowan WM, Jessell TM, Zipursky SL. Molecular and Cellular Approaches to Neural Development. New York: Oxford University Press (1997). 345 p.

Abstract Christensen S, Oppacher F. An analysis of Koza's computational effort statistic for genetic programming. In: Foster JA, editor. Genetic Programming. EuroGP 2002: Proceedings of the 5th European Conference on Genetic Programming; 2002 Apr 3–5; Kinsdale, Ireland. Berlin: Springer (2002). p. 182–91.

Website World Health Organization. E. coli (2018). https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/e-coli [Accessed March 15, 2018].

Patent Pagedas AC, inventor; Ancel Surgical R&D Inc., assignee. Flexible Endoscopic Grasping and Cutting Device and Positioning Tool Assembly. United States patent US 20020103498 (2002).

Theses and dissertations

Smith, J. (2008) Post-structuralist discourse relative to phenomological pursuits in the deconstructivist arena. [dissertation/master’s thesis]. [Chicago (IL)]: University of Chicago

Preprint Smith, J. Title of the document. Preprint repository name [Preprint] (2008). Available at: https://persistent-url (Accessed March 15, 2018).

Acknowledgments

Figure requirements and style guidelines

Frontiers requires figures to be submitted individually, in the same order as they are referred to in the manuscript; the figures will then be automatically embedded at the end of the submitted manuscript. Kindly ensure that each figure is mentioned in the text and in numerical order.

For figures with more than one panel, panels should be clearly indicated using labels (A), (B), (C), (D), etc. However, do not embed the part labels over any part of the image, these labels will be replaced during typesetting according to Frontiers' journal style. For graphs, there must be a self-explanatory label (including units) along each axis.

Figures should be prepared with the PDF layout in mind. Individual figures should not be longer than one page and with a width that corresponds to 1 column (85 mm) or 2 columns (180 mm).

Chemical structures

Kindly ensure that each table is mentioned in the text and in numerical order.

Please note that large tables covering several pages cannot be included in the final PDF for formatting reasons. These tables will be published as supplementary material.

Frontiers encourages authors to make the figures and visual elements of their articles accessible for the visually impaired. An effective use of color can help people with low visual acuity, or color blindness, understand all the content of an article.

Ensure sufficient contrast between text and its background People who have low visual acuity or color blindness could find it difficult to read text with low contrast background color. Try using colors that provide maximum contrast.

Avoid using red or green indicators More than 99% of color-blind people have a red-green color vision deficiency.

Avoid using only color to communicate information Elements with complex information like charts and graphs can be hard to read when only color is used to distinguish the data. Try to use other visual aspects to communicate information, such as shape, labels, and size. Incorporating patterns into the shape fills also make differences clearer.

Preparing supplementary material

Frontiers requires authors to select the appropriate article type for their manuscript and to comply with the article type descriptions defined in the journal's 'Article types' page, which can be seen from the 'For authors' menu on every Frontiers journal page. Please pay close attention to the word count limits.

CrossMark is a multi-publisher initiative to provide a standard way for readers to locate the current version of a piece of content. By applying the CrossMark logo Frontiers is committed to maintaining the content it publishes and to alerting readers to changes if and when they occur. Clicking on the CrossMark logo will tell you the current status of a document and may also give you additional publication record information about the document.

Authors and affiliations

Example: Max Maximus1 1 Department of Excellence, International University of Science, New York, NY, United States.

The corresponding author(s) should be marked with an asterisk in the author list. Provide the exact contact email address of the corresponding author(s) in a separate section. Example: Max Maximus* [email protected] If any authors wish to include a change of address, list the present address(es) below the correspondence details using a unique superscript symbol keyed to the author(s) in the author list.

Example: Max Maximus 1†, John Smith 2† and Barbara Smith 1 †These authors contributed equally to this work and share first authorship

Consortium/group and collaborative authors

Example: John Smith, Barbara Smith and The Collaborative Working Group. In cases where work is presented by the author(s) on behalf of a consortium/group, it should be included in the author list separated with the wording 'for' or 'on behalf of.' The consortium/group will not retain authorship and will only appear in the author list.

Services for authors

Preparing your manuscript for publication can be a challenging process, particularly when you want to do your best to make your paper stand out. We offer multiple services to support you through your pre-submission and publishing journey, including:

Language editing

Editage

Editage provides language editing services which may be particularly useful for researchers for whom English is not the primary language. They can help to improve the grammar, syntax, and flow of your manuscript before submission. Frontiers' authors will receive a 10% discount using this link: editage.com/frontiers

The Charlesworth Group

The Charlesworth has a long-standing track record in language editing and proofreading. This is a third-party service for which Frontiers' authors will receive a 10% discount using this link: www.cwauthors.com/frontiers

Frontiers推荐您使用在英语语言编辑和校对领域具有悠久历史和良好口碑的查尔斯沃思作者服务。此项服务由第三方为您提供，Frontiers中国作者通过此链接提交稿件时可获得10％的特别优惠: www.cwauthors.com.cn/frontiers.

Pre-submission services

Elevate your work through our external partner AuthorMate. They can provide you with technology-enabled pre-submission and pre-publishing solutions.

Figures and graphics

High-quality figures and graphics have the power to capture attention and showcase your research in a visually appealing way while boosting clarity and impact. Use AuthorMate to get your message across clearly and concisely with custom-developed images.

Tables

Tables and charts are often key components of your manuscript and can be complex. Effective data presentation in research articles requires well-structured tables, allowing readers to understand the content easily. AuthorMate can help you visualize your data effectively and with precision.

Experts from our external partner can support you with LaTeX conversion and general LaTeX support.  Their professionals can also help you generate effective alt-text to describe your images visually and improve the accessibility of your articles. See the full range of services here.

Data management service

FAIR² Data Management

Have you ever been asked to make your data FAIR? FAIR data meets the principles of findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability, so that data is easy to find and re-use for both humans and computers. The FAIR² Data Management service provides a certified way to make your data FAIR - while also ensuring your datasets are AI-ready, machine-actionable, and primed for discovery. Find out more