Author Guidelines

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

Profile of the journal
Arhiv za higijenu rada i toksikologiju – Archives of Industrial Hygiene and Toxicology (abbr. Arh Hig Rada Toksikol) is a peer-reviewed open access biomedical scientific quarterly that publishes contributions relevant to all aspects of environmental and occupational health and toxicology. The journal is indexed in SCI Expanded, Medline/PubMed, Scopus, EBSCO Academic Research Complete, and other relevant databases.

Full-text articles are available online at Sciendo (https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/aiht/aiht-overview.xml) and the Portal of Scientific Journals of Croatia – HRČAK at http://hrcak.srce.hr/aiht.

The journal publishes original (research) articles, reviews, mini-reviews, case reports, viewpoints, editorials, and letters to the editor. All submissions should be written in English. Announcements, book reviews, meeting reports, and obituaries are also accepted, and may be written in Croatian, English or Slovene.

Original articles are expected to report on topics related to toxicology and environmental and occupational health. Clinical research and related issues are strongly discouraged. Our journal also discourages manuscripts that report on the toxicological effects of materials with an unknown chemical composition or with poor chemical characterisation (e.g., plant extracts with an unknown phytochemical profile).

Review articles represent summaries of recent insights in specific research areas within the scope of the journal. They should provide systematic, critical, and extensive coverage of a subject.

Mini-reviews should provide a brief summary of recent developments in fast-growing research fields. They may address any subject within the scope of the journal or report the state of the art in a specified research area.

Case reports should also focus exclusively on issues related to the journal and always be accompanied by a signed consent of the patient whose case is presented or his/her legal representative. Every effort must be made to protect the anonimity of patients; any information that could violate privacy should be excluded, unless it is necessary for the scientific presentation.

Viewpoints should address and discuss various important issues in toxicology and occupational health. They should be well-focused, clearly presented, and provide the author’s opinion(s) regarding the subject.

Letters to the Editor should fall within one of the following two types: “Letter about material previously published in the Archives” or “Letter that discusses problems of general interest”. Letters in reference to a journal article must be received within two months after publication of the article. The author of the paper in question is usually given an opportunity to reply.

The journal does not accept or publish preliminary versions of scientific manuscripts that researchers previously posted or shared on online platforms or public servers (“preprints”).

Preparation of manuscripts
Manuscripts are accepted on the understanding that they are contributed to this journal alone.

Detailed instructions about how to prepare a manuscript are given in the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication issued by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (http://www.icmje.org).

All manuscripts should be submitted as one Microsoft Word file (preferably in the .docx format) in the following order: title page (includes the title, authors, affiliations, abstract, key words, and corresponding author information), the body of the text, references, and figures and tables with their corresponding titles and legends. Please do not submit supplementary material.

The preferred font is Times New Roman (size: 12 dots), double spaced. Please use British English spelling.

Original (research) papers should follow the conventional IMRAD structure: introduction, materials and methods / subjects and methods, results, and discussion. The Abstract should be a single paragraph and limited to 250 words. It should state the hypothesis and aim of the study, basic procedures (study subjects/animals/cell models, and methods), main findings, and principal conclusions.

Below the abstract provide a list of 5 key terms that will be useful for indexing or searching. They should not be taken from the title of the manuscript but rather reflect the content of the entire article and the field of study. Use terms from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) list of the Index Medicus (www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/), whenever possible. Key words should be listed in alphabetical order and separated by semicolons.

The introduction is the key to your entire article, as it sets the framework for your presentation. You should first establish what information is currently known and what is missing, set the research hypothesis, and then define the questions that your study is going to answer (objectives). Even more importantly, you should clearly say why you think doing the study was important.

The Materials/Subjects and Methods section is to be as clear and as detailed as necessary for the intended audience to understand study design and to allow for the experiment to be repeated. Feel free to use subheadings if they help in this respect. Instead of describing standard methods in detail, you may reference to literature sources for as long as it does not affect the narrative or understanding.

Manuscripts involving studies on humans should contain a statement that the studies have been approved by the appropriate bioethical committees, and have been performed according to the Declaration of Helsinki. Indicate that the subjects gave informed consent. Manuscripts involving studies on animals should contain a statement that the specific national law on the protection of animals was observed. Manuscripts reporting animal and/or human studies must state in the methods section that all procedures were performed in compliance with relevant laws and institutional guidelines. The statement should contain the full name and institution of the ethics committee(s), along with the date and reference number of the ethical approval(s) obtained. All animal experiments should comply with EU Directive 2010/63/EU. When reporting results of research on experimental animals, the authors are also advised to follow the Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments (ARRIVE) guidelines, which ensure that studies are reported in enough detail to add to the scientific knowledge base. Animal photographs and photo-realistic drawings are discouraged. The acceptability of all figures is at the Editor’s discretion.

Describe the selection of experimental animals or subjects, including controls. Full binominal Latin names should be included for all experimental animals other than common laboratory animals. State the species, strain, and number of animals used in the experiment. When describing treatments with chemicals or drugs, the amounts, concentrations, routes, and frequency of administration should be identified. The source, and if possible the composition, of the diet of the laboratory animals should be specified.

The original names of the equipment (all instruments and measuring devices) and reagents should be specified, and the manufacturer’s name and location (city and country) should be given in parentheses. Generic names of drugs and pesticides are preferred. If trade names are used, the generic name should be given at first mention. If applicable, provide the CAS Registry Number for each chemical used. At first mention, the names of enzymes should be supplied with the commission number (EC number) in brackets according to the classification of the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (IUBMB) (http://www.chem.qmul.ac.uk/iubmb/enzyme/). Also provide a publication reference for the methodology used in commercial kits.

Units should be quoted according to the International System of Units (SI). Measurements of length, height, mass, and volume should be reported in metric units (metre, kilogram, or litre) or their decimal multiples. Temperatures should be in degrees Celsius.

Names of inorganic and organic compounds should conform to the nomenclature of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) (http://www.chem.qmul.ac.uk/iupac/).

Abbreviated terms should be written in full when first mentioned. Abbreviations should not be used in the title, key words, or at the beginnings of sentences, except when they are widely known throughout science (e.g., DNA, RNA) or are terms better known by their abbreviation (e.g., IgG, CD, HPLC).

Do not use footnotes or endnotes.

Journal style
The journal style for time units is: s, min, h, day, week, month, year. Use “L” for litre; not “l”, to avoid confusion with ‘one’.

Use italics for genus and species names, names of genes, and other Latin expressions (e.g., in vitro, in vivo, etc.). Use the following abbreviations: per os= p.o.; subcutaneous = s.c.; intraperitoneal = i.p.; and intravenous = i.v., in italics.
Numbers from one to nine should be spelled out except when used with units (e.g., two legs but 5 °C, 4 years and 8 kg). Write out all numbers or fractions that begin a sentence, or rephrase the sentence to avoid beginning with a numeral.

Observe the following order for brackets: {[()]}; do not use parentheses within parentheses.

Use a space between the numeral and the unit of measure: (5 °C, 10 %).

Decimals are preferred over fractions; however, when simple fractions are used, write them out as a hyphenated unit: “two-thirds”. In decimal fractions, use a decimal point and not a comma.

Do not use the ambiguous parts per million (ppm) or parts per billion (ppb) to denote liquid concentrations and solid mass fractions. For instance: express mass concentrations as micrograms per millilitre (μg/mL) and solid mass fractions as micrograms per gram (µg/g).

To indicate gas concentrations, use milligrams per cubic metre (mg/m3) or micrograms per cubic metre (µg/m3) rather than ppm or ppb.

Concentrations of solutions should be described in terms of molarity; ‘normality’ (N) is not acceptable. For molar concentrations, use mol/L, mmol/L, or μmol/L, not M, mM, or μM.

Write ions as follows: K+, Ca2+, Cl-, PO43-. Atomic weights of isotopes are to be indicated by superscripts preceding the element symbol: 14C.

Centrifugal force should be provided in g, not rpm, and duration and temperature of centrifugation must be included.

Statistics
Numerical data should be accompanied by information on the size of the sample and type and structure of the data (e.g., number of individual measurements, number of animals, number of examined microscopic preparations, number of treatment applications, etc.). Specify the number of repeated measurements in the experiment, as well as how many times an individual experiment was repeated. For research involving human subjects, indicate the sample selection method and response rate. The data should be analysed with the appropriate statistical tests. Define all statistical measures and models unambiguously. For statistical tests, provide information on the type of test, degrees of freedom, test options chosen (e.g., type of post-hoc test used for multiple comparisons), and the adjustments or corrections applied if a non-standard test was used. Provide the name of the statistical software, including the software version and additional packages if used. Probability values should be denoted as P. Do not specify P-values to more than three decimal places. Avoid using the terms “significant” and “highly significant” to describe P<0.05 and P<0.01, respectively, and instead state the actual P-values. State the estimated effects with confidence intervals when possible (e.g., when presenting the results of regression analyses). Avoid stating that something is not statistically significant by writing a value of P>0.05.

Results and discussion
Present your results in a logical sequence in the text, tables, and figures, giving the main or most important findings first. The text should not repeat table or figure data but emphasize or summarize the most important observations.
Tables and figures should be included at the end of the document. Each should have a legend and should be numbered (in Arabic numbers) in the order of appearance in the text. Tables and figures must be intelligible without reference to the text, and their number should be kept to a minimum. Authors must not use the keyboard tab function, spaces, and hard returns to create tables but the existing functions in the table menu of a text processor. Figures can also be saved in appropriate electronic formats (e.g., .tiff, .jpg, or .png) in separate files, as it warrants reproduction quality (the recommended resolution is 300 dpi or more). Even though the printed version of the journal is printed in black and white, the online version can accommodate for figures in colour.

The Results and Discussion section can be written as two separate sections or one combined section. Answer the questions asked in the introduction. It is not a place for showing off erudition or cramming references for their own sake. Start from the most important findings and build your way to a general conclusion with practical implications.

Describe the limitations of the study and/or analysis, and discuss the possible implications in the conclusions. Emphasise the new and important aspects of the study. Try to explain contradictory or unexpected results, or discrepancies with previous findings. Make sure that the conclusions are consistent with the results and relevant to the research question.

References
Reference citations in the text should be identified by numbers in parentheses in the order they appear in the text and conform to the examples given below. Non-adherence to the journal’s instructions for writing references may be cause for immediate rejection. Reference numbers in text should appear in parentheses with a space between each item, e.g., (1, 4, 7), while a sequence of three or more consecutive references should be written in parentheses with a dash, e.g., (3-8). Titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the List of Journals Indexed for MEDLINE (ftp://nlmpubs.nlm.nih.gov/online/journals/ljiweb.pdf). All referenced articles should include their corresponding Digital Object Identifier (DOI) or PubMed Identifier (PMID). The list should only include references cited in the text, tables or figures. Personal communications or unpublished data may be mentioned in the text, but should not be included in the list of references. Below, you will find examples of the most common types of references used in the Archives. Detailed examples are available at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html.

Conflicts of interest
A conflict of interest may exist when an author or the author’s institution has a financial or other relationship with other people or organizations that may inappropriately influence the author’s work. A conflict can be actual or potential and full disclosure to the journal is the safest course. All submissions to the Archives must include disclosure of all relationships that could be viewed as presenting a potential conflict of interest. The journal may use such information as a basis for editorial decisions and may publish such disclosures if they are believed to be important to readers in judging the manuscript. A decision may be made by the Archives not to publish on the basis of the declared conflict.

Submission of manuscripts
To simplify and expedite the procedure, authors are encouraged to submit manuscripts through our online editorial system at http://arhiv.imi.hr or e-mail manuscripts as attachments in Microsoft Word (.docx) format and other relevant picture and graph formats as needed, and accompany them with a cover letter in the message body. PDF is not an acceptable format. The e-mail address of the Editorial Office: arhiv@imi.hr.

The cover letter is what “sells” your manuscript, so you should be able to say why your article (and/or research) is important enough to be published; what new knowledge it brings. Otherwise it may be rejected even before we forward it for peer review. Be it in the form of accompanying e-mail or a separate document, the cover letter letter must include the full title of the manuscript, the statement that the manuscript has not been submitted for publication or published elsewhere, and, to facilitate the reviewing process, authors may propose two or more competent referees (including their e-mail addresses). This proposal is not binding for the Editorial Board.

On submission, manuscripts should include the following information: the title, names of all authors (first and last names in full) and their institutional affiliations, the name and mailing address of the corresponding author (including phone and e-mail address), an abstract of up to 250 words, and 5 terms not contained in the title. Croatian-speaking authors should also provide the title, abstract, and keywords in Croatian and Slovene authors in Slovene. For authors not speaking Croatian, the Editorial Office will provide the translation.

Authorship
According to the ICMJE, authorship should be limited only to those who made a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work.

Changes to authorship are only possible before an accepted manuscript is published. Requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange the name of the authors, must be sent to the Editorial Office from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript and include: (1) the reason the name should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and (2) written confirmation (e-mail, fax, letter) from all authors that they agree with the proposed addition, removal or rearrangement. In case an author is added or removed, confirmation from the author being added or removed must be given. After the accepted manuscript is published, any requests to add, delete, or rearrange author names in a published article will follow the same policies as noted above and result in a corrigendum.

Manuscript screening for originality
Since early 2009, Archives has participated in an initiative by CrossRef (http://www.crossref.org) to prevent scholarly and professional plagiarism in scientific publications. This initiative is known as Crossref Similarity Check and provides its members a service to screen received content for originality against a vast database of relevant published material. To find out more about the initiative visit https://www.crossref.org/services/similarity-check/.

All manuscripts submitted to Archives are screened using the iThenticate software. Any submission that contains more than 50 % of copied text will be automatically rejected. We screen our texts not because Archives wishes to police authors, but because we are aware of the difficulties they encounter in presenting their own research, non-native English speakers in particular. Our role here is to help by making them aware of the problem.

Copyright
By submitting the manuscript, authors do not give up copyright. Instead, authors of manuscripts accepted for publication will be asked to sign a Licence to Publish agreement whereby they grant to the publisher exclusive licence to publish their article in print and online in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY 4.0) licence.

Open access
No charge will be imposed on the authors for publication. Exceptions may apply for authors who withdraw their manuscripts after extensive editing and acceptance for publication to cover editing services. We are convinced that the results of all research must benefit humanity, in its entirety without borders or discrimination, by serving society universally.

Use of inclusive language
The authors are obliged to use inclusive language throughout their manuscript. Inclusive language acknowledges diversity, conveys respect to all people, is sensitive to differences, and promotes equal opportunities. Manuscripts should make no assumptions about the beliefs or commitments of any reader, contain nothing that might imply that one individual is superior to another on the grounds of age, gender, race, ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, disability, or health condition.

Offprints
The corresponding author will be provided with a PDF file of the article via web link and receive one free copy of the journal by regular post. A PDF of each article is available without charge online at: https://sciendo.com/journal/AIHT and https://hrcak.srce.hr/aiht.

Corrections and retractions
If deemed necessary, corrections of major errors in the published articles will be published in a later issue of the journal. Authors are requested to bring any errors to the attention of the Editor-in-Chief as soon as possible (by e-mail at arhiv@imi.hr). A correction published in the print journal will also be published as a correction online and linked to the original article. Articles may be retracted by their authors, academic or institutional sponsor, editor, or publisher because of plagiarism or unsubstantiated or irreproducible data. In case of an editor/publisher retraction, COPE Guidelines will be followed (http://publicationethics.org/). A correction or retraction will appear in a prominent section of the journal, listed in the contents page, and include the title of the original article. The text of a retraction will explain why the article is being retracted and include a bibliographic reference to it.

Correspondence between authors and the journal
The receipt of the manuscript will be acknowledged by the Editorial Office, and the corresponding author will receive a reference number for the manuscript to be used in all further correspondence. The Editor-in-Chief and/or Editorial Board decide whether to forward the submission to peer-review or reject it following an initial screening. Manuscripts that have not been written in accordance with these Instructions may be rejected immediately.

The Editorial Board will inform the corresponding author about the peer reviews and about the acceptance/rejection of the manuscript. If accepted, the manuscript will be further edited as needed. Editorial work includes linguistic and technical editing, as well as editing the References section. All authors may opt to withdraw their manuscript without any charge, but only PRIOR to the commencement of linguistic and technical editing. All withdrawals after this point shall be charged in accordance with the Editorial Board’s assessment of the time and effort invested. The Editorial Office will ask the corresponding author to authorise/review changes made, resolve remaining issues, should there be any, and sign and return the Licence to Publish form.

Finally, the corresponding author will receive proofs, as the last opportunity to review the manuscript before publication. Corrections must be kept to a minimum, and proofs returned immediately.