Instructions for Authors

Table of Contents

  1. Checklist of Submission
  2. Manuscript Preparation
    • General Issues
    • Additional Points
    • Front Matter
    • Main Content
    • Back Matter
    • Figures, Schemes, and Tables
  3. Manuscript Submission
    • Types of Manuscript
    • Submission Process
    • Accepted File Formats
    • Free Format Submission
    • Cover Letter
    • Author Identification
    • Author Affiliation
    • Independent Researcher/Practitioner
  4. Original Images Requirements
  5. Supplementary Materials, Data Deposit, and Software Source Code
    • Data Availability Statement
    • 2 Data Citation
  6. Research and Publication Ethics
    • Research Ethics
    • Borders and Territories
    • Publication Ethics Statement
    • Translations
    • Citation Policy
    • Reviewer Suggestions
    • Extensive English Editing
    • Preprints and Conference Papers
    • Authorship
    • Updating Published Papers
    • Copyrights and Licensing
    • Editorial Independence
    • Conflicts of Interest
  7. Editorial Procedures and Peer Review
    • Pre-check
    • Peer Review
    • Editorial Decision and Revision
    • Author Appeals
    • Production and Publication
  8. Appendix 1—GCEJ-Front Matter & Back Matter Template
  9. Appendix 2—GCEJ-Original Research Article Template
  10. Appendix 3—GCEJ-Review or Perspective Template

1. Checklist of Submission[1]

Before submitting your manuscript(s) to GCEJ, please carefully read the following checklist:

  1. Please refer to the About the Journalsection to understand our focus and determine if your manuscript is a good fit;
  2. We recommendauthors review the Manuscript Template Files (GCEJ-Front Matter & Back Matter Template, GCEJ-Original Research Article Template, and GCEJ-Review or Perspective Template) to improve their submission. You can also submit a free format[2] (without specific layout), which should contain the required sections: Types of Manuscript, Title, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials & Methods, Data, Figures and Tables with Captions, Discussions, Results, Conclusions, etc. For other parts that may reveal personal information, we kindly suggest authors prepare them in “Front Matter and Back Matter” (on page 5 of the pdf document). “Front Matter” contains Author Information (authors’ names, affiliations, corresponding author’s name and email, etc.). “Back Matter” contains Supplementary Materials, Author Contributions, Acknowledgments, Funding, Data Availability Statement, Conflicts of Interest, Ethics Approval and Consent to Participate, Consent for Publication, Further Disclosure, etc.;
  3. Please pay special attention to the issues about authorship, copyright, data, theformat of figures, tables, formulas, and references, ethics of research and publication, and ensure that they have been appropriately considered and are compliant with general publication standards;
  4. Please ensure that all authors have participated in the creation of the manuscript, and approved the content and its publication.We suggest all authors read this Instructions for Authors;
  5. Manuscripts submitted to the journal must be original, have not been previously published, and will be examined for potential plagiarism;
  6. Please select the most suitable type for your manuscript and pay attention to the word count(see Types of Manuscript, on page 9 of the pdf document), which includes the body of the manuscript, references, notes, and captions (other parts in the Front Matter and Back Matter should be excluded).
  7. Please notethe Editorial Office in the manuscript and cover letter, whether the submission belongs to a Special Issue or not. We suggest authors include the Title of Special Issue and the name of inviters, e.g., “For Special Issue Submission: This manuscript is submitted to Special Issue Title and/or invited by Guest Editor’s Name; For Regular Submission: This manuscript is a regular submission.”
  8. It’s the author’s responsibility to guaranteethe quality of references cited in manuscripts. As the official publication language of GCEJ is English, we suggest authors cite English references in their manuscripts. Please note that all references should be easily accessed and the references written in non-English languages SHOULD NOT EXCEED 20% of the total number of references in one manuscript.

2. Manuscript Preparation

2.1 General Issues

  • Original Research Articles Should Include:
    1. Front matter: Type of Manuscript, Title, Author list (including note’s symbols: *, †, ‡, §, ‖, ¶, **, ††, ‡‡, etc.), Affiliations, Abstract, Keywords.
    2. Main content: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussions, Conclusions.
    3. Back matter: Supplementary Materials, Author Contributions, Acknowledgments, Funding, Data Availability Statement, Conflicts of Interest, Ethics Approval and Consent to Participate, Consent for Publication, Further Disclosure,and References.
  • Reviews should comprise:
    1. Front matter: Type of Manuscript, Title, Author list (including note’s symbols: *, †, ‡, §, ‖, ¶, **, ††, ‡‡, etc.), Affiliations, Abstract, Keywords.
    2. Main content: Introduction, Main Text (with literature review and discussion), Summary/Conclusions.
    3. Back matter: Supplementary Materials, Author Contributions, Acknowledgments, Funding, Data Availability Statement, Conflicts of Interest, Ethics Approval and Consent to Participate, Consent for Publication, Further Disclosure, and References.
  • Reports[3] should include a succinct Introduction about the general clinical engineering or medical condition or relevant observations that will be discussed; the Case Presentation should include all of the relevant de-identified demographic and descriptive information about the devices or the patient(s), and a description of the observations, diagnosis, treatment, and outcome; a Discussion providing context and any necessary explanation of specific developments or treatment decisions; a Conclusion briefly outlining the take-home message and the lessons learned.

2.2 Additional Points:

  1. For studies involving patients/human beings, the sample size should be sufficient to support the conclusions of the study;
  2. For studies reporting a method or technology in the clinical engineering field, we suggest the manuscript to be interesting, novel, and innovative, and should provide real progress, as well as added value in the field (e.g., a novel model that is of certaininterest to many other readers);
  3. Purely computational/informatics (analysis) papers should include sufficient experimental validation; papers on deep learning should include training, test, and validation sets of data; models built to determine outcomes should also be accomplished by functional studies, including applicable in vitro and/or in vivo experiments;
  4. Retrospective studies should have a prospective element and be of sufficient size to be considered. In general, samples from retrospective studies are better from multiple centers to avoid biased conclusions;
  5. Health informatics manuscripts need experimental or multiple database data verification. If the authors claim a signature’s prognostic or predictive value, it must be tested against existing prognostic/predictive procedures. The authors also need to compare new health informatics methods with existing ones.
  6. The detailed layout arrangements can be found in the Manuscript Template Files(GCEJ-Front Matter & Back Matter Template; GCEJ-Original Research Article Template; and GCEJ-Review or Perspective Template).
  7. Other types of manuscripts should follow the standard requirements respectively.
  • Graphical Abstract

To better highlight the manuscript, we encourage authors to prepare a Graphical Abstract during submission or before the acceptance of the manuscript. A Graphical Abstract (GA) is an image that appears alongside the text abstract in the Table of Contents. In addition to summarizing the content, it should represent the topic of the article in an attention-grabbing way. Moreover, it should not be exactly the same as the Figure in the paper or just a simple superposition of several subfigures. Note that the GA must be original and unpublished artwork. Any postage stamps, currency from any country, and copyrighted or trademarked items should not be included.

The GA should be a high-quality illustration or diagram in any of the following formats: PNG, JPEG, or TIFF. Written text in a GA should be clear and easy to read, using one of the following fonts: Times New Roman, Arial, Courier, Helvetica, Ubuntu, or Calibri. The font size should be flexible according to the function, as long as the meaning of words in the GA is well presented.

The minimum required size for the GA is 600 × 1200 pixels (height × width). The size should be of high quality to reproduce well.

  • Video Abstract

Authors are also encouraged to provide a Video Abstract, which is a motion picture equivalent of a written abstract and aims to increase the visibility of authors’ research. Video Abstracts should be engaging and interesting and offer viewers more information than could be written in a textual abstract. The video file must be in MP4 format and should not exceed 200 MB. The length of Video Abstracts shouldn’t exceed 5 minutes in common situations.

  • Acronyms/Abbreviations/Initialisms

Acronyms/Abbreviations/Initialisms should be defined the first time they appear in each of three sections: the abstract; the main text; the first figure or table. When defined for the first time, the acronym/abbreviation/initialism should be added in parentheses after the written-out form.

  • SI Units (International System of Units)

SI Units should be used. Imperial, US customary and other units should be converted to SI units whenever possible.

  • Equations

When using Microsoft Word, please choose either the Microsoft Equation Editor or the MathType add-on. Equations should be editable by the editorial office and not appear in a picture format.

  • Research Data and Supplementary Materials

Note that publication of your manuscript implies that you must make all materials, data, and protocols associated with the publication available to readers. Disclose at the submission stage any restrictions on the availability of materials or information. Read the information about Supplementary Materials (on page 14 of the pdf document) and Data Deposit (on page 14 of the pdf document) for additional guidelines.

  • Preregistration and Preprint

Where authors have preregistered studies or preprints, links to them must be provided in the manuscript. Authors should also guarantee in the cover letter that all the materials, data, and analysis in the preregistration or preprint are not published.

2.3 Front Matter

Please note that the following parts must appear in all manuscripts[4]:

  • Type of Manuscript: Please choose the most suitable type of your manuscript. You can refer to Types of Manuscript(on page 9 of the pdf document) for further information.
  • Title:The title of your manuscript should be concise, specific and relevant. It should identify if the study reports (human or animal) trial data, or is a systematic review, meta-analysis, or replication study. When gene or protein names are included, the abbreviated name rather than the full name should be used. Please do not include abbreviated or short forms of the title, such as a running title or head, which will be removed by our Editorial Office.
  • Author List and Affiliations: The authors’ full first and last names must be provided. The initials of any middle names can be added. The PubMed/MEDLINE standard format is used for affiliations, which is as follows: complete address information including city, zip code, state/province, and country. At least one author should be designated as the corresponding author. The email addresses of all authors will be displayed on published papers. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to ensure that consent for the display of email addresses is obtained from all authors. If an author (other than the corresponding author) does not wish to have their email addresses displayed in this way, the corresponding author must indicate as such during proofreading. After acceptance, changes to the authors’ names or affiliations are not permitted. Regarding authorship, one author, or at most two in limited cases, should be designated as the corresponding author. A maximum of two joint principal authors can be indicated by the addition of a superscript symbol (†). The symbol must be included below the affiliations, and the following statement must be added: “These authors contributed equally to this work”. The equal roles of authors should also be adequately disclosed in the author contributions statement. Please read the Authorship (on page 20 of the pdf document) for further information.
  • Abstract: The abstract should be up to 500 words and structured to contain the following headings: Background/Objectives, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. Background/Objectives: Place the question addressed in a broad context and highlight the purpose of the study; Methods: Describe briefly the main methods or treatments applied. Include any relevant preregistration numbers and species and strains of any animals if used; Results: Summarize the article’s main findings; Conclusions: Indicate the main conclusions or interpretations. The abstract should be an objective representation of the article: it must not contain results that are not presented and substantiated in the main text and should not exaggerate the main conclusions. It should not contain any non-standard abbreviations, acknowledgments of support, references, or footnotes.
  • Keywords: 3–10 pertinent keywords need to be added after the abstract. The first letter of every keyword should be capitalized, and all keywords should be separated with commas (Keyword 1, Keyword 2, Keyword 3, Keyword 4, Keyword 5, Keyword 6). We recommend that the keywords are specific to the article, yet reasonably common within the subject discipline.

2.4 Main Content[5]

  • Introduction: The introduction should briefly place the study in a broad context and highlight why it is important. It should define the purpose of the work and its significance, including specific hypotheses being tested. The current state of the research field should be reviewed carefully and key publications cited. Please highlight controversial and diverging hypotheses when necessary. Finally, briefly mention the main aim of the work and highlight the main conclusions. Keep the introduction comprehensible to scientists working outside the topic of the paper.
  • Materials and Methods: They should be described with sufficient detail to allow others to replicate and build on published results. New methods and protocols should be described in detail while well-established methods can be briefly described and appropriately cited. Give the name and version of any software used and make clear whether the computer code used is available. Include any pre-registration codes.
  • Results: Provide a concise and precise description of the experimental results, their interpretation as well as the experimental conclusions that can be drawn.
  • Discussion: Authors should discuss the results and how they can be interpreted in perspective of previous studies and of the working hypotheses. The findings and their implications should be discussed in the broadest context possible and thelimitations of the work highlighted. Future research directions may also be mentioned. This section may be combined with Results.
  • Conclusions: This section is mandatory, with one or two paragraphs to conclude the main text.

2.5 Back Matter

  • Supplementary Materials:Describe any supplementary materials published online alongside the manuscript (figures, tables, video, spreadsheets, etc.). Please indicate the name and title of each element as follows Figure S1: title, Table S1: title, etc.
  • Author Contributions:This section should be included in Original Research Articles and Reviews. Each author is expected to have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the creation of new software or hardware used in the work; or have drafted the work or substantively revised it; AND has approved the submitted version (and version substantially edited by journal staff that involves the author’s contribution to the study); AND agrees to be personally accountable for the author’s own contributions and for ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even ones in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and documented in the literature.

For research articles with several authors, a short paragraph specifying their individual contributions must be provided. The following statements should be used “Conceptualization, X.X. and Y.Y.; Methodology, X.X.; Software, X.X.; Hardware, X.X., Validation, X.X., Y.Y., and Z.Z.; Formal Analysis, X.X.; Investigation, X.X.; Resources, X.X.; Data Curation, X.X.; Writing–Original Draft Preparation, X.X.; Writing–Review & Editing, X.X.; Visualization, X.X.; Supervision, X.X.; Project Administration, X.X.; Funding Acquisition, Y.Y.”. For more details, please refer to CRediT. Please note that Authorship must include and be limited to those who have contributed substantially to the work. Please read the section concerning the Authorship (on page 20 of the pdf document) carefully.

  • Acknowledgments:In this section, you can acknowledge any support given that is not covered by the author contribution or funding sections. This may include administrative and technical support, or donations (e.g., materials or instruments used during experiments).
  • Funding:All sources of funding for the study should be disclosed. Clearly indicate grants that you have received in support of your research work and if you received funds to cover publication costs. Note that some funders will not refund Article Processing Charges (APC) if the funder and grant number are not clearly and correctly identified in the paper. Funding information can be entered separately into the submission system by the authors during the submission of their manuscripts. Such funding information, if available, will be deposited to the Open Funder Registry (OFR) if the manuscript is finally published.

Please add: “This research received no external funding” or “This research was funded by [name of funder] grant number [xxx]” and “The APC was funded by [XXX]” in this section. Please check carefully that the details given are accurate and use the standard spelling of funding agency names at the Open Funder Registry (OFR), as any errors may affect your future funding.

  • Data Availability Statement: In this section, please provide details regarding where data supporting reported results can be found, including links to publicly archived datasets analyzed or generated during the study. Please refer to the suggested Data Availability Statements (on page 14 of the pdf document). You might choose to exclude this statement if the study did not report any new
  • Conflicts of Interest: Authors must identify and declare any personal circumstances or interests that may be perceived as influencing the representation or interpretation of reported results. If there are no conflicts of interest, please state “The authors declare no conflicts of interest”. Any role of the funding sponsors in the choice of research project; design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results must be declared in this section. GCEJ does not publish studies funded partially or fully by the tobacco industry. Any projects funded by industry must pay special attention to the full declaration of funder involvement. If there is no role, please state “The sponsors had no role in the design, execution, interpretation, or writing of the study”. For more details, please see Conflicts of Interest (on page 23 of the pdf document).
  • Ethics Approval and Consent to Participate:If the paper describes a study that involves humans, animals, or primary cell lines from human patients, provide a statement stipulating the name of the research ethics committee or Institutional Review Board (IRB) that grants the approval to carry out said study, and include the research ethics approval number for reference. Be specific in detailing the aspects the committee or IRB permits or approves. If more than one ethics committee and/or IRB were involved, state all of their names and carefully detail the aspects each of them approves of for carrying out the study. If human subjects were involved, state what form of consent (e.g., written and/or verbal) and whether or not permission was obtained from each of the subjects to PARTICIPATE in the study. If consent-taking was not performed when human subjects were involved, provide a justification herein.
  • Consent for Publication: If human subjects were involved, state what form of consent (e.g., written and/or verbal) and whether or not permission was obtained from each of the subjects to PUBLISHtheir data and/or images. Efforts must be made by the authors to at least mask or conceal any identifying information of the patients that appear in writing or within photographs. If consent-taking was not performed when human subjects were involved, provide a justification herein.
  • Further Disclosure:This section is reserved to inform the readers and editors of a few aspects:
    1. Part of or the entire set of findings have been presented in a conference, academic meeting, congress, etc.; and/or
    2. The paper has been uploaded to or deposited in a preprint server (provide the name of the preprint server and associated accession number or DOI of the preprint.
  • References[6]: References must be cited in numerical order in the main content, with superscripts (including table captions and figure legends). All references in the Back Matter must be numbered. We recommend preparing the references with a bibliography software package, such as EndNote, ReferenceManager, or Zotero to avoid typing mistakes and duplicated references. We encourage citations to data, computer code, and other citable research material. If the resource is available online, you may use the “reference style 9” in “Websites” (on page 9 of the pdf document).

References should be numbered consecutively in the text by superscript numerals. Corresponding references should be listed at the end of the text. Unpublished sources such as personal communications should be cited within the text and not included in the Reference List.

GCEJ uses a slightly modified version of the Vancouver style for reference. When there are more than 4 authors, shorten to 3 and add “et al.” Journal titles should be abbreviated as in PubMed. Please see the cases below:

  • Journal Article: Abate,M., Salini, V., Rimondi, E., et al. Post-traumatic myositis ossificans: sonographic findings. J Clin Ultrasound. 2011;39(3):135–1 doi: 10.1002/jcu.20792.
  • Book: Cardenosa, Breast Imaging Companion, 3rd edition. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins: Philadelphia, USA;2007; pp. 24–29. 
  • Chapter in a Book: Galloway,A.C., Colvin, S.B., Grossi, E.A., et al. Acquired heart disease. In Principles of Surgery, 6th ed.; Schwartz, S.I., Shires, G.T., Spencer, F.C., eds. McGraw-Hill: New York, USA; 1994; pp. 845–8
  • Web Page: Breast Cancer Society of Canada. Breast cancer statistics. Toronto, ON: Author; 2012. Available online: http://www.bcsc.ca/p/46/l/105/t.

For more resources on GCEJ Reference List, you may also consider the following guidelines:

  • Conference Proceedings:
    1. Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C.D.; Author 3, E.F. Title of Presentation. In Title of the Collected Work(if available), Proceedings of the Name of the Conference, Location of Conference, Country, Date of Conference; Editor 1, Editor 2, Eds. (if available); Publisher: City, Country, Year (if available); Abstract Number (optional), Pagination (optional).
  • Journal Articles:
    1. Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C.D. Title of the article. Abbreviated Journal NamYear, Volume, page range. doi.
  • Books and Book Chapters:
    1. Author 1, A.; Author 2, B. Book Title, 3rd ed.; Publisher: Publisher Location, Country, Year; pp. 154–196.
    2. Author 1, A.; Author 2, B. Title of the chapter. In Book Title, 2nd ed.; Editor 1, A., Editor 2, B., Eds.; Publisher: Publisher Location, Country, Year; Volume 3, pp. 154–196.
  • Unpublished materials intended for publication:
    1. Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C. Title of Unpublished Work (optional). Correspondence Affiliation, City, State, Country. year,status (manuscript in preparation; to be submitted).
    2. Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C. Title of Unpublished Work.Abbreviated Journal Nameyear, phrase indicating stage of publication (submitted; accepted; in press).
  • Unpublished materials not intended for publication:
    1. Author 1, A.B. (Affiliation, City, State, Country); Author 2, C. (Affiliation, City, State, Country). Phase describing the material, year. (phase: Personal communication; Private communication; Unpublished work; etc.)
  • Thesis:
    1. Author 1, A.B. Title of Thesis. Level of Thesis, Degree-Granting University, Location of University, Date of Completion.
  • Websites:
    1. Title of Site. Available online: URL (accessed on Day Month Year).

Unlike published works, websites may change over time or disappear, so we encourage you to create an archive of the cited website using a service such as WebCite. Archived websites should be cited using the link provided as follows:

    1. Title of Site. URL (archived on Day Month Year).

2.6 Figures, Schemes, and Tables

  • All Figures, Schemes, and Tables should be inserted into the main text close to their first citationand must be numbered in order (Figure 1, Scheme 1, Figure 2, Scheme 2, Table 1, etc.).
  • All Figures, Schemes, and Tables must have a short explanatory caption.
  • All table columns should have an explanatory heading. For large tables, please use a horizontal page, separatedby section breaks. Authors should also use the Table option of Microsoft Word to create tables, in order to guarantee the tables are editable. Please note that the table must not be presented as a screenshot or other image. 
  • Authors are encouraged to prepare figures and schemes in color (RGB at 8-bit per channel). There is no additional cost for publishing full-color graphics.
  • The words in all Figures and Tables should be written in English. If other languages need to be presented, please add an

3. Manuscript Submission Overview

3.1 Types of Manuscript

GCEJ publishes the highest quality Original Research Articles, Reviews, Case Reports, Engineering Reports, Book Reviews, Conference Papers, Conference Reports, Communications, Proceeding Papers, Perspectives, Editorials, etc. related to the field of clinical engineering. Manuscripts submitted to GCEJ should neither be published previously nor be under consideration for publication in any other journals.

  • Article:Applied or academic original research manuscripts. GCEJ focuses on all the aspects and topics related to clinical engineering, which is a more applied science. Meanwhile, academic research can also be considered, as we welcome all original research manuscripts, provided that the work reports scientifically sound experiments and provides a substantial amount of new information and research results in the field of clinical engineering. Please note that the quality and impact of the study will be considered during peer review.

Full experimental details must be provided so that the results can be reproduced. GCEJ requires that authors publish all experimental controls and make full datasets available where possible or applicable. For more information, please see Supplementary Materials (on page 14 of the pdf document).

Articles should have more than 10 references. GCEJ has no restrictions on the maximum length of research manuscripts, provided that the text is concise and comprehensive.

  • Review:These provide concise and precise updates on the latest progress made in a given area of research. Reviews should be comprehensive and submitted by authors who are in the field. Basically speaking, GCEJ doesn’t have mandatory regulations on the numbers of figures or tables, but we encourage authors to include them. Meanwhile, GCEJ doesn’t divide sub-types of review, including narrative review and systemic review.

Reviews should objectively report the current state of knowledge on a topic based on previously published research, identify gaps and controversies, provide a new perspective or reconceptualization, and identify directions for future research. For this reason, manuscripts limited to presenting summaries that merely restate information from published reports will not be considered. 

The narrative reviews should include an Abstract, Introduction, Relevant sections (body of the narrative review), a Conclusion and Future Directions section, and a References section. Meanwhile, if authors are composing a systematic review, then the Method section should be included.

Reviews should have more than 20 references. GCEJ has no restrictions on the maximum length of research manuscripts, provided that the text is concise and comprehensive.

  • Proceeding Paper: As an important typeof manuscript, which contains peer reviewed research output from conferences, GCEJ encourages speakers and presenters to submit their Proceeding Papers to the journal. GCEJ also aims to become a platform that can present excellent research results and insights into the field of clinical engineering, and offer an opportunity for those who have never considered publishing their good proceeding papers or extending conference abstracts into a full article.

The Abstract or the analysis could be submitted to a conference in advance and should provide details in support of a presentation made at the conference. The structure is similar to that of an Article, and should include sections such as Introduction, Methods, Results, Conclusions, etc.

  • Communication is a short article that presents groundbreaking preliminary results or significant findings that are part of a larger study over multiple years. It can also include cutting-edge methods or experiments, and the development of new technology or materials. The structure is similar to that of an Article. GCEJ welcomes clinical engineers and all other authors to submit their good communications to the journal, especially those who have limited experience in publishing their excellent research results.
  • Engineering Report and Case Report: EngineeringReports are short, observational studies that report preliminary results or a short complete study or protocol. Engineering Reports usually contain two figures and/or a table; however, the Materials and Methods sections should be detailed to ensure the reproducibility of the presented work. The structure is similar to that of an Article. The structure of a Case Report differs from Articles and includes Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Detailed Case Description, Discussion, and Conclusions. Special care should be taken when submitting Case Reports to ensure that appropriate permission for publication (Blank Consent Form) has been obtained from patients, if used, in the paper.
  • Perspective is usually an invited type of article that showcases current developments in a specific field. Emphasis is placed on future directions of the field and on the personal assessment of the author. Comments should be situated in the context of existing literature from the previous 3 years. The structure is similar to a Review. GCEJ can consider regular submission of Perspective, which is not invited, but the overall quality should be good. It should be used for generating engineering-related debate, thoughts provoking issue, or to announce important viewpoints.
  • Book review is a short literary criticism analyzing the content, style, and merit of a recently published book. Full book details should be provided at the beginning of the article. The structure should only include an Introduction and be a discussion of critical points with no sections or conclusions.
  • Editorial:These are non-peer-reviewed texts used to announce the launch of a new journal, a new section, a new Editorial Board Member, a Special Issue, or an invited editorial. The main text should provide a brief introduction of the purpose and aim of the Editorial—to encourage readers to engage with related discipline topics, present the journal, introduce the Special Issue, report on a pressing topic, etc. Editorials should not include unpublished or original data, although must provide a Conflicts of Interest Editorials prepared for the launch of new journals may also include a short biography of the Editor-in-Chief.

Manuscript Type

Word Limit

Abstract

Keywords

References

Research Article

No less than 2000

No more than 500 words

3–10 Keywords

More than 10 references

Review

No less than 2000

No more than 500 words

3–10 Keywords

More than 20 references

Proceeding Paper

No less than 1000

No more than 500 words

3–10 Keywords

More than 10 references

Case Report

No more than 1500

No more than 250 words

3–10 Keywords

More than 6 references

Editorial

No more than 1500

N/A

N/A

Approximately up to 5 references

Perspective

No more than 1500

Unstructured abstract. No more than 150 words.

3–10 Keywords

More than 6 references

3.2 Submission Process

Manuscripts should be submitted online at https://globalce.org/index.php/GlobalCE/submission/wizard.

The submitting author, who is generally the corresponding author, is responsible for the manuscript during the submission and peer review process. The submitting author must ensure that all eligible co-authors have been included in the author list and that they have all read and approved the submitted version of the manuscript. To submit manuscripts, authors need to register and log in to the Submission Website. All co-authors can see the manuscript details in the submission system, if they register and log in using the e-mail address provided during manuscript submission.

3.3 Accepted File Formats

Authors are encouraged to use the Manuscript Template Files[7] to prepare their manuscripts. Using the template files will substantially shorten the time to complete copy-editing and publication of accepted manuscripts. The total amount of data for all files shouldn’t be too large.

  • Microsoft Word File: Manuscripts prepared in Microsoft Word must be converted into a single file before submission. When preparing manuscripts in Microsoft Word, we encourage you to use the Manuscript Template Files. Please insert your graphics (schemes, figures, ), tables, formulae, etc. in the main content after the paragraph of their first citations.
  • Supplementary Materials File:The supplementary materials can be in any format, but it is recommended that you use common, non-proprietary formats where possible. Please refer to Supplementary Materials (on page 14 of the pdf document) for further details.

3.4 Free Format Submission

GCEJ also accepts free format submissions:

  • We do not have strict formatting requirements, but regularmanuscripts should contain the required sections: Type of Manuscript, Title, Author Information (including corresponding author information), Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials & Methods, Results, Conclusions, Figures and Tables with Captions, Author Contributions, Funding Information, Conflicts of Interest and other Ethics Statements, References. 
  • Your references may be in any style, provided that you use consistent formatting throughout. It is essential to include author name(s), journal or book title, article or chapter title (where required), year of publication, volume and issue (where appropriate), and pagination. DOI numbers (Digital Object Identifier) are not mandatory but highly encouraged. The bibliography software packages EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley, and Reference Manager are recommended.
  • Ifyour manuscript is accepted for review and reaches the revision stage, you will be requested to format the manuscript according to the journal guidelines.

3.5 Cover Letter

A cover letter must be included during the submission of each manuscript. GCEJ encourages authors to write concisely and explain why the content of the paper is significant, placing the findings in the context of existing work, and should also explain why the manuscript fits the scope of the journal.

If any prior/previous manuscripts are resubmitted to GCEJ, it is strongly recommended that the previous Manuscript ID be provided in the cover letter, which will accelerate your current submission process. The names of proposed and excluded reviewers should also be provided in the cover letter.

All cover letters are required to include the following statements:

  • We confirm that neither the manuscript nor any parts of its content are currently under consideration for publication with or published in another journal;
  • We confirm that this manuscript has not been published;
  • All authors have approved the manuscript and agree with its submissionto GCEJ and the publication if peer review has been conducted.

3.6 Author Identification[8]

Authors are encouraged to add a biography (up to 200 words) to the Back Matter during submission. This should be a single paragraph and should contain the following points:

  1. Authors’ full names followed by current positions;
  2. Education background including institution information and year of graduation (type and level of degree received);
  3. Work experience;
  4. Current and previous research interests;
  5. Memberships of professional societies and awards received;
  6. ORCID and other homepages.

If a manuscript is accepted for publication, we can add an icon linking to your online ORCID profile in the final version.

3.7 Author Affiliation

All authors should list their current affiliations and the affiliation where most research was carried out for the preparation of their manuscript. We recommend adding as primary the affiliation where most of the research was conducted or supported, but please check with your institution for any contractual agreement requirements. The detailed layout can be found in GCEJ-Front Matter & Back Matter Template.

Author names and affiliations must be correct. Incorrect information can mean a lack of proper attribution or incorrect citation and can even lead to problems with promotion or funding. Please carefully proofread the final version requested by editors before sending it to publication. After the publication of an article, updates or corrections to the author’s address or affiliation may not be permitted. 

3.8 Independent Researcher/Practitioner

If one or some authors are not affiliated with a university, institution, or company, they should list themselves as an “Independent Researcher/Practitioner”.

4. Original Images Requirements

To ensure the integrity and scientific validity of digital images, the Editorial Office reserves the right to request original, uncropped, and unadjusted images upon submission. Original images must be provided as Supplementary Materials files at a sufficiently high resolution (a minimum of 1000 pixels in width/height, or a resolution of 300 dpi or higher) or a link where original unprocessed images were deposited at the time of initial submission. Preferred formats for microscopy images (light and electron microscopy e.g., TEM, SEM, Cryo-EM, etc.) are TIFF, PNG, GIF, and EPS. Failing to provide original images before the final decision might result in the rejection of the paper, and the issue may be raised with the authors' institutions.

Digital images within the manuscript submitted should be minimally processed. A certain degree of image processing is acceptable for publication, but the final image must correctly represent the original data and conform to community standards. Please note that electron microscopy images submitted with a manuscript should be presented in full, without cropping the image, and with all the relevant details clearly visible.

Where cropped images are shown in figures, a full scan of the entire original image(s) must be submitted as part of the Supplementary Materials. 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 used must be declared in the Methods section of the manuscript. Image grouping and splicing must be clearly stated in the manuscript and the figure caption.

The use of software filters to improve image quality is not recommended. Slight adjustments to contrast settings, brightness, intensity, color, etc., are generally acceptable but must be applied equally to the entire image. Excessive image manipulations that are specific to one area of an image and are not performed on other areas are considered part of a non-ethical practice of image processing, as this emphasizes experimental data relative to the control.

Images gathered at different times or from different locations should not be combined into a single image unless it is stated that the resultant image is a product of time-averaged data or a time-lapse sequence. If juxtaposing images are essential, the borders should be clearly demarcated in the figure and described in the legend.

We encourage the inclusion of the following with the final revised version of the manuscript for publication:

In the Methods section, specify the type of equipment commercially available or prototype (microscopes/objective lenses, cameras, detectors, filter model, prototype hardware, or batch number), the acquisition software used, and the magnification or the scale bar in the figure caption. Although we realize that there is some variation between instruments, equipment settings for critical measurements should also be listed.

We encourage the deposition of unprocessed image files in a publicly available database (a link to the downloadable table from data availability instructions should be shared here) (including relevant metadata for acquisition information, including time and space resolution data (x y z t and pixel dimensions); image bit depth; experimental conditions such as temperature and imaging medium; and fluorochromes (excitation and emission wavelengths or ranges, filters, and dichroic beam splitters) if any.

Processing or simulating software should be named in the Methods section and any manipulations should be indicated in the relevant figure legends (such as type of deconvolution, three-dimensional reconstructions, surface and volume rendering, “gamma changes”, filtering, thresholding, and projection).

5. Supplementary Materials, Data Deposit, and Software Source Code

GCEJ is committed to supporting open scientific exchange and enabling our authors to achieve best practices in sharing and archiving research data. We encourage all authors of articles published in GCEJ to share their research data including, but not limited to protocols, analytic methods, raw data, processed data, code, hardware, software, algorithms, and study materials.

Additional data and information can be uploaded as Supplementary Materials to support the manuscripts. As part of the peer-review process, the Supplementary Materials will also be available to the reviewers. GCEJ doesn’t have specific requirements on the format, as long as it can be easily accessed by reviewers and editors, and can present the information correctly. Some recommended file formats, e.g. data sheet (Microsoft Word, Excel, CSV, cdx, fasta, PDF, or zip files), presentation (PowerPoint, PDF, or zip files), image (cdx, eps, jpeg, PDF, png, or tiff), table (Microsoft Word, Excel, CSV or PDF), audio (mp3, wav or wma), or video (avi, divx, flv, mov, mp4, mpeg, mpg or wmv). Please note that Supplementary Materials must be cited in the Main Content in numerical order (e.g., Supplementary Figure 1, Supplementary Figure 2, Supplementary Table 1, Supplementary Table 2, etc.). The style of supplementary figures or tables should comply with the same requirements on figures or tables in the Main Content. Videos and Audio should be prepared in English, and limited to a size of 500 MB.

We recommend that data and code should be deposited in a trusted repository that will allow for maximum reuse. If this is not possible, authors are encouraged to share the specific reason in the Data Availability Statement and make this material available upon request to interested researchers. In addition, research materials necessary to enable the reproduction of an experiment should be indicated in the Materials and Methods section. Data-sharing policies concern the minimal dataset that supports the central findings of a published study. Generated data should be publicly available and cited in accordance with the journal guidelines.

Where ethical, legal, or privacy issues are presented, data should not be shared. The authors should clarify the availability status of the data upon submission and make any limitations or exceptions clear in the Data Availability Statement. Authors should ensure tha