Focus and Scope

Imaging and Radiation Research (IRR) is an international journal that aims to communicate to its readers the state-of-the-art technologies and methods of imaging and radiation. The journal welcomes original research works (laboratory-based works, modeling, field tests, case reports), reviews, and important applications of imaging technology and radiation-related analysis, and IRR is open to subjects in medical science, surgical practices, biomedical science, biology, materials science, engineering, as well as other related branches of physics and chemistry.

It covers all aspects of imaging technology and analysis methods, radiation biology & radiation physics, including but not limited to:

• The use of SPECT and PET
• Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
• Ultrasonic imaging
• Gamma camera and its application
• Electron microscopy
• Computed tomography
• Electron imaging and processing
• X-ray diffraction
• Spectroscopic analysis
• Radiation detection and measurement
• Radiotherapy
• Nuclear physics
• Ionizing radiation

Section Policies

Original Research Article

Original research article should contain completely new principal research testifying major contributions to the field. The study should represent new findings or discoveries in a subject area that were not published before. The report may contain significant findings, methodology importance and considerable evidence to the conclusions.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Review Article

Review article is summarized descriptions of recent findings and significant developments at particular subject area of research considering the Journal’s scope. They should include critical assessments of novel technologies, evaluation of subject advancement, elucidate unresolved questions, comparative analysis with a substantial coverage of previous works and highlight future prospects. Although there are no restrictions with the length and content of a review, authors should consider drawing reader’s attention and interest with quality information.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Case Report

Case report summarizes the execution of a collaborative research program that is directly related to the advancement of imaging and radiation research. 

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Editorial

Editorial reflects the opinion of an Editorial Board member or staff of Imaging and Radiation Research highlighting recent changes, concerned issues or announcements in relevance to the journal. This may include editorial management and policies.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Letter

Letter contains new ideas, supporting data or data criticizing the article. Letter may be subjected to peer-review (determined on a case-by-case basis by the journal's editorial team). Authors should specify the intended recipient of the letters i.e. editor-in-chief or stating the specific author(s) name.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Brief Commentary

Brief commentary contains unsolicited commentaries or analysis from the reader(s) targeting specific published articles in the journal.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Perspective

Perspective contains the author's personal opinions on a subject/topic. Unlike Reviews, Perspective articles may cover a more specific, narrow part of the field. However, these are still required to uphold the spirit of academia to be objective as well as aim to initiate or further discuss novel experimental procedures in the field.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Method

Methods presents new or improved version of experimental methods, tests or procedures pertaining to the field of imaging and radiation.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Erratum

Erratum is a notification of a significant error made by the editors that affects the scholarly record or the scientific integrity of a published article. An erratum is always accompanied by Publisher Correction of the error. The erratum will not be made directly in the already-published articles. Authors who notice an error in their published articles should contact editorial-irr@enpress-publisher.com.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Corrigendum

Corrigendum is a notice that will be issued when it is necessary to correct an error or omission which can impact the interpretation of the article, but where the scholarly integrity of the article remains intact. For example, mislabeling of a table, missing key information on funding or competing interests of the authors.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Peer Review Process

All manuscripts are subjected to a stringent double blind peer review process. This is to uphold the high quality of papers published in this journal and ensure that the reporting of research work is truthful and precise.

1. All submitted manuscript are firstly handled by our managing editor, who will check the manuscript for plagiarism, in which rejection of the manuscript can take place at this stage by the managing editor if plagiarism occurs in the manuscript.
2. After the plagiarism check is completed and results are deemed satisfactory, the managing editor will pass the manuscript to the Academic Editor who will undertake the peer review process.
3. A minimum of 2 independent-externalreviewers will be selectedaccording to their expertise and suitability to the subject matter of the manuscript. Reviewers will have to give their comments and recommendations (Accept, Revisions Required, Resubmit for Review or Reject) to the Editor-in-Chief or Associate Editor for them to make a final decision on the paper, and their comments will help the authors improve their papers.
4. External reviewers' reports along with a review of the Academic Editor are recommended to the Editor-in-Chief, and the Editor-in-Chief will make a final decision on the paper and inform the author on their decision, adding comments to the Authors to make improvements in their research or paper.
   • If the decision is to Accept Submission (no amendments required by author), the manuscript will be sent to the Editing stage.
   • If Editor-in-Chief suggests Revisions Required (minor revisions), authors are given a maximum of 2 weeks to revise and resubmit the article.
   • If Editor-in-Chief suggests Resubmit for Review (major revisions), authors are given a maximum of 4 weeks to revise and resubmit the article for the second round of review.
   • If the decision is to Reject Submission, the author will be notified and the rejected manuscript will be archived and the peer review process ends.
5. An accepted paper will be sent for Copy Editing, Layout Editing and Proofreading before publication. Correspondence between the authors and editors will be required here in order to improve the language and/or look of the article. After the Editing stage is completed, authors are required to check the PDF file of the final version before the article is published. EnPress Publisher registers DOI for the manuscript after publication, in which the article is immediately accessible to the public.
6. Authors may appeal for a rejected submission. Appeal requests must be made in writing to editorial-irr@enpress-publisher.com with detailed reasons for the appeal and point by point responses to the reviewers’ remarks. Decisions on appeals are final and no further consideration will be made.

Open Access Policy

Imaging and Radiation Research (IRR) is a fully open access journal. It makes research freely available to the public and supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

• Higher Visibility, Availability and Citations – free and unlimited accessibility of the publication over the internet without any restrictions increases citation of the article
• Ease of Search – publications are easily searchable in search engines and indexing databases
• Rapid Publication – accepted papers are immediately published online

Editorial Policies

Authors should read the “Author Guidelines” before making a submission, and make sure that the manuscripts were written in accordance to the style and specifications of the journal’s policy.

All manuscripts submitted to Imaging and Radiation Research are subject to rigorous peer review. Prior to peer review process, the manuscripts will be screened for acceptable English language, novelty and relevance to the Focus and Scope of the journal.

Any manuscripts submitted to Imaging and Radiation Research will be treated as confidential materials. The manuscripts will not be disclosed to anyone except individuals such as editorial staff, reviewers and editors who participate in the initial screening, review, processing and preparation of the manuscript for publication (if accepted).

A manuscript would not be considered if it has been published or is currently under consideration for publication in any other journals. In the cover letter, authors must state that neither the manuscript nor any significant part of it is under consideration for publication elsewhere or has appeared elsewhere in a manner that could be construed as a prior or duplication of the same work. The authors are required to notify the editorial team if the findings and data in their submissions have been presented in conferences.

Authorship

Authorship of a scholarly paper should be limited to individuals who have contributed substantially to its intellectual content. Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or general supervision of the research group is not sufficient for authorship. All authors should hold the responsibility of fairly evaluating their respective roles and their co-authors’ roles in the project. This is to ensure that authorship is attributed according to a fixed standard in all publications for which they will be listed as authors.

In order to be listed as an author for a paper, one should have contributed sufficiently in the project. A co-author is expected to have contributed to some component of the work which led to the paper, or be involved in interpretation of its results. All authors should have a say in the final approval of the version to be published, in addition to reviewing the final manuscript prior to submission.

Individuals who do not meet the above requirements, but have provided a valuable contribution to the work, may be acknowledged for their contribution as appropriate to the publication.

Changes to Authorship

The authors should carefully check the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript. The Editorial Office considers the authorship list is definitive by the time the original submission is received.

Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript is accepted for publication. The corresponding author should provide the reasons for the change in authorship list and the proof of written confirmation from all authors (including the existing authors, author(s) to be added and/or removed) agreeing with such change, to the Editorial Office.

The requests for authorship changes need to be approved by the Editorial Office before any changes can be made.

Publication Frequency

The publication frequency of Imaging and Radiation Research is semi-annual.

Conflict of Interest

Conflicts of interest may exist when professional judgements concerning a primary interest has the possibility of being influenced by a secondary interest (e.g.: financial gains). It is to be noted that even perceptions of conflicts of interest are as important as the actual conflicts of interest.

Any agreements with study sponsors (for profit or non-profit), which interfere with the authors’ access to the study data, ability to analyse or interpret the data and publish manuscripts independently according to their own decision, should be avoided by authors at all costs.

A declaration of interests for all authors should be received before an article can be reviewed and accepted for publication.

For authors:

While submitting, authors must list all competing interests relevant to this work, including but not limited to:

• Funding sources
• The role of sponsors in the work design, data collection, and results of the analysis.
• Whether the author is serving on the editorial board of this journal submitting to.

For editors and reviewers:

Editors and reviewers must declare any possible conflict of interests in connection with the manuscript, and if necessary, they must avoid the peer review process. When Editorial Board Members publish articles in the served journal, the editorial office will actively emphasize it so that the authors know that they recuse the potential peer review process.

Common reasons for editors and reviewers to be replaced include but are not limited to:

• The editor or reviewer works at the same organization as one of the authors.
• The editor or reviewer is one of the authors of this work.
• The editor or reviewer is on the avoidance list from the author(s).
• The editor or reviewer has a financial relationship or personal relationship with an author.

Misconduct Policy

Duplicate Submission

Manuscripts submitted to IRR should:

1) not have been published before;

2) not concurrently be submitted elsewhere.

If part of a manuscript has been published or will be published elsewhere, the authors must let the editors know in a cover letter. If duplicate submission is detected during peer review, the manuscript may be rejected. If it is detected after publication, the manuscript may be retracted.

Plagiarism

Authors are advised to observe high standards in the aspect of publication ethics. Any plagiarism (fabrication or falsification of data) are strictly unacceptable practices in IRR, including duplicate publication of the author’s work without proper citation.

Every manuscript submitted for publication is checked for plagiarism via CrossCheck (powered by iThenticate) after submission and before being sent to the editor for editorial review. Any detection of overlapping and similar texts in the manuscripts submitted will be investigated promptly and may lead to the manuscript being rejected.

Ethical Oversight

EnPress Publisher strictly abides by the Ethical Oversight Policy of COPE. All the editorial process is run with the monitor of Editor-in-Chief, Guest Editors of Special Issue, and Associate Editors. Any manuscript that may involve unethical possibility including but not limited to fraud, plagiarism, and multi-contribution, will not be push forward to the next stage of editorial process. The strict editorial process ensures the fairest and most objective review decision.

EnPress Publisher will strictly suspect the ethical problem followed by COPE, consent for medical case reports and research issues specific to social science disciplines. For any subject involved populations or animals, the authors must compliance with international research guidelines in the field of their discipline, you will be asked to provide the granting committee or approval identifiers including but not limited to reference numbers. EiC and reviewers are experts in the disciplilne, and they will make an objective and fair decision on the moral norms and academic value of the submissions. If necessary, the Editorial Office will contact the granting committee for the authenticity. Please explain the reasons for missing identifiers if without any ethics approval information.

Submissions involved populations need to submit the Informed Content Statement during the submitting section, e.g. “Informed Consent has been obtained from all the subjects in this research”. For vulnerable populations, it is necessary to obtain the oral or written Informed Content Statement from their parent, guardian, or kin relatives. The humankind subjects have the right of privacy, and the manuscript should hide the identifying information about personal identify. EnPress Publisher will supervise and ensure that the submitted information is not leaked to the third parties, and all the information is only for normal publishing needs other than business marketing practice.

Preprint Policy

Authors are permitted to post their non-peer-reviewed original research manuscripts to community preprint servers such as bioRxiv, medRxiv, and PeerJ Preprint before or in parallel with the formal submission to Imaging and Rediation Research. During submission, authors are obliged to declare in the cover letter if the corresponding preprint version of their submission has been deposited on a preprint server, and provide any associated accession numbers or DOIs.

Nonetheless, authors are not allowed to post any versions of articles that have been revised as a result of peer review, accepted for publication or published in the journal on a preprint server. The manuscript whose corresponding preprint version has been indexed (e.g. in MEDLINE or PubMed) will not be considered.

This policy applies to original research papers only. This journal  reserves the right not to consider for publication or publish material that has been formally published in digital media that shall not be construed as preprint servers.

We encourage formal citation of preprints in the reference list, where appropriate.

Publishing Ethics

EnPress Publisher requests all members involved in the journal publishing process to adhere to the Core Practices on publication ethics as stipulated by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

The publisher strictly adheres to the guidelines and best practices, which include Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals from the International Committee of Medical Journals Editors (ICMJE) and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing developed by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) and World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).

The publisher journal editors take all possible misconducts seriously. The Editors, authors or readers can forward their concerns to the journal if they find out that the description in a submitted article may constitute an academic fraud, research misconduct or publication malpractice. The concerns or complaints on the possible allegations submitted to the journal will be dealt with promptly and appropriately according to the procedure set out in the COPE flowchart on complaints. The complainant may direct all inquiries and correspondence to the publisher at editorial-irr@enpress-publisher.com.

Imaging and Rediation Research (IRR) adopts a zero-tolerance policy concerning any academic misconducts and ethical violations in research and publication regardless of the severity of these issues. The violations include plagiarism, falsification of research, data fabrication, submitting manuscripts of others as one’s own, submission of same manuscript to different publication venues at the same time and breached intellectual property rights. In cases of suspected misconduct and ethical violation, a panel will be formed to investigate the allegation. If the allegation is supported by evidence, the submitted manuscript in question will be declined for consideration in the journal and all authors will be informed in this regard. A retraction initiated by authors or by the journal is required to take place if the paper has already been published, and the retraction will be made public. Authors of the work in question will receive the panel’s Decision via email and all appeals regarding the decision will have to be made to the publisher at editorial-irr@enpress-publisher.com within 30 days of the decision date.

Erratum & Withdrawal Policy

Erratum

All publisher-introduced changes are highlighted to the author at the proof stage and any errors are ideally identified by the author and corrected by the publisher before final publication. Any errors in published articles discovered by readers, authors, editors, etc., please contact the journal editor.

It should be noted that errors made by editors are called erratum, and errors made by authors are called corrigendum. However, erratum and corrigendum have no influence on the research logic and the correctness of the results.

EnPress Publisher will only instigate an erratum or corrigendum to a published article after receiving approval and instructions from the editor.

Withdrawal

If authors change their mind and decide not to pursue publication of papers with the journal, they must write a letter addressed to our editors at editorial-irr@enpress.com, explaining the reason(s) of submission withdrawal. Consents of all co-authors must be obtained for author-initiated submission withdrawal. The decision to withdraw a submission would eventually rest with the editors, including the Editor-in-Chief.

It is relatively more difficult to withdraw a paper that has been processed for peer-review or is under peer-review compared to withdrawing a new submission because the editors and reviewers have expended much time and energy in editorial process and manuscript evaluation, respectively. To withdraw a paper that has been processed for peer-review, authors should clearly argue their case on scientific reasons; only valid and sound reasons will be accepted. He/she would be required to pay a penalty fee (USD 200). Authors are advised to keep in mind that an article should only be withdrawn if the authors detect significant error or flaws, as it is not an acceptable practice to withdraw an article after it has been sent for peer review. Once the approval of submission withdrawal is granted, the submission will be removed from the journal’s online submission system, and a confirmation email of submission withdrawal will be sent to the authors. The withdrawal process is considered to be complete once the author receives a confirmation of withdrawal from the Journal Editorial Office.

Submission withdrawal is also possible for accepted papers that have not been formally published, including the newly accepted papers and Articles in Press.

Withdrawal of accepted paper and Article in Press is usually editor-initiated. The reasons of withdrawing accepted papers and Articles in Press are similar to those of retracting a published article, i.e., academic misconducts and ethical violations in research and publication regardless of the severity of these issues. The misconducts and violations include plagiarism, falsification of research, data fabrication, submitting manuscripts of others as one’s own, submission of same manuscript to different publication venues at the same time and breached intellectual property rights. Once the suspected misconduct and ethical violation is brought to our attention, the editors will organize an investigation and authors are required to cooperate in the investigation; any accepted papers or Articles in Press subject to investigation at this stage will not be arranged for article production or finalization. A Panel will be organized to investigate the allegations. If the allegations are proven true with supporting evidence, the accepted paper or Article in Press will be marked for withdrawal, and a notification email regarding the Panel’s Decision will be sent to all authors of the work. Any appeals regarding the Panel’s Decision will have to be made to the Publisher within 14 days of the decision date. In the absence of an appeal from the authors within the 14 days, the submission will be removed from the journal’s online submission system, and a confirmation email of submission withdrawal will be sent to the authors.

Authors should note that any amounts of paid Article Processing Charge will not be refunded if their accepted papers or Articles in Press are withdrawn on the grounds of academic misconducts and ethical violations in research and publication.

Disclaimer

• For authors: Once submitting a manuscript, it means that you have awared of all publishing policies & ethics,  and will strictly abide by them.
• For reviewers: Once accepting the request to become a reviewer, it means that you must be aware of the peer review policies, and proactively disclose of all potential conflicts of interest, and guarantee that an article will be judged fairly and objectively. 
• For publisher: This journal  is not liable to the statements, perspectives, and opinions contained in the published articles. The appearance of advertisements in the journal shall not be construed as a warranty, endorsement, or approval of the products or services advertised and/or the safety thereof. This journal and the Publisher disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any ideas or products referred to in the articles or advertisements.

Copyright and License

The authors shall retain the copyright of their work but allow the Publisher to publish, copy, distribute, and convey the work.

All articles published by the Imaging and Radiation Research are licensed under the Creative Commons International Licenses. Without any explicit request from the corresponding author during submission stage, a paper will be published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) by default. The authors who would like to publish their work under a more accommodating license, i.e. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), they should express explicit request during submission stage. Please include statement below in the Comments for the Editor column on the submission page:

The contributors or authors for this submission entitled “[MANUSCRIPT TITLE]”, i.e. [NAMES of ALL AUTHORS], have given their consents to alter the Creative Commons license to *CC BY 4.0* under which this submission will be published in Imaging and Radiation Research.

Advertising Policy

All advertisements are subject to approval to the Publisher. Advertisements must comply with the relevant regulations in the country where the advertisements appear. For more inquiries, please send email to editorial-irr@enpress-publisher.com.

Article Processing Charges (APCs)

Enpress publishes all its journals in Gold Open Access format. The scientific community and the general public have free of all restrictions on accessing (e.g., subscription) and free of many restrictions on using its contents as soon as it is published online. Enpress does not require readers to purchase any form of subscription to view online versions of the journals. In order to defray our editorial and production costs, authors of the accepted articles are required to pay the article processing charges (APCs). The charges will come from authors' institutes or research funding bodies.

Waiver Policy

IRR is committed to promoting the academic development in the world without any financial barrier to knowledge sharing and learning. There has developed a waiver policy especially for authors from low-income countries. Authors who are interested in applying for a waiver could contact editorial-irr@enpress-publisher.com. IRR reserves the right to approve or reject a waiver application.

Indexing & Archiving

Imaging and Radiation Research is indexed, cataloged and/or included by several world-class abstracting/indexing databases:

CNKI Scholar

Crossref

Google Scholar

Portico

Scilit

Worldcat 

• All the articles published online will be archived by Portico for long-term digital preservation.
• Authors are encouraged to self-archive the final version of their published articles into institutional repositories (such as those listed in the Directory of Open Access Repositories).
• Authors are also encouraged to use the final PDF version published on the website of EnPress Publisher, LLC.

Human Research

If human subjects were used in the experiments, authors should identify the committee or organization (e.g. author’s Institutional Ethics Review Board) approving the experiments during the submitting process, which should also detail ethics approval information such as the name of the granting committee or organization and the approval identifiers, i.e. reference numbers.

The manuscript should confirm that the experiments were carried out in adherence to the ethical principles set out in the WMA Declaration of Helsinki and that informed consent was obtained from all human subjects.

For investigations undertaken on human subjects, the manner in which the informed consent was obtained from the study participants (i.e., oral or written) should be stated clearly as well.

The authors should inform the study participants of the purpose(s) of publication, the possible risks and benefits as a result of the experiment, and the patient's right to withhold or withdraw consent. Consent should be obtained from the parent(s) or legal guardian(s) if the study participant is a minor.

Authors are obliged to declare and clearly specify any restrictions on the availability or the use of human data in the manuscript.

Authors are encouraged to follow the CARE guidelines while reporting a clinical case that involves the imaging and radiation treatment on human subject. If the article reporting guidelines suggested by the Imaging and Radiation Research were not pertinent to your work, please look for and refer to the appropriate reporting standards as found on EQUATOR Network, which have been adopted by the field of the works or which apply to their study design.

Patient Anonymity and Privacy

Human subjects have a right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. Identifying information or patient identifiers, including patient names, initials, date of birth, contacts, medical record numbers, hospital numbers, and geographical location, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, or pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. 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 photograph.

Authors are obliged to explain to the patient if revealing the patient’s identity cannot be fully avoided, e.g. an image of an identifiable body part like the face has to be published in the report. The relevant identifying information to be published, e.g. the image, must be shown to the patient, and consent for publication taken for the use of that information in the publication. If the patient dies, then consent should be obtained from next of kin or legal representative. Authors may consider using our sample Consent Form for Publication in Imaging and Radiation Research. This Journal shall consider author version of consent form for publication if all the essential items as shown in our sample consent form were included. Submissions that include identifying patient information without appropriate patient consent will not be considered for publication.

Refer to ICMJE Privacy and Confidentiality guidelines for more information about patient anonymity and privacy.

Animal Research

The procedures of research involving animals including insect and husbandry must be carried out in accordance with national and institutional regulations. For further guidance of animal experiment, authors could refer to the Code of Practice for the Housing and Care of Animals Used in Scientific Procedures, Three Rs, The Scientific Basis for Regulation of Animal Care and Use, EU regulations on animal research. If ethical approval has not be required by national laws, authors should provide an exemption from the ethics committee, if one is available.

EnPress endorses the ARRIVE guidelines for reporting experiments using live animals. Authors and reviewers could take The ARRIVE Essential 10: Compliance Questionnaire as a checklist. Editors reserve the right to reject submissions based on the ethics’ guidelines or ethical or animal welfare concerns.

Language

The language used in manuscripts submitted to Imaging and Radiation Research is English. Authors whose first language is not English may want to have their manuscripts professionally edited before the final submission to ensure that the academic content of the paper is fully understood by its prospective readers.

Section Collection Policy

EnPress Publisher has driven a Section Collection program, which aims to collect multidisciplinary topics, and concentrate authors from diverse research fields for a special theme. It is a good way to collect new ideas and applications. Section editorial team comes from worldwide scientists covering various interests. They all oversight the implementation of the program, and the editorial process must comply with editorial policies of the journal.

A Section Collection is usually launched by an expert with great trust among peers, he/she is usually invited by the Editorial Office. Section Editors are representatives to focus on a theme from multidisciplinary topics. They gather to initiate new ideas and collaborations with different research background. The responsibilities of Section Editors include:

• Preparing the summary of the theme, such as: title, introduction, keywords, submission deadline, etc.
• Recommending a list of the potential contributors.
• Oversighting the editorial progress, including but not limited to the initial screening, peer-reviewed process, and final decision making.
• Contributing to the theme section.

Workflow of Section Collection

The peer review process of submissions to a Special Issue strictly follows the journal's peer review process.

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