Scope

The scope of this journal, Radiation Protection and Environment (RPE), covers all aspects of and topics related with radiation protection such as: radiation dosimetry, radiation biology, biological dosimetry, operational radiation protection, environmental radioactivity and radon/thoron measurements, development of instrumentation for radiation protection, nuclear and radiological emergency preparedness, radiation protection standards, radiological safety aspects in the application of radiation /radioisotopes in industry, medicine and research. The submissions can be in the form of original research papers, review articles, technical notes highlighting specific operational radiation protection aspects, letters to the editor, abstracts of /comments on recent ICRP/ICRU/IAEA publications, book reviews and news and information items related to radiation protection and environmental safety.

The Editorial Process

A manuscript will be reviewed for possible publication with the understanding that it is being submitted to Radiation Protection and Environment (RPE) alone at that point in time and has not been published anywhere, simultaneously submitted, or already accepted for publication elsewhere. The journal expects that authors would authorize one of them to correspond with the Journal for all matters related to the manuscript. All manuscripts received are duly acknowledged. On submission, editors review all submitted manuscripts initially for suitability for formal review. Manuscripts with insufficient originality, serious scientific or technical flaws, or lack of a significant message are rejected before proceeding for formal peer-review. Manuscripts that are unlikely to be of interest to the Radiation Protection and Environment (RPE) readers are also liable to be rejected at this stage itself.

Manuscripts that are found suitable for publication in Radiation Protection and Environment (RPE) are sent to two or more expert reviewers. During submission, the contributor is requested to provide names of two or three qualified reviewers who have had experience in the subject of the submitted manuscript, but this is not mandatory. The reviewers should not be affiliated with the same institutes as the contributor/s. However, the selection of these reviewers is at the sole discretion of the editor. The journal follows a double-blind review process, wherein the reviewers and authors are unaware of each other’s identity. Every manuscript is also assigned to a member of the editorial team, who based on the comments from the reviewers takes a final decision on the manuscript. The comments and suggestions (acceptance/ rejection/ amendments in manuscript) received from reviewers are conveyed to the corresponding author. If required, the author is requested to provide a point by point response to reviewers’ comments and submit a revised version of the manuscript. This process is repeated till reviewers and editors are satisfied with the manuscript.

Manuscripts accepted for publication are copy edited for grammar, punctuation, print style, and format. Page proofs are sent to the corresponding author. The corresponding author is expected to return the corrected proofs within three days. It may not be possible to incorporate corrections received after that period. The whole process of submission of the manuscript to final decision and sending and receiving proofs is completed online. To achieve faster and greater dissemination of knowledge and information, the journal publishes articles online as ‘Ahead of Print’ immediately on acceptance.

The Refereeing Process

Manuscripts submitted to the Radiation Protection and Environment (RPE) will be reviewed generally by two independent referees who are experts in the field. RPE follows the system where neither the referees nor the authors are provided the names and the details of each other. On receipt of the referees’ reports, if needed, authors are requested to revise the text along the lines of the suggestions of the referees. It is important for the authors to respond to the referees' comments and to submit the revised version indicating point by point reply to the comments of the referees and differences of opinions with the referees. The Editor carries out the final review.

Revised version must be uploaded within specified time failing which it will be rejected presuming that the authors are no more interested in publishing. Under such situations, the late submission will be considered as fresh submission to undergo the whole process of refereeing again. No manuscript will go through without a peer review.

Language Of The Manuscripts

Manuscripts should be in English only.

Online Submission of Manuscripts

Manuscripts are to be submitted online from
http://www.journalonweb.com. New authors will have to register as author by providing Login Name and procedure.

Step 1 – Go to http://www.journalonweb.com/rpe

1. Click “signup as author”
2. Fill the registration form and submit

Step 2 - Open your email box Click “verify my email”

• Go again to http://www.journalonweb.com/rpe
• Login as author with your user name and password

The journal does not charge for submission and processing of the manuscripts.

Follow the instructions on the window.

Format Of The Manuscript

Title of the manuscript and a minimum of 3 Key Words related to the contents need to be provided in the relevant columns of the submission form. Type Editorial, Original Article, Review Article, Technical Note, Letter to the Editor, News, Book Review etc. The manuscripts have to be prepared in two files. Large size Images should be submitted separately as “Image(s)”.

First Page File:
'First Page' file (use text / rtf / doc / pdf file format) should contain 1- the title of the manuscript (in running letters except the first letter of the first word), authors (titles such as Dr., Mr. etc. and degrees such as PhD, MD, MSc etc. must not be given), 3- mailing address and 4- email address of the corresponding article should not be included in this file. All information which can reveal the identity of the authors such as Acknowledgements etc. should be included the files.

Article file:
'Article Text File' (use text / rtf / doc / pdf file format) should contain the title, and a text from abstract onwards (do not reveal the identity of the authors form / part of the title or anywhere in the ‘Article File’). The abstract not exceeding 200 words (with no subheads) should briefly summarize the aims, the important findings supported by data and the inferences. Proprietary terms and abbreviations should not be used in the abstract. The text following the such as Introduction, Experimental / Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions etc. and if needed Subsections may be added for the clarity use of First Person (I, We, Us, Our, My, Mine etc) may be avoided. Tables, Graphs or Figures should be included in Article file. If the size exceeds, send them separately as ‘Image(s)’ without incorporating them in the Article File (no repetition). Do not zip the files.

Ethics: When reporting studies on human beings, indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (available at https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/). For prospective studies involving human participants, authors are expected to mention about approval of (regional/ national/ institutional or independent Ethics Committee or Review Board, obtaining informed consent from adult research participants and obtaining assent for children aged over 7 years participating in the trial. The age beyond which assent would be required could vary as per regional and/ or national guidelines. Ensure confidentiality of subjects by desisting from mentioning participants’ names, initials or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material. When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether the institution’s or a national research council’s guide for, or any national law on the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

Evidence for approval by a local Ethics Committee (for both human as well as animal studies) must be supplied by the authors on demand. Animal experimental procedures should be as humane as possible and the details of anesthetics and analgesics used should be clearly stated. The ethical standards of experiments must be in accordance with the guidelines provided by the CPCSEA and World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki on Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Humans for studies involving experimental animals and human beings, respectively). The journal will not consider any paper which is ethically unacceptable. A statement on ethics committee permission and ethical practices must be included in all research articles under the ‘Materials and Methods’ section.

Study design:

Selection and Description of Participants: Describe your selection of the observational or experimental participants (patients or laboratory animals, including controls) clearly, including eligibility and exclusion criteria and a description of the source population. Technical information: Identify the methods, apparatus (give the manufacturer's name and address in parentheses), and procedures in sufficient detail to allow other workers to reproduce the results. Give references to established methods, including statistical methods (see below); provide references and brief descriptions for methods that have been published but are not well known; describe new or substantially modified methods, give reasons for using them, and evaluate their limitations. Identify precisely all drugs and chemicals used, including generic name(s), dose(s), and route(s) of administration.

Reports of randomized clinical trials should present information on all major study elements, including the protocol, assignment of interventions (methods of randomization, concealment of allocation to treatment groups), and the method of masking (blinding), based on the CONSORT Statement (http://www.consort-statement.org).

Reporting Guidelines for Specific Study Designs

The reporting guidelines for other type of studies can be found at https://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/. 

Statistics: Whenever possible quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). Authors should report losses to observation (such as, dropouts from a clinical trial). When data are summarized in the Results section, specify the statistical methods used to analyze them. Avoid non-technical uses of technical terms in statistics, such as 'random' (which implies a randomizing device), 'normal', 'significant', 'correlations', and 'sample'. Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols. Specify the computer software used. Use upper italics (P 0.048). For all P values include the exact value and not less than 0.05 or 0.001. Mean differences in continuous variables, proportions in categorical variables and relative risks including odds ratios and hazard ratios should be accompanied by their confidence intervals.

Results: Present your results in a logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations, giving the main or most important findings first. Do not repeat in the text all the data in the tables or illustrations; emphasize or summarize only important observations. Extra- or supplementary materials and technical detail can be placed in an appendix where it will be accessible but will not interrupt the flow of the text; alternatively, it can be published only in the electronic version of the journal.

When data are summarized in the Results section, give numeric results not only as derivatives (for example, percentages) but also as the absolute numbers from which the derivatives were calculated, and specify the statistical methods used to analyze them. Restrict tables and figures to those needed to explain the argument of the paper and to assess its support. Use graphs as an alternative to tables with many entries; do not duplicate data in graphs and tables. Where scientifically appropriate, analyses of the data by variables such as age and sex should be included.

Discussion: Include summary of key findings (primary outcome measures, secondary outcome measures, results as they relate to a prior hypothesis); Strengths and limitations of the study (study question, study design, data collection, analysis and interpretation); Interpretation and implications in the context of the totality of evidence (is there a systematic review to refer to, if not, could one be reasonably done here and now?, what this study adds to the available evidence, effects on patient care and health policy, possible mechanisms); Controversies raised by this study; and Future research directions (for this particular research collaboration, underlying mechanisms, clinical research).
Do not repeat in detail data or other material given in the Introduction or the Results section. In particular, contributors should avoid making statements on economic benefits and costs unless their manuscript includes economic data and analyses. Avoid claiming priority and alluding to work that has not been completed. New hypotheses may be stated if needed, however they should be clearly labeled as such. About 30 references can be included. These articles generally should not have more than six authors.

Review Articles:

It is expected that these articles would be written by individuals who have done substantial work on the subject or are considered experts in the field. A short summary of the work done by the contributor(s) in the field of review should accompany the manuscript.

The prescribed word count is up to 3000 words excluding tables, references and abstract. The manuscript may have about 90 references. The manuscript should have an unstructured Abstract (250 words) representing an accurate summary of the article. The section titles would depend upon the topic reviewed. Authors submitting review article should include a section describing the methods used for locating, selecting, extracting, and synthesizing data. These methods should also be summarized in the abstract.

The journal expects the contributors to give post-publication updates on the subject of review. The update should be brief, covering the advances in the field after the publication of the article and should be sent as a letter to editor, as and when major development occurs in the field.

Case reports:

New, interesting and rare cases can be reported. They should be unique, describing a great diagnostic or therapeutic challenge and providing a learning point for the readers. Cases with clinical significance or implications will be given priority. These communications could be of up to 1000 words (excluding Abstract and references) and should have the following headings: Abstract (unstructured), Key-words, Introduction, Case report, Discussion, Reference, Tables and Legends in that order.

The manuscript could be of up to 1000 words (excluding references and abstract) and could be supported with up to 10 references. Case Reports could be authored by up to four authors.

Letter to the Editor:

These should be short and decisive observations. They should preferably be related to articles previously published in the Journal or views expressed in the journal. They should not be preliminary observations that need a later paper for validation. The letter could have up to 500 words and 5 references. It could be generally authored by not more than four authors.

Other:

Editorial, Guest Editorial, Commentary and Opinion are solicited by the editorial board.

References :

References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are referred (not in alphabetic order) as superscripts in Arabic numerals in square tables, and legends at the appropriate places. References cited only in tables or figure legends should also be numbered in accordance with the sequence style of the examples below, which are based on the formats used by the NLM in Index Medicus. The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to For non-indexed journals, use complete name of the journal. References to the abstracts (published as abstracts only) may be avoided. Information from accepted should be cited in the text as “unpublished observations” with written permission from the source. Avoid citing “personal communication” unless not available from normal sources, in which case the name of the person and date of communication should be cited in parentheses in the text. The accuracy of references is the responsibility types of references are shown below, for other types of references such as electronic media; newspaper items, etc. please refer to ICMJE Guidelines http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html

1. Journal paper :

   Bhatt B.C., Application of thermoluminescence (TL) and optically stimulated luminescent (OSL) phosphors for dosimetry of neutrons and heavy charged particles (HCPs), Radiat. Protec. Environ., 31 (1 to 4), 35-42.

   Sharma, R. Pradeepkumar, K.S, and R. Singh, Radiological emergencies in public domain and role of First Responders, Radiat. Protec. Environ., 32 (1&2), 35-39.

   Bhat N.N., Rao B.S., Anjaria K.B. and Sreedevi B., Simulation of partial body exposure conditions for validation of biological dosimetry using Chromosomal Aberrations in human peripheral lympocyctes, Radiat. Protec. Environ., 29 (1 to 4), 2006.

   For more than 6 authors in any reference, list the first six contributors followed by et al.

2. Conference Proceedings :

   Luszik-Bhadra M., Personal Neutron Dosimetry – Principles and Limitations, IARPNC-2010, Mumbai, India.

3. Books and Other Monographs :

   Cember H., Introduction to Health Physics, McGraw-Hill Professional, 1996.

   Pushparaja (Guest Editor), Radiation Protection and Safety Aspects, IANCAS Bulletin (Special issue), IANCAS, BARC, Mumbai, 1999.

Tables
Tables should be numbered consecutively. Each table should have a caption with sufficient details to make it self-explanatory. The tables should be typed the printed page should be considered in designing the table.

Footnotes to tables should be identified with superscript lower case letters a, b, etc. and placed at the bottom of the page containing the table.

Legends:
Legends / captions for the figures/images (with sufficient details to make it self-explanatory) should be included at the end of the article file.

Images and Figures:

Submit good quality color images. Each image should be less than 4096 kb in size. Size of the image can be reduced by decreasing the actual height 1024x760 pixels or 5 inches). All image formats (jpeg, tiff, gif, bmp, png, eps, etc.) are acceptable; jpg is most suitable. Do not zip the files. They should Arabic numerals. Legends for figures should be typed double-spaced on a separate page. Mathematical expressions should be set out clearly. It may / illustration will appear in colour in the print version, however, colour distinction in figures can be kept for the electronic / online version only for additional copyright transfer form has to be submitted.

SI Units:

Authors should use the International System of units (SI) with traditional units in parenthesis. Any manuscript received which does not employ the SI system will be returned without review.

Proofs:

Proofs will be sent to the corresponding author and these should be returned as early as possible, preferably within 3 days. Major alterations in the proofs not permitted.

Copyright transfer:

The contributors’ form and copyright transfer form has to be submitted.

Copyrights

The entire contents of the Radiation Protection and Environment (RPE) are protected under Indian and international copyrights. The Journal, however, grants to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, perform and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works in any digital medium for any reasonable non-commercial purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship and ownership of the rights. The journal also grants the right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal non-commercial use under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 Unported License.

Conflicts of Interest/ Competing Interests

All authors of must disclose any and all conflicts of interest they may have with publication of the manuscript or an institution or product that is mentioned in the manuscript and/or is important to the outcome of the study presented. Authors should also disclose conflict of interest with products that compete with those mentioned in their manuscript.

Protection of Patients' Rights to Privacy

Identifying information should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, sonograms, CT scans, etc., and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian, wherever applicable) gives informed consent for publication. Authors should remove patients' names from figures unless they have obtained informed consent from the patients. The journal abides by ICMJE guidelines:

     1) Authors, not the journals nor the publisher, need to obtain the patient consent form before the publication and have the form properly archived. The consent forms are not to be uploaded with the cover letter or sent through email to editorial or publisher offices.

     2) If the manuscript contains patient images that preclude anonymity, or a description that has obvious indication to the identity of the patient, a statement about obtaining informed patient consent should be indicated in the manuscript.

Journal Office

Editor, Radiation Protection and Environment
Indian Association for Radiation Protection (IARP)
C/o. Radiation Safety Systems Division
(Atten: Dr. D. D. Rao, Editor, RPE)
Bhabha Atomic Research Centre
Mumbai, 400085, India.

Click here to download instructions

Click here to download copyright form

These ready to use templates are made to help the contributors write as per the requirements of the Journal.

Save the templates on your computer and use them with a word processor program. 
Click open the file and save as the manuscript file.

In the program keep 'Document Map' and 'Comments' on from 'View' menu to navigate through the file. 


Download Template for Original Articles/ABSTRACT Reports. (.DOT file)

Download Template for Case Reports.  (.DOT file)

Download Template for Review Articles.  (.DOT file)

Download Template for Letter to the Editor.  (.DOT file)