The Journal of

Authorship Criteria and Contribution
 The journal adheres to the definition of authorship set up by The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The ICMJE recommends that authorship should be based on the following 4 criteria: i) Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; ii) Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; iii) Final approval of the version to be published; and iv) Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
The authors also must certify that the manuscript represents valid data, has not been published in any form, and is not being submitted in the form of scientific presentations for publication elsewhere.

All authors must sign the  Toloo-e-Behdasht  Authorship Form (typed or printed name is not acceptable) and include the form on initial submission. 

Conflict of interest
All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. If you have no competing interests please state 'I/We have no conflict of interests. Authors must acknowledge and declare any sources of funding and potential conflicting interest, such as receiving funds or fees by, or holding stocks and shares in an organization that may profit or lose through publication of their paper.
At the time of submission, the corresponding author must include a disclosure statement in the body of the manuscript. All authors are required to disclose all potential conflicts of interest, including specific financial interests, relationships, and affiliations (other than those affiliations listed in the title page of the manuscript) relevant to the subject of their manuscript. This information should be provided under the heading titled ‘Conflicts of interest’, which should appear after the ‘Author contributions’ section and before the ‘References’ section. Authors without conflicts of interest, including specific financial interests, relationships, and affiliations relevant to the subject of their manuscript, should include a statement of "I/We have no conflict of interests" in the Disclosure section of the manuscript. Failure to include this information in the manuscript may delay the evaluation and review process.
Randomized control trials

Reporting of randomized controlled trials should follow the guidelines of The CONSORT Statement.
 

Authors, Guideline

The Toloo-e-Behdasht Journal is a peer-review bimonthly journal and publishes original papers related to all areas of basic and biomedical sciences with a special approach to disease prevention and community health promotion. The journal welcomes all researchers working in the different fields of health. Manuscripts are accepted on condition that they have not been previously published or submitted for publication and are not going to be sent to other journals. Language and style:
Contributions should be in Persian with English abstracts. Nonnative Persian speakers may be advised to seek professional help with the language. All materials should be typed in double line spacing numbered pages. Abbreviations should be standardized and used just in necessary cases, after complete explanations in the first usage. Form of manuscript:
Title page of the article should include
1) the title of the article;
2) authors' names;
3) name of the institution where the work was done;
4) running title (short form of the main title presented at the top of pages); and
5) complete mailing address, telephone/ Fax numbers, and email address of the corresponding author.
This page is unnumbered
The abstract should be structured for original articles providing introduction for the study; materials and methods, results and conclusion altogether should not exceed 250 words. Number this as page 1. The abbreviations should not preferably be mentioned in the abstract. Keywords are used for indexing purpose: each article should provide three to five keywords according to the medical subject Headings (MESH).

Introduction: Should provide a background and specifies the research objective of the study or observation. 

 Methods: Must indicate clearly the steps taken to acquire the information. It should be detailed (including: controls, inclusion and exclusion criteria etc.). Repeating the details of standard techniques should be avoided. The software used for statistical analysis and description of the actual method should be mentioned.

Results: The results should be presented in chronological sequence in the text, table, and illustration. Organize the results according to their importance. The findings should be derived from your own study. Tables and illustrations, if any, have to be cited in the text using Arabic numerals. Tables should be simple and the data should not be duplicated in the text of the article. Figures should be presented only if they improve the article.
Discussion and conclusion: They should emphasize the new and important aspects of the study and the conclusion derived from them. Possible explanations for these findings should be mentioned. The limitations of the work and implications of the findings should be noted for future research.

Acknowledgments 
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be covered in the acknowledgement section. Financial and material support should also be acknowledged. Personal acknowledgement should precede those of institutions or agencies. Moreover,   any technical help, general, financial, and material support or contributions should be mentioned and acknowledged (do not justify the authorship)
content. They also must include a statement affirming that all authors have read and approved the manuscript. The initials of all authors' first names must be included.  All authors' contribution statements must include:

• Designed research (project concept, development of overall research plan, and study oversights)
• Conducted research (conductance of the experiments and data collection).
• Provided essential reagents, or provided essential materials (applies to authors who contributed by providing animals, constructs, databases, etc., necessary for the research).
• Analyzed data or performed statistical analysis.
• Wrote the paper (only authors who made a major contribution).
• Had primary responsibility for final content.
• Other (use only the mentioned categories are not applicable; describe briefly).
• All authors have read and approved the final manuscript. For single-authored research papers and reviews, please state: The sole author is responsible for all parts of the manuscript.

For example:ss Mazloomy, A  Rahmati, and P Hashemi designed research; ss Mazloomy and B. Mohammadi conducted research; P. Khosravi analyzed data; and A. Rahmati, P. Hashemi and B. Mohammadi wrote the paper. ss Mazloomy had primary responsibility for final content. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.  
 
Ethical guidelines
Ethical considerations must be addressed in the "Material and Methods" section.
- 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 http://www.wma.net/e/policy/17-c_e.html). Evidence for approval by a local Ethics Committee (for both human as well as animal studies) must be supplied by the authors on demand. The journal will not consider any paper ethically unacceptable. A statement on ethics committee permission and ethical practices must be included in all research articles under the Materials and Methods section.
Referencing: References should be numbered consecutively as they appear in the text. Bibliographies cited in tables and figures should be numbered according to the site where the corresponding table or figure was first referenced. Periodical should be abbreviated according to the Index Medicus. Include the name of all authors, if there are four or less authors. Print names of the first three authors followed by "et al."
 Journal article: Smithline HA, Mader TJ, Ali FM, Cocchi MN. The determining pretest probability of DVT: clinical intuition vs. validated scoring systems. N Engl J Med. 2003 Apr 4;21(2):161-2.
Complete Book: Guyton AC: textbook of medical physiology. 8th ed. Philadelphia, PA, Saunders, 1996. Chapter in Book: Blaxter PS, Farnsworth TP. Social health and class inequalities. In: Carter C, Peel JR, editors. Equalities and inequalities in health. 2nd ed. London: Academic Press; 1976. p. 165-78. Letter to the Editor: Toloo-e-Behdasht welcomes letters to the Editor pointing out alternative interpretations of published results, or commenting briefly on topics of relevance to the journal's readers
This is hereby to confirm that I, ……………………………………, as the corresponding author of this article, while observing the regulations of article writing model and filling in “Form No. 1” (Checklist for Article Submission), submit my article indexed to this letter to be considered for publication in EDC journal and accept the following commitments:
  -The submitted article has no history of acceptance or publication in any other journal and has not been sent simultaneously to any other journal. It won’t be sent to any other journal to be considered for publication till I receive the final result of referee processing of this journal.
  -I announce my readiness to do any corrections if needed till the publication phase and grant the copyright of this article to that journal.
  -This article has been prepared by the cooperation of all of the following authors:
  Name Date Signature
  1. ……………………………………………….
  2. ……………………………………………….
  3. ……………………………………………….
  4. ……………………………………………….
  5. ……………………………………………….

Review process
The submitted manuscripts will be assessed from editorial points of view, at first. The manuscript should meet the basic editorial requirements; it will enter the peer-review process. The manuscript will then be sent at least to one in-office and two out-of-office referees for review. The corresponding author will then be informed about the referee’s remark to accept, reject or require modification.
Revision: Papers may be returned to authors for modification of the scientific content and/or for language corrections. Revised paper and a letter listing point-for-point response to the reviewers must be submitted to the Editor and must be accompanied by a copy of the original version. Suggestion by the Editor about resubmission does not imply that a revised version will be accepted necessarily. If a paper that is returned to the authors for modification is not resubmitted within two months it will be regarded as withdrawn and any revised version received subsequently will be treated as a new paper and the date of receipt will be altered accordingly. Authors who resubmit a paper that has previously been rejected must provide the original manuscript and a letter explaining in details how the paper has been modified. Accepted manuscripts become the property of the journal of Toloo-e-Behdasht.
Proofs: A computer printout will be sent to the corresponding author to be checked for only typographical errors and other essential small changes before publication in order to avoid any mistakes. Major alternations to the text cannot be accepted at this stage. Proofs must be returned to the Editor within 3 days of receipt.

Archiving policy
The articles published by Toloo-e-Behdasht are archived on our website and also in multiple international databases around the world that  increase visibility and long-term digital preservation.
These archives include:
Google Scholar
DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals)
Index Copernicus
ISC (Islamic World Science Citation Center)
magiran
All journal issues are archived in the library of School of Public Health in Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences.


Complaints Procedures
This procedure applies to complaints about the policies, procedures, or actions of the Toloo-e-Behdasht Editorial Board. We welcome complaints as they provide an opportunity and a spur for improvement. We  aim to respond quickly, courteously, and constructively. The following procedures are followed:
Definition
Our definition of a complaint is as follows:

• The complainant expresses his or her expression of unhappiness as a complaint.
•  We infer that the complainant is not simply disagreeing with a decision we have made or something we have published (which happens every day) but thinks that there has been a failure of process; for example, a long delay, a rude response, or a severe misjudgment.
•  The complaint must be about something that is within the responsibility of The Toloo-e-Behdasht editorial board  - content or process.

How to Make a Complaint

• The best way to reach us is by email. Complaints should ideally be made to the person the complainant is already in contact with over the problematic matter. If that is not appropriate, please email Toloo-e-Behdasht ssu.ac.ir
•  Whenever possible, complaints will be processed by the relevant member of the Editorial Board. If that person cannot deal with the complaint, it will be referred to the appropriate section editor or the executive editor.
•  Complaints that are not under the control of the Toloo-e-Behdasht Editorial Board will be sent to chairman of the Toloo-e-Behdasht .
•  All complaints will be acknowledged within seven working days.
• If possible, a full response will be made within four weeks. If this is not possible, an interim response will be given within four weeks. Further interim responses will be provided until the complaint is resolved.
•  If the complainant is not happy with the resolution, s/he can ask for the complaint to be forwarded to the Ethics Committee at School of Public Health at  Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences.
• If the complainant remains unhappy, complaints should be forwarded to the  Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences Ethics Committee, whose decision is final.
•  If a complainant remains unhappy after what the chancellor’s final decision, the complainant may complain tot he Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). This committee publishes publishes a code of practice for editors of scientific, technical, and medical journals http://www.publicationethics.org. It will consider complaints against editors but only once a journal's own complaints procedures have been exhausted.

Retraction Policy
 
For retraction of a published article Toloo-e-Behdasht journal uses the COPE flowchart (http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines)
 
Copyright Policy
 All articles published in Toloo-e-Behdasht are open access which means the articles are freely available online for anyone to download and use the providing address to the individual authors. In this journal as an open access journal, authors sign a publishing agreement where they will have copyright but grant the broad publishing and distribution rights to the publisher, including the right to publish the article on Toloo-e-Behdasht 's website and choose the end-user license under which readers can use and share the articles. Then Toloo-e-Behdasht provides the article's online access for using and sharing by readers.
Open Access (OA)
The journal of Toloo-e-Behdasht  is a non-for-profit journal. As an open access journal, this journal makes all publications immediately available to all readers worldwide, There are no publication fees and submission fees. All articles will be immediately and permanently free for all users to read and download upon publication. Permitted (re) use is defined by the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY).
Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY): this permits the users to copy , to create extracts abstracts, abstracts and new works from the articles, to alter and revise the article, and to make commercial use of the articles.