Copyright © 2005 Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society, Inc.

UNDERSEA & HYPERBARIC MEDICINE

Instructions for Authors

  Electronic transmittal of new manuscripts is preferred.  Address email to:  www.ann@uhms.org. Disk or CD containing new manscripts may be addressed to Managing Editor, Undersea & Hyperbaric Medicine, P.O.1020 Dunkirk , MD 20754 , USA .  Please be sure to include correct attributions, mailing address, phone numbers and email address of corresponding authors. Only manuscripts in the English language will be considered.

Membership in the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS) is not a prerequisite for publication in the journal. Manuscripts are accepted for publication on the condition that they are contributed solely to this journal. Authors submitting a manuscript do so with the understanding that if it accepted for publication, copyright for the article is assigned exclusively to the UHMS. On request, permission will be given to quote from papers or to use tables and illustrations in other publications, providing credit is given to the original source.

Acceptance of a manuscript is based on originality and quality of the work as well as the clarity of presentation. All manuscripts  will be evaluated for significance, soundness, and conformance to journal format by two or more members of the Editorial Board or guest referees. Authors may recommend qualified persons to act as referees for their papers; the Editor-in-Chief welcomes these  suggestions but is not obliged to follow such recommendations.

After manuscripts have been accepted, authors are asked to submit the final version of the paper electronically.

Authors of accepted papers, six pages or more,  will be assessed a flat publication fee of $250 US dollars. The Editor-in-Chief may consider waiving the fee on a case by case basis for undo hardship. Editorial consideration of a paper is in no way related to the payment of  page charges. Proofs are sent to authors to be checked carefully. Necessary changes must be clearly indicated on the galley, with corrections typed in different color text. Proofs must be sent back within the time specified by the managing editor. Authors receive a reprint order information after their papers are in pages.

The UHMS endorses the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki on the treatment of human subjects and the guiding principles in the care and use of animals approved by the Council of the American Physiological Society.

Types of Articles

Research Reports: results of experimental, theoretical, and clinical investigations on topics important to the understanding of undersea, submarine, and hyperbaric medicine. Short reports that make a substantial scientific contribution as well as extensive studies will be considered.

Clinical Communications and Clinical Case Reports: observations of an exceptionally revealing nature.

Review Articles: may cover scientific and practical subjects and may express the personal opinion of the author.

Current Issues: well-reasoned essays on topics of interest to the journal's readers; may draw on new or published experimental data and may be controversial in nature.

Technical Communications: descriptions of new methods or equipment; must include data to support contentions.

Proceedings of Symposiums or Workshops: usually a group of short communications that have the flavor of reviews.

Letters to the Editor: discussion of scientific papers that have appeared in the journal or scientific issues of interest to the journal's  readers; should include an informative title and be as short as possible. References may be used if necessary, but tables and figures are discouraged.

Preparation of Manuscripts

The overriding principles are that the composition is correct and unambiguous, clear, and concise. The active voice is usually preferable to the passive voice. Parallel construction of groups of like items or concepts aids in comprehension. Figures should  be uncomplicated and legible. Abbreviations and acronyms should not be overused, should be clearly defined at their first appearance  in the abstract and in the text, and should be avoided in the title. Specific items of information should appear only once in the manuscript; there should not be verbatim repetition in the text of material that appears in a table or figure, duplication of data in graphs and tables, or repetition in Discussion of information that appears in Results. Authors are encouraged to use papers that have appeared in recent issues of Undersea & Hyperbaric Medicine as models for their manuscript preparation. All accepted manuscripts are subject to final editing in the Editorial Office to improve readability and to conserve space.

Manuscripts must be formatted using standard letter size:  8½ ´ 11-inch , with 1-inch  margins. References and legends for illustrations must be adjacent to the graphics which can be embedded in the text or their placement clearly marked at the spot in the text where they are to appear. A cover sheet which gives the title of the paper, the names and affiliations of the authors; a short title (running head); and the name, address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address  of the corresponding author must accompany the manuscript. (Please note: Reviewers for Undersea & Hyperbaric Medicine are blinded to the identity of the author(s); therefore authors’ names should appear only on  the cover sheet.) An accompanying letter must include a statement that all authors have read and approved the manuscript, that the material in the paper has not been published elsewhere (except as an abstract), and that the paper is not currently being considered for publication by another journal.

Undersea & Hyperbaric Medicine participates in the agreement established by the international Committee of Medical Journal Editors as set forth in Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Ann Intern Med 1988; 108:258–265 and Br Med J 1988; 296:401–405.

Title: A title of no more than 85 characters including spaces, authors' names, laboratory or institution of origin with city and state or country, a running head not to exceed 50 characters including spaces, and a complete address for mailing proofs, plus a telephone and fax number should be on a separate page. Titles should be informative; the implication that a manuscript is one of a series of related papers is discouraged (e.g., Decompression Sickness Studies I).

Abstracts:  An informative abstract of 200 words or less, suitable for abstracting agencies without rewording, should state the purpose of the research, what was done, what was found, and what was concluded. Titles should contain indexable words

Text: Except in unusual situations, the manuscript should be divided into Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. Long stretches of text should be broken by suitable subheadings but subheadings should not be overused.  Unusual symbols should be avoided. Statistical methods should be described in Methods; information about presentation of statistical material can be found in Bailar J, Mosteller F. Guidelines for statistical reporting in articles for medical journals: amplifications and explanations. Adv Intern Med 1988; 108:268–273.

References: Authors are responsible for verifying references against the original documents. References must be numbered consecutively in the order in which they first appear in the text, and identified in the text by Arabic numerals in parentheses. References cited only in tables or legends should be numbered in accordance with a sequence corresponding to the first mention  of  the table or figure in the text. List names and initials of all authors when six or less; when seven or more, list only the first three authors and add et al. Citations in the reference list are to be in the form used by the U.S. National Library of Medicine and Index Medicus.

Thorsen E, Risberg  J, Segadal K, Hope A. Effects of venous gas microemboli on pulmonary gas transfer function. Undersea Hyper­baric Med 1995; 22:347–353.

Hempleman HV. History of decompression procedures. In: Bennett  PB, Elliott EH, eds. The physiology and medicine of diving. London: WB Saunders, 1993:324–375.

Kindwall EP, Goldmann RW. Hyperbaric medicine procedures. Milwaukee, WI: St. Luke's Medical Center, 1970.

Manuscripts that have been accepted should be cited in the reference list as regular references, with “in press” in place of journal pages. Citations such as “unpublished observations”, “personal communication”, “manuscript in preparation”, or “to be published” are not to appear in the reference list, although reference to such a communication, if  it exists in written form, may be cited in the text in parentheses. References to government reports should not be cited unless such reports are easily available to all readers.

Equations:  Equations should appear in the text in an appropriate type style (italics, bold type etc).  Authors should carefully distinguish between capital and lower-case letters, Greek and Roman characters, letters and numerals.  Number equations consecutively in parenthesis on the left edge of the text.  All constituent terms should be defined when they initially appear. Authors are responsible for the correct formatting of each term in the equation and, because of potential conversion problems, they must be sent using 12 point, Times New Roman font in a TIFF file.  Equations should be considered “Camera Ready” when they are submitted.

Tables: Tables should be limited to material needed to make the point of the paper and should be nearly self-explanatory. They should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals and bear a short title. Explanatory matter, excluding definitions of abbreviations, should appear in table footnotes. Statistical measures of variation (SD, SE, etc.) should be stated.  Table width   must conform to the one or two-column width of the UHM format and have no more than 8 rows by 8 columns of data with one row for the column headings. The preferred font to be used is Times New Roman.  To avoid conversion problems, particularly complex tables should be submitted in TIFF files.

Acknowledgments: Acknowledgments of persons who aided in the work and of funding agencies, along with any other special considerations about the manuscript, should appear at the end of the text, before the references.

Footnotes: Footnotes to material in the text are discouraged. Footnotes to tables are acceptable and should be identified in sequence by lower case letters of the alphabet in italic superscript.

Graphics: They should be numbered in Arabic numerals, in sequence as they appear in the text, and  should be of a size to conform to one or two column width. Each is to be accompanied by a suitable legend not exceeding 40 words. Symbols used in a graphic  should be defined in the legend.  Preferred font is Times New Roman. Diagrams, charts, photos, line drawings, reproductions of   scans or other radiography should be sharp, and clear but for submission, can be sent in 72 dpi as downloads faster.  Upon acceptance of the paper, authors must be prepared to submit all graphics in TIFF format, 300 dpi or better.  Grayscale is preferable to color both for simplicity and because the author will be assessed a substantial charge for color printing.  If color is to be used, however, graphics must be in CMYK, 300 dpi.  Authors are responsible for visual clarity .

Good line drawings of equipment are usually more effective than photographs, and animals must be depicted only by line drawings. Freehand or typewritten lettering on figures is not acceptable. Lettering must be proportional to the size of the illustration to  ensure that it is legible after reduction, and size to fit the journal page should be considered. An internal scale marker (a bar of defined length) should be drawn directly on all micrographs, and the  length specified in the legend.  

Units of Measure: The Systéme Internationale d'Unités (SI units) format will be used to express pressure, depth, length, weight, time, temperature, energy, power, force, and concentration [Standard Practice for Use of the International System of Units (SI) Document E380-89a, American Society for Testing and Materials, Philadelphia, PA 1989]. If the subject matter makes it appropriate to use non-SI units, such as fsw, msw, atm, or bar, a parenthetical conversion to pascals, kilopascals, or megapascals should accompany the first mention of a pressure value in the abstract and in the text. Units of fsw and msw should not be used to express partial pressure  or when the nature of the subject matter requires precise evaluation of pressure. The proper method for the expression of other units or appreciations may be found in Br Med J 1978; 1:1334–1336 and Aviat Space Environ Med 1984; 55: 93–100. Authors must include after all units a small parenthetical (a) or a small paraenthetical (g) to indicate whether units are in absolute or gauge terms.

Auxiliary Publications: Detailed tables, appendixes, math­ematical derivatives, extra figures, and other supplementary matter may be deemed too voluminous to be included in the journal article.  Such material  may be submitted for deposition with the American Society for Information Sciences (ASIS), National Auxiliary Publication Service, at no charge. The information is deposited by the editorial office with the consent of the author, and a footnote will appear in the published article to the effect that photoprint or microfiche copies are available at a moderate cost.

        Revised June, 2005