Author Guidelines
I. Author Guidelines before Manuscript Submission
The article title page should contain (in Russian and English):
- Author’s name(s)
Authors are people identified by the scientific team as the main contributors to the presented work and who agreed to take responsibility for their work. In addition to taking responsibility for their part of the paper, the author should be able to indicate which of their co-authors are responsible for other parts of the paper.
Nuclear Security Journal has the following authorship criteria:
- a) a substantial contribution to research plan and design, data gathering or data analyses, and interpretation;
- b) preparation of the article or its critical review and editing in terms of significant intellectual contribution;
- c) approval of the final version of the article before submission.
The list of authors should not include those who are not authors of the article. The names of those who are not authors but provided assistance or support should be mentioned in the Acknowledgments section.
When indicating the authors of the article in Russian, the surname should be given after the initials of the first name and patronymic (P.S. Ivanov, S.I. Petrov, I.P. Sidorov).
When indicating the authors of the article in English, the format “First name, initial of patronymic, surname” (Ivan I. Ivanov) is used. Surnames in English should be given according to the foreign passport or as it was indicated during registration in the international databases (for example, in previously published articles). If the author does not have a foreign passport and/or publications, the BSI standard should be used for transliteration of the surname and first name.
- Information about author(s)
This section lists the title, position, and other credentials. The e-mail, mobile phone number and full postal address of the responsible author are also indicated here.
- Author’s affiliation
Affiliation includes the following data: full official organization name, full postal address (including index, city and country). Authors should indicate all places of work relevant to the research.
If authors participated in the preparation of the article are from different institutions, it is necessary to indicate the affiliation of each author to a particular institution using a superscript.
The official English name of the institution is required for the English language block of information.
- Article title
The article title in Russian should correspond to its content.
The English title should be competent from the point of view of the English language while in terms of meaning it should fully correspond to the Russian title.
- Abstract
The recommended abstract length is 200-250 words. The abstract contains the following sections: purpose, methods, results, conclusion (the names of the sections are given according to the author's decision).
The abstract should not include terms introduced for the first time, abbreviations (except for well-known ones), references.
- Keywords
There should be 5-7 words on the topic of the article. It is desirable that the keywords accompany the abstract and article title.
- Acknowledgments
This section includes all sources of research funding, as well as acknowledgements to people participated in the study but are not authors. Participation in the work on the article implies: suggestions for research improvement, providing space to research, departmental supervision, gaining financial support, solitary types of analysis, providing research materials.
- Conflict of interest statement
Conflict of interest is when people have conflicting or competing interests that can affect decisions made by the editors. Conflict of interest can be deliberate or potential but genuine. Personal, political, financial, scientific, or religious factors can affect objectivity.
The author is obliged to inform the editors about a deliberate or potential conflict of interest by indicating such information in this section of the article.
If there is no conflict of interest, the author has to inform editors about it using, for example, the following phrase: "The author declares the absence of conflict of interest."
- Article text
The Journal adopts the IMRAD format (Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion).
- Figures
Figures must be of high quality and printable. All figures must have captions. The caption must be translated into English.
Figures are numbered with Arabic numerals in order of their appearance in the text. If there is only one figure, it does not need to be numbered. Intext references to figures should have the following form: "Fig. 3 shows that…" or "It is shown that… (see Fig.3)".
Figure captions include the number and the title and are centred under the figure: "Fig. 2. Description of vital processes".
No full stop is needed after the figure caption.
A translation of the caption should be placed after the caption in Russian.
- Tables.
Tables must be of high quality and printable. They should not be scanned or pictured so that they can be edited.
All the tables must have captions.
The caption must be translated into English.
Tables are numbered with Arabic numerals in order of their appearance in the text. If there is only one table, it does not need to be numbered.
Intext references to tables should have the following form: "Table 3 shows that…" or "It is shown that … (see Table 3).
The cation includes their number and name.
It is centred above the table: “Table 2. Description of the vital processes”.
No full stop is needed after the caption.
Translation of the table caption should be placed after the table caption in Russian.
- Screenshots and photographs
Photos, screenshots, and other drawings should be uploaded separately in the special section of the form for article uploading in *.jpeg, *.bmp, .gif (.doc and *.docx if there are some marks on the photo). The resolution should be >300 dpi. The photo's file should have a name corresponding to the number of the photo in the text and a caption. A separate caption should be provided in the file description which should correspond to the name of the photograph to be placed in the text.
- Footnotes.
Footnotes are numbered with Arabic numerals, placed page by page. Footnotes can include references to anonymous Internet sources, textbooks, study guides, government regulations, statistical reports, articles in newspapers and magazines, extended abstract of dissertation, dissertations (if it is not possible to cite articles published on the results of the dissertation research), authors' comments.
- References.
The Journal uses the Vancouver citation style which involves referring to the reference source in square brackets and then citing the sources in the reference list in the order of citation. The page is indicated inside brackets with a comma and a space after the source number: [6, p. 8]
References should include only peer-reviewed sources that were used in the manuscript (scientific articles and monographs). It is not recommended to include in references dissertations, textbooks, study guides, websites, statistical reports, articles in newspapers, magazines, or blogs. If it is necessary to refer to such a source, it should be done in the footnotes.
Please indicate DOI for each reference source if it can be found (it can be done for foreign sources in 95% of cases). If there is a reference to an article accepted for publication but not yet published, the reference should have an indication "in press"; the authors have to get written authorization to refer to such documents and confirmation that the article is in print. Information from unpublished sources should be marked with the phrase "unpublished data/documents," and the author is to get written authorization to use such materials.
In references to articles from Journals, the author should give the year of publication, volume, number of an issue, and pages.
All authors should be included in the article description.
References have to be verified, and citations should be checked on Journals' or publishers' official sites.
It is necessary to translate the list of references into English. After the description of the Russian-language source, the language of the work should be indicated: (In Russ.).
The BSI standard should be used for transliteration of authors' names and Journal titles.
Format Examples
References to foreign source articles:
1 Surname, initials of the first name and patronymic, 2 Surname, initials of the first name and patronymic. Title of the article. Name of the Journal. Year; Volume (Issue):00-00. DOI: 10.13655/1.6.1234567.
References to foreign language monographs:
1-3 authors:
1 Surname, initials of the first name and patronymic, 2 Surname, initials of the first name and patronymic. Title of the Book. Edition Number. City: Publisher; Year of Publication. Number of pages.
Reference to the editor or compiler:
1 Surname, initials of the first name and patronymic, 2 Surname, initials of the first name and patronymic, 3 Surname, initials of the first name and patronymic, editors. Title. Edition Number. City: Publisher; Year of Publication.
Chapter from a monograph or anthology:
1 Surname, initials of the first name and patronymic. 1 Title. In: 2 Surname, initials of the first name and patronymic., editor. 2 Title. Edition Number. City: Publisher; Year of Publication.
The Journal title and the titles of monographs and anthologies are italicized, periods are placed after initials. No comma is placed between the author’s surname and initials.
Organizing translated references to an article and monograph
In general, the structure of a reference to an article is as follows:
Authors (transliteration). Translation of the article title into English. Title of the Russian source (transliteration). Publication data in English or numeric only. Language of the article (in Russ.)
In general, the structure of a reference to a monograph is as follows:
Authors (transliteration). Translation of the monograph title. Publication data: place of publication in English, if it is an organization, and transliteration, if the publishing house has its own name (an indication in English that it is a publishing house). Number of pages.
1 Surname, initials of the first name and patronymic, 2 Surname, initials of the first name and patronymic. Translation of the article title. Transliteration of the Journal title=Official English title. Year of Publication; Volume (Issue):00-00. DOI: 0000-0000 (In Russ.)
1 Surname, initials of the first name and patronymic Translation of the monograph title. City: Publisher; 2000. (In Russ.)
Links to Internet resources:
Note: it is preferable to provide a link to the content from the website that is mentioned in the article. A link to the home page is not informative and does not provide an opportunity to verify the information.
Title of website content (website). Website title; 2016. Access mode: http://www.example.ru (date of access:)
II. Submitting a Manuscript
The manuscript is submitted online using a web form on the Journal's website. The file with the article uploaded to the system should be submitted in Microsoft Word format (with extension *.doc, *.docx, *.rtf). It is recommended to duplicate the sending of materials to e-mail: oni-viti@mephi.ru
III. Communication between the Journal and Authors
The editors of the Journal communicate with an author indicated in a manuscript as a corresponding author. However, all authors who provided their e-mails can get communication from editors.
All submitted manuscripts are pre-checked by the Editor-in-Charge to verify that they correspond to the Author Guidelines. The manuscript can be returned to authors for a follow-up revision in order to eliminate errors or to add some missing data. A manuscript can be declined at this point if it does not meet the requirements (does not correspond to Journal aims and scope, not original, of small scientific value).
After the successful pre-check, the Editor-in-Charge passes the article to an editor, who finds two "blind" reviewers for the article setting the time limit for reviewing process. The author gets a notification about it.
In controversial cases, the editor may involve several specialists as well as the Editor-in-Chief in the review process.
If reviews are positive, the article returns to the editor for preparing it for publication.
If the article needs to be revised, all comments and corrections suggested by reviewers are sent to the author. The author has two months to do corrections. If the author did not inform the editor about her plans for the article within the given time, the article is withdrawn from publication.
If the article is rejected, the author is informed by the editor.
A corresponding author of an accepted article gets the final version of the article for approval. The editor waits for a response for two days. If there is no answer from the author, the final version is considered approved.
IV. Order of Disputing Editors’/Reviewers’ Decisions
If authors disagree with editors' or reviewers' decisions, they can dispute them. In order to do so, the author has to:
- correct the article according to the non-disputable comments of the editors or the reviewers;
- state their position on the disputable matter clear in the correspondence with her editor.
The editors should facilitate re-submitting the article that could be potentially approved for publication but was declined due to the necessity of major revision and should explain what needs to be done to accept the article.
V. Plagiarism, Fabrication or Falsification
If an author is unethical and tries to publish plagiarized, fabricated or false information, the editors turn to COPE.
By “unethical behaviour” the Journal Nuclear Safety means any action by a scientist that includes improper handling of objects of study or intentional manipulation of scientific information so that it no longer reflects observed research as well as behaviour by a scientist that does not conform to accepted ethical and scientific standards.
Unethical behaviour does not include honest mistakes and fair unplanned discrepancies in conducting, interpreting, and evaluating research methods and results or carelessness not related to the scientific process.
VI. Correcting Errors and Retracting Articles
When there are errors in the text that influence its comprehension but do not interfere with the results of the research, they can be corrected by changing it to a new pdf-file of the article and highlighting the error in the file itself or on the page of the article on the official site of the Journal.
When there are errors in the text that manipulate the research results or when there is plagiarism, fabrication, or falsification of information, the article can be retracted. The retraction can be initiated by the Journal, an organization, or an author.
Retracted articles are indicated by the sign "Retracted" with a statement of the reasons for retraction. Information about retraction is sent to those databases that index the Journal.
