Instructions to Authors

1. Types of Manuscripts Accepted

JFSF provides a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary forum for quarterly publication of articles that focus upon all the related aspects of Frailty, Sarcopenia and Falls prevention and management and the new advancements in the related treatments including complex issues and research. It is a condition of publication that manuscripts submitted to this journal be original, unpublished, and not simultaneously submitted or published elsewhere; further, that submission for publication has been approved by all of the authors and by the institution where the work was carried out. Only manuscripts written in English will be accepted.

The word count for all article types includes the main body of text, notes, references, and the headers of tables and figures. It does not include the title page, Abstract, or Supporting Information. A manuscript that exceeds the word limit will be returned without review.

Manuscripts submitted to JFSF should fall into one of the following categories:

2. Review Process

JFSF is a peer reviewed journal which adopts the single blind review process. Each abstract is checked for scope by the Editor-in-Chief, who then decides whether the manuscript will be assigned to an Associate Editor or returned because it is either not within the journal scope or represents an insufficient advance in scientific knowledge. After assignment to an appropriate Associate Editor, the manuscript is managed by that Associate Editor. If the manuscript is acceptable to the Associate Editor, several reviewers are chosen by the Associate Editor and the manuscript enters the automatically controlled review process.

A copy of each reviewer's report is sent to the Associate Editor, who will then make an overall recommendation, informed by the reviews, to the Editor-in-Chief, who then contacts the authors on behalf of the journal. Possible decisions are:

3. Proceedings

JFSF publishes conference/meeting proceedings; therefore, publication proposals can only be submitted by conference/meeting organizers and authors cannot submit directly their articles. The peer review process is handled by the conference organizers and the detailed review procedure will vary according to the policy of each conference.

In order to ensure the published proceedings, include high-quality scientific work that is of long-term interest and benefit to the scientific community, the journal requires conference organizers to commit to undertaking an appropriate peer review process before abstracts/ papers acceptance.

3.a. Publication Procedure for Proceedings

1. A proposal for proceedings publication is submitted to JFSF by the Conference/Meeting Organizers.

2. The proposal is evaluated by JFSF's Editorial Office.

3. If the proceedings publication is accepted by the JFSF Editorial Office, an agreement is drawn up describing the terms and the total cost of the publication.

   Following the acceptance and signature of the agreement by the Organizers:

4. The Organizers are responsible for collecting the abstract submissions and performing the peer review. Organisers submit to JFSF a signed declaration that they have peer reviewed the abstracts.

5. Abstracts intended for publication should be delivered to JFSF within the agreed deadline and in the required format as described in the agreement.

6. JFSF is responsible for formatting abstracts according to the general way of presenting content in the journal.

7. Proceedings proofs are sent to the Organizers for review and final approval for publication.

8. Proceedings are published in JFSF's issue as described in the agreement.

4. Editors and journal staff as authors

JFSF has established a clear procedure for handling submissions from editors or members of the editorial board that ensure that the peer review is handled independently of the author/editor in order to minimize any bias in the review process. The handling editor sends the article out for review without any names on it. As an extra precaution, if and when the article in question is published, the editor publishes an accompanying disclaimer showing how transparent the reviewing process had been.

5. Resubmissions

When resubmitting a revised manuscript, authors MUST respond to ALL the comments made by the reviewer(s) with a point by point rebuttal in a separate document. Authors should also list and comment on any other changes made to the original manuscript. In order to expedite the processing of the revised manuscript, please be as specific as possible in your response to the reviewer(s). You will be unable to make your revisions on the originally submitted version of the manuscript. Instead, revise your manuscript within the document by either using the track changes mode in MS Word, or by highlighting changes in bold and red. The onus is on the author(s) to make the changes as obvious as possible and easy for the reviewers to re-review the manuscript and assess the changes.

6. Corrections and Retractions

Decisions about types of correction are made by the editors of the journal that published the paper, sometimes with peer-reviewers' advice. This process involves consultation with the authors of the paper, but the editor makes the final decision about the category in which the amendment is published.

When any of the above mentioned amendments is published, it is linked bi-directionally to and from the article being ammended.

7. Expressions of concern

Where substantial doubt arises as to the honesty or integrity of a submitted or published article it is the Editor in Chief's responsibility to ensure that the matter is adequately addressed, usually by the authors' sponsoring institution. It is not normally the Editor in Chief's responsibility to carry out the investigation or make a determination. The Editor in Chief should be promptly informed of the decision of the sponsoring institution and a retraction printed should it be determined that a fraudulent paper was published. Alternatively, the Editor in Chief may choose to publish an expression of concern over aspects of the conduct or integrity of the work.

8. Complaints process

Users who want to submit a complaint should address it to the Editor in Chief over the contact email of the Journal (jfsf@hpub.com)

9. Submission Fees

No submission fees are charged for articles submitted to JFSF.

10. Publication Fees

A publication fee of 150 € (Euros) is charged for accepted manuscripts. After a manuscript is accepted, the corresponding author will be invoiced. Manuscripts will be published only after the publication fee has been received.

11. Proofs

Details in the text, including references and figures are checked before a final page-proof version is produced in pdf format. This pdf proof is then sent, by e-mail, to the corresponding author for final checking. Only correction of minor errors and typographical mistakes are allowed at this stage. Any corrections must be returned within 48 hours. If no response is received after 7 working days the article will be published as it stands. Please remember authors are responsible for errors appearing in their manuscript.

12. Editorial Policies and Practices

12.a. Publication ethics

Ethical standards for publication exist to ensure high-quality scientific publications, public trust in scientific findings, and that people receive credit for their work. JFSF and its Publisher Hylonome Publications, follow the guidelines and core practices of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) ensuring the integrity of research.

12.b. Authorship

JFSF has adopted the requirements for authorship and acknowledgment of contributors recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) in the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals

The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:

Manuscripts must adhere to the following requirements:

12.c. Conflict of Interest

JFSF follows ICMJE guidelines for disclosure of potential conflicts of interest. Every article published in JFSF includes a “Disclosures” section. All authors are required to fill out the electronic ICMJE disclosure of interest. Disclosure forms must be submitted together with the manuscript when it is initially submitted to JFSF

12.d. Dublicate Publication

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the manuscript has not been previously reported or published and that the manuscript has not been, and will not be, submitted to another journal while under review at JFSF. By submitting your manuscript to the journal it is understood that this it is an original and unpublished work and is not under consideration elsewhere. Plagiarism, including duplicate publication of the author’s own work, in whole or in part without proper citation constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. Manuscripts submitted to the journal may be checked for originality using anti-plagiarism software. If plagiarism is detected by the editorial board member, reviewer, editor etc., in any stage of article process- before or after acceptance, during editing or at a page proof stage, authors will be contacted for clarifications.

12.e. Fabrication and falsification

Authors of submitted manuscripts or published articles that are found to contain fabricated/falsified results or manipulated figures, may incur sanctions and published articles may be retracted.

13. Statement of human and animal rights

13.a. Ethics approval

When reporting a study that involved human participants, their data or biological material, authors should include a statement that confirms that the study was approved (or granted exemption) by the appropriate institutional and/or national research ethics committee (including the name of the ethics committee and the ID) and certify that the study was performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration or comparable standards, the authors must explain the reasons for their approach, and demonstrate that an independent ethics committee or institutional review board explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. If a study was granted exemption from requiring ethics approval, this should also be detailed in the manuscript (including the reasons for the exemption). An appropriate statement should be included in the section before the References under a heading of “Ethics approval”.

13.b. Retrospective ethics approval

If a study has not been granted ethics committee approval prior to commencing, retrospective ethics approval usually cannot be obtained and it may not be possible to consider the manuscript for peer review. The decision on whether to proceed to peer review in such cases is at the Editor's discretion.

13.c. Ethics approval for retrospective studies

Although retrospective studies are conducted on already available data or biological material (for which formal consent may not be needed or is difficult to obtain) ethics approval may be required dependent on the law and the national ethical guidelines of a country. Authors should check with their institution to make sure they are complying with the specific requirements of their country.

13.d. Clinical Trial Registration

The World Health Organization (WHO) definition of a clinical trial is "any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects on health outcomes". The WHO defines health interventions as “A health intervention is an act performed for, with or on behalf of a person or population whose purpose is to assess, improve, maintain, promote or modify health, functioning or health conditions” and a health-related outcome is generally defined as a change in the health of a person or population as a result of an intervention.

To ensure the integrity of the reporting of patient-centered trials, authors must register prospective clinical trials (phase II to IV trials) in suitable publicly available repositories. For example www.clinicaltrials.gov or any of the primary registries that participate in the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform .The trial registration number (TRN) and date of registration should be included as the last line of the manuscript abstract.

For clinical trials that have not been registered prospectively, authors are encouraged to register retrospectively to ensure the complete publication of all results. The trial registration number (TRN), date of registration and the words "retrospectively registered" should be included as the last line of the manuscript abstract.

13.e. Ethics approval for case studies

Authors should be aware to secure informed consent from the individual (or parent or guardian if the participant is a minor or incapable).

13.f. Informed consent

All individuals have individual rights that are not to be infringed. Individual participants in studies have, for example, the right to decide what happens to the (identifiable) personal data gathered, to what they have said during a study or an interview, as well as to any photograph that was taken. This is especially true concerning images of vulnerable people (e.g. minors, patients, refugees, etc) or the use of images in sensitive contexts. In many instances authors will need to secure written consent before including images.

Identifying details (names, dates of birth, identity numbers, biometrical characteristics (such as facial features, fingerprint, writing style, voice pattern, DNA or other distinguishing characteristic) and other information) of the participants that were studied should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and genetic profiles unless the information is essential for scholarly purposes and the participant (or parent/guardian if the participant is a minor or incapable or legal representative) gave written informed consent for publication. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve in some cases. Detailed descriptions of individual participants, whether of their whole bodies or of body sections, may lead to disclosure of their identity. Under certain circumstances consent is not required as long as information is anonymized and the submission does not include images that may identify the person.

Informed consent for publication should be obtained if there is any doubt. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of participants is inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic profiles, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort meaning.

13.g. Exceptions where it is not necessary to obtain consent

13.h. Consent and already available data and/or biologic material

Regardless of whether material is collected from living or dead patients, they (family or guardian if the deceased has not made a pre-mortem decision) must have given prior written consent. The aspect of confidentiality as well as any wishes from the deceased should be respected.

13.i. Data protection, confidentiality and privacy

When biological material is donated for or data is generated as part of a research project authors should ensure, as part of the informed consent procedure, that the participants are made aware what kind of (personal) data will be processed, how it will be used and for what purpose. In case of data acquired via a biobank/biorepository, it is possible they apply a broad consent which allows research participants to consent to a broad range of uses of their data and samples which is regarded by research ethics committees as specific enough to be considered “informed”. However, authors should always check the specific biobank/biorepository policies or any other type of data provider policies (in case of non-bio research) to be sure that this is the case.

13.j. Consent to Participate

For all research involving human subjects, freely-given, informed consent to participate in the study must be obtained from participants (or their parent or legal guardian in the case of children under 18) and a statement to this effect should appear in the manuscript.

13.k. Consent to Publish

Individuals may consent to participate in a study, but object to having their data published in the journal article. Authors should make sure to also seek consent from individuals to publish their data prior to submitting their paper to the journal. This is in particular applicable to case studies.

The above should be summarized in a statement and placed in a section before the reference list under a heading of "Consent to participate" and/or "Consent to publish".

13.l. Use of Animals in Research

The welfare of animals used for research must be respected. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether national legislation for the care and use of animals, and/or institutional /guidelines were followed, with a respective statement specifying the regulations.

Approval for research in animals by the appropriate institutional animal care and use committee, animal welfare body or protocol evaluation committee must be indicated in the Materials and Methods, along with the project license number, full husbandry and experimental details (e.g. species, strain, sex, weight, age, procedures etc.), as indicated by the Animal Research Reporting of In Vivo Experiments (ARRIVE) Guidelines. The Essential 10 items are mandatory to be included. Without this information readers and reviewers cannot assess the reliability of the findings. Ideally, reporting the Recommended Set represents best practice.

13.m. Cell lines

If human cells are used, authors must declare in the manuscript: what cell lines were used by describing the source of the cell line, including when and from where it was obtained, whether the cell line has recently been authenticated and by what method. If cells were bought from a life science company the following need to be given in the manuscript: name of company (that provided the cells), cell type, number of cell line, and batch of cells.

It is recommended that authors check the NCBI database for misidentification and contamination of human cell lines. This step will alert authors to possible problems with the cell line and may save considerable time and effort.

Further information is available from the International Cell Line Authentication Committee (ICLAC).

Authors should include a statement that confirms that an institutional or independent ethics committee (including the name of the ethics committee) approved the study and that informed consent was obtained from the donor or next of kin.

JFSF reserves the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned requirements dealing with ethical concerns. The author will be held responsible for false statements or failure to fulfil the above-mentioned requirements.

14. Standards of reporting

Hylonome Publications advocates complete and transparent reporting of biomedical and biological research and research with biological applications. Authors are recommended to adhere to the minimum reporting guidelines hosted by the EQUATOR Network when preparing their manuscript.

Checklists are available for a number of study designs, including:

• Randomised trials (CONSORT) and Study protocols (SPIRIT)

• Observational studies (STROBE)

• Systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) and protocols (Prisma-P)

• Diagnostic/prognostic studies (STARD) and (TRIPOD)

• Case reports (CARE)

• Clinical practice guidelines (AGREE) and (RIGHT)

• Qualitative research (SRQR) and (COREQ)

• Animal pre-clinical studies (ARRIVE)

• Quality improvement studies (SQUIRE)

15. Open Access Statement

Authors submitting manuscripts to JFSF agreed that, if accepted, all articles will be published under the terms of Creative Common License CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike) This means that the articles will be immediately free for everyone to read, and users are free to: copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, remix, transform, and build upon the material, under the following terms:

16. Copyright

• Copyright on any open access article in a journal published by Hylonome Publications is retained by the author(s) without restrictions.

• Authors hold the commercial rights of their published content.

• Αuthors grant Hylonome Publications the licence to publish the article as well as the attribute of the original publisher.

• Authors also grant any third party the right to use the article freely as long as it is not used for commercial purposes, its integrity is maintained and its original authors, citation details and publisher are attributed.

• The Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) License formalizes these and other terms and conditions of publishing articles.

17. Archiving

JFSF deposits the articles that it publishes in PMC and Portico so as to guarantee long-term digital preservation.

18. Disclaimer

All material published in JFSF regarding medical procedures, choice of drugs and drug dosages represents the opinions of the authors and should not be construed to reflect the opinions of the Editors or the Publisher. No responsibility is assumed by JFSF, the Editors, the Publisher for any injury or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise or from any use of operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in JFSF. Because of rapid advances in the medical sciences, independent verification of diagnosis and drug dosages should be made. Although all advertising material is expected to conform to ethical (medical) standards, their inclusion in JFSF does not constitute a guarantee or endorsement of the quality or value of such product or of the claims made for it by its manufacturer.