Instructions for Authors

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1. Submission Overview
2. Submission Preparation
3. Research and Publication Ethics
4. Authorship
5. Suggesting / Excluding Reviewers
6. Editors and Journal Staff as Authors
7. Policy of Use of AI and AI-assisted Technologies in Scientific Writing
8. Conflict of Interests
9. Editorial Process
10. Contact Us

1. Submission Overview

Before you decide to publish with Bladder, please read the following items carefully and make sure that you are well aware of Editorial Policies and the following requirements.

Manuscripts are considered with the understanding that 1) it is not under consideration by another journal or any electronic medium; 2) no part of the work has been published previously in print or electronic format. Any manuscript that contains any data that have been submitted for publication elsewhere will not be considered under any circumstance.

1.1 Topic Suitability

The topic of the manuscript must fit the scope of the journal. Please refer to Aims & Scope for more information.

1.2 Open Access and Copyright

Bladder is owned and published by POL Scientific, LLC.

Authors agree to the following terms:

1. Authors retain copyright and grant POL Scientific, LLC right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal’s published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.

For noncommercial use by other parties: Other parties are welcome to copy, distribute, and transmit the work — at no cost and without permission — for noncommercial use as long as they attribute the work to the original source using proper citation.

For commercial use by other parties: For any use of materials published by Bladder primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or monetary compensation, permission should be obtained by writing to the editors.

1.3 Publication Fees

The Bladder will charge an Article Processing Charge (APC) of USD 1600 for the acceptance and publication of an article submitted and accepted.

The Bladder is an open-access journal. All articles published in the Bladder can be freely accessed from the journal website. For more details, please refer to Article Processing Charges.

1.4 Language Editing

All submissions are required to be presented clearly and cohesively in good English. Authors whose first language is not English are advised to have their manuscripts checked or edited by a native English speaker before submission to ensure the high quality of expression. A well-organized manuscript in good English would make the peer review even the whole editorial handling more smoothly and efficiently.

1.5 Archive in PubMed Central

To comply with the policies of funding agencies, such as the NIH in the USA, the Wellcome Trust and the Research Councils in the UK, and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in Germany, upon publication, Bladder will deposit articles in PubMed Central.

2. Submission Preparation

2.1 Cover Letter

A cover letter is required to be submitted accompanying each manuscript. It should be concise and explain why the study is significant, why it fits the scope of the journal, why it would be attractive to readers, and so on.

Here is a guideline of a cover letter for authors' consideration:

In the first paragraph: include the title and type (e.g., Original Research Article, Review, Case Report, etc.) of the manuscript, a brief on the background of the study, the question the author sought out to answer and why;

In the second paragraph: concisely explain what was done, the main findings and why they are significant;

In the third paragraph: indicate why the manuscript fits the Aims and Scope of the journal, and why it would be attractive to readers;

In the fourth paragraph: confirm that the manuscript has not been published elsewhere and not been under consideration by any other journal. All authors have approved the manuscript and agreed on its submission to the journal. The journal's specific requirements have been met if any.

If the manuscript is contributed to a Special Issue, please also mention it in the cover letter.

If the manuscript was presented partly or entirely at a conference, the authors should clearly state the background information of the event, including the conference name, time and place, in the cover letter.

2.2 Types of Publications

The journal publishes Original Research Article, Review, Perspective Article, Case Report, Case Series, Letter, Editorial, and so on There is no restriction on the number of figures, tables, and references, provided that the manuscript is concise and comprehensive. For more details about paper type, please refer to the following table.

2.3 Manuscript Structure

In addition to referring to the Instructions for Authors set out in the following, we also recommend using our templates to prepare the submission files.

Templates:

- Title page & back matter template   Download

- Article template for Original Research Article   Download

- Article template for Review Article and Perspective Article   Download

2.3.1 Title Page & Back Matter

2.3.1.1 Title

The title of the manuscript should be concise, specific and relevant, with no more than 16 words if possible. When gene or protein names are included, the abbreviated name rather than full name should be used.

2.3.1.2 Authors and Affiliations

Authors' full names should be listed. The initials of middle names can be provided. Institutional addresses and email addresses for all authors should be listed. At least one author should be designated as corresponding author. Please note that any change to authorship is not allowed after manuscript acceptance.

2.3.1.3 Abstract

The abstract should provide the context or background for the study and should state the study's purpose, basic procedures (selection of study participants, settings, measurements, analytical methods), main findings (giving specific effect sizes and their statistical and clinical significance, if possible), and principal conclusions. It should emphasize new and important aspects of the study or observations, note important limitations, and not overinterpret findings. Clinical trial abstracts should include items that the CONSORT group has identified as essential. It is not allowed to contain results which are not presented and substantiated in the manuscript, or exaggerate the main conclusions. Citations should not be included in the abstract.

2.3.1.4 Keywords

Three to eight keywords should be provided, which are specific to the article, yet reasonably common within the subject discipline.

2.3.1.5 Acknowledgments

This is an optional section where authors can acknowledge people and/or institutions that provided non-financial support and/or helped with the research and/or preparation of the manuscript. People to be acknowledged include those who do not qualify as authors. Examples of non-financial support include externally-supplied equipment/biological sources, writing assistance, administrative support, and contributions from non-authors. Authors are responsible to obtain the permission for acknowledging people and/or institutions to be included in this list. If none of the above is pertinent, state “Not applicable”.

2.3.1.6 Funding

Authors should declare all financial support and sources that were used to perform the research, analysis, and/or article publication. Financial supports are generally in the form of grants, royalties, consulting fees and others. Organizations that provide the grants and grant numbers should be declared. If the study is not involved with this issue, state "None." in this section.

2.3.1.7 Conflict of Interest

At the time of submission, authors must declare any (potential) conflicts or competing interests with any institutes, organizations or agencies that might influence the integrity of results or objective interpretation of their submitted works. For more information, see our Conflict of Interest Policy . State “The authors declare they have no competing interests” or words to that effect, if the authors do not have anything to declare.

2.3.1.8 Authors' Contributions

Each author is expected to have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data, or the creation of new software used in the work, or have drafted the work or substantively revised it. We encourage authors to use Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) in describing each contributor’s specific contribution to the scholarly output in the Author Contributions section.

Below shows a sample Author Contributions section written based on the CRediT:

Conceptualization: Ali Jackson, Helen Meyer
Investigation: Ali Jackson, Tom Lewis-Hans, Han Xiang
Methodology: Dolores Hans
Formal analysis: Han Xiang
Writing – original draft: Ali Jackson
Writing – review & editing: Helen Meyer, Joshua O’Brien

If an article is single-authored, please include "The author contributed solely to the article." in this section.

2.3.1.9 Ethics Approval and Consent to Participate

Research involving human subjects, human material or human data must be performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by an appropriate ethics committee. An informed consent to participate in the study should also be obtained from participants, or their parents or legal guardians for children under 16. A statement detailing the name of the ethics committee (including the reference number where appropriate) and the informed consent obtained must appear in the manuscripts reporting such research.

Studies involving animals and cell lines must include a statement on ethical approval. More information is available at Editorial Policies.

If the manuscript does not involve such issue, please state "Not applicable." in this section.

2.3.1.10 Consent for Publication

If human subjects were involved, state what form of consent (e.g., written and/or verbal) and whether or not permission was obtained from each of the subjects to publish their data and/or images. Efforts must be made by the authors to at least mask or conceal any identifying information of the patients that appear in writing or within photograph. If consent taking was not performed when human subjects were involved, provide a justification herein.

If none of the above is pertinent, state "Not applicable".

2.3.1.11 Availability of Data

In order to maintain the integrity, transparency and reproducibility of research records, authors should include this section in their manuscripts, detailing where the data supporting their findings can be found. Data can be deposited into data repositories or published as supplementary information in the journal. Authors who cannot share their data should state that the data will not be shared and explain it. If a manuscript does not involve such issue, please state "Not applicable." in this section.

2.3.1.12 Further Disclosure

This section is reserved to inform the readers and editors of a few aspects:

(i) Part of or the entire set of findings have been presented in a conference, academic meeting, congress, and so on; and/or

(ii) The paper has been uploaded to or deposited in a preprint server. In this case, provide the name of the preprint server and associated accession number or DOI of the preprint.

2.3.2 Main Text

Manuscripts of different types are structured with different sections of content. Please refer to Types of Manuscripts to make sure which sections should be included in the manuscripts.

2.3.2.1 Introduction

The introduction should contain background that puts the manuscript into context, allow readers to understand why the study is important, include a brief review of key literature, and conclude with a brief statement of the overall aim of the work and a comment about whether that aim was achieved. Relevant controversies or disagreements in the field should be introduced as well.

2.3.2.2 Methods

Methods should contain sufficient details to allow others to fully replicate the study. New methods and protocols should be described in detail while well-established methods can be briefly described or appropriately cited. Experimental participants selected, the drugs and chemicals used, the statistical methods taken, and the computer software used should be identified precisely. Statistical terms, abbreviations, and all symbols used should be defined clearly. Protocol documents for clinical trials, observational studies, and other non-laboratory investigations may be uploaded as supplementary materials.

2.3.2.3 Results

This section contains the findings of the study. Results of statistical analysis should also be included either as text or as tables or figures if appropriate. Authors should emphasize and summarize only the most important observations. Data on all primary and secondary outcomes identified in the section Methods should also be provided. Extra or supplementary materials and technical details can be placed in supplementary documents.

2.3.2.4 Discussion

This section should discuss the implications of the findings in context of existing research and highlight limitations of the study. Future research directions may also be mentioned.

2.3.2.5 Conclusion

It should state clearly the main conclusions and include the explanation of their relevance or importance to the field.

2.3.2.6 References

Authors are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of their references and for correct text citation. Number references should be in the order they appear in the text; do not alphabetize them. In text, tables, and legends, identify references with superscript Arabic numerals. When listing references, follow AMA style and abbreviate names of journals according to the journals list in PubMed. List all authors and/or editors up to 6; if more than 6, list the first 3 followed by "et al." Note: Journal references should include the issue number in parentheses after the volume number.

Examples of reference style:

1. Youngster I, Russell GH, Pindar C, Ziv-Baran T, Sauk J, Hohmann EL. Oral, capsulized, frozen fecal microbiota transplantation for relapsing Clostridium difficileinfection.JAMA. 2014;312(17):1772-1778.
2. Murray CJL. Maximizing antiretroviral therapy in developing countries: the dual challenge of efficiency and quality [published online December 1, 2014].JAMA. doi:10.1001/jama.2014.16376.
3. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. CMS proposals to implement certain disclosure provisions of the Affordable Care Act. http://www.cms.gov/apps/media/press/factsheet.asp?Counter=4221. Accessed January 30, 2012.
4. McPhee SJ, Winker MA, Rabow MW, Pantilat SZ, Markowitz AJ, eds.Care at the Close of Life: Evidence and Experience. New York, NY: McGraw Hill Medical; 2011

For more examples of electronic references, click here.

The journal also recommends that authors prepare references with a bibliography software package, such as EndNote to avoid typing mistakes and duplicated references.

2.3.2.7 Supplementary Materials

Supplementary information is peer-reviewed material directly relevant to the conclusions of an article. Supplementary information should enhance, but not be essential to, a reader’s understanding of the  paper  and  may  consist  of  additional  text,  materials,  figures, tables and movies.

Supplementary  information  should  be  combined  into  a  single PDF file except for large Excel tables (see below) and video files. This PDF file should be labeled “Supplementary Information” and should start with a Table of Content that provides a clear and easy access to the sections of supplementary information, as cited in the main text.

All supplementary figures, tables and movies should be cited as “Figure  S1”,  “Figure  S2”,  “Table  S1”,  “Table  S2”,  Movie  S1, etc., throughout the text. Each figure legend should be typed beneath its figure.

Large supplementary tables (more than 50 rows) can be submitted as MS Excel spreadsheet documents (.xls or .xlsx).

Movies can be submitted as Flash Movie (.swf), Audio Video Inter-leave (.avi), Quicktime (.mov), Windows Media (.wmv), and animated GIF (gif). A  brief  legend  for  each  movie  should  be included at the end of the main manuscript file.

File sizes must be as small as possible. In general, a supplementary information file should not exceed 20 MB.   For video files, the maxi-mum size of each file is 2 GB.

Supplementary information is not copy-edited, so authors should ensure that it is supplied accurately and is ready for publication. It cannot be modified, nor can new supplementary information be added after the paper has been accepted for publication.

2.4 Manuscript Formats

2.4.1 File Formats

Manuscript files can be in DOC and DOCX formats and should not be locked or protected.

2.4.2 Length

The word limit is specified in the item "Types of Manuscripts". There are no restrictions on number of figures or amount of supporting documents. Authors are encouraged to present and discuss their findings concisely.

2.4.3 Language

Manuscripts must be written in English.

2.4.4 Multimedia Files

• The journal supports manuscripts with multimedia files. The requirements are listed as follows:
• Video or audio files are only acceptable in English. The presentation and introduction should be easy to understand. The frames should be clear, and the speech speed should be moderate.
• A brief overview of the video or audio files should be given in the manuscript text.
• The video or audio files should be limited to a size of 500 MB.
• Please use professional software to produce high-quality video files, to facilitate acceptance and publication of the submitted article. Upload the videos in mp4, wmv, or rm format (preferably mp4) and audio files in mp3 or wav format.

2.4.5 Figures

• Figures should be cited in numerical order (e.g., Figure 1, Figure 2) and placed after the paragraph where they are first cited;
• Figures can be submitted in formats of tiff, jpeg and png, with a resolution of 300-600 dpi;
• Figure caption is placed under the Figure;
• Diagrams with describing words (including, flow charts, coordinate diagrams, bar charts, line charts and scatter diagrams, etc.) should be editable in word, excel or powerpoint format. Non-English information should be avoided;
• Labels, numbers, letters, arrows, and symbols in figure should be clear, of uniform size, and contrast with the background;
• Symbols, arrows, numbers, or letters used to identify parts of illustrations must be identified and explained in the legend;
• Internal scale (magnification) should be explained and the staining method in photomicrographs should be identified;
• All non-standard abbreviations should be explained in the legend;
• Permission for use of copyrighted materials from other sources, including re-published, adapted, modified, or partial figures and images from the internet, must be obtained. It is authors' responsibility to acquire the licenses, to follow any citation instructions requested by third-party rights holders, and cover any supplementary charges.

2.4.6 Tables

• Tables should be cited in numerical order and placed after the paragraph where they are first cited;
• The table caption should be placed above the table and labeled sequentially (e.g., Table 1, Table 2);
• Tables should be provided in editable form like the DOC or DOCX format (picture not allowed);
• Abbreviations and symbols used in tables should be explained in footnotes;
• Explanatory matter should also be placed in footnotes;
• Permission for use of copyrighted materials from other sources, including re-published, adapted, modified, or partial tables from the internet, must be obtained. It is authors' responsibility to acquire the licenses, to follow any citation instructions requested by third-party rights holders, and to cover any supplementary charges.

2.4.7 Abbreviations

Abbreviations should be defined upon first appearance in the abstract, main text, and in figure or table captions and used consistently thereafter. Non-standard abbreviations are not allowed unless they appear at least three times in the text. Commonly-used abbreviations, such as DNA, RNA, ATP, ., can be used directly without definition. Abbreviations in titles and keywords should be avoided, except for the ones which are widely used.

2.4.8 Italics

General italic words like vs., et al., etc., in vivo, in vitro; t test, F test, U test; related coefficient as r, sample number as n, and probability as P; names of genes; names of bacteria and biology species in Latin.

2.4.9 Units

SI Units should be used. Imperial, US customary and other units should be converted to SI units whenever possible. There is a space between the number and the unit (i.e., 23 mL). Hour, minute, second should be written as h, min, s.

2.4.10 Numbers

Numbers appearing at the beginning of sentences should be expressed in English. When there are two or more numbers in a paragraph, they should be expressed as Arabic numerals; when there is only one number in a paragraph, number < 10 should be expressed in English and number > 10 should be expressed as Arabic numerals. 12345678 should be written as 12,345,678.

2.4.11 Equations

Equations should be editable and not appear in a picture format. Authors are advised to use either the Microsoft Equation Editor or the MathType for display and inline equations.

2.5 Submission Link

Submit an article via https://mc03.manuscriptcentral.com/bladder.

3. Research and Publication Ethics

Please refer to POL Scientific Research and Publication Ethics.

4. Authorship

Authorship credit of Bladder should be solely based on substantial contributions to a published study, as specified in the following four criteria:

• Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
• Final approval of the version to be published;
• 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.

All those who meet those criteria should be identified as authors. Authors must specify their contributions in the section Authors' Contributions of their manuscripts. Contributors who do not meet all the four criteria (like only involved in acquisition of funding, general supervision of a research group, general administrative support, writing assistance, technical editing, language editing, proofreading, etc.) should be acknowledged in the section of Acknowledgement in the manuscript rather than being listed as authors.

If a large multiple-author group has conducted the work, the group ideally should decide who will be authors before the work starts and confirm authors before submission. All authors of the group named as authors must meet all the four criteria for authorship.
AI and AI-assisted technologies should not be listed as an author or co-author.

5. Suggesting / Excluding Reviewers

During the submission process, please suggest three potential reviewers with the appropriate expertise to review the manuscript. The editors will not necessarily approach these referees. Please provide detailed contact information (addresses, homepages, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses). The proposed referees should neither be current collaborators of the co-authors nor have published with any of the co-authors of the manuscript within the last three years. Proposed reviewers should be from different institutions from those of the authors. You may identify appropriate Editorial Board members of the journal as potential reviewers and suggest reviewers from the authors that you frequently cite in your papers.

You are welcome to exclude a limited number of researchers as potential Editors or reviewers of your manuscript. To ensure a fair and rigorous peer review process, we ask that you keep your exclusions to a maximum of three people. If you wish to exclude additional referees, please explain or justify your concerns—this information will be helpful for Editors when they decide whether to honor your request.

6. Editors and Journal Staff as Authors

Editorial independence is extremely important and Editorial Office staff do not interfere with editorial decisions

Editorial staff or Editors shall not be involved in the processing of their own academic work. Submissions authored by editorial staff/Editors will be assigned to at least two independent outside reviewers. Decisions will be made by other Editorial Board members who do not have conflict of interests with the author. Journal staff are not involved in the processing of their own work submitted to any POL Scientific journals.

7. Policy of Use of AI and AI-assisted Technologies in Scientific Writing

Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies (e.g., large language models) are expected to be increasingly used to create content. In the writing process of manuscripts, using AI and AI-assisted technologies to complete key researcher work, such as producing scientific insights, analyzing and interpreting data or drawing scientific conclusions, is not allowed, and they should only be used to improve the readability and language of manuscripts.

AI and AI-assisted technologies should be used under human control and supervision as they may generate incorrect or prejudiced output, and they should not be listed as an author or co-author, nor cited as an author.

The use of AI and AI-assisted technologies should be disclosed by authors in their manuscripts, and a statement will be required in the final publication.

POL Scientific will keep monitoring the development and adjust the policy when necessary.

8. Conflict of Interests

Bladder requires authors to declare any possible financial and/or non-financial conflicts of interest in the cover letter and back matter, as well as confirm this point when submitting their manuscript in the submission system. If no conflicts of interest exist, authors need to state "The authors declare no conflicts of interest". We also recognize that some authors may be bound by confidentiality agreements, in which cases authors need to state "The authors declare that they are bound by confidentiality agreements that prevent them from disclosing their competing interests in this work".

9. Editorial Process

Bladder is committed to providing authors with fast, constructive and fair reviews. At submission, authors are encouraged to suggest editorial members and referees who have the expertise needed to judge the paper. Submitted papers will be first evaluated by the Editors-in­Chief or Associate Editors to determine whether they should be reviewed by at least two external referees based on scientific merit and technical quality of the papers. Submissions determined not to be reviewed by the editors will be returned to authors and will in general not be considered again unless substantial revision has been made. Resubmitted papers will be considered as new submissions. Peer­ review decisions include: acceptance, acceptance after revision, reconsideration after revision, or rejection. We aim to offer a fast publication schedule while maintaining rigorous peer review. The goal is to inform authors of a decision within 4 weeks of submission.

Individual articles will be published as soon as they are ready and will be added to the "current" volume's Table of Contents.

10. Contact Us

Journal Contact

Bladder Editorial Office

bladder@polscientific.com

Bladder,

POL Scientific,

Room 102, Building 13, Nuo De Center III, Yuren South Road, Fengtai District, Beijing, 100070, China

Last updated on 4 September, 2024