Author Guidelines
Before submitting a paper, authors must ensure that they have followed the step-by-step guidelines for submitting a manuscript to our online submission system. Please download the latest Template.
Article Types
USP journals accept and publish the following types of manuscripts: Article, Review, Book Review, Editorial, etc. Authors are requested to carefully confirm whether their manuscript is of the accepted manuscript type before submitting and to select the correct manuscript type when submitting it.
Manuscript Format
The manuscript should be in MS Word format. This journal publishes English articles. Both British and American English are accepted but cannot be mixed in the manuscript. Usage of non-English words should be kept to a minimum. If authors have concerns about the level of English in their manuscript, please ensure that it is proofread before submission by a native English speaker or a scientific editing service.
Cover Letter
All submissions are encouraged to include a cover letter as a separate file (varying from journal to journal). A cover letter should explain the main research content of the manuscript (note: it should not be the same content as the Abstract), the research significance, the research highlights of the article, and why it is in line with the current submission journal, so that the editors can have a general understanding of the manuscript in advance. The cover letter is confidential and will be read only by the editors.
Title
The title should be concise and clear and should be able to give readers an overall view of the paper’s significance. Titles with jargons, abbreviations, and punctuation should be avoided. It is recommended that a title does not exceed 50 words.
Authors Information
- The names of all authors, along with their affiliations, should be spelled out rather than set in initials.
- Authors should be listed according to the extent of their contribution, with the major contributor listed first. USP journals allow co-authorship.
- At least one author should be designated as the corresponding author, who will be responsible for all subsequent notifications and confirmations. The corresponding author should be identified with an asterisk “*”.
- Affiliations should contain the following core information: Department, Institution/University, City, Postal Code, State, and Country. If there are more than two affiliations, please mark them numerically.
- For contact information, the email address of at least one corresponding author must be included. Please note that all authors must see and approve the final version of the manuscript before submitting it. The email address should be one with an organization suffix whenever possible.
- If possible, email addresses of co-authors can also be provided.
- If the corresponding author has an ORCID, it can also be provided.
Abstract and Keywords
Articles must include an abstract containing a maximum of 250 words. An abstract enables a reader to quickly get the essence of the article in order to decide whether to read the full article. Structured or unstructured abstracts are both acceptable.
Please give 3–8 keywords after the abstract; please avoid using the same words as those already used in the title.
Text
There is no word limit for various manuscript types, but it is recommended that the word count of all types of manuscripts should not exceed 7,000 words. We will also consider publishing outstanding manuscripts that exceed this word count.
Section Headings
Please number the section headings (e.g., 1., 2., 3., 4., etc.) in boldface. Likewise, use boldface to identify the subheadings too, but please distinguish them from major headings by using numbers (e.g., 1.1., 1.2., 2.1., 2.2., etc.). Further subsections of subheadings should be differentiated with the numbers 1.1.1., 1.1.2., 2.1.1., 2.1.2., etc.
Introduction
The introduction should provide a background that gives a broad readership an overall outlook of the field and the research performed. It addresses an issue and emphasizes its relevance in the context of the research. The introduction can conclude with a brief explanation of the work’s goal and a comment about whether that aim was achieved.
Materials and Methods
This section describes the overall experimental design and methodologies used. The goal is to give enough information for other scientists to completely duplicate the findings. It is also essential for improved comprehension of the results collected. Detailed protocols and procedures for new approaches must be supplied for future duplication of the experiments.
Results
This section focuses on the results of the experiments performed.
Discussion
This section should provide the significance of the results and identify the impact of the research in a broader context. It should not be redundant or similar to the content of the Results section.
Conclusion
Please use the Conclusion section for interpretation only, and do not summarize information already presented in the text or abstract.
Author Contributions
For research articles with more than one author, a short paragraph specifying their individual contributions must be provided. Please use the author’s initials to complete this statement. Authorship must be confined to those who made significant contributions to the reported work.
Please visit CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) for specific explanations of contributor roles listed in the example.
Funding
In this section, authors should declare any financial support that might be considered as a source of competing interest in regard to their submitted manuscript. Grants, royalties, and consulting fees are common forms of financial support.
Acknowledgments
Authors may acknowledge any assistance supplied that is not covered under the Author Contributions or Funding section. An example of this could be non-financial support. It might take several forms, including donations from non-authors, writing assistance, administrative support, externally supplied equipment/biological sources, etc.
Conflict of Interest
All authors must state any activities that may be considered a source of conflict of interest in regard to their submitted work. Such activities might include personal, financial, or professional contacts and events, and so on. Authors with nothing to declare are suggested to include the statement “No conflict of interest was reported by all authors” in this section.
Appendix
This section is optional and includes any information (e.g., advanced technical details) that is excluded from the main text but is nonetheless necessary for readers to comprehend the manuscript. This section is not intended for supplementary data, figures, or tables. Authors are advised to refer to the guideline on “Supplementary Materials” for such submissions.
Figures
Figures can be placed in the text according to the MS Word template we provide. If the figure file is too large (for example, more than 10 MB), it can also be submitted as a separate file. Figures can be graphs, photographs, charts, scanned images, or schematic diagrams. Figures should minimize excessive cosmetic features (e.g., 3D graphs) and be simply processed. Figures should also be presented on a white background. Please remember to include all labels in the figures (e.g., axes, etc.) and number the figures in boldface (e.g., Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.) where they are mentioned in the relevant paragraph, as well as in the caption (below the figure). If a figure has more than one panel, please identify each panel with a lowercase letter in parenthesis (e.g., (a), (b), (c), etc.).
Authors are strongly encouraged to compress their figures to an optimal size that does not compromise legibility or resolution. TIFF or JPEG are the preferred file formats for any separately submitted figure(s).
Tables
Tables should be created using the MS Word table function. The table caption should be placed above the table. The caption, footnotes, or legends should be concise. Tables should be placed near the paragraph where they are first mentioned in the main text.
Equations
For listing equations within the main text, please use Arabic numerals in parenthesis (e.g., Equation (1), Equation (2), Equations (3) and (4), etc.).
Supplementary Materials
This section is optional and includes all data, figures, or tables that are excluded from the manuscript. These materials are pertinent to the manuscript but are not necessary for a reader to understand the main content of the manuscript. All supplementary information should be submitted as a separate file. Please name such file as “Supplementary Materials”. Videos are also acceptable.
In-text citations
Reference citations in the text should be numbered consecutively in square brackets. Some examples are as follows:
- It will lead to the distortion and out-of-band spectrum expansion of the VDB transmitter, resulting in the interference of the adjacent channel [1].
- The memoryless power amplifier model means that the output signal is only related to the current input signal and has nothing to do with the historical input [4,5].
- The table contains the advantages and disadvantages of the various hydrogen production methods and their development time [12,15,17–20].
References
The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Do not use footnotes or endnotes as a substitute for a reference list. Personal communications and unpublished works should be excluded from this section.
References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. The authors referenced are listed by their surname, followed by their first and middle initials. All references should also appear as an in-text citation. The following patterns are suggested to be included according to the diverse types of references: Author(s), title of publication, source name (journal, book, website, etc.), year of publication, (place of publication), page range, and DOI link (if applicable). When the referred material has more than five authors, please list only the first three authors and abbreviate the remaining authors to “et al.” (which means “and others”).
Please follow the specific reference format requirements in the template and modify the references into the correct format before submitting the manuscript.
