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About Experimental Results

Experimental Results is an Open Access journal providing a forum for experimental findings that disclose the small incremental steps vitally important to experimental research; experiments and findings which have so far remained hidden. Such results often go unpublished due to the traditional scholarly communication process, in which only a select group of experiments are chosen to make up the narrative of a single paper.

Articles for consideration in Experimental Results include validation and reproducibility of existing findings, null results, supplementary findings, improvements or amendments to published results, as well as results that could be of importance, but for whatever reason, the researcher has not followed a particular line of questioning to produce a full narrative for a traditional paper. Where applicable, work published in Experimental Results will clearly link back to the related article.

Experimental Results will publish short research papers from experimental disciplines across Science, Technology and Medicine, providing authors with an outlet for rapid publication of small incremental pieces of research findings with maximum visibility. Articles will be accepted for publication if they are technically and methodologically sound and if the research reported answers a valid research question.

Subject Categories

Experimental Results accepted submissions in the following subjects:

Life Science and Biomedicine
Chemistry
Earth and Environmental Science
Psychology and Psychiatry
Engineering
Physics and Astronomy
Mathematics, Statistics and Probability
Computer Science

Submission Guidelines

Result types

Experimental Results will publish short articles detailing small incremental pieces of research output. They will not include theories or narrative discussion. There is a word limit of 2,000 (not including references) for all sections apart from Mathematics, Statistics & Probability which has a word limit of 3,000, and papers should be as concise as possible. Authors can also upload supplementary material in addition to their article - this is material that is impractical to include in the article itself for example, extensive datasets, complex mathematical calculations and proofs, 3D-structures, 3D-images or video files.

See below the definitions of result types that can be submitted to Experimental Results. Upon submission, authors will need to select one or more result types for their paper:

Result Type	Description
Novel result	An experimental result, or collection of results, that are new and original and could potentially be unexpected or unusual.
Negative result	An experimental result, or collection of results, that do not sufficiently support your hypothesis but may still be of benefit to the community. These results could potentially be unexpected or unusual.
Supplementary finding	An additional result that has been discovered after the publication of a full narrative paper
Replication/validation study	Independent repetition of a previously published study in similar conditions to report on whether the same or similar results are achieved.

Article sections

All Experimental Results articles must contain the following sections:

Title, authors and affiliations (each author affiliation needs to include country)
Keywords: (minimum 3, maximum 5)
Abstract: (150 words max) should summarize the background, findings, and implications of the work.
Introduction
Methods
Results/Conclusions
Figures (maximum 4)
References
Funding Information (see funding information section for more information)
Data Availability Statement

LaTeX template

The journal's LaTeX template can be found here.

Text

For all types of articles, please make sure the manuscript is presented with figures supplied as separate files, ensuring that the figure callout is present in the text and figure legends are given at the end of the manuscript. Please also submit a document with numbered lines. All these requests are made to facilitate the reviewing process.

Figures and tables

For guidance on producing figures and tables, please visit the Cambridge Journals Artwork Guide.

References

References and citations should be formatted correctly in journal style when the article is submitted to the journal but formatting is not grounds for rejection at the submitting phase.

References in text should be cited by the author(s) surname(s) and the year of publication (e.g. Smith, 2012). References with two authors should be cited with both surnames (e.g. Smith and Wright, 2013). References with three or more authors should be cited with the first author followed by et al. (in italics; e.g. Smith et al.).

Examples follow:

- Cummings, J.N., Butler, B., & Kraut, R. (2002). The quality of online social relationships. Communications of the ACM, 45(7), 103-108

- Hu, Y., Wood, J.F., Smith, V., & Westbrook, N. (2004). Friendships through IM: Examining the relationship between instant messaging and intimacy. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 10, 38-48.

‘Unpublished observations’ and ‘personal communications’ may not be used as references, although references to written, not oral, communications may be inserted (in parentheses) in the text. Include among the references articles accepted but not yet published, or published online only (please supply Digital Object Identifier [DOI] reference, if known); designate the journal and add ‘(in press)’. Information from manuscripts submitted but not yet accepted should be cited in the text as ‘unpublished observations’.

The references must be verified by the author(s) against the original documents.

Please follow the APA citation style.

Data citation

All of the data (including original and archival data) used in a paper must be appropriately cited. Citations to data must include information that will make it easy for readers to find the original data sources, and for those original sources to be consistently identified in the future. Data citations should not appear in the paper’s author note, acknowledgements, footnotes, tables, figures, or supplementary materials. Rather, data citations must be referred to in the text itself and link to the paper’s reference list, and contain the name or title of the dataset, the author or authors, any version information, the date of creation of the version used in the paper, and most importantly a persistent data identifier (for example a DOI).

Some examples:

Bullock, Will, Kosuke Imai, Jacob Shapiro, "Replication data for: Statistical analysis of endorsement experiments: Measuring support for militant groups in Pakistan", http://hdl.handle.net/1902.1/1... V5 [Version], September 5, 2011.

Monogan, Jamie, "Replication data for: A Case for Registering Studies of Political Outcomes: An Application in the 2010 House Elections", http://hdl.handle.net/1902.1/1... V6 [Version], June 3, 2013.[AP2]

These would be cited in the text of the paper as Bullock et al. (2011) and Monogan (2013) respectively.

Repositories

Experimental Results encourages the sharing of resources through repositories that make content as Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) as possible. Wherever possible, authors are encouraged to use repositories that:

Are committed to the long-term preservation and accessibility of their content.
Are supported and recognised by the community as appropriate for the resources they hold.
Provide stable, unique identifiers for the information they hold.
Support linking between their database records and associated published research articles.
Allow free public access to their holdings, with reasonable exceptions (such as administration charges for the distribution of physical materials).

If there are domain-specific, specialised repositories in common use in your research community, we recommend using those to share resources. Generalist repositories, which can host a wide variety of data types, may also be used if no appropriate specialised repository exists. Examples of general repositories include Zenodo, Figshare, Dataverse, Dryad, and the Open Science Framework. Guidance for preparing qualitative data for sharing is provided by bodies such as the Qualitative Data Repository and ICPSR.

Methods

We recommend and encourage you to deposit laboratory protocols in protocols.io, where protocols can be assigned their own persistent digital object identifiers (DOIs).

To include a link to a protocol in your article:

Describe your step-by-step protocol on protocols.io
Select Get DOI to issue your protocol a persistent digital object identifier (DOI)
Include the DOI link in the Methods section of your manuscript using the following format provided by protocols.io. Any referenced protocol(s) will automatically be made public when your article is published

More information can be found here.

Required Statements

The sections below must be included. These statements should be included at the end of the manuscript, before the References section.

Acknowledgements

You may acknowledge individuals or organisations that provided advice, support (non-financial). Formal financial support and funding should be listed in the Financial Support section (see below).

Author Contributions

A short statement should be provided indicating how each author contributed to the work. For example: AB and CD conceived and designed the study. CD and EF conducted data gathering. GH performed statistical analyses. AB, EF and GH wrote the article.

Funding Information

Please provide details of the sources of financial support for all authors, including grant numbers. For example, "This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (grant number XXXXXXX)". Multiple grant numbers should be separated by a comma and space, and where research was funded by more than one agency the different agencies should be separated by a semi-colon, with 'and' before the final funder. Grants held by different authors should be identified as belonging to individual authors by the authors' initials. For example, "This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (A.B., grant numbers XXXX, YYYY), (C.D., grant number ZZZZ); the Natural Environment Research Council (E.F., grant number FFFF); and the Australian Research Council (A.B., grant number GGGG), (E.F., grant number HHHH)".

Where no specific funding has been provided for research, please provide the following statement: "This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors."

Open Peer Review

Experimental Results will operate open peer review for full transparency about decision-making and in order to mitigate issues that contribute to editorial bias. Authors will know who has reviewed their submission, with accepted manuscripts being published with their review reports, which will include the reviewer name, their ORCID ID, and an individual DOI.

Accepted Manuscripts

Accepted manuscripts are published online as is (before copy-editing or typesetting) within approximately a week of final acceptance, provided we have received all final files and a completed license to publish form. At this point, the article will have a DOI and be considered published and citable. You will subsequently receive a proof of your typeset, edited article, which will eventually replace the accepted manuscript online and be considered the final version of record.

The AM file must be a single Word (or similar word processor) file with the abstract, main text, references, tables and figures. It does not need to be laid out as the final article will be published but it must include all those elements in the single file. You cannot upload a zip or other format file as the AM file. It must be word processor and a single file. The AM file is processed in a different (and more rapid) way than the other source files which are copy edited and typeset. We need all the source files and the AM file.

For more information on the AM process, please click here.

Publishing Ethics

As a leading publisher of scholarly journals, Cambridge University Press is committed to meeting high standards of ethical behavior at all stages of the publication process. Our ethical standards and procedures set out general expectations for authors, editors, reviewers, publishers and partners.

Experimental Results and Cambridge University Press take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism, or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. For more information, please see Publishing Ethics.

Experimental Results considers all manuscripts on the strict condition that:

The manuscript has been submitted only to the journal - it is not under consideration, accepted for publication or in press elsewhere. Manuscripts may be deposited on pre-print servers;
All listed authors know of and agree to the manuscript being submitted to the journal; and
The manuscript contains nothing that is abusive, defamatory, fraudulent, illegal, libellous, or obscene.

Where research involves human and/or animal experimentation, the following statements should be included (as applicable): "The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the relevant national and institutional committees on human experimentation and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008." and "The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the relevant national and institutional guides on the care and use of laboratory animals."

Cambridge University Press is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), an organization that provides advice to editors and publishers on all aspects of publications ethics and how to handle cases of misconduct. The journal adheres to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines on research and publications ethics. For further information on Cambridge's Ethical Guidelines, please visit these pages: Publishing Ethics and Ethical Standards.

If you have any concerns about the publishing ethics or research integrity of a paper published in Experimental Results, please contact publishingethics@cambridge.org – we follow COPE’s guidelines for misconduct allegations made directly or on social media. If you are the author of the paper and would like to appeal an editorial decision or make a complaint, please can you direct this to Priyanka Comar at priyanka.comar@cambridge.org (Commissioning Editor).

Conflict of Interest

Experimental Results requires authors and reviewers to complete a conflict of interest declaration. We will be unable to publish the manuscript or review without this.

Conflicts of Interest are situations that could be perceived to exert an undue influence on an author’s presentation of their work. They may include, but are not limited to, financial, professional, contractual or personal relationships or situations.

Conflicts of Interest do not necessarily mean that the manuscript or review has been compromised. Authors and reviewers should declare any real or perceived Conflicts of Interest in order to be transparent about the context of their review.

Authors

Authors must include the conflict of interest declaration in their manuscript.

If the manuscript has multiple authors, the author submitting the manuscript must include Conflicts of Interest declarations relevant to all contributing authors.

Example wording for a Conflicts of Interest declaration is as follows: “Conflicts of Interest: Author A is employed at company B. Author C owns shares in company D, is on the Board of company E and is a member of organisation F. Author G has received grants from company H.” If no Conflicts of Interest exist, the declaration should state “Conflicts of Interest: Author A and Author B declare none”.

Supplementary material

Authors have the opportunity to include material that it would be impossible or impractical to include in the article itself for example, extensive datasets, complex mathematical calculations, 3D-structures, 3D-images or video files. You must upload Supplementary Material at the same time as you submit your manuscript, and you must give details in your cover letter of all supplementary files uploaded. If accepted, this material will be placed in the Cambridge University Press Supplementary Material data archive, and it will be accessible online. Authors should ensure that they mention within their article that Supplementary Material is available on the Cambridge Core website.

At the head of the first page of your Supplementary Material file, type 'Experimental Results', the article title, the names of the authors, the heading 'Supplementary Material', and then the relevant inclusions. Please note that captions or legends should be included for all figures and tables in Supplementary Material. You should number figures or tables with the prefix 'S', e.g. Supplementary Figure S1, Supplementary Table S1. Colour images as Supplementary Material must be saved in RGB format (not CMYK).

Although Supplementary Material is peer reviewed, it is not checked, copyedited or typeset after acceptance and it is loaded onto the journal's website exactly as supplied. You should check your Supplementary Material carefully to ensure that it adheres to journal styles. Corrections cannot be made to the Supplementary Material after acceptance of the manuscript. Please bear this in mind when deciding what content to include as Supplementary Material.

Author Language Services

Cambridge recommends that authors have their manuscripts checked by an English language native speaker before submission; this will ensure that submissions are judged at peer review exclusively on academic merit. We list a number of third-party services specialising in language editing and/or translation, and suggest that authors contact as appropriate. Use of any of these services is voluntary, and at the author's own expense.

Information For Chemistry Authors

Experimental guidelines

Experimental information must be provided to enable other researchers to reproduce accurately the work. The experimental details and the characterisation data should preferably be provided as electronic supplementary information (ESI), although on occasion it may be appropriate to include some or all of this within the body of the communication. This will depend on the nature of the research being reported.

The synthesis of all new compounds must be described in detail. Synthetic procedures must include the specific reagents, products and solvents and must give the amounts (g, mmol, for products: %) for all of them, as well as clearly stating how the percentage yields are calculated. They must also include all the characterisation data for the prepared compound or material. For multistep synthesis papers, spectra of key compounds and the final product should be included. For a series of related compounds, at least one representative procedure which outlines a specific example that is described in the text or in a table and which is representative for the other cases must be provided.

Characterisation of new compounds

It is the responsibility of authors to provide fully convincing evidence for the homogeneity, purity and identity of all compounds they claim as new. This evidence is required to establish that the properties and constants reported are those of the compound with the new structure claimed. Referees will assess, as a whole, the evidence presented in support of the claims made by the authors. The requirements for characterisation criteria are detailed below.

Organic compounds

Authors are required to provide unequivocal support for the purity and assigned structure of all compounds using a combination of the following characterisation techniques.

Analytical: Authors should provide adequate 1H NMR data to confirm that a sample is 95% pure.

Physical: Important physical properties - for example, boiling or melting point, specific rotation, refractive index - including conditions and a comparison to the literature for known compounds should be provided. For crystalline compounds, the method used for recrystallisation should also be documented (that is, solvent etc).

Spectroscopic: Mass spectra and a complete numerical listing of ¹H,¹³C NMR peaks in support of the assigned structure, including relevant 2D NMR and related experiments (that is, NOE, etc) is required. As noted in 'Analytical', authors are requested to provide copies of these spectra. Infrared spectra that support functional group modifications, including other diagnostic assignments, should be included. High-resolution mass spectra are acceptable as proof of the molecular weight providing the purity of the sample has been accurately determined as outlined above.

Polymers: For all soluble polymers, an estimation of molecular weight must be provided by a suitable method - for example, size exclusion chromatography, including details of columns, eluents and calibration standards, intrinsic viscosity, MALDI TOF, etc. In addition, full NMR characterisation (¹H,¹³C) as for organic compound characterisation (see 'Organic compounds' in this section) should be included. Small molecules on the route to the polymers should be characterised as above and NMR data should be tabulated.

Inorganic and organometallic compounds

A new chemical substance (molecule or extended solid) should have a homogeneous composition and structure. Where the compound is molecular, authors must provide data to unequivocally establish its homogeneity, purity and identification. In general, this should include elemental analyses that agree to within ±0.4% of the calculated values. In cases where elemental analyses cannot be obtained (for example, for thermally unstable compounds), justification for the omission of this data should be provided. Note that an X-ray crystal structure is not sufficient for the characterisation of a new material, since the crystal used in this analysis does not necessarily represent the bulk sample.

In rare cases, it may be possible to substitute elemental analyses with high-resolution mass spectrometric molecular weights. This is appropriate, for example, with trivial derivatives of thoroughly characterised substances or routine synthetic intermediates. In all cases, relevant spectroscopic data (NMR, IR, UV-vis, etc) should be provided in tabulated form or as reproduced spectra. These may be relegated to the electronic supplementary information (ESI) to conserve journal space. However, it should be noted that, in general, mass spectrometric and spectroscopic data do not constitute proof of purity, and, in the absence of elemental analyses, additional evidence of purity should be provided (melting points, PXRD data, etc).

Where the compound is an extended solid, it is important to unequivocally establish the chemical structure and bulk composition. Single crystal diffraction does not determine the bulk structure. Referees will normally look to see evidence of bulk homogeneity. A fully indexed powder diffraction pattern that agrees with single crystal data may be used as evidence of a bulk homogeneous structure, and chemical analysis may be used to establish purity and homogeneous composition.

Magnetic measurements

If data from magnetic measurements are presented, the manuscript must provide a thorough description of the experimental details pertaining to how the sample was measured (in a gelatin capsule, Teflon capsule, as a powder, etc). If the data have been corrected for sample or sample-holder diamagnetism, the diamagnetic correction term must be provided and the manner in which it was determined (for example, calculated using Pascal’s constants, measured) must be stated.

Any fit of magnetic data [for example, χ(T), χ(1/T), χT(T), μ(T), M(H), etc] to an analytical expression must be accompanied by the Hamiltonian from which the analytical expression is derived, the analytical expression itself, and the fitting parameters. If the expression is lengthy, it may be included in the electronic supplementary information instead of within the main manuscript text. Its inclusion as supplementary information should be noted in the electronic supplementary information paragraph at the end of the manuscript. When an exchange coupling constant (J) is quoted in the abstract, the form of the Hamiltonian must also be included in the abstract.

Nano-sized materials (such as quantum dots, nanoparticles, nanotubes, nanowires)

It is essential that the authors not only provide detailed characterisation on individual objects (see 'Inorganic and organometallic compounds') but also a comprehensive characterisation of the bulk composition. Characterisation of the bulk of the sample could require determination of the chemical composition and size distribution over large portions of the sample.

Biomolecules (for example, enzymes, proteins, DNA/RNA, oligosaccharides, oligonucleotides)

Authors should provide rigorous evidence for the identity and purity of the biomolecules described. The techniques that may be employed to substantiate identity include the following.

Mass spectrometry
LC-MS
Sequencing data (for proteins and oligonucleotides)
High field ¹H,¹³C NMR spectroscopy
X-ray crystallography

Purity must be established by one or more of the following.

HPLC
Gel electrophoresis
Capillary electrophoresis
High field ¹H,¹³C NMR spectroscopy

Sequence verification also needs to be carried out for nucleic acid cases involving molecular biology including all mutants; for new protein or gene sequences, the entire sequence must be provided. For organic synthesis involving DNA, RNA oligonucleotides, their derivatives or mimics, purity must be established using HPLC and mass spectrometry as a minimum.

For new derivatives comprising modified monomers, the usual organic chemistry analytical requirements for the novel monomer must be provided (see 'Organic compounds'). However, it is not necessary to provide this level of characterisation for the oligonucleotide into which the novel monomer is incorporated.

Reporting efficiencies of solar devices

Authors and referees should note the following guidelines for articles reporting the efficiency of solar conversion devices. Authors should ensure the following information is provided in the main manuscript or supplementary information as appropriate.
A full, conventional error analysis should be carried out and reported. This should consist of both random and systematic/bias analyses of values to support the main claims presented in the article, and information on how the error analysis was carried out.
Efficiencies should be reported to an appropriate number of significant figures, along with a standard deviation. This also includes presenting error bars on graphs.
A sufficient number of samples should be tested, and a sufficient number of trials performed.
The 1 Sun AM 1.5G reference spectrum should be used as standard for testing power conversion efficiency and a justification provided where this is not used.
Full experimental conditions under which the efficiency is measured should be declared. Special attention should be paid to documenting the active area of the device, the calibration protocol and properties of the illumination including spectral irradiance and intensity. This may also include as appropriate, but is not limited to, air temperature, use of a glove box, properties and characteristics of the test cell and standardized cell used for calibration, including dimensions and spatial non-uniformity, and calibration and measurement protocols.
Independent certification of the photovoltaic performance of the device being reported is encouraged when the main claims rely on the absolute efficiency value being reported.
If incident photon-to-current efficiency (IPCE), also referred to as external quantum efficiency (EQE) measurements are performed, the results should be integrated to a resulting short circuit current that can be compared with 1 Sun AM 1.5G power conversion efficiency data. The details of how this calculation is done and any correction factors should be clearly defined.
If hysteresis is observed, details on timescale and stability of the efficiency should be provided.

Data deposition

Structural biology data: The journal accepts and follows the recommendations of the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr), with regard to the deposition and release of macromolecular structural data. These guidelines are set out by the IUCr Commission on Biological Macromolecules (Acta Crystallographica (2000), D56, 2). In summary, they state that all publications must be accompanied by deposition of both the atomic coordinates and the structure-factor amplitudes in the appropriate database (PDB, NDB or Cambridge Crystallographic Centre). In the case of low-resolution structures for which only a chain trace is reported, a set of C alpha positions and structure-factor amplitudes may be sufficient. For NMR structures, data deposited should include resonance assignments, and all restraints used in structure determination (NOEs, spin-spin coupling constants, amide exchange rates, etc) and the derived atomic coordinates for both an individual structure and for a family of acceptable structures.

Functional genomics data: Microarray and sequencing-based functional genomics data should be deposited in the ArrayExpress or GEO databases in compliance to the MIAME standards and the MINSEQEdraft proposal.

Proteomics, metabolomics and molecular interactions: Mass spectrometry datasets should be deposited in a machine-readable format (e.g. mzML if possible) in one of the major public database, for example Pride or PeptideAtlas and authors should follow the MIAPE recommendations. Molecular interaction data should be deposited with a member of the International Molecular Exchange Consortium (IMEx) prior to submission of the manuscript. Authors should follow the MIMIx Recommendations. Metabolomics data should be deposited following the recommendations of the Metabolomics Standards Initiative (MSI) in a recognised repository such as MetaboLights.

Flow cytometry data: Data from FACS analysis should be deposited in https://flowrepository.org/ and annotated, as far as possible, using the MIFlowCyt standard.

Large-scale imaging: High-content screens and large-scale imaging data should be deposited in the Image Data Resource (IDR) database. Descriptive metadata should follow the recommendation provided by IDR.

Sequence data: Nucleotide sequence data should be submitted to an International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration member: GenBank, European Nucleotide Archive or DDBJ.

Computational data: Authors must provide sufficient information to enable readers to reproduce any computational results. If software was used for calculations and is generally available, it must be properly cited in the notes and references. References to the methods upon which the software is based must also be provided. Equations, data, geometric parameters/coordinates, or other numerical parameters essential to reproduction of the computational results (or adequate references when available in the open literature) must be provided. Authors who report the results of electronic structure calculations in relative energies should also include in electronic supplementary information the absolute energies obtained directly from the computational output files. Computational results obtained using methods, parameters, or input data that are not adequately described in the manuscript or in the referenced literature are not acceptable for publication.

Information For Psychology and Psychiatry Authors

Clinical Trials

As a condition of consideration for publication, registration of clinical trials in a public trials registry is required. A clinical trial is deﬁned by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (in accordance with the deﬁnition of the World Health Organisation) as any research project that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health- related interventions to evaluate the effects on health outcomes. Trials must be registered before the start of patient enrollment. The registry must be accessible to the public at no charge. It must be open to all prospective registrants and managed by a not-for-proﬁt organization. There must be a mechanism to ensure the validity of the registration data, and the registry should be electronically searchable. An acceptable registry must include at minimum a unique trial number, trial registration date, secondary identiﬁcation information if assigned by sponsors or others, funding source(s), primary and secondary sponsor(s), responsible contact person, research contact person, ofﬁcial scientiﬁc title of the study, research ethics review, the medical condition being studied, intervention(s), key inclusion and exclusion criteria, study type, anticipated trial start date, target sample size, recruitment status, primary outcome, and key secondary outcomes. Registration information must be provided at the time of submission in accordance with this journal's author instructions.

Manuscripts reporting the results of randomized controlled trials should include a "CONSORT" ﬂow diagram as a ﬁgure in the manuscript to illustrate the progress of all patients in the study (See: Schulz KF, Altman D, for the CONSORT Group. The CON- SORT statement: revised recommendations for improving the quality of reports of parallel-group randomized trials. JAMA. 2001;285(15):1987–1991.)

Ethical Standards

Research involving human participants, tissue or data should be approved by relevant institutional ethics committee(s) and should conform to relevant international ethical and legal standards for research (for example, the Declaration of Helsinki and the Belmont Report).

Ethics committee approval

The name of the ethics committee that approved the research, the ethics committee approval number and the types of consent obtained should be included according to this journal's author instructions. In cases where the need for formal ethics committee approval was waived, the name of the ethics committee that granted the waiver should be included in the methods section of the manuscript.

Consent to publish

This journal expects authors to respect human participants’ right to privacy, and to gain written consent to publish individual identifying data when relevant before submitting to us.

Authors should obtain consent to publish from individual participants if their manuscript includes any data that might identify them. For example, this includes photographs, videos, individual clinical data, quotes, demographic details and any other details that might identify the participant. For children (under 18yrs) consent should also be obtained from the child’s parent or legal guardian.

Consent to participate

Consent to participate should not be confused with consent to publish. In the conduct of their research, authors should prospectively obtain consent from the individuals involved to participate in their research and/or for their tissues or data to be used. The need for consent and method of obtaining consent should be determined by the authors’ institutional ethics committee. Details of consent to participate should be included in manuscripts. Where consent for participation was not obtained (for example, in cases where the participants were not capable of providing consent) the editor may ask to see evidence that the need for consent was waived by an ethics committee.

Manuscripts reporting the results of randomized controlled trials should follow the CONSORT reporting guidelines and provide a flow diagram to illustrate the progress of all patients in the study. Authors are also required to abide by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors guidelines regarding informed consent.

Digital Preservation Policy

Cambridge University Press publications are deposited in the following digital archives to guarantee long-term digital preservation:

CLOCKSS (journals)
Portico (journals and books)