投稿規定

Aims and Scope

Reproductive Medicine and Biology (RMB) is the official English journal of the Japan Society for Reproductive Medicine, the Japan Society of Fertilization and Implantation, and the Japan Society of Andrology, and publishes original research articles that report new findings or concepts in all aspects of reproductive phenomena in all kinds of mammals. Papers in any of the following fields will be considered: andrology, endocrinology, oncology, immunology, genetics, function of gonads and genital tracts, erectile dysfunction, gametogenesis, function of accessory sex organs, fertilization, embryogenesis, embryo manipulation, pregnancy, implantation, ontogenesis, infectious disease, contraception, infertility treatment, surgery, and ethics and social issues, at the biological, biochemical, biophysical, molecular biological, analytically morphological, and clinical levels. Reports on techniques applicable to the above fields are also considered. Original Articles, Research Notes, and Case Reports will be accepted, but not preliminary reports.

Review articles are usually submitted upon invitation by the Editors, but the Editorial Board welcomes voluntary contributions. A review should be a focused, brief treatment of a contemporary development in a single area, and should be no longer than 10 printed pages.

Acceptance

The acceptance criteria for all papers are the quality and originality of the research and its significance to our readership. Except where otherwise stated, manuscripts are peer reviewed by two anonymous reviewers and the Executive Editor. Manuscripts are accepted whether or not the author is a member of the Japan Society for Reproductive Medicine, the Japan Society of Fertilization and Implantation, or the Japan Society of Andrology. The Editorial Board reserves the right to refuse any material for publication and advises authors to retain copies of submitted manuscripts and correspondence, as material cannot be returned. Final acceptance or rejection rests with the Editorial Board.

Manuscript submission

Legal requirements
Submission of a manuscript implies: that the work described has not been published before; that it is not under consideration for publication anywhere else; and that its publication has been approved by all co-authors, if any, as well as by the responsible authorities—tacitly or explicitly—-at the institute where the work has been carried out. The publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.

Permissions
Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text passages that havealready been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from thecopyright owner(s) and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from authors.

Covering letter
Papers are accepted for publication in the Journal on the understanding that the content has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere. This must be stated in the covering letter. The covering letter must contain an acknowledgment that all authors have contributed significantly, and that all authors are in agreement with the content of the manuscript.

Authors must also state that the protocol for the research project has been approved by a suitably constituted ethics committee of the institution within which the work was undertaken and that it conforms to the provisions of the Declaration of Helsinki (as revised in Edinburgh 2000) available at http://www.wma.net/e/policy/b3.htm. All investigations on human subjects must include a statement that the subject gave informed consent, and patient anonymity should be preserved. Any experiments involving animals must be demonstrated to be ethically acceptable and where relevant conform to national guidelines for animal usage in research.

Authors should declare any financial support or relationships that may pose a conflict of interest.

How to submit
Authors should submit their manuscripts online. Please connect directly to the site and upload all of your manuscript files following the instructions given on the screen.

http://www.editorialmanager.com/remb

Author accounts
Authors entering the journal's Editorial Manager site can either create a new account or use an existing one. When you have an existing account, use it for all your submissions; you can track their status on the same page.

If you have forgotten your username and password, please click the link "Send Username/Password" and enter your e-mail address. You will then receive an automatically generated e-mail with your username and password. Alternatively, please create a new account and then follow the instructions given on the screen.

Getting started
Once you have logged into your account, Editorial Manager will lead you through the submission process in an orderly, step-by-step process. If you cannot finish your submission in one visit, you can save a draft and re-enter the process later at the same point for that manuscript.

While submitting your electronic manuscript, you will be required to enter data about your manuscript and to indicate one preferred executive editor and three preferred referees. Please provide contact information (affiliations, e-mail addresses, and fax numbers) for your preferred referees. Required manuscript data include full title, author names and affiliations, and other information, as listed below under Manuscript preparation. Support for special characters is available.

Uploading files
Main Documents: Main documents of articles should be uploaded in rich text format (.rtf) or as Microsoft Word documents (.doc).

Tables: Use the table functions of your word-processing program, not spreadsheets, to create tables. Tables may be uploaded separately from the main document.

Figures: Common graphic files such as GIF, JPEG, EPS, and TIFF are supported. Please upload figures that are satisfactory for the review process and for printing according to Artwork guidelines described in the end of this instruction.

After the components of the article have been uploaded in this manner, the system will convert the files to PDF format. You are required to view the result of the conversion with Adobe Acrobat Reader. After you approve submission, you will be notified by e-mail that your submission was successful. At any point during this process, there are Help buttons available to see frequently asked questions.

Keeping track
After submission, you may return and monitor the progress of your submission through the review process.

Manuscript Preparation

Manuscripts should follow the style of the Vancouver agreement detailed in the "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals" , as presented in Ann Intern Med 1997; 126 : 36-47 and at www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/126/1/36. 

Parts of the manuscript
Manuscripts should be presented in the following order: (i) title page, (ii) abstract and keywords, (iii) text, (iv) acknowledgments, (v) references, (vi) figure legends, (vii) tables (each table complete with title and footnotes), (viii) figures.

Footnotes to the text are not allowed, and any such material should be incorporated into the text as parenthetical matter.

Title Page
The title page should include:

- The name(s) of the author(s)
- A concise and informative title
- The affiliation(s) and address(es) of the author(s)
- The e-mail address and telephone and fax numbers of the corresponding author

Abstract
Please provide a structured abstract of 200 words which should be divided into the following sections:

- Purpose (stating the main purposes and research question)
- Methods
- Results
- Conclusions

Keywords

Five key words (for indexing) should be supplied below the abstract, in alphabetical order, and should be taken from those recommended by the US National Library of Medicine's Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) browser list
 (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html).

Text
Authors should use subheadings to divide the sections of their manuscript: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgments, References. Manuscripts should be typed on ISO A4 size with double spacing throughout, including table and figure legends. Numbering of lines in the margin is requested to facilitate review (consult the "Help" menu for "Insert Line Number" on word-processing programs).

Introduction: This section should include sufficient background information to set the work in context. The aims of the manuscript should be clearly stated. The introduction should contain neither findings nor conclusions.

Methods: This should be concise but provide sufficient detail to allow the work to be repeated by others. The source of material should be given in detail, where possible.

Results: Results should be presented in a logical sequence in relation to the text, tables, and figures; repetitive presentation of the same data in different forms should be avoided. The results should not contain material appropriate to the Discussion.

Discussion: This should consider the results in relation to any hypotheses advanced in the Introduction and place the study in the context of other work.

Acknowledgments: The source of financial grants and other funding should be acknowledged, including a frank declaration of the authors' industrial links and affiliations. The contribution of colleagues or institutions should also be acknowledged. Thanks to anonymous reviewers are not allowed.

Text formatting
For submission in Word

• Use a normal, plain font (e.g., 10-point Times Roman) for text.
• Use the automatic page-numbering function to number the pages.
• Do not use field functions.
• Use tab stops or other commands for indents, not the space bar.
• Use the table function, not spreadsheets, to make tables.
• Use the equation editor or MathType for equations.
• Numbering of lines in the margin is requested to facilitate review (consult the "Help" menu for "Insert Line Number" on word-processing programs). 

Note: If you use Word 2007, do not create the equations with the default equation editor but use MathType instead.

Heading levels
Please use no more than three levels of displayed headings.

Abbreviations and acronyms
Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used consistently thereafter.

SI units, numbers
Always use internationally accepted signs and symbols for units (SI units).

Terminology
Generic names of drugs and pesticides are preferred; if trade names are used, the generic name should be given at first mention.

Equations
Please use the standard mathematical notation forformulae, symbols, etc.:

• Italic for single letters that denote mathematical constants, variables, and unknown quantities
• Roman/upright for numerals, operators, and punctuation, and commonly defined functions or abbreviations, e.g., cos, det, e or exp, lim, log, max, min, sin, tan, d (for derivative)
• Bold for vectors, tensors, and matrices.

References
The list of References should include only works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications and unpublished works should be mentioned only in the text. Do not use footnotes or endnotes as a substitute for a reference list.

Citation in text
Citations in the text should be identified by numbers in square brackets. Some examples:

1. Negotiation research spans many disciplines [3].
2. This result was later contradicted by Becker and Seligman [5].
3. This effect has been widely studied [1-3, 7].

List style
Journal article
1. Bavister B, Yanagimachi R. The effect of sperm extract and energy sources on the motility and acrosome reaction of hamster spermatozoa in vitro. Biol Reprod.1982; 16: 228-31.
2. O'Mahony S, Rose SL, Chilvers AJ, Ballinger JR, Solanki CK, Barber RW, et al. Finding an optimal method for imaging lymphatic vessels of the upper limb. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging. 2004; 31: 555–63.
Book
3. Lombardi J. Comparative vertebrate reproduction.Heidelberg: Springer; 1999.
Book chapter
4. Brinster RL. Mammalian embryo metabolism. In: Blandau RJ, editor. The biology of the blastocyst.Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1971. p. 303-18.
Article by DOI
5. Slifka MK, Whitton JL. Clinical implications of dysregulated cytokine production. J Mol Med 2000. doi: 10.1007/s001090000086.
Online document
6. American Urological Association [Internet]. Male Infertility Best Policy Committee. Report on varicocele and infertility. Linthicum, MD: American Urological Association; 2008 [cited 2008 Jun 5]. Available from: http://auanet.org.

Always use the standard abbreviation of a journal's name according to the ISSN List of Title Word Abbreviations, see http://www.issn.org/en/node/344

Tables

• All tables are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
• Tables should always be cited in the text in consecutive numerical order.
• For each table, please supply a table title. The table title should explain clearly and concisely the components of the table.
• Identify any previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference at the end of the table title.
• Statistical measures such as SD or SEM should be identified in the headings. The table and its legend/footnotes should be understandable without reference to the text.
• Footnotes to tables should be indicated by superscript lowercase letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data) and included beneath the table body.

Figures

• All figures are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
• Figure parts should be denoted by lowercase letters. If illustrations are supplied with uppercase labeling, lowercase letters will still be used in the figure legends and citations.
• Figures should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.
• For each figure, please supply a figure legend.
• Make sure to identify in the legend all elements found in the figure. 
• Identify any previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference at the end of the legend.
• Photographs need to be cropped sufficiently to prevent a subject's being recognized, or an eye bar should be used.
• For more information about preparing your illustrations, please follow the hyperlink to the artwork instructions on the right.
• The publisher reserves the right to reduce or enlarge figures.

ESM
If electronic supplementary material (ESM) is submitted, it will be published as received from the author in the online version only.

ESM may consist of

• information that cannot be printed: animations, video clips, sound recordings
• information that is more convenient in electronic form: sequences, spectral data, etc.
• large original data, e.g., additional tables, illustrations, etc.
• When any ESM is supplied, the text must make specific mention of the material as a citation, similar to that of figures and tables (e.g., ". . . as shown in Animation 3.").

For details on formats and other information, please follow the hyperlink to the specific instructions for electronic supplementary material on the right.

Page charges
Authors are allowed eight printed pages (Original Articles) and four printed pages (Research Notes and Clinical Case Reports) per article without charge. Excess text and illustrations will be charged to the author on a page basis (¥15 000/US$150 per page). English language revision and the cost of redrawing figures will also be charged to the authors if the Editorial Board considers this to be necessary.

The full cost of printing color figures will be charged to the author.

After acceptance

During the production phase the following issues have to be clarified:

Open Choice
In addition to the normal publication process (whereby an article is submitted to the journal and access to that article is granted to customers who have purchased a subscription), Springer now provides an alternative publishing option: Springer Open Choice. A Springer Open Choice article receives all the benefits of a regular subscription-based article, but in addition is made available publicly through Springer's online platform SpringerLink. We regret that Springer Open Choice cannot be ordered for published articles.

Copyright transfer
Authors will be asked to transfer copyright of the article to the Japan Society for Reproductive Medicine. This will ensure the widest possible protection and dissemination of information under copyright laws. Open Choice articles do not require transfer of copyright as the copyright remains with the author. In opting for open access, they agree to the Springer Open Choice License.

Offprints/Reprints
Additional offprints can be ordered by the corresponding author.

Color in print
Online publication of color illustrations is free of charge. For color in the print version, authors will be expected to make a contribution toward the extra costs (¥110 000 for the first and ¥60 000 for each additional page). Otherwise the figures will be printed in black and white. Please note that, in such cases, it is authors'responsibility to prepare figures to be illustrative enough to convey the necessary information even after they are converted into black and white.

Online First
The article will be published online after receipt of the corrected proofs. This is the official first publication citable with the DOI. After release of the printed version, the paper can also be cited by issue and page numbers. After online publication, further changes can be made only in the form of an Erratum, which will be hyperlinked to the article.

Proofreading
Authors are informed by e-mail that a temporary URL has been created from which they can obtain their proofs.The purpose of the proof is to check for typesetting errors and the completeness and accuracy of the text, tables, and figures. Substantial changes in content, e.g., new results, corrected values, title and authorship, are not allowed without the approval of the Editor.