Title and authorship information

The following information should be included:

• -Manuscript title
• Full author names
• Full institutional mailing addresses
• Email addresses
• Affiliations

Abstract
The manuscript should contain an abstract. The abstract should be self-contained, citation-free, and should not exceed 300 words.

Introduction
This section should be succinct, with no subheadings.

Materials and methods
The methods section should provide enough detail for others to be able to replicate the study. If you have more than one method, use subsections with relevant headings, e.g. different models, in vitro and in vivo studies, statistics, materials and reagents, etc.

There are no space restriction on methods. Detailed descriptions of the methods (including protocols or project descriptions) and algorithms may also be uploaded as supplementary information or a previous publication that gives more details may be cited. If the method from a previous article is used then this article must be cited and discussed. If wording is reused from a published article then this must be noted, e.g. This study uses the method of Smith et al. and the methods description partly reproduces their wording [1].

If a method or tool is introduced in the study, including software, questionnaires, and scales, the license this is available under and any requirement for permission for use should be stated. If an existing method or tool is used in the research, the authors are responsible for checking the license and obtaining any necessary permission. If permission was required, a statement confirming permission was granted should be included in the materials and methods section.

Publishing protocols. 

We encourage authors describing any methodology, in particular laboratory-based experiments in the life sciences but also computational and bioinformatics protocols, to upload details of their methods to protocols.io. This is an open access website that allows researchers to record their methods in a structured way, obtain a DOI to allow easy citation of the protocol, collaborate with selected colleagues, share their protocol privately for journal peer review, and choose to make it publicly available. Once published, the protocol can be updated and cited in other articles.

You can make your protocol public before publication of your article if you choose, which will not harm the peer review process of your article and may allow you to get comments about your methods to adapt or improve them before you submit your article (see also the protocols.io FAQ page).

Results and discussion
This section may be divided into subsections or may be combined.

Main text (review only)
This section may be divided into subsections or may be combined.

Conclusions
This should clearly explain the main conclusions of the article, highlighting its importance and relevance.

Data availability
This statement should describe how readers can access the data supporting the conclusions of the study and clearly outline the reasons why unavailable data cannot be released.

Conflicts of interest
Authors must declare all relevant interests that could be perceived as conflicting. Authors should explain why each interest may represent a conflict. If no conflicts exist, the authors should state this. Submitting authors are responsible for coauthors declaring their interests.

Conflicts of interest 

COIs (also known as ‘competing interests’) occur when issues outside research could be reasonably perceived to affect the neutrality or objectivity of the work or its assessment. For more information, see our publication ethics policy. Authors must declare all potential interests – whether or not they actually had an influence – in the conflicts of interest section, which should explain why the interest may be a conflict. If there are none, the authors should state: “The author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest regarding the publication of this article”. Submitting authors are responsible for coauthors declaring their interests. Declared conflicts of interest will be considered by the editor and reviewers, and included in the published article.

Authors must declare current or recent funding (including for article processing charges) and other payments, goods or services that might influence the work. All funding, whether a conflict or not, must be declared in the funding statement. The involvement of anyone other than the authors who: i) has an interest in the outcome of the work; ii) is affiliated to an organization with such an interest; or iii) was employed or paid by a funder, in the commissioning, conception, planning, design, conduct, or analysis of the work, the preparation or editing of the manuscript, or the decision to publish must be declared.

You may be asked to make certain changes to your manuscript as a result of your declaration. These requests are not an accusation of impropriety. The editor or reviewer is helping you to protect your work against potential criticisms.

If you are in any doubt about declaring a potential conflict, remember that if it is revealed later – especially after publication – it could cause more problems than simply declaring it at the time of submission. Undeclared conflicts of interest could lead to a corrigendum or, in the most serious cases, a retraction.

Funding statement
Authors must state how the research and publication of their article was funded, by naming financially supporting body(s) (written out in full) followed by associated grant number(s) in square brackets (if applicable), for example: “This work was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council [grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]; the National Science Foundation [grant number zzzz]; and a Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant”.

If the research did not receive specific funding, but was performed as part of the employment of the authors, please name this employer. If the funder was involved in the manuscript writing, editing, approval, or decision to publish, please declare this.

Acknowledgments
All acknowledgments (if any) should be included at the very end of the manuscript before the references. Anyone who made a contribution to the research or manuscript, but who is not a listed author, should be acknowledged (with their permission).

References
The alphabetical list of references begins a new page after the text and competing interest declaration. Each in-text citation must have a corresponding reference and vice versa. Only conference papers, theses, and published or in press articles and books should appear in this list.

All authors’ names should be included, followed by the year of publication. For journals, the full title of the journal, volume, issue number, and inclusive page numbers should be provided. For books, the full title should be given, followed by the editors, volume number (if any), page numbers, place of publication, and publisher. Citations in the text should read Brown and Goel (2010) or (Brown & Goel, 2010). Where there are more than two authors the citation should read Brown et al. (2010). When more than one paper by the same authors has appeared in the same year, they are distinguished by (Brown & Goel, 2010a, 2010b). Multiple citations in the text should be in chronologi- cal order (Dym, 1994; Birmingham, 1999; Brown, 2010).

Citation standards.

All data, program code, and other methods should be appropriately cited. Such materials should be recognized as original intellectual contributions and afforded recognition through citation.

Date formatting
We recommend writing dates out fully to avoid confusion with different all-numeral date styles. For example, 11/10/2018 could be 10 November 2018 or 11 October 2018 depending on the reader, therefore, the date should be written out in full. For example, the date September 1, 2018 should be used rather than 01/09/2018 or 09/01/2018.

Units of measurement
Units of measurement should be presented simply and concisely using the International System of Units (SI).

Preparation of figures
Upon submission of an article, authors should include all figures and tables in the PDF file of the manuscript. Figures and tables should not be submitted in separate files. If the article is accepted, authors will be asked to provide the source files of the figures. Each figure should be supplied in a separate electronic file. All figures should be cited in the manuscript in a consecutive order. Figures should be supplied in either vector art formats (Illustrator, EPS, WMF, FreeHand, CorelDraw, PowerPoint, Excel, etc.) or bitmap formats (Photoshop, TIFF, GIF, JPEG, etc.). Bitmap images should be of 300 dpi resolution at least unless the resolution is intentionally set to a lower level for scientific reasons. If a bitmap image has labels, the image and labels should be embedded in separate layers.

Preparation of tables
Tables should be cited consecutively in the text. Every table must have a descriptive title and if numerical measurements are given, the units should be included in the column heading. Vertical rules should not be used.
Supplementary materials
Supplementary materials are the additional parts to a manuscript, such as audio files, video clips, or datasets that might be of interest to readers. Authors can submit one file of supplementary material along with their manuscript through the manuscript submission system. If there is more than one file, they can be uploaded as a .ZIP file.

A section titled supplementary material should be included before the references list with a concise description for each supplementary material file. Supplementary materials are not modified by our production team. Authors are responsible for providing the final supplementary material files that will be published along with the article.

Proofs
Corrected proofs must be returned to the publisher within two to three days of receipt. The publisher will do everything possible to ensure prompt publication.

Copyright and permissions
Authors retain the copyright of their manuscripts, and all open access articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original work is properly cited.

The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, and so forth in this publication, even if not specifically identified, does not imply that these names are not protected by the relevant laws and regulations. The submitting author is responsible for securing any permissions needed for the reuse of copyrighted materials included in the manuscript.

While the advice and information in this journal are believed to be true and accurate on the date of its going to press, neither the authors, the editors, nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein.

Reporting guidelines
Authors are strongly encouraged to use appropriate reporting guidelines when preparing and submitting manuscripts, to maximize transparency and reproducibility. Our editors and reviewers are also encouraged to use them in the review process. Completed checklists should be provided in the supplementary files on submission. We particularly encourage the use of:

• CONSORT for randomized controlled trials
• TREND for non-randomized trials
• PRISMA for systematic review and meta-analyses
• CARE for case reports
• STROBE for observational studies
• STREGA for genetic association studies
• SRQR for qualitative studies
• STARD for diagnostic accuracy studies
• ARRIVE for animal experiments

Ethical guidelines

In any studies on human or animal subjects, the following ethical guidelines must be observed. For any experiments on humans, all work must be conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki (1964). Manuscripts describing experimental work that carries a risk of harm to human subjects must include a statement that the experiment was conducted with the human subjects’ understanding and consent, as well as a statement that the responsible ethics committee has approved the experiments. In the case of any animal experiments, the authors must provide a full description of any anesthetic or surgical procedure used, as well as evidence that all possible steps were taken to avoid animal suffering at each stage of the experiment.

Appeals
Authors may appeal if they feel that the decision to reject was based on: i) a major misunderstanding over a technical aspect of the manuscript; or ii) a failure to understand the scientific advance shown by the manuscript. Appeals requesting a second opinion without sufficient justification will not be considered. To lodge an appeal, please contact the journal by email, quoting your manuscript number. Appeals will only be considered from the original submitting author.