The Open Biomedical Engineering Journal

Research articles should be of 4000-6000 words with 75 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables, etc.

The length of a published comprehensive review article is from 35000 to 40000 words with 100 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables etc.

Letters should be 3000-6000 words with 40 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables, etc.

This journal publishes open access reviews on recently published books (both print and electronic) relevant to the journal. Publishers and authors of books are invited to contact our book reviews editor at tobej@benthamopen.net with book review requests. All submitted books will be reviewed by an independent expert in the field. No page charges will be levied to authors for the publication of book reviews.

Case reports should describe new observations of findings or novel/unique outcomes relevant to the field. The total number of words for a published case report is 1500 to 2000 words with 40 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables etc.

The articles should be contributed by eminent experts on cutting-edge recent developments. They should be written in the format of mini-reviews (about 4 to 5 pages, approximately 800 to 850 words per composed page excluding tables, structures, graphics, figures and captions) with about 70 references to recent literature. All pages should be numbered sequentially.

There is no restriction on the number of figures, tables or additional files e.g. video clips, animation and datasets, that can be included with each article online. Authors should include all relevant supporting data with each article (Refer to Supplementary Material section).

Section headings should be numbered sequentially, left aligned and have the first letter capitalized, starting with the introduction. Sub-section headings however, should be in lower-case and italicized with their initials capitalized. They should be numbered as 1.1, 1.2, etc.

The Introduction section should include the background and aims of the research in a comprehensive manner.

This section provides details of the methodology used along with information on any previous efforts with corresponding references. Any details for further modifications and research should be included.

Repeated information should not be reported in the text of an article. A calculation section must include experimental data, facts and practical development from a theoretical perspective.

Results should be precise.

This should explore the significance of the results of the work, and present reproducible procedure. Extensive citations and discussion of published literature should be avoided.

The Results and discussions may be presented individually or combined in a single section with short and informative headings.

A small paragraph summarizing the contents of the article, presenting the final outcome of the research or proposing further study on the subject, may be given at the end of the article under the Conclusion section.

All clinical investigations should be conducted according to the Declaration of Helsinki principles. For all manuscripts reporting data from studies involving human participants, formal review and approval by an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee are required.

For research involving animals, the authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the standards set forth in the eighth edition of “Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals” (grants.nih.gov/grants/olaw/guide-for-the-care-and-use-of-laboratory-animals_prepub.pdf published by the National Academy of Sciences, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.).

Research work on animals should be carried out in accordance with the NC3Rs ARRIVE Guidelines. For In Vivo Experiments, please visit https://www.nc3rs.org.uk/arrive-guidelines

Authors should clearly state the name of the approval committee, highlighting that legal and ethical approvals were obtained prior to initiation of the research work carried out on animals, and that the experiments were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations stated below.

• US authors should cite compliance with the US National Research Council's "Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals"
• The US Public Health Service's "Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals" and "Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals"
• UK authors should conform to UK legislation under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 Amendment Regulations (SI 2012/3039).
• European authors outside the UK should conform to Directive 2010/63/EU.
• Research on animals should adhere to ethical guidelines of The Basel Declaration and the International Council for Laboratory Animal Science (ICLAS) ethical guidelines.
• The manuscript should clearly include a declaration of compliance with the relevant guidelines (e.g. the revised Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 in the UK and Directive 2010/63/EU in Europe) and/or relevant permissions or licenses obtained by the IUCN Policy Statement on Research Involving Species at Risk of Extinction and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

All experimental research on plants (either cultivated or wild), should comply with international guidelines. The manuscript should include a declaration of compliance of field studies with relevant guidelines and/or relevant permissions or licenses obtained by the IUCN Policy Statement on Research Involving Species at Risk of Extinction and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Compliance with the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors www.icmje.org) is recommended, in accordance with the patient’s consent for research or participation in a study as per the applicable laws and regulations regarding the privacy and/or security of personal information, including, but not limited to, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 ("HIPAA") and other U.S. federal and state laws relating to confidentiality and security of personally distinguishable evidence, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (EU) 2016/679 and member state implementing legislation, Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, India's Information Technology Act and related Privacy Rules, (together "Data Protection and Privacy Laws").

It is the responsibility of the author to ensure that:

• Patients' names, initials, or hospital numbers are not mentioned anywhere in the manuscript (including figures).
• Authors are responsible for obtaining the patient consent-to-disclose forms for all recognizable patients in photographs, videos, or other information that may be published in the Journal, in derivative works, or on the journal’s web site and for providing the manuscript to the recognizable patient for review before submission.
• The consent-to-disclose form should indicate specific use (publication in the medical literature in print and online, with the understanding that patients and the public will have access) of the patient's information and any images in figures or videos, and must contain the patient's signature or that of a legal guardian along with a statement that the patient or legal guardian has been offered the opportunity to review the identifying materials and the accompanying manuscript.
• If the manuscript has an individuals’ data, such as personal details, audio-video material, etc., consent should be obtained from that individual. In case of children, consent should be obtained from the parent or the legal guardian.
• A specific declaration of such approval and consent-to-disclose form must be made in the copyright letter and in a stand-alone paragraph at the end of the article especially in the case of human studies where inclusion of a statement regarding obtaining the written informed consent from each subject or subject's guardian is a must. The original should be retained by the guarantor or the corresponding author. Editors may request to provide the original forms by fax or email.
• All such case reports require by a proper consent being obtained prior to publishing.

Editors may request that authors provide documentation of the formal review and recommendation from the institutional review board or ethics committee responsible for oversight of the study. The editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned requirements. The author will be held responsible for false statements or failure to fulfill the above-mentioned requirements.

Unethical behavior and misconduct may be pointed out by anyone to the Editor and Publisher with sufficient evidences. The Editor, in consultation with the Publisher, will initiate investigation against this Unethical misconduct, complete the procedure till an unbiased decision is reached, and maintain confidentiality throughout the process of the investigation. The Author should be given the opportunity to reply to all minor or major accusations.

In case of serious breaches, the employer may be informed where appropriate, by the Editor/Publisher, after reviewing all available information and evidences or after seeking help from experts in that field.

Systematic Reviews includes systematic updates in review protocols, methods, research, and results from all fields of health for any studies and updates on already published issues.

For human or animal experimental investigations, it is a prerequisite to provide a formal review and approval, or review and waiver, by an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee and should be documented in your paper. For investigations undertaken on human subjects, state in the Methods section the manner in which the informed consent was obtained from the study participants (i.e., oral or written), where there is an unavoidable risk of breach of privacy- e.g., in a clinical photograph or in case details- the patient's written consent or that of the next of kin, to publication must be obtained. We will ask you to send a signed consent form before publication. Consent must be obtained for all Case Reports and Clinical Pictures.

Italics should be used for Binomial names of organisms (Genus and Species), for emphasis and for unfamiliar words or phrases. Non-assimilated words from Latin or other languages should also be italicized e.g. per se, et al. etc.

For heterogeneous catalysis, presentation should include reaction rates normalized by catalyst surface area, surface area of the active phase, or number of active surface atoms or catalytic sites, as appropriate. Typical rate units are mol s^-1 m^-2 or, in the case of surface atom normalization to produce turnover frequencies, s-1. For homogeneous catalysis, rates should typically be reported as turnover frequencies. Comparisons of selectivities should be made at similar conversions.

Catalytic measurements need to be carried out under kinetically limited conditions. Confirming tests need to be carried out and reported, especially for all reactions occurring in the liquid phase.

Greek symbols and special characters often undergo formatting changes and get corrupted or lost during preparation of a manuscript for publication. To ensure that all special characters used are embedded in the text, these special characters should be inserted as a symbol but should not be a result of any format styling (Symbol font face) otherwise they will be lost during conversion to PDF/XML.

Authors are encouraged to consult reporting guidelines. These guidelines provide a set of recommendations comprising a list of items relevant to their specific research design.

Only ISO symbols, written in italic, should be used for the various parameters. All kinds of measurements should be reported only in International System of Units (SI). SI units should always be written in roman and separated from the numerical value by a space (whatever the language). The μ in μg or µm should be in roman. The symbol for liter is L and that for minute is min. For temperatures, please note the use of °C and °F but K. As the Ångström (1 Å = 10^-10 m) is not an SI unit, it should be replaced by the nanometer (1 nm = 10^-9 m) or by the picometer (1 pm = 10^-12m): 1 Å = 0.1 nm = 100 pm. Multiple units should be written with negative superscripts (for example, 25 mguL^-1 us^-1).

The list of notations should appear just before the first paragraph of full text.

A list of symbols and units should be provided if used extensively throughout the text.

1. Avoid the use of built-up fractions in the text. If not avoided by the author(s), built-up fractions will be converted to equivalent expressions on the line when the paper is copyedited. In display matter, however, built-up fractions are preferred for clarity.
2. Avoid the use of small-type mathematical expressions centered above or below arrows. If possible, try to use an alternative format.
3. In the exponential function, avoid exponents having more than one or two characters.
4. Avoid the use of reference numbers for equations that are not subsequently referred to in the paper. Costs are reduced if short mathematical equations and other expressions in the text are run in (instead of each being displayed on a separate line). Authors must expect that, when accepted papers are copyedited, "excess" equation reference numbers will be deleted and short equations will be run in with text.
5. Be sure to indicate special marking for symbols (e.g., italics, boldface) and clearly identify any unusual symbols. Try to avoid underscored symbols because they often require hand composition and opening up lines and thus are expensive. In vector notations, indicate which letters or notations, if any, may be set in boldface type. Indicate if asterisks are to be set in superscript position or centered on the line.
6. All equations should be indented and numbered as follows: (1)
7. Equation number should be right justified. Put three dots(...) midway between the end of the equation and the equation number.
8. Punctuation should not be used at the end of an equation.
9. Particular care should be taken to distinguish between the number zero (0) and the letter O; the number one (1) and the letter l, the Roman letter v and the Greek letter nu (n). The decimal logarithm should be written "log" and the natural log "ln". The abbreviation of the exponential function is a roman e (for example, e^x ) or exp (for example, exp (u² + n)). In expressions of the type dxdt, the letter d (derivative function) is always written in roman, whereas the physical parameter (x or t) is always in italics. Numbers are written in numerals when they are followed by units, these being represented by their SI symbols (10 % but a few percent).
10. In numerals, each group of three letters should be separated by a space (except for dates and postal codes).
11. Authors should provide the equations in *TeX/LaTeX file format separately as well as embedded in the manuscript.

Nomenclature should conform to current American usage. Insofar as possible, authors should use systematic names similar to those used by Chemical Abstracts Service or IUPAC. Chemical Abstracts (CA) nomenclature rules are described in Appendix IV of the Chemical Abstracts Index Guide.

• [1]  G. Liu, K. Y. Lee and H. F. Jordan, "TDM and TWDM de Bruijn networks and shufflenets for optical communications", IEEE Trans. Comp., Vol. 46, pp. 695-701, June 1997.

• [2]  S. M. Hemmingsen, Soft Science. Saskatoon: University of Saskatchewan Press, 1997.
• [3]  A. Rezi and M. Allam, "Techniques in array processing by means of transformations," In Control and Dynamic Systems, Multidimensional Systems, C. T. Leondes, Ed. San Diego: Academic Press, Vol. 69, 1995, pp. 133-180.

• [4]  D. Sarunyagate, Ed., Lasers. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996.

• [5]  N. Osifchin and G. Vau, “Power considerations for the modernization of telecommunications in Central and Eastern European and former Soviet Union (CCE/FSU) countries”, In Second International Telecommunication Energy Special Conference Special Conference, Budapest, Hungary, 1997, pp. 9-16.

• [6]  K. Kimura and A. Lipeles, "Fuzzy Controller Component," U. S. Patent 14,860,040, December 14, 1996.

• [7]  H. Zhang, "Delay-insensitive networks", M.S. thesis, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada, 1997.

Illustrations must be provided according to the following guideline:

• Illustrations should be embedded in the text file, and must be numbered consecutively in the order of their appearance. Each figure should include only a single illustration which should be cropped to minimize the amount of space occupied by the illustration.
• If a figure is in separate parts, all parts of the figure must be provided in a single composite illustration file.
• Photographs should be provided with a scale bar if appropriate, as well as high-resolution component files.

Line Art image type is normally an image based on lines and text. It does not contain tonal or shaded areas. The preferred file format should be TIFF or EPS, with the color mode being Monochrome 1-bit or RGB, in a resolution of 900-1200 dpi.

Halftone image type is a continuous tone photograph containing no text. It should have the preferred file format TIFF, with color mode being RGB or Grayscale, in a resolution of 300 dpi.

Combination image type is an image containing halftone , text or line art elements. It should have the preferred file format TIFF, with color mode being RGB or Grayscale, in a resolution of 500-900 dpi.

Illustrations may be submitted in the following file formats:

• Illustrator
• EPS (preferred format for diagrams)
• PDF (also especially suitable for diagrams)
• PNG (preferred format for photos or images)
• Microsoft Word (version 5 and above; figures must be a single page)
• PowerPoint (figures must be a single page)
• TIFF
• JPEG (conversion should be done using the original file)
• BMP
• CDX (ChemDraw)
• TGF (ISISDraw)

Bentham Open does not process figures submitted in GIF format.

For TIFF or EPS figures with considerably large file size restricting the file size in online submissions is advisable. Authors may therefore convert to JPEG format before submission as this results in significantly reduced file size and upload time, while retaining acceptable quality. JPEG is a lossy format. However, in order to maintain acceptable image quality, it is recommended that JPEG files are saved at High or Maximum quality.

Zipit or Stuffit tools should not be used to compress files prior to submission as the resulting compression through these tools is always negligible.

Please refrain from supplying:

1. Graphics embedded in word processor (spreadsheet, presentation) document.
2. Optimized files optimized for screen use (like GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG) because of the low resolution.
3. Files with too low a resolution.
4. Graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.

Technical requirements for graphic/ figure submissions.

There are many software packages, many of them freeware or shareware, capable of converting to and from different graphics formats, including PNG.

General tools for image conversion include Graphic Converter on the Macintosh, Paint Shop Pro, for Windows, and ImageMagick, available on Macintosh, Windows and UNIX platforms.

Bitmap images (e.g. screenshots) should not be converted to EPS as they result in a much larger file size than the equivalent JPEG, TIFF, PNG or BMP, and poor quality. EPS should only be used for images produced by vector-drawing applications such as Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw. Most vector-drawing applications can be saved in, or exported as, EPS format. If the images were originally prepared in an Office application, such as Word or PowerPoint, original Office files should be directly uploaded to the site, instead of being converted to JPEG or another format of low quality.

[As according to the ACS style sheet]

Antimicrobial resistance represents a significant challenge to future healthcare provision.An acronym ESKAPEE has been derived from the names of the organisms recognised as the major threats although there are a number of other organisms, notably Neisseria gonorrhoeae, that have become equally challenging to treat in the clinic. These pathogens are characterised by the ability to rapidly develop and/or acquire resistance mechanisms in response to exposure to different antimicrobial agents. A key part of the armoury of these pathogens is a series of efflux pumps, which effectively exclude or reduce the intracellular concentration of a large number of antibiotics, making the pathogens significantly more resistant. These efflux pumps are the topic of considerable interest, both from the perspective of basic understanding of efflux pump function, and its role in drug resistance but also as targets for the development of novel adjunct therapies. The necessity to overcome antimicrobial resistance has encouraged investigations into the characterisation of resistance-modifying efflux pump inhibitors to block the mechanisms of drug extrusion, thereby restoring antibacterial susceptibility and returning existing antibiotics into the clinic. A greater understanding of drug recognition and transport by multidrug efflux pumps is needed to develop clinically useful inhibitors, given the breadth of molecules that can be effluxed by these systems. This review discusses different bacterial EPIs originating from both natural source and chemical synthesis and examines the challenges to designing successful EPIs that can be useful against multidrug resistant bacteria.