Guidelines for authors

Editorial policy

Original and unpublished scientific and technical manuscripts are accepted. They should be written in clear and accessible language for readers with a professional background or scientific interest, and have a logical structure. TECNOCIENCIA CHIHUAHUA publishes up-to-date research articles, scientific notes and review articles. All manuscripts received are first reviewed by the Editorial Team to verify that they comply with the format and content established by the editorial guidelines of TECNOCIENCIA CHIHUAHUA.
The Editorial Team will verify that the submission meets all submission requirements, including checking it against the iThenticate anti-plagiarism software, where the percentage of similarity to other published works (by other authors or their own) should be less than 10 %. After reviewing the manuscript and taking into account the suggestions and changes made to the manuscript, the Associate Editors will determine its viability for publication, notify the author of acceptance or rejection, and assign a Section Editor from our Scientific Board with expertise in the field. If, after the review process, the manuscript is accepted, the journal will send it to the editorial process and the responsible will contact the corresponding author for review and approval of the galley proofs. A graphic abstract that visually describes the content of the article as well as four or five relevant aspects of the work to be published will also be requested.

The following criteria will be used to evaluate the manuscripts: scientific rigour, quality and precision of the information, relevance of the topic and clarity of language. The referees will decide on the scientific quality of the manuscript and its acceptability for publication. Research articles should present a detailed analysis of the original results as well as a rigorous methodological development that highlights the scientific achievements. Scientific notes or short communications should present novel results, modifications of techniques, or the development of innovative new techniques. Similarly, review articles should address novel topics and provide a state-of-the-art review of the current literature on topics of interest to the reader.

TECNOCIENCIA CHIHUAHUA is a Diamond Open Access journal that provides open and immediate access to its content. Its objective is to provide the public with free access to original and unpublished scientific information, as well as up-to-date critical reviews, in order to promote a greater global dissemination of knowledge and thus comply with the DOAJ Open Access policy.

Reviewing

The manuscript evaluation process is as follows: An Section Editor from our Scientific Board will evaluate each submission and may reject papers at this stage for reasons such as: lack of originality, serious scientific flaws, poor use of language and grammar in general, or that the content is outside the scope of the journal. Authors should provide full contact details of at least three potential referees from an institution other than the author's own; however, the assignment of referees to review the manuscript will be a decision of the journal. The journal operates a double-blind system and will encourage the participation of reviewers from outside the institution and country of the authors. After the peer review process, the Section Editor will provide the authors with an opinion on the evaluation of the paper, which may be: accept this submission, or Unpublishable.

In controversial cases, the Section Editor may ask for additional evaluation or decide to review the manuscript.

Author's rights

Once the manuscript is accepted, the author will be asked to send to TECNOCIENCIA CHIHUAHUA the form for the transfer of copyright for the dissemination of the article. The authors will transfer in writing to TECNOCIENCIA CHIHUAHUA the ownership of the copyright, only for its dissemination, the authors retain their intellectual property, which allows that their article and materials can be reproduced, published, edited, posted, communicated and publicly transmitted in any form or medium, as well as their distribution in the number of copies required and their public communication, in any of its modalities, including making them available to the public through electronic, optical or any other technology, exclusively for scientific, cultural, dissemination and non-profit purposes.

The articles published in TECNOCIENCIA CHIHUAHUA are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Atribución-NoComercial 4.0 Internacional License .

Costs and time of publication

TECNOCIENCIA CHIHUAHUA is free of charge and is financed by the Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua (UACH). Authors are requested to register with the journal for access and authorship statistics.

The maximum time for receipt and submission for review is three days. The average time for a first response from reviewers is four weeks. The estimated time for acceptance of the article is three months, and its publication will depend on the number of papers waiting to be published.

Contributions

1. Types of contributions

Contributions are classified as research articles, scientific notes and review articles in Spanish and English.

Papers that only report general information without statistical basis, surveys, chemical composition or formulation optimisation (response surface) will not be accepted. There must be an original, unpublished scientific, technological or engineering contribution that is not being considered for simultaneous publication elsewhere. A description of the submissions can be found in the following section.

2. Areas of contributions

TECNOCIENCIA CHIHUAHUAHUA covers the following areas Food, Biology, Health, Agriculture, Physical Culture, Engineering and Technology, Chemistry and Natural Resources. When submitting your contribution, please indicate the category that corresponds to you. If this is not possible, it is the responsibility of the author to indicate the proposed area of his/her contribution.

3. Language of contributions

The language of submissions will be English or Spanish. Authors are encouraged to pay careful attention to the correct use of language so that reviewers can assess the scientific merit of the paper. The editors may reject any paper that does not meet the standards.

4. Preparation and submission of manuscripts

It is essential that the author registers in order to submit the manuscript to the journal. It is recommended that the author fills in all the required information in their profile, including their ORCID identifier.

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Authors should follow the submission guidelines on the journal website.

General guidelines for submission of manuscripts

Practical guidelines for uploading a submission to the platform

Submissions must be accompanied by a letter to the editor (Article cover letter) that explicitly describes the relevance of the work and states that the work has not been published or is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. It will also state that publication has been approved by all authors and that, once accepted, the manuscript will not be published in the same form in another journal, in English, Spanish or any other language, or electronically, without the consent of the journal. The sections that will make up each paper are listed below:

1) Scientific articles

These are the partial or final results of original research based on scientific methodology. Research articles must present: a detailed analysis of the results, as well as an original methodological development, highlighting the scientific contributions made. These articles consist of the following sections:

    a) Title of the article
    b) Abstract
    c) Introduction
    d) Materials and methods

                       Materials used
                       Test Methods

                                               Physico-chemical methods

                                               Biological methods

                                               Statistical methods

    e) Results and discussion
    f) Conclusions
    g) Acknowledgements
    h) Conflict of interest
    i) References

The description of the Materials and methods and Results and discussion section can be written and presented in a single section or structured with subtitles for a better description. It should have a maximum length of 18 pages, including abstract and references.

2) Scientific notes

This is a short communication on new results, modifications of techniques or development of innovative emerging techniques, new reports of research in the field of agriculture, health, sports or engineering. For the presentation of this document, the following sections will be included.

    a) Title of the article
    b) Abstract/Abstract
    c) Text
    d) Conclusions
    e) Acknowledgements
    f) Conflict of interest
   g) References

The text of the scientific notes should be presented in a clear and coherent manner, so that it can be easily understood. It should have a maximum length of 9 pages, including summary and references.

3) Literature Review articles

These are up-to-date critical reviews of a particular emerging topic within the journal's thematic areas. The aim of these articles is to provide the reader with a perspective on a particular topic through an analysis of information, debate and trends. The structure of these articles will consist of the following sections:

    a) Title of the article
    b) Abstract
    c) Introduction
    d) Text
    e) Conclusions
    f) Acknowledgements
    g) Conflict of interest
    h) References

The text must be coherent with the objective and may be written with subtitles if necessary for a better understanding of the subject. It should have a maximum length of 20 pages, including summary and references.

Article templates

The description of the sections is included in the following section of this guide for authors, as well as in the template for each type of article: Research Articles: Research Article Template; Scientific Notes: Scientific Notes Template; Review Article: Review Article Template. These contain the specifications that the author must follow. Each template also contains text formatting specifications (font size and style, margins, line spacing, etc.). All pages must be numbered consecutively.

Description of the elements of an article

The title

It should include both English and Spanish versions, be concise and explain the nature of the work. It should be a maximum of 20 words. The template includes a section on authors, who must be correctly described, including their affiliation. If there is more than one author, the author for correspondence should be indicated with an asterisk and the author's e-mail address should be provided.

Abstract

This should be submitted in Spanish or English. With the maximum word length as indicated in the template. It should clearly state the objective, brief description of the methodology, results and relevant discussion, conclusions and contribution of the work. It should include five key words, in Spanish and English, that allow the content of the article to be linked informatically.

Introduction

The introduction describes the current state of knowledge on the research topic addressed, its justification and importance, as well as the hypothesis and the aim of the work. This section should not exceed two pages.

Materials and Methods

Materials used

This section describes the materials or substances used in the development of the research. The characteristics and sources of procurement, handling conditions, storage, and degree of purity of the substance or reagent, if applicable, are given. The names of the companies, city, and country from which the materials and substances were obtained.

Methods

Description of the techniques and procedures used and the data analysis of the results obtained. In the case of novel methods, these should be described in detail and in the case of common methods, the reference should be given.

Research Ethics

When reporting research involving human subjects, human materials, human tissues, human data (clinical studies or sensory testing), vulnerable groups, and/or animals, please follow the instructions in the Ethics and Good Editorial Practice  section of this journal.
Authors should include the following in this Materials and Methods section:

1. For research involving human subjects, an ethical statement must be included that specifies the following
- The name of the approving institutional review board or equivalent committee and the approval number.
- A description of the informed consent, verbal and/or written, of the individuals participating in the study.
2. In the case of animal research, a mandatory ethics statement that includes the following:
- The full name of the appropriate ethics committee that approved the work and its approval number(s).
3. Clinical trials should identify the public registry in which they are registered.
4. For research involving cell lines:
- The origin of the cell lines used should be stated.
- If the line is of human origin, institutional review board or ethics committee approval and written informed consent must be provided.

Results and discussion

The results and discussion should be presented in a single section. The results may be presented in tables, figures, photographs or data that are described and justified on the basis of existing knowledge or rationale. This section contrasts the results obtained with the stated hypothesis and their similarities or differences with the results of previously conducted and published research. The use of tables and figures should complement the text of the section.

Conclusion

This is a generalisation of the results obtained and represents the concrete contributions of the study. It includes relative or absolute magnitudes of the answers without complementary argumentation. It highlights the novel aspects and the importance of the results obtained, indicating better conditions or final parameters of the study. It must be consistent with the title, abstract and objective of the work.

Acknowledgements

This section is optional and is intended to provide a maximum of four lines of acknowledgement to individuals or institutions that have contributed to the completion of the work.

Conflict of interest

Write a paragraph stating that there is no conflict of interest in publishing these results.

Declaration of Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies (only if used)

The use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in scientific writing should be declared in this section.

This declaration does not apply to the use of basic tools, such as those used to check grammar, spelling, and references. If you have nothing to declare, you do not need to add any declaration.

Bibliography

References included in the text must be relevant, original and up-to-date; they are cited using the Harvard system, with the author's surname and year of publication in parentheses. In the case of two authors, they are joined by '&' (Choi and Garza, 2020). In the case of more than two authors, the surname of the first author is cited, followed by 'et al.' (in italics) and the year of publication (Gu et al., 2019). If multiple references are cited, they should be separated by semicolons and listed in ascending chronological order (Gu et al., 2019; Choi and Garza, 2020). The list of authors in the reference section is in alphabetical order according to APA format.

IMPORTANT: If the reference has an international DOI, you must include it using the following format: http://doi.org/XXXXXX. Even if the reference does not have a DOI, please include the link where it can be found.

Some examples are shown below:

Scientific journal articles

Braber, N. V., Vergara, L. D., Rossi, Y. E., Aminahuel, C. A., Mauri, A. N., Cavaglieri, L. R., & Montenegro, M. A. (2020). Effect of microencapsulation in whey protein and water-soluble chitosan derivative on the viability of the probiotic Kluyveromyces marxianus VM004 during storage and in simulated gastrointestinal conditions. LWT, 118, 108844. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lwt.2019.108844

Book chapters

Ho, Y. C., Chua, S. C., & Chong, F. K. (2020). Coagulation-Flocculation Technology in Water and Wastewater Treatment. In Handbook of Research on Resource Management for Pollution and Waste Treatment (pp. 432-457). IGI Global.

Books

Low, I. M. (Ed.). (2018). Advances in ceramic matrix composites. Woodhead Publishing.

Patnaik, A., & Patnaik, S. (Eds.). (2019). Fibres to Smart Textiles: Advances in Manufacturing, Technologies, and Applications. CRC Press.

Patents

Götz, M. R., Holmgren, K., Larsson, N., Fiebich, B., & Wade, W. (2019). U.S. Patent Application No. 16/478,514.

Thesis

Ríos, E. A. (2018). Incidence and control of pathogenic types of Escherichia coli (STEC and EPEC) in cow's milk and derived cheeses in Castilla y León (Doctoral thesis, University of Leon). http://hdl.handle.net/10612/7957

Bulletin

Kirk, M. D., Angulo, F. J., Havelaar, A. H., & Black, R. E. (2017). Diarrhoeal disease in children due to contaminated food. Bulletin of the World Health Organization95(3), 233.

Websites

Inegi. (2017). https://www.inegi.org.mx/temas/agricultura/

Database

Wishart, D. S., Feunang, Y. D., Marcu, A., Guo, A. C., Liang, K., Vázquez-Fresno, R., ... & Sayeeda, Z. (2017). HMDB 4.0: the human metabolome database for 2018. Nucleic acids research, 46(D1), D608-D617.

Citation: the abbreviation of the journal TECNOCIENCIA CHIHUAHUA in international indexes is Rev. TECNOCIENCIA Chih.

Tables, figures and equations, tables and figures should be submitted as an attachment to the manuscript, preferably as a Word file. Alternatively, a compressed file (.zip or .rar) containing the tables and figures files can be provided. In addition, the tables and figures of the manuscript should be placed in the main text in the place indicated by the authors, with titles in Spanish and English. The title of the figure should be presented as Fig. 1 Title of the figure.

It is recommended that images are prepared using specialist software. Please note that the size of figures will be adjusted during the editing process to fit the print margins. It is therefore recommended that axes, tables, etc. are made large enough to be legible when reduced. Acceptable extensions for figures are JEGP and TIF, with the following quality characteristics (in dots per inch):

- 300 dpi for greyscale or colour images.

- 600 dpi for text/image combinations.

- 1,200 dpi for line images.

Tables must have three full horizontal borders (in the header and at the end), any other horizontal borders must be partial, must not have vertical borders and will not be accepted as images.

Equations must be written using an equation editor and must appear in the manuscript numbered in Arabic numerals. Equations inserted as figures are not acceptable.

When referring to an equation in the text of the manuscript, it must be written as follows Eq. (1) or Eq. (1)-(4); when referring to a figure, follow the same rule, e.g. Figure 1 or Figures (1)-(5); and when referring to a table, e.g. Table 1 or Tables (1)-(3).

Figures and Tables (Production Version)

Figures and tables should be included in the main text, numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals, and their captions should be included in the main text in the place indicated by the authors.

If figures include photographs or micrographs, ensure that they are of high resolution, so that each photograph is at least 300 dpi for greyscale or colour images. All photographs must be credited to the author.

Tables (production version)

Tables should be included in the main text and as an appendix, and should be numbered in Arabic numerals. They should be embedded in the text of the manuscript in the place indicated by the author. Tables should be prepared in Microsoft Word® 2007 or higher; they should not be imported from Excel® or Powerpoint® and should be:

a) have a number and a title (in English and Spanish)

b) be self-explanatory

c) have significant digits with standard deviation defined according to the statistical criterion

d) display data not shown in the graphs

e) have the simplest possible format; no shading, colouring, vertical or diagonal lines are allowed

f) have only small letters in the superscript to indicate footnotes (abbreviations, units, statistical differences, etc.). An example of a table is shown in the 'Article templates' formats.

Abbreviations, scientific names should be in italics, the genus of the species may be abbreviated after it is first mentioned in the text. The units of any scientific or laboratory data should follow the international system of measurement and use the abbreviations or symbols recommended by international standards. No full stop should be used in abbreviations, e.g. kg (NOT kg). A space should be used between the quantity and the unit or symbol, e.g. 8 cm, 100 %. Footnotes should be avoided.

Supplementary material: If authors wish, they can provide additional or supplementary material to support the article (text, tables, figures or multimedia), which will be available on the journal's website once the article is published. If the manuscript is accepted, the author will also be asked to provide a graphical abstract and the relevant points of the paper. The graphical abstract should describe the content of the article in general terms, this abstract should have the following characteristics: editable file in PowerPoint slide, should NOT use data, tables or figures contained in the article, should contain figures free of copyright restrictions, should include an abstract with two to three statements describing the background, how the work was carried out and the main results. The relevant points of the work should be four aspects achieved, presented in the form of a statement of a maximum of 80 characters with spaces.

The files to be prepared by the author for submission are:

(Formats)

The main text of the manuscript should be presented as follows:

1) The manuscript in Word for production

This file corresponds to the 'Article Templates' presented in this Author's Guide, whose formatting characteristics are shown below.

- Microsoft Word® 2007 format (or higher)

- 10 point Palatino Linotype

- Spacing as specified in the templa

- Full text of the manuscript (length according to the type of manuscript)

- Figures, tables, equations and their titles must be included in the main text  in the place indicated by the authors.

- Pages should be numbered consecutively.

- The cover letter should be submitted separately.

- The title page should include the authors' names and institutions.

- The file name should be 'author surname production'.doc.

2) In the manuscript in Word for peer review

This file is a copy of the manuscript in Word for production, but will be edited to remove the names of the authors and institutions in order to send this blinded file to the referees for review.

This file should be named 'author surname review'.doc: version for reviewers' evaluation. The formatting features include the following specifications:

                                                    - Lines of text and pages should be numbered consecutively.

                                                    - Do not include the authors' names and institutions on the title page of                                                        the manuscript or in the file information.

3) Article or authorship cover letter.

The manuscript cover letter (article cover letter) should include the relevance and importance of the paper (a short text describing the relevance of the research paper or review article in a concise manner (no more than 100 words). It will also include a statement that the submitted paper has not been published (in full or in part) or peer-reviewed in another journal at the same time. It must state that it has been approved for publication by the authors and co-authors.

4) Production tables and figure files (specifications described in the Tables, Figures and Equations section of this guide).

5) Graphic summary (features described in the Additional Material section of this guide).

Once you have checked the formatting style (according to the template and specifications in this Author's Guide) and created the files according to the specifications provided, proceed with the online submission.

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Once you have registered on the magazine platform, log in and click on 'New Submission', then follow the instructions and complete each of the 5 tabs of the submission.