The Central Asian Journal of Medical Sciences (CAJMS) is an official English publication of the Mongolian National University of Medical Sciences. CAJMS aims to advance knowledge in medicine, dentistry, public health, nursing, pharmacy and traditional medicine. CAJMS also aims to promote contact between basic and clinical medicine and dentistry. CAJMS is an international journal and has a special focus on research conducted in Central Asian countries including Afghanistan, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. However, CAJMS welcomes contributors and readers from all countries. Only articles of high quality which present research that makes significant and original contributions are selected for publication. CAJMS includes Editorials, Review Articles, Original Articles, Brief Communications, Case Reports, and Book Reviews.
Editorials are written by the editor(s) of the journal or by the guest editor(s) as invited by the Editor-in-Chief based on the contents of the current journal issue. Editorials are brief, philosophical essays that encourage readers to consider controversial issues within medical sciences. Editorials are limited to 1,000 words including references. Editorials normally do not contain figures or tables, although if they are essential to the understanding of the article, one or two tables and/or figures may be allowed at the editor's discretion.
Review Articles will be solicited mainly by the Editor-in-Chief. Unsolicited reviews may also be accepted upon request to the Editor-in-Chief. Top experts and authorities in the field of medical sciences will be invited to prepare review articles. Review Articles survey the areas of medicine, dentistry, public health, nursing, pharmacy, or traditional medicine. They will cover current and important topics in the field of medical sciences. Review Articles are limited to 8,000 words (excluding abstract and references). They must also include a structured abstract of no more than 200 words up to 5 keywords. The review article should contain the following main, distinct sections: Title Page, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conflict of Interest, Acknowledgments, References, Tables, and Figures. Numbered subsections under each main section are appropriate as needed.
Original Articles reporting experimental and clinical data from the areas of medicine, dentistry, public health, nursing, pharmacy, or traditional medicine are welcome. Studies should be of high scientific quality and of interest to a diverse community of readers. They should provide new information that advances the field of medical sciences, with adequate support of the stated conclusions. Original Articles are limited to 6,000 words (excluding abstract and references) and must also include a structured abstract of no more than 200 words. The original article should contain the following main, distinct sections: Title Page, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conflict of Interest, Acknowledgments, References, Tables, and Figures. Numbered subsections under each main section are appropriate as needed.
Brief Communications serve as a way to publish time-sensitive or ground-breaking material that will have an immediate and widespread impact in the field of medical sciences. Brief Communications are limited to 3,000 words (excluding abstract and references) and must also include a structured abstract of no more than 200 words. Brief Communications should contain the following main, distinct sections: Title Page, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conflict of Interest, Acknowledgments, References, Tables, and Figures. Numbered subsections under each main section are appropriate as needed. The article should be limited to four figures and/or tables.
Case Reports should report new insights into disease symptoms, diagnoses, and treatments within areas of the medical sciences. Case Reports are limited to 1,000 words (excluding abstract and references) and must also include a structured abstract of no more than 100 words. The Case Report should contain the following distinct sections: Title Page, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Case Report, Discussion, Conflict of Interest, Acknowledgements, References, Tables and Figures. The Case Report should be limited to ten figures and/or tables.
Book Reviews (one per issue) are written by an editor of the journal or by a guest editor as invited by the Editor-in-Chief. Book Reviews are a brief summary of a new book published in the field of medical sciences. Book Reviews are limited to 1,000 words and do not include tables or figures.
The following items are required for submission of Original Articles, Brief Communications, and Case Reports. Each should be submitted as separate documents.
Upon submission, the editorial board will decide whether the article is within the scope of the journal and meets the general formatting requirements. Authors will be notified of the receipt of their submission and that it will be under consideration for publication. Papers that do not have understandable English or proper formatting or that have plagiarism will be returned to authors before peer review. A manuscript under consideration (Original Articles, Brief Communications, or Case Reports) will be sent to at least two peer reviewers. The reviewers will decide whether to accept, accept with minor or major revisions, or reject the manuscript. Upon receipt of this decision, the editors will inform the authors of the decision. If rejected, the manuscript will not be published. If accepted with minor or major revisions, authors must address each comment and correction given by the reviewers to a satisfactory level in order to achieve publication. Upon receipt of the corrections, the editors will prepare a proof copy and send to the authors. The authors must review the proof and submit their final corrections within 48 hours. The manuscript will then be published in a subsequent issue of CAJMS.
CAJMS considers plagiarism a serious offense. All articles will be checked for plagiarism. If any articles contain plagiarized content, they will not be accepted for publication.
Cover Letter
The cover letter should outline the importance of the work, including originality and contribution to the field. It should describe any conflict of interest, including company names and the nature of the relationships between authors and any parties who may have influenced the work. Also, it should describe the contribution to the work from each author listed on the manuscript.
General
Manuscripts should be written in clear and concise English. English checks from a native speaker are encouraged prior to submission. Page size should be set to A4 (210 × 297 mm) with 254 mm margins. The text should be double-spaced and one font in one size (e.g., Times New Roman 12 point). Include page numbers at the bottom of each page. Begin each new section on a new page. Bold section and subsection headings. All units must be reported according the metric system (e.g., m, cm, L, mL, µL, g, kg, mg, µg, ng, pg, °C). Abbreviations should be used for terms appearing 3 or more times within the text. Abbreviations should be defined at first use in the body of the manuscript, then used through the rest of the text. Abbreviations should be avoided in the abstract except for measurement units and chemical names that are widely known.
Tables
All tables used in an article should be originally created by the author, unless proof of permission is obtained to reproduce a previously published table. In that case, the original publication must be properly cited by "Table reproduced with permission from original source [#]". Number each table in the order that it is referred to in the text. Give a title to each table that describes the table contents in a clear and concise way. Label all columns with bolded headings that include units in parentheses, if applicable. Additional explanations of table contents should be described with footnotes. Footnotes should be denoted with italicized, bolded, superscripted letters of the alphabet, starting with the letter "a". Horizontal lines should be used to separate main sections. Any data shown from others sources should be clearly acknowledged as such and only used with permission. Tables should be submitted as a word document separate from the manuscript text document. They should be prepared within the word document, not imported as files from other programs (i.e., they should be editable in the word document). Tables should be labeled in this format: Table X. Title
Figures
All figures used in an article should be originally created by the author, unless proof of permission is obtained to reproduce a previously published figure. In that case, the original publication must be properly cited by "Figure reproduced with permission from original source [#]". Number each figure in the order that it is referred to in the text. Titles should not be shown on the figure, but rather, the explanation of the figure contents should be given in the figure caption. A reader should be able to interpret the figure without referring to the text. All axes must be labeled and with units in parentheses. All symbols used in the figure must have a description either in a figure legend or in the figure caption. The figure caption should describe the important features of the figure that are necessary for interpretation. Figures should be readable without the use of color. Grayscale and symbols should be used to show distinct data rather than color. Use of color is not standard for the journal and authors requesting the use of color for their figures will be charged a fee. All figure components should be readable even with reduction of figure size. A typical size of the figure printed in the journal would be 87.5 mm x 115 mm. Figures should be submitted as separate files (.jpg, .pdf, .tiff, etc.) or together in a single word document. If submitted as separate files, include figure captions with the document containing the main text. If submitted as a single word document, use one page for each figure and include figure captions in this document. Resolution of the figure must be adequate to avoid pixilation (300 dpi as a minimum). High resolutions are recommended for better reproduction of the figure. Figures should be labeled in this format: Figure X. Figure caption.
Title Page
This should include the title of the article and the list of authors, including their full names (first and last name) and institutional affiliations (department, institution, city, state/province, country). Institutional affiliations should be denoted with superscript numbers. The title should be succinct and descriptive. A separate running title of fewer than 40 characters (including spaces) must also be provided with the manuscript. The name, degree, address (department, institutional affiliation, city, state/province, zip code and country), telephone number (including country code), fax number (including country code), and email address of the corresponding author should be stated at the bottom of the title page.
Abstract and Keywords
The abstract should be no longer than 200 words for Review Articles, Original Articles, and Brief Communications and no longer than 100 words for Case Reports. It should summarize the study concisely. All Reviews, Original Articles, Brief Communications and Case Reports should include these sections: Objectives, Methods, Results, and Conclusion. Up to five keywords should be listed below the abstract. These keywords must be selected from the Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) in Medline, published by the US National Library of Medicine (https://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/MBrowser.html).
Materials and Methods
The Materials and Methods section should be written concisely, yet detailed enough for others to interpret and replicate the research. It should be subdivided by additional numbered headings to describe multiple study methods. A statement confirming Institutional Review Board approval is required for research involving human subjects. A statement confirming the appropriate care and use of animals involved in research is required for studies involving experimental animals. Technical information, equipment details (manufacturer's name, brief address), procedures, and statistical methods should be included.
Chung S, Chon H. Assessment of the level of mercury contamination from some anthropogenic sources in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. J Geochem Explor 2014. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gexplo.2014.07.016.
Results
Results should be presented in a logical order and the tables and figures should be numbered in the order they are referenced to in the text. The purpose of tables and figures is to summarize data, so this data should not be repeated in the text. Tables and figures should be explained as to what they show in the Results section. Datasets which are too large for the main text body, but which are necessary for interpretation of the study, may be included as supplementary material. Probability values (p-values) should be reported for all statistical tests.
Discussion
In the Discussion section, results should be discussed in the context of existing knowledge of a subject area and how the new data advances the knowledge in this subject area. Tables and figures should be referenced, and important implications of the data they present should be discussed. Limitations of the study should be presented as well. Conclusions should be drawn in this section but fully supported by the data presented.
Conflict of Interest
If the sources of funding or personal involvements with a product or sponsor of research could have affected the integrity of the study or interpretation of results, these conflicts of interest must be disclosed. All sources of funding should be listed here. If there is no conflict of interest, please include that "The authors state no conflict of interest". Potential conflicts of interest should also be described in the Cover Letter.
Acknowledgements
Persons who contributed to the study but not to the degree to earn authorship may be acknowledged in the Acknowledgements section.
References
Each reference should be assigned a number based on order of appearance in the manuscript. A reference list should be provided at the end of the manuscript in numerical order. If the citation is inserted at the end of the sentence, it should be placed before the period. Abstracts, personal communications, and works in preparation should not be referenced. Manuscripts that have been accepted for publication but have not yet been published should note "in press" rather than noting the year, edition, and page numbers. Articles that have only been published as an advanced article online should note the digital object identifier (DOI) number rather than the edition and page numbers. Up to six authors should be listed, but after six authors, the rest should be denoted by "et al.". The journal names should be abbreviated according to Index Medicus.
In-Text Citation
Citations are always numbered sequentially in the order of their occurrence. They are placed as near as possible to the idea or authors they reference. They are always placed as numbers using superscript font without brackets. When two sequential references are encountered, they are listed as individual numbers. When 3 or more references are listed sequentially, they are cited as a group with the number of the first reference followed by a hyphen followed by the number of the last reference. When citing a publication with 3 or more authors, the first author’s last name is listed followed by et al followed by a period in regular font after which the reference number is placed in superscript font. The date is not listed in the citation. When references are placed at the end of a sentence, the reference or references are placed in superscript font followed by a period in regular font. Examples are found below.
Studies in the United States report a 50 percent failure rate for clinical technology implemented in healthcare organizations6-12,15,16,18,20-23.
Batbold and Naranstegseg13 reported that fracture classification systems can be divided into two clusters.
Byambasuren et al.15 advocated that these systems should be divided into three clusters.
In 2016 and again in 2017 Batbold and Naranstegseg13,14 reported that fracture classification systems can be divided into two clusters while in 2018 Byambasuren et al.15 advocated that these systems should be divided into three clusters.
Authorship
CAJMS supports the authorship guidelines of The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. To be listed as an author, each researcher must satisfy three criteria: 1) they must have been involved in designing the project, collecting data or analyzing the results; 2) they must have participated in drafting or revising the manuscript; and 3) they must have approved the final, published paper. Changes in authorship including the addition of authors or reordering of authors are not permitted after the paper has been accepted for publication.
Author last name Author first initials, Author last name Author first initials. Title of article. Journal abbreviated according to Index Medicus Year published; Volume number: Beginning page number-end page number.
Steckling N, Boese-O'Reilly S, Gradel C, Gutschmidt K, Shinee E, Altangerel E, et al. Mercury exposure in female artisanal small-scale gold miners (ASGM) in Mongolia: An analysis of human biomonitoring (HBM) data from 2008. Sci Total Environ 2011; 409: 994-1000.
Author last name Author first initials, Author last name Author first initials. Title of article. Journal abbreviated according to Index Medicus Year published. DOI number.
Chung, S., Chon, H., 2014. Assessment of the level of mercury contamination from some anthropogenic sources in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. J Geochem Explor 2014.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gexplo.2014.07.016.
Author last name Author first initials. Title of Book. City of publication, State or country of publication: Publishing Company Name; Year published. p Beginning page number-end page number.
Ellet W. The Case Study Handbook: How to Read, Discuss, and Write Persuasively About Cases. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press; 2007. p 105-117.
Author last name Author first initials. Title of chapter. In: Editor last name Editor first initials, ed. Title of Book. Edition number ed. City of publication, State or country of publication: Publishing Company Name; Year published. p Beginning page number-end page number.
Tokar EJ, Boyd WA, Freedman JH, Waalkes MP. Toxic Effects of Metals. In: Klaasen CD, ed. Casarett and Doull's Toxicology: The Basic Science of Poisons. 8th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education; 2013: p 1005-1006.
Author last name Author first initials. Title of dissertation [dissertation]. City of publication, State or country of publication: University Name; Year published.
Praamsma ML. Development and assessment of analytical methods for monitoring current and historical exposures to manganese: blood, urine, and teeth [dissertation]. Albany, NY: University at Albany; 2013.
Organization Name. Title of webpage or report [accessed on day month year]. Available at: website url.
NIST. SRM 955c Toxic Metals in Caprine Blood Certificate of Analysis [accessed on 27 July 2010]. Available at: http://www.nist.gov/.
Author last name Author first initials. Title of report. In: Editor last name Editor first initials, ed. Title of Proceedings; Year Month Days of Conference; City of Conference, Country of Conference. p Beginning page number-end page number.
Donnelley M, Knowles G. Computer aided long bone fracture detection. In: Bouzerdoum A, and Beghdadi A, ed. Proceedings of the 8th International Symposium on Signal Processing and Its Applications; 2005 August 28-31; Sydney, Australia. p 175-178.