AIM AND SCOPE
Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging (Investig Magn Reson Imaging, iMRI) is an official English journal of the Korean Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. It is an international peer-reviewed open-access journal and published quarterly on the last day of March, June, September, and December. The aim of iMRI is to publish high-quality research regarding the basic sciences and clinical applications of magnetic resonance in medical fields. iMRI includes original investigations concerned with all aspects of the development and use of nuclear magnetic resonance and electron paramagnetic resonance techniques for medical applications. Reports of original investigations in the areas of mathematics, computing, engineering, physics, biophysics, chemistry, biochemistry, and physiology directly relevant to magnetic resonance will be accepted, as well as methodology-oriented clinical studies.
The journal covers full-length original articles, reviews, case reports, technical notes, letters to the editor, and editorials. Authors will be asked to confirm their compliance with the journal’s policies and guidelines during manuscript submission on the webpage.
READERSHIP
iMRI is primarily for radiologists, medical physicists, biomedical researchers, radiology residents, biochemists, and MR technologists.
ETHICAL POLICIES
All manuscripts should be prepared in strict observation of the research and publication ethics guidelines recommended by the Council of Science Editors (CSE), the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), and the Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors (KAMJE). For other issues not addressed in this instruction, iMRI will follow the ICMJE “Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals” (https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/). The journal adheres to the principles of “Transparency and Best Practice” (joint statement by Committee on Publication Ethics [COPE], Directory of Open Access Journals [DOAJ], WAME, and Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association [OASPA]; https://doaj.org/apply/transparency/).
1. Authorship
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An individual must have made substantial contributions to all four categories established by the ICMJE: 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; 3) final approval of the version to be published; and 4) agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. Those who meet some but not all of the criteria for authorship should be listed in the acknowledgment section.
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The author list should be finalized prior to submission and those on the author list should agree to present the manuscript to this journal. After submission, any authorship revision, such as deleting, rearranging, or adding author(s), is possible during the review process; the corresponding author should submit a letter to the editorial office with the necessary reasons and all authors’ signatures. Any changes to authorship are not permitted once the entire review process has been completed and the final decision has been made.
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The description of equal contribution, so-called co-first authors or co-corresponding authors, is allowed for up to two people. However, it should first be explicitly explained to the editor in the cover letter how the two authors’ contributions are equal.
2. Originality, plagiarism and duplicate publication
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All submitted manuscripts should not have been previously published or be under consideration for publication elsewhere. They also should not be under review by any other scientific journals for publication. Submitted manuscripts are screened for possible plagiarism or duplicate publication by ‘Similarity Check’ upon arrival.
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Authors can submit the article that has been posted on a non-profit site (e.g., a university website, arXiv, medRxiv, etc.), however it should be notified in the cover letter and the article should not be submitted for peer review simultaneously. When the article is finally accepted and published on the iMRI website, authors are obliged to update the preprint server with the published article.
3. Secondary publication
It is possible to re-publish manuscripts if those manuscripts satisfy the conditions of the secondary publication from the ICMJE Recommendations (https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/overlapping-publications.html). Also, at the time of the second submission, authors should state the fact that all or parts of the manuscript were published in another journal and the name of journal should be presented in the title page and footnote. When submitting a manuscript, authors should attach a letter informing the editor of any potential overlap with other already published material or material being evaluated for publication and should also explain how the manuscript submitted to iMRI differs considerably from the other material. Copies of such material must be provided to aid the editor in determining the potential for redundant publication.
4. Conflict of interest statement
At the time of manuscript submission, authors should disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could influence their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registration, and grants or other funding. If the work is accepted, authors must specify in the manuscript.
5. Statement of human and animal right
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All investigations involving human materials should follow the principles embodied in the Declaration of Helsinki (https://www.wma.net/policy/).
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Animal experiments also should be reviewed by an appropriate committee (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, IACUC) for the care and use of animals. Also, studies with pathogens requiring a high degree of biosafety should pass review of a relevant committee (Institutional Biosafety Committee, IBC).
6. Statement of informed consent and Institutional Review Board approval
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Articles submitted to iMRI, which address any investigation involving humans and animals, should include a description of whether the study was conducted under the approval of the Institutional Review Board and Animal Care Committee, respectively, for the institution where the study was conducted.
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For manuscripts that provide the results of prospective or retrospective investigations involving human beings, the participants or their legal representatives must grant written consent and be informed of the investigation’s purpose and any potential risks. The patient’s rights to privacy should not be infringed. Before submission, all potentially identifying data, such as patient identification numbers, names, and initials, must be removed from all photos, charts, graphs, tables, and text. If patient information is essential for scientific purposes, authors should obtain written informed consents from the patients or their guardians for publication.
7. Recommendation to register clinical trials
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It is advised that clinical trials be registered with the primary registry before publication. Clinical trials are defined as “any research project that prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention and comparison groups to study the causeand-effect relationship between a medical intervention and a health outcome.” Any research that deals with a clinical trial should be registered with a primary national clinical trial registration site such as WHO International Clinical Trials Portal (https://www.who.int/clinical-trials-registry-platform), NIH ClinicalTrials.gov (https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/), Clinical Research Information Service (CRIS, https://cris.nih.go.kr/cris/index/index.do), or ISRCTN Resister (https://www.isrctn.com/).
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All manuscripts reporting clinical trial results should submit a data sharing statement following the ICMJE guidelines.
8. Process for managing research and publication misconduct
If the manuscript was not published in accordance with the ethical policies, the authors will be notified, and sanctions may be imposed in accordance with the COPE guidelines (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts).
9. Process for handling cases requiring corrections, retractions, and editorial expressions of concern
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If there is any issue concerned with publication misconduct, such as redundant (duplicate) publication, plagiarism, fraudulent or fabricated data, changes in authorship, an undisclosed conflict of interest, ethical problems with a submitted manuscript, a reviewer who has appropriated an author’s idea or data, complaints against editors, and so on, the editorial board will follow the guidelines of the COPE (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts). If any misconduct is considered present, the authors will be notified and sanctions may be imposed.
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The Editorial Board will continuously monitor and uphold publication ethics, which includes publishing corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when necessary; excluding plagiarized and fraudulent data; maintaining the integrity of academic records; and preventing business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards. The editors will maintain the following responsibilities: 1) responsibility and authority to reject and accept articles; 2) avoid any conflict of interest with respect to articles they reject or accept; promote the publication of corrections or retractions when errors are found; 3) and preserve the anonymity of reviewers.
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
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The copyright of all manuscripts accepted for publication in iMRI will be transferred to the Korean Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (https://www.ksmrm.org/). A corresponding author should complete a “Copyright Transfer Form” and submit it to the online submission system during the final revision process.
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The Creative Commons Attribution License available from: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ is also in effect.
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For permission to reuse iMRI contents, the required forms should be submitted at the “Permission” section of the author instruction page (https://www.i-mri.org/index.php?body=instructions).
PEER REVIEW PROCESS
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Submitted manuscript will first be evaluated at the editorial office regarding the completeness of the submitted materials before assigning handling editors. Modifications/corrections may be requested to the authors at this stage before starting the peer review.
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Submitted manuscript will be peer-reviewed by two or more peer reviewers, who are experts in the submitted subject field, regarding the completeness and suitability to iMRI. If an editor is an author, the manuscript is handled by a different editor(s). The editor/author is not involved in the editorial evaluation or decision to publish the manuscript.
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The journal performs a double-blinded peer review of the submitted manuscripts. Both the peer reviewers and the authors are not revealed to the other. Authors may suggest preferred and non-preferred reviewers during manuscript submission. However, the ultimate selection of the reviewers will be determined by the editors.
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The editorial board reserves the right to reject any materials submitted and to make editorial decisions to accepted material.
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The decision of submitted manuscripts will be rendered as one of the following decisions: Accept without revision, accept with minor revision, major revision, and reject.
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Reviewers typically have two weeks to evaluate a manuscript. However, a few more days may be allowed with unavoidable circumstances. Authors will be noticed immediately by the editorial office when there is such event occurs which may cause the delay of review process and authors may choose to withdraw if they wish to do so.
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Authors will generally have one month for revision. If there is no response for the revised manuscript within one month from the corresponding author, it will be regarded as a withdrawal. For a revision, authors should submit both annotated and clean copies of the main document. Each should be a separate Microsoft Word document. The annotated copy should have changes tracked using the track changes function in Microsoft Word with marginal memos indicating changes (e.g., R2-1 indicates response to comment #1 of Reviewer #2). The corresponding author must indicate clearly what alterations have been made in a point-by-point response file, and it should be uploaded as a Microsoft Word document file (doc/docx). Acceptable reasons should be given for noncompliance with any recommendation of the reviewers.
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When article is accepted, the corresponding author will get gallery proofs before uploading at journal website. If there are any errors, the corresponding author should notify the editorial office within two days. Any errors found after this time are the responsibility of the author(s) and will have to be corrected as a corrigendum.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPT
All manuscripts must be submitted on-line only, via our webbased system with full online submission, review, and status update capabilities. The system can be accessed at https://submit.i-mri.org/.
1. Manuscript types
The article types that Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging publishes are summarized in the Table 1.
2. General guidelines for manuscript formatting
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All files should be written in English.
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All text files should be uploaded as Microsoft Word file. Please do not upload texts files as PDFs.
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The manuscript should be double spaced on 21.0 cm by 29.7 cm (A4) paper, with approximately 3-cm margins, left justified only, and in a basic font no smaller than 12 points.
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Medical terms should be used and translated in accordance with medical terminology website published by the Korean Medical Association (http://term.kma.org/). Avoid idiosyncratic word usage, nonstandard terms.
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Radiation measurements and laboratory values should be given in the International System of Units (SI).
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Abbreviations or acronyms should be spelled out in full when first used, for example, “cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).” The use of abbreviations should be kept to a minimum.
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For devices and drugs, the manufacturer should be listed in parentheses.
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In the text, equations should be described as Eq. (1), Eqs. (2-5) and the equations should be presented as another separate line or paragraph, for e.g., B = 0 (1).
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Authors should suggest page numbers at the bottom of the main document file, but not the line numbers because this will be automatically generated when an uploaded manuscript is converted to pdf format.
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Reporting guidelines for specific study designs: It is recommended for authors to follow the established reporting guidelines (https://www.equator-network.org) for the specific study design, such as randomized control study (i.e., CONSORT), study of diagnostic accuracy (i.e., STARD), metaanalyses and systematic reviews (i.e., PRISMA), case reports (i.e., CARE), and observational studies (i.e., STROBE).
Table 1. Types of articles
Type |
Notes |
Abstract |
Format requirement of body text* |
Body text |
Maximum number of figures and tables† |
References |
Original article (including meta-analysis) |
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≤300 words (Purpose, Materials and Methods, Results, and Conclusion sections) |
Structured (Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion sections) |
≤3000 words; structured including Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion sections |
≤10 figures and/or tables |
≤40 |
Review |
• Generally invited by editorial board • A comprehensive scholarly review on a specific topic, but is not an exhibit of series of cases |
≤300 words (without subheadings) |
Unstructured |
≤5000 words; unstructured |
≤10 figures and/or tables |
Not limited |
Case report |
MR imaging presentations, diagnoses and/or management of new, emerging or rare diseases |
≤200 words (without subheadings) |
Structured (Introduction, Case Report, and Discussion sections) |
≤2000 words; structured including Introduction, Case Report, and Discussion sections |
≤5 figures and/or tables |
≤10 |
Technical note |
A Short article on technical development and validation |
≤200 words (without subheadings) |
Unstructured |
≤2000 words; structured including Introduction, Case Report, and Discussion sections |
≤5 figures and/or tables |
≤10 |
Letter to the editor |
• Constructive criticism of a specific thesis published by iMRI; the editorial board may choose to invite the article’s author(s) to write a response, required format is as same as the original letter.
• Opinions on general/ specific interest within the field of MR physics, imaging, analysis, and radiology, etc.
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No abstract |
Unstructured |
≤600 words; unstructured |
≤2 figures and/or tables |
≤10 |
Editorial |
• Written by editors or generally invited by editor(s).
• Includes the policies and views of the journal; the perspectives and opinions of a person, group, or organization (not necessarily that of the journal); commentaries on articles published in the journal; interviews; and summary of symposia or conference.
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No abstract |
Unstructured |
≤1000 words; unstructured |
≤2 figures and/or tables |
≤20 |
Authors can submit supplementary materials when it is necessary, for online-only publication if there is not enough space to include the materials in the main document. Supplementary materials will be peer-reviewed also.
*Excludes abstract, keywords, references, tables, table legends and figure legends.
†The number of figure means counting by suggested number, for example, Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 will be counted as two, however Fig. 1A and Fig. 1B will be counted as one.
1) Title page
- Full title, full names of all authors with affiliations must be mentioned. If the institutions belonged to each author are different, the institution where the study was mainly carried out should be listed first.
- The article type must be mentioned. For detailed information of all types, please see the table of ‘Types of articles’ in author instruction.
- The contact information for corresponding author(s) must be provided on the title page. The corresponding author is the one who will take primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the whole process (manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process). Editorial board could request to the corresponding author about details of authorship, ethics committee’s approval, clinical trial registration documentation, and gathering conflict of interest forms and statements. The affiliation and its address, telephone and fax numbers, and email address of the corresponding author must be mentioned on the title page.
- The co-first and co-corresponding authorship should be stated clearly.
- The ORCID, author contribution of all authors, conflicts of interest and data availability statement must be provided. Any acknowledgements and funding disclosures need to be declared even though there is none.
- Running head must be given within 10 or fewer words.
2) Abbreviated title page
Manuscript title must be given on this page. Please do not include the author’s names, or other details.
3) Abstract
- Abbreviations or quotations from references must not be allowed for abstract.
- Five or fewer keywords should be suggested under the abstract. It is recommended to choose keywords at Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) of Index Medicus and the website (https://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html).
- (1) Original article
- Original Research manuscripts must include a structured abstract of 300 words or fewer. Authors should present the purpose of the study, materials and methods, result and conclusion briefly and clearly with concrete data.
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The abstract must be arranged into sections under the following headings:
(a) Purpose: a brief statement of study’s purpose.
(b) Materials and methods: numbers of patients or subjects, imaging studies and tests performed, and analysis methods.
(c) Results: major findings.
(d) Conclusion: a one- or two-sentence statement of conclusion derived from the results.
- 2) Other types
For detailed information of all types, please see the table of ‘Types of articles’ in instructions for authors.
4) Main text
- (1) Original article
- The manuscript must be composed of no more than 3000 English words excluding references, tables, and figures.
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The original article must be organized in the order of title, abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, references, tables, figures, and supplementary materials.
(a) Introduction
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Give only strictly pertinent background information and references that inform the reader as to why the study was performed. Please do not review the literature extensively. The final paragraph should clearly state the hypothesis and purpose of the study in a fashion similar to the ‘Purpose’ statement in the abstract. Brevity and focus are important.
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(b) Materials and methods
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The plan, subjects and method of the study should be described in the text in the order named. Describe clearly the number and selection of the subjects studied and any instructions or drugs (including contrast agents) used. Procedures should be described in sufficient detail to allow others to reproduce the study. It is essential that the manner in which studies were evaluated is explained.
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Any investigations involving humans and animals must be approved by the institutional review board and animal care committee of the institution where the study was carried out. Informed consent must be obtained, unless waived by the Institutional Review Board, from patients who participated in clinical investigations. Authors should not make independent determinations of exemption or exclusion of ethical approval; they should cite the institutional or regulatory policy for that determination.
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Ensure correct use of the terms sex (when reporting biological factors) and gender (identity, psychosocial or cultural factors), and, unless inappropriate, report the sex or gender of study participants, the sex of animals or cells, and describe the methods used to determine sex or gender. If the study was done involving an exclusive population, for example in only one sex, authors should justify why, except in obvious cases (e.g., prostate cancer). Authors should define how they determined race or ethnicity and justify their relevance.
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(c) Results
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Present the results in a logical sequence in the text, along with tables and illustrations.
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Please do not repeat data that are already covered in the tables and/or illustrations; summarize only important observations.
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State the statistical significance of the findings.
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Numerators and denominators must be provided either in the text or the tables for all percentages given.
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(d) Discussion
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Include in the discussion the advances in knowledge, the implications of the findings and their limitations, and the conclusions that follow from them. Please do not repeat in detail the data given in the Results section.
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Link the conclusions with the goals of the study, but avoid unqualified statements and conclusions not supported by the data. Conclusion should summarize the results and describe conclusion derived from the result.
- (2) Other types
For detailed information of all types, please see the table of ‘Types of articles’ in author instruction.
5) Data-sharing policy and reproducibility
For clinical trials, authors should declare the data-sharing statement at the title page. iMRI follows the ICMJE Recommendations for data sharing statement policy (https://icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf). Authors will be asked to identify the data, including patients’ data, a data dictionary that defines each field in the data set, and supporting documentation (e.g., statistical/analytic code), that will be made available to others; when, where, and how the data will be available (e.g., a link to a data repository); types of analyses that are permitted; and if there will be any restrictions on the use of the data. Authors also have the option to explain why data may not be shared.
6) Conflict of interest
The corresponding author must include all authors’ potential conflicts of interest that could influence the research or interpretation of data when submitting to iMRI. A potential conflict of interest should be disclosed in the title page and the disclosure form even though there is none. The disclosure form should be the same as the ICMJE Uniform Disclosure Form for Potential Conflicts of Interest and should be submitted via submission website. When the editor is included as an author, he/she will not be involved in the editorial evaluation or decision to publish the manuscript.
7) Author contribution
The contributions of all authors need to be suggested according to the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT), including 14 roles: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing—Original Draft, and Writing—Review & Editing.
8) Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID)
All authors must provide their ORCID IDs on the title page at initial submission.
9) Financial disclosure
All financial support regarding the manuscript should be notified clearly at this section.
10) Acknowledgments
The Acknowledgments section recognizes all sources of support for research, plus substantive contributions of individuals who have not fulfilled the requirements of authorship criteria.
11) References
- All references must be provided in English only.
- References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text.
- Start on a separate page, numbering the references consecutively in the order in which they appear in the text. Identify references in square brackets in the text (e.g. [1], [1,2], or [1-3]).
- We recommend the use of a tool such as EndNote for reference management and formatting. EndNote style for iMRI is available at https://www.i-mri.org/index.php?body=instructions.
- Unpublished data should not be cited in the reference list, but parenthetically in the text, for example: (Kim CS. Unpublished data).
- Journal names must be abbreviated according to the list of journals indexed for MEDLINE; if the source is not listed, then refer to the list at KoreaMed.
- All authors are to be listed when six or fewer; when there are seven or more, the first three should be given, followed by “et al.”
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The style and punctuation for journal articles, books, book chapters, and web contents should follow the format illustrated in the following examples:
- (1) Journal articles
1. Karaman MM, Tang L, Li Z, Sun Y, Li JZ, Zhou XJ. In vivo assessment of Lauren classification for gastric adenocarcinoma using diffusion MRI with a fractional order calculus model. Eur Radiol 2021;31:5659-5668.
2. Li Y, Chen Q, Wei Z, et al. One-stop MR neurovascular vessel wall imaging with a 48-channel coil system at 3 T. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng 2020;67:2317-2327.
- (2) Book
3. Smith NB, Webb A. Introduction to medical imaging: physics, engineering and clinical applications. 1st ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
- (3) Chapter in a book
4. Giannatempo GM, Scarabino T, Popolizio T, Parracino T, Serricchio E, Simeone A. 3.0 T perfusion MRI dynamic susceptibility contrast and dynamic contrast-enhanced techniques. In: Scarabino T, Pollice S, Popolizio T, eds. High field brain MRI: use in clinical practice. 2nd ed. Cham: Springer, 2017. pp.113-131.
- (4) Web content
5. Radiology Society of North America (RSNA). Quantitative imaging biomarkers alliance. Accessed on Oct 17, 2022. Available at: https://www.rsna.org/research/quantitative-imaging-biomarkers-alliance
- Other types of references not described above should follow the NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers (https://www.nlm.nih.gov/citingmedicine).
12) Tables
- Start on a separate page, after references in the main document.
- Tables must be created using the table formatting and editing feature of Microsoft Word.
- Tables must be numbered using Arabic numerals and should be numbered in the order in which they are cited in the text.
- The title of the table must be clearly stated in the form of a phrase or clause. The first letters of nouns and adjectives should be capitalized.
- Abbreviations should be defined in a footnote below each table.
- When annotation is necessary, symbols must be used in the order *, †, ‡, §, ǁ, ¶, **, ††, and ‡‡ with their explanations included in footnotes at the bottom of the table.
- Tables must be self-explanatory and readily comprehensible.
- Written permission from the prior publisher must be obtained for the use of all previously published tables and copies of the permission letter must be submitted.
13) Figures
- For initial submission, both jpg/jpeg and tif/tiff formats are acceptable.
- All figure parts related to one patient must have the same figure number and use English letters after the numerals to distinguish each figure part, e.g., Fig. 1A, 1B, etc.
- Upload all figure part as separate image file (Please do not combine).
- Remove all names and all other identifiers of patient, authors and authors’ institutions from the figures.
- After cropping to the area of interest, images should be at least 300 dpi in resolution and a minimum of 3 inches to a maximum of 7 inches both in width and height.
- Figure captions must start on a separate page. Captions should be numbered in the order in which they are cited, using Arabic numerals. Write a description using one complete sentence rather than a phrase or paragraph. In the case of microscope images, the power of microscope must be described.
- Written permission from the prior publisher must be obtained for the use of all previously published illustrations, and copies of the permission letter must be submitted.
CHECKLIST OF REQUIREMENTS FOR SUBMISSION
Before submission, please refer to following checklist: https://www.i-mri.org/src/iMRi_Checklist.pdf.
PUBLICATION FEE
Authors and readers will not be charged for anything during the whole process, such as article processing charges, page charges, editorial processing charges, language editing fees, color charges, submission fees, supplementary charges, and subscription fees. Authors can sign in for free at the submission website (https://submit.i-mri.org/). Full text is freely available at https://i-mri.org.
CONTACT US
Editor-in-Chief:
Seung Hong Choi
Seoul National University
Email: verocay1@snu.ac.kr
Jaeseok Park
Sungkyunkwan University
Email: jaeseokp@g.skku.edu
Xiaoliang Zhang
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
Email: xzhang_1@yahoo.com
Editorial Office
The Korean Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine
A06, 6F, Haesung Building, 11 Olympic-ro, 32-gil, Songpa-gu, Seoul 05543, Republic of Korea
Tel.: 82-2-717-5543
Email: imri@ksmrm.org
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