Online Journal : Submission to Palliative Care Research in English

Palliative Care Research as an official journal of the Japanese Society for Palliative Medicine (JSPM) accepts articles on clinical and basic aspects of topics represented by the fields of interest of palliative medicine. Palliative Care Research is published on an electric journal basis. Submission of an article is understood to imply that the article is original and is not being considered for publication elsewhere.

In case of submitting an article from Japan, at least the first authors must be a member of JSPM (No member of JSPM in authors is permitted when submitting from the other countries.). All of the procedures employed in an article should be in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration (1964,1975, amended in 1983 and 2003) of the World Medical Association,Ethical Guidelines for Clinical Studies (2005), Ethical Guidelines for Epidemiological Studies (2005) and other humane laws. Furthermore, the protocol of a study should be approved by an institutional review board (IRB) before the study starts. In case of an in vivo study, all animals should receive humane care in compliance with the institutional guidelines. Authors must describe above in the methods section of the article.

Types of Articles of original research, case reports, rapid communications, reviews and, Letter to editor are welcomed to be submitted to Palliative Care Research. In terms of reviews, the JSPM usually ordered to some expert, but submitting a review is also welcomed.

Language of papers is English or Japanese (see above Japanese explanation). In the former, it is required that all submitted manuscripts be written in clear, concise English. Authors whose native language is not English are strongly advised to have their manuscripts checked by an English-speaking colleague prior to submission.

All the articles will be peer-reviewed by the Editorial Board of the JSPM. The decision of the Editor-in-Chief, as advised by his/her reviewers, is final.

Manuscripts should be typewritten with wide margins and double spacing throughout, i.e. also for abstracts, footnotes and references on papers at a size of A4 or Letter. Every page of the manuscripts, including the title page, references, tables, etc. should be numbered. In principle, length of an article is 4000 words for an original paper or 2000 words for a case report or a rapid communication or 1000 word for a Letter to editor at maximum. In terms of Title page, Abstract and Key words, as the information of an accepted manuscript is cited on CrossRef and so on, author(s) must obey the rules cited below.
Structure of manuscripts
Manuscripts in general should be organized in the following order:

( 1 )	Title page has a title (should be clear, descriptive and not too long), full name(s) of author(s) and his/her/their institution(s), address of the corresponding author (address, phone number, fax number and E-mail address), and running title (within 40 characters).
( 2 )	Abstract is constructed by a brief, one paragraph summary of 250 words at maximum.
( 3 )	Key words (indexing terms) must be provided by a list of 4-5 key words.
( 4 )	Introduction
( 5 )	Materials and Methods
( 6 )	Results
( 7 )	Discussion
( 8 )	References section should be constructed by a maximum of 20 references. Articles in the reference should be cited in accordance with the examples above (5. (8) in Japanese explanation) and Index Medicus - abbreviations of journal titles (http://www2.bg.am.poznan.pl/czasopisma/medicus.php?lang=eng).
( 9 )	Acknowledgements describes not only acknowledgements but also conflict of interest. All authors must disclose any financial or personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. All sources of funding should also be declared.
(10)	Tables should bear a short descriptive title and should also be typed on separate sheets, including legends. They should be numbered in sequence in Roman numerals.
(11)	Figures should be numbered in Arabic numerals in order of appearance in the text, where they are refereed to as Fig. 1, Fig. 2, etc. The lettering should be large enough to permit photographic reduction. All illustrations must have a legend, which should be typed on a separate sheet of paper.
(12)	If authors are Japanese, please attached Japanese names of the title, authors, and their institutions, and, furthermore, Japanese abstract, tables and figures including Japanese legends.

Submit the original and two copies of your manuscript to the below address. An electronic version exactly matching printed versions (the original and two copies of your manuscript) should be also submitted. High density (HD) diskette (3.5 inch) or CD-R is acceptable. We prefer PDF files and Words files on either Windows and Machintosh. In case of lacking the software used in the JSPM, sending the changed electric version by another software might be asked. Total size for an article including tables and figures should not exceed a file size of 10 MB. Label the disk or CD-R with the name of the computer system and software package used, your name, and the name of the files. As all the manuscripts sent to JSPM are not return to authors, it is important to keep files and figures at author(s).
Kunihiko Kobayashi (Editor-in-Chief of Palliative Care Research), Seikaisha Co., Ltd. Kawachi Building, 1-4-4 Nezu, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo. 113-0031 Japan.
Tel (+81)3-5832-6171; Fax (+81) 3-5832-6172.

The JSPM will send an E-mail with a PDF file made from the accepted manuscript to the correspondence author. Authors will be asked to check proofs. Only simple errors may be corrected.

The JSPM will give no charge to the author(s) when publishing.

Upon acceptance of the article by the journal, the author(s) will be asked to transfer the copyright of the article to the JSPM.