Author Guidelines

Authorship:

International Journal of Alternative Fuels and Energy (IJAFE) is an open access, peer-reviewed international journal that considers articles on all aspects of alternative energy sources and allied sciences. The journal provides rapid publication of research articles, review articles, mini-reviews, short communications, data analysis, case reports, editorials, opinions, letter to the editor, Symposium, commentaries, conceptual paper, proceedings, and newsletters.

The journal covers all all areas of alternative energy sources and allied engineering sciences not limited to: Biofuels, Wind and Solar Energy, Photovoltaics, Tidal and Wave Energy, Marine Energy, Geothermal Energy, Hydrogen Energy, Fuel Cells, Chemistry, Allied Engineering Sciences, Physics, Agricultural Engineering, Biological & Biosystem Engineering, Forestry Engineering, Materials Engineering, Water Resource Engineering, Mineral & Metallurgical Engineering, Engineering Management, Biomechanical Engineering, Engineering Technology and Nanotechnology.

The submitted articles should not be published and/or considered for publication elsewhere in the world in any form.

Each author must have participated sufficiently, intellectually or practically, in the work to take public responsibility for the content of the article, including the conception, design, and conduct of the experiment, and for the data interpretation.

All authors must sign a statement agreeing to all the requirements for authorship with the transfer of copyright.  

The submitted manuscripts are being evaluated for Similarity Index using appropriate software so the authors must take care of plagiarism while copying text from other articles and materials.

Potential Reviewers:

Authors are invited to provide three to four names of well qualified relevant reviewers, with their complete details (designation, institute, postal address, telephone, fax, and current e-mail IDs).

Types of Papers Published:

Research Articles:

Articles describe the results of a particular research project, the development of new techniques, or the application of such new techniques. The length of a full paper should be concise, required to describe and interpret the work clearly. The main paper should include a set of key words (3-6) ; an Abstract (200-250 words),  followed by (1) Introduction, (2) Materials and Methods, (3) Results, (4) Discussion, (5) Acknowledgments (6) References and tables and figures must be at the end of manuscript.

Review Articles:

A review article typically presents a summary and critical evaluation of information that has already been published, and considers the progress of current research toward clarifying a stated problem or topic. There are no formal limits on article length but they should typically contain in excess of 70 references. Reviews are encouraged and may be submitted without prior consultation with the Editors. There are no formal limits on the number of pages or images for reviews.

Mini Reviews:

The criteria for mini reviews are the same as for a full review albeit less extensive in length and scope. There are no formal page limits for mini-reviews although they are typically characterized as containing under 50 references.

Short Communications:

Short manuscripts definitively documenting either experimental results or informative observations will be considered for publication in this category. Short Communications are limited to a maximum of two figures and one table containing 1500-2500 words. The items of manuscript preparation listed above apply to Short Communications with the following differences: (1) Abstracts are limited to 100-200 words; (2) instead of a separate Materials and Methods section, experimental procedures may be incorporated into Figure Legends and Table footnotes; (3) Results and Discussion should be combined into a single section.

Case Studies:

Case Studies include original case reports that will deepen the understanding of general scientific knowledge.

Opinions:

Opinions are short articles (maximum 2,500 words with a maximum of 25 references) that present original and well-developed insights without complete supporting data. Although biology and allied fields are primarily experimental sciences, this article type places equal importance on new thought that is formulated in a manner that summarizes a problem, provides a new synthesis, and/or is suitable for subsequent experimental testing.

Editorials:

Editorials are written in-house by members of the editorial staff or by members of the Editorial Board and address issues of science, politics, or policy. Editorials should have fewer than 1000 words total, no abstract, a minimal number of references, and no figures or tables (although they do have a photograph of the author as an illustration).

Spotlights:

Spotlights are short articles that focus on emerging scientific research findings or policy issues. Article titles should be concise. Spotlight articles should not exceed 1,500-2,000 words in length, should include an abstract of no more than 80 words, no more than 20 references. The inclusion of no more than 2 tables and/or figures to highlight and summarize critical points is encouraged.

Perspectives:

Perspectives discuss one or a cluster of recently published papers or a current research topic of high interest in which an author's perspective sheds an incisive light on key findings in research. Perspectives are brief reviews (maximum 2,000 words) and an abstract of 150 words or fewer.

Commentaries:

Commentaries are short invited articles (maximum 1,000 words) that discuss PSM papers or issues of special interest. They may or may not be peer-reviewed. Authors should provide an abstract of 150 words or fewer. The body of a Commentary may have section headings and/or paragraph lead-ins.

Methods and Protocols:

Methods and Protocols manuscripts (5,000 word limit) describe major technical and methodological developments in biology. The description of each method or protocol must include validation of, or application to, a relevant and important question in biology and provide results demonstrating its performance in comparison to existing state-of-the-art techniques. Articles will be selected on the basis of importance to the field, methodological performance, and detailed description to enable application to the field immediately.

Correspondence:

Correspondences are written as letter in response to articles published specifically in PSM. They may include corrections of already published peer-reviewed articles in Journal. They must appear before editorial board in 10 weeks after publication of that very material. They must not extend than 450 words and have 5 or 6 references.

Letters to Editor:

Letters are brief reports of original research whose importance will be of interest to scientists and researchers in other fields. It should describe how your results could move some scientific field forward. Letters may be no more than 850 words long. The Letter must have a distinct title, which must appear on the manuscript and on the submission form. In start, a summary must be given with briefly discussing relevance of your work with different area of research. Figures and tables should be kept to a minimum.

Analysis and Survey Reports:

PSM welcomes metadata analysis and survey reports for publication. The abstract of your analysis and survey report should appear as structured summary (Background, Methods, Result and Conclusion). The data repositories consulted must be accessible and legible to every user. In survey report, a “Recommendation” paragraph must be added in the end which must prescribe the future strategies for a specific problem to policy makers. It should not exceed than 10 pages without references. Reference count is desirable up to 20 but may extend up to 30 if required.

Wild Ideas:

In this section we intend to provide a forum for researchers and students, who can think out of the box, to discuss ideas and models from a different viewpoint than established ones. They are more forward looking and futuristic and may take a narrower and specific field of view. They may be authors’ opinion but should not be a fiction. Their main purpose is to stimulate discussion and new experiments. They may be 2-3 pages with maximum 3,000 words. References should not exceed than 20. A summary (unstructured) must be provided in the start of article. 4-5 subheadings could be used to elaborate your idea. All ideas are reviewed by the Editor Board prior to publication.

Conference proceedings:

International Journal of Alternative Fuels and Energy publishes special issues or proceedings from conferences, seminars, congresses, symposium and scientific events. The organizing committee can request for special issues. Abstracts or full papers can be published..

Open access:

Articles are freely available to both subscribers and the wider public with permitted reuse. Open Access by PSM Journals is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Based on a work at https://www.psmjournals.org/.

Article Processing Charges (APCs):

International Journal of Alternative Fuels and Energy is open access journal supported by article processing charges (APCs). There are no submission charges.

Manuscript Submission:

The journal welcomes the submission of original manuscripts (Please see Plagiarism Policy) that meet the general criteria of significance and scientific excellence.

Submission should be made through “IJAFE – Manuscript Submission and Tracking System“.

Article manuscripts can be submitted as email attachments in Word format to PSM Editorial Office (editor@psmjournals.org).

Submission enquiries: editor@psmjournals.org or ijafe@psmjournals.org

General enquiries: info@psmjournals.org

Style of manuscript:

Text formatting:

Font: Arial

Font Size: 12

Line spacing: 1.5

The journal‘s language is English:

Manuscript should be written in clear, concise and grammatically correct English. Indent new paragraphs. The manuscript should be presented in the following order:

Title page: 

This should contain:

• Title for the article along with the running title
• Name(s) of author(s), their academic qualifications and current affiliations
• Number of table(s) and figure(s) in the manuscript
• Name, mailing and e-mail addresses of the corresponding author
• Acknowledgement of financial support, if any

The title represents the subject matter of the manuscript. The title should be brief and comprehensive.

Abstract:

Original research articles must include a structured abstract that contains no more than 300 words, is written in complete sentences, and should detail the problems, experimental approach, major findings and conclusion in one paragraph and should appear on the second page. Avoid abbreviation, diagram and references in the abstract.

Keywords: 

Author(s) must give key words (3 to 6) which can identify the most important subjects covered by the paper. They must be placed at the end of the abstract.

Introduction:

Clearly state the purpose of the article. Summarize the rationale and background for the study or observation, giving only strictly pertinent references. Do not include methods, data, results, or conclusions from the work being reported.

Materials and methods:

Provide sufficient details of the techniques employed to enable the work to be repeated. Do not describe or refer to commonplace statistical tests in this section but allude to them briefly in Results.

Results:

Present your results in a logical sequence in the text, tables, and figures. Do not present specifics of data more than once and do not duplicate data from tables or figures in the text; emphasize or summarize only important observations. Do not present data from individual subjects except for very compelling reasons. Report losses to observation (such as dropouts from a clinical trial). Use boldface for the first mention of each table or figure.

Discussion:

The purpose of the discussion is to present a brief and pertinent interpretation of the results against the background of existing knowledge. Normally a comparison between your results and results from previous works should be given in the Discussion.

Conclusion:

Any assumptions on which conclusions are based must be stated clearly. The main conclusions should be conveyed in a final paragraph with a clear statement of how the study advances knowledge and understanding in the field.

Acknowledgments:

Acknowledge only persons who have made substantive contributions to the study. Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission from everyone acknowledged by name and for providing to the Editor a copy of the permission, if requested. Authors must disclose any financial or personal relationships with the company or organization sponsoring the research at the time the research was done. 

Declarations:

This information must also be inserted into your manuscript under the acknowledgements section with the headings below. If you have no declaration to make please insert the following statements into your manuscript:

Funding: None

Conflict of interest: None declared

Format Style of References:

EndNote Library Style for bibliography can be downloaded here.

Guidelines for setting up abbreviated journal titles in EndNote can be found here.

References:

At the end of the article, a list of references should be included. The authors are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the references and their citations in the text.

Reference style:

In the manuscript text should be cited as author name followed by year of publication within bracket as:

1. Single author: the author's name (without initials, unless there is ambiguity) and the year of publication e.g. (Iqbal, 2016);
2. Two authors: both authors' names and the year of publication e.g. (Iqbal and Ashraf, 2015);
3. Three or more authors: first author's name followed by 'et al.,' and the year of publication e.g. (Iqbal et al., 2016).

If an author cited has had two or more works published during the same year, the reference, both in the text and in the reference list, should be identified by a lower case letter like ’a‘ and ’b‘ after the date to distinguish the works, "as demonstrated (Allan, 1996a, 1996b, 1999; Allan and Jones, 1995)".

References should be arranged alphabetically by authors' names. If more than 6 authors then first 6 may be listed followed by ‘et al.,’ Use journal names as abbreviated.

Reference to a journal publication:

• Journal article with DOI:

Hamer, M., Steptoe, A., 2009. Prospective study of physical fitness, adiposity, and inflammatory markers in healthy middle-aged men and women. Am. J. Clin. Nutr., 89(1): 85-89. doi:10.3945/ajcn.2008.26779

• Standard journal article:

Jeffery, R.W., Wing, R.R., Sherwood, N.E., Tate, D.F., 2003. Physical activity and weight loss: does prescribing higher physical activity goals improve outcome? Am. J. Clin. Nutr., 78(1): 684-9.

• Corporate author:

Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 2004. Care for your kitten. 3rd ed. Harper Collins, London. 

Reference to a book and monographs:

• Personal authors:

Shils, M., Shike, M., Olson, J., Ross, A.C., 1998. Modern nutrition in health and disease. 9th ed. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Baltimore.

• Committee report or corporate author:

Food and Nutrition Board, Institute of Medicine, 2000. Dietary reference intakes for vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium and carotenoids. National Academy Press, Washington, DC.

• Chapter in book:

Young, V.R., Tharakan, J.F., 2004. Nutritional essentiality of amino acids and amino acid requirements in healthy adults. 2nd. ed. In: Cynober LA, ed. Metabolic and therapeutic aspects of amino acids in clinical nutrition. FL: CRC Press, Boca Raton, 439-70.

Internet references:

• Website:

National Center for Health Statistics. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Version current 1 October 2003. Internet: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes.htm (accessed 13 October 2003).

• Online journal article:

Sinha, A., Madden, J., Ross-Degnan, D., Soumerai, S., Platt, R., 2003. Reduced risk of neonatal respiratory infections among breastfed girls but not boys. Pediatrics [serial online],112:e303. Internet: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/112/4/e303 (accessed 14 October 2003). 

Tables: 

Each table should be on a separate page, numbered and accompanied by a legend at the top. They should be referred to in the text as Table 1, etc. Do not present the same data in both figure and table form or repeat large numbers of values from Tables in the text.

Figures:

Figures and their legends should be grouped together at the end of the paper, before the appendices (if present). If figures have been supplied as a list at the end of the text file, they should appear above their respective legend. The word figures should be abbreviated in the text (e.g. Fig. 1; Figs. 2 and 3), except when starting a sentence. Photographic illustrations should also be referred to as Figures.

Appendices / Supporting information: 

Please note that supporting information may be published in electronic form. The supporting information may include figures, tables, appendices, material and methods part.  Supplementary material can be provided in the same manuscript file at the end of manuscript after tables and figures.

Symbols and Abbreviations:

Abbreviations and symbols must be standard. SI units should be used throughout, except for blood pressure values which should be reported in mm Hg. Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used consistently thereafter.

Footnotes:

Footnotes to the text are numbered consecutively; those to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data). 

Copyrights:

The copyrights of the published manuscripts belong to PSM Publishers. 

Permissions:

Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors. By submitting a manuscript to the editor or publisher you are deemed to have granted permission to publish the manuscript. 

Proofs:

Upon satisfactory revision and acceptance, the proofs will be sent to authors for correction through E-mail, if required. The authors are requested to return the manuscript with minor changes within a week. 

Reprints:

As the journal is available online, no hard copy will be provided to the corresponding author on publication of his/her manuscript. The manuscript will be available freely from net where it can be downloaded from anywhere. However, if required, the colored prints will be available upon payment.