Authors' Information

Why IST

• Enhanced Readability: ISTPress offers open source and free access to all the published articles and hence readers can gain knowledge about the latest technologies free of cost.

• Faster Evaluation: International Science Transactions Press aims to provide an academic platform to researchers where their precious work is evaluated in a timely and affordable manner.

• Quality of Evaluation: IST invites authors to submit their work for a quality review and in an affordable cost.

• Affordability:

• ISTPress also offers free publishing opportunity to the authors of articles of high merit, which are referred in the articles of other leading journals.

• ISTPress realizes the importance of the review work, thus it offers incentives to its reviewers to maintain the quality of review and its transactions.

• ISTPress constitutes scholars and academicians who act as Associate Editors and reviewers for IST transactions. So far, about 430 scholars, renowned in their respective fields, have joined ISTPress as Associate Editors and Reviewers.

• ISTPress also invites the scholars to suggest for a journal. For this purpose, ISTPress extends all possible support (guidance, reviewers/AEs, web services, etc) to launch a new journal from ISTPress platform.

• IST Transactions are aimed to be included in world’s major citation indices; however this aim is being reached by constant improvement in the quality of published articles.

Average Time for Evaluating Manuscripts

The evaluation time can vary depending upon the availability of suitable reviewers, however we endeavor to furnish the first review within 4-6 weeks. The duration of review may become lesser for later versions of the manuscript.

Submission of Manuscript

Paper submission system is now fully electronic. Submissions should be sent via secure website http://www.istpress.com. One corresponding author will be required to sign up for an account indicating the corresponding author's complete name, affiliation, address, phone and fax numbers, and e-mail address. This account may also be used for future paper submission.

Initial paper submission should be within, but not restricted to, a maximum of 20 pages (inclusive of all sections and illustrations) with double-line spacing, single-column per page, and clear fonts with 12-pt size. One soft copy of the paper (with main paper, tables, and figures, all in one file in Adobe pdf format ONLY) must be included in the submission. The corresponding author will be given a reference number assigned to the paper and it is to be used in all future correspondence. Should your paper be accepted for publication in a journal, we will request that you send, to the publisher, a soft copy of your paper in MS Word format. Original electronic copy of your figures must be included. Acceptable figure formats include high-resolution JPEGs, TIFFs, EPSs and embedded figures in MS Word. All soft copies of accepted paper may be sent as e-mail attachments directly to ISTPress at: istpress@istpress.com or istpress@gmail.com

Submissions must represent original work, whose copyright is not already owned elsewhere. An article submitted to one IST Transaction should not be submitted to another IST Transaction (neither simultaneously nor subsequently) unless with an expressed permission of the Editor. Publication of conference papers, which have been substantially rewritten and augmented making them suitable for journal publication, is encouraged. In case of significant overlap (which should not be more than 40%) of the conference paper, it is the authors' responsibility to ask for permission to republish from the copyright holder.

The review process is done entirely electronically, so it is essential for you to provide an electronic file of your paper. To ensure rapid refereeing and publication, submit the Manuscript in PDF format according to the format given in Authors’ Information. Upon acceptance, you may also be asked to forward MSword version of your paper.

Refereeing: After initial scrutiny, all contributions are submitted to referees. Names of referees will be kept confidential, but their comments will be relayed at the discretion of the Editor.

Page Charges

ISTPress charges a nominal publication cost of $225 (USD) for each accepted manuscript of 8 pages, formatted according to IST template. This cost is to sustain usual running of the press, since ISTPress offers all published articles as open source and free of cost. The standard charges of $225 (USD) can be further reduced by working for IST as reviewer. For details, refer to the link of Reviewers Information. ISTPress also realizes the difference of average income between developed and developing countries, therefore the authors of developing countries can get a discount of max $50, i.e. if an author is a faculty member or graduate student of a university of a developing country, he is entitled to apply for a 50 USD discount on publication cost. Authors can claim for further discount on publication cost if they have earned IST credits while carrying out reviews. For example an author belonging to a developing country, who has also carried out the review of 2 papers for ISTPress, will be required to pay only $110 as publication cost for his own accepted manuscript.

Note that final printed pages are in a single-spaced and double-column format, which is NOT the same as the format for initial paper submission. Accepted papers will be formatted by authors according to the template provided. Initial paper submission should be within, but not restricted to, a maximum of 20 pages (inclusive of all sections and illustrations) with double-line spacing, single-column per page, and clear fonts with 12-pt size.

A minimum amount of $100 will be charged as publication cost of each manuscript, even after claiming all sorts of discounts. For papers exceeding eight printed pages, inclusive of illustrations, there is a charge of $20 per additional page. The authors of accepted papers will be required to send an email to ISTPress to know the exact publication cost and preferred mode of payment.

Author Incentives

• IST publications are open access, available to everyone free of cost, thus the published articles can be accessed without any subscriptions or providing any user information. This enables the readers to have faster access to IST articles and allow them make their own contributions by knowing latest advancements in science and technology.

• IST aims to carry out peer review process in shortest possible time and in affordable cost.

• Faculty member or graduate student of a university of a developing country is entitled to apply for a (max) 50 USD discount on publication cost.

• Further discount on publication cost can be achieved by earning reviewer credits.

• Distinguished authors of IST transactions will be supported for international travels to attend IST sponsored conferences.

• The indexing of IST transactions in world’s major databases is in process.

IST aims to be indexed by SCI / SCI-E in the near future. To increase readability and citations to IST published articles, ISTPress encourages authors to read the IST open source material and refer to them in their articles being submitted to other reputed journals or even IST transactions. In this pursuit, IST offers a totally free publication package to an author, who will objectively cite any article of IST in an article of other SCI / SCI-E indexed journal. This means that the author of a published article in any SCI / SCI-E journal who can include a reference of any IST published article, the author will be entitled for one free manuscript registration for his future submitted article for IST. This credit of the author is transferable to other authors.

Decisions on Manuscripts

In case the decision is “Accepted†in the present form, authors are supposed to quickly submit the copyright form. The paper will be published within two months as soon as the payment of publication cost is received.

In case the decision is “Accepted provided minor revisions are made†authors will be asked to work on their article and submit it with a cover letter to the reviewers, clearly pointing out the revisions made. The cover letter could be the first pages included in the body of the paper, or a separate file uploaded (as per the provisions of website). For such a decision, our endeavor would be to get the final review done within 2-3 weeks.

In case the decision is “Resubmit and re-review†authors will be asked to work on their article and re-submit it within 3 months with a cover letter to the reviewers, clearly pointing out the revisions made. The cover letter could be the first pages included in the body of the paper, or a separate file uploaded (as per the provisions of website). For such a decision, our endeavor would be to get the final review done within 4 weeks.

In case the decision is “Rejectedâ€, we still encourage the authors to resubmit after thorough revision. The authors may submit a fresh paper or improved version of the previously submitted paper, but with such a decision, new reviewers will be assigned and a complete new review process will take place.

IST Plagiarism Policy

Under standard definitions of Plagiarism and self plagiarism, IST takes special measures to discourage the breach of copyright laws. However in the context of self plagiarism, the extended versions of already published conference papers are welcome, with a condition that the overlap of work is not more than 40%, also that it is the sole responsibility of the authors to obtain necessary permission from where they got their work published.

In case of breach of the plagiarism policy, the principal author and co-authors will be held responsible and will be required to pay all the cost of review and publishing as a minimum penalty.

Formatting Instructions

Please read the following format instructions carefully. Formatting your paper correctly saves a great deal of editing time, which in turn ensures publication of papers in a timely manner. Papers not formatted correctly will be returned.

Initial Submissions

The paper must be single column double-spaced for initial submission for review. Acronyms are spelled out at first mention but not thereafter unless there is good reason to do so. The title is centered on the page and is CAPITALIZED AND SET IN BOLDFACE. Please limit the title to a maximum length of 18 words. The author's name(s) follows and is also centered on the page. A blank line is required between the title and the author's name(s). Last names should be spelled out in full and preceded by author's initials. The author's affiliation, complete mailing address, and e-mail address are provided below.

Do not underline or capitalize any of the headings. The headings and subheadings, starting with "1. Introduction", appear in upper and lower case letters and should be set in bold and aligned flush left. All headings from the Introduction to Acknowledgments are numbered sequentially using 1, 2, 3, etc. Subheadings are numbered 1.1, 1.2, etc. If a subsection must be further divided, the numbers 1.1.1, 1.1.2, etc. are used and the number and associated title are set in italics instead of bolded. The first paragraph under each heading or subheading should be flush left and subsequent paragraphs should have a five-space indentation. A colon is inserted before an equation is presented, but there is no punctuation following the equation. All equations are numbered and referred to in the text solely by a number enclosed in a round bracket (i.e. (3) reads as "equation 3"). Ensure that any miscellaneous numbering system you use in your paper cannot be confused with a reference [4] or an equation (3) designation.

Abstract
An abstract, not exceeding 250 words, is required for all papers.

Key Words
The author should provide a list of key words, up to a minimum of six. Authors are encouraged to select keywords from the provided list, also they can input their own keywords. A paper furnished with enough keywords is likely to get assigned to suitable reviewers.

Introduction
The introduction of the paper should explain the nature of the problem, previous work, purpose, and the contribution of the paper. It is assigned the number "1" and following sections are assigned numbers as needed. For example, the third section of a paper might be "3. Performance Analysis".

Conclusion
A conclusion section must be included and should indicate clearly the advantages, limitations and possible applications of the paper.

Acknowledgements
An acknowledgement section may be presented after the conclusion, if desired.

References
This heading is not assigned a number. A reference list MUST be included using the following information as a guide. Only cited text references are included. Each reference is referred to in the text by a number enclosed in a square bracket (i.e., [3]). No reference to the author is necessary. References must be numbered and ordered according to where they are first mentioned in the paper, not alphabetically. Examples follow.

Books:
W.-K. Chen, Linear Networks and Systems (Book style). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, pp. 123–135. 1993

Note that Book title is set in italics.

Journal Papers:
[2] G. O. Young, “Synthetic structure of industrial plastics,†in Plastics, 2nd ed. vol. 3, J. Peters, Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, pp. 15–64. 1964

[3] S. Chen, B. Mulgrew, and P. M. Grant, “A clustering technique for digital communications channel equalization using radial basis function networks,†IEEE Trans. Neural Networks, vol. 4, pp. 570–578, July 1993.

Note that journal title is set in italics.

Proceedings Papers:
[4] S. P. Bingulac, “On the compatibility of adaptive controllers,†in Proc. 4th Annu. Allerton Conf. Circuits and Systems Theory, New York, pp. 1268–136. 1994

Figures and Tables

To ensure a high-quality product, diagrams can be submitted at full size, but authors must ensure an image of sufficient quality and resolution so that reduction to publication size does not render the image illegible. If possible, please also submit an electronic copy of your figures (high-resolution JPEG, TIFF, EPS, PSD, or Adobe pdf format, or as embedded figures in MS Word format).

Figure captions appear below the figure, are flush left, and are in lower case letters. When referring to a figure in the body of the text, the abbreviation "Fig." is used. Table captions appear centered above the table in upper and lower case letters. When referring to a table in the text, no abbreviation is used and "Table" is not capitalized.

Final Submissions

When all the review procedures are completed, authors will be asked to download the MS word template ISTPress Word Template and format the paper accordingly. Most of the formatting requirements remain the same except that the final version is double column, single spaced, font type and font size etc.

Check List

You can obtain from the editor or download from the ISTPress website. We request that you go through this list, check off each item as it is completed, and return the checked list to us with your submitted paper. Compliance with these formatting instructions will expedite the publication process and ensure high-quality publication of your work.