The Journal of Biomechanical Science and Engineering (JBSE) is an Open Access, peer-reviewed journal approved by Asian-Pacific Association for Biomechanics (APAB), the Bioengineering Division of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME-BED), the Korean Society of Biomechanics (KSB), and the Taiwanese Society of Biomechanics (TSB). JBSE publishes peer-reviewed articles on biomechanical science and engineering. The journal publishes Regular Articles and Reviews.
JBSE’s scope includes molecular biomechanics, cellular biomechanics, tissue engineering, organ engineering, cardiorespiratory biomechanics, musculoskeletal biomechanics, neural mechanics, orthopedic biomechanics, locomotion, human movement, artificial organs, medical device, sports biomechanics, injury, rehabilitation, flying, swimming, biomechanics in nature, and other interdisciplinary sciences.
As the official peer-reviewed journal of APAB, JSME-BED, KSB, and TSB, JBSE serves an ever-growing role in the support of the biomechanics community, especially in Asian-Pacific region. The journal employs rigorous peer review of manuscripts to ensure the highest scientific publishing and ethical standards for our broad audience of researchers, clinicians, policy makers and other bioengineering professionals.
The journal welcomes the submission of Research Papers and Review Papers which are subject to peer review. They consist of the standard format of Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion and References (please refer to Manuscript Preparation section). The main text (including references, tables, and figure legends) should not exceed 20 A4 (or equivalent) pages.
JBSE upholds the highest standards in scholarly publishing. Before submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors must ensure that they have read and complied with the journal’s policies. The journal reserves the right to reject without review, or retract, any manuscript that the Editor believes may not comply with these policies.
The responsibilities of the journal’s authors, editors, reviewers and publisher regarding research and publication ethics are described in full below.
Submission to the journal implies that the manuscript has not been previously published (in part or in whole, in any language), is not in press, is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, is factual, and is not defamatory or libelous. Authors must inform the editors if any related manuscripts are under consideration, in press or published elsewhere.
If authors choose to submit their manuscript elsewhere before a final decision has been made on its suitability for publication in JBSE, they should first withdraw it from the journal.
JBSE welcomes manuscript submissions from authors based anywhere in the world.
Submission of a manuscript to the journal implies that all authors: have understood our ITA, have approved it, warrant it is factual, have agreed to its submission, and have the right to publish it.
Submission to the journal implies that the manuscript is original work. The journal may use iThenticate’s plagiarism software to screen manuscripts for unoriginal content. By submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors agree to this screening. Any manuscript with an unacceptable level of unoriginal material may be rejected or retracted at the Editors’ discretion.
Manuscripts submitted shall be the original work of the author and co-authors and should be unpublished and unsubmitted at the time of acceptance. However, if the copyright has been transferred to the JSME and the manuscript is presented at a meeting hosted or co-hosted by the JSME without prior reviews, the manuscript may be submitted as an original paper with new knowledge added to the content.
Submission to the journal implies that all authors have seen and approved the author list, which the Editorial Office checks for each multi-author submission. Changes to the author list after the manuscript is received are not allowed for any reason.
To qualify for authorship, authors must make a substantial contribution to the research conception and planning, data acquisition, analysis, and/or interpretation.
Authors may digitally manipulate or process images, but only if the adjustments are kept to a minimum, are applied to the entire image, meet community standards, and are clearly described in the manuscript. All images in a manuscript must accurately reflect the original data on which they are based. Authors must not move, remove, add or enhance individual parts of an image. The editors reserve the right to request original, unprocessed images from the authors. Failure to provide requested images may result in a manuscript being rejected or retracted.
If a manuscript includes material that is not under the authors’ own copyright, the authors must obtain permission from the copyright holder(s) to reproduce it.
If a manuscript includes previously published material, the authors must obtain permission from the copyright owners and the publisher of the original work to reproduce it. The authors must cite the original work in their manuscript.
Copies of all reproduction permissions must be included with the manuscript when it is first submitted.
Authors of manuscripts describing experiments involving humans or materials derived from humans must demonstrate that the work was carried out in accordance with the principles embodied in the Declaration of Helsinki, its revisions, and any guidelines approved by the authors’ institutions. Where relevant, the authors must include a statement in their manuscript that describes the procedures for obtaining informed consent from participants regarding participation in the research and publication of the research.
Authors of manuscripts describing experiments involving animals or materials derived from animals must demonstrate that the work was carried out in accordance with the guidelines approved by the authors’ institution(s) ethics body.
JBSE will not consider for publication any manuscripts directly related to military technologies, such as weaponry, and the Editors make case-by-case judgments on this matter. However, the Editorial Committee may seek and take counsel from the JSME Executive Board, if there is not consensus about particular cases.
In the interests of transparency, the journal requires all authors to declare upon submission any competing or conflicts of interest in relation to their submitted manuscript. A conflict of interest exists when there are actual, perceived or potential circumstances that could influence an author’s ability to conduct or report research impartially. Potential conflicts include (but are not limited to) competing commercial or financial interests, commercial affiliations, consulting roles, or ownership of stock or equity.
Authors should list all funding sources for their work in the Acknowledgements section of their manuscript.
The journal maintains the confidentiality of all unpublished manuscripts. By submitting their manuscript to the journal, the authors warrant that they will keep all correspondence about their manuscript (from the Editorial Office, editors and reviewers) strictly confidential.
Self-archiving, also known as Green Open Access, enables authors to deposit a copy of their manuscript in an online repository. JBSE encourages authors of original research manuscripts to upload their article to an institutional or public repository immediately after publication in the journal.
J-STAGE preserves its full digital library, including JBSE, with Portico in a dark archive (see https://www.portico.org/publishers/jstage/). In the event that the material becomes unavailable at J-STAGE, it will be released and made available by Portico.
The journal uses single-blind peer review. When a manuscript is submitted to the journal, it is assigned to the Editor-in-Chief, who performs initial screening. Manuscripts that do not fit the journal’s scope or are not deemed suitable for publication are rejected without review. The Editor-in-Chief allocates each of the remaining manuscripts to an Associate Editor, who handles peer review. The Associate Editor selects two or three appropriate reviewers to provide their assessment of the manuscript. Reviewers are selected based on their expertise, reputation and previous experience as peer reviewers.
Once the reviewers’ reports have been received, the Associate Editor determines whether the manuscript requires revision. Authors who are asked to revise their manuscript must do so within two weeks or the period specified by the Associate Editor, otherwise the journal may take it as understood that the authors have no intention to resubmit. The Associate Editor may send revised manuscripts to peer reviewers for their feedback or may use his or her own judgement to assess how closely the authors have followed the comments on the original manuscript. The Associate Editor then makes a final decision on the manuscript’s suitability for publication in the journal.
Reviewers are selected without regard to geography and need not belong to the journal’s Editorial Committee. Reviewers are selected based on their expertise in the field, reputation, recommendation by others, and/or previous experience as peer reviewers for the journal.
Reviewers are invited within 2 weeks of an article being assigned Associate Editor. Reviewers are asked to submit their first review within 3 weeks of accepting the invitation to review. Reviewers who anticipate any delays should inform the Editorial Office as soon as possible.
When submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors may suggest reviewers that they would like included in or excluded from the peer review process. The Editor may consider these suggestions but is under no obligation to follow them. The selection, invitation and assignment of peer reviewers is at the Associate Editor’s sole discretion.
It is the journal’s policy to transmit reviewers’ comments to the authors in their original form. However, the journal reserves the right to edit reviewers’ comments, without consulting the reviewers, if they contain offensive language, confidential information or recommendations for publication.
If a manuscript satisfies the journal’s requirements and represents a significant contribution to the published literature, the Editor may recommend acceptance for publication in the journal.
Associate editors and reviewers assess manuscripts based on following criteria:
If a manuscript does not meet the journal’s requirements for acceptance or revision, the Associate Editor may recommend rejection.
As the journal owner, the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME) has granted the journal’s Editorial Board complete and sole responsibility for all editorial decisions. The JSME will not become involved in editorial decisions, except in cases of a fundamental breakdown of process.
Editorial decisions are based only on a manuscript’s scientific merit and are kept completely separate from the journal’s other interests. The authors’ ability to pay any publication charges has no bearing on whether a manuscript is accepted for publication in the journal.
Authors who believe that an editorial decision has been made in error may lodge an appeal with the Editorial Office. Appeals are only considered if the authors provide detailed evidence of a misunderstanding or mistake by a reviewer or editor. Appeals are considered carefully by Editorial Board. The guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) are followed where and when relevant.
The journal maintains the confidentiality of all unpublished manuscripts. Editors will not:
A conflict of interest exists when there are actual, perceived or potential circumstances that could influence an editor’s ability to act impartially when assessing a manuscript. Such circumstances might include having a personal or professional relationship with an author, working on the same topic or in direct competition with an author, or having a financial stake in the work or its publication.
Members of the journal’s Editorial Board undertake to declare any conflicts of interest when handling manuscripts. An editor who declares a conflict of interest is unassigned from the manuscript in question and is replaced by a new editor.
The journal recognizes the importance of maintaining the integrity of published literature.
A published article that contains an error may be corrected through the publication of an Erratum. Errata describe errors that significantly affect the scientific integrity of a publication, the reputation of the authors, or the journal itself. Authors who wish to correct a published article should contact the Editorial Office with full details of the error(s) and their requested changes. In cases of typographical errors, the journal will publish errata immediately. Otherwise, the Editorial Board assesses the request and determines the necessity for an erratum.
A published article that contains invalid or unreliable results or conclusions, has been published elsewhere, or has infringed codes of conduct (covering research or publication ethics) may be retracted. Individuals who believe that a published article should be retracted are encouraged to contact the journal’s Editorial Office with full details of their concerns. The Editor-in-Chief will investigate further and Editorial Office contact the authors of the published article for their response. In cases where co-authors disagree over a retraction, the Editor-in-Chief may consult the Editorial Board or external peer reviewers for advice. If a Retraction is published, any dissenting authors will be noted in the text.
The decision to publish Errata or Retractions is made at the sole discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.
Any member of the journal’s Editorial Board, including the Editor-in-Chief who is an author on a submitted manuscript is excluded from the peer review process. Within the journal’s online manuscript submission and tracking system, they will be able to see their manuscript as an author but not as an editor, thereby maintaining the confidentiality of peer review.
A manuscript authored by an editor of JBSE is subject to the same high standards of peer review and editorial decision making as any manuscript considered by the journal.
The journal will respond to allegations of ethical breaches by following its own policies and, where possible, the guidelines of COPE.
As part of their responsibilities, reviewers agree to maintain the confidentiality of unpublished manuscripts at all times. Reviewers are requested to review manuscripts impartially and to promptly inform the journal if circumstances mean a review cannot be completed within the specified time.
The review must be clear, objective and defendable, and guided by the journal’s stated acceptance criteria (see section relevant above). Reviewers are asked to strictly refrain from any subjective or personal judgements.
By accepting the invitation to review a manuscript, reviewers agree not to:
A conflict of interest exists when there are actual, perceived or potential circumstances that could influence a reviewer’s ability to assess a manuscript impartially. Such circumstances might include having a personal or professional relationship with an author, working on the same topic or in direct competition with an author, having a financial stake in the work or its publication, or having seen previous versions of the manuscript.
Editors try to avoid conflicts of interest when inviting reviewers, but it is not always possible to identify potential bias. Reviewers are asked to declare any conflicts of interest to the Editor and decline to review a manuscript if a conflict is apparent.
JBSE is fully Open Access and uses Creative Commons (CC) licenses, which allow users to use, reuse and build upon the material published in the journal without charge or the need to ask prior permission from the publisher or author. More details on the CC licenses are below.
Authors are required to assign all copyrights in the work to the Society upon submission, as agreed with the authors via the Copyright Transfer Form. The Society publishes any accepted JBSE manuscripts under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0), which allows users to share unmodified articles, non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given. If a manuscript is rejected or withdrawn, copyrights revert to the authors.
Copyright Transfer Form: English-Copyright-Transfer-Form.doc (Sample)
Some funding bodies require articles funded by them to be published under a specific Creative Commons license. Before submitting your work to the journal, check with the relevant funding bodies to ensure that you comply with any mandates.
There are many costs associated with publishing scholarly journals, such as those of managing peer review, copy editing, typesetting and online hosting. To cover these costs in the absence of journal subscriptions, authors (or their representatives) are asked to pay article processing charges (APCs). There is no submission fee.
The journal charges an APC as per the table below. Authors of accepted manuscripts will be invoiced for the APC on publication date of their manuscript. The charges are based on authors using the templates supplied by JSME, are in Japanese Yen, and exclusive of any relevant consumption taxes (10% tax to who reside in Japan) or bank charges (¥2,000 those based outside Japan).
| Number of published pages | When the first author is a member | When the first author is not a member |
|---|---|---|
| 1-12 pages | ¥50,000 per paper | ¥80,000 per paper |
| ≥13 pages | ¥10,000 per additional page | ¥16,000 per additional page |
The fee is calculated based on the JSME membership of first author at his/her first submission to the journal.
Members of the Heat Transfer Society of Japan are eligible for the APC member rate.
Authors not resident in Japan are also eligible to become JSME members; please join at the JSME member registration page.
If this fee is not paid within one year after the invoice is issued, additional postings from the representative author shall not be considered until payment is complete. If payment is not received after two years from the date of invoice, measures will be taken to retract the paper.
All manuscripts must be submitted via the journal’s online submission system, Editorial Manager: https://www.editorialmanager.com/journal-jsme/default.aspx. Hard copies via mail cannot be considered. The original or revised manuscript text may be uploaded as a PDF or Microsoft Word file, but a Word file is required for the final manuscript text. Figures may be submitted separately in several other formats.
If you encounter any problems with online submission, please contact the Editorial Office per the details in the Contact section below. Please use the assigned manuscript number in any communications.
The journal uses templates (see links to these below) to assist authors and the journal with the submission, peer review and production processes. Details are also provided below on the preparation of manuscripts.
Manuscript templates can be downloaded at the links below.
If a Quartz filter is set, there may be errors during editing for publication. Therefore, please submit a PDF without any Quartz filter settings. *Please ensure that the PDF Producer section under "Document Properties" "Description - Advanced" is not displayed as 'Quartz PDFContext'.
When converting Office documents (such as Word) to PDF, please follow these steps:
Manuscripts should be written in clear, grammatically correct English. Authors whose native language is not English are strongly encouraged to have their manuscript checked by a native English speaker or by an editing service prior to submission. If a manuscript is not clear due to poor English, it may be rejected without undergoing peer review.
The recommended structure of a manuscript is as follows: Title page, Abstract, Introduction (purpose of the research, significance of the research supported by a literature survey, outline of contents, and so on), Nomenclature (symbols and subscripts, and so on), main body of the text (theoretical analysis, method and results of experiment, interpretation of results and discussion, and so on), Conclusion (conclusions obtained through the research), Acknowledgments (including funding sources), Conflict of Interest, Appendices, References.
Alternative manuscript structures may be used demonstrably a more suitable and effective style for the contents of the manuscript.
The first page of each manuscript should contain: Title, Authors’ full names, Affiliations, Abstract, Keywords, and Running Title.
The title should describe the content of the article briefly but clearly and is important for search purposes by third-party services. A subtitle may be used as needed, but do not use the same main title with numbered minor titles, even for a series of papers by the same authors. Do not use abbreviations in the title, except those used generally in related fields. Only the first word of title should be capitalized.
The names of authors should be placed immediately below the title. The given names and family names should be spelled out with each character of the family name capitalized. In the address provide the prefecture, ward, city and postal code. Include the country name at the end of the address, and provide the e-mail address of the contact person. All authors’ addresses should be listed except when multiple authors have the same address. Only supply the email address of the corresponding author.
By example:
Hiroshi NAKAJIMA and Aika FUJIMOTO
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Shinjuku University,
KDX Iidabashi Square, 2nd floor,
4-1 Shin-ogawamachi, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 162-0814 Japan
E-mail: corresponding_author@institution.or.jp
Robert SMITH
Melbourne School of Engineering, Building 200,
The University of Australia,
Victoria, 3010, Australia
E-mail: robert_author@institution.or.jp
Five to ten keywords should be included below the abstract. The keywords should be chosen so that they would best describe the contents of the paper. They are also useful in the classification and search of papers. The use of hyphens, prepositions and articles should be avoided. Capitalize the first letter of each word.
The running title should not exceed 50 characters, including spaces.
Each abbreviation should be defined in parentheses together with its non-abbreviated term when it first appears in the text (except in the Title and Abstract).
SI or SI-derived units should be used. More information on SI units is available at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) website.
The main body of the text should be suitably divided into sections (and if necessarily subsections), each with a heading. Use a consistent schema throughout: e.g.
1.; 1.1; 1.1.1 etc.
Equations should follow the style and format as described in the journal template.
The Abstract should clearly state the contents of the manuscript so that readers can understand the contents of the paper without reading the full article. It must be 200-300 words.
Abstracts are important and should be sufficiently informative. At the beginning of the abstract, the subject of the paper should be stated clearly, together with its scope and objectives. Next, the methods, equipment, results and conclusions should be stated concisely and logically. Discussion of the results should appropriately emphasize their importance and a summary is not required. Figures, tables and references in the text should not be referenced. If the use of an equation is unavoidable, the full equation should be given rather than citing only the equation number. The Abstract should be written as only one paragraph.
This section should be brief. Authors should list all funding sources for their work in the Acknowledgements section.
The Harvard style is followed, such that citations in the text are indicated by author’s last name and year with the list of references arranged in alphabetic order: for example, (Ahrendt and Taplin, 1951) Ahrendt and Taplin (1951). For a reference with three or more authors, the citation in the text should be indicated by the first author's name followed by "et al." and the year: for example, (Takeuchi et al., 2006). Identify more than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year by the letters "a", "b", "c", placed after the year: for example, (Karin and Hanamura, 2010a, 2010b).
Citation of unpublished works (including papers not yet submitted or not yet published) should be avoided. The complete name of the journal referred to should be given. Cite the most recently published relevant references. If a reference is not written in English, authors are required to translate the title into English and indicate the original language as "(in Japanese),", see the relevant example below.
In the References section, use the following examples as guides to the formatting conventions in the journal.
Figures, photographs and tables can be used to describe clearly and accurately the contents of the paper. In general, figures are useful for presenting general tendencies, and tables are suitable for presenting specific numeric values and data. The use of figures, tables and others should be limited to important and representative ones that make the authors' statement persuasive. As JBSE is an online-only journal, figures, photographs and tables can be presented in color.
Figures and tables should be presented with sufficiently informative captions. Every caption should be complete and intelligible by itself without references to the text.
Number tables consecutively using Arabic numerals (Table 1, Table 2, etc.). A title which is sufficiently informative should be given to each table. Only the first word of title should be capitalized. Explanatory material and footnotes should be typed below the title and should be designated with superscript letters, such as (a) or (b). Units of measurement should be included with numerical values at the top of columns. Avoid detailed explanations of the experimental conditions used to obtain the data shown in tables (which should be included in other sections as relevant). In order to see easily for every reader, please set font size larger than 9.5 point for tables and their caption.
Figures should be of high enough resolution for direct reproduction for printing. Note that ‘figures’ includes line drawings and photographs, as well as charts. Magnifications of photographs should be indicated in the legends and/or by scales included in the photographs. Illustrations must be self-explanatory and they should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals (i.e., Fig. 1, Fig. 2, etc.). Each figure should have a short sufficiently informative title. Figure legends should include sufficient experimental details to make the figures intelligible; however, duplicating the descriptions provided in other sections should be avoided.
Examples are provided within the template files.
Authors must submit an image as a graphical abstract by final manuscript submission step. The journal’s graphical abstracts are published on J-STAGE at the same time of manuscript publication.
The image has to be jpg, gif or png file. It is no limitation for image pixel size (vertically and horizontally) but within 100MB file. Color printing is recommended for the graphical abstract.
Through the review, the editorial board will judge the suitability of the submitted figure for use as a graphical abstract.
Data such as videos, audio, images, etc. can be uploaded and published as supplementary material to articles. The journal's supplementary material is published on J-STAGE at the same time as manuscript publication. Authors who wish to submit supplementary material are requested to check the following points and submit the supplementary material with the manuscript submission.
＜Points to note during submission＞
PDF template: SupplementaryMaterial_template.pdf(Sample)
※The Authors should convert the data to PDF by themselves. The JSME editorial office will not provide technical support or respond to inquiries about data conversion.
※Please see the sample by Adobe Acrobat Reader. It cannot be played on PC browsers such as Chrome or Firefox.
Manuscripts that are accepted for publication are copyedited and typeset by the journal’s production team before publication. The journal is published 6 times per year and continuously online as Advanced Online Publication. All communication regarding accepted manuscripts is with the corresponding author.
Page proofs are sent to the corresponding author, who should check and return them within 7 days. Only essential corrections to typesetting errors or omissions are accepted; excessive changes are not permitted at the proofing stage.
JSME journals (including Journal of Biomechanical Science and Engineering) are operated based on following rules:
To contact the Editorial Office, please write to:
The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, Headquarters
KDX Iidabashi Square, 2nd floor
4-1 Shin-ogawamachi, Shinjuku-ku,
Tokyo 162-0814 Japan
Tel: +81-3-4335-7612
E-mail: journal[at]jsme.or.jp
*We prefer email inquiry to telephone.
Updated: 8th Nobember 2024
Copyright c The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, JSME, All Rights Reserved.