About the Journal

The Applied Food Biotechnology (AFB) is a peer-reviewed multi-disciplinary biotechnological publication (published by Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences & Iranian Probiotic and Functional Foods Society), which in the beginng was scheduled to appear quarterly. The frequency of publication changed from "Quarterly" to "Continuous" since Jan 2024. The journal's aim is to advance and disseminate knowledge in all the related areas of production of biomass, and metabolites, enzyme technology as well as biological waste treatment, biotransformation, and bioresource systems analysis, and technologies associated with conversion or production in the field of Food.

Abstracting and Indexing:

Chemical Abstracts / ISI Web of Science / Journal Citation Reports / Scopus / Iran medex / Scientific Information Database (SID) / ISC / Iran Journal / Google Scholar

Archiving policy

The journal have an archiving plan for electronic backup and preservation of access to the journal content in the event that the journal is no longer published via CLOCKSS.

Editorial Policies

• Focus and Scope
• Section Policies
• Peer Review Process
• Open Access Policy
• Publication ethics and malpractice statement
• Indexing & Abstracting
• Charges and Fees
• Editorial roles and responsibilities

Focus and Scope

• Biochemical Microbiology and Bioprocess Engineering (for food production, fortification, safety, etc.)
• Food Microbiology (biotechnological approach) 
• Microbial Nanobiotechnology in Food Science and Technology
• Microbial Biopolymers as Food Packaging Materials
• Role of Microorganisms in Waste Treatment of Food Industries
• Biodecontamination of Foods

Section Policies

Plagiarism Policy
The Editorial Team of Applied Food Biotechnology takes the necessary measures to examine the submitted manuscripts on their originality. The similarity of the submitted manuscript is measured before the peer-review process and once again before publication by common plagiarism checker software. As plagiarism is unacceptable, so, the editorial board of the journal establishes the following policies that state-specific actions (penalties) if plagiarism is identified in a manuscript submitted for publication.
Authors should ensure that they submit only entirely original works. "Plagiarism in any forms, including quotations or paraphrasing of substantial parts of another’s article (without attribution), “passing off” another’s article as the author’s own or claiming results from research conducted by others, constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable".
The authors must ensure that the submitted manuscript:
- describes completely the original work;
- is not plagiarism;
- has not been published before in any language;
- the information used or words from other publications are appropriately indicated by reference or indicated in the text.
Existing copyright laws and conventions must be observed. The Applied Food Biotechnology takes responsibility to assist a scientific community in all aspects of publication ethics policy, particularly in case of multiple submission/publication and plagiarism. The editors reserve the right to check the received manuscripts for plagiarism. The textual similarity in the amount of more than 20% is unacceptable.
 Preprint Policy

A preprint is a paper that is made available publicly via a community preprint server prior to submission to a journal. Preprint help the safety of a manuscript during the peer–review process, increase the speed of dissemination of knowledge, and citation of the article after publication. Applied Food Biotechnology allows for the submission of manuscripts that have already been made available on such a server. Allowing submission does not, of course, guarantee that an article will be sent out for review; it simply reflects a belief that availability on a preprint server should not be a disqualifier for submission. Applied Food Biotechnology will consider for review articles previously available as preprints. Authors are requested to point to DOI of a preprint on the first page of the manuscript update any pre-publication versions with a link to the final published article. Authors may also post the final published version of the article immediately after publication.

Peer Review Process

This is a journal with a blind peer-review process, but the name of reviewers are listed in each issue (Package for the authors).

1- For paper submission, the author should register on the journal website (http://journals.sbmu.ac.ir/afb) and register. After receiving their username and password via e-mail, the authors could use the "Submit paper" link, log in, and submit their manuscript.

2- Manuscripts written according to the journal format (considering the format in sectioning, the number of words in abstract, references, etc.…) are referred to the related section editor. If the paper fits the specified fields of the journal and has innovation, then it will be sent to three or more national and international referees experts in that specific field, at least two of which are out of the editorial board members (preferably one from the scientifically advanced countries). The corresponding author could also suggest potential reviewers to the journal at the time of submission. However, the editorial board reserves the right to select or refuse to use the suggested potential reviewers.

3- The reviewer comments will be sent to the corresponding author in less than 2 months.

4- After receiving the modified version of the manuscript and/or the author’s answers to the reviewer questions, it will be sent to a final reviewer. If the modifications and/or answers are not adequate, they will be sent back to the corresponding author with a specified deadline to send the final corrected version.

5- The final corrected version of the manuscript is sent back to the same final reviewer. Then, the comments and the overall opinion of the final reviewer are discussed in the journal"s editorial board, and the final decision (the acceptance letter or a letter informing the author of not accepting the manuscript) will be sent to the corresponding author.

Submission of any appeal or complaint

Authors who wish to submit an appeal or complaint are welcome to send an email to

Foroozan Karimi (f.karimi@sbmu.ac.ir, f.karimi@yahoo.com)

Kianoush Khosraci-darani (k.khosravi@sbmu.ac.ir, kiankh@yahoo.com)

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Publication ethics and malpractice statement

Ethical Consideration for human and animal subjects:

1) If human subjects are used then they have to be registered with the Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials website (www.irct.ir) or the related country and ethical committee of the research center or University where the study was carried out.

2) Research with human subjects should be conducted in full accordance with ethical principles, including the WMA Declaration of Helsinki-Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects (2008) http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/index.html

3) The submitted manuscripts must transparently state this in their methods and materials including a statement outlining whether the study has been independently reviewed and approved by an ethical board.

4) Moreover, where human subjects are used, informed consent explaining the nature of the procedure and possible discomforts and risks should be obtained from all patients who participated in the experimental investigation and subjects should be able to freely reject participation.

5) If animals are used, a statement protocol approval by the institutional animal care and use committee must be included. Methods section must clearly show that adequate measures were taken to minimize pain and/or distress, for example, the administration of local anesthetics or general anesthesia. Experiments should be carried out in accordance with the European Communities Council Directive of 24 November 1986 (86/609/EEC) and in accordance with local laws and regulations governing within that country or with the guidelines laid down by the National Institute of Health (NIH) in the USA regarding the care and use of animals for experimental procedures.

A: Authors

Authorship of the paper: Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. Transparency about the contributions of authors is encouraged, for example in the form of a CRediT author statement.

1. Publication and authorship:

• The research being reported should have been conducted in an ethical and responsible manner and should comply with all relevant legislation.
• Authors should present their results clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification, or inappropriate data manipulation.
• Authors should strive to describe their methods clearly and unambiguously so that their findings can be confirmed by others.
• Authors should adhere to publication requirements that submitted work is original, is not plagiarized1, and has not been published elsewhere.
• Authors should take collective responsibility for submitted and published work.
• The authorship of research publications should accurately reflect individuals’ contributions to the work and its reporting.
• Authors must list all references used in/for the article and should not copy references from other publications if they have not read the cited work.
• Funding sources and relevant conflicts of interest should be disclosed.

2. Author’s responsibility:

• Only people who contributed significantly to the research and/or article can be listed as ‘author’. People who contributed in a lesser role must be acknowledged as ‘contributors’.
• Authors are obliged to participate in the peer-review process and should follow the publisher’s requirements.
• Authors should inform the editor if they wish to withdraw their work (just for ethical issues and compelling reasons) from publication process. If authors wish to withdraw after revision process, article publication fee payment is required due to waste of time waste of the editors, reviewers and the editorial staff.
• Authors should respond to reviewers’ comments in a professional and timely manner.
• Authors should use appropriate methods of data analysis and display and should state that all data in the article are real and authentic.
• Authors should check their publications carefully at all stages to ensure methods and findings are reported accurately. Authors should carefully check calculations, data presentations, typescripts/submissions, and proofs.
• Authors should respond appropriately to post-publication comments and published correspondence. They should attempt to answer correspondents’ questions and supply clarification or additional details where needed.
• Authors should alert the editor promptly if they discover an error in any submitted, accepted, or published work. Authors should cooperate with editors in issuing corrections or retractions when required.
• Authors should work with the editor or publisher to correct their work promptly if errors or omissions are discovered after publication.

 B: Peer reviewer/ responsibility of reviewers

• The reviewers only agree to review manuscripts for which they have the subject expertise required to carry out a proper assessment and which they can assess in a timely manner.
• Reviewers should point out relevant published work which is not yet cited.
• In reviewing an article they respect the confidentiality of the process and the rights of those who submitted the articles.
• The reviewers will not use any information obtained during the peer-review process for their own or any other person’s or organization’s advantage or to disadvantage or discredit others.
• The reviewers should not have any conflict of interest and will declare all potential conflicting interests.
• They will not be influenced by the origins of a manuscript, by the nationality, religious or political beliefs, gender or other characteristics of the authors, or by commercial considerations.
• The reviewers will be objective and constructive in their reviews, refraining from being hostile or inflammatory and from making libelous or derogatory personal comments.
• They undertake to carry out their fair share of reviewing and in a timely manner.
• They will provide journals with personal and professional information that is accurate and a true representation of their expertise.

 C: Editorial Responsibilities

• The editors are accountable and take responsibility for everything they publish and the editor-in-chief has the authority to reject or accept an article.
• The editor/s will make fair and unbiased decisions and should not be involved in decisions about papers in which they have a conflict of interest whether they reject or accept the article.
• The editor/s will guard the integrity of the published record by issuing corrections and retractions when needed and pursuing suspected or alleged research and publication misconduct.
• The Editors will protect reviewers’ identities. However, if reviewers wish to disclose their names, this will be permitted
• The editor-in-chief will pursue reviewer and editorial misconduct.
• The editors will critically assess the ethical conduct of studies in humans and animals and are responsible for the ethical standards of the journal.

D: Publishing ethics issues

• The editorial board will monitor and safeguard the publishing ethics of the journal
• The guidelines for retracting articles are as follows: - Articles that are seriously unreliable will be retracted. Redundant articles (published in other journals) will be retracted. Minor errors or authorship changes will not lead to retraction but require a correction notice.

- Notices of retraction will clearly state the reason and the retracted article will be clearly marked in all electronic versions of the journal, and a retraction notice will be published in the print copy of the journal.

• The journal will not compromise intellectual or ethical standards in favor of the business needs of the journal.
• The editorial board will maintain the integrity of the academic record of the journal.
• The editorial board will always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.
• No plagiarism and no fraudulent data will be tolerated in this journal.

 Notes:

 1) Plagiarism

Definition: When an author tries to present the work of someone else as his or her own, it is called plagiarism. In addition, when an author uses a considerable portion of his or her own previously published work in a new one without properly citing the reference, it is called a duplicate publication; sometimes also referred to as self-plagiarism. This may range from publishing the same article in another journal to salami-slicing, which is data segmentation, to adding little new data to the previous article.

Policy: The editorial team/reviewers of “International Clinical Neuroscience Journal” will check the submitted manuscripts for plagiarism twice (once after submission and once before publication) using available plagiarism detection software such as iThenticate. If suspected plagiarism is found in an article either before (by reviewers or editorial team) or after (by readers) publication, the journal will act according to COPE’s code of conduct and flowcharts.

2) Conflict of Interest and Funding Disclosure

Funding sources and relevant conflicts of interest should be disclosed. The disclosure of a potential conflict of interest does not necessarily exclude an article from consideration for publication; the goal of disclosure is transparency.

Any existing financial arrangements between an author and a company whose product figures prominently in the submitted manuscript or between the author and any company or organization sponsoring the research reported in the submitted manuscript should be brought to the attention of the Editor at manuscript submission.

All authors must declare all sources of funding for the research reported in their manuscript and report all potential conflicts of interest in separate footnotes on the manuscript title page. If an author has no conflicts of interest, the footnote should list the author's name, followed by "no conflicts of interest".

Potential conflicts of interest include:

1. Having a close relative or a professional associate with a financial interest in the research outcome.
2. Serving as an officer, director, member, owner, trustee, or employee of an or as an expert witness, advisor, consultant, or public advocate (with or without compensation) on behalf of an organization with a financial interest in the outcome;
3. Receiving support, including grants, contracts or subcontracts, fellowships, consulting agreements, or gifts (eg, chemicals, experimental diets, trips) with a company or organization having a financial interest in the outcome at present, during the time the research was conducted, the near past and the near future.

Applied Food Biotechnology retains the right to reject any manuscript on the basis of unethical conduct of either human or animal studies.

Indexing & Abstracting

"Applied Food Biotechnology" is indexed at:

Web of Science™ Core Collection, Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI)

Scopus

Chemical Abstract Society (CAS)

Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC)

This journal is also:

available in Google Scholar

ranked in Scimago Journal & Country Rank

registered in NLM-catalog

Charges and Fees

Applied Food Biotechnology will request for publication charge after acceptance. Anyway, in case of high quality submitted manuscript, a full waive (or partial) may be accepted.

For the publication of papers in 2024, the processing fee would be USD 500 (10.000.000 Rial for Iranian authors). In the case of a fast track (decision-making in 20 days), these fees would be triple.

Information of bank accounts may chang due to problems in money transfer to Iran (due to political sanction). At present details of bank account for Iranian authors are:

Bank account for money transfer within Iran: 4001071103000057 Refah Bank, Sheba  IR260100004001071103000057, deposit ID 354078782140104008001634940000.

Account details for overseas payment include:

• the country : Australia 
• the name of bank: ING
• Branch Number: (BSB) 923 100
• the number of accounts bank:311798982
• the person who accept the money: Behrooz Rostamian
• the bank address: 60 Margaret Street, Floor 28, Sydney NSW 2000 / Branch Name – Sydney Branch
• BranchAddress: Sydney or 60 Margaret Street, Floor 28, Sydney NSW 2000

• Clearing Code: BSB (923-100)
• Swift Code – INGBAU2S
• Currency – 500 $ AUD
• If the bank asks for the 'Clearing code', this is equivalent to the BSB (923-100)
• Address of B. Rostamian: 23 Clontarf Terrace Canning Vale, 6155, Australia

Journal foundation

The journal’s revenue sources are (author fees, subscriptions, advertising, institutional support, organisational support).

Editorial roles and responsibilities

Each Editorial Board member plays an important role to propel the journal's quality. Below is a brief description of Editor Roles and responsibilities.

• The most prerequisite point is that the Editors should be actively involved in the journal activities and events.
• The suggestion of novel ideas and providing guidance to implement them is one of the significant responsibilities.
• Should help in planning journal activities and their timely implementation.
• Should guide the journal to enhance the aim and scope.
• Should participate in the peer-review process of articles sent from the Editorial office. In case of unavailability/ if the assigned article does not fall under the scope of research interest, the Editor can inform the same, so that the Editorial team searches for an alternative that speeds up the process without delays.
• The Editor can also suggest any of his/ her colleagues active in the related field so that the Editorial office can approach them with the concerned reference.
• If the Editor agrees to carry out the peer review process, it should be performed in detail and required modifications need to be suggested clearly.
• The Editor should actively review the revised article and must let us know the decision to proceed with publication.
• If an Editor rejects the article for publication, he/ she should elaborate on the reason for the same.
• Editors are solely responsible to ensure the protection and confidentiality of the content.
• Contribution on behalf of Editors is very crucial, which greatly enables the journal to release quality and timely issues
• How to appeal an editorial decision

  If you wish to appeal a journal editor’s decision, please submit an appeal letter to the journal’s online editorial office. Please address this to the editor and explain clearly the basis for an appeal.

  You should:

  • Detail why you disagree with the decision. Please provide specific responses to any of the editor’s and/or reviewers’ comments that contributed to the reject decision.

  • Provide any new information or data that you would like the journal to take into consideration.

  • Provide evidence if you believe a reviewer has made technical errors in their assessment of your manuscript.

  • Include evidence if you believe a reviewer may have a conflict of interest.

  After receiving the appeal, chief editor may involve any editorial members who handled the peer review of the original submission depending on the nature of the appeal. Editor may confirm their decision to reject the manuscript, invite a revised manuscript, or seek additional peer- or statistical review of the original manuscript.

  Editors will consider one appeal per article and all decisions on appeals are final. The timely review and decision-making process for new submissions will take precedence over appeals.

 to submit a complaint

Authors who wish to submit a complaint can send an email with all details and information for contact to periodicals@sbmu.ac.ir and will be dealt with confidentially. This email address is solely for complaints as defined following– any other issues should be directed to afb@sbmu.sc.ir.

Complaints at Appl Food Biotechnol are coordinated by a central team with individual complaints handled by the most appropriate staff member, with the opportunity for escalation if they cannot be resolved. All complaints will be reviewed initially by our complaints team.   This team will direct the complaint to the relevant member of the editorial or publishing staff and escalate if required. In the case that this initial response is felt to be insufficient, the complainant can request that their complaint is escalated to a more senior member of the team. If the complainant remains unhappy, complaints may be escalated to Appl Food Biotechnol Editorial Director, whose decision is final. If a complainant remains unhappy after what the Editorial Director considers a definitive reply, the complainant may complain to an external body.

Complaints sent to the Chairman or Chief Executive Officer  will usually be referred to the relevant journal’s Publisher or Editor in chief.

Complaint timeframes

• All complaints will be formally acknowledged within three working days.
• If possible a full response will be made within two weeks. If this is not possible, an interim response will be given within two weeks. Further interim responses will be provided until the complaint is resolved.
• Where we consider a complaint to be vexatious or the result of a coordinated campaign, we reserve the right to reply outside of the suggested time frames, and on some occasions we may not respond to all complainants individually.

This journal is distributed under the terms of CC BY-NC 4.0. Copyright © 2019 Applied Food Biotechnology.  

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