Instructions for Contributors

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The RPAS aims to contribute to the production, dissemination and use of national and international scientific knowledge. The Journal is released quarterly and publishes original researches related to the areas of Biomedicine, Environment, Public Health and Medical Anthropology, covering issues on health care, education and research.

The Journal publishes the following kinds of papers:

1. Original articles: original and unpublished researches which contribute to the development of knowledge in a specific field. Their content must include the following sections: Introduction, Materials e Methods, Results, Discussion and Conclusion;
2. Historical articles: historical event or character that had a significant role in a research field, a profession, a discovery, among others;
3. Review articles: critical and systematic reviews of the literature of a certain area. Review Articles should present the main evidences, discussing their methodology and controversial aspects, presenting the author's own interpretation on the subject;
4. Communications: brief, non-detailed articles on an ongoing scientific research, reporting their preliminary results. Their purpose is to inform the scientific community about the development of new discoveries, this way guaranteeing the authors' priority on the issue;
5. Case reports: descriptions of important and well-documented cases under a clinical and laboratorial point of view, including a brief review of the literature, a description of the case studied and an appropriate discussion;
6. Technical note: guidelines, summaries of guidebooks or manuals, institutional recommendations and scripts;
7. Book Review: present critical reviews of books (1,300 words maximum) published in the last two years and that cover issues related to the RPAS's scope; and
8. Letters to the Editor: readers' opinions on published articles. They must present solid comments on published topic and/or a controversial issue.

Format of original articles

General structure of the text

The papers must be sent in a .doc file (MS Word), formatted for an A4-size page. The Font must be Times New Roman, and its size must be 12. The text must present single line spacing between lines and a 6 pt space between paragraphs; upper, lower, right and left margins must be of 3 cm.

First page

Title – The article title should be short and attractive in order to provoke its reading, and the terms used must identify the content, so that the subject and the area of knowledge can be recognized. It must be centered, in boldface type and in lower case, except for propoer names and beginning of sentences. When there is a mention of the city and state, the country must be mentioned as well.

Authorship – It should present the authors' full names (centered, in boldface type and in Upper/lower case), his or her complete affiliation, with the institutions in hierarchical order, followed by the state and country of origin.

Case reports and Communications must have up to three authors. All other texts must have up to eight authors. In case the number of authors of the manuscript is higher than the established limits, there must be a prior contact with the Editorial Board for analysis and granting of permission for submission.

Abstract – A summary of the paper content should be concise and present the most relevant elements of the article. It should be submitted in the article's language and have information about its goal, methodology, results and conclusions. The editorial board will be entitled to translate the abstract to the other two languages of the Journal. They must be presented with single line spacing, up to 250 words.

Keywords – The keywords identify the uniterms/ descriptors which represent the core content f the article. A minimum of three and maximum of six terms should be provided. We suggest the use of the structured vocabulary of the Health Science Descriptors (DeCS), available at http://decs.bvs.br/. The terms will be translated for publication in different languages.

Address for correspondence – The main author's address must be provided. It must have the author's name, full address, telephone number and e-mail.

Text

The structure of the text article must follow the guidelines of each category above described, so that all the submitted texts follow the Journal's standardized form.

Introduction – The introduction should establish the objective of the research, give a brief summary with literature review and relevant researches, and specify which advances were possible to achieve through the research. It should not include data or conclusions of the submitted paper.

Development – The development must present the core of the research, with an exposition and demonstration of the subject. It should include the methodology (material and methods), the results and the discussion. Its structure must follow the structure below:
Material and Methods – This section is crucial to give a study its scientific character. It must present the procedures and materials used in the research in details, so that another researcher can perform the same research with the supplied data. However, standardized techniques may be only mentioned. 
Results – The Results section must display all representative data collected through the research. It must present a concise description of the new discovered information, with a minimum personal judgment. It must not repeat in full all the data exposed in tables or illustrations. 
Discussion – This section must present the correlation between the observed facts and the scientific literature. The Discussion section gives and suggests: the opportunity to agree or disagree with the results obtained by other researchers and already mentioned in the references; to establish relationships, parallel deductions, possible generalizations, or even identify errors in correlations; to present comments on the results reported in the Results section. It must be written in plain language, and the author expresses his/her position on the obtained data.

Conclusion – This is the final part of the article, and should be based on the available evidences pertinent to the object of the research. The conclusions must be precise and clearly stated; each of them must be supported by the objects of the study; they must relate the obtained results with the raised hypotheses; they must highlight what has been achieved in the research and the possible application of its results; they may suggest other studies which would complement the research; and they may have practical recommendations.

Acknowledgments – In the Acknowledgements section, the author may cite the people who directly contributed technically or intellectually to the research. Also, supporting institutions may be mentioned in this section.

Financial Support – In this section, the author may cite any sources of funding that supported the development of the research.

Citation

The citations must be inserted in the text, with numbers written above, no parentheses, right at the end of the excerpt(s) to which the reference is made. Only the citations written in the text must be referenced.

Direct citations (transcriptions) are accepted in historical articles or articles on medical anthropology; in other kinds of manuscripts, only citations up to three lines inserted in the text will be accepted.

References

The references must be numbered sequentially and in the order of their appearance in the text. The numbers must be in superscript format. This new style will make it easier for the reader to identify and check the reference as he or she reads the text, according to the Vancouver style. Only the citations in the text must be referenced. Only articles that have been published or submitted and accepted by a named publication should be in the reference list. Submitted papers must be cited as 'In Press'. In this case, a letter of acceptance from the respective journal must be provided. Unpublished data must be mentioned in the text as 'unpublished data'. In this case, a letter with its author's permission must be provided.

Titles: The titles of the periodicals must be abbreviated in accordance with the style used by Index Medicus, available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/.

Guidelines for authorship: Where there are up to six authors you must list all authors, separated by a comma; where there are more than six authors, only the first six are listed and add the Latin expression "et al".

Intellectual responsibility (editors, organizers, compilers etc.): You must add their function after the name(s). E.g. "Castelo Branco SL, editor", "Marques Neto H, Oliveira Filho M, Chaves Junior SF, organizers".

Corporative Authors: Organización Panamericana de la Salud. Universidade Federal do Paraná. Departamento de Pediatria. Ministério da Saúde (BR). Centro de Documentação.

EXAMPLES

a) Articles from periodicals:
Linhares AC, Pinheiro FP, Freitas RB, Gabbay YB, Shirley JA, Beards GM. An outbreak of rotavirus diarrhea among a nonimmune, isolated South American Indian Community. Am J Epidemiol. 1981;113(6):703-10.

Volume Issue with part:
Marcus FI. Drug interaction with amiodarone. Am Heart J. 1983;106(4 Pt 2):924-30.

Volume with supplement:
Mirra SS, Gearing M, Nash F. Neuropathologic assessment of Alzheimer’s disease. Neurology. 1997;49 Suppl 3:S14-6.

Issue with supplement:
Wise MS. Childhood narcolepsy. Neurology. 1998;50(2 Suppl 1):S37-42.

b) Books:
Leão RNQ, coordenador. Doenças infecciosas e parasitárias: enfoque amazônico. Belém: CEJUP; 1997. 885 p.

Fletcher RH, Fletcher SW, Wagner EH. Clinical epidemiology. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins; 1988.

c) Book chapters:

If the author of the chapter and the author of the book are not the same:
Kapikian AZ, Hoshino Y, Chanock RM. Rotaviruses. In: Knipe DM, Howley PM, Griffin DE, Lamb RA, Martin MA, Roizman B, Strais E, editors. Fields virology, 4th ed. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams and Wilkins; 2001. p. 1787-1833.

Monroe SS, Carter MJ, Herrmann JE, Mitchell DK, Sanchez-Fauquier A. Family Astroviridae. In: Fauquet CM, Mayo MA, Maniloff J, Desselberger U, Ball LA, editors. Virus Taxonomy: Eighth Report of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses. London: Elsevier/Academic Press; 2005. p. 859-864.

If the author of the chapter and the author of the book are the same:
Veronesi R. Doenças infecciosas. 7. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Guanabara Koogan; 1982. Eritema infeccioso; p. 32-4.

Institutional Authorship:
Fundação Nacional de Saúde. Plano nacional de controle da tuberculose. Brasília: Ministério da Saúde; 1999.

d) Unpublished material:
Stewart WC, Geiger AC, Jenkins JN. The benefit of repeated intraocular pressure measurements in clinical trials. Arch Ophthalmol. In press 2004.

Cronemberger S, Santos DVV, Ramos LFF, Oliveira ACM, Maestrini HA, Calixto N. Trabeculectomia com mitomicina C em pacientes com glaucoma congênito refratário. Arq Bras Oftalmol. In Press 2004.

e) Theses, Dissertations and Monographs:
Busato CR. Prevalência de portadores de Staphylococcus aureus multirresistentes em contatos domiciliares de profissionais de saúde [dissertação]. Curitiba (PR): Universidade Federal do Paraná, Setor de Ciências da Saúde; 1997.

f) Resolutions and Laws:
Brasil. Ministério da Saúde. Secretaria de Assistência à Saúde. Portaria n° 212, de 11 de maio de 1999. Altera a AIH e inclui o campo IH. Diário Oficial da União, Brasília, p. 61.

Brasil. Lei n° 9.431, de 6 de janeiro de 1997. Decreta a obrigatoriedade do Programa de Controle de Infecção Hospitalar em todos os hospitais brasileiros. Diário Oficial da União, Brasília, p. 165, 7 jan. 1997. Seção 1.

g) Internet and other electronic resources:
Feiz V, Mannis MJ. Intraocular lens power calculation after corneal refractive surgery. Curr Opin Ophthalmol [Internet]. 2004 Aug [cited 2004 Aug 12];15(4):[about 8 p.]. Available from: http://www.coophthalmology.com/pt/re/coophth/abstract.00055735-200408000-00011.htm.

Lucena AR, Velasco e Cruz AA, Cavalcante R. Estudo epidemiológico do tracoma em comunidade da Chapada do Araripe - Pernambuco – Brasil. Arq Bras Oftalmol [Internet]. 2004 mar-abr [citado 2004 jul 12];67(2):197-200. Disponível em: http://www.scielo.br/pdf/abo/v67n2/19740.pdf.

h) Annals of congresses:
Marcondes E. Visão geral da adolescência. Anais do 21º Congresso Brasileiro de Pediatria; 1979 out 6-12; Brasília. Rio de Janeiro: Sociedade Brasileira de Pediatra; 1979. p. 267-75.

i) Work presented in event published in a journal:
Ohnishi MDO, Ventura AMRS, Libonati RF, Souza JM. O pulmão na malária vivax: relato de caso. In: 44º Congresso da Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical, 2º Encontro de Medicina Tropical do Cone Sul e 3º Encontro de Medicina Tropical dos Países de Língua Portuguesa; 2008 Mar 4-7; Porto Alegre: Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical; 2008. p. 215. (Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical; vol. 41; supl. 1).

Annexes

When necessary, the annexes must be placed separately, at the end of the article, with an indication in the text.

Illustrations

Every figure must be submitted in a separate page, in the end of the article. The figures must be numbered according to their order of appearance in the text; they must have a brief title and their legends (if any).

Tables: The tables should complement, and not repeat the text. We recommend that the Normas de Apresentação Tabular of the Fundação Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE) be followed in this matter. All explanations must be presented in the Table's legends (footnotes), and not in its title – they must be identified by the following symbols, in order: * , † , ‡ , § , || , ¶ , ** , †† , ‡‡ . The tables should not contain underlines, and spaces must not be used to separate columns.

Figures: Up to four figures will be accepted for publication; they can be colored or in black and white. In case the author understands a certain figure must be kept outnumbering the limit of images, a special contact with the editors of the Journal is necessary. Photographs, maps or graphs must be annexed in .jpg, .bmp, or .tif files, and have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi, in order to enable a clear impression; in its electronic version, their resolution will be reduced to 72 dpi. Computer-generated images, such as graphs or schemes, must be annexed in .psd, .cdr, .doc files (when structured in MS Word), or .xls files. Drawings, photographs or any illustration that has been previously scanned may not present a good resolution for printing, so it is advisable that they be sent in their original printed version. In these cases, on the verse of each figure, there must be a label with its number. The Editorial Board has the right to configure the material in the most economical way, as long as the resulting configuration does not jeopardize its presentation. The authors are welcome to send illustrations with legends of their manuscripts which can be selected to compose the front cover of the Journal.

Units

Units must follow the International System of Units (IS) nomenclature, available at http://www.inmetro.gov.br/infotec/publicacoes/Si.pdf.

Symbols and Abbreviations

Acronyms up to three letters long must be written in upper case letters (e.g. DOU; USP; WHO). In their first appearance in the text, unknown acronyms must be written in full and have its respective form stated between parentheses. Acronyms and abbreviations exclusively composed of consonants will be written in upper case letters. Acronyms of four letters or more must be written in upper case if each of their letters is pronounced isolatedly (e.g. IBGE, INSS, BNDES). Acronyms of four letters or more that include vowels and consonants and that can be pronounced as a word must have its initial in upper case, only (e.g. Sebrae; Camex; Funasa). Acronyms that include upper case and lower case letters originally, as a way to differentiate them from other acronyms, must be written in their original form (e.g. MTb; CNPq; UnB). Acronyms in foreign languages should be written in its Portuguese way, if their translated version is widely accepted; or they may be written in their original form, if there is no corresponding translation – even if their full name does not correspond to the acronym provided (e.g. ILO = International Labour Organization; UNESCO = Union Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization; MRPII = Manufacturing Resource Planning). Some acronyms, because of their dissemination through means of communications, acquire a meaning that goes beyond their representation; AIDS can be mentioned as an example. In Portuguese, its translation is SIDA = Síndrome da Imunodeficiência Adquirida. However, the National Council for AIDS (Conselho Nacional de Aids), linked to the Ministry of Heath, recommends that all the official documents about the syndrome bring the acronym as if it were the name of the disease, therefore in lower case letters (aids), due to its vulgarization.

Submission of papers

The manuscripts must be submitted with a form called “Authors’ contribution”, which must describe the contribution of each of the authors of the paper to the development of the manuscript (e.g. literature research, figures and / or data collection, data analysis etc).

More information: Policies and Transfer of Copyright.

Questions? Please contact us.