Introduction: AJMP is the official journal of the Federation of African Medical Physics Organizations (FAMPO) and is intended to circulate high quality clinical and scientific researches in all aspects of medical physics, health physics and radiation protection. AJMP publishes editorials, letters to editor, original researches, technical notes, clinical reports and reviews articles.  Physicists in medicine and health, environmental radiation and radiation safety, as well as radiographers, radiologist, nuclear medicine and radiotheraphy physicians will find AJMP an essential reference document.

Types of Contribution

1. Original Research

Original researches should consist of Abstract, Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion and conclusion. The abstract should not exceed 250 words and immediately the abstract should be the keywords (five). The manuscripts of original research should be approximately 2500 words in length, excluding the list of references.

2. Review Articles

Review articles are developed using published information and could be divided into subheadings reflecting the subject matter under review. However, review manuscripts should be approximately 3500 words in length, have an abstract of about 150 words, an introduction, followed by other subheadings suitable for the kind of review and a conclusion. All references cited in the body of the review should be listed immediately after the conclusion.

3. Technical Notes

Technical notes are similar to original researches but with results for small research study and are used to describe issues of technical importance. The length of technical report should be approximately 1500 words.

4. Clinical Reports

Clinical reports should be approximately 1000 words in length and is used to report cases of interest in the clinical settings such as how difficult cases were overcome and new initiatives in treating issues.

5. Letters to the Editors

Letters of general interest to the journal and letters commenting on the previous publications of the journal are considered for publication. These letters should be limited to 650 words in length.

Preparing and Submitting of your Manuscript

Authors are required to check their manuscripts for spellings errors, include their word count at the end of the manuscript, include not more than 7 Figures and or 7 Tables as applicable. Tables and Figures should be embedded within the manuscript at a location the authors feel is most appropriate. However, the Editors reserve the right to select the final location of tables and Figures in the articles published in the AJMP.

Changes in authors after the manuscript has been submitted is strongly discouraged as AJMP might not accept such requests.

Before starting your study, ensure that the research proposal is approved by the Ethical Committee of your Institution and where patients (humans) are involved in the study their informed consent should be sort and obtained.

Ensure that your manuscript is presented using the following format:

• Title followed by authors names, addresses and emails
• Abstract followed by five keywords relevant to the concepts in the manuscript
• Tables with title above it and serially numbered
• Figures with title below it and serially numbered
• Manuscript pages are properly numbered
• Provide statement on competing interest even when the authors have no competing interest. These interests may include financial, patent, consultancy, business, employment, personal relationship, etc
• Suggest 3 referees with their contact addresses and emails

The manuscript is read and approved by all authors, then saved in a “word” format.

Style Guide

General Remarks

To facilitate fast publishing process, please closely follow this style guide.

Make use of minimal additional formatting and stylization in the manuscript. During processing, all articles will be reformatted to Book Antiqua font with left alignment. Authors whose first language is not English are encouraged to use Book Antiqua font to avoid input of non-English characters.

In the main text or figure/table legends, please do not colour the fonts or use smaller font size to distinguish one text from other texts. In our xml, only bold, italic, superscript and subscript are allowed. Please note that supplementary material is not copy-edited. Authors are responsible for ensuring all supplementary material meets the scientific and style standards of the main text and figures.

Manuscript Format

All manuscripts should include the following sections, in order. All sections are mandatory unless designated “optional”:

• Title page
• Abstract
• Main text
• Abbreviations
• Acknowledgements (optional)
• Contributions (optional)
• Competing interests
• References
• Tables
• Figures
• Author biography (optional)

Title Page

Include in the title page the manuscript title, author’s name (s), affiliations, and corresponding author’s phone/fax number and/or email.

Title: Use sentence format; only the first word and proper nouns should be capitalized.

Authors: The list of authors and contributors should conform to the guidelines (http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html) set out by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Provide full names of all authors (Surname Initial First name).

Important: please write the first name and initial after the surname, e.g., “Jones Christopher or Jones A. Christopher  ” (not “Christopher, Jones”; not “Jones C. A.”; not “C. A. Jones”).

Abstract: A structured abstract must be included with each original scientific manuscript with 4 clearly identifiable elements of content: rationale (goals of the investigation), methods (description of study subjects, experiments, and observational and analytic techniques), results (major findings), and principal conclusions. Except for the rationale, these sections should be preceded by headings (i.e., Methods, Results, and Conclusion). Abstracts should not contain citations to references.

Keywords: Submit 3-5 keywords with the abstract.

Graphical Abstract: Supply a graphical abstract (a feature figure) following the abstract. The graphical abstract should summarize the contents of the paper in a concise, pictorial form designed to capture the attention of a wide readership and for compilation in databases. The graphical abstract will be published online in the table of contents. Carefully drawn figures that serve to illustrate the theme of the paper are desired. Authors may also provide appropriate text, not exceeding 30 words. The graphical abstract should be coloured, and kept within an area of 12 cm (width) × 6 cm (height). Images should have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi and line art 1200 dpi. Note: The height of the image should be no more than half of the width.

Main Text

Subsections: For original research articles, subdivide the main text into categories such as “Introduction”, “Methods”, “Results”, “Discussion”, “Conclusions”. Results, discussion, and conclusion can be combined in one section and methods can come before or after the results. Please do not add numbers before subtitles. Write subtitles and headings in sentence case.

Citation of Tables and Figures: Tables and figures should be numbered consecutively using the format: Table 1, Table 2, Figure 1, Figure 2, etc. Parts of figures can be identified by A, B, C, D, etc. and cited as Figure 1A, Figure 1A-B, etc. Supplementary tables and figures should be identified with an “S”: Table S1, Figure S1, etc. All tables and figures included with the manuscript must be cited in the main text.

Mathematical Formulas and Symbols: Simple mathematical formulas should be constructed using superscripts, subscripts, italics, and symbols in Microsoft Word. Please avoid using math equations in Microsoft Word whenever possible, as they have to be replaced by images in xml full text. To insert a symbol use Insert/Symbol/ in the Microsoft Word menu. Select symbols from the fonts “(normal text)” or “Symbol”. Use “/” for “divide” or “over”, e.g., 1/7, 5/(4+6). Use Symbol fonts for “±”; “≤” and “≥” (avoid underlining characters).

Scientific Units: Use the International System of Units (SI) to communicate numerical data. However, where the field standard differs from SI, use the most common unit in the field. For example, “mg/mL” and “mM” are acceptable non-SI units for concentration. Units of time (hours, minutes seconds) should be expressed as “h”, “min”, “s”. A space must be added between all numerical values and their unit (e.g., 5 mL, 30 s, 37 °C), except for units %, $, ° (angular degrees), ′ (angular minutes), and ″ (angular seconds) (e.g., 25%, $10, 90°). Above all, communicate numerical data consistently throughout the manuscript and figures.

Ethics Committee Approval and Patient Consent: If human or animal data is included in the manuscript, prior approval and consent must be stated in the methods section.

For human studies, approval must be obtained from the institutional review board or equivalent ethics committee and written informed consent must be obtained from research subjects, unless this requirement is waived by the institutional review board or equivalent. Authors must also comply with the clinical trial registration statement from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, and the clinical trial registration number must be provided. If the manuscript contains photos or parts of photos of patients, informed consent from each patient should be obtained. Patient’s identities and privacy should be carefully protected in the manuscript.

For animal studies, approval must be obtained from the appropriate animal care committee.

Abbreviations

Present abbreviations alphabetically in one paragraph, in the format: “term: definition”. Separate the items by “;”. Do not capitalize abbreviation definitions. Please strictly follow the format. E.g., HIV: human immunodeficiency virus; SIV: simian immunodeficiency virus; ….

Competing Interests

Competing interests that might interfere with the objective presentation of the research findings contained in the manuscript must be declared. Examples of competing interests are ownership of stock in a company, commercial grants, board membership, etc. If there is no competing interest, please use the statement “The authors have declared that no competing interest exists”.

Citation

Reference citations in the text should be identified by numbers in square brackets. Some examples:

1. Negotiation research spans many disciplines [3].
2. This result was later contradicted by Becker and Seligman [5].
3. This effect has been widely studied [1-3, 7].

References

The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications and unpublished works should only be mentioned in the text. Do not use footnotes or endnotes as a substitute for a reference list.

The entries in the list should be numbered consecutively.

Journal article:

Harris, M., Karper, E., Stacks, G., Hoffman, D., DeNiro, R., Cruz, P., et al. (2001). Writing labs and the Hollywood connection. Journal of Film Writing, 44(3), 213–245.

Article by DOI:

Kreger, M., Brindis, C.D., Manuel, D.M., & Sassoubre, L. (2007). Lessons learned in systems change initiatives: benchmarks and indicators. American Journal of Community Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-007-9108-14.

Book:

Calfee, R. C., & Valencia, R. R. (1991). APA guide to preparing manuscripts for journal publication. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Book chapter

O’Neil, J. M., & Egan, J. (1992). Men’s and women’s gender role journeys: Metaphor for healing, transition, and transformation. In B. R. Wainrib (Ed.), Gender issues across the life cycle (pp. 107–123). New York: Springer.

Online document:

Abou-Allaban, Y., Dell, M. L., Greenberg, W., Lomax, J., Peteet, J., Torres, M., & Cowell, V. (2006). Religious commitments and psychiatric practice. Resource document. American Psychiatric Association. http://www.psych.org/edu/other_res/lib_archives/archives/200604.pdf. Accessed 25 June 2007.

Journal names and book titles should be italicized.

Tables

Insert tables as editable tables with minimal formatting. Do not insert tables as images.

Captions: Include a caption above each table. Number the captions with an Arabic numeral after the word “Table.” Define all abbreviations used in one row at the bottom of the table.

Figures

Figures should clarify and augment the text. The selection of sharp, high quality figures is of paramount importance. The author will be required to correct or replace figures of inferior quality. Each submitted figure should clearly identify areas of interest with only enough surrounding white space for orientation.

If possible, the figures should be submitted as the size they will appear when published so that no reduction is necessary. Figures should be either single-column format (published width, 8.5 cm; maximum submitted width, 11 cm), mid-size format (published width, 11.4 cm; maximum submitted width, 14 cm), or double-column format (published width, 17.4 cm; maximum submitted width, 22 cm).

The Gill Sans MT lower case font should be used for all figure text, and the size should be 7–11 points. Composite figures should be preassembled, with each figure part (e.g., A, B, C) lettered in 12-point upper case Arial bold font type in the upper left corner.

Resolutions for line arts must be at least 1200 dpi, for colour photos at least 300 dpi or higher, and for black/white photos at least 600dpi or higher. It is strongly suggested to provide all images at 600 dpi or higher. Internet graphics are not acceptable under most circumstances because the 72 dpi resolution is too low for satisfactory reproduction. The file format must be .tiff, .eps, jpeg, .ppt, .doc, .docx, .png, or .pdf. If the .jpeg file format is used, the images must be of medium quality or better (quality setting of at least 6).

Legends: Include a legend below each figure. Legends should be concise and should not repeat the text. Number the legends with an Arabic numeral after the word “Figure.” If a figure has more than one part, describe each part clearly. Any letter designations or arrows appearing on the figures should be identified and described fully. Abbreviations used in each figure should be defined in the legend in alphabetical order. For figures adapted from other articles, write “Adapted with permission from [REFERENCE], copyright YEAR PUBLISHER”.