ONLINE MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION: An online submission and tracking service via internet facilitates a speedy and cost-effective submission of manuscripts. The full manuscript should be submitted online via Bentham's Journal Management System (JMS) at http://bsp-cms.eurekaselect.com/index.php/DNAG/ (View Submission Instructions).

Manuscripts must be submitted by one of the authors of the manuscript, and should not be submitted by anyone on their behalf. The principal/corresponding author will be required to submit a Covering Letter along with the manuscript, on behalf of all the co-authors (if any) to confirm that the manuscript (or any part of it) has not been published previously or is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Furthermore, any illustration, structure or table that has been published elsewhere must be reported, and copyright permission for reproduction must be obtained. The figures from patent documents are freely available on the databases and may not require any permission unless stated otherwise.

For all online submissions, please provide soft copies of all the materials (main text in MS Word or Tex/LaTeX), figures / illustrations in TIFF, PDF or JPEG, and chemical structures drawn in ChemDraw (CDX) / ISISDraw (TGF) as separate files, while a PDF version of the entire manuscript must also be included, embedded with all the figures / illustrations / tables / chemical structures etc. It is advisable that the document files related to a manuscript submission should always have the name of the corresponding author as part of the file name, i.e., “Cilli MS text.doc” , “Cilli MS Figure 1”, etc.

It is imperative that before submission, the author(s) should carefully proofread the files for special characters, mathematical symbols, Greek letters, equations, tables, references and images to ensure that they appear in proper format.

References, figures, tables, chemical structures, etc. should be referred to in the text at the appropriate places where they have been first discussed. Figure legends/captions should also be provided.

A successful electronic submission of the manuscript will be confirmed by a system-generated email acknowledgement to the principal/corresponding author immediately. Any queries therein should be addressed at qasit@benthamscience.org or dnag@benthamscience.org.

MANUSCRIPTS PUBLISHED: The journal accepts mini- and full-length review articles, research articles and drug clinical trial studies written in English. Single Topic/Thematic Issues by invited Guest Editors are also considered for publication.

For the submission of research articles, the author should have already filed a patent with a leading patent authority and it should be registered and secondly, the author should not have published a research paper on their intellectual property.

Thematic Issues: Potential Guest Editors (GE) must submit a brief description of the proposed topic outlining the aims & scope of the issue, the list of titles with author names and affiliations, and keywords on recent patents to be discussed in the proposed title. The GE and the authors will also provide specific keywords other than already in the manuscripts compiled for the patent selection.

The Thematic Issue, must need to have about 100-120 printed pages from contributions by 6 to 8 authors. Alternatively, a Mini-Thematic Issue can also be considered whereby half the required number of pages and contributors (i.e. 3 to 4 authors) would be required.

The GE is responsible to review the complete issue and forward the finalized manuscripts along with an ‘Editorial’ to the journal's Editor for approval, within the given timeframe. Proposals may be submitted to qasit@benthamscience.org or dnag@benthamscience.org.

Patent Selections: A separate section of important and recent patents on DNA and gene sequence is also included in the journal. The patents annotated in this section are relevant to the articles published in this journal issue, categorized by therapeutic areas/targets and therapeutic agents.

MANUSCRIPT LENGTH:

Review Articles: The total number of words for a published comprehensive review article article is from 8000 to 40000 words, and for mini-review articles from 3000 to 6000 words.

Research Articles: The total number of words for a published research article is from 4000 to 8000 words.

Drug Clinical Trial Studies: Drug clinical trial studies are biomedical or health-related interventional and/or observational research studies conducted in phases in human beings that follow a pre-defined protocol.The study is intended to find out whether promising approaches to the disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment are safe and effective. The maximum total page length for a drug clinical trial study published in the journal is four journal pages. Each journal page is on average 900 words.

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION: The manuscript should be written in English in a clear, direct and active style. All pages must be numbered sequentially, facilitating in the reviewing and editing of the manuscript. For further convenience, the customer support team available at Bentham Publishing Services (www.benthampublishingservices.com) can provide assistance to authors for the preparation of manuscripts.

MANUSCRIPT SECTIONS FOR PAPERS:

Manuscript may be divided into the following sections:

1. Covering Letter: It is mandatory to submit a signed covering letter along with the manuscript, by the author to whom correspondence is to be addressed, delineating the scope of the submitted article declaring the potential competing interests, acknowledging contributions from authors and funding agencies, and certifying that the paper is prepared according to the 'Instructions for Authors'. All inconsistencies in the text and in the reference section and any typographical errors must be carefully checked and corrected before the submission of the manuscript. The article should not contain any material or information that may be unlawful, defamatory, fabricated, plagiarized, or which would, if published, in any way whatsoever, violate the terms and conditions as laid down in the copyright agreement. The authors should acknowledge that the publishers have the legal right to take appropriate action against the authors for any such violation of the terms and conditions as laid down in the copy right agreement. DOWNLOAD COVERING LETTER.

2. Title: The title of the article should be precise and brief and must not be more than 120 characters. Authors should avoid the use of non-standard abbreviations. The title must be written in title case except for articles, conjunctions and prepositions.

Title, running title, byline, correspondent footnote and keywords should be written as presented in original manuscripts.

3. Short Running Title: Authors must provide a short ‘running title’ of their manuscript.

4. Authors’ Names and Affiliations: The names of the authors should be provided according to previous citations or as the authors would want them to be published along with the institutional affiliations and current address, telephone, cell & fax numbers and the email address must be provided, with an asterisk in front of the name of the principal author. The corresponding author should also be designated and the full address, telephone, cell & fax numbers and the email address must be stated to receive correspondence and galley proofs.

5. Abstract: The abstract should not exceed 250 words for review and research papers, and 150 words for drug clinical trial studies summarizing the essential features of the article and must include information regarding patents.

6. Keywords: Authors must provide 15 to 20 keywords in alphabetical order.

7. Text Organization: The main text should begin on a separate page and should be divided into title page, abstract and the main text. The text may be subdivided further according to the areas to be discussed, which should be followed by the Acknowledgement, List of Abbreviations, Conflict of Interest and Reference sections. For Research Articles the manuscript should begin with the title page and abstract followed by the main text, which must be structured into separate sections as Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion, Acknowledgements, List of Abbreviations, Conflict of Interest and References. If your research article reports the results of a controlled health care intervention such as a Drug Clinical Trial Studies/Case Report, list your trial registry, along with the unique identifying number. The Review Article should mention any previous important, recent and old reviews in the field and contain a comprehensive discussion starting with the general background of the field. It should then go on to discuss the salient features of recent developments along with relevant patents. The authors should avoid presenting material which has already been published in a previous review. The authors are advised to present and discuss their observations in brief. The manuscript style must be uniform throughout the text and 10pt Times New Roman fonts should be used. The full term for an abbreviation should precede its first appearance in the text unless it is a standard unit of measurement. Italics should be used for Binomial names of organisms (Genus and Species), for emphasis and for unfamiliar words or phrases. Non-assimilated words from Latin or other languages should also be italicized e.g. per se, et al., in vitro, in vivo, in situ, etc.

For Research Articles, the manuscript should begin with the title page and abstract followed by the main text, which must be structured into separate sections as Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, Current & Future Developments, Conflict of Interest, Acknowledgements and References. The patent registration number and patent authority of the author's intellectual property must be cited in the article.

Trial registration: There should be no space between the letters and numbers of your trial registration number. All drug clinical trial studies, regardless of when they were completed, and secondary analyses of original drug clinical trial studies must be registered before submission of a manuscript based on the trial. Studies designed for other purposes, such as to study pharmacokinetics or major toxicity (e.g., phase 1 trials), are exempt. Trial registry name, registration identification number, and the URL for the registry should be included at the end of abstract and also in the space provided on the online manuscript submission form.

Authors will submit the Trial Protocols along with their manuscript. The CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) Checklist and Flowchart is also required when submitting the results of randomized control trials (RCTs).

Ethical Approval of Studies and Informed Consent: For human or animal experimental investigations, it is a prerequisite to provide a formal review and approval, or review and waiver, by an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee and should be documented in your paper. For investigations undertaken on human subjects, state in the Methods section the manner in which the informed consent was obtained from the study participants (i.e., oral or written), where there is an unavoidable risk of breach of privacy e.g., in a clinical photograph or in case details- the patient's written consent or that of the next of kin, to publication must be obtained. We will ask you to send a signed consent form before publication. Consent must be obtained for all Case Reports and Drug Clinical Trial Studies.

Patent Review Coverage: Authors should review the most recent and important patents based on the topic covered. Coverage of novel bioactive compounds, analogs & targets, techniques and drug design in all areas of DNA and gene sequence should be emphasized, including the significance of reported patents.

Current & Future Developments: The review/research article should conclude with a short section called “Current & Future Developments”. The author(s) will give their opinion on the current and future important developments on the topic discussed in their article.

Symbols and Units: Greek symbols and special characters often undergo formatting changes and get corrupted or lost during preparation of a manuscript for publication. To ensure that all special characters used are embedded in the text, these special characters should be inserted as a symbol but should not be a result of any format styling (Symbol font face) otherwise they will be lost during the conversion to PDF/XML.

Authors are encouraged to consult reporting guidelines. These guidelines provide a set of recommendations comprising a list of items relevant to their specific research design.

Only ISO symbols, written in italic, should be used for the various parameters. All kinds of measurements should be reported only in International System of Units (SI). SI units should always be written in Roman and separated from the numerical value by a space (whatever the language).

The µ in µg or µm should be in Roman. The symbol for litre is L and that for minute is min. For temperature, please use only one of °C, °F or K in the entire manuscript. As the Angström (1Å = 10-¹⁰ m) is not an SI unit, it should be replaced by the nanometre (1nm = 10-⁹ m) or by the picometer (1pm = 10-¹² m): 1Å = 0.1nm = 100 pm. Multiple units should be written with negative superscripts (for example, 25mgµL-1 µs-1). The list of notations should appear just before the first paragraph of full text.

A list of symbols and units should be provided if used extensively throughout the text.

8. List of Abbreviations (if any): If abbreviations are used in the text either they should be defined in the text where first used, or a list of abbreviations can be provided.

9. Acknowledgements (if any): Financial contributions to the work being reported should be clearly acknowledged. Please acknowledge anyone (individual/company/institution) who has contributed to the study by making substantial contributions to conception, design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, or who was involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content. Please list the source(s) of funding for the study, for each author, and for the manuscript preparation in the acknowledgement section.

This journal complies with the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors' Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals www.icmje.org and the FDA's Good Reprint Practices for the Distribution of Medical Journal Articles and Medical or Scientific Reference Publications on Unapproved New Uses of Approved Drugs and Approved or Cleared Medical Devices www.fda.gov/oc/op/goodreprint.html

10. Conflict of Interest (if any): Any potential conflict of interest should be clearly acknowledged. No patents should be cited by authors that are in various stages of legal litigation.

11. References: References should be numbered sequentially [in square brackets] in the text and listed in the same numerical order in the reference section. All references must be complete and accurate. Online citations should include the date of access. Journal titles should conform to the present Index Medicus abbreviations. It is necessary to list all authors if the total number of authors is 6 or less, If the number of authors exceeds 6 then list the first 3 authors and then use et al. The reference numbers must be finalized and the bibliography must be fully formatted before submission.

References should be listed in the following Vancouver Style:

Journal:
[1] Boehm M, Nabel EG. Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 - A new cardiac regulator. N Engl J Med 2002; 347: 1795-7.

Book:
[2] Crabtree RH. The organometallic chemistry of the transition metals. 3^rd ed. New York: Wiley & Sons 2001.

Book Chapter:
[3] Yeh DC, Rocco T. In: David EG, Armen HT, Ehrin JA, April WA, Eds. Integrative cardiovascular pharmacology. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins 2005: pp. 375-83.

Conference Proceedings:
[4] Jakeman DL, Withers SGE. Carbohydrate bioengineering: interdisciplinary approaches. Proceedings of the 4^th Carbohydrate Bioengineering Meeting. Stockholm, Sweden, June 10-13, 2001.

Meeting Abstract:
[5] Hoffman BJ. Metabolism: amino acid transporters as targets for therapeutic intervention. American Chemical Society - 228^th National Meeting. Philadelphia, USA 2004.

Website:
[6] National Library of Medicine. Specialized information services: Toxicology and environmental health. Available at: http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/Tox/ToxMain.html (Accessed on: May 23, 2009).

Thesis:
[7] Mackel H. Capturing the spectra of silicon solar cells. PhD Thesis, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, December 2004.

Patent: As a service, the Publishers can provide each author a certain number of relevant patents to assist them in writing their article. All patent application references will be provided by the author and will be published as it is.

Patent Reference Style: All inventors’ names of the cited patents must be stated with the title, publication number and the year of publication e.g. Chesnut JD, Carrino J, Leong L, Madden K, Gleeson MAG, Fan J, Brasch MA, Cheo D, Hartley JL, Byrd DRN, Temple GF. Methods and compositions for synthesis of nucleic acid molecules using multiple recognition sites. US7198924, 2007.

Citation of the patents will be according to the international convention as follows:

WO Patents: 1978-2003
[1] Miranda J, Sablotsky S. Solubility parameter based drug delivery system and method for altering drug saturation concentration. WO9300058, 1993.

[2] Huang D, Qi DF. Protopanaxadiol and protopanaxatriol and their use as synergistic anti-cancer agents. WO03024459, 2003.

WO Patents: 2004 onwards
[1] Balzarini J, Liekens S. Anti-cancer combination therapy. WO2009138507, 2009.

US Patent Applications: 2001 onwards
[1] Strelchenok O. New compounds for the treatment of cancer. US20010018425, 2001.

[2] Landau BR, Landau S. Treatment of cancer with 2-Deoxygalactose. US20090163442, 2009.

Issued/Granted US Patents:
[1] Sakamoto I, Takagi K. Anti-cancer device. US4536387, 1985.

[2] Baguley BC, Ching L-M, Philpott M. Cancer treatment by combination therapy. US7510830, 2009.

EP Patents:
[1] Rimm DL, Wardlaw SC, Levine RA, Fiedler P. Method for the detection, identification, enumeration and confirmation of circulating cancer cells and/or hemotologic progenitor cells in whole blood. EP0919812A2, 1999.

[2] Miller TM, Jamison JM. Non-toxic anti-cancer drug combining ascorbate, magnesium and a naphthoquinone. EP2034835A2, 2009.

Some important points to remember:

• Superscripts in the in-text citations and reference section should be avoided.
• Abstracts, unpublished data and personal communications (which can only be included if prior permission has been obtained) should not be given in the reference section but they may be mentioned in the text and details provided as footnotes.
• The authors are encouraged to use a recent version of EndNote (version 5 and above) or Reference Manager (version 10) when formatting their reference list, as this allows references to be automatically extracted.

12. Tables (if any):

• Data tables should be submitted in Microsoft Word table format.
• Each table should include a title/caption being explanatory in itself with respect to the details discussed in the table. Detailed legends may then follow.
• Table number in bold font i.e. Table 1, should follow a title. The title should be in small case with the first letter in caps. A full stop should be placed at the end of the title.
• Tables should be embedded in the text exactly according to their appropriate placement in the submitted manuscript.
• Columns and rows of data should be made visibly distinct by ensuring that the borders of each cell are displayed as black lines.
• Tables should be numbered in Arabic numerals sequentially in order of their citation in the body of the text.
• If a reference is cited in both the table and text, please insert a lettered footnote in the table to refer to the numbered reference in the text.

13. Figures/Illustrations (if any): The quality of the illustrations printed in the journal largely depends on the quality of the figures/illustration provided by the author. The acceptance of a manuscript for publication is subject to the figures being up to the highest standards in terms of clarity and resolution. In case, the figures supplied are not up to the standards required, the authors will be given the option to either return the manuscripts within one week with appropriate drawings/figures or they may opt to have these professionally prepared through the paid professional service available from Bentham Publishing Services.

The authors should provide the illustrations as separate files, as well as embedded in the text file, numbered consecutively in the order of their appearance. Each figure should include a single illustration. Each figure should be closely cropped to minimize the amount of white space surrounding the illustration. If a figure consists of separate parts, it is important that a single composite illustration file be submitted, containing all parts of the figure.

Photographs should be provided with a scale bar if appropriate, as well as high-resolution component files.

Scaling/Resolution:

For Line Art image type, which is generally an image based on lines and text and does not contain tonal or shaded areas, the preferred file format is TIFF or EPS, with color mode being Monochrome 1-bit or RGB, in a resolution of 900-1200 dpi.

For Halftone image type, which is generally a continuous tone photograph and contains no text, the preferred file format is TIFF, with color mode being or RGB or Grayscale, in a resolution of 300 dpi.

For Combination image type, which is generally an image containing halftone in addition to text or line art elements, the preferred file format is TIFF, with color mode being or RGB or Grayscale, in a resolution of 500-900 dpi.

Formats:

For illustrations, the following file formats are acceptable:

• Illustrator
• EPS (preferred format for diagrams)
• PDF (also especially suitable for diagrams)
• PNG (preferred format for photos or images)
• Microsoft Word (version 5 and above; figures must be a single page)
• PowerPoint (figures must be a single page)
• TIFF
• JPEG (conversion should be done using the original file)
• BMP
• CDX (ChemDraw)
• TGF (ISISDraw)

Bentham Science does not process figures submitted in GIF format.

If the large size of TIFF or EPS figures acts as an obstacle to online submission, authors may find that conversion to JPEG format before submission results in significantly reduced file size and upload time, while retaining acceptable quality. JPEG is a 'lossy' format. However, in order to maintain acceptable image quality, it is recommended that JPEG files are saved at high or maximum quality.

Files should not be compressed with tools such as Zipit or Stuffit prior to submission as these tools will in any case produce negligible file-size savings for JPEGs and TIFFs, which are already compressed.

Please do not:

1.Supply embedded graphics in your word processor (spreadsheet, presentation) document;
2.Supply files that are optimized for screen use (like GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); the resolution is too low;
3.Supply files that are too low in resolution;
4.Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.

Image Conversion Tools:

There are many software packages, many of them freeware or shareware, capable of converting to and from different graphics formats, including PNG.

Good general tools for image conversion include GraphicConverter on the Macintosh, PaintShop Pro, for Windows, and ImageMagick, which is available on Macintosh, Windows and UNIX platforms.

Note that bitmap images (e.g. screenshots) should not be converted to EPS, since this will result in a much larger file size than the equivalent JPEG, TIFF, PNG or BMP, with no increase in quality. EPS should only be used for images produced by vector-drawing applications such as Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw. Most vector-drawing applications can be saved in, or exported as, EPS format. In case the images have been originally prepared in an Office application, such as Word or PowerPoint, then the original Office files should be directly uploaded to the site, instead of being converted to JPEG or another format that may be of low quality.

Color Figures/Illustrations:

. Color figures publication in the journal: The cost for the first published page of color figures is US$ 965; the second additional page will be for US$ 705 and each subsequent page for US$ 480.

. Color figures publication in the reprints: Reprints of pages containing colored illustrations will be charged at US$ 186 for each color page per 100 reprints.

Chemical Structures (if any):

Chemical structures MUST be prepared in ChemDraw (CDX file) and provided as separate file.

Structure Drawing Preferences:

[As according to the ACS style sheet]

Drawing Settings:

Chain angle         120°

Bond spacing       18% of width

Fixed length         14.4 pt (0.500cm, 0.2in)

Bold width            2.0 pt (0.071cm, 0.0278in)

Line width            0.6 pt (0.021cm, 0.0084in)

Margin width        1.6 pt (0.096cm)

Hash spacing       2.5 pt (0.088cm, 0.0347in)

Text settings:

Font                    Times New Roman

Size                     8 pt

Under the Preference Choose:

Units                    points

Tolerances          3 pixels

Under Page Setup Use:

Paper                  US letter

Scale                   100%

14. Supportive/Supplementary Material (if any): We do encourage to append supportive material, for example a PowerPoint file containing a talk about the study, a PowerPoint file containing additional screenshots, a Word, RTF, or PDF document showing the original instrument(s) used, a video, or the original data (SAS/SPSS files, Excel files, Access Db files etc.) provided it is inevitable or endorsed by the journal's Editor.

Supportive/Supplementary Material intended for publication must be numbered and referred to in the manuscript but should not be a part of the submitted paper. In-text citations as well as a section with the heading "Supportive/Supplementary Material" before the "References" section should be provided. Here, list all Supportive/Supplementary Material and include a brief caption line for each file describing its contents.

Any additional files will be linked to the final published article in the form supplied by the author, but will not be displayed within the paper. They will be made available in exactly the same form as originally provided only on our website. Please also make sure that each additional file is a single table, figure or movie (please do not upload linked worksheets or PDF files larger than one sheet). Supportive/Supplementary material must be provided in a single zipped file not larger than 4 MB.

Authors must clearly indicate if these files are not for publication but meant for the reviewers'/editors' perusal only.

PERMISSION FOR REPRODUCTION: Published/Reproduced material should not be included unless you have obtained written permission from the copyright holder, which should be forwarded to the Editorial Office in case of acceptance of your article for publication.

For obtaining permission of reproducing any material published in an article by Bentham Science Publishers, please fill in the request FORM downloadable from the journal’s Web site and send to qasit@benthamscience.org for consideration.

REVIEWING AND PROMPTNESS OF PUBLICATION: All papers submitted for publication are immediately subjected to editorial scrutiny, usually in consultation with members of the journal Editorial Advisory Board and outside independent reviewers. Every effort will be made to peer review submitted papers quickly. Papers which are delayed by authors in revision for more than 30 days will have to be re-submitted as a new submission. Papers accepted for publication are typeset and proofs are dispatched to authors for any corrections prior to final publication.

PAGE CHARGES: No page charges will be levied to the authors.

LANGUAGE EDITING: Manuscripts submitted containing many English typographical errors will not be published. Authors from non-English language countries are advised to use the services of our professional language editing department prior to submitting their manuscript to the journal. Please contact Bentham Publishing Services (www.benthampublishingservices.com) for a language editing quote via e-mail at: info@benthampublishingservices.com stating the total number of words of the article to be edited.

PROOFS: Authors will receive page proofs of their accepted paper before publications. To avoid delays in publication, proofs should be checked immediately for typographical errors and returned within 48 hours. Major changes are not acceptable at the proof stage. If unable to send corrections within 48 hours due to some reason, the author(s) must at least send an acknowledgement on receiving the galley proofs or the article will be published exactly as received and the publishers will not be responsible for any error occurring in the published manuscript in this regard.

The corresponding author will be solely responsible for ensuring that the revised version of the manuscript incorporating all the submitted corrections receives the approval of all the co-authors of the manuscript.

REPRINTS: Each first-named (corresponding) author will receive electronically five free e-reprints of their published article. Reprints may be ordered from the Publisher prior to publication of the article. First named authors may also order a personal print and online subscription of the journal at 50% off the normal subscription rate by contacting the subscription department at e-mail: subscriptions@benthamscience.org.

OPEN ACCESS PLUS: Accepted articles can be published online for free open access for all to view, and be deposited by the Publishers in PubMed Central. Open access publishing provides the maximum dissemination of the article to the largest audience. Authors must pay for this service. All corresponding authors will be asked to indicate whether or not they wish to pay to have their paper made freely available on publication. If authors do not select the Open Access option, then their article will be published with standard subscription-based access at no charge.

Bentham Science offers authors the choice of open access publication of their articles at a fee of US$ 2,200 per published article which allows indefinite free-to-view online publication with Bentham Science.

For more information please contact us at e-mail: openaccess@benthamscience.org.

COPYRIGHT: Authors who publish in Bentham Science Journals will transfer copyright to their work to Bentham Science Publishers. Submission of a manuscript to the respective journals implies that all authors have read and agreed to the content of the Covering Letter or the Terms and Conditions. It is a condition of publication that manuscripts submitted to this journal have not been published and will not be simultaneously submitted or published elsewhere. Plagiarism is strictly forbidden, and by submitting the article for publication the authors agree that the publishers have the legal right to take appropriate action against the authors, if plagiarism or fabricated information is discovered. By submitting a manuscript the authors agree that the copyright of their article is transferred to the publishers if and when the article is accepted for publication. Once submitted to the journal, the author will not withdraw their manuscript at any stage prior to publication.

PLAGIARISM PREVENTION: Bentham Science Publisher uses the iThenticate software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. iThenticate software checks content uploaded by a journal editorial office against a database of periodicals, the Internet, and a comprehensive article database. It generates a similarity report, including the percentage overlap between the uploaded article and published material. Any instances of content overlap are treated according to a journal's peer review integrity statement and the policies recommended by the editorial Committee. You are assured that the publisher, where you are submitting your manuscript, is committed to actively combating plagiarism and publishing original research.

E-PUB AHEAD-OF-SCHEDULE: Bentham Science Publishers are pleased to offer electronic publication of accepted papers prior to scheduled publication. These peer-reviewed papers can be cited using the date of access and the unique DOI number. Any final changes in manuscripts will be made at the time of print publication and will be reflected in the final electronic version of the issue. Articles ahead of schedule may be ordered by pay-per-view at the relevant links by each article stated via the E-Pub Ahead of Schedule (http://www.benthamscience.com/dang/E-Pub-Ahead-of-Schedule.htm).

DISCLAIMER: Articles appearing in E-Pub Ahead-of-Schedule sections have been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication in this journal and posted online before scheduled publication. Articles appearing here may contain statements, opinions, and information that have errors in facts, figures, or interpretation. Accordingly, Bentham Science Publishers, the editors and authors and their respective employees are not responsible or liable for the use of any such inaccurate or misleading data, opinion or information contained of articles in the E-Pub Ahead-of-Schedule.