Annals of Bangladesh Agriculture is published biannually in June and December by the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University (BSMRAU). The objective of the Journal is to publish original, unpublished articles, which may cover all aspects of research and education in agriculture including rural development. However, emphasis will be given on aspects of crop science in Bangladesh. In addition to original articles, review articles are considered for publication.
Manuscript Submission
Double-spaced manuscripts should be written in English, printed on one side of A4 paper with 2.5 cm margins all around using the font, Times New Roman, 12 point. Text of a full paper should not exceed 12 typed pages excluding photographs, tables and figures. Short communication should not exceed six typed pages. Manuscript submitted for the first time should be in duplicate and sent to Executive Editor, Annals of Bangladesh Agriculture, BSMRAU, Gazipur 1706, Bangladesh, if it is sent in hard copy. Manuscript will be subjected to review process. Manuscripts not complying with the format and style of the Journal or of unacceptable quality will be notify to the author(s). Author(s) of the articles accepted for publication should submit the original manuscript, and the revised one to editor (E-mail: editoraba@bsmrau.edu.bd) or on a CD together with a hard copy signed by the principal/corresponding author. Articles reporting research findings of five years old or more are not considered for publication in Ann. Bangladesh Agric.
Types of Papers Published
Contributions should fit one of the following categories: (i) Full-length articles, (ii) Short communications and (iii) Reviews. Full-length articles and short communications: These should be original research reports that have not been submitted elsewhere. Disease notes: Authors should describe symptoms, the hosts, when and where the disease occurred, and pathogen identification (or proof of pathogenicity). They should also state the significance of the disease. Techniques: JGPP accepts Letters to the editor: A letter to the editor is a comment on research published in the journal or elsewhere. Reviews: Reviews should summarize the current state of understanding on a topic that is unique and useful in the field of agriculture.
Manuscript Submission
Legal Requirements
Submission of a manuscript implies that the work described has not been published before; that it is not under consideration for publication anywhere else; that its publication has been approved by all co-authors, if any, as well as by the responsible authorities – tacitly or explicitly – at the institute where the work has been carried out. The publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.
Permissions
Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.
How to Submit
Manuscripts should be written in English. If the manuscript conforms to the guidelines specified in the instructions, the date received will be the date the manuscript was received at the editorial office. Authors should submit their manuscripts to the Annals of Bangladesh Agriculture office or online. Electronic submission substantially reduces the editorial processing and reviewing times and shortens overall publication times. Click here for new submission or connect directly to the site (www.bsmrau.edu.bd/aba) and upload all of your manuscript files following the instructions given on the screen.
Author Contribution
Each manuscript is to be accompanied by an author declaration form filled by all authors during the first submission. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. Contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the acknowledgment. Groups of persons who have contributed materially to the paper, but whose contributions do not justify authorship should be listed in the acknowledgment. Examples include: individuals who allowed their clinical experience to be included, a person who provided purely technical help, copyediting, proofreading or translation assistance, or a department Chair who provided only general support.
Editorial Procedure
Manuscript is subjected to go through blind pair review process. The Editorial Board reserves the right to accept or reject the manuscript for publication. The Board may advise the author to revise the manuscript according to suggestions by reviewers. A manuscript written in poor English may not be accepted regardless of its content. When revision of a manuscript has been requested, the revised manuscript should be submitted by the due date. Otherwise, the manuscript will be processed as one withdrawn from submission. The accepted date will be the day when the Editor-in-Chief has judged it to be publishable after the completion of the reviewing process.
Page Limits and Page Charges
Reviews and Full-length articles should not exceed 12 and 10 printed pages, respectively, and Short communications should be no longer than 5 printed pages. There is no page charge for publication in Annals of Bangladesh Agriculture. Color art is free of charge for online publications. For the print version, the charge for color art is TK. 1000.00 plus 5% VAT for each publication.
Manuscript Preparation
Manuscripts should be formatted with 3-cm margins, 25 lines per page on either A4 (21.0 × 29.7 cm) or 8½ × 11-inch page. All pages, including tables, figures, and legends, should include the author’s name and the page number at the top right corner for identification. Line numbers should also be included in the left margin of all papers. Italic and boldface type should be specified using the features of standard word-processing software.
Manuscript Submission
Double-spaced manuscripts should be written in English, printed on one side of A4 paper with 2.5 cm margins all around using the font Times New Roman, 12 point. Text of a full paper should not exceed 12 typed pages excluding photographs, tables and figures. Short communication should not exceed six typed pages. Manuscript submitted for the first time should be in duplicate and sent to Executive Editor, Annals of Bangladesh Agriculture, BSMRAU, Gazipur 1706, Bangladesh. Manuscripts not complying with the format and style of the Journal or of unacceptable quality will be notify to the author(s). Author(s) of the articles accepted for publication have to submit the original manuscript along with the revised one on a CD together with a hard copy signed by the principal/corresponding author. Articles reporting research findings of five years old or more are not considered for publication in Ann. Bangladesh Agric.
Arrangement of the Manuscript (Contents)
Pages should be numbered consecutively and arranged in the following order.
Page 1:
Title Page – The title page should include:
A concise and informative title
The name(s) of the author(s)
The affiliation(s) and address(es) of the author(s)
The e-mail address, telephone and fax numbers of the corresponding author
Page 2: Abstract and Keywords
Abstract: Please provide an abstract of no more than 250 words for Reviews and Full-length articles and 100 words for Short communications. The abstract should not contain any undefined abbreviations or unspecified references.
Keywords: Please provide a maximum of six keywords which can be used for indexing purposes, including the name of organisms (common name or scientific name), method or other words or phrases that represent the subject of the study, such.
Page 3: Text
Please provide a text, divided into the following sections: Introduction, Materials and methods, Results and Discussion, Conclusion, Acknowledgments, References, and figure legends. Authors should consult recent issues for details of style and presentation. A short communication, letter to the editor, or disease note should not be divided into sections, except for References. For submission in Word, use a normal, plain font (e.g., 12-point Times Roman) for text. Use the automatic page numbering function to number the pages. Save your file in docx format (Word 2007 or higher) or doc format (older Word versions).
Heading Levels
Please use no more than three levels of displayed headings.
Abbreviations and acronyms
Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used consistently thereafter.
Units of Measurement
Length: km, m, mm, µm, nm, etc.
Area: km2, m2, cm2, etc. a, ha are acceptable.
Capacity: kl, l (liters in the text), ml, µl, etc. Do not use lambda and italic l.
Volume: km3, m3, cm3 (not cc), mm3, etc.
Mass: kg, g, mg, µg (not gamma), ng, pg, etc.
Time: s, min, h, day(s), week(s), month(s), year(s)
Concentration: M, mM, N, % (only after number and in tables and figures), g/l, mg/l, µg/l,
ppm, ppb
Temperature: ºC
Gravity: ×g
Molecular weight: mol wt
Others: Radioisotopes: 32P
Radiation dose: Bq
Oxidation-reduction potential: rH
Hydrogen ion concentration: pH
Terminology
Genus and species names should be in italics. The common names of plants should not be capitalized.
Equations
Please use the standard mathematical notation for formula, symbols etc.:
Italic for single letters that denote mathematical constants, variables, and unknown quantities
Roman/upright for numerals, operators, and punctuation, and commonly defined functions or abbreviations, e.g., cos, det, e or exp, lim, log, max, min, sin, tan, d (for derivative)
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments of people, grants, funds, etc. should be placed in a separate section before the reference list. The names of funding organizations should be written in full.
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. To prevent errors in typing and duplicate references, it is advisable to utilize a bibliographic software package like EndNote, or Reference Manager for preparing the references.
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Citation in Text
Cite references in the text by name and year in parentheses. Some examples:
Negotiation research spans many disciplines (Thompson, 1990).
This result was later contradicted (Becker and Seligman, 1996).
This effect has been widely studied (Shils, 1991; Liakat et al., 1995; Hossain and Smith, 1998; Medvec et al., 1993).
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List Style
The reference list at the end of the paper should include only works cited in the text and should be arranged alphabetically by the last names of the first author of each work. References should be cited as follows: journal papers – names and initials of all authors, year in parentheses, full title, journal as abbreviated in accordance with international practice, volume number, first and last page numbers; books – names and initials of all authors, year, chapter title, names and initials of all editors, full title, edition, publisher, place of publication.
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Journal Article
Ayub, A., T. K. Dey, M. Jahan and M. Z. Rahman. 1996. Assessment of yield loss due to powdery mildew of blackgram. Bangladesh J. Plant Pathol. 12: 9-12.
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Book
Hill, D. S. 1787. Agricultural Insect Pests of the Ttropics and Their Control. 2nd ed. Cambridge Univ. Press, New York, USA 746 P.
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Book Chapter
Troughton, J. H. 1975. Phytoshynthetic Mechanisms in Higher Plants. Pp. 57-91. In Cooper. J.P. (ed.) Photosynthesis and Productivity in Different Environments. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge,UK.
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Online Document
Doe, J. 1999. Title of subordinate document. In: The dictionary of substances and their effects. Royal Society of Chemistry. Available via DIALOG. http://www.rsc.org/dose/title of subordinate document. Accessed on 15 Jan 1999.
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Always use the standard abbreviation of a journal’s name according to the ISSN List of Title Word Abbreviations. If you are unsure, please use the full journal title.
Responsibility for the accuracy of bibliographic data rests entirely with the author.
Tables
All tables are to be numbered using Arabic numerals. Tables should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order. For each table, please supply a table title. The table title should explain clearly and concisely the components of the table. Identify any previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference at the end of the table title.
Footnotes to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data) and included beneath the table body. A unit of measure should be reported as the actual quantity multiplied by a power of 10 to give the reported quantity (the unit may be changed by the use of m or µ).
Figures
All figures are to be numbered using Arabic numerals. Figure parts should be denoted by lowercase letters (a, b, c). If illustrations are supplied with uppercase labeling, lowercase letters will still be used in the figure legends and citations. Figures should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order. For each figure, please supply a figure legend.
Make sure to identify all elements found in the figure in the legend. Identify any previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference at the end of the legend. The publisher reserves the right to reduce or enlarge figures. Figure legends should be grouped together in text.
Ethical Responsibilities of Authors
This journal is committed to upholding the integrity of the scientific record. As a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) the journal will follow the COPE guidelines on how to deal with potential acts of misconduct.
Authors should refrain from misrepresenting research results which could damage the trust in the journal, the professionalism of scientific authorship, and ultimately the entire scientific endeavour. Maintaining integrity of the research and its presentation can be achieved by following the rules of good scientific practice, which include:
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The manuscript has not been submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration. The manuscript has not been published previously (partly or in full), unless the new work concerns an expansion of previous work (please provide transparency on the re-use of material to avoid the hint of text-recycling (“self-plagiarism”)).
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A single study is not split up into several parts to increase the quantity of submissions and submitted to various journals or to one journal over time (e.g. “salami-publishing”).
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No data have been fabricated or manipulated (including images) to support your conclusions
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No data, text, or theories by others are presented as if they were the author’s own (“plagiarism”). Proper acknowledgements to other works must be given (this includes material that is closely copied (near verbatim), summarized and/or paraphrased), quotation marks are used for verbatim copying of material, and permissions are secured for material that is copyrighted.
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Important note: the journal may use software to screen for plagiarism.
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Consent to submit has been received explicitly from all co-authors, as well as from the responsible authorities – tacitly or explicitly – at the institute/organization where the work has been carried out, before the work is submitted.
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Authors whose names appear on the submission have contributed sufficiently to the scientific work and therefore share collective responsibility and accountability for the results.
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Authors are strongly advised to ensure the correct author group, corresponding author, and order of authors at submission. Changes of authorship or in the order of authors are not accepted after acceptance of a manuscript.
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Adding and/or deleting authors and/or changing the order of authors at revision stage may be justifiably warranted. A letter must accompany the revised manuscript to explain the reason for the change(s) and the contribution role(s) of the added and/or deleted author(s). Further documentation may be required to support your request.
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Requests for addition or removal of authors as a result of authorship disputes after acceptance are honored after formal notification by the institute or independent body and/or when there is agreement between all authors.
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Upon request authors should be prepared to send relevant documentation or data in order to verify the validity of the results. This could be in the form of raw data, samples, records, etc. Sensitive information in the form of confidential proprietary data is excluded.
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If there is a suspicion of misconduct, the journal will carry out an investigation following the COPE guidelines. If, after investigation, the allegation seems to raise valid concerns, the accused author will be contacted and given an opportunity to address the issue. If misconduct has been established beyond reasonable doubt, this may result in the Editor-in-Chief’s implementation of the following measures, including, but not limited to:
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If the article is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to the author.
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If the article has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the infraction, either an erratum will be placed with the article or in severe cases complete retraction of the article will occur. The reason must be given in the published erratum or retraction note. Please note that retraction means that the paper is maintained on the platform, watermarked “retracted” and explanation for the retraction is provided in a note linked to the watermarked article.
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The author’s institution may be informed.
Compliance with Ethical Standards
To ensure objectivity and transparency in research and to ensure that accepted principles of ethical and professional conduct have been followed, authors should include information regarding sources of funding, potential conflicts of interest (financial or non-financial), informed consent if the research involved human participants, and a statement on welfare of animals if the research involved animals.
Authors should include the following statements (if applicable) in a separate section entitled “Compliance with Ethical Standards” when submitting a paper:
Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest
Research involving Human Participants and/or Animals
Informed consent
The corresponding author should be prepared to collect documentation of compliance with ethical standards and send if requested during peer review or after publication.
The Editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned guidelines. The author will be held responsible for false statements or failure to fulfill the above-mentioned guidelines.
Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest
Authors must disclose all relationships or interests that could influence or bias the work. Although an author may not feel there are conflicts, disclosure of relationships and interests affords a more transparent process, leading to an accurate and objective assessment of the work. Awareness of real or perceived conflicts of interests is a perspective to which the readers are entitled and is not meant to imply that a financial relationship with an organization that sponsored the research or compensation for consultancy work is inappropriate. Examples of potential conflicts of interests that are directly or indirectly related to the research may include but are not limited to the following:
Research grants from funding agencies (please give the research funder and the grant number)
Honoraria for speaking at symposia
Financial support for attending symposia
Financial support for educational programs
Employment or consultation
Support from a project sponsor
Position on advisory board or board of directors or other type of management relationships
Multiple affiliations
Financial relationships, for example equity ownership or investment interest
Intellectual property rights (e.g. patents, copyrights and royalties from such rights)
Holdings of spouse and/or children that may have financial interest in the work
In addition, interests that go beyond financial interests and compensation (non-financial interests) that may be important to readers should be disclosed. These may include but are not limited to personal relationships or competing interests directly or indirectly tied to this research, or professional interests or personal beliefs that may influence your research.
The corresponding author collects the conflict of interest disclosure forms from all authors. (Please note that each author should complete a disclosure form.). Examples of forms can be found here:
See below examples of disclosures:
Funding: This study was funded by X (grant number X).
Conflict of Interest: Author A has received research grants from Company A. Author B has received a speaker honorarium from Company X and owns stock in Company Y. Author C is a member of committee Z.
If no conflict exists, the authors should state:
Conflict of Interest: Author A, Author B, and Author C declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Research involving human participants and/or animals
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Statement of human rights:
When reporting studies that involve human participants, authors should include a statement that the studies have been approved by the appropriate institutional and/or national research ethics committee and have been performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration or comparable standards, the authors must explain the reasons for their approach, and demonstrate that the independent ethics committee or institutional review board explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. The following statements should be included in the text before the References section:
Ethical approval:
“All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.”
For retrospective studies, please add the following sentence: “For this type of study formal consent is not required.”
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Statement on the welfare of animals:
The welfare of animals used for research must be respected. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals have been followed, and that the studies have been approved by a research ethics committee at the institution or practice at which the studies were conducted (where such a committee exists). For studies with animals, the following statement should be included in in the text before the References section:
Ethical approval:
“All applicable international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed.”
If applicable (where such a committee exists): “All procedures performed in studies involving animals were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institution or practice at which the studies were conducted.”
If articles do not contain studies with human participants or animals by any of the authors, please select one of the following statements:
“This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.”
“This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.”
“This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.”
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Informed consent
All individuals have individual rights that are not to be infringed. Individual participants in studies have, for example, the right to decide what happens to the (identifiable) personal data gathered, to what they have said during a study or an interview, as well as to any photograph that was taken. Hence it is important that all participants gave their informed consent in writing prior to inclusion in the study. Identifying details (names, dates of birth, identity numbers and other information) of the participants that were studied should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and genetic profiles unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the participant (or parent or guardian if the participant is incapable) gave written informed consent for publication. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve in some cases, and informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of participants is inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic profiles, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning.
The following statement should be included:
Informed consent: “Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.”
If identifying information about participants is available in the article, the following statement should be included:
“Additional informed consent was obtained from all individual participants for whom identifying information is included in this article.”
After Acceptance
Upon acceptance of your article you will receive a link to the special Author Query Application at Springer’s web page where you can sign the Copyright Transfer Statement online and indicate whether you wish to order OpenChoice, paper offprints, or printing of figures in color. Once the Author Query Application has been completed, your article will be processed and you will receive the proofs.
Copyright Transfer
Authors will be asked to transfer copyright of the article to the Research Wing, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Gazipur, Bangladesh (or grant the Publisher exclusive publication and dissemination rights). This will ensure the widest possible protection and dissemination of information under copyright laws.
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Offprints
Contributors are entitled to get 20 reprints free of cost for each article. Additional offprints can be ordered on payment by the corresponding author.
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Color Illustrations