Strengthening of Traditions and Search for New Forms: The Basic Rules for Publishing in The Natural Systems of Mind

This article presents the basic rules for publishing manuscripts in the Natural Systems of Mind (NaSoM). The best world practices served as the basis for drawing up the rules. The Institute of Psychology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IPRAS) acts as a guarantor of the high scientific quality of published manuscripts. The journal adheres to traditional publication formats. However, the NaSoM editorial board closely monitors changes in the forms of scientific communication and promptly responds to the challenges of modern society. The journal consistently follows the principles of openness of scientific information, enshrined in international documents and corresponds to the Russian publishing culture. The journal is positioned as a platform for open scientific dialogue using both traditional forms of scientific communication (various types of articles) as well as publications of classics “Learning from the past”, comments and others. Particular attention is paid to the problems of originality of submitted manuscripts. It is not allowed to submit a manuscript to several journals. The NaSoM does not charge any fees from authors or readers.

Introduction

In the current issue we continue the publication of the policy of the Natural Systems of Mind and provide the publication rules[1]

1.1. NaSoM General Information

The Natural Systems of Mind is an international multidisciplinary open access journal. It is fundamentally important for the editors to ensure open access to research results. This position is consistent with the UNESCO recommendations [14], the Plan S [22] and the Russian publishing culture [4, 5, 6, 12, 24, 25].

The main owner and publisher of the NaSoM is the Institute of Psychology, Russian Academy of Sciences (IPRAS, Moscow, Russia). The IPRAS is a leader in the field of psychology.  The publication of the journal under its auspices makes high demands on the quality of the manuscripts. The IPRAS is the founder of five journals and ten non-periodical series. It publishes more than 15 books annually. The grants from IPRAS allow us not to charge either authors or readers.

The NaSoM publishes original (previously unpublished) completed systems research in the fields of human brain, mind, body, society, and intellectual technologies.

[1] The rules can be found at: https://natural-systems-of-mind.com/guidlines/

The NaSoM has the following sections in issue: Editor’s Material, Reviews, Empirical Articles, Case Studies, Book Reviews, Brief Reports, Comments, Meeting Abstracts, and Learning from the Past.

Since the mission of the journal is to promote effective international multidisciplinary interaction of scholars, we considered it possible, in addition to traditional scientific headings, to create a special section dedicated to the heritage of outstanding Russian scientists, whose works had made a significant contribution to the development of various branches of science. But their research is often unknown to a wide range of scientists, and translations of their publications are difficult to access.

The full-text electronic version of the journal is published at

http://natural-systems-of-mind.com

Neither the Editors nor the Publisher accept responsibility for the views or statements expressed by authors.

The NaSoM supports green open access and accepted manuscripts are available under license Creative Commons Attribution – NonCommercial – NoDerivs 4.0 (CC BY – NC – ND).  It is allowed to use, copy, quote for non-commercial purposes with the obligatory indication of the author of the manuscript and the source of borrowing [8].

1.2. The main headings of the journal:

• Biological systems of mind (Brain-Computer Interfaces, Behavioral Genetics, Neurochemistry and Endocrinology, Neuroimaging, Neuroscience).
• History and Philosophy of Sciences (Anthropology, Evolution of Mind, Grand Challenges, Information Science, New Concepts and Paradigms).
• Linguistics (Bilingualism, Communication, Language Development, Mind and Language, Sentiment Analysis).
• Mathematics & Statistics (Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and Network Analysis, Data-Driven Analysis, Nonlinear Dynamics, Robotics and Digital Technology)
• Medicine (Microbiota, Neurology, Oncology, Psychiatry, Somatic Systems and Mind).
• Psychology (Cognitive Psychology, Comparative Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Educational Psychology, Psychology of Religion and Spirituality).
• Pharmacology and Biochemistry (Applied Microbiology, Behavioral Sciences, Biochemistry Molecular Biology, Biophysics, Medical Neurochemistry).
• Social Sciences (Big Group Psychology, Collective Emotions, Collective Intelligence, Cross-Cultural Studies, Psychology of Propaganda).

A detailed analysis of the trends in the development of these fields of science was presented in the Editor’s Material published in the first issue of the NaSoM [25].

1.3. The Purpose of the Manual

This guide is intended to facilitate and simplify the preparation of the manuscript for the Authors, the scientific examination of the manuscripts for the reviewers, the preparation of the manuscript for publication for the editors, and the orientation in the structure and content of the published materials and their use in scientific practice for the Readers.

Regulation of relations Author–Reviewer–Editor–Publisher–Reader is built on the basis of ethical principles and rules of scientific publications, as well as the standards for organizing and conducting research.

1.4. Peer review

All incoming papers are subject to the refereeing process: they should be appropriate for the Aims and Scope of the journal and should follow the Guide for Authors. Correspondence regarding decisions reached by the editorial committee is not encouraged.

The final decision on the rejection or publication of the manuscript and its assignment to a certain section of the NaSoM is made exclusively by the Editorial Board.

In disputable cases, according to the decision of the Editorial Board, the articles are published with reviews and answers of the Author(s) to the Reviewer(s).

1.5.            Submission

The manuscript must be submitted via NaSoM Online Submission System which leads the author(s) stepwise through the process of entering article details and uploading files. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor’s decision and requests for revision, is sent only via NaSoM Online Submission System[*].

Authors should note that submission implies that the content has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere except as a brief abstract in the proceedings of a scientific meeting or symposium.

Before submission, the author will need:

• Cover letter
• The title page of the manuscript
• Manuscript without author details
• Highlights
• Supplementary Material

Cover letter is uploaded as a separate document. A cover letter is a brief business letter designed to introduce your manuscript to an Editor that usually includes some of the following items:

• An Author Agreement which is a statement to certify that all authors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript. They warrant that the article is the authors’ original work, hasn’t received prior publication and isn’t under consideration for publication elsewhere.
• Any Conflict of Interests (see [13]).
• Permissions information.
• A Declaration of Interests (see [23]).
• A brief background regarding the research.
• Any information that will support your submission (e.g. original or confirmatory data, relevance, topicality).
• Details of any previous or concurrent submissions.

The title page of the manuscript is to include the title of the paper, the authors details (see 3.1, 3.2), acknowledgments, and CRediT author statement (see 3.5.7).

Manuscript should be a single file including title without author details, text, figures, and tables. All required sections should be contained in your manuscript, including abstract, keywords, introduction, methods, results, and conclusions. Figures and tables should have legends. References should be submitted in APA format.

Highlights should be submitted in a separate file via the NaSoM Online Submission System. Highlights is a short collection of bullet points that capture the novel results or methods that were obtained or used during the study. This file includes 3 to 5 bullet statements (maximum 85 characters, including spaces, per bullet statements).

Supplementary Material covers the data that are not of primary importance to the text, or which cannot be included in the article because they are too large or the current format does not permit it. Such data can be uploaded as Supplementary Material during the submission procedure and will be displayed along with the published article.

Our journal does not require prior registration of studies. Based on the metadata obtained as the results of the analysis of pre-registered psychological publications, we concluded that this procedure could significantly limit the free scientific search [10]. However, we encourage the authors to pre-register their studies not to strictly follow the plan, but to compare it with the real work. Such a comparison could help identify the patterns that were not visible in the main study. These patterns can be the subject of another publication. The NaSoM welcomes such type of articles.

2. General standards

2.1. Originality

The editorial board will make efforts to complete the review procedure as quickly as possible in order to promptly inform the scientific community about the latest research. In the modern world, the issues of originality of published manuscripts and excessive self-citation are very urgent. The later problem is also relevant for Russian scientists [9,21]. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought significant changes to the culture of scientific publications. The need for prompt notification of the scientific community and society about scientific developments greatly increased the speed of publishing. The discussion about plagiarism and self-plagiarism intensified. Research publications can even be found on non-specialized social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and others.

References to social media posts, along with references to articles, became the norm, especially concerning the COVID-19 theme (see, for example, [16]). Despite the changes that have occurred, the NaSoM adheres to the classic positions on the originality of the article, outlined below.

The NaSoM prints only original, previously unpublished manuscripts. The text of the manuscript must not contain signs of plagiarism and autoplagiarism, i.e. material-borrowing from other authors or the author’s own works without reference to the source. Autoplagiarism is the transfer by the Author of the same materials simultaneously to different publishers. Meaningful (semantic, but not verbatim) inclusion in the manuscript of materials published earlier in the form of brief reports or in collections of scientific papers with a small circulation (up to 300 copies), is not considered as autoplagiarism.

Any use of previously published materials (concepts, theories, points of view, methods, empirical data, statistical estimates), direct or indirect, must be accompanied by references to the original sources. Referring to previously published material, the author(s) should prefer paraphrasing to exact text enclosed in quotation marks. Previously published own text should be used to substantiate and develop the position of the Author. The use by the Author of a previously published own text should be preceded by such indications as “previously established”, “in previous studies it was …”, the text should contain signs of novelty and end with an exact indication of the source of borrowings. The amount of such borrowing should be kept to a minimum.

2.2. Novelty

The manuscript should contain new conceptual approaches, new facts, synthesis or criticism of existing points of view already published results, new goals and hypotheses, as well as new methodological techniques.

It should be emphasized that the NaSoM welcomes both previously unpublished materials at the intersection of various scientific disciplines devoted to the study of the systems foundations of human mind and behavior, as well as the replication of scientific data to confirm the reliability of the facts and early obtained regularities.

The journal intends to republish and publish translations of the most significant works of scientists in the field of systems human mind and behavior, as well as original experimental studies and methods performed and described in the past, but retaining their significance at the current stage of science development (see “Learning from the past”).

2.3. Completeness

The NaSoM publishes only completed works. Descriptions of pilot studies is not accepted.

2.4. Style

Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these). The articles are to comply with the APA-style requirements, and the spelling must comply with the standards of Merriam-Webster.com [20].

The manuscript is to be edited, be conceptual rigorous, logical coherent of approaches, explanations and conclusions, i.e, to follow the manuals of the NaSoM (see sections 1.1 ÷ 4.8).

To maintain the rigor of presentation, it is recommended to avoid polysemy and ambiguity of statements and not to use of unreasonably long phrases, metaphorical statements, repetitions, allegories, journalistic and popular science style, everyday vocabulary, neologisms and laboratory jargon. It is preferable to avoid synonyms and homonyms of the terms.

All newly introduced concepts and concepts with new meanings, as well as special and technical terms, should be explained when they are first used in the text.

3. Article elements

3.1. Title

The title should be concise (no more than 9 words) and match the objective of the study, omitting terms that are implicit and, where it is possible, be a statement of the main result or conclusion presented in the manuscript. Abbreviations should be avoided. It should be mentioned that including a few keywords in the title is a simple way to maximize your article’s discoverability.

3.2. Authors and Affiliations

Authorship should be based on the following criteria:

• substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data;
• drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
• final approval of the version to be published;
• agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

All authors’ names are listed together in order of their contribution and separated by commas. The Corresponding Author should be marked with an asterisk in the author list.

Affiliations should be keyed to the author’s name with lower-case letters and be listed as follows: Department/Laboratory, Institution, City, Country, e-mail, and ORCID iD.

See example:

Ivanov I.I. (a)*, Petrov P.P. (b), Sidorov S.S. (c)

*Corresponding author

(a) Psychology Department, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia, xxx@ju.se, ORCID iD

(b)Psychology Department, St. Petersburg State University, St Petersburg, Russia, yyy@stsu.ru,
ORCID iD

(c) Department of Teacher Education, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland, zzz@helsinki.fi,
ORCID iD

3.3. Abstract

Abstract should range between 150 – 250 words. It should be presented as a single paragraph and briefly summarize the goals, methods, and new results presented in the paper. Reference citations are not allowed. Generally accepted abbreviations are allowed (ANOVA, DNK).

Keywords are placed under the abstract. Keywords are listed from the most general, corresponding to the problem, to the more differentiated, corresponding to the description of the participants in the study, and methods. Laboratory jargon and neologisms cannot be used as keywords. Each keyword starts with capital letters and is separated from others by commas. It is recommended to specify from three to seven keywords or phrases. Generally accepted abbreviations are allowed as keywords.

Keywords: Mind, Brain, Cognition

3.5. Sections

Divide your article into clearly defined and numbered sections and subsections (1 then 1.1, further 1.1.1, 1.1.2, …), 1.2, etc. Any subsection should have a short heading and should appear on its own separate line. Original Research articles usually include the following sections or their equivalents:

1. Introduction level 1

1.1. heading level 2

1.1.1. heading level 3

1.1.2. heading level 3

1.1.3. heading level 3

1.2. heading level 2

1.3. heading level 2

2. Material and methods level 1

2.1. heading level 2

2.2. heading level 2

3. Results

3.1. heading level 2

3.2. heading level 2

4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
6. Acknowledgments
7. CRediT author statement
8. References

3.5.1. Introduction usually covers the following main points:

(l) Identification of the specific scientific problem in the context of which the study was carried out, with mandatory substantiation of its topicality.

(2) A brief review of the literature, necessary for formulating a theoretical hypothesis, should contain the main approaches to solving the problem with the definition of important terms, based on new methodological procedures and results.

(3) A hypothesis that is formulated in terms of theoretical constructs as a specific solution to an actual psychological problem from the standpoint of a particular research program or paradigm.

(4) The purpose of the study, which also fixes the type of study, such as pre-experiment, quasi-experiment, true experiment.

3.5.2. Materials and methods

This section should contain sufficient details so that when readers could repeat all the procedures used. This section should contain the following mandatory subsections:

3.5.2.1. Participants

A total number of participants, their sex, age (range or median), and other important information for the study (for example, educational status, normal or corrected vision, right-handedness/left-handedness, etc.), the method of sampling, the number of groups. It is necessary to stress that the term “control group” can only be used for a true experiment; for studies of pre-experimental and quasi-experimental types we recommend apply the terms “contrast group” or “comparison group”.

3.5.2.2. Procedure

The design of the study should be consistent with purpose and hypotheses. The description of the study should include the sequence of events, the task or stimulus proposed to the participants. It is obligatory to provide instructions (or reference on the standard instruction) and a description of the ways of communication between the researcher and the participants. When applying expert assessments, the number of experts, their professional status and experience, and their relevant individual traits (for example, gender, age). The instructions for experts, and the scale for expert judgments should be indicated. Ethical standards for research on animals and humans must be observed.

3.5.2.3. Methods and equipment

The tests/questionaries must include: name, date, place and author of the validation (or adaptation) with references to sources as well as main psychometric characteristics (e.g., Mean/Median/Mode, Standard deviation, Skewness, Kurtosis, Cronbach’s alpha) received on your sample. The detailed description of methods previously not presented in publications should be placed in the Supplementary Materials.

The equipment description covers main characteristics, manufacturer and country. The unique equipment can be described in more details (it is possible to bring diagrams and drawings).

3.5.2.4. Registration of indicators

Data collection method should be indicated (face-to-face, collective or individual contact, phone, mail, Internet). Methods of signal calibration and of synchronizing should be described. The readout frequency when sampling the signal as well as the ways of detecting, eliminating, and correcting artifacts should be specified.

3.5.2.5. Variables

All variables (independent, dependent, secondary, descriptors) or groups of variables should be listed, including the range of variation, gradation of change, frequency of presentation, and methods of their output. The description of the variables should include type of scaling in which they are measured, the accuracy of measurements as well as the correctness of the use of statistics procedures.

3.5.3. Results

Results should be clear and concise. This section should contain only original data without explanation and references to the results of other researchers. When presenting the results of statistical procedures, evidence of the adequacy of their application should be provided.

3.5.4. Discussion

In this section, the attitude to alternatives of the research hypotheses must be formulated and the new fact should be fully declared. This section may include several subsections, the number of which corresponds to the number of tasks (or research hypotheses), while the title of the subsection should correspond to the content of the corresponding task (or research hypotheses).

Discussion usually covers the following main points:

• description of the main result as a statistical solution;
• evidence of non-artifact nature of the results;
• comparison of the results obtained in other studies/by other authors;
• an indication of which of the alternatives is rejected and which is left for further research;
• substantiation of the novelty of the study and its importance for practice.

3.5.5. Conclusion(s)

The final fragment of the manuscript usually reflects assumptions about the possible consequences of the study and putting forward of new goals or hypotheses for the further research.

3.5.6. Acknowledgments

The editors encourage to gratitude all the persons who helped in the work on the manuscript. Acknowledgments to individuals and organizations that supported the authors in the implementation of the study (including foundations that funded the study) are placed in a footnote to the title of the manuscript.

3.5.7. CRediT author statement

CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) is introduced with the intention of recognizing individual author contributions, reducing authorship disputes and facilitating collaboration (see [7]). Authors should have confident in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors and be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific parts of the work.

The role(s) of all authors should be listed, using the following categories:

Conceptualization – putting forward the ideas; formulation overarching research goals and aims.

Data curation – producing metadata, scrubbing data and maintain research data (including software code, where it is necessary for interpreting the data itself) for initial use and later re-use.

Formal analysis – application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyze or synthesize study data.

Investigation – conducting a research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments, or data/evidence collection.

Methodology – development of design or a set of research methods; creation of statistics models.

Resources – provision of study materials, reagents, materials, patients, laboratory samples, animals, instrumentation, computing resources, or other analysis tools.

Software – programming, software development; designing computer programs; implementation of the computer code and supporting algorithms; testing of existing code components.

Validation – verification, whether as a part of the activity or separate, of the overall replication/reproducibility of results/experiments and other research outputs.

Visualization – preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically visualization/data presentation.

Preparation of original draft – creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically writing the initial draft (including substantive translation).

Review & editing – preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work by those from the original research group, specifically critical review, commentary or revision – including pre- or post-publication stages.

Sample CRediT author statement:

Ivanov I. I.: conceptualization, methodology, software;

Petrov P. P.: data curation, writing- original draft preparation;

Sidorov S. S.: visualization, investigation;

Vladimirov V. V.: writing-reviewing and editing.

3.5.8. Reference (see example: [19])

All references should be listed alphabetically and numbered. Reference numbers in square brackets are indicated in the text. All references should be opened and included in the list of references. For more information on references, see the 7th edition APA Style website [3]

General reference form:

Journal Article

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of the article. Name of the Periodical, volume(issue), #–#. https://doi.org/xxxx

Book

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Copyright Year). Title of the book (7th ed.). Publisher. DOI or URL

Chapter in an Edited Book

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Copyright Year). Title of the book chapter. In A. A. Editor & B. B. Editor (Eds.), Title of the book (2nd ed., pp. #–#). Publisher. DOI or URL

Reference examples, see the 7th edition APA Style [2].

• Journal Article

Lachner, A., Backfisch, I., Hoogerheide, V., van Gog, T., & Renkl, A. (2020). Timing matters! Explaining between study phases enhances students’ learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 112(4), 841–853. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000396

• Online Magazine Article

Gander, K. (2020, April 29). COVID-19 vaccine being developed in Australia raises antibodies to neutralize virus in pre-clinical tests. Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/australia-covid-19-vaccine-neutralize-virus-1500849

• Print Magazine Article

Nicholl, K. (2020, May). A royal spark. Vanity Fair, 62(5), 56–65, 100.

• Online Newspaper Article

Roberts, S. (2020, April 9). Early string ties us to Neanderthals. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/science/neanderthals-fiber-string-math.html

• Print Newspaper Article

Reynolds, G. (2019, April 9). Different strokes for athletic hearts. The New York Times, D4.

• Authored Book

Kaufman, K. A., Glass, C. R., & Pineau, T. R. (2018). Mindful sport performance enhancement: Mental training for athletes and coaches. American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000048-000

• Edited Book Chapter

Zeleke, W. A., Hughes, T. L., & Drozda, N. (2020). Home–school collaboration to promote mind–body health. In C. Maykel & M. A. Bray (Eds.), Promoting mind–body health in schools: Interventions for mental health professionals (pp. 11–26). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000157-002

• Online Dictionary Entry

American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Internet addiction. In APA dictionary of psychology. Retrieved April 24, 2020, from https://dictionary.apa.org/internet-addiction

• Dissertation From a Database

Horvath-Plyman, M. (2018). Social media and the college student journey: An examination of how social media use impacts social capital and affects college choice, access, and transition (Publication No.10937367) [Doctoral dissertation, New York University]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.

• Data Set

O’Donohue, W. (2017). Content analysis of undergraduate psychology textbooks (ICPSR 21600; Version V1) [Data set]. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR36966.v1

4. Article types and length

The general principle of the NaSoM is not to limit authors by the length of their article. We welcome articles that clearly and in detail set out all the necessary stages of the study. The format of the electronic journal allows authors to present scientific results in a diverse and complete manner.

The NaSoM has the following Article Type: Editor’s Material, Reviews, Empirical Articles, Brief Reports, Case Studies, Book Reviews, Comments, Meeting Abstracts, and Learning from the Past.

The NaSoM recommends authors to carefully select the appropriate article type for their manuscript and to comply with the article type. Please pay close attention to the word count limits. Please indicate the number of words and the number of figures and tables included in your manuscript in the Cover Letter.

4.1. Review

These papers are typically in the 5000–10000-word range and provide a critical analysis of important topics related to the journal. Longer papers can be submitted and will be considered at the discretion of the editors; in your Cover letter, please justify why you are requesting greater than 10000 words.

The essence of the review is a detailed study and systems analysis of a huge mass of literature (approximately 100 original research articles). These Articles should provide a comprehensive summary of research on a chosen topic, and describe perspectives on the research in the given field.

The most common types of reviews are:

• A theoretical/methodological review presents the newest theories or substantiation of new research methods.
• A qualitative review summarizes the results of relevant studies without using statistics.
• A quantitative review uses statistical methods to combine the results of two or more studies.
• A meta-analysis review uses statistical methods to integrate estimates of effects from relevant studies that are independent but similar and summarizes them.

The structure of the review article includes following mandatory sections: a Title, Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and References.

4.1.1. The Introduction briefly outlines the topic and explains why the review was undertaken. The main element of the Introduction is the formulation of a research issue/problem.

4.1.2. The Method section is the most crucial part of a review article which should present clearly and logically the search strategy, namely, it following components: keyword combinations and terms employed in the search, databases (PubMed, Scopus, and et. al), inclusion and exclusion criteria, the ways of identification of studies, study selection, data extraction, quality assessment, and data analysis.

4.1.3. The description of the results obtained and their systems analysis are respectively placed in the Results section.

4.1.4. Interpretation of the results obtained, description of the gaps or limitations of the works, and putting forward new hypotheses and goals for future research projects are presented in the Discussion section.

It should be emphasized that a good review begins with a protocol that defines the study design, objectives, and expected outcomes. We recommend you to familiarize with the PRISMA Statement that consists of a 27-item checklist [17] and a flow diagram [18]. These tools help you to develop a review protocol and understand what to include when writing the review.

4.2. Empirical article

Single study research articles should not exceed 5000 words. Research articles reporting multiple (two or more) studies should not exceed 10000 words in total. The structure of the Empirical article includes the following mandatory sections: Title, Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and References (see 3.1-3.5).

4.3. Book review

Book review (up to 2500 words) should contain a critical analysis in which both the merits and shortcoming of the book must be noted. Mandatory sections of the book review:

• general information (author’s name, title of the book, information about the author, main theme of the book, and the book author’s purpose).
• brief description of the book contents;
• critical analysis of the book;
• perspectives of the reviewed book.

The editors request the authors to submit a copy of the reviewed monograph along with the review. A book review should be sent to the editor no later than one year after the book publication. Book reviewers are invited predominantly by the editorial board.

4.4. Case study

Case study highlights unique cases: unexpected facts, unusual diagnoses, and treatment outcomes, extraordinary clinical course, and etc. Case study has a maximum word count of 3000 and may contain no more than four figures, tables, or videos.

Case study should have the following format (see [1]):

• abstract;
• introduction (explanation what is unique about the case);
• case description;
• a figure or table with relevant data from the episode;
• diagnostic assessment;
• discussion (strengths and limitations of the approach to the case, discussion of the relevant literature (similar and contrasting to the cases), conclusions from the case);

4.5. Brief Report

Brief Report is an original study in a more succinct way, and with fewer details, than Original Research article. The NaSoM encourages Brief Reports of negative results and the non-reproducibility of previously published results. These articles should not exceed a total of 2500 words (including tables, figures, and references). Additional tables or figures can be included in Supplementary Material. Brief Research Report article has the following format:

• abstract;
• introduction;
• method;
• results;
• discussion;
• supplementary material.

4.4. Comments

Comments provide critical discussion on a previous publication in the NaSoM Natural Systems of Mind. Author should provide the complete citation of the article being commented on. Comments are peer-reviewed, have a maximum word count of 1000 words. They must not contain unpublished or original data.  Comments articles should have the following format:

• title: “Comments: Title of the original article”;
• introduction;
• subsections relevant for the topic;

4.7. Meeting Abstract

Meeting abstract (up to) informs Readers about scientific congresses, conferences, and symposiums. It must contain no more than 3000 words and must be received by the editors of Natural Systems of Mind no later than one month after holding the event.

4.8. Learning from the Past

The “Learning from the past” presents the articles of Russian scholars that are inaccessible to English-speaking readers. The articles are not only of historical interest. The development of science is like a spiral, and the modern researcher can often learn a lot from the scientists of the past. Articles are selected by the editorial board, at the same time we will be grateful for the recommendations of materials in this section and responses to published materials.

5. Ethical principles of scientific publications

5.1. Basic ethical principles

5.1.1. The NaSoM strives to follow the principles of the Association of Scientific Editors and Publishers (ASEP), as well as the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and other international associations of editors and publishers, including the Russian Council on Ethics of Scientific Publications [11].

5.1.2. Ethical norms of the editorial board:

The editorial team of the NaSoM is guided by the principles of science, objectivity, professionalism, and impartiality.

5.1.3. Responsibility for compliance with ethical standards:

Researchers, authors, editors, reviewers, and publishers have an ethical obligation to publish and disseminate the results of scientific research.

5.1.4. Rules of communication with authors:

Interaction with authors is based on the principles of fairness, courtesy, objectivity, honesty and transparency.

5.1.5. Review institute:

All content of the journal, except for advertising and editorial materials, is subject to mandatory review by independent experts (double-blind peer review).

5.1.6. Access to publications:

The journal guarantees access to publications, ensuring the storage of materials in the leading libraries and repositories of scientific information in the country. All publications of the journal are freely available on the journal’s website.

5.1.7. Information openness:

The NaSoM website present provisions of publication ethics and peer review, clearly articulates the journal’s policy, rules for submitting manuscripts, instructions for authors and information on the availability of materials, indicates the ISSN, and the address of the publisher.

5.1.8. Information about paid services:

The NaSoM does not provide paid services.

5.1.9. Compliance with the ethical criteria of authorship:

(a) The author is only a person who was significantly involved in the writing of the manuscript, in the development of its concept, in scientific design, collection of material, analysis and interpretation;

(b) Obligatory is the consent of all authors to the publication. All co-authors must meet these criteria.

5.1.10. Coordination of the final text of the article with the author:

The publication of an article under the name of the author implies the emergence of copyright. The publication of a text not agreed with the author, as well as the inclusion of third parties as co-authors, is a violation of copyright.

5.1.11. Terms of decision-making by the editors:

Editorial decisions are made within a limited time frame and are set out in a clear and constructive form on the publication’s website in the instructions for authors.

5.1.12. Interaction with scientific and professional associations:

The editorial board of the NaSoM seek to interact with professional scientific associations and industry communities in order to ensure the high quality of the work of scientists.

5.1.13. Prevention and correction of violations of ethics:

The duty of scientific editors is to prevent situations when authors, reviewers or other entities involved in the production of scientific texts engage in unethical behavior, as well as to ensure the removal of unscrupulous publications from the scientific space, to cooperate with the ethics council and scientific associations.

5.1.14. Conflict of interests:

The editors encourage authors to disclose relationships with industrial and financial organizations that could lead to a conflict of interest. All sources of funding must be indicated by the authors in the Title page of the article.

5.2. Signs of unethical behavior

The NaSom recognizes the following as unethical behavior in the field of scientific publications:

5.2.1. The requirement for authors to independently provide reviews of their own articles, as well as contractual and pseudo-reviewing.

5.2.2. Proposal of agency services: “turnkey publication”, correspondence with the editors on behalf of the author, revision of articles by the agent on the recommendations of the reviewer, preparation of paid reviews.

5.2.3. Sale of co-authorship, gift co-authorship, change of composition of authors.

5.2.4. Transfer of texts of articles to other journals without the consent of the authors.

5.2.5. Transfer of materials of authors to third parties.

5.2.6. Artificial increase in scientometric indices, excessive self-citation and friendly citation, irrelevant links.

5.2.7. Plagiarism, falsification and fabrication.

6. Conclusion

The modern scientific world implies great dynamism in various forms of scientific communication. The rules presented are not permanently defined. The NaSoM believes that its mission is not only to follow already established traditions, but also to be ahead of the curve. In some norms (for example, related to the conclusions of ethical committees), we are ignoring some controversial standards. The main goal of NaSoM is to develop SCIENCE. On this difficult path, we hope for the support of our authors, reviewers, members of the editorial board, and, certainly, readers. We will gratefully accept your comments and ideas on the NaSoM development by e-mail: nsom@ipran.ru

[*] https://natural-systems-of-mind.com/registration/

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