Author(s) should submit their manuscripts through the International Journal of Railway Research (IJRARE) submission system electronically. A signed copyright transfer agreement and originality statement, downloaded at ijrare.iust.ac.ir, are needed. All submission and further tracking of submitted papers should be done through ijrare.iust.ac.ir. Also all papers submitted will be checked with a powerful plagiarism detection software.
Scope
The International Journal of Railway Research (IJRARE) is an open access peer reviewed journal devoted to publish original papers of high technical standard with a suitable balance of practice and theory related to the broad topics in the field of railway engineering. All topics are treated with similar emphasis, such as:
- Rolling Stock
- Railway Track and Structures
- Railway Transportation
- Railway Electrification and Signaling
- Urban Railway Systems
Publication Fee
The author does not have to pay any charges for publication. All the publication charges are paid by Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST) and all the published articles are made open access free of charge.
Before Submitting
Download, fill up and sign following two forms (1-Statement of Originality and 2-Publication Agreement and Assignment of Copyright) and upload it as Prerequisite files. Click following link to access these forms.
Download Forms
Authors Contact Details
It is mandatory that corresponding author present her/his academic e-mail address. According to current Editorial policy, students cannot submit the articles and corresponding authors should be academic staff of a university and hold at least Ph.D. degree. If you are a student and wish to submit your article, please request your supervisor/professor to submit it as the corresponding author.
Referees
To finalize your submission, please suggest 3 reviewers along with their email address to facilitate the reviewing process.
Peer-Review Process
IJRARE operates a single blind review process. All submitted manuscripts will be initially assessed by the editor-in-chief for suitability for the journal. Papers deemed suitable are then typically sent to a minimum of two independent expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper. The Editor is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles.
Cover Letter
Cover letters are required for all submissions. They must include a statement of originality and confirmation that the paper has not been submitted to any other journals or conferences. Confirmation and any relevant details of permissions and any information regarding the funding of research should be clearly stated in the cover letter when submitting a paper to the IJRARE. Here you can see an example.
Preparation of Manuscripts
The prospective authors should prepare two files for each manuscript; one with full author's information (name, Email address, postal address, affiliation and biography) and the other without any author's information. Manuscripts should be typed two-columns, single-spaced; 12 point Times New Roman font and 2.5-cm margins in standard A4 paper (210mm by 297mm). The paper should be reasonably subdivided into sections and, if necessary, subsections. Manuscripts should not exceed 10 printed pages.
Language
IJRARE publications are in English language. As all the published papers are accessed internationally so it is required to prepare your paper in proper English language. If your native language is not English, please get a native English-speaking person to carefully proofread your paper. All the submissions with broken English will be rejected by the secretary without any review.
Abbreviations and Acronyms
Define abbreviations and acronyms the first time they are used in the text, even after they have already been defined in the abstract. Abbreviations such as IEEE, SI, ac, and dc do not have to be defined. Abbreviations that incorporate periods should not have spaces: write “C.N.R.S.,” not “C. N. R. S.” Do not use abbreviations in the title unless they are unavoidable.
Equations
If you are using Microsoft Word, use either the Microsoft Equation Editor or the MathType for equations in your paper.
Number equations consecutively with equation numbers in parentheses flush with the right margin, as in Eq. (1).
The detailed sizes of equations are Full: 10pt, Subscript/Superscript: 5pt, Sub- Subscript/Superscript: 4pt, Symbol: 13pt and Sub-Symbol: 10pt and equations are non-italic and non-bold.
Be sure that the symbols in your equations have been defined before the equation appears or immediately after it. When you refer to equations in the text, refer to it as: "Eq. (1)" or "Equation (1)" except at the beginning of a sentence: "Equation (1) is used...."
Units
Use either SI (MKS) or CGS as primary units. (SI units are strongly encouraged.) Avoid combining SI and CGS units, such as current in amperes and magnetic field in oersteds. This often leads to confusion because equations do not balance dimensionally. If you must use mixed units, clearly state the units for each quantity in an equation.
The SI unit for magnetic field strength H is A/m. However, if you wish to use units of T, either refer to magnetic flux density B or magnetic field strength symbolized as µ0H. Use the center dot to separate compound units, e.g., “A·m2.”
Structure Guidelines
All the submitted manuscripts should include: Title, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion, Conclusion, Appendix, Acknowledgements, References and Biographies.
Title
Good titles have three strong parts: keywords, emphasis, and impact. The title is a critical element of a paper. Even your manuscript is perfectly written, a weak title can affect reviewers’ and editors’ viewpoint.
Abstract
The abstract is a brief (150-200 words) synopsis of your full paper. No citations or cross-references should be used there. It is used to provide a quick outline of your research, giving the reader an overview of paper. This is an important aspect of your paper, as this description can pursue the reader to continue and read your full paper. In particular, the main contributions of the paper should be explicitly mentioned in the abstract. An interesting abstract is made up of following sections:
- Aim and scope
- Method
- Results
- Conclusions
Keywords
Keywords should be so chosen that they best describe the contents of the paper. List 4 to 6 keywords in alphabetical order, separated by commas, such as: Digital Redesign, Optimal Control, Robotics.
Introduction
In this section, authors should provide a short text highlighting the subject of paper and present sufficient literature survey, avoiding a detailed comprehensive literature survey and summary of the results.
Highlights
Highlights are mandatory for this journal. They consist of a short collection of bullet points that convey the core findings of the paper and may be submitted in a separate file in the online submission system or mentioned in the main paper. Please use “Highlights” in the file comment and include 3 to 5 bullet points. These serve two key purposes:
- Providing an opportunity to authors to highlight the impact of their research;
- Helping to inform readers that a paper is of interest or relevance to them.
Materials and Methods
In the Material and Method, all achievements performed throughout the work should be presented along with all modeling and equations used such that the reader can follow the work done easily. Try to refer to all the literature used in your work.
Results and Discussion
Results must be explicit and answer the main research question along with the importance of the presented work. Don’t repeat results in the discussion but highlight your contributions here.
Illustrations
Figure captions should be below the figures; table captions should be above the tables. Try to place the figures and tables after their first citation in the text. If your figure has two parts, include the labels “(a)” and “(b)” as part of the artwork. Please verify that the figures and tables you mention in the text actually exist. Please do not include captions as part of the figures. Do not put captions in “text boxes” linked to the figures. Do not draw borders outside the figures. Do not use the abbreviation (e.g., “Fig. 1”) at the beginning of a sentence. Do not abbreviate “Table.”
All half-tone illustrations (pictures/photographs) should be clear black and white prints. Do not use photocopies. Figure axis labels are often a source of confusion. Use words rather than symbols. As an example, write the quantity “Magnetization,” or “Magnetization M,” not just “M.” Put units in parentheses. Do not label axes only with units. As in Fig. 1, for example, write “Magnetization (A/m)” or “Magnetization (A x m-1),” not just “A/m.” Do not label axes with a ratio of quantities and units. For example, write “Temperature (K),” not “Temperature/K.”
Multipliers can be especially confusing. Write “Magnetization (kA/m)” or “Magnetization (103 A/m).” Do not write “Magnetization (A/m) 1000” because the reader would not know whether the top axis label in Fig. 1 meant 16000 A/m or 0.016 A/m.
 Figure 1 Magnetization as a function of applied field.
Finally, note that your illustrations should be clear in printed (grayscale) version and have appropriate resolution for publishing.
Conclusion
Finally “say what you said”, i.e. express your achievements and major contributions and what you did not considered and kept for others to work on.
Appendix
Appendices, if needed, appear before the acknowledgment.
References
List and number all references at the end of the paper. Multiple references are each numbered with separate brackets. When referring to them in the text, type the corresponding reference number in square brackets as shown at the end of this sentence. Number the citations consecutively. The sentence punctuation follows the brackets. Do not use "Ref. [3]" or "reference [3]" except at the beginning of a sentence. Capitalize only the first word in paper title, except for proper nouns and element symbols.
An average research paper should reference at least 20 works, the bulk of which should be recently published (i.e. within the last 5 years) leading-edge articles in the field, preferably from books, top journals or conferences. Authors should compare their own findings to these recent researches and demonstrate how their work improves on them in order to demonstrate that their work shows a significant advance over the state of the art a pre-requisite for publication in IJRARE
Examples of the ways in which references should be cited are given below:
- Website:
- Books:
- [2] A. B. Smith, C. Jones, D. James, and E. Harrison-Abbott, The title of the book. New York, NY, USA: XYZ Press, 2018.
- Journal Paper:
- [3] A. B. Smith and C. James, “The title of the paper,” International Journal of Railway Research, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 1418–1425, Aug. 2018.
- [4] C. Jones and D. James, “The title of the paper,” International Journal of Railway Research, to be published.
- Conference Paper:
- [5] D. James and E. Harrison-Abbott, “The title of the paper,” in Proc. 17th XYZ Conf. (XYZC), Tehran, Iran, 2018.
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