ISSN 1692-3561
printed version

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

• Scope and policy
• Form and preparation of manuscripts
• Sending of manuscripts

GENERAL INFORMATION

The Biotechnology in the Agricultural and Agro industrial Sector journal is a biannual publication, refereed, belonging to the Faculty of Agrarian Sciences of the University of Cauca, which accepts original and unpublished works of research in the field of science, engineering and technologies that have an impact on the regional, national and international agrarian sector in subjects such as Food and non-food Agroindustry, Agricultural and Livestock Sciences, Forestry, Energy and Environment, Applied Computation, Biotechnology, Equipment and Processes, Industrial Administration, in Spanish language (suggested language for greater visibility and impact factor), English and Portuguese.

EDITORIAL POLICIES

Formal Commitment. With the submission of the postulated manuscript for evaluation and publication, the author (s) accept all of the conditions stipulated in the standards.

Ethical commitment. Authors must establish, in writing, an ethical commitment as to the originality of the postulated manuscript: "The undersigned author (s) declares that the manuscript presents original results of an investigation, which have not been published or are being considered for publication in another journal, in addition to international ethical standards of intellectual property and authorship. The letter must include the personal data of each of the author(s): nationality, schooling, institutional email, telephones for their location or postal address and institutional affiliation, or in their absence, the Web address where they can be consulted.

Copyright. With the submission of the works, the authors grant "Copyrights" to the journal, so the works cannot have rights granted to third parties, at the date of sending. The granting of Copyright means the authorization for the journal to make use of the manuscript, or part of it, for the purpose of disclosure and dissemination of the scientific-technological activity. In no case, will these rights affect the intellectual property that is the property of the authors.

TYPES OF ARTICLES

Articles of scientific research. A document presenting in detail the original results of completed investigations and is constituted by: 1. INTRODUCTION, 2. METHOD, 3. RESULTS, 4. CONCLUSIONS and 5. REFERENCES. Acknowledgments are optional and are included after the conclusions.

Case report article. A document presenting the results of a study on a particular situation in order to make known the technical and methodological experiences considered in a specific case. It includes an annotated systematic review of the literature on analogous cases and is constituted by: 1. INTRODUCTION, 2. METHOD, 3. RESULTS, 4. CONCLUSIONS, and 5. REFERENCES. Acknowledgments are optional and are included after the conclusions.

Articles of reflection. A document presenting research results on a specific topic from an analytical, interpretive and critical perspective of the author (s) based on original sources (at least 30 references). The structure is: 1. SUMMARY, 2. INTRODUCTION, 3. DEVELOPMENT OF THE THEME, 4. CONCLUSIONS and 5. REFERENCES.

Review article. Document resulting from an analytical and critical review of literature (at least 50 references) on a field in science or technology in which the results of published research are analyzed, systematized and integrated to show scientific advances and development trends, plus contributions of the proposers. It is composed of: 1. SUMMARY, 2. INTRODUCTION, 3. DEVELOPMENT OF THE THEME, 4. CONCLUSIONS and 5. REFERENCES.

Letters to the editor. They are short communications, with critical, analytical or interpretative positions on the manuscripts previously published in the journal, topics or matters of professional interest to the readers, which in the opinion of the Editorial Committee constitute an important contribution to the discussion of the subject by the community scientific reference.

Editorial. Document written by the editor, a member of the editorial committee or a guest researcher on orientations in the journal's thematic domain, contributions to researchers in the presentation and structure of their articles, reflections on the presentation of written documents, their normativity, its importance and others.

Important Considerations

Any text sent to BIOTECHNOLOGY IN THE AGRICULTURAL AND AGROINDUSTRIAL SECTOR must fulfill with the following standards:

• Originality: the contribution must be totally unpublished, not published in any other medium.
• Methodological consistency: where the use of valid research methods and techniques becomes evident.
• Significance of the matter to report or illustrious relevant situation in the Agricultural and Agro industrial sector.
• Impact on a wide range of academia, research and students.
• Advancement of the field: in which the contribution to considerations and improvement practices in the field of Agricultural and Agro industrial research is clear and evident.
• Ethical considerations.
• Clear, concise and orderly wording style, avoiding personal jargon and local expressions.

Parts of the manuscript

The INTRODUCTION should emphasize the importance of research, present the related literature and provide necessary background to understand the hypothesis of the authors, ending with a paragraph that clearly indicates the objectives of the research.

The METHOD must have sufficient information to allow another researcher to replicate the test and achieve the same results, as well as the inclusion of the experimental design, statistical analysis and references of the already published methods.

RESULTS should be presented clearly, supported by tables and figures, statistical analysis and the scope of other researchers that feed the discussion.

The CONCLUSIONS are described in a clear and precise way, derived from the analysis of the results and based on the objectives set.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS are included if the author (s) desires, written in a rational form and that does not exceed 4 lines.

The REFERENCES must contain all documents consulted.

General format. The maximum length is 12 pages, letter size (21.59 cm wide and 27.94 cm high) with single spacing and double column content (7.5 cm column width) from the INTRODUCTION, Written in straight Arial (except scientific names in italics) of 11 points, margins of 3 cm at the top edge, 2 cm at the bottom and 2.5 cm at the side margins. Decimal numbers are separated by commas and scientific names are written in italics. When acronyms are used, the full meaning must be indicated the first time, then the acronym may be used as such.

Title of the manuscript. Must be in all three languages and refer to the content in a clear and concise, written in Arial straight 11 points (except scientific names), capital letter, bold and centered and should not exceed 15 words: if this is not possible, include a subtitle after two points.

Author Information (s). The authors are named according to the importance and contribution in the investigation or preparation of the manuscript, separated by commas and listed with a superscript. After the titles, two interlining, centered, uppercase and without bold, include first and second name if you have, first and second last name separated by a half dash. In the footnote (Arial 8 points, at the bottom of the first page and justified) the filiation of each author will be indicated in the end the word Correspondence (in bold) and two points, in which the institutional email of the author must appear chosen to send correspondence.

Example:
¹ University of Cauca, Faculty of Agrarian Sciences, Research Group Science and Technology of Biomolecules of Agro industrial Interest (CYTBIA). Maximum professional title achieved. City Country.
Correspondence: gfvssp@unicauca.edu.co

Summary. The word SUMMARY must be justified on the left margin, in uppercase and bold, starting writing after two interlining in a single justified paragraph without exceeding 200 words and will include introduction, justification, objectives, methodology, results and conclusions of the research with emphasis on the achievements. Must be concise, written in Spanish, English (ABSTRACT) and Portuguese (ABSTRACT).

Keywords. They are located after each summary. The title in capital letters, bold, in Spanish (PALABRAS CLAVE), English (KEYWORDS) and Portuguese (PALAVRAS-CHAVE) followed by two points. It is allowed, minimum three (3) and maximum five (5) keywords that are not part of the title, with the first letter in capital letters, separated by commas and dot at the end.

Example:
KEY WORDS: Rheology, Post-harvest, Ripening, Bactris gasipaes.

Pictures and figures. A maximum of 6 figures and / or tables are accepted and must appear within the text and processed in the original format, with good contrast and resolution (minimum quality of 300 dpi) to avoid polychromy and facilitate layout. The title goes at the top and should not exceed two lines, in Arial normal straight 9, separated by an interline and with end point; Should include the word Table or Figure followed by the consecutive Arabic number (bold), a point and a brief description (Example: Table 1. Descriptive title). Horizontal and vertical lines must be used to separate the entries from the table and each column must have a header (bold, initial capital). The font size inside a box is Arial 9 normal points and, in the case of needing a table / figure foot or query source, it must be written in Arial 8 normal points.

Titles (in Arial straight 11 points). The first level (main parts of the manuscript) with a sharp and bold capital letter; The second level with initial capital letters, bold and without final point, separated from the text by two lines. The third level with initial capital, bold and a point followed, continuing the text in the same line after a space.

Example:
METHOD
Materials
Vegetal material. The plant material used .............

Mathematical expressions. They should be written leaving two spaces above, below and between each of them and should use the MS Word equation editor. They must follow a uniform format, justify to the left margin and use the expression (Ec.1) with consecutive Arabic numerals justified to the right margin (for ease, insert them in a two-column table, without borders), quoting them in the indicated place. The meaning of the variables and their respective units must appear after they are first used, using the International System of Units (SI).

References. They must be at least 20 and minimum 70% of them must be recent (of the last three years) and correspond to articles of scientific research (at least 60% of the total) mainstream that can support the writing, minimizing the use of gray literature (thesis, local and low-level reports, and congress papers, unless necessary). Within the manuscript should be indicated in the order of appearance and enclosed in brackets [1,2], notation to be kept in the REFERENCES section. A maximum of 15% of self-citation will be allowed and most of the citations are expected to come from the English language. If the reference has 4 or more authors, use et al.

For references, these criteria must be followed:

Scientific article:
SMITH, J.S., SORIA-WHITE, R. and WEBBER, A. Chaos in a model offorced quasi-geostrophic flow over topography: an application of Melinkov's method. Food Control, 2 (3), 1991, p. 511-547, DOI (if any).

Book:
BILLAS, G.L. And GOSPS, J. Quantum physics. 4 ed. Madrid (Spain): Acribia, 1990, 450 p.

Chapter of the book:
LEWIS, P. and STEVENS, J.G. In: Time Series Prediction. Modeling time series by using Multivariate Adaptive Regression Spiines (MARS). 1 ed. Madrid (Spain): Iberoamericana, 1994, p. 297-318.

Event memory:
ÁLZATE, N., BOTERO, T. and CORREA, D. The art of writing articles. Memories XIX Latin American Congress of Scientific Papers. Córdoba (Argentina): Argentine Institute of Research, Volume II, 2000, p. 219-228.

Technical Standards:
AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR TESTING AND MATERIALS (AOAC). ASTM D1434-82: Standard test method for determining gas permeability characteristics of plastic film and sheeting. Pennsylvania (USA): 2009, 13 p.

Report of an agency or government:
COLOMBIA. MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT. The situation of food supply in a modern world. Bogotá (Colombia): 1997, 57 p.

Thesis:
JACOBS J. Regulation of life history strategies within individuals in predictable and unpredictable environments [Ph.D. Thesis Social Communication]. Seattle (United States): University of Washington, Faculty of Humanities, 1996, 345 p.

Patents:
MOREIRA, G. and MATOS, T. Biodegradable packaging of yam starch. US 6,444,567, Classes 343, 356. Sao Paulo (Brazil): 2001.

Electronic Monographs:
MACIAS, J.C., SANTOS, J.M. And WILD, E. Handbook of Nanomaterials [online]. 1996. Available: http://nano.hb/handbook/kewat.com/ [citado April 4, 2004].

Other electronic references:
NOAA-CIRES. Climate Diagnostics Center. Advancing Understanding and Predictions of Climate Variability [online]. 2010. Available: http://www.cdc.noaa.gov [quoted August 8, 1998].

ASHWELL, M. ILSI Europe Concise Series. Concepts of functional foods [online]. 2002. Available: http://www.ilsi.org/Europe/Publications/C2002Con_Food.pdf. citado May 13, 2009.

GENERAL PROCESS

Submission of manuscripts. The full text of the works in Word format plus the cover letter and the information of the suggested evaluators (two national and two international pairs) should be sent by email (biotecnofaca@unicauca.edu.co or biotecnofaca2009@gmail.com) or through the Open Journal System (OJS) platform, after register as a user.

Evaluation process. The process begins with the review by the Editorial Committee that reserves the right to reject a manuscript (a final and unappeasable decision) that presents deficiencies in structure and writing and that does not comply with the thematic areas, norms of publication and relevant references or suggest modifications in order to achieve better quality. Accepted papers will be blindly evaluated by two (2) expert referees in the area of knowledge, who will issue a detailed concept on the pertinence and scientific and technological attractiveness, the rigorous treatment of the subject, the adjustment to the norms of the journal and its contribution to the development of science, engineering and technology. In no case will the simultaneous evaluation of more than two manuscripts by a proposing author be permitted.

If the concept of the two arbitrators coincides, the Chief-Editor accepts or rejects the manuscript. If it does not agree, the concept of a third referee is sought: if rejected, the manuscript and the referees' observations are sent to the authors to consider their publication in another medium. If the manuscript is accepted with minor or major modifications, it and the referees' observations are forwarded to the authors to forward a revised and corrected version of a maximum of 20 days, accompanied by a letter addressed to the Chief-Editor detailing the changes Based on the observations of the referees: it will be the Chief-Editor who decides on the acceptance of the corrected version. After 20 days, the editor will, at his discretion, treat the manuscript as expired, so it must be submitted again following the indicated process.