About Nonlinear Biomedical Physics

What is Nonlinear Biomedical Physics?

Nonlinear Biomedical Physics publishes multidisciplinary articles at the crossroads of new nonlinear methods from physics, engineering, and chemistry applied to the life sciences and medical science and practice.

Nonlinear Biomedical Physics is an open access, online journal that publishes high-quality articles about nonlinear systems and processes in biology and medicine. Nonlinear, fast and reliable methods for analyzing noisy and non-stationary signals and images are needed in innovative medical systems for a proper analysis and interpretation of vast amounts of data to support accurate prediction of the onset and progression of major diseases, their diagnosis, treatment and prognosis.

The field of nonlinear biomedical physics is multidisciplinary and dynamic. The Editors of Nonlinear Biomedical Physics are committed to publishing articles of outstanding scientific quality that merit the attention and interest of the journal's broad readership, both medical doctors and biologists, as well as physicists and engineers.

Journal articles cover, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• better understanding of the physiological origin of complex nonlinear dynamics of living systems
• calculation of quantitative measures of complex spatial and temporal behaviour and classification of different physiological and pathological states through nonlinear analysis of biosignals (EEG, EMG, HRV)
• studies of the feasibility of applying complexity measures as diagnostic tools in Medicine, to characterize changes induced by pathologies, administered drugs, photo-therapy, anaesthesia, etc. by comparing experimentally observed behaviour with mathematical models' predictions and computer simulations
• collective phenomena, self-organized ordering and synchronisation in biological systems
• bioelectromagnetic phenomena and biomedical devices such as biosensors and pacemakers
• nonlinear, non-Newtonian fluids in the body - respiration, blood circulation, CSF, lymph

Nonlinear methods of contemporary physics are in general much more appropriate to model and analyse living systems than the classical linear methods that have traditionally been used in medicine and biology. New nonlinear techniques developed by physicists for the analysis of spatial and temporal behaviour of complex systems may and should be used by medical doctors and biologists in the study of biomedical data. Nonlinear Biomedical Physics aims to allow both groups to meet and develop new methods and applications.

Content overview

Nonlinear Biomedical Physics considers the following types of articles:

• Research: reports of data from original research.
• Reviews: comprehensive, authoritative, descriptions of any subject within the scope of the journal.
• Book reviews: short summaries of the strengths and weaknesses of a book. They should evaluate its overall usefulness to the intended audience and are usually about 400 words.
• Commentaries: short, focused and opinionated articles on any subject within the scope of the journal. These articles are usually related to a contemporary issue.
• Debate articles: present an argument that is not essentially based on practical research. Debate articles can report on all aspects of the subject including sociological and ethical aspects.
• Hypotheses: short articles presenting an untested original hypothesis backed solely by previously published results rather than any new evidence.
• Meeting reports: a short description of a conference that the author has attended. It is usually best for the article to be published as soon after the meeting as possible, and should focus on the key developments presented and discussed at the meeting. These articles are usually commissioned but reports and suggestions may also be submitted for the editors' consideration.
• Methodology articles: present a new experimental method, test or procedure. The method described may either be completely new, or may offer a better version of an existing method.

Peer review policies

All manuscripts submitted to Nonlinear Biomedical Physics will be screened to ensure they fall within the journal's scope and are linguistically correct. Appropriate manuscripts will be sent to at least two highly qualified referees for review. Referees are asked to return their reports within three weeks so authors can expect a fast turnaround time for the initial decision (to accept, request revisions, or reject). Authors are allowed a maximum of two revisions.

Edited by Zbigniew Czernicki, Wlodzimierz Klonowski and Larry Liebovitch, Nonlinear Biomedical Physics is supported by an expert Editorial Board.

Publishing in Nonlinear Biomedical Physics

All articles are listed in PubMed immediately upon acceptance (after peer review), and are covered by PubMed Central, CAS and Scopus.

Articles in Nonlinear Biomedical Physics should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. However, because articles in this journal are not printed, they do not have page numbers. Instead, they have a unique article number.

The following citation:

Nonlinear Biomed Phys 2004, 2:1

refers to article 1 from volume 2 of the journal.

As an online journal, Nonlinear Biomedical Physics does not have issue numbers. Each volume corresponds to a calendar year.

To keep up to date with the latest articles from Nonlinear Biomedical Physics, why not register to receive alerts? Registration also enables you to customise your subject areas of interest, store your searches, and submit your manuscripts.

Submission of manuscripts

Manuscripts should be submitted electronically to Nonlinear Biomedical Physics using the online submission system. Full details of how to submit a manuscript are given in the instructions for authors.

General journal policies

Nonlinear Biomedical Physics is published by BioMed Central, part of Springer Science+Business Media. BioMed Central is committed to ensuring peer-reviewed biomedical research is open access. That means it is freely and universally accessible online, it is archived in at least one internationally recognised free access repository, and its authors retain copyright, allowing anyone to reproduce or disseminate articles, according to the BioMed Central copyright and licence agreement. Nonlinear Biomedical Physics however, has taken this further by making all its content open access.

Nonlinear Biomedical Physics's articles are archived in PubMed Central, the US National Library of Medicine's full-text repository of life science literature, and also at INIST in France and in e-Depot, the National Library of the Netherlands' digital archive of all electronic publications. The journal is also participating in the British Library's e-journals pilot project, and plans to deposit copies of all articles with the British Library.

Nonlinear Biomedical Physics is able to deliver summaries of frequently updated content via Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds. These are accessible via the orange "XML" button at the top of the list of recent articles or the list of most accessed articles. For more information about RSS feeds see our publisher's website.

For further information about general policies please see the instructions for authors.