Dental Hypotheses

Focus and Scope

Aims

Dental Hypotheses is to provide a forum for the presentation and criticism of original, innovative and thought provocative ideas in dentistry and the related sciences.

 

Dental Hypotheses will publish new, challenging and radical ideas, so long as they are coherent and clearly expressed. Most dental journals will publish ideas only in papers which also report observations. As the best scientists have repeatedly emphasized, this gives a misleading impression of the process of discovery. Dental Hypotheses can therefore form a bridge between cutting-edge theory and the mainstream of dental scientific communication, which ideas must eventually enter if they are to be critiqued and tested against observations. This also means that we encourage authors to take responsibility for their ideas.

 

List of topics included in the scope of the journal

Oral tissue engineering, nano-dentistry , biodontics, biomimetics, dental biomaterials, dental equipment, restorative dentistry, periodontology, endodontology, operative dentistry, prosthodontics, paediatric dentistry, orthodontics, implantology, cosmetic dentistry, oral and maxillofacial surgery, oral-general health relationships, evidence-based dentistry, dental economics, cariology, craniofacial genetics, community dental health  and dental education.

Section Policies

Editorial

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Original Hypothesis

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Systematic Review

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Special Communication

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Clinical Innovation

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Perspective

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Commentary

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Case Study

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Letter to the Editor

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Peer Review Process

Review Procedures

All manuscripts are submitted to an initial review by the Editor or Associate Editors. Manuscripts which are not of interest to the readership of Dental Hypotheses will be rejected without review. Manuscripts presenting an innovative hypothesis are favored to move forward to peer-review. All manuscripts accepted for peer review will be forwarded to at least 2 reviewers for peer review.  Reviewers are asked to declare any competing interests. The comments from the reviewers and the editor are returned to the author.

Blinded Review Policy

All manuscripts submitted to the Dental Hypotheses will be reviewed by two experts in the field. Dental Hypotheses follows a double-blinded review policy. The names of the reviewers will not be disclosed to the author. Furthermore, reviewers will be blinded to authors name and their affiliations.

Suggest a Reviewer

Dental Hypotheses attempts to keep the review process as short as possible to enable rapid publication of new scientific ideas. In order to facilitate this process, please suggest the names and current email addresses of 2 potential international reviewers whom you consider capable of reviewing your manuscript.

Criteria of recommended reviewers:

• Recommended reviewers must not have past or present works in common with any of the authors in your manuscript.
• They must not be selected from within your department or faculty.
• They should have the necessary background and qualifications to review and comment on your manuscript.

All reviewers should complete the ICMJE Uniform Disclosure Form for Potential Conflicts of Interest.

Appeal of Decision

The decision on a paper is not final and can be appealed.

Publication Frequency

Dental Hypotheses publishes accepted papers online immediately after completion of peer-review and editorial processes. Papers will subsequently be collated as semi-annually editions for indexing and citation purposes.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Archiving

This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. More...

Protection of Human Subjects and Animals

When suggesting a protocol for test of hypothesis on human subjects or animals, authors should indicate whether their protocol is in accordance with the ethical standards expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki.

For protocols involving animals, all work must have been conducted according to relevant national and international guidelines. Prior approval must have been obtained for all protocols from the author's institutional or other relevant ethics committee and the institution name and permit numbers provided at submission (see example below). For research involving non-human primates, all studies must be performed in accordance with the recommendations of the Weatherall report, "The use of non-human primates in research". Where unregulated animals are used or ethics approval is not required by a specific committee, the article should include a clear statement of this and the reasons why ethical approval is not required.

We also strongly encourage all authors to comply with the "Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments" (ARRIVE) guidelines, developed by NC3Rs to improve standards of reporting to ensure that the data from animal experiments can be fully scrutinised and utilised. Relevant information should be included in the appropriate section of the article (e.g. title, abstract, or method) as outlined in the guidelines. Please note that these guidelines can be applied to any area of bioscience research using laboratory animals.

Conflict of Interest Policy

Dental hypotheses endeavors to publish articles that are as free of bias as possible. In order to accomplish this we ask all potential contributors, reviewers and editors to divulge all potential conflicts of interest. Anyone who is requested to comments on prospective submissions to Dental Hypotheses must declare their competing interests when they agree to review submitted material. The editors reserve the right to relive a prospective referee if the reviewer's competing interest is judged to act as an impediment to an impartial review. Prospective reviewers are encouraged to recuse themselves if potential conflicts of interest act as an impediment to impartial review. The editors of Dental hypotheses may decline submissions where competing interests significantly challenge the objectivity of the manuscript.

 

Competing interest may include but is not limited to the following:

Financial

1)      Financial interest such as stock ownership, employment, board membership or consultancy in a company or organization promoting a product or therapeutic approach.

2)      Intellectual property ownership or other interest.

3)      Grants from public and private sources pertaining to the published work should be disclosed and acknowledged.

Non-financial

1)      Acting as an expert witness

2)      Membership in a government or other advisory board

3)      Relationship (paid or unpaid) with organisations and funding bodies including nongovernmental organisations, research institutions, or charities

4)      Membership in lobbying or advocacy organisations

5)      Writing or consulting for an educational company

Personal

1)       Personal relationships (i.e., friend, spouse, family member, current or previous mentor, adversary) with individuals involved in the submission or evaluation of a paper, such as authors, reviewers, editors, or members of the editorial board of a Dental Hypotheses

2)       Personal convictions (political, religious, ideological, or other) related to a paper's topic that may interfere with an unbiased publication process (at the stage of authorship, peer review, editorial decision making, or publication)

All authors and reviewers should complete the ICMJE Uniform Disclosure Form for Potential

Publication of Articles Sponsored by Dental Material and Pharmaceutical Companies

We support the development of guidelines for the reporting of studies sponsored by pharmaceutical companies.

Studies Funded by Tobacco Industry

We do not consider for publication papers where any of the research costs or authors' salaries have been funded, in whole or in part, by a tobacco company.

Ghost and Guest Authorship Policy

Dental Hypotheses bases its criteria for authorship on those outlined in the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals,which are summarized below. The contributions of all authors must be described. Contributions that fall short of authorship should be mentioned in the acknowledgements.

Ghost authorship occurs when someone makes a significant contribution to a manuscript without due acknowledgement of their role.

Guest authorship occurs when an individual is named as an author of a manuscript when they do not meet authorship criteria.

Dental Hypotheses considers that both ghost and guest authorship are breaches of publication ethics, and believes they violate readers' trust in scientific reporting and can potentially bias medical literature. The Journal's editors and readers need to be confident that authors listed have undertaken the work and that the written manuscript reflects their work; public confidence and scientific integrity depend on this.

The involvement of any professional medical writer in publication must be declared. We encourage authors to consult the European Medical Writers' Association Guidelines on the role of medical writers.