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Aims and Scope

Engineering in Agriculture, Environment and Food (EAEF) is an international Open Access journal devoted to the advancement of agricultural, environmental, and food engineering. EAEF disseminates peer-reviewed high-quality and globally- relevant articles in areas across agricultural and biological engineering, including farming methods and machinery, digital and information technology, post-harvest issues, agricultural structures, and the environment. More specifically, topics include: tillage techniques, terramechanics, precision farming, agricultural instrumentation, sensors, bio-robotics, systems automation, processing of agricultural products and foods, quality evaluation and food safety, waste treatment and management, environmental control, energy utilization agricultural systems engineering, bio-informatics, computer simulation, computational mechanics, farm work systems and mechanized cropping.

The journal is supported and published by the Asian Agricultural and Biological Engineering Association (AABEA) under the auspices of three national societies. It is published online 4 times per year to a large global audience of researchers, practitioners and policy makers.

Manuscript Types

The journal welcomes the submission of four article types: Research, Methods, Reviews and Invited Reviews. All are subject to peer review.

Research articles contain original information of scientific value.

Methods articles are address issues around the application of technology in the field, and are based on data obtained by the authors.

Review articles are in-depth overviews of the state-of-the-art in the research field of a particular subject. The journal welcomes submissions or proposals from interested authors.

Invited Review articles are by authors invited by the Editorial Board to write unique and insightful overviews of recent or important developments in a particular subject. They are not subject to any Article Processing Charges.

Subject categories
During the submission process, please select a following category; this determines the responsible editor for the review process.

(1) Power and Machinery

Off-Road agricultural power and machinery, tillage, terra-mechanics, agricultural mechanization, livestock machinery, horticultural machinery, fishery machinery, and forest machinery.

(2) Agri-Processing and Food Engineering

Post-harvesting, processing and quality evaluation of agricultural products and foods, food engineering, food safety and packaging.

(3) Information and Electronics Engineering

Information technology, bio-informatics, image processing, computer simulation, instrumentation, systems automation, sensors and controls in the field of bio-systems engineering.

(4) Environment, Energy, and Facility

Agri-environmental system engineering, structure and facilities for living systems (including greenhouse, plant factory, livestock and poultry house), environmental control, biomass/renewable energy, agri-waste treatment and management.

(5) Emerging Technologies

Artificial intelligence, internet of things (IoT), cloud and big data analysis, precision agriculture, smart farming, deep learning, bio-robotics, and micro- and nano-agriculture in the field of biosystems engineering.

Journal and Ethics Policies

EAEF upholds the highest standards in scholarly publishing. Before submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors must ensure that they have read and complied with the journal’s policies. The journal reserves the right to reject without review, or retract, any manuscript that the Editor believes may not comply with these policies.

The responsibilities of the journal’s authors, editors, reviewers and publisher regarding research and publication ethics are described in full below.

Submission to the journal implies that the manuscript has not been previously published (in part or in whole, in any language), is not in press, and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

Authors must inform the editors if any related manuscripts are under consideration, in press or published elsewhere. The availability of a manuscript on a publicly accessible preprint server does not constitute prior publication (see ‘Preprints’).

If authors choose to submit their manuscript elsewhere before a final decision has been made on its suitability for publication in EAEF, they should first withdraw it from EAEF.

Submission
EAEF welcomes manuscript submissions from authors based anywhere in the world.

Submission of a manuscript to the journal implies that all authors: have approved it, warrant it is factual, have agreed to its submission, and have the right to publish it.

Originality
Submission to the journal implies that the manuscript is original work. The journal may use iThenticate’s plagiarism software to screen manuscripts for unoriginal content. By submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors agree to this screening. Any manuscript with an unacceptable level of unoriginal material may be rejected or retracted at the Editors’ discretion.

Preprints
To support the wide dissemination of research, the journal encourages, but does not mandate, authors to post their research manuscripts on community-recognized preprint servers, either before or alongside submission to the journal. This policy applies only to the original version of a manuscript that describes primary research. Any version of a manuscript that has been revised in response to reviewers’ comments, accepted for publication or published in the journal should not be posted on a preprint server. Instead, forward links to the published manuscript may be posted on the preprint server. See this post for more background information.

Authors should retain copyright in their work when posting to a preprint server.

Scooping
When assessing the novelty of a manuscript submitted to the journal, the editors will not be influenced by other manuscripts that are posted on community-recognized preprint servers after the date of submission to EAEF.

Authorship
Submission to the journal implies that all authors have seen and approved the author list. Changes to the author list after manuscript submission – such as the insertion or removal of author names, or a rearrangement of author order – must be approved by all authors and the editor.

The EAEF recommends that authorship is based on four criteria: making a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data for the work; drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content; approving the final version of the manuscript for publication; and agreeing to be held accountable for all aspects of the work. Any contributor who has met all four criteria should be an author on the manuscript. Contributors who do not meet all four criteria should not be authors of the manuscript but may be included in the Acknowledgements section instead.

Data falsification, data fabrication and image integrity
Authors must not falsify or fabricate data. Authors may digitally manipulate or process images, but only if the adjustments are kept to a minimum, are applied to the entire image, meet community standards, and are clearly described in the manuscript. All images in a manuscript must accurately reflect the original data on which they are based. Authors must not move, remove, add or enhance individual parts of an image. The editors reserve the right to request original, unprocessed images from the authors. Failure to provide requested images may result in a manuscript being rejected or retracted.

Reproducing copyrighted material
If a manuscript includes material that is not under the authors’ own copyright, the authors must obtain permission from the copyright holder(s) to reproduce it. This includes the re-use of images, figures, text, or other material.

If a manuscript includes previously published material, the authors must obtain permission from the copyright owners and the publisher of the original work to reproduce it. The authors must cite the original work in their manuscript.

Copies of all reproduction permissions must be included with the manuscript when it is first submitted.

Availability of data and materials
Authors must disclose the source of publicly available data and materials, such as public repositories or commercial manufacturers, by including accession numbers or company details in their manuscript, as appropriate.

Authors may make their own data and materials available in Supplementary Material, or by linking from their manuscript to relevant community-recognized public databases or digital repositories. All data sets must be made available in full to the editors and reviewers during the peer review process, when they require them. Authors commit to preserving their data sets for at least three years from the date of publication in the journal.

The journal encourages authors to grant reasonable requests from colleagues to share any data, materials and experimental protocols described in their manuscript.

Animal/human experimentation
Authors of manuscripts describing experiments involving humans or materials derived from humans must demonstrate that the work was carried out in accordance with the principles embodied in the Declaration of Helsinki, its revisions, and any guidelines approved by the authors’ institutions, such as for sensory testing. Where relevant, the authors must include a statement in their manuscript that describes the procedures for obtaining informed consent from participants regarding participation in the research and publication of the research, following the guidelines outlined by the relevant ICMJE policy.

Authors of manuscripts describing experiments involving animals or materials derived from animals must demonstrate that the work was carried out in accordance with the guidelines approved by the authors’ institution(s).

Author competing interests and conflicts of interest
In the interests of transparency, the journal requires all authors to declare any competing or conflicts of interest in relation to their submitted manuscript. A conflict of interest exists when there are actual, perceived or potential circumstances that could influence an author’s ability to conduct or report research impartially. Potential conflicts include (but are not limited to) competing commercial or financial interests, commercial affiliations, consulting roles, or ownership of stock or equity.

Authors should list all funding sources for their work in the Acknowledgements section of their manuscript.

Confidentiality
The journal maintains the confidentiality of all unpublished manuscripts. By submitting their manuscript to the journal, the authors warrant that they will keep all correspondence about their manuscript (from the Editorial Office, editors and reviewers) strictly confidential.

Self-archiving (Green Open Access) policy
Self-archiving, also known as Green Open Access, enables authors to deposit a copy of their manuscript in an online repository. EAEF encourages authors of original research manuscripts to upload their article to an institutional or public repository immediately after publication in the journal.

Long-term digital archiving
J-STAGE preserves its full digital library, including EAEF, with Portico in a dark archive (see https://www.portico.org/publishers/jstage/). In the event that the material becomes unavailable at J-STAGE, it will be released and made available by Portico.

Peer Review Process

Editorial and peer review process
The journal uses single-blind peer review. When a manuscript is submitted to the journal, it is assigned to one of the co-Editors-in-Chief, who perform initial screening. Manuscripts that do not fit the journal’s scope or are not deemed suitable for publication are rejected without review. The remaining manuscripts are assigned to an Associate Editor who assigns at least two reviewers to assess each Research or Methods manuscript. Peer reviewers are selected based on their expertise, reputation and previous experience as peer reviewers. The deadline for submission of the reviewers’ reports varies by article type.

Upon receipt of the two reviewers’ reports, the Editor in Chief makes the first decision on the manuscript in conjunction with the relevant Associate Editor. If the decision is to request revision of the manuscript, authors have 2 months to resubmit their revised manuscript. Revised manuscripts submitted after this deadline may be treated as new submissions. The Associate Editor may send revised manuscripts to peer reviewers for their feedback or may use his or her own judgement to assess how closely the authors have followed the Editor’s and the reviewers’ comments on the original manuscript.

The Editor in Chief is responsible for making the final decision on each manuscript, with reference to any recommendation from the relevant Associate Editor. If the two parties cannot reach a consensus position, an appropriate Editorial Board member is consulted to provide further advice.

If a manuscript is accepted for publication, the registered manuscript acceptance date is the day the Editor in Chief approved. The Editor in Chief send a letter of acceptance to the corresponding author.

In cases where an Editor-in-Chief or a member of the Editorial Board is an author on a manuscript submitted to the journal, they recuse themselves from any dealings in regards to the specific manuscript and a separate member of the Editorial Board is responsible for making the final decision on the manuscript’s suitability for publication.

Reviewer selection, timing and suggestions
Reviewers are selected based on their expertise in the field, reputation, recommendation by others, and/or previous experience as peer reviewers for the journal.

Reviewers are asked to submit their first review within 3 weeks of accepting the invitation to review. Reviewers who anticipate any delays should inform the Editorial Office as soon as possible.

When submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors may suggest reviewers that they would like included in or excluded from the peer review process via the submission system. The Editor may consider these suggestions but is under no obligation to follow them. The selection, invitation and assignment of peer reviewers is at the Editor’s sole discretion.

EReviewer reports
It is the journal’s policy to transmit reviewers’ comments to the authors in their original form. However, the journal reserves the right to edit reviewers’ comments, without consulting the reviewers, if they contain offensive language, confidential information or recommendations for publication.

Acceptance criteria
If a manuscript satisfies the journal’s requirements and represents a significant contribution to the published literature, the Editor may recommend acceptance for publication in the journal.

Articles in EAEF must be:
• novel and original
• important additions to the field
• within the subject area of the journal’s scope
• of high interest to the journal’s audience
• descriptions of technically rigorous research

If a manuscript does not meet the journal’s requirements for acceptance or revision, the Editor may recommend rejection.

Editorial independence
The Asian Agricultural and Biological Engineering Association (AABEA) has granted the journal’s Editorial Board complete and sole responsibility for all editorial decisions. AABEA will not become involved in editorial decisions, except in cases of a fundamental breakdown of process.

Editorial decisions are based only on a manuscript’s scientific merit and are kept completely separate from the journal’s other interests. The authors’ ability to pay any publication charges has no bearing on whether a manuscript is accepted for publication in the journal.

Appeals
Authors who believe that an editorial decision has been made in error may lodge an appeal with the Editorial Office. Appeals are only considered if the authors provide detailed evidence of a misunderstanding or mistake by a reviewer or editor. Appeals are considered carefully by a co-Editor-in-Chief, whose decision is final. The guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) are followed where and when relevant.

Confidentiality in peer review
The journal maintains the confidentiality of all unpublished manuscripts. Editors and reviewers will not:
1. disclose a reviewer’s identity unless the reviewer makes a reasonable request for such disclosure
2. discuss the manuscript or its contents with anyone not directly involved with the manuscript or its peer review
3. use any data or information from the manuscript in their own work or publications
4. use information obtained from the peer review process to provide an advantage to themselves or anyone else, or to disadvantage any individual or organization.

In addition, reviewers will not reveal their identity to any of the authors of the manuscript or involve anyone else in the review (for example, a post-doc or PhD student) without first receiving permission from the Editor.

Editor and reviewer conflicts of interest in peer review
A conflict of interest exists when there are actual, perceived or potential circumstances that could influence an editor or reviewer’s ability to act impartially when assessing a manuscript. Such circumstances might include having a personal or professional relationship with an author, working on the same topic or in direct competition with an author, having a financial stake in the work or its publication, or having seen previous versions of the manuscript.

Reviewers and members of the journal’s Editorial Board undertake to declare any conflicts of interest when handling manuscripts. An editor or reviewer who declares a conflict of interest is unassigned from the manuscript in question and is replaced by a new editor or reviewer.

Editors try to avoid conflicts of interest when inviting reviewers, but it is not always possible to identify potential bias.

Errata and retractions
The journal recognizes the importance of maintaining the integrity of published literature.

A published article that contains an error may be corrected through the publication of an Erratum. Errata describe errors that significantly affect the scientific integrity of a publication, the reputation of the authors, or the journal itself. Authors who wish to correct a published article should contact the editor who handled their manuscript or the Editorial Office with full details of the error(s) and their requested changes. In cases where co-authors disagree over a correction, a co-Editor-in-Chief may consult the Editorial Board or external peer reviewers for advice. If a Correction is published, any dissenting authors will be noted in the text.

A published article that contains invalid or unreliable results or conclusions, has been published elsewhere, or has infringed codes of conduct (covering research or publication ethics) may be retracted. Individuals who believe that a published article should be retracted are encouraged to contact the journal’s Editorial Office with full details of their concerns. A co-Editor-in-Chief will investigate further and contact the authors of the published article for their response. In cases where co-authors disagree over a retraction, a co-Editor-in-Chief may consult the Editorial Board or external peer reviewers for advice. If a Retraction is published, any dissenting authors will be noted in the text.

The decision to publish Errata or Retractions is made at the sole discretion of the Editorial Board.

Editors as authors in the journal
Any member of the journal’s Editorial Board, including the co-Editors-in-Chief who are authors on a submitted manuscript are excluded from the peer review process. Within the journal’s online manuscript submission and tracking system, they will be able to see their manuscript as an author but not as an editor, thereby maintaining the confidentiality of peer review.

A manuscript authored by an editor of EAEF is subject to the same high standards of peer review and editorial decision making as any manuscript considered by the journal.

Responding to potential ethical breaches
The journal will respond to allegations of ethical breaches by following its own policies and, where possible, the guidelines of COPE.

Copyright, Open Access and Fees

EAEF became a fully Open Access journal in January, 2023. All articles published in the journal on or after this date are Open Access and published under the Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 (Attribution 4.0 International) license. This license allows users to share and adapt an article, even commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given.

Articles in the journal’s archive published before January, 2023 are freely available from the journal website under the stated copyright provisions on each article.

Authors are required to assign all copyrights (via the journal’s copyright form) in the work to the Society, who then publish the work under the CC BY 4.0 International license.

Some funding bodies require articles funded by them to be published under a specific Creative Commons license. Before submitting your work to the journal, check with the relevant funding bodies to ensure that you comply with any mandates.

Article Processing Charge
There are many costs associated with publishing scholarly journals, such as those of managing peer review, copy editing, typesetting and online hosting. To cover these costs in the absence of journal subscriptions, authors (or their representatives) are asked to pay article processing charges (APCs). Authors of accepted manuscripts will be invoiced for the APC before publication of their manuscript. There is no submission fee.

The journal charges an APC of 480 USD (50,000 JPY) for all article types except for Invited Reviews. However, extra charges of 100 USD (10,000 JPY) per page are levied if manuscripts exceed the page limits below.

Research and Methods articles: up to 6 printed pages.
Review articles: up to 8 printed pages.

Note that one printed page in the journal is equivalent to approximately 5,400 characters. Each figure or table is equivalent to approximately 0.2 of a printed page (64 cm² = 8 cm × 8 cm).

Manuscript Submission

All manuscripts must be submitted via the journal’s online submission system, ScholarOne: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/eaef. The original or revised manuscript text may be uploaded as a Microsoft Word file. Figures and Tables must be submitted separately in other formats, as listed in the relevant sections below.

If you encounter any problems with online submission, please contact the Editorial Office:
Institute of Agricultural Machinery, NARO: office@j-sam.org.

Manuscript Preparation
Manuscripts for submission must be prepared in accordance with this document and per the latest version of the manuscript template, available at here.

Style
Manuscripts should be prepared in Microsoft Word and must be written concisely using 12-point font on A4 size (210 mm × 297 mm), horizontally with margins of at least 3 cm, and 25 lines in one page following manuscript template. Page numbers must be included and lines numbered in the left margin. The figures, images and tables must be included in a separate file to the main text, with one table or figure per file. Authors should refer to a recent issue of EAFF and ensure they conform the general style of the journal.

English standards
Manuscripts should be written in clear, grammatically correct English. Authors whose primary language is not English are strongly encouraged to have their manuscript checked by a language editor proficient in academic English or by an editing service prior to submission. If a manuscript is not clear due to poor English, it may be rejected without undergoing peer review. If requested by the Editorial Board, proof of English editing may be required when submitting the final version.

Cover Letter
A cover letter must include the title of the manuscript and the contact details of the corresponding author. Author(s) must declare in the cover letter that:

• the work is original
• it has not been published, nor has been submitted simultaneously elsewhere
• all authors, including the corresponding author, have read and approved the final version of the submitted manuscript
• all authors agree to transfer the copyright of the manuscript to the publisher
• all authors have participated in and been subject to all relevant ethics approvals or declarations

Format
The first page of the manuscript must include with a line at the beginning indicating the category of the paper: Research, Methods or Review article.

The first page of each manuscript should contain: Title, Authors’ full names, Affiliations, Key words, Running Title, and the name and email address of the corresponding author.

Title
The main title of the paper should be definitive, concise, original, and may be followed by a subtitle after a line break with and em dash “—”. Capitalize only the first letter of the title.

Authors and Affiliations
The first and the last names of the author should be fully spelled out. The first letter of the first name should be in upper case (i.e. capitalized) and all letters of the last or surname should be in upper case. For example: Jane DOE. For multiple authorships, separation mark should be “,” even if the paper is written by two authors. Author(s) are recommended to provide their ORCID iDs. On the line below the author names, list the organizations of all authors should be provided, with corresponding numbers such as ^{1, 2} at the right of each surname. The corresponding author should be signified by asterisk (*), and include an e-mail address. If authors moved organizations before publication, add it per e.g. “3 Present: Organization Name” and “authors family name ^1,3”.

Keywords
Provide 5 to10 keywords, which should be lower case except for proper nouns.

Abbreviations
Each abbreviation should be defined in parentheses together with its non-abbreviated term when it first appears in the text (except in the Title and Abstract).

Units
SI or SI-derived units should be used. More information on SI units is available at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) website.

Mathematical expressions
Mathematical equations should be included in the main text. The MS Word equation editor may be used. The equation numbers with parentheses should be right-aligned. Use e.g. “Eq. (1)” and so on in the body text. Details of mathematical expressions are shown in the article template.

Abstract
The Abstract should clearly express the basic content of the paper in a single paragraph and should include the objectives, scope, and main results. Abstracts must not exceed 120 words for all article types.

Main text
The main text should use the headings and structure as laid out within the article template.

Results, discussions and acknowledgments
The Results section should include the outcomes to the objectives as stated in the Introduction. Use tables, charts, graphs, diagrams, and photographs to visually supplement the presentation of your results.

The main data values may be restated in the text to emphasize evidence on which the conclusions are based. Do not omit important negative results. Any conclusions must be stated that can be drawn from your data and present them carefully to avoid confusion by the readers. You may include the conclusion in the discussion section, or you may have a separate section for the conclusion.

The summary, however, must be kept separate and data or statements must have been stated previously in the text.

Acknowledgments
Place the Acknowledgments section after the main body text, and include funding information. You may also acknowledge any English language editing undertaken, but this is not required.

Conflict of Interest Statement
The journal requires the inclusion of a conflict of interest statement, as per the main section above entitled ‘Author competing interests and conflicts of interest’. For work undertaken in which there are no identified conflicts of interest, authors must state: “The authors declare no conflicts of interest.”

References
The journal uses a modified Harvard referencing style. References in the main text should be placed in parentheses and include the author surnames and publication year, or number for standard document as (A, 2021) or (ISO 12345, 2021). When there are two or more authors, include the first author and then “et al.” as (A et al., 2021).

If multiple citations are used to support a given statement, arrange them in chronological order and then alphabetical order by the first author's surname within the same year, separated by a semicolon (;) e.g., (A, 2020; B, 2020; C, 2021). When referencing the same author's surname in the same year, distinguish it as per 2021a, 2021b. If an author's surname is used in the body text, add the publication year in parentheses, e.g., A (2021).

We present a range of reference type examples below. Other types of reference formats are provided in the article template

Journal articles
Kuroyanagi, T. 2013. Evaluation indicator for greenhouse air circulator performances. Engineering in Agriculture, Environment and Food. 6 (4): 197–202. https://doi.org/10.11165/eaef.6.197 (1 Jan. 2023).
Parc, Y. J. et al. 2013. Optimal design of wind turbine gearbox using helix modification. Engineering in Agriculture, Environment and Food. 6 (4): 147–151. https://doi.org/10.11165/eaef.6.147 (1 Jan. 2023).

Many articles are enabled internet access these days. Add the DOI URL at the end of the reference if available e.g., “https://doi.org/...”, and final accessed date.

Whole book or report
Allen, J. S. 1988. The Complete Dictionary of Abbreviations. 151–162. USA: MacMillan & Sons, Inc.
Romax Technology Ltd. 2003. Romax Designer Software Handbook. Nottingham, UK: Romax Technology Ltd.
FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). 2011a. The State of Food and Agriculture 2011. Italy: FAO. http://www.fao.org/3/i2050e/i2050e.pdf (Accessed 15 Jan. 2022).

Part of a book or government publication
Overstreet, H. A. 1925. The psychology of effective writing. Effective Report Writing, ed. W. H.Pierre. 87–109. USA: Graphic Publishing Co.
Reyes, F. K. 2000. Sweet tamarind propagation and management. BAR Today. 2 (3): 2. Philippines:Bureau of Agricultural Research, Department of Agriculture.

Figures and Tables
Figures and photographs should measure either 8 or 16 cm width in finished prints and of a high resolution suitable for production. They should be sent full size, 1.5 or 2 times the size of the finished prints. A recommended font size in figures is 8 point at the finished prints, lines are at least 0.5 point of thickness. Specifications for figure and table captions are shown the article template. You may use color in figures and tables. The Editorial Board may request that authors to correct unclear figures.

Tables are edited by the production service provider, so use the Word table with a simple text and horizontal lines. The preferred location for figures and tables should be indicated with a red color font in the right margin of the main text.

Notation of numbers for figures and pictures are Fig. 1, and for tables are Table 1. “Fig.” and “Table” are used in a text body. Titles and captions are mentioned on each figure or table. Titles end without period, if a long explanation is needed, use a space under figures and tables.

Supplementary material
Supplementary material adds, but is not essential, to a reader’s understanding of a manuscript. Authors can submit supplementary material for online-only publication. Supplementary material may comprise data, text, audio or video files, and is published online alongside the accepted manuscript. Large files for supplementary material, such as video files, should be submitted to the journal’s J-STAGE Data channel.

Supplementary materials are the author's responsibility. After a manuscript has been accepted for publication, authors may not make any changes to the supplementary material.

Accepted Manuscripts

Manuscripts that are accepted for publication are copyedited and typeset by the journal’s production team before publication. The journal is published 4 times per year online. All communication regarding accepted manuscripts is with the corresponding author.

Proofs
Page proofs are sent to the corresponding author and a process is followed that ensures there are no errors or omissions. Only essential corrections to typesetting errors or omissions are accepted; excessive changes are not permitted at the proofing stage.

Contact

To contact the Editorial Office, please write to:
EAEF Office, c/- Institute of Agricultural Machinery, NARO
1-40-2 Nisshin, Kita-ku, Saitama City, Saitama 331-8537, Japan
office@j-sam.org
+86-48-652-4119