Guidelines
Revista Ciencias Técnicas Agropecuarias publishes original and unpublished works in Spanish, Portuguese and English, in the form of original articles, technical notes, review, points of view, letters to the editor and summaries of doctoral theses. In its editions, works appear that cover the following topics of Agricultural Engineering: Tractors and Agricultural Machines, Operation and Mechanized Processes, Oil-hydraulic, Repair and Mechanical Technology, Computing and Applied Mathematics, Soil and Water, Use of Energy in Agriculture, Post-harvest: Biology and Technology, Electrification and Rural Construction, Livestock Mechanization, Conservation Agriculture, Precision Farming, Teaching and Training, Test Machines and Animal Traction.
The works must be sent via email to the address rcta@unah.edu.cu. They will be contained in ".docx" files of the Word text processor, with letter paper size (21.59 x 27.94 cm), and margins at 2.5 cm. For its conformation, the Arial font of 12 points should be used, at 1.15 lines, in a single column. Original articles will have a maximum length of 20 pages, reviews of 30 pages and short communications 7 pages.
A letter signed by the author must accompany the submission of each work stating:
FIRST: That I am the author of the article whose title was previously declared, and consequently the main responsible for it.
SECOND: All those natural persons who have contributed substantially in the execution of the work have been declared as authors and there is no conflict of interest between any of them in accordance with the provisions of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).
THIRD: I declare that this article is original and unpublished and therefore has been submitted exclusively to the Editorial Board of the Agricultural Engineering Journal, and does not contain sensitive or classified information of any natural or legal person.
FOURTH: That the authors of this work abide the guidelines established in the Code of Conduct and Ethical Good Practices of the journal and according to it, different cases of controversy will be resolved.
FIFTH: That I authorize the Revista Ciencias Técnicas Agropecuarias to publish it without any charge from me, by the means or formats determined by the Editorial Committee in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 (CC BY-NC) license.
For the preparation of this document, the author should use the preform available at the address: http://revistas.unah.edu.cu/public/journals/1/Cartadelarevista.doc
The authors also confirm and send the following list to discern the possible existence of a conflict of interests between them: http://revistas.unah.edu.cu/public/journals/1/coi_disclosure.pdf.
Use of tenses
Keep in mind that each of the sections are written in:
• Introduction in the present.
• Materials and methods in the past.
• Results in the past and the Discussion in the present.
• Conclusions in the present.
Images, graphs and tables
• For any document, the images, graphs and tables presented will be sorted consecutively using Arabic numbers and their titles are placed using additions and deletions without a period at the end.
• They must be self-explanatory and their information must not be replicated elsewhere in the work.
• The images will be delivered in separate files, besides being inserted in the document after its mention in the text, and must have a resolution of 300 pixels
• The graphics will be presented in only two dimensions (2D) with their respective axes and legends, while the series of them can be differentiated with colors or black and white labels.
• The tables will be in editable format, with the first row in bold, without dividing lines between the content, and with their clarifications at the end and centered.
Nomenclature and Units
Authors should follow the internationally accepted rules and conventions for the treatment of units of measures such as the International System of Units (ISU). When an abbreviation is used, its meaning should be clarified following its first mention.
Mathematical Formulas
Mathematical equations will be sent editable and not as images, always conformed with an equation editor. All equations that are not inserted within the text must be numbered consecutively with their respective mention in the text.
General Structure of the Research Articles
The structure of the submitted works will vary depending on the type of document. Scientific articles must have:
• Title in Spanish and English (up to 15 words)
• Authors
• Affiliations of authors and email of the author for correspondence
•Abstract up to 250 words
• Keywords up to 5 words
• Introduction
• Materials and Methods
• Results and Discussion
• Conclusions
• Thanks
• References
The bibliographic reviews and reviews must have the same structure of the scientific articles but without Materials and Methods or Results and Discussion. Instead, the author can add the sections that he/she considers necessary. Letters to the editor and technical reports must have title in Spanish and English, authors, their affiliations and mail for correspondence.
Title
• Must be concise and able to make the reader aware of the essential content of the article.
• Its maximum length should be 15 words.
• It should not be overloaded with information in the form of abbreviations, symbols, formulas or unknown characters, and place of study.
• It should not be a double-entendre or literary phrase.
• Remove subtitles and all nonspecific words.
• In its writing, a neutral approximation writing style should be used, that is, the result that is to be obtained should not be suggested.
Abstract
• It must be the abbreviated representation of the document’s content.
• It should summarize in a maximum of 250 words the central aspects included in each of the sections of the document, so that, the problem, the interest and objective of the research can be established. It must describe, without details, the chosen materials and the methods used, and summarize the main results (only these), as well as state the main conclusions.
• No reference should be made to figures, tables and bibliographic citations. Do not include information that is not described in the work, or start with the objective without first having stated the problem situation.
Keywords
• They designate and identify the most important aspects addressed in the article. They serve to locate the information of interest and to elaborate data bases and indexes of matters. They must be from 3 to 10 maximum and should be written in order of importance to reflect the content of the document. To select the appropriate keywords, it is proposed to use the AGROVOC standardized terms catalog.
Introduction
• It will be brief, try to use the main keywords and go from the general to the particular.
• In it, the contextual framework in which the problem has to be solved must be established. Besides, what is known and what is unknown about the matter in question, what would represent the research economically, socially, technologically and scientifically should be declared. Finally, the objective of the work has to be referred.
• The three paragraph outline can also be used. It must have in the first paragraph, the background will be presented, in the second paragraph, why it is necessary to study the problem, and in the third one, the objective.
Materials and Methods
• It must provide sufficient information so that the investigation can be replicated. Unnecessary descriptions should be avoided.
• It is necessary to mention the materials used that determined quantitatively or qualitatively the obtaining of the data, not the instruments used.
• With regard to the methods, three possible scenarios must be taken into account:
- When the method is standard, simply mention it and place the bibliographic reference.
- When the method is not standard but has been used before, discuss why it is necessary to use it and put the bibliographic reference where the method is described.
- When the method has been generated or adapted for the study, describe it completely or at least the transformed part.
• This section of Materials and Methods can be organized in five areas that contemplate:
-Context: It indicates where the study was made.
-Design: It describes the design of the experiment.
-Population: It characterizes the sample and how it has been selected and taken.
-Interventions: It describes the techniques, methods, measurements and units, equipment and technology.
-Statistical analysis: It indicates the statistical programs and methods used. The programs are referenced.
• The subtitles used to name the areas are freely chosen by the authors, examples: General Conditions, Treatments, Measurements, Statistical Analysis.
Results and Discussion
• Never show data that are not clearly related to the purpose of the work.
• The research data are shown in figures and tables, which must be self-explanatory and marked with titles and legends.
• While the table gives precision, the figures provide a clearer visual impact of the effects of treatments and trends and interactions.
• The two central elements of the discussion are to indicate, with neutral judgment and some speculation, what the findings mean and how these findings relate to what was known until then.
• In the discussion, the data of the figures and tables should not be repeated.
• Make clear the principles, relationships and extrapolations that could be derived from the results (speculations). Exceptions must be highlighted.
• Indicate how the results and their interpretations agree or conflict with other scientific investigations.
• Present the theoretical implications of the work and the practical applications it could have.
Conclusions
• They should highlight the main implications of the data obtained in the research and not make a statistical count of the values shown.
• In all cases the conclusions should always be justified by the data presented.
Bibliography
To homogenize and facilitate the making of citations in the text and the bibliography, it is recommended to use the citation style processor of the CSL (for its acronym in English). This software can be downloaded from the address: https://www.zotero.org/styles/, which is based on the Harvard style guideline.
The main features of the journal's bibliographic style are:
• It is cited in the text according to the author-year form.
• The bibliography is organized alphabetically from the first letters of the surname of the main author.
• In the bibliography, authors are presented in the short form.
• After the last author, two dots are placed (:).
• The elements of the bibliography are separated by a comma and a point is placed only after the date.
• The year always appears at the end.
In the conformation of a scientific document, only the following materials can be used:
• Articles in Scientific Journals
• Books
• Chapters of books
• Standards, Patents and Legal Resources
• Scientific or Technical Reports of prestigious institutions that have been published
• Articles in Conferences (congresses and workshops) that have published at least the abstracts of the event
• Maps and Satellite Images
• Software
• Statistical Websites such as FAOSTAT and those of the national statistics and information offices of each country (in Cuba that of ONEI)
• Thesis as long as the results achieved in it have not been published so far
It is mandatory to place the ISBN and the DOI to all those documents that were assigned these identifiers. Not all books, conference papers and reports have ISBNs, but whenever they have been assigned, they should be placed. The same procedure is followed with the DOI and articles published in scientific journals. This policy is aimed at normalizing the treatment of the metadata of each bibliographic reference.
Each original document will have at least 15 bibliographical references (of which 50% must belong to original articles published in scientific journals), ordered alphabetically, justified, with a space between lines of 1.5 and only the works cited in the text. Each work has to comply with the Price index; that is, 60% of the bibliographic citations must correspond to the last five years, except for the cases of bibliographic revisions, because the references must cover a wide range of time. Self-citations, both by the author and the journal, should not exceed 20% of the literature consulted.
Within the text, the author-year form is cited (e.g. Cervantes, 2014). If there are two authors, the first surname of each one is separated by (y) and then (, year) (e.g. Cervantes and Fernández, 2014). In cases where the authors are more than two, (et al.) must be placed after the last name of the main author followed by (, year) (e.g. Cervantes et al., 2014). If the citation is from multiple sources, they should be separated from each other by (;) (e.g. Cervantes, 2014; Cervantes and Fernández, 2014; Cervantes et al., 2014). In cases where the author is corporate or institutional, the full form must be followed by (, year) (e.g. Universidad Agraria de La Habana, 2014), only the institutions of great recognition such as FAO, UNESCO, can be abbreviated. UN, etc. (e.g. FAO, 2014). If the item cited in the text is a standard, abbreviations of the type of standard (e.g. NC, NRAG, ISO) are placed followed by the number and year of approval, (e.g. NC 93-02: 1985, ISO 10390: 1999).
Other mandatory filling elements characteristic of each type of document are:
• Article in Scientific Journals: authors, title of the article, name of the journal, volume, number, range of pages of the article, ISSN, DOI, year of publication.
• Book: authors, title of the book, place of publication, publisher, ISBN, total pages, year of publication.
• Chapter: authors, chapter title, book title, place of publication, publisher, ISBN, range of pages of that chapter, year of publication.
• Norm, Patent and Legal Resource: natural or corporate authors, title, number or codification, place of publication, issuing institution, total pages, year of publication.
• Scientific or Technical Report: natural or corporate authors, title of the report, place of publication, issuing institution, ISBN, total pages, year of publication.
• Article in Conference (congress and workshop): authors, title, place of celebration, responsible or publishing institution, ISBN, range of pages, year of publication.
• Map and satellite image: natural or corporate authors, title, place of publication, publisher, ISBN, scale, year of publication.
• Computer Program: natural or corporate authors, title, version, operating system, place, developer company, year.
• Statistical Website: natural or corporate authors, title of publication, site title, date of publication, full electronic address, date of consultation.
• Thesis: authors, title, type of thesis, university or research institute where it was presented, place, total of pages and year of presentation.
In cases where the documents consulted are electronic, to the aforementioned elements, the complete electronic address and the date of consultation must be added.
Here are some examples of references:
Article in Scientific Journals
FALCÓN, A.B.; CABRERA, J.C.; COSTALES, D.; RAMÍREZ, M.A.; CABRERA, G.; TOLEDO, V.; MARTÍNEZ, T.M.A.: “The effect of size and acetylation degree of chitosan derivatives on tobacco plant protection against Phytophthora parasitica nicotianae”, World Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology, 24(1): 103-112, 23 de junio de 2007, ISSN: 0959-3993, 1573-0972, DOI: 10.1007/s11274-007-9445-0.
Book
PANEQUE, P.V.M.; CALAÑA, N.J.M.; CALDERÓN, V.M.; BORGES, B.Y.; HERNÁNDEZ, G.T.C.; CARUNCHO, C.M.: Manual de técnicas analíticas para análisis de suelo, foliar, abonos orgánicos y fertilizantes químicos, [en línea], Ed. Ediciones INCA, 1.a ed., La Habana, Cuba, 157 p., 2010, ISBN: 978-959-7023-51-7, Disponible en: http://mst.ama.cu/578/, [Consulta: 27 de enero de 2016].
Chapter
RIVERA, R.; FERNÁNDEZ, F.; FERNÁNDEZ, K.; RUIZ, L.; SÁNCHEZ, C.; RIERA, M.: “Advances in the Management of Effective Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Symbiosis in Tropical Ecosystems”, [en línea], En: Hamel, C. y Plenchette, C. (eds.), Mycorrhizae in Crop Production, Ed. Haworth Food & Agricultural Products Press, Binghamton, N.Y., pp. 151-195, 2007, ISBN: 978-1-56022-307-8, Disponible en: https://www.amazon.com/Mycorrhizae-Crop-Production-Science/dp/1560223073, [Consulta: 24 de marzo de 2016].
Norm, Patent and Legal Resource
FREEPONS, D.E.: Plant growth regulators derived from chitin, [en línea], no. US4964894 A, United States, U.S. Classification 504/292, 504/100, 71/1, 504/326, 504/319, 71/16, 71/27, 47/57.6, 71/11; International Classification A01N43/16; Cooperative Classification A01N43/16; European Classification A01N43/16, 23 de octubre de 1990, Disponible en: http://www.google.com.cu/patents/US4964894, [Consulta: 9 de abril de 2017].
Scientific or Technical Report
AHMAD, M.; RAFIQUE, M.; IQBAL, N.; AKRAM, W.; AASI, M.R.: Study of soil redistribution in cultivated fields using fallout cesium-137 at Fateh Jang, Attock, Pakistan, [en línea], no. 41067805, Inst. Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology, Pakistan, 30 p., 2009, Disponible en: http://inis.iaea.org/Search/search.aspx?orig_q=RN:41067805, [Consulta: 8 de septiembre de 2015].
Article in Conference (congress and workshop)
DOBERMANN, A.; KRAUSS, A.; ISHERWOOD, K.; HEFFER, P.: “Nutrient use efficiency-measurement and management”, [en línea], En: IFA International Workshop on Fertilizer Best Management Practices, Ed. International Fertilizer Industry Association, Brussels, Belgium, pp. 1-28, 2007, ISBN: 978-2-9523139-2-6, Disponible en: http://www.cabdirect.org/abstracts/20083154896.html;jsessionid=FDBB76ECCE587EA330911A0637D26371, [Consulta: 27 de enero de 2016].
Map and satellite image
LÓPEZ, L.J.A.; VICENTE, B.J.M.; BLASCO, F.; MALLÉN, D.; SAZ, D.: GR 11 Senda Pirenaica de mar a mar, (1:40 000), Ed. Prames, 46 Mapas de 31,5 x 25 cm, 7.a ed., Zaragoza, 2012, ISBN: 978-84-8321-839-6.
Computer Program
CERVANTES, B.R.; ALFONSO, A.Y.: Cultivos Tropicales (Spanish), [en línea], (Versión 1.0), [Mulltiplataforma], Citation Style Language 1.0 xml-based, Mayabeque, Cuba, Style based on ISO 690:2010(F), 16 de junio de 2015, Disponible en: https://www.zotero.org/styles/cultivos-tropicales.
Statistical Website
ALTIERI, M.A.; FUNES, M.F.R.: “La paradoja de la agricultura cubana”, [en línea], En: CEPRID, 12 de abril de 2012, Disponible en: http://www.nodo50.org/ceprid/spip.php?article1395&debut_articles_rubrique=45, [Consulta: 5 de abril de 2016].
Thesis
HERNÁNDEZ, H.J.E.: Propuesta de una arquitectura para el soporte de la planificación de la producción colaborativa en cadenas de suministro de tipo árbol, [en línea], Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Tesis de Doctorado, España, 736 p., DOI: 10.4995/Thesis/10251/14571, 2011, Disponible en: https://riunet.upv.es/handle/10251/14571, [Consulta: 17 de junio de 2016].
Complementary materials can support and improve scientific research. The supplementary files offer the author additional possibilities to publish support applications, high-resolution images, datasets, sound clips and more. Keep in mind that these articles are published online along with the article exactly as they are sent. The titles of these materials should be concise and descriptive for each file. To make changes to the supplementary data during any stage of the process, it is necessary to provide an updated file and not note any correction in an earlier version.