Requirements
Paper Presentation Requirements and Guidelines
At least one author of each paper has to present the paper in the thematic or plenary sessions, according to the technical program. Exceptions are permitted only for papers published in BulTrans Proceedings (ISSN 2738-8549), after approval of the Organizing committee.
It is recommended that articles be presented in English. Presenting in Bulgarian and Russian is also permitted.
The presentation materials projected during the sessions must be in English.
The duration of plenary lectures is up to 30 min.
The duration of scientific presentations is up 15 min.
Abstract Requirements
The abstract must contain between 400 and 1500 characters. It has to summarize the contents of the paper. The abstract should include a short introduction of the problem, an outline of the research presented in the paper, and a short conclusion based on the results.
Manuscript Requirements
The manuscript must be strictly formed according to this template:
AIPOnly English manuscripts are permissible for AIP Conference Proceedings. Article length is not limited. The recommended article length is 4-9 pages. Larger manuscripts are allowed after permission from the Editorial Board. Manuscripts shorter that 4 pages are not allowed. |
BultransThe manuscript has to be in either English or Bulgarian. English is the recommended language due to better indexing in international scientific databases. An abstract in English has to be provided at the end of the paper if the manuscript is in Bulgarian. The article length need to be 4-8 pages. |
Bibliography requirements (AIP Conference Proceedings reports):
- the cited URL must be active during the article approval process;
- the cited URL has to link to a page containing specific information, relevant to the citation in the text of the report;
- web portals, corporate web pages, e-stores, and commercial sites are not allowed;
- apart from the URL, title and short description of the resource (and authors, when applicable) have to be included, too, as well as the date of information retrieval by the authors of the report.
The Guidelines for preparing reference lists can be downloaded from here:
Guidelines for preparing reference lists
Maximum Permitted Papers
Each participant can be co-author of up to 2 papers.
Report verification and approval
Verification and approval of the reports is carried out in four stages. The progress can be followed via the web-based conference management system – process.bultrans.org
Stage I - Title and abstract evaluation
- Does the report topic correspond to the conference topics?
- Is the article topic chosen correctly?
- Title and abstract – content, grammar, length, terminology.
If the title and abstract application does not meet these criteria, the Editor-in-Chief may reject it or return it with remarks for corrections.
Stage II – Full text evaluation by the Editor-in-Chief
Criteria for evaluation of the full text and passing it on for review:
- Does the full text match the title and abstract?
- Does the layout match the conference template?
- Does the report contain the following mandatory elements: abstract, introduction, argument, conclusion, references, title and abstract in English (if the full text is in Bulgarian)?
- Is the abstract sufficiently informative?
- Does the report contain adequate sources/references, state-of-the-problem analysis, purpose and tasks of the study?
- Does the report contain experimental confirmation of the corresponding theoretical/numerical methods/models, results and discussion?
- Does the conclusion summarize the results, the advantages of the method used, the application areas?
- Does the reference list contain adequate literary sources - such as quantity, topicality and representativeness?
- Does the article pass the required plagiarism checks?
- Do the figures, charts, and tables meet the required quality? Are they numbered correctly?
The Editor-in-Chief approves the article and directs it for review in any of the following three cases:
- The article meets all criteria and does not contain apparent flaws;
- The article has minor flaws regarding the language and/or layout. If the article gets positive reviews in the next step, the editorial staff can make the necessary layout corrections and send the edited version to the authors for approval (along with the review);
- The article has noticeable flaws which can be corrected by the authors. If the article gets positive reviews in the next step, the Editor-in-Chief returns the article to the author for corrections, along with comments and remarks on the flaws to be corrected, as well as the review.
If the article does not meet the criteria, the Editor-in-Chief rejects the article without a review (desk reject), after consulting the Editorial board.
At the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief, reports that have been refused publication in AIP Conference Proceedings may be submitted for publication in the traditional BulTrans proceedings.
Stage III – Review process
Each report goes through a double-blind review process. At least one review is being created by a specialist in the respective field, through a unified template. The authors are given access to the full text of the reviews. For the applications for publication in AIP Conference Proceedings, the reviewers meet the following criteria:
- They have academic ranks;
- They have publications with an impact factor or impact rank;
- Whenever possible, reviewers not within the same organization as the authors of the report are selected.
Each review concludes with a motivated proposal from among the following options:
- The report is to be published as it is - AIP Conference Proceedings Publication;
- The report is to be published after corrections - AIP Conference Proceedings Publication;
- The report is to be published as it is - in the traditional BulTrans Proceedings, issue of TU-Sofia;
- The report is to be published after corrections - in the traditional BulTrans Proceedings, issue of TU-Sofia;
- The report should not be published.
If the reviewer has comments on the article and/or proposes corrections, the Editor-in-Chief returns the report for revision, giving the deadline and attaching the review. The Editor-in-Chief can give additional remarks regarding the layout or other technical criteria. Corrected reports are approved by the Editor-in-Chief when the remarks are minor or are sent back to the reviewer – in case of serious remarks.
Upon completion of the review process, the reports and their reviews are submitted to the Editorial board for approval.
Stage IV – Approval
The Editorial Board makes the final decision whether to approve or reject a report, as well as the place of its publication. Decisions are based on the following criteria:
- The recommendations and remarks in reviews;
- The opinion of each Editorial Board member, formed upon analysis of the report, the reviews and the opinion of the Editor-in-Chief;
- Editorial Board discussions.
The Editorial Board may require additional review of any paper.
If the decision is to publish the report in a different place from the one stated, the authors reserve their rights to refuse, in which case the report does not participate in the conference and can be published elsewhere.