Annals of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery

Editorial Policy

Journal and Ethics Policies

ATCS 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 ATCS, they must first withdraw it from the journal.

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.

Authors are encouraged to consider the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations on ‘Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors’. The ICMJE 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.

Animal/human experimentation and informed consent

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. 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.

All papers reporting experiments using animals must include a statement in the Methods section giving assurance that all animals have received humane care in compliance with the “Principles of Laboratory Animal Care” formulated by the National Society for Medical Research and the “Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals” prepared by the Institute of Laboratory Animal Research (ILAR), published by the National Academies Press

(2011; see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK54050/).

Copyright, Open Access License Policy

ATCS is fully Open Access and uses a Creative Commons (CC) license, which allows for the non-commercial use and reuse of material published in the journal without charge or the need to ask prior permission from the publisher or author.

Copyright and licensing

Authors are required to assign all copyrights in the work to the Society, who then publish the work under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0

International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license. This license allows users to share unmodified articles, non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.en

Transfer of Copyright Agreement

Conflict 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.

When submitting a manuscript, all authors are required to disclose financial relationships with commercial manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, or other commercial entities that have an interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes any interests held by spouses, other immediate family or close associates.

Authors must complete the disclosure form and upload it at the time of submission. In addition, each manuscript must include a “Disclosure Statement” section (which comes before the “References” section) that is based on the sample text as per the form.

Disclosure Form