Publication Ethics

Ethics and Consent

If applicable, make sure the necessary ethical approval/clearance or informed consent was obtained and is noted on in the manuscript. Please ensure that any patient identifiers are removed from the manuscript and images (see Figure section for more details). Please see ICMJE for more information regarding Protection of Research Participants.

Publication Criteria

Submissions must be the original work of the author(s) and must not have been previously published or be under consideration with another journal. Research previously presented as an abstract to a scientific meeting may be submitted; please note the details of this abstract submission at the end of your manuscript.

Permissions

Before making a submission, authors are responsible for obtaining permission to publish any material included with the submission, such as photos, documents and datasets. All authors identified on the submission must consent to be identified as an author. Where appropriate, research should be approved by an appropriate ethics committee in accordance with the legal requirements of the study's country. 

If using previously published materials, upload permission to re-use the material obtained from the copyright holder with your submission as a supplementary Permission file. Also acknowledge the source in the legend of the reused material.

Copyright

The Journal requires that all authors or their agents assign copyright to SMART-MD Publishing LLC. The author(s) must warrant that the manuscript is the original work of the author(s) and as never been published in its present form.  The corresponding author, with the consent of all other authors must transfer, to the extent that there is copyright to be transferred, the exclusive copyright interest in the article, and all subsequent editions of the article to SMART-MD Publishing. The Publisher may license the use of contents of the work to entities so long as the authors are credited for their contributions.