Ethics
1. Plagiarism: This journal only accepts original articles that have not been published before, and the manuscripts submitted shall not contain any plagiarized content. All manuscripts would be tested by the Academic Misconduct Literature Check (AMLC) system. Should any plagiarism be verified, the editorial office will immediately reject the manuscript. Any content overlapping with existing published works must have all necessary permissions and must be marked clearly in the manuscript.
2. Misconduct: Academic misconduct such as plagiarism, multiple submission or redundant publishing (including submission of the same content in different languages), data falsification and reference manipulation is strictly prohibited. Should any misconduct be verified, the editorial office will immediately reject the manuscript and all submission from the authors ever since. Moreover, we will send a notice to other journals in this field and to the author’s institutes. The practice of processing misconduct follows the guidelines of COPE.
3. Authorship: The order of authors shall be collectively determined before submission and shall not be changed thereafter. If truly necessary, the order of authors could be changed if a testimony unanimously signed by all authors is provided. An author should be a person who: (1) participates in topic selection, study design or data analysis and interpretation; (2) drafts or revises key theories or other main content of the paper; (3) reviews and revises the paper according to the comment from the editorial office, discusses it in academic community, and finally agrees on publishing; (4) besides his/her own research contribution, agrees to take responsibility for the integrity of all parts of the work. All the four conditions above must be met. Those who only participate in laboratory assistance, obtaining funds, collecting materials, or only managing the research team cannot be named as authors. The authors should download the Copyright License & Authors Contribution Form in the column of “Author” of this website, have it completed and signed by all authors, and provide it along with the manuscript. The authors are also required to disclose the information bilingually under a subheading of Authors Contribution at the end of the article.
4. Medical Ethics: The ethical issue and informed consent of the study must comply with common principles of medical ethics. When research participants are humans, the author should explain whether its procedure comply with the ethical standards formulated by a relevant committee (institutional, regional or national) responsible for human trials. The approval document of the committee should be submitted (the approval number should be included in the article). Consent letter from research participants or their relatives must be obtained, but not submitted to the editorial office. When reporting animal experiments, the study should comply with guidelines published by relevant committees on animal rights, and the approval document should be submitted. New original treating or operation method must also be approved by a relevant committee. All ethical matters mentioned above should be clearly stated at the end of the manuscript. The authors also need try their best to protect the privacy of the patients by pixelating the patients’ faces and avoiding revealing the patients’ confidential information such as names and IDs in images or specimens. The authors are also required to disclose the relevant information bilingually under a subheading of Ethics Approval and Patient Consent or Ethics Approval and Animal Right at the end of the article.
5. Trial Registration: Clinical trials must include the Universal Trial Number (UTN) obtained from one of the Primary Registries in the WHO Registry Network. The UTN shall be put at the end of the article, with a subheading of “Trial registration”, specifying registry institution and UTN.
6. Reporting Guidelines：Authors are encouraged to follow medical reporting guidelines because they help authors describe the study in enough detail for it to be evaluated by editors, reviewers, readers, and other researchers evaluating the medical literature. Reporting guidelines have been developed for different study designs; examples include CONSORT for randomized trials, STROBE for observational studies, PRISMA for systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and STARD for studies of diagnostic accuracy. Authors are encouraged to describe the methods used for locating, selecting, extracting, and synthesizing data. This is mandatory for systematic reviews. Good sources for reporting guidelines are the EQUATOR Network (www.equator-network.org/home/) and the NLM's Research Reporting Guidelines and Initiatives (www.nlm.nih.gov/services/research_report_guide.html).
7. Competing Interest: All authors must disclose all potential conflicts of interest, i.e., when the financing/personal status/affiliation of the authors (or the authors' organization/employer) may affect the authors' decision, work or manuscript. When a product is mentioned, the author should also disclose whether there is a conflict of interest against competitive products. The authors should download the Statement of Competing Interests in the column of “Author” of this website, make a self-check term by term, have it signed by all authors and provide it along with the manuscript. The authors are also required to disclose the information bilingually under a subheading of Conflict of Interests at the end of the article. The author should state “there is no conflict of interest” even if there isn’t any conflict.