Copyright Agreement and Acknowledgement of Authorship Form

ICMJE Form

Cyprus Journal of Medical Sciences (Cyprus J Med Sci) is the scientific, peer-reviewed, open-access publication organ of Cyprus Turkish Medical Association. The journal is published bimonthly in February, April, June, and August, October and December. The journal’s publication language is English.

The journal aims to publish original research papers of the highest scientific and clinical value in all medical fields. Cyprus Journal of Medical Sciences also publishes reviews, rare case reports and letters to the editors.

The target audience of the journal includes healthcare professionals, physicians, and researchers who are interested or working in all fields of medicine.

An APC of $200 will be charged for the authors whose articles are accepted for publication in the Cyprus Journal of Medical Sciences. After informing the authors about the final decision on the manuscript, the APC (Article Processing Charge) is requested.

You can access the details for the Article Processing Charge(APC) Policy of the journal by the link below:

https://cyprusjmedsci.com/article-processing-chargeapc-policy.

EDITORIAL AND PUBLICATION PROCESS

The editorial and publication process of the Cyprus Journal of Medical Sciences are shaped in accordance with the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), Council of Science Editors (CSE), Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), European Association of Science Editors (EASE), and National Information Standards Organization (NISO). The journal is in conformity with the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing.

Originality, high scientific quality, and citation potential are the most significant criteria for a manuscript to be accepted for publication. Manuscripts submitted for evaluation should not have been previously presented or already published in an electronic or printed medium. The journal should be informed of manuscripts that have been submitted to another journal for evaluation and rejected for publication. The submission of previous reviewer reports will expedite the evaluation process. Manuscripts that have been presented in a meeting should be submitted with detailed information on the organization, including the name, date, and location of the organization.

PEER REVIEW PROCESS

Manuscripts submitted to Cyprus Journal of Medical Sciences will go through a double-blind peer-review process. Each submission will be reviewed by at least two external, independent peer reviewers who are experts in their fields in order to ensure an unbiased evaluation process. The editorial board will invite an external and independent editor to manage the evaluation processes of manuscripts submitted by editors or by the editorial board members of the journal. The Editor in Chief is the final authority in the decision-making process for all submissions.

ETHICAL PROCEDURES

An approval of research protocols by the Ethics Committee in accordance with international agreements (World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki “Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects,” amended in October 2013) is required for experimental, clinical, and drug studies and for some case reports. If required, ethics committee reports or an equivalent official document will be requested from the authors. For manuscripts concerning experimental research on humans, a statement should be included that shows that written informed consent of patients and volunteers was obtained following a detailed explanation of the procedures that they may undergo. For studies carried out on animals, the measures taken to prevent pain and suffering of the animals should be stated clearly. Information on patient consent, the name of the ethics committee, and the ethics committee approval number should also be stated in the “Materials and Methods” section of the manuscript. It is the authors’ responsibility to protect the patients’ anonymity carefully.

For photographs that may reveal the identity of the patients, signed consent of the patient or their legal representative should be enclosed, and the publication approval must be provided in the “Materials and Methods” section. However, the identities of the patients should be concealed in the photographs.

PLAGIARISM

Cyprus Journal of Medical Sciences is extremely sensitive about plagiarism. All submissions are screened by a similarity detection software (iThenticate by CrossCheck) at any point during the peer-review and/or production process. Even if you are the author of the phrases or sentences, the text should not have unacceptable similarity with the previously published data.

When you are discussing others' (or your own) previous work, please make sure that you cite the material correctly in every instance.

In the event of alleged or suspected research misconduct, e.g., plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication, the Editorial Board will follow and act following COPE guidelines.

Use of Large Language Models and Generative AI Tools

“AI tools cannot meet the requirements for authorship as they cannot take responsibility for the submitted work. As non-legal entities, they cannot assert the presence or absence of conflicts of interest nor manage copyright and license agreements. Authors who use AI tools in the writing of a manuscript, production of images or graphical elements of the paper, or in the collection and analysis of data, must be transparent how the AI tool was used and which tool was used. Authors are fully responsible for the content of their manuscript, even those parts produced by an AI tool, and are thus liable for any breach of publication ethics.” COPE Position Statement on Authorship and AI tools. Detailed information about the statement can be accessed at https://publicationethics.org/cope-position-statements/ai-author

After reviewing the COPE statement, the editors of the Cyprus Journal of Medical Sciences have decided that papers should include a statement in a section called “Declaration Regarding the Use of AI and AI-Assisted Technologies” to let readers know if AI or AI-assisted tools were used in the writing process. It's important to remember that all authors are responsible for the content of their work. This declaration does not apply to the use of basic tools for checking grammar, spelling, or references (such as Mendeley, EndNote, Zotero, and others). If there is nothing to declare, there is no need to add a statement.

It is suggested that authors follow this format when preparing their statement:

During the preparation of this work, the author(s) utilized [NAME OF TOOL(S) USED] to [DESCRIPTION OF HOW THE TOOL(S) WERE UTILIZED AND HOW THE VALIDITY OF THE OUTPUTS WAS EVALUATED]. After carefully reviewing and editing the content as necessary, full responsibility for the publication's content is taken by the author(s). This incorporation of AI tool usage primarily impacted [SPECIFY WHICH ASPECTS OF THE STUDY, ARTICLE CONTENTS, DATA, OR SUPPORTING FILES WERE AFFECTED/GENERATED].

Example:

During the preparation of this work, the author(s) utilized OpenAI's ChatGPT to generate summaries of research articles related to the topic. These summaries were evaluated by comparing them to manually written summaries by experts in the field. Upon confirming the accuracy and relevance of the generated summaries, they were integrated into the literature review section of the manuscript. After carefully reviewing and editing the content as necessary, full responsibility for the publication's content is taken by the author(s). This incorporation of AI tool usage primarily impacted the efficiency of literature review process and the comprehensiveness of the gathered research insights.

PREPRINT

Authors must provide the journal with the preprint server deposition of their article accompanying its DOI during initial submission.

Cyprus Journal of Medical Sciences does not consider preprint publications before publication. In other words, authors are allowed to present and discuss their findings on a non-commercial preprint server before submission to the journal.

If the article is published in the Cyprus Journal of Medical Sciences, it is the responsibility of the authors to update the archived preprint and link it to the published version of the article.

AUTHORSHIP

Each person listed as an author should fulfill the authorship criteria recommended by http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html). The ICMJE recommends that authorship is based on the following four criteria:

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
Final approval of the version to be published; AND
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work he/she has done, an author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work. Also, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors.

All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged on the title page of the manuscript.

Cyprus Journal of Medical Sciences requires corresponding authors to submit a signed and scanned version of the Copyright Agreement and Acknowledgement of Authorship form (available for download www.cyprusjmedsci.com) during the initial submission process to act appropriately on authorship rights and to prevent ghost or honorary authorship. If the editorial board suspects a case of “gift authorship,” the submission will be rejected without further review. As part of the submission of the manuscript, the corresponding author should also send a short statement declaring that he/she accepts to undertake all the responsibility for authorship during the submission and review stages of the manuscript.

DISCLOSURE AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

All sources of financial support should be disclosed. All authors ought to disclose a meaningful conflict of interest in the process of forming their study. Any financial grants or other support received for a submitted study from individuals or institutions should be disclosed to the Editorial Board of the Cyprus Journal of Medical Sciences. The ICMJE Potential Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form should be filled in and submitted by all contributing authors to disclose a potential conflict of interest. The journal’s Editorial Board determines cases of a potential conflict of interest of the editors, authors, or reviewers within the scope of COPE and ICMJE guidelines.

The Editorial Board of the journal handles all appeal and complaint cases within the scope of COPE guidelines. In such cases, authors should get in direct contact with the editorial office regarding their appeals and complaints. When needed, an ombudsperson may be assigned to resolve claims that cannot be resolved internally. The Editor in Chief is the final authority in the decision-making process for all appeals and complaints.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

A Creative Commons license is a public copyright license that provides free distribution of copyrighted works or studies. Authors use the CC license to transfer the right to use, share or modify their work to third parties.

Open access is an approach that supports interdisciplinary development and encourages collaboration between different disciplines. Therefore, Cyprus Journal of Medical Sciences contributes to the scientific publishing literature by providing more access to its articles and a more transparent review process.

The journal’s content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) which permits third parties to share and adapt the content for non-commercial purposes by giving the appropriate credit to the original work.

DISCLAIMER

Statements or opinions expressed in the manuscripts published in Cyprus Journal of Medical Sciences reflect the views of the author(s) and not the opinions of the editors, the editorial board, or the publisher; the editors, the editorial board, and the publisher disclaim any responsibility or liability for such materials. The final responsibility regarding the published content rests with the authors.

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

The manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with ICMJE-Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (updated in December 2019). Authors are required to prepare manuscripts in accordance with the CONSORT guidelines for randomized research studies, STROBE guidelines for observational original research studies, STARD guidelines for studies on diagnostic accuracy, PRISMA guidelines for systematic reviews and meta-analysis, ARRIVE guidelines for experimental animal studies, and TREND guidelines for non-randomized public behavior.

Manuscripts can only be submitted through the journal’s online manuscript submission and evaluation system, available at www.cyprusjmedsci.com. Manuscripts submitted via any other medium and submissions by anyone other than one of the authors will not be evaluated.

Manuscripts submitted to the journal will first go through a technical evaluation process where the editorial office staff will ensure that the manuscript has been prepared and submitted in accordance with the journal’s guidelines. Submissions that do not conform to the journal’s guidelines will be returned to the submitting author with technical correction requests.

Authors are required to submit the following:

· Copyright Agreement and Acknowledgement of Authorship Form, and

· ICMJE Potential Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form (should be filled in by all contributing authors) during the initial submission. These forms are available for download at www.icmje.org.

Preparation of the Manuscript

Title page: A separate title page should be submitted with all submissions and this page should include:

The full title of the manuscript as well as a short title (running head) of no more than 50 characters,
Name(s), affiliations, highest academic degree(s), and ORCID IDs of the author(s),
Grant information and detailed information on the other sources of support,
Name, address, telephone (including the mobile phone number), and e-mail address of the corresponding author,
Acknowledgment of the individuals who contributed to the preparation of the manuscript but who do not fulfill the authorship criteria.

Abstract: An abstract should be submitted with all submissions except for Letters to the Editor. The abstract of Original Articles should be structured with subheadings (Background/Aims, Material and Methods, Results and Conclusion). Please check Table 1 below for word count specifications.

Keywords: Each submission must be accompanied by a minimum of three to a maximum of five keywords for subject indexing at the end of the abstract. The keywords should be listed in full without abbreviations. The keywords should be selected from the National Library of Medicine, Medical Subject Headings database. (https://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/MBrowser.html).

Main Points: All submissions except letters to the editor should be accompanied by 3 to 5 “main points”, which should emphasize the most noteworthy results of the study and underline the principle message that is addressed to the reader. This section should be structured as itemized to give a general overview of the article. Since “Main Points” target the experts and specialists of the field, each item should be written as plain and straightforward as possible.

Manuscript Types

Original Articles: This is the most important type of article since it provides new information based on original research. Acceptance of original papers will be based upon the originality and importance of the investigation. The main text of original articles should be structured with Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, and Discussion subheadings. An original article can be signed by maximum 6 authors unless it is a multi-center study or that it required extensive labour. Please check Table 1 for the limitations for Original Articles.

Clinical Trial Policy

Cyprus Journal of Medical Sciences adopts the ICMJE's clinical trial registration policy, which requires that clinical trials must be registered in a publicly accessible registry that is a primary register of the WHO International Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) or in ClinicalTrials.gov.

Instructions for the clinical trials are listed below.

Clinical trial registry is only required for the prospective research projects that study the relationship between a health-related intervention and an outcome by assigning people.
To have their manuscript evaluated in the journal, author should register their research to a public registry at or before the time of first patient enrollment.
Based on most up to date ICMJE recommendations, Cyprus Journal of Medical Sciences accepts public registries that include minimum acceptable 24-item trial registration dataset.
Authors are required to state a data sharing plan for the clinical trial registration. Please see details under “Data Sharing” section.
For further details, please check ICMJE Clinical Trial Policy at http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/clinical-trial-registration.html

Data Sharing

As of 1 January 2019, a data sharing statement is required for the registration of clinical trials. Authors are required to provide a data sharing statement for the articles that reports the results of a clinical trial. The data sharing statement should indicate the items below according to the ICMJE data sharing policy:

Whether individual deidentified participant data will be shared
What data in particular will be shared
Whether additional, related documents will be available
When the data will be available and for how long
By what access criteria will be shared

Authors are recommended to check the ICMJE data sharing examples at http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/clinical-trial-registration.html

While submitting a clinical trial to Cyprus Journal of Medical Sciences;

• Authors are required to make registration to a publicly accessible registry according to ICMJE recommendations and the instructions above.

• The name of the registry and the registration number should be provided in the Title Page during the initial submission.

• Data sharing statement should also be stated in the Title Page even the authors do not plan to share it.

Statistical analysis to support conclusions is usually necessary. Statistical analyses must be conducted in accordance with international statistical reporting standards (Altman DG, Gore SM, Gardner MJ, Pocock SJ. Statistical guidelines for contributors to medical journals. Br Med J 1983: 7; 1489-93). Information on statistical analyses should be provided with a separate subheading under the Materials and Methods section and the statistical software that was used during the process must be specified.

Units should be prepared in accordance with the International System of Units (SI).

Editorial Comments: Invited brief editorial comments on selected articles are published in The Cyprus Journal of Medical Sciences. Editorials should not be longer than 1000 words excluding references. Editorial comments aim to provide a brief critical commentary by reviewers with expertise or with high reputation in the topic of the research article published in the journal. Authors are selected and invited by the journal to provide such comments. Abstract, Keywords, and Tables, Figures, Images, and other media are not included.

Review Articles: Reviews prepared by authors who have extensive knowledge on a particular field and whose scientific background has been translated into a high volume of publications with a high citation potential are welcomed. These authors may even be invited by the journal. Reviews should describe, discuss, and evaluate the current level of knowledge of a topic in clinical practice and should guide future studies. The subheadings of the review articles should be planned by the authors. However, each review article should include an “Introduction” and a “Conclusion” section. Please check Table 1 for the limitations for Review Articles.

Case Reports: There is limited space for case reports in the journal and reports on rare cases or conditions that constitute challenges in diagnosis and treatment, those offering new therapies or revealing knowledge not included in the literature, and interesting and educative case reports are accepted for publication. The text should include Introduction, Case Presentation, and Discussion with an unstructured abstract. Please check Table 1 for the limitations for Case Reports.

Letters to the Editor: This type of manuscript discusses important parts, overlooked aspects, or lacking parts of a previously published article. Articles on subjects within the scope of the journal that might attract the readers’ attention, particularly educative cases, may also be submitted in the form of a “Letter to the Editor.” Readers can also present their comments on the published manuscripts in the form of a “Letter to the Editor.” Abstract, Keywords, and Tables, Figures, Images, and other media should not be included. The text should be unstructured. The manuscript that is being commented on must be properly cited within this manuscript.

Table 1. Limitations for each manuscript type

Tables

Tables should be included in the main document, presented after the reference list, and they should be numbered consecutively in the order they are referred to within the main text. A descriptive title must be placed above the tables. Abbreviations used in the tables should be defined below the tables by footnotes (even if they are defined within the main text). Tables should be created using the “insert table” command of the word processing software and they should be arranged clearly to provide easy reading. Data presented in the tables should not be a repetition of the data presented within the main text but should be supporting the main text.

Figures and Figure Legends

Figures, graphics, and photographs should be submitted as separate files (in TIFF or JPEG format) through the submission system. The files should not be embedded in a Word document or the main document. When there are figure subunits, the subunits should not be merged to form a single image. Each subunit should be submitted separately through the submission system. Images should not be labeled (a, b, c, etc.) to indicate figure subunits. Thick and thin arrows, arrowheads, stars, asterisks, and similar marks can be used on the images to support figure legends. Like the rest of the submission, the figures too should be blind. Any information within the images that may indicate an individual or institution should be blinded. The minimum resolution of each submitted figure should be 300 DPI. To prevent delays in the evaluation process, all submitted figures should be clear in resolution and large in size (minimum dimensions: 100 × 100 mm). Figure legends should be listed at the end of the main document.

All acronyms and abbreviations used in the manuscript should be defined at first use, both in the abstract and in the main text. The abbreviation should be provided in parentheses following the definition.

When a drug, product, hardware, or software program is mentioned within the main text, product information, including the name of the product, the producer of the product, and city and the country of the company (including the state if in USA), should be provided in parentheses in the following format: “Discovery St PET/CT scanner (General Electric, Milwaukee, WI, USA)”

All references, tables, and figures should be referred to within the main text, and they should be numbered consecutively in the order they are referred to within the main text.

Limitations, drawbacks, and the shortcomings of original articles should be mentioned in the Discussion section before the conclusion paragraph.

References

Both in-text citations and the references must be prepared according to the Vancouver style.

While citing publications, preference should be given to the latest, most up-to-date publications. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of references If an ahead-of-print publication is cited, the DOI number should be provided. Journal titles should be abbreviated in accordance with the journal abbreviations in Index Medicus/MEDLINE/PubMed. When there are six or fewer authors, all authors should be listed. If there are seven or more authors, the first six authors should be listed followed by “et al.” In the main text of the manuscript, references should be cited using Arabic numbers in parentheses. The reference styles for different types of publications are presented in the following examples.

Journal Article: Yazıcı A. The efficacy of endoscopic ventilation tube insertion in pediatric populations. Cyprus J Med Sci. 2019; 4(2): 73-6.

Book Section: Suh KN, Keystone JS. Malaria and babesiosis. Gorbach SL, Barlett JG, Blacklow NR, editors. Infectious Diseases. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams; 2004.p.2290-308.

Books with a Single Author: Sweetman SC. Martindale the complete drug reference. 34th ed. London: Pharmaceutical Press; 2005.

Editor(s) as Author: Huizing EH, de Groot JAM, editors. Functional reconstructive nasal surgery. Stuttgart-New York: Thieme; 2003.

Conference Proceedings: Bengisson S. Sothemin BG. Enforcement of data protection, privacy and security in medical informatics. In: Lun KC, Degoulet P, Piemme TE, Rienhoff O, editors. MEDINFO 92. Proceedings of the 7th World Congress on Medical Informatics; 1992 Sept 6-10; Geneva, Switzerland. Amsterdam: North-Holland; 1992. pp.1561-5.

Scientific or Technical Report: Cusick M, Chew EY, Hoogwerf B, Agrón E, Wu L, Lindley A, et al. Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study Research Group. Risk factors for renal replacement therapy in the Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study (ETDRS), Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study Kidney Int: 2004. Report No: 26.

Thesis: Yılmaz B. Ankara Üniversitesindeki öğrencilerin beslenme durumları, fiziksel aktiviteleri ve beden kitle indeksleri kan lipidleri arasındaki ilişkiler. H.Ü. Sağlık Bilimleri Enstitüsü, Doktora Tezi. 2007.

Manuscripts Accepted for Publication, Not Published Yet: Slots J. The microflora of black stain on human primary teeth. Scand J Dent Res. 1974.

Epub Ahead of Print Articles: Cai L, Yeh BM, Westphalen AC, Roberts JP, Wang ZJ. Adult living donor liver imaging. Diagn Interv Radiol. 2016 Feb 24. doi: 10.5152/dir.2016.15323. [Epub ahead of print].

Manuscripts Published in Electronic Format: Morse SS. Factors in the emergence of infectious diseases. Emerg Infect Dis. (serial online) 1995 Jan-Mar (cited 1996 June 5): 1(1): (24 screens). Available from: URL: http:/ www.cdc.gov/ncidodlElD/cid.htm.

REVISIONS

When submitting a revised version of a paper, the author must submit a detailed “Response to the reviewers” that states point by point how each issue raised by the reviewers has been covered and where it can be found (each reviewer’s comment, followed by the author’s reply and line numbers where the changes have been made) as well as an annotated copy of the main document. Revised manuscripts must be submitted within 30 days from the date of the decision letter. If the revised version of the manuscript is not submitted within the allocated time, the revision option may be canceled. If the submitting author(s) believe that additional time is required, they should request this extension before the initial 30-day period is over.

Accepted manuscripts are copy-edited for grammar, punctuation, and format by professional language editors. Once the publication process of a manuscript is completed, it is published online on the journal’s webpage as an ahead-of-print publication before it is included in its scheduled issue. A PDF proof of the accepted manuscript is sent to the corresponding author and their publication approval is requested within 2 days of their receipt of the proof.

Editor in Chief

Sonuç Büyük

Address: Cyprus Turkish Medical Association, Nicosia, Cyprus

Phone: +90 392 223 39 90

Fax: +90 392 223 39 89

E-mail: info@cyprusjmedsci.com

Permissions / Corporate Contributor Correspondence Address:

Galenos Publishing House

Adress: Molla Gürani, Kacamak Street. No: 21/A 34093 Findikzade, Istanbul, Turkey

Phone: +90 (212) 621 99 25

Fax: +90 (212) 621 99 27

E-mail: info@galenos.com.tr

Web page: http://www.galenos.com.tr