Authors’ responsibility

The authors of each manuscript are asked to confirm that:

1) The manuscript has not been previously published or submitted elsewhere;

2) They made a significant contribution to the work and approved the final version of the manuscript;

3) Their work complies with ethical standards;

4) They are 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;

5) They have obtained all necessary permissions to publish any figures or tables in the manuscript, and assure that the authors will pay for Article Processing Charges (APC) if applicable.

Authorship criteria

We require authors to refer to the criteria recommended by ICMJE for defining authorship:

? 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.

We require all those designated as authors to meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who contributed to some parts but do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged. The corresponding author should obtain written permission to be acknowledged from all individuals to whom acknowledgment is applicable.

Author contributions

This section is only required for original articles, review articles, systematic reviews, and meta-analysis articles. It describes the contribution made by each author to the manuscript. Authorship credit should be based on:

1) Substantial contributions to the conception and design of the study, the acquisition of the data, or the analysis and interpretation of the data;

2) Drafting the article or critically revising it for important intellectual content; and

3) The final approval of the final version to be published.

Authors should meet all three of these conditions.

Note: the acquisition of funding, collection of data, language editing, or general supervision of the research group alone do not constitute authorship.

The ‘Author contributions’ section should be presented as follows:

(I) Conception and design:

(II) Administrative support:

(III) Provision of study materials or patients:

(IV) Collection and assembly of data:

(V) Data analysis and interpretation:

(VI) Manuscript writing: All authors

(VII) Final approval of manuscript: All authors

Note: 1. With VI and VII, “All authors” is obligatory, while the other credits are case-based; 2. The ‘Author contributions’ section is not required when there is only one author.

Changes to authorship or contributorship

If there is any change in authorship and/or contributorship after the initial submission, approval from all authors must be presented. This applies to additions, deletions, change of order to the authors, or contributions being attributed differently. Any change must be explained to the Editor. The Editor may seek ascertainment from any of the authors/contributors regarding whether they have agreed to any change.

When disagreements among authors arise, AME follows the guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE): https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts.