The Kaohsiung Journal of Medical Sciences invites original contributions relating to all fields of medicine and related disciplines that are of interest to the medical profession.

Manuscript Submission

The Kaohsiung Journal of Medical Sciences accepts online submission through Elsevier's Editorial System. This system can be accessed at http://www.kjms-online. com. The site will guide authors stepwise through the submission process. If assistance is needed, contact the editorial Office at:

Editorial Office
Kaohsiung Journal of Medical Sciences
Kaohsiung Medical University
100 Shih-Chuan 1st Road, Kaohsiung 807, Taiwan
Tel: (886) 7-312-1101 ext 2111
Fax: (886) 7-322-1107 E-mail: kjms@kmu.edu.tw

Important Information

• Please note that manuscripts submitted by e-mail should not also be submitted by post.
• Articles submitted by e-mail or on disk should be in Microsoft Word document format (*.doc) and prepared in the simplest form possible. We will add in the correct font, font size, margins and so on according to our house style.
• You may use automatic page numbering, but please avoid other kinds of automatic formatting such as footnotes, endnotes, headers and footers.
• Please put text, references, tables, figures, and legends in one file, with each table and figure on a new page.
• Figures will be published as received from authors. (Please note that the cost of color illustrations will be charged to the author.)

Basic Criteria

Articles should be written in English (American English spelling) and meet the following basic criteria: the material is original, the information is important, the writing is clear (clinical or laboratory jargon is to be avoided), the study methods are appropriate, the data are valid, and the conclusions are reasonable and supported by the data. Previous Publication or Duplicate Submission Submitted manuscripts are considered with the understanding that they have not been published previously in print or electronic format (except in abstract or poster form) and are not under consideration by another publication or electronic medium.

Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest

All authors are required to sign and submit the following financial disclosure statement at the time of manuscript submission:

I certify that all my affiliations with or financial involvement in, within the past 5 years and foreseeable future, any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript are completely disclosed (e.g. employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, royalties).

Authors who have no relevant financial interests should provide a statement indicating that they have no financial interests related to the material in the manuscript.

Categories of Articles

The categories of articles that are published are described below.

Review Articles

These should aim to provide the reader with a balanced overview of an important and topical subject in medicine, and should be systematic, critical assessments of literature and data sources, emphasizing factors such as cause, diagnosis, prognosis, therapy, or prevention. All articles and data sources reviewed should include information about the specific type of study or analysis, population, intervention, exposure, and tests or outcomes. All articles or data sources should be selected systematically for inclusion in the review and critically evaluated.

The following are given as examples of possible section headings: Introduction (to include a definition of the disease to be discussed, its incidence and relationship to age, sex and geography), Etiology, Pathology (macroscopic and microscopic), Diagnosis, Clinical Features/Complications, Prevention, Treatment, Prognosis, Conclusion or Summary. Figures, tables, algorithms and other forms of illustration should be included as appropriate.

Reviews are usually written by invited authors who are recognized experts on that particular topic. Typical length: 2000-3000 words.

Original Articles

These may be randomized trials, intervention studies, studies of screening and diagnostic tests, cohort studies, cost-effectiveness analyses, case-control studies, and surveys with high response rates, that represent new and significant contributions to medical science.

Each manuscript should state the objective/hypothesis, design and methods (including the study setting and dates, patients/ participants with inclusion and exclusion criteria, or data sources and how these were selected for the study), the essential features of any interventions, the main outcome measures, the main results, discussion placing the results in context with the published literature, and conclusions. Typical length: 2000-3000 words.

Case Reports

These are short discussions of a case or case series with unique features not previously described. Typical length: 800-1200 words.

Manuscript Preparation

Text should be typed double-spaced on one side of A4 (297x210 mm) paper, with outer margins of 3 cm. Each section of the manuscript should begin on a new page.

Title Page

Two different title pages are required. The first title page should contain the following information:
• category of paper
• manuscript title
• short running title not exceeding 45 characters
• the names (spelled out in full) of all the authors and their affiliations in English
• corresponding author's details (e-mail address, mailing address and telephone number) in English

Abstracts

he first page following the title page should contain a concise English abstract of no more than 500 words and up to 5 relevant key words/index terms. A Chinese version of the abstract should follow the English abstract.

Ethical Approval of Studies and Informed Consent

For human or animal experimental investigations, appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee approval is required, and such approval should be stated in the methods section of the manuscript. For those investigators who do not have formal ethics review committees, the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki should be followed (World Medical Association.Declaration of Helsinki: ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects. Available at: http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/17c.pdf ).

For investigations of human subjects, state explicitly in the methods section of the manuscript that informed consent was obtained from all participating adult subjects and from parents or legal guardians for minors or incapacitated adults, together with the manner in which informed consent was obtained (i.e. oral or written).

Identification of Patients in Descriptions, Photographs, and Pedigrees

A signed statement of informed consent to publish (in print and online) patient descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees should be obtained from all persons (parents or legal guardians for minors) who can be identified (including by the patients themselves) in such written descriptions, photographs, or pedigrees, and should be submitted with the manuscript. Such persons should be shown the manuscript before its submission. Omitting data or making data less specific to deidentify patients is acceptable, but changing any such data is not acceptable.

Funding/Support and Conflicts of Interest

All financial and material support for the research and the work should be clearly and completely identified in an Acknowledgments in the manuscript. Ensure that any conflicts of interest are explicitly declared.

Units

Please use Systeme International (SI) units, with the exception of blood pressure values which are to be reported in mmHg. Please use the metric system for the expression of length, area, mass, and volume. Temperatures are to be given in degrees Celsius.

Drug Names

Use the Recommended International Non-proprietary Name for medicinal substances, unless the specific trade name of a drug is directly relevant to the discussion.

Gene Nomenclature

Current standard international nomenclature for genes should be adhered to. For human genes, use genetic notation and symbols approved by the HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee ( http://www.genenames.org/ ) or refer to PubMed ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez ). The Human Genome Variation Society also has a useful site that provides guidance in naming mutations at http://www.hgvs.org/mutnomen/index.html . In your manuscript, genes should be typed in italic font and include the accession number.

Abbreviations

Where a term/definition will be continually referred to, it must be written in full, followed by the subsequent abbreviation in brackets, when it first appears in the text. Thereafter, the abbreviation may be used.

Tables

Tables should supplement, not duplicate, the text. They should have a concise table heading, be self-explanatory, and numbered consecutively in the order of their citation in the text. Information requiring explanatory footnotes should be denoted using superscript lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.), with the footnotes arranged alphabetically by the superscripts. Asterisks (*, **) are used only to indicate the probability level of tests of significance. Abbreviations used in the table must be defined and placed after the footnotes. If you include a block of data or table from another source, whether published or unpublished, you must acknowledge the original source.

Figures

The number of figures should be restricted to the minimum necessary to support the textual material. They should have an informative figure legend and be numbered in the order of their citation in the text. All symbols and abbreviations should be defined in the legend. Patient identification should be obscured. All lettering should be done professionally and should be in proportion to the drawing, graph or photograph. Photomicrographs must include an internal scale marker, the type of specimen, original magnification and stain. Figures must be submitted as separate picture files (ex. TIF, JPG, etc.) at the correct resolution of a minimum of 600 dpi. The files should be named according to the figure number and format, e.g. "Fig1.tif", "Fig2.jpg". The cost of color illustrations will be charged to the author.

Personal Communications and Unpublished Data

A signed statement of permission should be included from each individual identified as a source of information in a personal communication or as a source for unpublished data; the date of communication and whether the communication was written or oral should be specified.

Acknowledgments

General acknowledgments for consultations, statistical analysis, etc., should be listed concisely at the end of the text, including the names of the individuals who were directly involved. Consent should be obtained from those individuals before their names are listed in this section. All financial and material support for the research and work from internal or external agencies, including commercial companies, should be clearly and completely identified. Ensure that any conflicts of interest are explicitly declared.

References
In the main text, tables, figure legends
- References should be indicated by number(s) in square brackets in line with the text and numbered consecutively in order of appearance in the text and placed before punctuation.
- References cited in tables or figure legends should be included in sequence at the point where the table or figure is first mentioned in the main text.
- Do not cite uncompleted work or work that has not yet been accepted for publication (i.e. "unpublished observation", "personal communication") as references.
- Do not cite abstracts unless they are the only available reference to an important concept.

In the References section
- References should be limited to those cited in the text and listed in numerical order, NOT alphabetical order.
- References should include, in order, author names, article title, journal name, year, volume and inclusive page numbers.
- The last names and initials of all the authors up to 6 should be included, but when authors number 6 or more, list the first 6 authors only followed by “et al”.
- Abbreviations for journal names should conform to those used in MEDLINE.
- If citing a website, provide the author information, article title, website address and the date you accessed the information.

Examples
Reference to a journal publication:
[1] Van der Geer J, Hanraads JAJ, Lupton RA. The art of writing a scientific article. J Sci Commun 2000;163:51–9.

Reference to a book:
[2] Strunk Jr W, White EB. The elements of style. 3rd ed. New York: Macmillan; 1979.

Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
[3] Mettam GR, Adams LB. How to prepare an electronic version of your article. In: Jones BS, Smith RZ, editors. Introduction to the electronic age. New York: E-Publishing Inc; 1999, p. 281–304.

Editorial and Peer Review

Submitted manuscripts are reviewed initially by the Editorial Board, whose members will determine which articles will be published based on their scientific merit, readability and interest. Manuscripts with insufficient priority for publication are rejected promptly. Rejected manuscripts will not be returned to authors unless requested. All other manuscripts are sent to two or more expert consultants for peer review.

Preparation for Publication

Accepted manuscripts are copyedited according to our house style and the galley proofs are returned to the corresponding author for final approval. Authors are responsible for all statements made in their work, including changes made by the copy editor and authorized by the corresponding author.

All authors must sign a statement of authorship responsibility and copyright transfer prior to publication of their paper. This form will be provided by the Publisher, together with the galley proofs.

Publication Charges and Reprints

The journal will bear the cost of publication for articles of 5 printed pages or less for Original Articles, and 3 printed pages or less for Case Reports. Authors will be charged for the cost of the extra pages at NT$3000/page. Authors will be charged NT$1500 per illustration, figure or table that is in color. Authors will receive 50 offprints of their articles free of charge. Additional professional reprints (which includes a cover page for the article) may be ordered at terms based on the cost of production. A reprint order form will be provided by the Publisher, together with the galley proofs.

• Declaration of Publication

• Copyright Transfer Agreement



Updated February 2011