Annals of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery
Instructions to Authors
1 Aims and Scope
2 Manuscript Types
3 Manuscript Submission
4 Journal & Ethics Policies
5 Peer Review Process
6 Copyright, Open Access and Fees
7 Manuscript Preparation
8 Accepted Manuscripts
9 Contact

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1 Aims and Scope
Annals of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journalthat publishes significant and novel contributions in thoracic surgery. The journal, which is supportedby the Japanese Association for Coronary Artery Surgery, aims to facilitate the communication andprogress of thoracic surgery worldwide.
Article types include Original Articles, Review Articles, Case Reports, Editorials, New Methods, andLetters to the Editor. The journal publishes articles related to cardiovascular surgery, thoracic surgery,and esophageal surgery in the fields of general medicine, social medicine, nursing science, clinicalmedicine, and related areas. Articles can take basic, experimental, applied, or clinical approaches, andthe journal welcomes articles that present work at the interface of these areas.
The journal provides its authors with rapid but rigorous peer review. Articles are published online
immediately upon acceptance and are freely available to all readers. A print journal is also available
six times a year for subscribers. They are a vital resource for the journal’s broad global audience of
researchers and clinicians.

2 Manuscript Types
The journal publishes 5 manuscript types, all of which are subject to peer review, as well as Editorials.
Each manuscript may have up to 7 authors in principle. The number of figures and tables is not
limited.

2-1 Review Articles
Articles presenting novel or unique overviews of recent or important developments in the field.
Reviews must be insightful and must address the question(s) of interest using appropriate and fully
presented evidence; exhaustive general summaries will not be published. Reviews are generally 10
printed pages, or approximately 8,000, words and can explore several aspects of importance in a
broader subject area. Reviews are occasionally commissioned by the Editor-in-Chief, and the journal
welcomes proposals from interested authors.

2-2 Original Articles
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Full and comprehensive reports describing original research presented in the standard format of
Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion and References. The main text
(excluding references, tables, and figure legends) should not exceed 5 printed pages or approximately
5,000 words.

2-3 Case Reports
A brief description of one or two cases of interest in the standard format of Abstract, Introduction,
Case Report, Discussion, and Conclusion. Case Reports should not exceed 3 printed pages orapproximately 2,400 words.

2-4 New Methods
Brief report on a new technique or procedure, modification of a certain technique, or new equipmentin the field of Thoracic and cardiovascular surgery. New Methods should not exceed 3 printed pages
or approximately 2,400 words

2-5 Letter to the Editor
Letter to the Editor is brief, constructive commentaries that can be submitted in response to a recently
published article in ATCS. Letter to the Editor should not exceed 2 printed pages or approximately
1,600 words

3 Manuscript Submission
All manuscripts must be submitted via the journal’s online submission system, Editorial Manager:
http://www.editorialmanager.com/atcs/. The original or revised manuscript text may be uploaded as a
PDF or Microsoft Word file, but a Word file is required for the final manuscript text. Submit Tables
and Figures as separate files.
The allowable file formats are: Text: Word; Tables: Word, Excel (Tables must not be images)
Figures: JPEG, TIFF, PowerPoint; Video: WMV, MP4.
If you encounter any problems with online submission, please contact the Editorial Office as per thedetails in the Contact section.

4 Journal & Ethics Policies
ATCS upholds the highest standards in scholarly publishing.
Before submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors must ensure that they have read and compliedwith the journal’s policies. The journal reserves the right to reject without review, or retract, any
manuscript that the Editor believes may not comply with these policies.
The responsibilities of the journal’s authors, editors, reviewers and publisher regarding research andpublication ethics are described in full below.
Submission to the journal implies that the manuscript has not been previously published (in part or inwhole, in any language), is not in press, and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

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Authors must inform the editors if any related manuscripts are under consideration, in press or
published elsewhere. The availability of a manuscript on a publicly accessible preprint server does notconstitute prior publication (see ‘Preprints’).
If authors choose to submit their manuscript elsewhere before a final decision has been made on its
suitability for publication in ATCS, they must first withdraw it from the journal.

4-1 Secondary Publication
ATCS aims to ensure the dissemination of knowledge, especially that which is inaccessible to thejournal’s broad international audience. In line with ICMJE policies, the journal therefore considers
articles that have been previously published in different languages if the following conditions are met:

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All authors of the original publication agree to the secondary publication, but
understand that acceptance in the journal is not guaranteed.
The manuscript undergoes full peer review.
Editors from both journals approve of the republication.
Full copyright permissions, per the section ‘Reproducing copyrighted material’, aresupplied upon manuscript submission.
A reasonable period of time has elapsed before the publication of the English version,
to maintain the priority of the original publication. This time will be decided by theeditors of both journals.
The journal’s audience is different to the original publication’s audience.
Differentiating elements can include that the original publication and the original
journal are published wholly in other languages; the original journal is not in the
Science Citation Index Expanded (Clarivate Analytics), Scopus (Elsevier) or otherlarge international database; and the original journal has a restricted distribution (e.g.
in print to members of a society only). Authors should contact the Editor-in-Chief forclarification if needed.
The secondary publication faithfully reflects the data and interpretations of theoriginal publication.

Secondary publications will include text that indicates they are fully peer-reviewed translations of an
original publication. They will contain a statement such as: “Part or all of this article was originallypublished in (e.g. Japanese) as [citation (20ZZ)]”.

4-2 Submission
ATCS welcomes manuscript submissions from authors based anywhere in the world.
Submission of a manuscript to the journal implies that all authors: have approved it, warrant it isfactual, have agreed to its submission, and have the right to publish it.

4-3 Originality
Submission to the journal implies that the manuscript is original work. The journal may use Crossref’s
Similarity Check plagiarism software to screen manuscripts for unoriginal content. By submitting amanuscript to the journal, authors agree to this screening. Any manuscript with an unacceptable levelof unoriginal material may be rejected or retracted at the Editors’ discretion.

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4-4 Preprints
To support the wide dissemination of research, the journal encourages authors to post their researchmanuscripts on community-recognized preprint servers, either before or alongside submission to thejournal. This policy applies only to the original version of a manuscript that describes primaryresearch. Any version of a manuscript that has been revised in response to reviewers’ comments,
accepted for publication or published in the journal should not be posted on a preprint server. Instead,forward links to the published manuscript may be posted on the preprint server. Authors must notify
ATCS of any preprint related to their manuscript upon submission. Authors are recommended to posta link to the ATCS article on the preprint server after the manuscript is accepted.
Authors should retain copyright in their work when posting to a preprint server.

4-5 Scooping
When assessing the novelty of a manuscript submitted to the journal, the editors will not be influenced
by other manuscripts that are posted on community-recognized preprint servers after the date ofsubmission to ATCS (or after the date of posting on a preprint server, if the manuscript is submitted tothe journal within 4 months).

4-6 Authorship
Submission to the journal implies that all authors have seen and approved the author list. Changes tothe author list after manuscript submission – such as the insertion or removal of author names, or arearrangement of author order – must be approved by all authors and the editor.
First Author is the author listed at the top of the author list.
Identify one author as the corresponding author. This author will reply to questions, provide more
information, and take responsibility for the integrity and accuracy of the entire manuscript.
Authors are encouraged to consider the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)
Recommendations on ‘Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors’. The ICMJE recommends that
authorship is based on four criteria:

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making a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work, or theacquisition, analysis or interpretation of data for the work
drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content
approving the final version of the manuscript for publication
and agreeing to be held accountable for all aspects of the work.

Any contributor who has met all four criteria should be an author on the manuscript. Contributors who
do not meet all four criteria should not be authors of the manuscript but may be included in the
Acknowledgements section instead.

4-7 Image integrity
Authors may digitally manipulate or process images, but only if the adjustments are kept to aminimum, are applied to the entire image, meet community standards, and are clearly described in the
manuscript. All images in a manuscript must accurately reflect the original data on which they arebased. Authors must not move, remove, add or enhance individual parts of an image. The editors
reserve the right to request original, unprocessed images from the authors. Failure to provide requested
images may result in a manuscript being rejected or retracted.

4-8 Reproducing copyrighted material

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If a manuscript includes material that is not under the authors’ own copyright, the authors must obtain
permission from the copyright holder(s) to reproduce it.
If a manuscript includes previously published material, the authors must obtain permission from the
copyright owners and the publisher of the original work to reproduce it. The authors must cite theoriginal work in their manuscript.
Copies of all permissions for reproduction must be uploaded upon submission of the manuscript.

4-9 Availability of data and materials
Authors for all original research must include a data availability statement. Data availability
statements should include information on where data supporting the results reported in thearticle can be found, if applicable.
4-10 Animal/human experimentation and informed consent
Authors of manuscripts describing experiments involving humans or materials derived from humans
must demonstrate that the work was carried out in accordance with the principles embodied in the
Declaration of Helsinki, its revisions, and any guidelines approved by the authors’ institutions. Where
relevant, the authors must include a statement in their manuscript that describes the procedures for
obtaining informed consent from participants regarding participation in the research and publication of
the research.
All papers reporting experiments using animals must include a statement in the Methods section
giving assurance that all animals have received humane care in compliance with the “Principles ofLaboratory Animal Care” formulated by the National Society for Medical Research and the “Guide for
the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals” prepared by the Institute of Laboratory Animal Research(ILAR), published by the National Academies Press (2011; see
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK54050/).

4-11 Clinical trial registration
The journal adheres to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) policy on
Clinical Trials Registration, which recommends that all clinical trials are registered in a public trials
registry at or before the time of first patient enrollment as a condition of consideration for publication.
Manuscripts describing clinical trials must include the registration number of the trial and the name of
the trial registry.

4-12 Reporting guidelines
The journal requires authors to follow the EQUATOR Network’s Reporting Guidelines for healthresearch. Study types include, but are not limited to, randomized trials, observational studies,systematic reviews, case reports, qualitative research, diagnostic and prognostic studies, economic
evaluations, animal pre-clinical studies and study protocols.

4-13 Author competing interests and conflicts of interest
In the interests of transparency, the journal requires all authors to declare any competing or conflictsof interest in relation to their submitted manuscript. A conflict of interest exists when there are actual,
perceived or potential circumstances that could influence an author’s ability to conduct or report

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research impartially. Potential conflicts include (but are not limited to) competing commercial or
financial interests, commercial affiliations, consulting roles, or ownership of stock or equity.
When submitting a manuscript, all authors are required to disclose financial relationships withcommercial manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, or other commercial entities that have aninterest in the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes any interests heldby spouses, other immediate family or close associates.
Authors shall disclose matters relevant within 3 years prior to submission must be disclosed.
Authors must complete the disclosure form and upload it at the time of submission. In addition, eachmanuscript must include a “Declarations” section (which comes before the “References” section) thatis based on the sample text as per the form.

4-14 Confidentiality
The journal maintains the confidentiality of all unpublished manuscripts. By submitting theirmanuscript to the journal, the authors warrant that they will keep all correspondence about theirmanuscript (from the Editorial Office, editors and reviewers) strictly confidential.

4-15 Self-archiving policy
Self-archiving enables authors to deposit a copy of their manuscript in an online repository. ATCS
encourages authors of original research manuscripts to upload their article to an institutional or public
repository immediately after publication in the journal.

4-16 Long-term digital archiving
J-STAGE preserves its full digital library, including ATCS, with Portico in a dark archive (seehttps://www.portico.org/publishers/jstage/). In the event that the material becomes unavailable at JSTAGE, it will be released and made available by Portico.
4-17 Advertising Policy
All journal content is independently curated and advertising does not in any way influence editorial
decisions. Advertising is clearly marked as such and the editors have full and final authority for
approving print and online advertisements and for enforcing advertising policy. The journal will notcarry advertisements for products proven to be seriously harmful to health and the editors willconsider all criticisms of advertisements for publication.

5 Peer Review Process
5-1 Editorial and peer review process
The journal uses single-blind peer review. When a manuscript is submitted to the journal, it isassigned to the Editor-in-Chief, who performs initial screening. Manuscripts that do not fit thejournal’s scope or are not deemed suitable for publication are rejected without review. The Editor-inChief allocates each of the remaining manuscripts to an Editor, who handles peer review. The Editor
selects two appropriate reviewers to provide their assessment of the manuscript. Reviewers are
selected based on their expertise, reputation and previous experience as peer reviewers. The deadline
for submission of the reviewers’ reports varies by article type.

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Once the reviewers’ reports have been received, the Editor determines whether the manuscript
requires revision. Authors who are asked to revise their manuscript must do so within two months,
otherwise it may be treated as a new submission. The Editor may send revised manuscripts to peer
reviewers for their feedback or may use his or her own judgement to assess how closely the authors
have followed the comments on the original manuscript. The Editor then makes a final decision on the
manuscript’s suitability for publication in the journal.
The Editor-in-Chief acts as an arbitrator when necessary.

5-2 Reviewer selection, timing and suggestions
Reviewers are selected from an international pool and need not belong to ATCS’s Editorial Board.
Reviewers are selected based on their expertise in the field, reputation, recommendation by others,
and/or previous experience as peer reviewers for the journal.
Reviewers are invited within 1-2 weeks of an article being submitted. Reviewers are asked to submit
their first review within 2 weeks of accepting the invitation to review. Reviewers who anticipate any
delays should inform the Editorial Office as soon as possible.
When submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors may suggest reviewers that they would likeincluded in or excluded from the peer review process. The Editor may consider these suggestions but
is under no obligation to follow them. The selection, invitation and assignment of peer reviewers is at
the Editor’s sole discretion.

5-3 Reviewer reports
It is the journal’s policy to transmit reviewers’ comments to the authors in their original form.
However, the journal reserves the right to edit reviewers’ comments, without consulting the reviewers,
if they contain offensive language, confidential information or recommendations for publication.

5-4 Acceptance criteria
If a manuscript satisfies the journal’s requirements and represents a significant contribution to the
published literature, the Editor may recommend acceptance for publication in the journal.
Articles in ATCS must:

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be within the subject area of the journal’s scope
be novel and original
be important additions to the field
describe technically rigorous research
be of high interest to the journal’s audience

The journal particularly welcomes articles that demonstrate conceptual breakthroughs.
If a manuscript does not meet the journal’s requirements for acceptance or revision, the Editor may
recommend rejection.

5-5 Editorial independence
As the owner of the journal, the Editorial Committee of Annals of Thoracic and Cardiovascular
Surgery (the ECATCS) has granted the journal’s Editorial Board complete and sole responsibility for
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all editorial decisions. The ECATS will not become involved in editorial decisions, except in cases ofa fundamental breakdown of process.
Editorial decisions are based only on a manuscript’s scientific merit and are kept completely separate
from the journal’s other interests. The authors’ ability to pay any publication charges has no bearing
on whether a manuscript is accepted for publication in the journal.

5-6 Appeals
Authors who believe that an editorial decision has been made in error may lodge an appeal with the
Editorial Office. Appeals are only considered if the authors provide detailed evidence of amisunderstanding or mistake by a reviewer or editor. Appeals are considered carefully by the Editorin-Chief, whose decision is final. The guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) arefollowed where and when relevant.

5-7 Editor confidentiality
The journal maintains the confidentiality of all unpublished manuscripts. Editors will not:

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disclose a reviewer’s identity unless the reviewer makes a reasonable request for suchdisclosure
discuss the manuscript or its contents with anyone not directly involved with themanuscript or its peer review
use any data or information from the manuscript in their own work or publications
use information obtained from the peer review process to provide an advantage tothemselves or anyone else, or to disadvantage any individual or organization.

5-8 Conflicts of Interest in peer review
A conflict of interest exists when there are actual, perceived or potential circumstances that could
influence an editor’s ability to act impartially when assessing a manuscript. Such circumstances might
include having a personal or professional relationship with an author, working on the same topic or in
direct competition with an author, or having a financial stake in the work or its publication.
Members of the journal’s Editorial Board undertake to declare any conflicts of interest when handlingmanuscripts. An editor who declares a conflict of interest is unassigned from the manuscript inquestion and is replaced by a new editor.

5-9 Errata and retractions
The journal recognizes the importance of maintaining the integrity of published literature.
A published article that contains an error may be corrected through the publication of an Erratum.
Errata describe errors that significantly affect the scientific integrity of a publication, the reputation of
the authors, or the journal itself. Authors who wish to correct a published article should contact theeditor who handled their manuscript or the Editorial Office with full details of the error(s) and theirrequested changes. In cases where co-authors disagree over a correction, the Editor-in-Chief may
consult the Editorial Board or external peer reviewers for advice. If a Correction is published, any
dissenting authors will be noted in the text.
A published article that contains invalid or unreliable results or conclusions, has been publishedelsewhere, or has infringed codes of conduct (covering research or publication ethics) may beretracted. Individuals who believe that a published article should be retracted are encouraged to
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contact the journal’s Editorial Office with full details of their concerns. The Editor-in-Chief will
investigate further and contact the authors of the published article for their response. In cases whereco-authors disagree over a retraction, the Editor-in-Chief may consult the Editorial Board or external
peer reviewers for advice. If a Retraction is published, any dissenting authors will be noted in the text.
The decision to publish Errata or Retractions is made at the sole discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.

5-10 Editors as authors in the journal
Any member of the journal’s Editorial Board, including the Editor-in-Chief who is an author on asubmitted manuscript is excluded from the peer review process. Within the journal’s online
manuscript submission and tracking system, they will be able to see their manuscript as an author but
not as an editor, thereby maintaining the confidentiality of peer review.
A manuscript authored by an editor of ATCS is subject to the same high standards of peer review andeditorial decision making as any manuscript considered by the journal.

5-11 Responding to potential ethical breaches
The journal will respond to allegations of ethical breaches by following its own policies and, where
possible, the guidelines of COPE.

5-12 Reviewer Confidentiality
As part of their responsibilities, reviewers agree to maintain the confidentiality of unpublishedmanuscripts at all times. By accepting the invitation to review a manuscript, reviewers agree not to:

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disclose their role in reviewing the manuscript
reveal their identity to any of the authors of the manuscript
discuss the manuscript or its contents with anyone not directly involved in the review
process
involve anyone else in the review (for example, a post-doc or PhD student) without first
requesting permission from the Editor
use any data or information from the manuscript in their own work or publications
use information obtained from the peer review process to provide an advantage tothemselves or anyone else, or to disadvantage any individual or organization.

5-13 Reviewer Conflicts of interest
A conflict of interest exists when there are actual, perceived or potential circumstances that could
influence a reviewer’s ability to assess a manuscript impartially. Such circumstances might include
having a personal or professional relationship with an author, working on the same topic or in directcompetition with an author, having a financial stake in the work or its publication, or having seen
previous versions of the manuscript.
Editors try to avoid conflicts of interest when inviting reviewers, but it is not always possible toidentify potential bias. Reviewers are asked to declare any conflicts of interest to the Editor, who will
determine the best course of action.

6 Copyright, Open Access and Fees

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ATCS is fully Open Access and uses a Creative Commons (CC) license, which allows for the noncommercial use and reuse of material published in the journal without charge or the need to ask priorpermission from the publisher or author. More details on the CC licenses are below.

6-1 Copyright and licensing
Authors are required to assign all copyrights in the work to the Society, who then publish the work
under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BYNC-ND 4.0) license. This license allows users to share unmodified articles, non-commercially, as longas appropriate credit is given.
Authors must complete and sign the Transfer of Copyright Agreement form and submit this at the timeof submission.
Some funding bodies require articles funded by them to be published under a specific Creative
Commons license. Before submitting your work to the journal, check with the relevant funding bodies
to ensure that you comply with any mandates.

6-2 Publication Charges
There are many costs associated with publishing scholarly journals, such as those of managing peer
review, copy editing, typesetting and online hosting. To cover these costs in the absence of journal
subscriptions, authors (or their representatives) are asked to pay article processing charges (APCs),
which are listed below.
Color is free for the online version, but if authors select to have color in the print version, charges
apply, as below.
Table of charges. All amounts are in Japanese yen. Offprints and priority publications charges are only
charged if authors elect to take these services.
Article Processing
Charges(JPY)
Color Charges

Offprints

Review Article(10 printed pages)
Original Article(5 printed pages)
100,000 per article
Case Report
First page: 100,000;
Extra pages: 50,000(3 printed pages)
20,000 per 50 copies
New Methods(3 printed pages)
Letter to the Editor
50,000 per article(2 printed pages)
Invited Review
No charge
Each page: 50,000
ArticlesOne printed page is approximately 800 words, and one table or figure is approximately 400 words.
Note:

1. Priority Publication Charges: Authors may request rapid publication for 50,000 JPY.
2. For Article Processing Charges, 20,000 JPY / page is charged after the page limits set
out in the “Manuscript Types” section are exceeded
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3. Offprints must be in lots of 50
Authors of accepted manuscripts will be invoiced for the APC and need to settle before theirmanuscript will be published.
The total publication charge is fixed on author's proof check. Authors receive an email which has alink to the payment page. The article will appear on advance publication online as soon as the payment
is completed on the payment page. If payment is not made within three months of receiving thenotification, the manuscript will be returned to the authors.

6-3 Waiver policy
Waivers for Article Processing Charges are provided automatically when the corresponding author isfrom a “Group A” Research4Life country. In cases of demonstrated financial hardship, the journal willconsider a pre-submission application for a waiver from any corresponding author to the editorial
office (atcs-edit@bunken.co.jp). Applications cannot be made after the peer review process has begun.
If a waiver is provided, the article will appear in black and white in print, no offprints are provided,
articles must be within the stated page limits and priority publication is not possible.
The ability of an author to pay the APC does not influence editorial decisions. To avoid any possibilityof undue influence, Editors involved with the decision-making process for articles are not involved inany deliberations on waivers.

7 Manuscript Preparation
7-1 Style
Manuscripts should be prepared in Microsoft Word or other appropriate software using double line
spacing throughout, with margins of at least 3 cm. Note that one printed page is approximately 800
words. One table or figure is approximately 400 words.

7-2 English standards
Manuscripts should be written in clear, grammatically correct English. Authors whose native language
is not English are strongly encouraged to have their manuscript checked by a native English speaker orby an editing service prior to submission. If a manuscript is not clear due to poor English, it may berejected without undergoing peer review.

7-3 Format
Each manuscript should have the following sections: Title page, Abstract, Main text, Declarations,
References, and Figure Legends on a new page, and number the pages and lines.
Words*
Review Article
Original Article
Case Report

8,000(10 printed pages)
5,000(5 printed pages)
2,400(3 printed pages)

Abstractwords (structured)Max,
references

200 (not required)60

200 (structured)30

150 (unstructured)

20

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New Methods
Letter to the Editor

2,400(3 printed pages)
1,600(2 printed pages)

150 (unstructured)

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* Excluding references, figure legends, tables, and figures* The number of figures and tables is not limited.

One printed page is approximately 800 words, and one table or figure is approximately 400
words.
7-4 Title pageThe title page should contain the following:

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Title of the article. The title should describe the content of the article briefly but clearly
and is important for search purposes by third-party services. Do not use abbreviations in
the title, except those used generally in related fields.
Name and affiliation of authors
First Author is the author listed at the top of the author list.
Each manuscript may have up to 7 authors in principle.
Name, address, and e-mail address of the corresponding author
Identify one author as the corresponding author.
Manuscript Types: review article, original article, case report, new method, editorial, orothersRunning title (up to 50 characters)
Keywords (add up to 5 keywords)
ORCID IDs of the authors (if any)

7-5 Abstract
The Abstract should clearly express the basic content of the paper. Abstracts must not exceed 200
words for Original Articles and Reviews, and 150 words for Case Report and New Methods. Avoid
using specific abbreviations or acronyms.
Original Article should use the following headings: Purpose, Methods, Results, and Conclusion.

7-6 Main text
The following sections are required:
Review Article: No defined style. Declrations and References are required.
Original Articles: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion.
Case Reports: Introduction, Case Report, Discussion, and Conclusion.
New Methods: Introduction, Case Report, Discussion, and Conclusion.
Editorial: No defined style. Declarations and References are required.
Letter to Editor: No defines style. Declarations and References are required.

7-7 Declarations
All manuscripts must contain the following sections under the heading 'Declarations'.
If any of the sections are not relevant to your manuscript, please include the heading and write'Not applicable' for that section.
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Ethics approval and consent to participate
Consent for publication
Funding (information that explains whether and by whom the research was supported)
Conflicts of interest/Competing interests (include appropriate disclosures)
Data availability
Authors' contributions (the individual contributions of each author to this paper)
Please see the relevant sections in the submission guidelines for further information as well as
various examples of wording. Please revise/customize the sample statements according to
your own needs.
7-8 References
ATCS uses the Vancouver referencing style. References should be numbered serially in the text andlisted, double-spaced, on a separate sheet at the end of the manuscript in the same numerical order.
The Reference format should conform to that set forth in “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts
Submitted to Biomedical Journals,” with sample references maintained by the National Library ofMedicine. Journal abbreviations should conform to the style used in the Cumulative Index Medicus.
Each reference should be styled as per the following examples.
Journal articles
Surname of each author with initial(s), title of article, journal name, date, volume number, andinclusive pages (list all authors when three or less; when four or more, list only three and add et al.)Example: Maroto E, Fouron JC, Douste-Blazy MY, et al. Influence of age on wall thickness, cavity
dimensions and myocardial contractility of the left ventricle in simple transposition of the greatarteries. Circulation 1983; 67: 1311–7.
Books
Surname of each author with initial(s), chapter title, editor’s name, book title, city of publication,
publisher, date, and pages
Example: Bugiasky L, Zak R. Biological mechanisms of hypertrophy. In: Fozzard HA, Haber E,
Jennings RB, Katz AM, Morgan HE eds.; The Heart and Cardiovascular System. New York: Raven
Press, 1986; pp 1491–506.

The number of references for each type of manuscript is limited to:
Review Article:
Original Article:
Case Report:
New Methods:
Editorial:

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ATCS Instructions to Authors

Letter to the Editor:

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7-9 Tables
Submit as a separate Excel or MS Word File containing text data, not as images. Use Arabic numerals
to number tables as they appear in the text and include a Title, placed above the table. Explanatory
material and footnotes should be typed below the table and should be designated with superscript
letters, such as a) or b). Units of measurement should be included with numerical values at the top ofcolumns. Avoid detailed explanations of the experimental conditions used to obtain the data shown intables (which should be included in other sections as relevant).

7-10 Figures
Submit figures, photography, graphs or diagrams in MS Word, PowerPoint, JPEG or TIFF. Figures
should be of high enough resolution for direct reproduction for printing, and the resolution of the
figure should be at least 300 dpi. Note that ‘figures’ includes line drawings and photographs, as well
as charts. Magnifications of photographs should be indicated in the legends and/or by scales includedin the photographs.
Figures must be self-explanatory and they should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals(i.e., Fig. 1, Fig. 2, etc.). Figure legends should be typed together on a new page after the References
section. Figure legends should include sufficient experimental details to make the figures intelligible;
however, duplicating the descriptions provided in other sections should be avoided.

7-11 Abbreviations
Each abbreviation should be defined in parentheses together with its non-abbreviated term when it
first appears in the text (except in the Title and Abstract).

7-12 Units
SI or SI-derived units should be used. More information on SI units is available at the Bureau
International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) website.

7-13 Supplementary material
Supplementary material adds, but is not essential, to a reader’s understanding of a manuscript. Authors
are encouraged to submit supplementary material for online-only publication. Supplementary material
may comprise data, text, audio, or movie files, and is published online alongside the accepted
manuscript.
As supplementary material is peer-reviewed, authors must submit it in its final form as part of theirmanuscript submission. After a manuscript has been accepted for publication, authors may not makeany changes to the supplementary material.

8 Accepted Manuscripts
Accepted manuscripts will be promptly published online after being copyedited and typesetted by thejournal's production team. All communication regarding accepted manuscripts should be directed to
the first author.

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ATCS Instructions to Authors

8-1 Proofs
Page proofs are sent to the corresponding author, who should check and return them within 48 hours
via email. Only essential corrections to typesetting errors or omissions are accepted; excessivechanges are not permitted at the proofing stage.

8-2 Offprints
Order forms for reprints are sent with the proofs to the corresponding author and should be returned
with the proofs. Charges are listed in the Publication Charges section

9 Contact
To contact the Editorial Office or the Editor-in-Chief, please write to:
ATCS Editorial Officec/o International Academic Publishing Co., Ltd.
Publishing Center, Yamabuki-cho 332-6, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 162-0801, Japan
Email: atcs-edit@bunken.co.jp
Fax: +81-3-5206-5331
Updated: August 7, 2024

Journal homepage: http://www.atcs.jp / | Journal content: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/atcs

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