Ensure that the following items are present

　　The following list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to sending it to the journal for review. Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details of any item.

　　Ensure that the following items are present:

　　One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:

　　• E-mail address

　　• Full postal address

　　All necessary files have been uploaded, and contain:

　　• Keywords

　　• All figure captions

　　• All tables (including title, description, footnotes)

　　Further considerations

　　• Manuscript has been "spell-checked"and "grammar-checked"

　　• References are in the correct format for this journal

　　• All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa

　　• Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Internet)

　　Printed version of figures (if applicable) in color or black-and-white

　　• Indicate clearly whether or not color or black-and-white in print is required.

　　Ethical responsibilities

　　This journal is committed to upholding the integrity of the scientific record. As a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) the journal will follow the COPE guidelines on how to deal with potential acts of misconduct.

　　Authors should refrain from misrepresenting research results which could damage the trust in the journal and ultimately the entire scientific endeavour. Maintaining integrity of the research and its presentation can be achieved by following the rules of good scientific practice, which includes:

　　The manuscript has not been submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration.

　　The manuscript has not been published previously(partly or in full), unless the new work concerns an expansion of previous work(please provide transparency on the re-use of material to avoid the hint of text-recycling (“self-plagiarism”)).

　　A single study is not split up into several parts to increase the quantity of submissions and submitted to various journals or to one journal over time (e.g. “salami-publishing”).

　　No data have been fabricated or manipulated(including images) to support your conclusions.

　　No data, text, or theories by others are presented as if they were the authors own (“plagiarism”). Proper acknowledgements to other works must be given (this includes material that is closely copied (near verbatim), summarized and/or paraphrased),quotation marks are used for verbatim copying of material, and permissions are secured for material that is copyrighted.

　　Important note: the journal may use software to screen for plagiarism.

　　Consent to submit has been received from all co-authors and responsible authorities at the institute/organization where the work has been carried out before the work is submitted.

　　Authors whose names appear on the submission have contributed sufficiently to the scientific work and therefore share collective responsibility and accountability for the results.

　　Informed consent

　　All individuals have individual rights that are not to be infringed. Individual participants in studies have the right to decide what happens to the (identifiable) personal data gathered and to what they have said e.g. during a study or an interview as well as to any photograph that was taken. Hence it is important that all participants gave their informed consent in writing prior to inclusion in the study. Identifying details (names, dates of birth, identity numbers and other information) of the participants that were studied should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and genetic profiles unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the participant (or parent or guardian if the participant is incapable) has given written informed consent for publication. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve in some cases, and informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of participants is inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic profiles, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning.

　　The following statement should be included:

　　Informed consent: “Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.”

　　If identifying information about participants is available in the article, the following statement should be included:

　　“Additional informed consent was obtained from all individual participants for whom identifying information is included in this article.”

　　Potential conflict of interests

　　Authors must disclose all relationships or interests that could influence or bias the work. Although an author may not feel there are conflicts, disclosure of relationships and interests affords a more transparent process, leading to an accurate and objective assessment of the work. Awareness of real or perceived conflicts of interests is a perspective to which the readers are entitled and is not meant to imply that a financial relationship with an organization that sponsored the research or compensation for consultancy work is inappropriate. Examples of potential conflicts of interests that are directly or indirectly related to the research may include but are not limited to the following:

　　Research grants from funding agencies (please give the research funder and the grant number);

　　Honoraria for speaking at symposia;

　　Financial support for attending symposia;

　　Financial support for educational programs;

　　Employment or consultation;

　　Support from a project sponsor;

　　Position on advisory board or board of directors or other type of management relationships;

　　Multiple affiliations;

　　Financial relationships, for example equity ownership or investment interest;

　　Intellectual property rights (e.g. patents, copyrights and royalties from such rights);

　　Holdings of spouse and/or children that may have financial interest in the work.

　　In addition, interests that go beyond financial interests and compensation (non-financial interests) that may be important to readers should be disclosed. These may include but are not limited to personal relationships or competing interests directly or indirectly tied to this research, or professional interests or personal beliefs that may influence your research.

　　The corresponding author will include a summary statement in the text of the manuscript in a separate section before the reference list.

　　See below examples of disclosures:

　　Funding: This work was supported by X (Grant No. X).

　　Conflict of Interest: Author A has received research grants from Company A. Author B has received a speaker honorarium from Company X and owns stock in Company Y. Author C is a member of committee Z.

　　If no conflict exists, the authors should state:

　　Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

　　Authorship

　　Authorship should be limited to those who have contributed substantially to the work, and every author has responsibility for the data and argument mentioned in the paper. The corresponding author must have obtained permission from all authors for the submission of each version of the paper and for any change in authorship. In addition: changes of authorship or in the order of authors are not accepted after acceptance of a manuscript; requests to add or delete authors at revision stage or after publication is a serious matter, and may be considered only after receipt of written approval from all authors and detailed explanation about the role/deletion of the new/deleted author. The decision on accepting the change rests with the Editor-in-Chief of the journal upon request authors should be prepared to send relevant documentation or data in order to verify the validity of the results. This could be in the form of raw data, samples, records, etc.