GENERAL POLICIES

Aim & Scope

Besides keeping the readers up to date in new diagnostic methods, new treatment strategies, popular medical topics in basic sciences and clinical medicine, Acta Medica aims to widen the vision and scope of new generations with the love of science and to be a bridge between the experience of the seniors and the cruiosity of the students of all ages.

Limitations and Returned Applications

Acta Medica publishes original, peer-reviewed experimental and clinical studies, case reports and invited reviews in all fields related to  medicine. Papers accepted for publication must meet all the criteria of originality, priority, scientificity and actuality. All the papers adding new information to the current field and have a chance to make it interesting for the readers will be accepted for review.

The manuscript will be returned to the author without reviewing if the editors think that the paper is not suitable for the publication.

Publication Frequency

Acta Medica publishes four issues per year in March, June, September and December.

Publication Language and Language Editing

Acta Medica publishes manuscripts only in English. Manuscripts should be written in clear concise English. The language of the manuscripts submitted to Acta Medica must be accurate in terms of rules of grammar and scientific literature and must have a plain and clear language quality.  The journal does not have any translation services for this purpose, but recommends the author(s) whose English is not good enough to have their manuscripts edited by a professional translator or native English speaker or some accredited companies before submission. The author is responsible for the adjustment of suggestions made by section editors or reviewers.  

In cases where manuscripts by authors whose native language is not English are accepted for publication, the manuscripts should be submitted to the editorial board after their translation and editing is done by the professional people or companies. The author(s) who has been requested to get his/her manuscript edited may do so referring to one of the companies below and present a related document to the editorial board afterwards.

American Journal Experts (AJE), https://www.aje.com/en

Bioedit, https://www.bioedit.com/

BioScienceWriters, http://www.biosciencewriters.com

Boston BioEdit, http://www.bostonbioedit.com

Elsevier Language Services, http://webshop.elsevier.com/languageservices/

Editage, http://www.editage.com/

Editorial Rx, http://www.editorialrx.com

Enago, http://www.enago.com/

ScienceDocs, http://www.sciencedocs.com

SPI Publisher Services, http://www.prof-editing.com

TheMedical Editor, http://www.themedicaleditor.com

Textcheck, http://www.textcheck.com

Wiley Editing Services, http://wileyeditingservices.com/en/

Note that appearance in the list of vendors does not represent endorsement by the publisher or journal. Authors are encouraged to investigate each service on their own, as well as seek out additional vendors offering similar services.

Journal Sections

Main Journal and Corners

The journal is composed of two main sections being the main journal and the corners.

The main journal is structured with original articles, reviews, case reports, editorials, short reports, letters to editors, technical reports and medical hypothesis.

• Original articles
• Reviews
• Case Reports
• Letters to the Editor/Technical Note
• Corners:
• Senior Corner: Every emeritus in medical field are invited to contribute a paper either medical or non medical to share their knowledge, experience, memories and history of medicine. This section is ended with a paper from the previous issues.
• Feelings: The feelings which are very important in life are sometimes forgotten during the studies and practice of medicine. As every feeling is very valuable and diverse, everyone from medical students to patients are invited to share either their own feelings or the feelings of others to contribute to understand each other.
• In the hospital; possible solutions to possible problems: Hospitals are living structures. There are or may be problems noticed by someone but not by the others. Everyone working in the hospitals and for medical education are invited to contribute to define problems with their solutions.
• Mantar Corner: Mantar is the humor magazine of Hacettepe Medical School. Being first published in 1964, Mantar is being published annually on 14th March. This time Mantar is represented in Acta Medica to share the sense of humor in medicine and among medical students with national and international readers.
• Student Corner:
• Share your ideas: Medical students are asked to share their medical ideas. The ideas will not be shared in the journal but will be investigated by the editors and the students will be introduced to the research groups to give them a chance to work on their area of interest. These introductions will be announced in the next issue.
• Question of the issue: In every issue a structured question will be asked to the medical students. The answer will be given in the next issue in detail and one student giving the true answer will be awarded.
• Answer of the last issue

Open Access Policy

Acta Medica adopts open access policy and all articles published open access will be immediately and permanently free for everyone to read and download. Anyone can use the articles in any constructive way as long as the credit is given to the author and citation to the original source. No permission is required from the authors or the publishers. It is available to reach the articles in this journal in-between search engines, web sites, blogs and other digital platforms.

Acta Medica supports the scientists, scholars, academicians, researchers and students by providing Open Access platform for publishing their work.  Open access to information benefits the humanity as it improves the global value of information. Acta Medica also supports the Budapest Open Access Initiative that was signed on September 12, 2012. Thus, the open access policies adopted by the editorial board of Acta Medica can be found at http://budapestopenaccessinitiative.org.  Acta Medica publishes all articles under a Creative Commons Attribution License (Attribution 4.0 International CC-BY).  This license entitles all parties to copy, share and redistribute all the articles, data sets, figures and supplementary files published in this journal in data mining, search engines, web sites, blogs and other digital platforms under the condition of providing references. Open access is an approach that eases the interdisciplinary communication and encourages cooperation among different disciplines. Acta Medica, therefore, contributes to its own field by providing more access to its articles and a more transparent review process. Acta Medica recommends that libraries include the article contents into library catalogue records. Hacettepe University, publisher of Acta Medica, guarantees that it will not ask for any publication fees from any library or reader to access the electronic articles.

Since Acta Medica claims no fees for article review and no subscription fees for access to articles, the only source of income are advertisement and journal fees. Some pecuniary obligations of the manuscripts submitted to Acta Medica lie with the authors. All costs incurred in plagiarism detection, layout and galley, references, attribution and attribution check lies with the author(s).

Privacy Statement

The authors consent to give all the personal information to the system by submitting their information asked by Acta Medica. Acta Medica is committed to maintaining your confidence and trust with respect to the privacy of the personally identifiable information. You may get periodic e-mails or notices about the journal and upcoming events after you provide your e-postal address to Acta Medica.

Any personal information will be used exclusively for this journal and scientific aims. Such information will not be used for other purposes and will not be shared with third parties. The only exclusion is in terms of legal situations such as court orders, rights to defend against claims, prevention from illegal activities, etc.

Archiving

All the issues published in Acta Medica will be listed in our web site in XML and pdf formats with an open access to attain them. Also, you can reach the stored papers in pdf format on ULAKBİM servers via TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM National Databases.

Abstracting and Indexing

• The articles of Acta Medica are included in the following academic databases/resources:
• ULAKBİM TR-Dizin
• Google Scholar,
• Türk Medline Ulusal Sağlık Bilimleri Süreli Yayınlar Veritabanı.

Sponsorship and Advertising

Acta Medica does not offer a sponsorship to protect the journal’s integrity. On the other hand, please contact to our editorial team for information on advertising or to request a media pack.

PREPARATION

Writing Rules

Acta Medica, formerly Hacettepe Medical Journal is an official electronic journal of the Hacettepe Medical School.

All manuscripts submitted for publication should comply with "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals" produced and updated by the International Committee of Medical Journals Editors (www.icmje.org).

Compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki Principles (http://www.wma.net/) is accepted as a policy of Acta Medica. Therefore, all manuscripts concerning human subjects must contain a statement in the "Materials and Methods" section, indicating that the study was approved by the Institutional Review Board/Ethics Committee. All study subjects should be informed and written consent should be obtained and this should be declared in the "Materials and Methods" section. All manuscripts dealing with animal subjects must contain the approval of the Institutional Review Board/Ethics Committee, in the "Materials and Methods" section. The Editor may ask for a copy of the approval document.

The Editor-in-Chief holds the right to format or reject the manuscripts, which do not follow the rules or send them back to the Author for correction. Authors who wish to withdraw their manuscripts need to state this to the Editor in written form.

Submitted papers are reviewed by the Editors, and at least two Reviewers. The Editors may decide to send the manuscript for further review. The Editor-in-Chief has the complete authority regarding Reviewer selection.

Receipt, acceptance and early online dates of the manuscripts are stated in the manuscript when published online.

SUBMISSION: The manuscripts should be submitted through the journal online submission system (https://actamedica.org/).

PAGE DESIGN: The manuscript text should be written in Arial font, 12 point-type, double-spaced with 2.5 cm margins on the each side. The article should be prepared with Microsoft Office programs. The pages should be numbered starting with the main text. Page numbers should appear at the bottom right corner of every page. The main text file should not contain any information regarding author names and affiliations.

ABBREVIATIONS: Abbreviations should be internationally accepted and should be defined accordingly in the text in parenthesis when first mentioned and used in the text. The abbreviated form should be used all throughout the article.

TITLE PAGE: All of the submitted manuscripts should include a title page. It should include title of the manuscript, running title not exceeding 50 characters including spaces, as well as the full names, surnames and academic degrees of the authors. The department, division and institution of the authors should be indicated. Title page should also include address, e-mail, phone and fax number of the corresponding author. Authors should indicate whether the study has been presented previously in a congress or symposium.

ABSTRACT: The abstract is limited to 300 words. Abbreviations should be avoided in the abstracts. References, figures, tables and citations should not be used. Abstracts should only be structured in research articles as Objective, Materials and Methods, Results and Conclusion. There should be three to five keywords. At least two keywords should comply with the Index Medicus Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). Refer to https://meshb.nlm.nih.gov/#/fieldSearch for additional information on keywords.

RESEARCH ARTICLES: The manuscript should include Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgement (if required), Conflict of Interest Statement (indicating the presence or absence of any), References, Tables, Figure Legends and Figures. Research articles are not referred to exceed 5000 words and 40 references.

REVIEWS: Authors may submit review articles in the field of their expertise. Review should include Title, Abstract, Introduction, Conclusion, Acknowledgement (if required), Conflict of Interest Statement (indicating the presence or absence of any), References, Tables, Figure Legends and Figures. Number of references should be limited to 60 if possible.

CASE REPORTS: Case reports should include Title, Abstract, Introduction, Case Presentation, Discussion, Acknowledgement (if required), Conflict of Interest Statement (indicating the presence or absence of any), References, Tables, Figure Legends and Figures. Introduction and Discussion sections of the case reports should be short and concise. Case reports should not exceed 1500 words.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR/TECHNICAL NOTE: These manuscripts should be short and concise limited to 1000 words and 10 references.

CORNERS: The corners will not be peer reviewed. They should be short and concise.

TABLES AND FIGURES: Tables and figures should be numbered with Arabic numbers in order of reference in the text. Each table should be prepared double spaced on a separate page. Each table should contain a short title. Explanations should not be included in the title but as a footnote. All abbreviations that are not standard should be explained in the footnote. The symbols in this order (*,†,‡,§,||,¶,**,††,‡‡) should be used for the footnotes. All tables should be referred in the text. Figures and graphics should be drawn or photographed professionally, and should be in high quality. Figures should be inserted within the main text and uploaded digitally to the submission system. Electronic files of the figures and graphics should be submitted in JPEG format with high resolution (at least 300 dpi). Figure legends should be indicated at the end of the main text separately. Letters, numbers, and symbols on figures should be clear and consistent throughout the article. Unlabeled figures should also be provided during the initial submission, since Acta Medica prefers standard labeling. Figures should be as self-explanatory as possible. If patient photographs will be used, either the patient should not be recognizable from the photograph or signed consent should be obtained from the patient or his/her legal representative. Legends for figure should be typed starting on a separate page, double spaced, indicating the corresponding illustrations with numbers. When symbols, arrows, numbers or letters are used to identify parts of illustrations, define each one clearly in the figure legends.

REFERENCES: Data and manuscript not published yet should not be included among the reference list. These should be stated in the main text as "author(s), unpublished data, year". Reference numbers should be indicated at the end of the sentences in the text where numbers are enclosed in [square brackets] on line with the text (not superscript) and references should be numbered consecutively in the order they are mentioned in the text. References should be typed in consistence with the following examples.

EndNote style for Acta Medica  is compatible with JAMA style.

If the reference is a journal; Author(s)' surname and initial(s) of the first name (all authors if the number of authors are 3 or less, first 3 authors if the number of authors of an article is more than 3 followed by "et al.". Title of the article, title of the journal abbreviated according to Index Medicus (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog) Year; Volume: First and last page number.

Example: Benson M, Reinholdt J, Cardell LO. Allergen-reactive antibodies are found in nasal fluids from patients with birch polen-induced intermittent allergic rhinitis, but not in healthy controls. Allergy 2003; 58: 386-93.

If the reference is a journal supplement; Author(s)' surname and initial(s) of the first name. Title of the article. Title of the journal abbreviated according to Index Medicus (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog) Year; Volume (Supplement number): First and last page number.

Example: Queen F. Risk assessment of nickel carcinogenicity and occupational lung cancer. Envirol Health Perspect 1994; 102 (Suppl 1): S2755-82.

If the reference is a book; Author(s)' surname and initial(s) of the first name. Title of the book. Edition number. City of publication; Publisher, Year of Publication: First and last page number.

Example: Ringsven MK, Bond N. Gerontology and leadership skills for nurses. 2nd Ed. Albany, NY; Delmar, 1996: 64-75.

If the reference is a book chapter in an edited book; Surname and initial(s) of the first name of the author(s) of the chapter. Title of the chapter. In: Surname and initial(s) of the first name(s) of the editor(s) (ed) or (eds). Title of the book. Edition number. City of publication; Publisher, Year of publication: First and last page numbers of the chapter.

Example: Phillips SJ, Whistant JP. Hypertension and stroke. In: Laragh JH, Brenner BM (eds). Hypertension: pathophysiology, diagnosis and management. 2nd Ed. New York; Raven Press, 1995: 466-78.

If the reference is an article presented in a meeting; Author(s)' surname and initial(s) of the first name (all authors if the number of authors are 3 or less, first 3 authors if the number of authors of an article is more than 3 followed by "et al.". Title of the article, If applicable In: Surname and initial(s) of the first name(s) of the editor(s) (ed) or (eds). Title of the abstract book. Title of the meeting; Date; City of the meeting; Country. Publisher; Year: Page numbers.

Example: Bengtsson S, Solheim BG. Enforcement of data protection, privacy and security in medical informatics. In: Lun KC, Degoulet P, Piemme TE, Reinhoff O (eds). MEDINFO 92. Proceedings of the 7th World Congress on Medical Informatics; 1992 Sep 6-10; Geneva, Switzerland. North-Holland; 1992: 1561-5.

If the reference is a website; If available name(s) of the author(s). Page title. Available from: address of the web page. (date accessed)

Example: Bergman RA, Afifi AK, Miyauchi R. Illustrated encyclopaedia of human anatomic variation. http://www.anatomyatlases.org/ AnatomicVariants/ Cardiovascular/ Text/Arteries/ Aorta.shtml (accessed July 2012).

If the reference is a thesis; Author's surname and initial of the first name. Title of the thesis. City; Name of the university, faculty/school/institute; Year.

COPYRIGHT: Scientific and legal responsibility of the published articles belongs to the authors. Authors are responsible for the ideas and comments in the manuscript as well as the accuracy of the references. The Deanship of the Medical Faculty, the Editor, and the Associate Editors do not accept any responsibility for the published articles. The copyright of the articles accepted for publication is transferred to the Deanship of the Faculty of Medicine at Hacettepe University. "Copyright Transfer Form" should be signed by the all authors and should be uploaded through journal submission system and should be posted to Hacettepe Medical School Dean’s Office, Acta Medica Editorial Office, Sihhiye, Ankara 06100 TURKEY. If there are more than six authors, additional forms may be used. This form is available at www.actamedica.org.

SUPPLEMENTS: Supplementary documents (additional figures, materials & methods, tables, or other items that add to the topic of the article but cannot be included within the main text) can be uploaded to the journal submission system. They may include files that are not printable, such as videos or long gene sequences.

PUBLICATION FEES: There is no royalty payment to the authors. Authors are not charged for publication.

Copyright Notice

The manuscripts submitted to Acta Medica for publication should be original studies that were not published before or not submitted to anywhere else for publication.

Authors who submit their studies to Acta Medica should acknowledge that they have to transfer the copyright of their studies to Hacettepe University. The editorial board of the journal is authorized to publish the study. Nonetheless, the following rights are reserved:

• Patent rights,
• All unregistered rights apart from copyright,
• Duplication rights on condition that the study is not sold,
• The right to use the whole or parts of the study in the author's own books or other academic studies on condition that reference is given,
• The right to publish the study on personal websites or open archive of their university on condition that the copyright details are provided.

Those authors who will submit their studies to Acta Medica have to fill in the "Copyright Transfer Form". Wet signature is required. The signed form should be scanned and uploaded during the submission of the manuscript. Those studies whose copyright transfer form is not received by the journal will not be published.

Creative Commons 

All the articles published in Acta Medica are licensed with "Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License". This license entitles all parties to copy, share and redistribute all the articles, data sets, figures and supplementary files published in this journal in data mining, search engines, web sites, blogs and other digital platforms under the condition of providing references. Open access is an approach that eases the interdisciplinary communication and encourages cooperation among different disciplines. Acta Medica, therefore, contributes to its own field by providing more access to its articles and a more transparent review process.

Peer Review Process

All Acta Medica articles are subject to initial appraisal by Coordinating Editor-in-Chief or one of the three Coordinating Editors (and sometimes by section editors) before peer review. We reject a number of articles without external peer review with the aim of giving authors rapid decisions (usually within 10 days). We aim to reach a first decision on all manuscripts within six weeks of submission. Rejection is often much quicker than this. We aim to do this quickly so that we do not waste authors' time, allowing them to get on and submit the work elsewhere without unnecessary delay.

All research articles, and most other article types, published in Acta Medica undergo thorough peer review. Acta Medica operates an open peer review system. Also this journal uses double-blind review, which means that both the reviewer and author identities are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa, throughout the review process. To facilitate this, authors need to ensure that their manuscripts are prepared in a way that does not give away their identity. To help with this preparation please ensure the following when submitting to Acta Medica. Submit the Title Page containing the Authors details and Blinded Manuscript with no author details as 2 separate files.

If a submission is assigned to a Scientific Editor to process, he/she usually obtains reviews from two external referees to ensure the scientific quality and importance of the research. Editors will make a decision based on the reviewers’ reports and authors are sent these reports along with the editorial decision on their manuscript. Authors should note that even in light of one positive report, concerns raised by another reviewer might fundamentally undermine the study and result in the manuscript being rejected.

New Submission Guide

Authors must submit all elements of their manuscripts online at http://actamedica.org. Hard-copy submissions will not be considered or returned. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision takes place via email.

All policies of the Acta Medica, including those related to Conflicts of Interest, Inappropriate Acts, and IRB approval; apply to all submitted articles, including those whose results were presented at professional society meetings.

Journal staff and coordinating editors screen submitted manuscripts. For some papers, a decision is made to decline immediately. All others undergo peer review.

Complaints and appeals

Appeals

The purpose of an appeal is for the Coordinating Editor-in-Chief or the Coordinating Editors to examine the editorial process. If it is found not to have been in line with our policies, solving action will be taken to restore correct procedure.

It should keep in mind that the purpose of an appeal is not to revisit the opinions/decisions of the referees or editors. It would be inappropriate for a single individual (i.e. the Editor-in-Chief or a Deputy Editor-in-Chief) to overturn the majority view of referees and consulted editors. Commonly, two referees and three editors express an opinion and 3 votes supporting publication are required to accept a paper in addition to approval of Editor-in-Chief. For editors to reject a paper, they require three votes against the paper. Therefore we are not willing to obtain further opinions because it would not be practical to seek the required opinions to change the decision.

If a manuscript is rejected an option to ‘Appeal Manuscript’ appears on the author's home page, from which the author can write to the Editor-in-Chief explaining the reasons for disagreeing with the editorial process. The Editor-in-Chief or a Coordinating Editor-in-Chief may uphold the decision, or may request further information or consult again on the manuscript prior to making a decision regarding whether to reject or uphold the appeal.

Complaints procedure

Other complaints should be addressed in writing to the Coordinating Editor-in-Chief for consideration and any necessary action. Where a complaint remains unresolved, the complainant can refer the matter to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Guidance for Revision

The authors must have both revised manuscript file and file containing response to reviewers. The revised manuscript must be uploaded on submission site menu typing as revised version

Article Withdrawal

To avoid withdrawal of a manuscript we sincerely request the authors especially the corresponding author and first author to address the following issues before submitting the manuscript for publication:

• The manuscript should be free from copyright contravention.
• The manuscript submitted by corresponding author should have consent of all the authors in the group.
• In some cases researchers should take prior permission from their guides and co-authors before sending/submitting their manuscripts in journals.
• The manuscript should not be published either partially or completely in any form, in any other Journal.
• Manuscript is properly withdrawn from any previous publisher.
• Manuscript should not be submitted to any other journal at the time of submission to any Journal.

Manuscript may be withdrawn at any stage of review and publication process by submitting a request to the editorial office. Manuscript withdrawal will be permitted after submission only for the most compelling and inevitable causes.

If the author wants to withdraw a manuscript, the author needs to submit a completed form, signed by all authors of the manuscript withdrawal. The form is available from the editorial office of the journal. It should be wanted with a request e-mail.

ETHICS POLICY

Publication Ethics

The publication process at Acta Medica aims improvement and dissemination of scientific information objectively and respectfully. Therefore, the policy in this process helps in improving the quality of the articles. Peer-reviewed articles support and materialize the scientific method and hence it is of utmost importance that all parties included in the publication process (authors, readers and researchers, publisher, reviewers and editors) comply with the standards of ethical considerations. Acta Medica expects all parties to hold to the following ethical responsibilities.

The following ethical duties and responsibilities are concordant with the policies made by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

The authors who submit their manuscripts to Acta Medica are expected to comply with the following ethical responsibilities:

Author(s) must submit their own original studies to the journal. If they utilize or present the results of the other studies in the manuscript, they must make the in-text and end-text references accurately and completely.

People who have no intellectual contribution to the study should not be indicated as author.

If there are conflicting interests or relations in the manuscripts submitted, these must be stated and explained.

Author(s) may be asked to supply their raw data during the review process of their manuscripts. In that circumstance, author(s) should be ready to submit their data and information to the corresponding editorial and scientific boards.

Authors should document that they have obtained ethics committee approval and informed consent in all research studies that involves patients, patient records, research participants or databases.

For patient images that allow the identity of the patient to be identified, authors should document that they have obtained written permission from the patient(s) on whom the report is based.

Author(s) have the responsibility to inform the editor of the journal or publisher if they happen to notice a mistake or conflicting result in their study which is in early release or publication process and to cooperate with the editors during the correction or withdrawal process.

Authors cannot submit their studies to multiple journals simultaneously. Each submission can be made only after the previous one is completed. A study published in another journal cannot be submitted to Acta Medica.

Author responsibilities given in a study (e.g.: adding an author, reordering of author names) after the review process has started.

Ethical Responsibilities of Editors

The editor and section editors should hold with the following ethical responsibilities that are based on the guides of "COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" published as open access by COPE.

General duties and responsibilities

Editors are responsible for each study published in Acta Medica. In this respect, the editors have the following duties and responsibilities:

• Making efforts to meet the scientific information demands from readers and authors,
• Ensuring the continuous advancement of the journal,
• Managing the procedures in order to improve the scientific quality of the manuscripts published in the journal,
• Supporting freedom of expression,
• Ensuring academic integrity,
• Following the procedures without making concessions on intellectual property rights and ethical standards,
• Being transparent and clear in issues that require correction or commentary.

Relationships with Readers

Editors must make decisions taking into consideration of the knowledge, skills and expectations of all readers, researchers and practitioners need. They must also ensure that the published studies have an original contribution to the literature. Furthermore, they must take notice of the feedback received from researchers and practitioners and provide explanatory and informative feedback.

Relationships with Authors

Editors have the following roles and responsibilities in their relations with authors:

Editors must make positive or negative decisions about the studies' scientific importance, originality, validity, clarity in wording and suitability with the journal's aims and scope.

Editors must accept the studies that are within the scope of publication into pre review process unless there are serious problems with the structure of the study.

Editors must not ignore positive suggestions made by reviewers unless there are serious problems with the structure of the study.

New editors, unless they have serious concerns, should not change the previous editor's decisions about the studies.

Editors must take every effort to prevent possible deviations from the defined "Blind Review and Evaluation Processes".

Editors must present a comprehensive "Author's Guide" in answering queries by authors. This guide must be updated regularly.

Authors should be provided with explanatory and informative feedback.

Relationships with Reviewers

Editors have the following duties and responsibilities in their relations with reviewers:

Editors should:

• Choose reviewers adequate for evaluating the manuscript.
• provide the needed information and guidance to reviewers
• Monitoring whether there are conflicting interests between reviewers and authors.
• Keep the identities of the reviewers confidential in blind review.
• Encourage the reviewers to review the manuscript in an unbiased, scientific and objective manner.
• Evaluate reviewers regularly based on criteria like performance and timing.
• Develop and use policies that increase the performance of reviewers.
• make effort to update the reviewer pool dynamically to ensure its wide range
• Prevent unkind and unscientific reviews.

Relationships with the Editorial Board

Editors should monitor that the members of the editorial board follow the procedures in accordance with the publication policies and guidelines, and should inform the members about the publication policies and developments. The editors should also train new members of the editorial board and provide the information they need.

Furthermore, editors should also:

• Ensure that the members of the editorial board review the manuscripts in an unbiased and independent manner.
• Select the new members of the editorial board from those who can contribute to the journal and are qualified enough.
• Send manuscripts for review based on the subject of expertise of the editorial board members.
• Regularly communicate with the editorial board.
• Arrange regular meetings with the editorial board for the development of publication policies and the journal.

Relationships with the Journal's Owner and Publisher

The relationship between the editors and publisher is based on the principle of the independency of editors. All the decisions made by the editors are independent of the publisher and the owner of the journal as required by the agreement made between editors and publisher.

Editorial and Blind Review Processes

Editors are obliged to comply with the policies of "Blind Review and Evaluation Process" stated in the journal's publication policies. Therefore, the editors should ensure that each manuscript is reviewed in an unbiased, fair and timely manner.

Quality Assurance

Editors should ensure that articles in the journal are published in accordance with the publication policies of the journal and international standards.

Protection of Personal Information

Editors are supposed to protect the personal information related with the subjects or visuals in the studies being reviewed, and to reject the study if there is no documentation of the subjects' consent. Furthermore, editors are supposed to protect the personal information of the authors, reviewers and readers.

Encouraging Ethical Rules and Protection of Human and Animal Rights

Editors are supposed to protect human and animal rights in the studies being reviewed and should reject the experimental studies that do not have ethical and related committee’s approval.

Precautions against possible Abuse and Malpractice

Editors are supposed to take precautions against possible abuse and malpractice. They should conduct investigations meticulously and objectively in determining and evaluating complaints about such situations. They should also share the results of the investigation.

Ensuring Academic Integrity

Editors should ensure that the mistakes, inconsistencies or misdirection in studies are corrected quickly.

Protection of Intellectual Property Rights

Editors are responsible for protecting the intellectual property rights of all the articles published in the journal and the rights of the journal and author(s) in cases where these rights are violated. Also, editors should take the necessary precautions in order to prevent the content of all published articles from violating the intellectual property rights of other publications. See Plagiarism Check

Constructiveness and Openness to Discussion

Editors must:

• Pay attention to the convincing criticism about studies published in the journal and must have a constructive attitude towards such criticism.
• Grant the right of reply to the author(s) of the criticized study.
• Not ignore or exclude the study that includes negative results.

Complaints:

Editors must examine the complaints from authors, reviewers or readers and respond to them in an explanatory and enlightening manner.

Political and Economic Apprehensions

The independent decision of the editors is not influenced by the owner of the journal, publisher or any other political or economical factor

Conflicting Interests

Editors, acknowledging that there may be conflicting interests between reviewers and other editors, guarantee that the publication process of the manuscripts will be completed in an independent and unbiased manner

Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers

The fact that all manuscripts are reviewed through "Blind Review" has a direct influence on the publication quality. This process ensures confidentiality by objective and independent review. The review process at Acta Medica is carried out on the principle of double blind review. Reviewers do not contact the authors directly, and their reviews and comments are processed through the journal management system. In this process, the reviewer views on the evaluation forms and full texts are assigned to the author(s) by the editor. Therefore, the reviewers doing review for Acta Medica are supposed to bear the following ethical responsibilities:

Reviewers should:

• Agree to review only in their subject of expertise.
• Review in an unbiased and confidential manner.
• Inform the editor of the journal if they think that they encounter conflict of interests and decline to review the manuscript during the review process.
• Dispose the manuscripts they have reviewed in accordance with the principle of confidentiality after the review process. Reviewers can use the final versions of the manuscripts they have reviewed only after publication.
• Review the manuscript objectively and only in terms of its content and ensure that nationality, gender, religious and political beliefs, and economic apprehension do not influence the review.
• Review the manuscript in a constructive and kind tone; avoid making personal comments including hostility, slander and insult.
• Review the manuscript they have agreed to review on time and in accordance with the ethical rules stated above.

Ethical Responsibilities of the Publisher

The publisher of Acta Medica is conscious of the fact that they should follow the ethical responsibilities below and act accordingly:

Editors are responsible for all the processes of the manuscripts submitted to Acta Medica. Within this framework, ignoring the economic or political interests, the decision-makers are the editors.

The publisher undertakes the independent editorial decision.

The publisher protects the intellectual property rights of all the articles published in Acta Medica and holds the responsibility to keep a record of each unpublished article.

The publisher bears all the responsibility to take the precautions against scientific abuse, fraud and plagiarism.

Human and nonhuman experimentation

Authors must follow the ethical standards for human experimentation established in the Declaration of Helsinki (World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki: recommendations guiding physicians in biomedical research involving human subjects. JAMA 1997; 277:925-6). The editors should ensure that a manuscript originating from an institution has provided the approval of the requisite authority. This approval must be presented in the Materials and Methods section of the manuscript. For studies of human experimentation that require local institutional approval, authors must provide that they had obtained this approval before the experiment was started. If the authors declare that their study is exempt from Institutional Review Board approval, they should explain it in the Materials and Methods section of the manuscript. For reports originating from experiments on nonhuman animals or other species, authors must declare that the guidelines for the care and use of the animals approved by the local institution were followed.

Unethical Behavior

Should you encounter any unethical act or content in Acta Medica apart from the ethical responsibilities listed above, please notify the journal by e-mail at [email protected]

AFTER ACCEPTANCE

Plagiarism Detection

In accordance with its publishing policies, Acta Medica obliges each manuscript to be detected for plagiarism. Therefore, the manuscripts are scanned and compared for plagiarism either by Turnitin or iThenticate software, chosen by the editorial staff. Incurring fees are paid by the author(s). The matches found in each study after plagiarism detection is analyzed in detail and those matches with correct reference and cross-reference are sorted. In the next step, the mistakes in the remaining matches are determined and reported to the editorial board. IThenticate also checks for self-plagiarism or redundancy therefore authors should be cautious about citing the text from their previously published works. The board, then, makes a final decision in the light of the plagiarism detection report. The author(s) may be asked to correct the mistakes listed in the report or the study may be returned to the author(s)/rejected. (Suspected plagiarism in a submitted manuscript) (http://publicationethics.org/)

If a case of plagiarism comes to light after a paper is published, the journal will conduct a preliminary investigation. If plagiarism is found, the journal will contact the author's institute and funding agencies. The paper containing the plagiarism will also be obviously marked on each page of the PDF. Depending on the extent of the plagiarism, the paper may also be formally retracted. (Suspected plagiarism in a published article) (http://publicationethics.org/)

References and Citation Control

Scientific research builds upon previous studies. In new studies, references and attributions to the previous studies are provided within the framework of certain rules. Intentional or unintentional mistakes in scientific studies harm the reliability of the study and publication. Acta Medica, in accordance with its publication ethics, considers it to be an obligation for the accepted manuscripts to have correct and complete references and attributions. Therefore, each study, after acceptance, is checked in terms of bibliography, referencing and attribution by a company chosen by the editorial board. Incurring costs lie with the author(s).

The full texts of the accepted manuscripts are processed for bibliography, referencing and attribution check in the following steps:

Bibliography is prepared according to the format of the “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals” (“Vancouver” style, as outlined in the ICMJE sample references).

The in-text references of the references given in the bibliography should be in line with rules and regulations, and mistakes are corrected.

Attributions of the in-text references are checked. The author(s) is asked to provide the missing ones, and the incorrect ones are corrected.

For the manuscripts the English rules and regulations of referencing are used.

Layout and Galley

Acta Medica requires that the articles be printed in a common type of and complete page layout for formal integrity, readability and standards. Therefore, the manuscripts whose plagiarism detection and bibliography preparation is finished are sent to a company chosen by the editorial board for layout and galley. Incurring costs for page layout and preparation of the copy for print lie with the author(s).

Proof

The Editors reserve the right to edit a manuscript for grammar, house style, scientific and statistical clarity, and overall length, while maintaining the scientific accuracy of the report. Authors may be asked to incorporate editorial amendments of spelling, grammar, house style and to check minor inconsistencies in the text or reference list, together with scientific and/or statistical corrections, before returning a revised manuscript for final approval by the Editor. Failure to make scientific, statistical or editorial amendments could result in delayed acceptance and publication.

Once the manuscript has been typeset; one set of page proofs (as PDF files) will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author. Therefore a working email address must be provided for the corresponding author. Acrobat Reader version 9 or higher will be required in order to read this file. This software can be downloaded (free of charge) from the following website: https://get.adobe.com/tr/reader/. Latest version of the software will let the corresponding author to open, read on screen and edit the proof electronically. The corresponding author may prefer to print the pdf and add the corrections offline and scan the corrected proof and attach to the reply mail.

Further instructions will be sent with the proof. To avoid publication delays proofs should be checked immediately and returned by email indicated on the proofs within 48 hours. Corrections by other means will not be accepted. It is important to ensure that all corrections are sent back to the journal in one communication: checking carefully before replying is very important, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely the responsibility of the corresponding author. The publisher may proceed with the publication of the article if no response is received within 48 hours.

Authors are advised that they are responsible for proofreading of the text, references, tables and figures for absolute accuracy. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor. New material cannot be accepted at this stage and substantial rewriting of paragraphs is not permitted. Should authors insist in doing so, then the costs will be charged to the author and the journal will not be responsible for typesetting errors arising from these changes.

Copyright Transfer Agreement

The publisher will request a signed copyright transfer agreement after final acceptance of a manuscript. However, a signed Statement of Authorship signed by all authors is required at the time of submission.

Offprints and Reprints

The PDF file of the article can be downloaded from the website as soon as early view is available. This is an open access journal that all content is freely available without any charge. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. For an extra charge, paper offprints can be ordered via the offprint order form which is sent once the article is accepted for publication.

Assigning a DOI Number

Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is a unique access number that enables the identification and accessibility of each article published electronically. The DOI consists of a unique alpha-numeric character string which is assigned to a document by the publisher upon the initial electronic publication. The DOIs are guaranteed never to change. Therefore, it is an ideal medium for citing a document, particularly 'Articles in press' because they have not yet received their full bibliographic information.

It is mandatory that each article published in Acta Medica or in early release is assigned a DOI number. After acceptance, the manuscripts which are checked for plagiarism and bibliography and ready for publication are given a DOI number by the Editorial Board.

Early View

Acta Medica values the dissemination of up-to-date and original information. Those manuscripts that are accepted after the review process, revised and edited for publication, and the authors' final corrections have been incorporated and therefore whose process for publication is over does not need to wait for the next scheduled print issue and are published electronically as early view. On average it takes a few days from being sent to production (usually straight after acceptance) to a paper appearing online. The manuscripts in the early release may not be the final version to be seen in the normal issue. Minor editing may be done on the final version to be published. They are given a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which allows the article to be cited and tracked. After publication, the DOI remains valid and can continue to be used to cite and access the article. Later, these manuscripts are given page numbers and published in the volume and issue found suitable by the editorial board.

ORCID Identifier

Authors may now enter their ORCID identifier during registration. Please go to the “Update My Information” page to enter an existing identifier or to register with ORCID (http://orcid.org/).

On submission, the author(s) must identify potential conflicts of interest of a financial or other nature. Authors should fill the author agreement form accurately and provide as much information as possible, regardless of the amount. Identify all sources of financial support of the study, including provision of supplies or services or financial compensation (e.g., salary) from a commercial organization on the title page. All sponsor names must be provided. Include an explanation of any role the sponsor(s) had in the study design; collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; writing of the report; the decision to submit the report for publication; or a statement that the sponsor(s) had no such involvement. Disclose any financial involvement that could represent potential conflicts of interest by checking the appropriate box on the author agreement form and listing the potential conflicts in an attachment to the author agreement form.

Good Reporting Guidelines

For a better understanding of the reporting guidelines, please refer to the EQUATOR Network website, the resource centre for good research reporting: http://www.equator-network.org/.

Any paper reporting the results of a questionnaire survey should include a copy of the questionnaire used, together with the manuscript. This should be uploaded as Supplemental Information.

The reporting guidelines which are valuable for designing your study include:

• CONSORT statement, checklist and flow diagram for RCTs
• PRISMA statement, checklist and flow diagram for systematic reviews and meta-analyses
• MOOSE checklist is required for meta-analysis of observational studies
• STARD flow diagram and checklist are required for evaluations of diagnostic tests (diagnostic accuracy studies)
• STROBE observational studies in epidemiology (cohort, case-control, and cross-sectional studies)
• STREGA genetic association studies
• TREND statement and check list for nonrandomized controlled trials
• COREQ statement and check list for qualitative research (focus groups and interviews)
• SQUIRE check list for quality improvement studies
• REMARK check list for tumor marker prognostic studies
• ORION infection control intervention studies
• STRICTA controlled trials of acupuncture
• RedHot homeopathic treatments
• CHEERS statement, economic evaluations