2 Dealing with allegations of research misconduct
The journal's publication ethics policy follows the latest version of the "Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals" developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE, https://www.icmje.org) and the ethical guidelines established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE, https://publicationethics.org). The transparency policy for publication processes is implemented according to the latest version of the Code of Transparency and Best Practices in Scholarly Publishing published by COPE, DOAJ, OASPA, and WAME (https://doaj.org/apply/transparency).
1.1 Authorship and contributorship
The manuscript must indicate the author's contributions before the references, specifying what each author has done in terms of planning, implementing, and reporting the research. The qualifications of authors and corresponding authors are defined by the ICMJE.
Authors who make substantive contributions to the paper include:
(1) those who have made significant contributions to the ideas or design of the research work or obtained, analyzed, or interpreted data for the research;
(2) those who drafted the research paper or made significant modifications to it in terms of important knowledge content;
(3) those who finalized the version to be published;
(4) those who agree to take responsibility for all aspects of the research work, ensuring that any issues related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the paper are properly investigated and resolved.
Those who do not meet all four criteria (such as those who only provide technical assistance to the paper or financial and material support) should not be listed as authors, but they can express their gratitude to those who provided help in the acknowledgments. This journal does not accept manuscripts with author names containing artificial intelligence (AI) tools, nor should papers with AI listed as authors be included in the references. Authors must be natural persons who can be responsible for the authenticity, integrity, and scientific nature of the content of the paper. If the main content of the paper is generated using AI tools, it will be treated as academic misconduct once discovered.
Changes in authorship:
Authors should determine the order of authorship among themselves and should settle any disagreements before submitting their manuscript. Changes in authorship (i.e., order, addition, and deletion of authors) should be discussed and approved by all authors. Any requests for such changes in authorship after manuscript submission or publication should be explained in writing to the editor in a letter or email from all listed authors and from the author to be removed or added, and should send the original signed written consent of all authors with authorized unit stamp.
1.2 Handling complaints and appeals
The journal’s policy for handling complaints and appeals is based on the COPE guidelines. Authors who wish to request reconsideration of a rejected manuscript can do so by emailing (mail@tcsurg.org) the journal’s Editorial Office including the manuscript ID number. Please be advised that, due to keen competition for space in our journals, manuscripts may be considered low priority and subsequently rejected. Authors should explain in detail the reasons why they believe their manuscript should be reconsidered. If it is determined that it should be reconsidered, then the author may be asked to submit it as a new manuscript. The manuscript will then receive a new identification number and submission date and undergo review as a new submission.
1.3 Conflict of interests/competing interests
Authors must declare all potential conflicts of interest, including financial and non-financial relationships and activities, and conflicts of interest, and the editorial board may use this information as one basis for manuscript decisions. Financial conflicts of interest include employment, consultancies, stock ownership or options, honoraria, patents, paid expert testimony, and travel grants involved in the submitted manuscript. Authors must include a subheading titled "Conflict of Interest Statement" at the end of the article, and all relevant conflicts of interest should be included which might improperly influence (bias) their work. If the research receives grants from funding agencies, please provide the research funder and the grant number. If there are no conflicts of interest, authors should also indicate this in the article. Insufficient explanation at the time of submission may result in corrections or retractions after the article is published.
1.4 Data sharing and reproducibility
The Editorial Office strives to respect the protection of intellectual property rights, and requires editors, authors, and reviewers to respect intellectual property rights. Any potential infringement should be avoided. Third-party institutions must also respect the intellectual property rights of this journal and not infringe upon them. Under the premise that intellectual property rights are protected, this journal encourages open science practices and encourages authors to publish and share research data when appropriate. Data that can be shared generally includes raw data, observational records, experimental results, etc. This journal also encourages authors to share research-related software, code, models, algorithms, protocols, methods, and other useful materials. Authors can upload the aforementioned materials to accessible third-party storage platforms and provide the links as attachments at the end of the article.
1.5 Ethical oversight
The journal establishes clear ethical guidelines, including codes of conduct for authors, reviewers, and editors, covering issues such as data integrity, research integrity, conflicts of interest, plagiarism, and duplicate publication. The journal provides detailed author guidelines that explicitly require authors to adhere to ethical standards and offer guidance on how to report research, cite others' work, handle conflicts of interest, and so forth. Editors are responsible for overseeing the entire publication process, ensuring that all submitted manuscripts undergo appropriate ethical scrutiny, addressing any ethical concerns, and taking appropriate actions when necessary, such as retraction or issuing a correction statement.
1.6 Intellectual property
Copyright reserved by Chinese Journal of Clinical Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery.
All articles published represent the opinions of the authors, and do not reflect the official policy of the Editorial Board, unless this is clearly specified.
Unauthorized reproduction or adaptation is prohibited.
1.7 Post-publication discussions and corrections
This journal generally does not make corrections or retractions to published articles. Changes or retractions are possible if absolutely necessary (as described below).
(1) Correction: If there are unintentional scientific errors within the article that do not significantly affect the results and conclusions of the paper, the Editorial Office will promptly publish a correction notice in the journal, detailing the changes made to the original text and indicating the source of the article. If necessary, this journal may release a new version of the corrected paper, explaining in detail the modifications to the original article and specifying the update date. The previous version before the change will also be archived and accessible to readers, but when citing, one should refer to the most recent version of the article.
(2) Retraction: The Editorial Office will withdraw an article and issue a retraction notice under the following circumstances: 1) When there are serious scientific errors in the article, rendering its results and conclusions unreliable; 2) For articles suspected of plagiarism, data fabrication, or other academic misconduct, the editorial department will initiate an investigation and issue a statement informing readers of the risks associated with the article. The results of the investigation will be made public. If it is confirmed that the article has engaged in academic misconduct, the editorial department will take measures to withdraw the article and issue a withdrawal statement.
After the article is published, this journal welcomes authors and readers to engage in discussions. Comments can be sent to the journal's email address: mail@tcsurg.org. The Editorial Office will process the emails as soon as possible upon receipt and provide feedback as appropriate. This journal encourages all readers and authors to monitor each other, actively provide feedback to the journal, and jointly create a positive academic atmosphere.
2 Dealing with allegations of research misconduct
The journal’s policy for managing allegations of research misconduct is based on the COPE guidelines.
Academic misconduct refers to behaviors that violate academic norms and ethics. This is implemented in accordance with the "Definition of Academic Misconduct in Scholarly Publications (CY/T174-2019)" formulated by the National Press and Publication Administration, COPE, ICMJE, and WAME. Academic misconduct generally refers to six types of behaviors: plagiarism, forgery, tampering, improper authorship, duplicate submission, and republication. If AI tools and AI-generated content are used in paper writing, including using AI tools to collect and analyze data, create images or graphic elements in papers, generate program algorithms, texts, or polish texts, etc., it must be clearly stated in the data source, method design or conclusion section of the paper which AI tools were used, the detailed usage process, as well as their functions and contributions, so that reviewers and editors can evaluate the originality of the paper. For papers judged to be suspected of academic misconduct, they will be directly returned or withdrawn.
If the editor suspects that the submitted article may involve academic misconduct, they will contact the author for an explanation. If the issue cannot be resolved through discussion with the author and the editor still has doubts, a confidential discussion will be held with the editorial board.
Readers that suspect misconduct in a published article are encouraged to report this to the relevant journal editor.
If the author has any objection to the decision of the manuscript, he or she can send email to: mail@tcsurg.org, our official will deal with it in a timely manner.
Chinese Journal of Clinical Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery has been converted to open access (OA) since 2000, and all articles have been published on the official website of this journal (https://english.tcsurg.org) from the first issue in 2000. All content of this journal is published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License (CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0). According to the definition of CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0, all articles are published in OA format, and the published articles can be immediately made public and permanently available for free at the journal official website (https://english.tcsurg.org), allowing users to read, download, copy, print, search or link to the full text of the article, or use it for other legal purposes. All users should use the articles of this journal on the premise of CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. This license allows users to copy and distribute articles, provided that: (1) The use is limited to non-commercial purposes, in addition, it cannot be changed, edited and distributed in any form; (2) Users should have corresponding qualifications (able to link to formal publications through specific DOI numbers), and provide a link to the license, but not imply in any way that the licensee recognizes the user or recognizes the use of his work; (3) It is not allowed to distribute any derivative products, including recombining articles, changing publication forms or building new ones on existing research materials.
Since its inception in 1994, the full text of all articles in the Chinese Journal of Clinical Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery have been stored in China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) database. In addition, the official website of this journal also stores the full text of articles published from the first issue of 2000. Readers can access these databases or platforms online to obtain articles from this journal. To ensure data security, all information is also backed up in the editorial department.
Author self-archiving: This journal allows authors to store all versions of their articles in an institution or other knowledge repository of their choice. It is required that the article metadata in the storage institution or other knowledge repository include standardized journal publication information and serve as the recommended reference source.
Chinese Journal of Clinical Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery accepts advertisements from domestic and foreign medical institutions, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, medical books and periodicals, conferences, and other related content. All advertisers in this journal must ensure the authenticity of their advertisement content, strictly comply with the "Advertising Law of the People's Republic of China" and other relevant management regulations. The design and approval of advertisements are the responsibility of the client. Requirements include: size 210 mm × 285 mm, PDF or JPG format, resolution above 300 dpi; indicate "advertisement" on it, and strictly publish according to the content approved by the "Advertising Review Form", without any unauthorized changes. If changes are needed, advertising approval should be re-applied for. The placement of all advertisements in this journal must be discussed and collectively decided at the editorial meeting, and the presentation of advertisement content is completely separated from academic content. The placement of advertisements will not affect the editor's decision on manuscript acceptance. In case of potential conflicts of interest, authors, editors, and reviewers will disclose information in accordance with international guidance principles such as COPE. This journal reserves the right to delete or modify inappropriate advertisement content and has the final interpretation right.
Any direct or indirect marketing activity involved in a manuscript shall be carefully considered and not accepted. The Chinese Journal of Clinical Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery publishes only true and not misleading information to readers.
All manuscripts sent for publication in Chinese Journal of Clinical Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery are strictly and thoroughly peer-reviewed. After receiving manuscripts, the editorial board conducts an initial review. Those that do not meet the academic standards of this journal are directly rejected (within 2 weeks). Manuscripts that pass the initial review will be sent to at least three reviewers for evaluation (1-3 months), using a double-blind review process (neither the authors nor the reviewers know each other's identities). After completing the external review, the manuscripts need to be re-reviewed by the editorial board and finally approved by the editor-in-chief (within 2 weeks). The manuscript that passes the review will be edited by the responsible editor according to the editing standards and sent to the author for revision. The returned revised manuscript will be typeset after another round of reviewing and editing, and both the editorial department and the author check the proof simultaneously. The final publication date is determined after discussion at the editorial board's final draft meeting following the completion of proofreading.
8.1 Author’s responsibilities
(1) Authors should abide by all principles of Authorship and contributorship, and disclose any financial and non-financial relationships and activities, and conflicts of interest.
(2) The author is responsible for the authenticity of the paper and has the obligation to cooperate with the editorial department by providing original images, raw data, fund project task letters, and project names as supporting evidence.
(3) The author should ensure that the paper does not involve state secrets, and does not involve any intellectual property infringement issues. The author should guarantee that there are no academic misconducts in the paper (such as multiple submissions of the same manuscript, duplicate publications, inaccurate authorship, plagiarism, fabrication, false annotations, quoting others' works without proper attribution, etc.). The author promises not to submit the paper to other publications before receiving a rejection notice from the editorial department.
(4) Clinical research papers should adhere to the "principle of beneficence" and "principle of non-maleficence" in bioethics. For all clinical trials involving humans and some animal experiments, authors need to provide documentation of ethical review for their research protocols. For studies involving patients (subjects), an informed consent form should be signed.
(5) The author can use AI tools for assistance in the research and writing process, but the tools cannot be used for the writing of the entire paper or important parts of the paper (such as research methods, results, and interpretation analysis of the results). Authors need to carefully check the content generated by AI and be responsible for it. Authors need to fully disclose the AI tool model, usage date, prompts, generated content, etc. in the article.
8.2 Editor’s responsibilities
(1) Editors should strictly implement relevant national laws and regulations, adhere to academic publishing ethics and standards, and uphold scientific research integrity. In accordance with the objectives and requirements of this journal, they should timely and impartially review manuscripts (including inviting peer experts for evaluation).
(2) The editor should promptly provide feedback to the author on the opinions of the review experts and suggestions for modifications that meet editorial standards. Respect the author's research results, respect the opinions of the review experts, and at the same time protect the author's enthusiasm for creation. Encourage discussions and debates on different academic perspectives.
(3) The editor should maintain the authenticity of the review records, and keep the information confidential during the review and modification processes. Editors and editorial staff should not disclose any information about the submitted papers to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, and editorial board members as appropriately needed.
(4) It is obligatory to investigate and communicate academic misconduct, utilizing tools such as the "Academic Misconduct Literature Detection System" to screen and examine manuscripts, in order to prevent potential academic misconduct during the journal editing and publishing process.
(5) The editor should be aware that using AI technology in the processing of manuscripts may violate confidentiality. It is also prohibited to upload the manuscript to software or other AI technologies where confidentiality cannot be assured.
8.3 Reviewer’s responsibilities
(1) Respect the author's research results and avoid manuscripts with conflicts of interest. Ensure that manuscripts are reviewed scientifically and accurately, and provide objective and fair evaluations.
(2) If the review experts find errors in the views, knowledge errors, serious plagiarism, or suspicion of data fabrication in the submitted manuscript, they should report back to the editorial department of the journal and provide a clear opinion on whether the manuscript meets the standards for public publication.
(3) The manuscript under review shall be kept strictly confidential, not to be circulated or discussed with others, and the data, views, and conclusions of the reviewed manuscript shall not be used or published. All review comments and information must be kept confidential and shall not be used for personal purposes.
(4) It is also prohibited to upload the manuscript to software or other AI technologies where confidentiality cannot be assured. Reviewers must request permission from the Editorial Office prior to using AI technology to facilitate the review. Reviewers should be aware that AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete, or biased.