Guide for Authors

The manuscript has to be sent electronically by registration on the official Arta Medica web page (https://artamedica.md/) by the correspondence author, filling in the Authorship Statement Form and License Agreement.
The authors are kindly requested to visit our web site https://artamedica.md/ and strictly follow the directions of the Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement.

The journal publishes the following types of papers:
        •
Original Articles
        Meta-Analysis Articles
        Review Articles
        Surgical Technique
        Case Reports
        Letter to the Editors

And by invitation only:
        Guidelines
        Reports
        Great Debates
        Editorials
        Editorial Comments

All papers are to be executed in the following manner:

1. The manuscripts should be typed in format A4, 1.5-spaced, with 2.0 cm margins, printing type 12 Times New Roman, in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, or RTF document file format.

Manuscripts should be organized as follows:
        1) Title page;
        2) Abstract and Keywords (each article type must include 3-6 keywords);
        3) Text with the following sections:
                  - Introduction;
                  - Materials and Methods (or Patients and Methods);
                  - Results;
                  - Discussion;
                  - Figures (if figures are present, they must be completed with legends);
                  - Tables (if tables are present, they must be completed with legends);
                  - Conclusion;
        4) References;
        5) Acknowledgement (optional);
        6) Author contribution statement;
        7) Funding statement;
        8) Conflict of interest statement.

Important: The total number of words specified below comprises words on: the title page, abstract, keywords, main text, figure and table legends, and references.


All manuscripts must adhere to the following specifications
:

A.   The Original Article (presents new and original scientific findings, explains research methodology and provides data).
        1) There is no limit on the number of authors, but it can be changed at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.
        2) Abstract (structured): 200-300 words (sections should be: Objectives, Methods, Results and Conclusions).
        3) Figures and tables combined should not exceed 12 in number.
        4) The article should not exceed 20 pages or 7500 words and must consist of an Introduction, Material and methods (or Patients and Methods), Results, Discussion, Conclusions, Acknowledgement (optional).
        5) The article should be followed by not more than 40 references.

Important: We, insistently, recommend you to refer to sections 2-10 below, for details on structuring each part of the article.

B.   The Meta-Analysis Article (quantitative, formal, epidemiological study design, used to systematically assess previous research studies to derive conclusions about that body of research). A more detailed information can be found by accessing the following link: PRISMA Guidelines.
        1) There is a limit of maximum 8 authors, but it can be changed at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.
        2) Abstract (structured): 200-300 words (sections should be: Objectives, Methods, Results and Conclusions).
        3) Figures and tables combined should not exceed 12 in number.
        4) The article should not exceed 16 pages or 6500 words.
        5) The article should be followed by not more than 80 references.

Important: We, insistently, recommend you to refer to sections 2-10 below, for details on structuring each part of the article.

C.   The Surgical Technique Article (articlesreporting new surgical approaches or substantial modifications of previously reported techniques).
        1) There is a limit of maximum 4 authors.
        2) Abstract (structured): 200-300 words (sections should be: Background, Description of Technique, Patients and Methods, Results, Conclusions).
        3) The article must contain Introduction, Technique, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion, Conclusions.
        4) The Introduction should include the need and rationale for the new 
        5) Figures and tables combined should not exceed 20 in number.
        6) The article should not exceed 10 pages or 3750 words.
        7) The article should not exceed 20 references.

Important: We, insistently, recommend you to refer to sections 2-10 below, for details on structuring each part of the article.

D.   The Review Article (provides an overview of a field or subject, synthesizes previous research). A more detailed information can be found by accessing the following link: PRISMA Guidelines.
        1) There is a limit of maximum 8 authors, but it can be changed at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.
        2) Abstract (structured): 200-300 words (sections should be: Objectives, Methods, Results and Conclusions).
        3) Figures and tables combined should not exceed 12 in number.
        4) The review article should not exceed 20 pages or 7500 words.
        5) The article should not contain more than 100 references.

Important: We, insistently, recommend you to refer to sections 2-10 below, for details on structuring each part of the article.

E.   The Clinical Cases or Case Report (describes, for medical, scientific or educational purposes, a medical problem experienced by one or more patients). A more detailed information can be found by accessing the following link: CARE Guidelines.
        1) There is a limit of maximum 4 authors.
        2) Abstract of clinical cases should not exceed 200-300 word count and must include: Introduction, Case presentation, Conclusion.
        3) Figures and tables combined should not exceed 8 in number.
        4) The clinical cases article should not exceed 5 pages or 1500 word count.
        5) The article should not contain more than 20 references.

Important: The article type Case report and review of literature is included in this section and must be executed in the same manner described in Clinical Cases.
We, insistently, recommend you to refer to sections 2-10 below, for details on structuring each part of the article.

F.   Guidelines (by invitation only).
        1) There is no limit on the number of authors.
        2) No abstract is needed.
        3) No limit on number of figures and tables.
        4) There is no limit on page count, word count and references number.

G.   Letters to the Editor (should comment on recent Arta Medica articles only).
        1) There is a limit of maximum 4 authors.
        2) No abstract is needed.
        3) No figures and tables needed.
        4) The letters should not exceed 2 pages of 600 word count.
        5) The letters should not contain more than 10 references.

 H.   The Great Debate (by invitation only).
        1) There is no limit on the number of authors.
        2) No abstract is needed.
        3) Figures and tables combined should not exceed 8 in number.
        4) The great debate should not exceed 12 pages or 5000 words.
        5) It should not contain more than 80 references.

 I.   Editorial (by invitation only).
        1) There is a limit of maximum 4 authors.
        2) No abstract is needed.
        3) No figures and tables needed.
        4) The letters should not exceed 4 pages or 1200 words.
        5) It should not contain more than 10 references.

J.   Editorial Comment (by invitation only).
        1) There is a limit of maximum 4 authors.
        2) No abstract is needed.
        3) No figures and tables needed.
        4) The letters should not exceed 4 pages or 1200 words.
        5) It should not contain more than 10 references.

2. The title page 

Title
Should be brief and descriptive (maximum 100 characters) - no abbreviations are allowed, even if well known. The title must be written in the same language as the article (Romanian, Russian or English, respectively) and translated in English (not applied for articles in English).

Authors
List all authors by full first name, initial of or full middle name and family name. Qualifications are optional. Ensure the author names correspond (in spelling and order of appearance) with the metadata of the system. Remember that all authors must have substantially contributed to the article - see criteria. For equal contributions include the statement that “Author1 and Author2 contributed equally to this work” below the author list of the manuscript (see Author contributions statement below).

Institution(s)
Include the name of all institutions with the location (department, institution, city, country) to which the work should be attributed. Use superscript numbers to connect authors and their department or institution.

Corresponding author
The full name, telephone number and the e-mail address should be typed at the bottom of the title page.

3. Abstract
An abstract should be a concise summary of the manuscript. Reference citations should be avoided, unless it is strictly necessary. The abstract should be factual and free of abbreviations, except for SI units of measurement. The abstract must be written in the same language as the article (Romanian, Russian or English, respectively) and translated in English (not applied for articles in English).

A structured abstract must have four sections:
        1. Objectives: should describe the problem addressed in the study and its purpose.
        2. Methods: should explain how the study was performed (basic procedures with study materials, as well as observational and analytical methods).
        3. Results: should describe the main findings with specific data and their statistical significance, if possible.
        4. Conclusions: should contain the main conclusions of the study.
        5. Keywords: Following the abstract, 3-6 keywords should be given for subject indexing.


4. Main text

Abbreviations and acronyms
Use of abbreviations renders the text difficult to read so they should be limited to SI units of measurement and to those widely used in the text of the article. Full definitions should be given at first mention in the text, and in the tables and figures. Abbreviations should not be included in headings.

Introduction
Should state the purpose of the investigation and give a short review of pertinent literature. It should, also, include the aim and objectives of the study.

Materials and methods (or patients and methods)
Should be described in detail with appropriate information about patients or experimental animals.

For all articles reporting on human subjects and animals, the first paragraph should comprise a short statement confirming approval of the study by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) or Ethics Committee (EC) of the institution(s) where the work was carried out. The name of the institution, the date and ID number of the IRB approval must be included. Whether written patients informed consent was obtained or waived by the IRB or EC should also be disclosed.

Generic names of drugs and equipment should be used throughout the manuscript, with brand names (proprietary name) and the name and location (city, state, country) of the manufacturer in brackets when first mentioned in the text.

Results
Results should be reported concisely and regarded as an important part of the manuscript. They should be presented either in tables and figures, and briefly commented on in the text. Repetition of results should be avoided! The full set of raw data must be available at any time, should reviewers or editors request these for more in-depth analysis during the review process and/or after publication.

Discussion
The discussion is an interpretation of the results and their significance with reference to pertinent work by other authors. It should be clear and concise. The importance of the study and its limitations should be discussed.

Conclusions
This should contain the main conclusions of the study.

5. The tables and figures. All tables and figures require a legend and must be cited in the text.

Tables
All tables must be included in the manuscript file, as part of the text, not as images. All tables should be accompanied by a title and footnotes (use labels a, b, c…) where necessary. The tables should be numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals. Abbreviations and their full definitions should be listed in alphabetical order at the bottom of the table. Avoid overcrowding the tables and the excessive use of words. The format of tables should be in keeping with that normally used by the journal. Please ascertain that the data given in tables are correct. All tables must be cited in the text.

Figures
Each figure should contain no more than 4 parts (images) for Original Articles, Meta-Analyses and Reviews. For Case report, Surgical Technique, 6 parts (images) in total are allowed.

Minimum resolutions are 300 dots per inch (dpi) for color or tone images, and 1000 dpi for line drawings, supplied at a minimum width of 16.8 cm.

Arta Medica does not redraw figures of accepted manuscripts. Figure preparation is the author's responsibility. See the Digital Art Support page.

The journal reserves the right to reduce the size of illustrative material. Any photomicrographs, electron micrographs or radiographs must be of high quality. Photomicrographs should provide details of staining technique and a scale bar, and must be in color. Patients shown in photographs should have their identity concealed or should have given their written consent to publication. When creating figures, make sure any embedded text is large enough to read. Otherwise, some figures that contain miniscule characters, such as numbers on a chart or graph, may not be easily readable and they will most likely be illegible in the final version.


6. The references.
Authors are responsible for checking the accuracy of all references.

References should be numbered in order of appearance in the text (in Arabic numerals in parentheses) and must be listed numerically in the reference list. Please use AMA style citation for your articles. Journal titles and author initials should be abbreviated and punctuated according to PubMed using the AMA style citations. If an automatic referencing system has been used in the preparation of the paper, the references must not be left embedded in the final text file submitted. The citation of journals, books, multi-author books and articles published online should conform to the following examples:

Journals
[1] Sousa-Uva M, Head SJ, Milojevic M, Collet JP, Landoni G, Castella M et al. 2017 EACTS Guidelines on perioperative medication in adult cardiac surgery. Eur J Cardiothorac Surg. 2018;53:5-33.

Books
[2] Cooley DA. Techniques in cardiac surgery. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1984:167-76.

Multi-author books
[3] Rastan AJ, Borger MA, Haensig M, Kempfert J, Mohr FW. Recent developments in transcatheter aortic valve implantation in Moorjani N, Ohri SK, Wechsler A (eds). Cardiac Surgery: Recent Advances and Techniques. CRC press 2013.

Online-only publications (please provide the DOI wherever possible)
[4] Durko A, Mahtab E, Romeo J, Bogers A. Skeletonized internal mammary artery harvest with diathermy and cold dissectionMultimed Man Cardiothorac Surg 2017 Dec 12; doi: 10.1510/mmcts.2017.023

or

[5] National Comprehensive Cancer Network. NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology: Cancer-associated Venous Thromboembolic Disease; Version 2.2018. 2018 https://www.nccn.org/professionals/physician_gls/pdf/vte.pdf (10 July 2019, date last accessed).

For references with more than six authors, the first 6 authors should be listed, followed by et al.
The list of references should contain more than 50% in Scopus or WoS, more than 80% with DOI and not more than 10% of monographs or conference abstracts.
The references must comply with the general format outlined in the Uniform Requirements for the Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (www.icmje.org), chapter IV.A.3.g. For further information on the correct formulation of the references, please access the following link: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html
The references in the Cyrillic script should be transliterated into Latin script using the American Library Association and Library of Congress Romanization Tables as follows: А=А, Б=В, В=V, Г=G, Д=D, Е=Е, Ё=Е, Ж=ZH, З=Z, И=I, Й=I, К=К, Л=L, М=М, Н=N, О=O, П=P, Р=R, C=S, Т=Т, У=U, Ф=F, Х=KH, Ц=TS, Ч=CH, Ш=SH, Щ=SHCH, Ъ=“, Ы=Y, Ь=‘, Э=Е, Ю=IU, Я=IA. Immediately after the transliteration the translation of the title in English in the square brackets should follow.

For example: Давыдов М.И., Акчурин Р.С., Герасимов С.С. и др. Хирургическое лечение больных раком легкого с тяжелыми сопутствующими сердечно-сосудистыми заболеваниями. Хирургия. 2012;7:18-26. [Davydov MI, Akchurin RS, Gerasimov SS i dr. Khirurgicheskoe lechenie bolnykh rakom legkogo s tyazhelymi soputstvuyushchimi serdechno-sosudistymi zabolevaniyami. Khirurgiya. 2012;7:18-26. (In Russ.)]

7. Acknowledgement
This section can be used to acknowledge contributions from other individuals who do not meet the ICMJE criteria for authorship (e.g. those who provided administrative support, writing assistance, language editing).

8. Author contributions statement
CRediT* (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) was introduced with the intention of recognizing individual author contributions, reducing authorship disputes and facilitating collaboration. Contributor Roles Taxonomy of authors will be published for all accepted articles, hence it is paramount that these are selected carefully and accurately upon submission of the revised manuscript. See here for a description of the CrediT roles.

* Reproduced from Brand et al. (2015), Learned Publishing 28(2)

Sample CRediT author statement:
Zhang San: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software; Priya Singh: Data curation, Writing-Original draft preparation; Wang Wu: Visualization, Investigation; Jan Jansen:Supervision; Ajay Kumar: Software, Validation; Sun Qi: Writing-Reviewing and Editing

9. Funding statement
See Conflict of Interests Statement.

10. Conflict of interest statement
See Conflict of Interests Statement.