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Policies

Contents

Editorial Policies

Statements and opinions expressed in the articles and communications published by the journal are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the editor(s) or publisher, and the editor(s) and publisher disclaim any responsibility or liability for such material. Neither the editor(s) nor the publisher guarantees, warrants, or endorses any product or service advertised in this publication. Neither do they guarantee any claim made by the manufacturer of such product or service.

Peer Review Policies

The VAD Journal adheres to the guidelines and best practices published by professional organizations, including Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (PDF) from ICMJE and Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (joint statement by COPE, DOAJ, WAME, and OASPA). The Peer Review policy adheres to the recommendations outlined in the Council of Science Editors’ White Paper on Publication Ethics.

All manuscript submissions must be received electronically through the VAD Journal website. Submissions are initially reviewed for novelty, compliance, and alignment with the scope of the Journal. Submissions that do not adhere to ethical principles or are beyond the scope of the Journal will be returned without external review. All submissions, including invited articles, undergo peer review and acceptance is not guaranteed.

The Journal uses peer-review for all articles except the annual literature review by the Editor-in-Chief, Brano Heart Failure Forum Proceeding Papers, and any editorials. For these articles, an editorial board member and/or the Editor-in-Chief may provide a review of the document. If accepted, the article will be copyedited by the editorial office. Such manuscripts are NOT marked as “peer reviewed.” However, these manuscripts present opinions and information that are of value. For all other submissions, a double-blind review process is utilized. The reviewers’ identities are not revealed to the authors. To the fullest extent possible, reviewers are blinded to authors’ names, institutions, and countries of origin, to ensure fair and unbiased reviews. Each manuscript (after being initially screened by the Editor-in-Chief or an editorial board member) will be sent to at least two independent reviewers. The independent reviewers must have expertise that matches the manuscript topic. Reviewers’ comments are collected and reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief or a member of the editorial board for a decision. An article may be rejected, accepted or revised. The decision is relayed to the authors alongside anonymized reviewer comments. The final decision on publication lies solely with the Editor-in-Chief.

If a revision is requested, authors must submit both a revised manuscript and a response to reviewers. Both documents are then forwarded to the original reviewers whenever possible. If only administrative revisions were requested, the revised manuscript will be processed by the editorial office.

We know that reviewing manuscript can be time consuming, and we appreciate those who agree to serve as reviewers. No compensation or other incentive is offered to reviewers in order to encourage objectivity.

Authors retain the copyright. For details, please see the author agreement.

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Authorship

Each person designated as an author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content.

Conflict of Interest and Funding Sources

Each manuscript, regardless of its type, must include a financial conflict of interest disclosure. This statement should be included AFTER the conclusions and BEFORE the references in a separate section. Such a section must also include any funding sources or acknowledgements of contribution of any material nature. The conflict of interest statement should describe ALL authors' relationships with companies or relevant entities that make products pertinent to the paper. The statement should specify the type of relationships (e.g., consulting, paid speaking, grant support, equity, patents, etc.) EACH author has with EACH company. This item is of serious concern to the Editorial Board and no manuscripts will move forward for peer review if this data is not available.

The role(s) of the funding organization, if any, in the collection of data, its analysis and interpretation, and in the right to approve or disapprove publication of the finished manuscript must be described in the section as indicated above.

In general, the Journal follows the COPE (Committee On Publishing Ethics) guidelines.

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Informed Consent

Reports describing data obtained from research conducted in human subjects must contain a statement in the Methods section indicating approval by the institutional review board or Ethics board and affirming that informed consent was obtained as required by the study authorizing entity.

Humane Animal Care

All manuscripts reporting experiments using animals must include a statement in the Methods section giving assurance that all animals received humane care in compliance with the Principles of Laboratory Animal Care formulated by the National Society for Medical Research and the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals prepared by the Institute of Laboratory Animal Research.

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Data Sharing Policy

The VAD Journal adheres to the guidelines and best practices published by professional organizations, including Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (PDF) from ICMJE and Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (joint statement by COPE, DOAJ, WAME, and OASPA). All manuscript submissions must disclose any sources of funding or sponsorship. Any data-sharing responsibilities of the author(s) that are imposed by said funding agencies are the responsibility of the author(s). Authors are highly encouraged to share their data (ie, raw data, processed data, software, algorithms, protocols, etc.) safely and ethically. The National Institute of Health provides guidance on data-sharing policies and best practices. Any data that has been collected to support the results of a manuscript published in the VAD Journal must be archived either in an appropriate public repository or an internal, secured database and made available upon request. The VAD Journal is dedicated to a more transparent research environment; thus, all authors are encouraged to share their research data to the fullest extent possible. Any clinical trial or study is required to provide a Data Sharing Statement that details where the original data is stored and how (or if) it will be made available to others. If authors do not share their data, authors must provide a justification, which will be printed alongside the article if accepted for publication.

Open Access

The VAD Journal is an open access publication. Full text articles, images, videos, and supplemental materials are freely available online and are published with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license.

General Terms and Conditions of Use

Users of the DigitalCommons@TMC website and/or software agree not to misuse the DigitalCommons@TMC service or software in any way.

The failure of DigitalCommons@TMC to exercise or enforce any right or provision in the policies or the Submission Agreement does not constitute a waiver of such right or provision. If any term of the Submission Agreement or these policies is found to be invalid, the parties nevertheless agree that the court should endeavor to give effect to the parties' intentions as reflected in the provision, and the other provisions of the Submission Agreement and these policies remain in full force and effect. These policies and the Submission Agreement constitute the entire agreement between DigitalCommons@TMC and the Author(s) regarding submission of the Article.

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