Angioscopy Instructions for Authors

updated on June 1, 2022

Angioscopy is the official journal of the Japanese Association of Cardioangioscopy (JACA).

Aims and Scope

Angioscopy publishes original research focusing on cardiovascular imaging. It is a peer-reviewed, international, and Open Access publication of the Japanese Association of Cardioangioscopy (JACA). The society’s support means there are limited publication or subscription fees. The journal publishes Review Articles, Original Articles, Brief Communications, Case Reports, and Imaging Sessions that span clinical, technological, and basic science approaches.

Angiosocpy is a journal dedicated to the global community of cardiovascular disease specialists and internists, especially those with a subspecialty in cardiovascular imaging. The journal aims to ensure the emerging field of cardiovascular endoscopy reaches its full clinical potential by providing a forum for the publication of important and interesting articles that utilize the power of supporting images and videos. Published continuously online, the journal serves its authors and readers with rapid turnaround times, rigorous peer review, and the publication of important articles in this quickly developing field.

Manuscript Types

The journal welcomes five manuscript types, all of which are subject to peer review: Original Articles, Case Reports; Review Articles; Editorials; and Imaging Sessions. Full details are available in the ‘Manuscript Preparation’ section below.

Journal & Ethics Policies

Angioscopy upholds the highest standards in scholarly publishing.

Before submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors must ensure that they have read and complied with the journal’s policies. The journal reserves the right to reject without review, or retract, any manuscript that the Editor believes may not comply with these policies.

The responsibilities of the journal’s authors, editors, reviewers and publisher regarding research and publication ethics are described in full below.

Submission to the journal implies that the manuscript has not been previously published (in part or in whole, in any language), is not in press, and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

Authors must inform the editors if any related manuscripts are under consideration, in press or published elsewhere. The availability of a manuscript on a publicly accessible preprint server does not constitute prior publication (see ‘Preprints’).

If authors choose to submit their manuscript elsewhere before a final decision has been made on its suitability for publication in Angioscopy, they should first withdraw it from the journal.

Submission

Submission of a manuscript to the journal implies that all authors: have approved it, warrant it is factual, have agreed to its submission, and have the right to publish it.

Originality

Submission to the journal implies that the manuscript is original work. The journal may use a plagiarism software to screen manuscripts for unoriginal content. By submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors agree to this screening. Any manuscript with an unacceptable level of unoriginal material may be rejected or retracted at the Editors’ discretion.

Preprints

To support the wide dissemination of research, the journal encourages authors to post their research manuscripts on community-recognized preprint servers, either before or alongside submission to the journal. This policy applies only to the original version of a manuscript that describes primary research. Any version of a manuscript that has been revised in response to reviewers’ comments, accepted for publication or published in the journal should not be posted on a preprint server. Instead, forward links to the published manuscript may be posted on the preprint server.

Authors should retain copyright in their work when posting to a preprint server.

Scooping

When assessing the novelty of a manuscript submitted to the journal, the editors will not be influenced by other manuscripts that are posted on community-recognized preprint servers after the date of submission to the journal (or after the date of posting on a preprint server, if the manuscript is submitted to the journal within 4 months).

Authorship

Authors are must attend to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations on ‘Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors’.

Anyone who meets all the criteria below must be listed as an author.

• Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work.
• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
• Final approval of the version to be published.
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Those who do not meet the four criteria should be listed in the Acknowledgements section.

Image integrity

Authors may digitally manipulate or process images, but only if the adjustments are kept to a minimum, are applied to the entire image, meet community standards, and are clearly described in the manuscript. All images in a manuscript must accurately reflect the original data on which they are based. Authors must not move, remove, add or enhance individual parts of an image. The editors reserve the right to request original, unprocessed images from the authors. Failure to provide requested images may result in a manuscript being rejected or retracted.

Reproducing copyrighted material

If a manuscript includes material that is not under the authors’ own copyright, the authors must obtain permission from the copyright holder(s) to reproduce it.

If a manuscript includes previously published material, the authors must obtain permission from the copyright owners and the publisher of the original work to reproduce it. The authors must cite the original work in their manuscript.

Copies of all reproduction permissions must be included with the manuscript when it is first submitted.

Availability of data and materials

Authors must disclose the source of publicly available data and materials, such as public repositories or commercial manufacturers, by including accession numbers or company details in their manuscript, as appropriate.

Authors may make their own data and materials available in Supplementary Material, or by linking from their manuscript to relevant community-recognized public databases or digital repositories. All data sets must be made available in full to the editors and reviewers during the peer review process, and must be made publicly available by the date of publication. Authors commit to preserving their data sets for at least three years from the date of publication in the journal.

The journal encourages authors to grant reasonable requests from colleagues to share any data, materials and experimental protocols described in their manuscript.

Human/animal experimentation

Authors of manuscripts describing experiments involving humans or materials derived from humans must demonstrate that the work was carried out in accordance with the principles embodied in the Declaration of Helsinki, its revisions, and any guidelines approved by the authors’ institutions. Where relevant, the authors must include a statement in the Methods section of their manuscript that describes the procedures for obtaining informed consent from participants regarding participation in the research and publication of the research. The identity of patients must be protected and not directly or indirectly revealed; authors must follow the highest community-accepted standards in this regard.

Authors of manuscripts describing experiments involving animals or materials derived from animals must demonstrate that the work was carried out in accordance with the guidelines approved by the authors’ institution(s).

Clinical trial registration

The journal adheres to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) policy on Clinical Trials Registration, which recommends that all clinical trials are registered in a public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrollment as a condition of consideration for publication. Manuscripts describing clinical trials must include the registration number of the trial and the name of the trial registry.

Reporting guidelines

The journal requires authors to follow the EQUATOR Network’s Reporting Guidelines for health research. Study types include, but are not limited to, randomized trials, observational studies, systematic reviews, case reports, qualitative research, diagnostic and prognostic studies, economic evaluations, animal pre-clinical studies and study protocols.

Author competing interests and conflicts of interest

A conflict of interest exists when there are actual, perceived or potential circumstances that could influence an author’s ability to conduct or report research impartially. When submitting a manuscript, all authors and their spouses and other immediate family members, are required to disclose any financial or personal relationship with biotechnology manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, or other commercial entities that have an interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript, within the period of 12 months prior to the submission.

All disclosures must contain the two following elements:

1. a completed “Conflict of Interest Disclosure Statement” at the time of submission.
2. a disclosure statement in the manuscript, which is in a “Disclosure statement” section that comes before the “References” section. Examples are provided below.
   • A (author name) serves as a consultant to Z (entity name);
   • B received a research grant from Y;
   • C received lecture fees from X;
   • D holds a patent on V;
   • E has been reimbursed by U for attending several conferences;
   • F received honoraria for writing promotional material for T;
   • G has no conflict of interest.

Authors should list all funding sources for their work in the Acknowledgements section of their manuscript.

Confidentiality

The journal maintains the confidentiality of all unpublished manuscripts. By submitting their manuscript to the journal, the authors warrant that they will keep all correspondence about their manuscript (from the Editorial Office, editors and reviewers) strictly confidential.

Self-archiving (Green Open Access) policy

Self-archiving, also known as Green Open Access, enables authors to deposit a copy of their manuscript in an online repository. the journal encourages authors of original research manuscripts to upload their article to an institutional or public repository immediately after publication in the journal.

Long-term digital archiving

J-STAGE preserves its full digital library, including Angioscopy, with Portico in a dark archive (see https://www.portico.org/publishers/jstage/). In the event that the material becomes unavailable at J-STAGE, it will be released and made available by Portico.

Advertising Policy

The journal carries general advertising banners at the website that are displayed to all users without regard to geography or demography. They are arranged solely by JACA employees and not the Editors or Editorial Board. Advertisements are not be related in any way to editorial decision making and are kept separate from the published content.

Peer Review Process

Editorial and peer review process

The journal uses single-blind peer review.

When a manuscript is submitted to the journal, it is assigned to the Editor-in-Chief, who performs initial screening. Manuscripts that do not fit the journal’s scope or are not deemed suitable for publication are rejected without review. The Editor-in-Chief allocates each of the remaining manuscripts to a relevant member of the Editorial Board (‘Editor’), who handles peer review. The Editor selects two appropriate reviewers to provide their assessment of the manuscript. Reviewers are selected based on their expertise, reputation and previous experience as peer reviewers. The deadline for submission of the reviewers’ reports is within 2 weeks.

Once the reviewers’ reports have been received, the Editor determines whether the manuscript requires revision. Authors who are asked to revise their manuscript must do so within 3 months, otherwise it may be treated as a new submission. The Editor may send revised manuscripts to peer reviewers for their feedback or may use his or her own judgement to assess how closely the authors have followed the comments on the original manuscript. The Editor then makes a final decision on the manuscript’s suitability for publication in the journal.

The Editor-in-Chief acts as an arbitrator when necessary.

Reviewer selection, timing and suggestions

Reviewers are selected based on their expertise in the field, reputation, recommendation by others, and/or previous experience as peer reviewers for the journal.

Reviewers are asked to submit their first review within 2 weeks of accepting the invitation to review. Reviewers who anticipate any delays should inform the Editorial Office as soon as possible.

When submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors may suggest reviewers that they would like included in or excluded from the peer review process. The Editor may consider these suggestions but is under no obligation to follow them. The selection, invitation and assignment of peer reviewers is at the Editor’s sole discretion.

Reviewer reports

It is the journal’s policy to transmit reviewers’ comments to the authors in their original form. However, the journal reserves the right to edit reviewers’ comments, without consulting the reviewers, if they contain offensive language, confidential information or recommendations for publication.

Acceptance criteria

If a manuscript satisfies the journal’s requirements and represents a significant contribution to the published literature, the Editor may recommend acceptance for publication in the journal.

Articles in Angioscopy must be:

• within the subject area of the journal’s scope
• novel and original
• descriptions of technically rigorous research
• of high interest to the journal’s audience
• important additions to the field

If a manuscript does not meet the journal’s requirements for acceptance or revision, the Editor may recommend rejection.

Editorial independence

JACA has granted the journal’s Editorial Board complete and sole responsibility for all editorial decisions. JACA will not become involved in editorial decisions, except in cases of a fundamental breakdown of process.

Editorial decisions are based only on a manuscript’s scientific merit and adherence to the acceptance criteria; they are kept separate from the journal’s other interests. The authors’ ability to pay any publication charges has no bearing on whether a manuscript is accepted for publication in the journal.

Appeals

Authors who believe that an editorial decision has been made in error may lodge an appeal with the Editorial Office. Appeals are only considered if the authors provide detailed evidence of a misunderstanding or mistake by a reviewer or editor. Appeals are considered carefully by the Editor-in-Chief, whose decision is final. The guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) are followed where and when relevant.

Confidentiality in peer review

The journal maintains the confidentiality of all unpublished manuscripts. Editors and reviewers will not:

1. disclose a reviewer’s identity unless the reviewer makes a reasonable request for such disclosure
2. discuss the manuscript or its contents with anyone not directly involved with the manuscript or its peer review
3. use any data or information from the manuscript in their own work or publications
4. use information obtained from the peer review process to provide an advantage to themselves or anyone else, or to disadvantage any individual or organization.

In addition, reviewers will not reveal their identity to any of the authors of the manuscript or involve anyone else in the review (for example, a post-doc or PhD student) without first requesting permission from the Editor.

Conflicts of interest in peer review

A conflict of interest exists when there are actual, perceived or potential circumstances that could influence an editor’s ability to act impartially when assessing a manuscript. Such circumstances might include having a personal or professional relationship with an author, working on the same topic or in direct competition with an author, having a financial stake in the work or its publication, or having seen previous versions of the manuscript.

Members of the journal’s Editorial Board and reviewers undertake or are asked to declare any conflicts of interest when handling manuscripts. An editor or reviewer who declares a conflict of interest is unassigned from the manuscript in question and is replaced by a new editor or reviewer.

Editors try to avoid conflicts of interest when inviting reviewers, but it is not always possible to identify potential bias.

Errata and retractions

The journal recognizes the importance of maintaining the integrity of published literature.

A published article that contains an error may be corrected through the publication of an Erratum. Errata describe errors that significantly affect the scientific integrity of a publication, the reputation of the authors, or the journal itself. Authors who wish to correct a published article should contact the editor who handled their manuscript or the Editorial Office with full details of the error(s) and their requested changes. In cases where co-authors disagree over a correction, the Editor-in-Chief may consult the Editorial Board or external peer reviewers for advice. If a Correction is published, any dissenting authors will be noted in the text.

A published article that contains invalid or unreliable results or conclusions, has been published elsewhere, or has infringed codes of conduct (covering research or publication ethics) may be retracted. Individuals who believe that a published article should be retracted are encouraged to contact the journal’s Editorial Office with full details of their concerns. The Editor-in-Chief will investigate further and contact the authors of the published article for their response. In cases where co-authors disagree over a retraction, the Editor-in-Chief may consult the Editorial Board or external peer reviewers for advice. If a Retraction is published, any dissenting authors will be noted in the text.

The decision to publish Errata or Retractions is made at the sole discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.

Editors as authors in the journal

Any member of the journal’s Editorial Board, including the Editor-in-Chief who is an author on a submitted manuscript is excluded from the peer review process and from viewing details about their manuscript.

A manuscript authored by an editor of the journal is subject to the same high standards of peer review and editorial decision making as any manuscript considered by the journal.

Responding to potential ethical breaches

The journal will respond to allegations of ethical breaches by following its own policies and, where possible, the guidelines of COPE.

Copyright, Open Access and Fees

Angioscopy is fully Open Access and uses Creative Commons (CC) licenses, which allow users to use, reuse and build upon the material published in the journal without charge or the need to ask prior permission from the publisher or author.

Copyright and licensing

Authors are required to assign all copyrights in the work to JACA, and must sign and send the “Authorship Agreement and Copyright Transfer Form” upon submission of a manuscript. JACA publish the work under the Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International) license. This license allows users to share and adapt an article, non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given.

Some funding bodies require articles funded by them to be published under a specific Creative Commons license. Before submitting your work to the journal, check with the relevant funding bodies to ensure that you comply with any mandates.

Article Processing Charge and other fees

There is no Article Processing Charge for articles which remain within the page limits described in the ‘Manuscript Preparation’ section. If articles exceed the page limits, there is a charge of 20,000 JPY (not including relevant taxes) for each extra page.

Authors cover the costs of extra page and offprints.

Manuscript Submission

All manuscripts must be submit via the journal’s online submission system: https://iap-jp.org/jacscopy/journal_e/. Upon initial submission, please provide the documents as outlined below.

1. Title page and Text (abstract – Legends): Word
2. Tables: Word, Excel or PowerPoint (image data is unacceptable)
3. Figures: PowerPoint, PDF (Where relevant, the provision of supplementary movie files is strongly recommended)
4. Authorship Agreement and Copyright Transfer Form, and COI Form: PDF

Instructions for revised manuscripts are provided with the first decision letter, if relevant. Authors should resubmit the manuscript within three months from the editorial decision. If authors require additional time, please notify the editorial office before the deadline.

Manuscript Preparation

Style

Manuscripts should be prepared in Microsoft Word or other appropriate software using double line spacing throughout, with margins of at least 2.5 cm.

English standards

Manuscripts should be written in clear, grammatically correct English. Authors whose native language is not English are required to have their manuscript checked by a native English speaker or by an editing service prior to submission. If a manuscript is not clear due to poor English, it may be rejected without undergoing peer review.

Format

Title page

The title page should include the following information.

• Manuscript type (Review Article, Original Article, Case Report, Image Session)
• Title
• Running Title (up to 12 words)
• Key words (up to 5)
• All authors' names (first name, middle initial[s], last name) with academic degrees and JACA Membership Number (if applicable)
• All authors' institutional affiliations (where the manuscript has been created)
• Contact details of the corresponding author (mailing address, telephone number, and email address)

Title

The title should describe the content of the article briefly but clearly and is important for search purposes by third-party services. Do not use the same main title with numbered minor titles, even for a series of papers by the same authors. Do not use abbreviations in the title, except those used generally in related fields.

Abbreviations

Abbreviations should be spelled out in the first appearance in each part of title, abstract, key words, and text. In legends of tables and figures, abbreviations should be defined for each table and figure.

Numerals and Units

Use Arabic numerals and SI or SI-derived units should be used. More information on SI units is available at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) website.

Abstract

The Abstract should clearly express the basic content of the paper in a single paragraph and should include the problem addressed, experimental approach, main results and findings, and conclusions. Abstracts must not exceed 250 words for all article types. Avoid using specific abbreviations. If it is essential to refer to a previous publication, omit the article title (e.g. Kobayashi, S., Plano, S., and van Poppel, H. (2021). Health Journal., 13: 109–115).

Acknowledgments

This section should be brief. Authors should list all funding sources for their work in the Acknowledgements section.

Disclosure statement

As described and detailed in the ‘Author competing interests and conflicts of interest’ section above, authors must provide a statement outlining any competing interests. If no conflicts of interest exist, this should also be explicitly stated.

References

References must be listed in the order cited in the text. References cited in the text should be indicated by consecutive superscript numbers.

The structure for a journal article is: author(s), title of paper, journal name (abbreviated as in Index Medicus or written in full if no abbreviation quoted), year of publication, volume number, first and last pages.

The structure for a book is: author(s), title, book title, editor(s) or compiler(s), edition number, publisher’s name and place of publication, year of publication, first and last pages (if relevant).

The structure for an online material is: website publisher, title of cited page, URL in full, the date when the reference was last accessed. In the reference list, if authors are more than 4, list the first 3 followed by “et al”. If there are three authors or less, list all of their names.

[Reference style examples]

Journal article: Endo M, Hirosawa K, Kaneko N, et al: Prinzmetal’s variant angina: Coronary arteriogram and left ventriculogram during angina attack induced by methacholine. N Engl J Med 1976; 294: 252–255

Book: Everson C, Mills N: The inferior epigastric artery. Alternative Bypass Conduits and Methods for Surgical Coronary Revascularization, ed by Grooters RK, Nishida H, 2nd Ed, Futura, New York, 1994, 73–80

Online Material: U.S. Food and Drug Administration. FDA Drug Safety Communication: Pradaxa (dabigatran etexilate mesylate) should not be used in patients with mechanical prosthetic heart valves. http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/ucm332912.htm (Accessed Sep. 23. 2016)

Tables

Number tables consecutively using Arabic numerals (Table 1, Table 2, etc.). A title should be given to each table. Explanatory material and footnotes should be typed below the table and should be designated with superscript letters, such as a) or b). Units of measurement should be included with numerical values at the top of columns. Avoid detailed explanations of the experimental conditions used to obtain the data shown in tables (which should be included in other sections as relevant).

Figures

Figures should be of high enough resolution for direct reproduction for display. Note that ‘figures’ includes line drawings and photographs, as well as charts. Magnifications of photographs should be indicated in the legends and/or by scales included in the photographs. Illustrations must be self-explanatory and they should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals (i.e., Fig. 1, Fig. 2, etc.). Each figure should have a short title. Figure legends should be typed together in the figure legends section of the manuscript. Figure legends should include sufficient experimental details to make the figures intelligible; however, duplicating the descriptions provided in other sections should be avoided.

Supplementary Material

Supplementary video files can be included to support an article’s conclusions and can be published alongside the article at the journal’s J-STAGE site. Each video file must have a title and be mentioned in the text. As supplementary material is peer-reviewed, authors must include any video files at the time of submission; copyright, statutory and common law regulations must be complied with in relation to the ownership and otherwise of video files.

Supplementary information is limited to five individual files; each file should not exceed 10 MB. Acceptable file formats are AVI (.avi), MPEG (.mpg) QuickTime (.mov) and WMV (.wmv).

Accepted Manuscripts

Manuscripts that are accepted for publication are copyedited and typeset by the journal’s production team before publication. The journal is published continuously online. All communication regarding accepted manuscripts is with the corresponding author.

Proofs

After correction for English grammar, the galley proofs of accepted manuscripts are sent to the corresponding author for proofreading. Please check these for spelling, punctuation, and overall accuracy within 48 hours of receipt. Only essential corrections to typesetting errors or omissions are accepted; excessive changes are not permitted at the proofing stage.

Reprints/Author offprints

Offprint should be ordered at the galley proof correction stage.

Order forms for reprints are sent with the proofs to the corresponding author and should be returned with the proofs. The corresponding author will be sent a PDF of the paper on publication.

Contact

To contact the Editorial Office or the Editor-in-Chief, please write to:

Download links

・Authorship agreement
Conflict of interest disclosure statement