Cardiologia Ambulatoriale
Outpatient Cardiology
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Cardiologia Ambulatoriale – Outpatient Cardiology, the official journal of Associazioni Regionali Cardiologi Ambulatoriali (A.R.C.A.), publishes, in Italian and English, editorials, original articles, reviews, clinical and epidemiological investigations, case reports and health policy issues on the main aspects of cardiovascular medicine, focusing particular attention to outpatient cardiology.
1. Preparing and submitting the manuscript
Only electronic files conforming to the journal’s guidelines will be accepted. Manuscripts must be sent by e-mail to: actis@giappichelli.it.
Preferred formats for the text and tables are Word for Windows and Word for Macintosh. The text should be double-spaced and preferably typed on Times New Roman 12.
The pages of the manuscript should be consecutively numbered, starting from the title page.
The authors should indicate in the covering letter (see later) which article category intend to submit.
2. Categories of the articles
Cardiologia Ambulatoriale – Outpatient Cardiology publishes the following types of articles:
– Editorials (only by Editors invitation)
– Reviews
– Original articles
– Clinical and epidemiological investigations
– Case reports
– Collaborations
– Health policy
– Forensic medicine
– Focus on
– Focus on clinical trials
– Short communications
– Letters to the Editors
– Medical congresses
– News from Scientific Societies
– Updates in clinical cardiology
– Errata corrige
In addition to these articles categories, also thematic headings such as Electrocardiography, Echocardiography, Heart Failure, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Risk and Forensic Cardiology are regularly published in the journal, generally on Editors invitation.
3. Research ethics and patient consent
Cardiologia Ambulatoriale – Outpatient Cardiology adheres to the ICMJE Recommentations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. Medical research involving human subjects must be conducted according to the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki. All articles reporting animal and/or human studies must declare in the methods section that the Ethical Committee or the Institutional Review Board provided the approval of the experimental method. The full name, institution and approval number of the review committee must be also provided. The authors are required to state in the methods section whether participants gave a written or verbal consent for the study.
4. Editorial policy
Cardiologia Ambulatoriale – Outpatient Cardiology adheres to the International Committee of Medical Jounal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines for identifying the intellectual paternity of published articles. The authorship (intellectual paternity of an article) is based on three fundamental conditions: 1) substantial contribution to the concept and design of the study, to the acquisition of data or to their analysis and interpretation; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; 3) final approvation of the version to be published. The Authors should meet the conditions of all of three points. Acquisition of funding, collection of data or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship. The contributorship identifies those who simply helped to the work but do not meet the requisites for the autorship (such as who performed the tests, visits or examinations of an experimental casistics). Finally, the guarantorship identifies those who claim guarantor of the contents of the work. All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgments section.
5. Organizing the manuscript
The manuscript should be structured as follows:
1 Title page
2 Abstracts page
3 Text
4 Acknowledgements
5 Bibliography (References)
6 Figure legends
7 Tables and figures
Each of the seven sections should begin on a new page of the manuscript.
6. Title page
The title page should contain the following information:
- Title of the article in Italian and English (only the English title is required for articles in English language). Authors are invited to prepare synthetic but exhaustive titles, therefore containing all the information relevant to the description of the work. The information contained within the title should allow for an easy online retrieval of the article.
- First name, last name, academic and scientific degrees of the authors (MD, PhD, FESC, FACC, FAHA…).
- Institution of affiliation of each Author.
- Indication of the corresponding Author. The corresponding Author is responsible for the correspondence and should indicate his mailing address, telephone and fax number and e-mail address. He must also authorize the publication of e-mail address.
- A short title of no more than 46 characters (spaces included).
- Count of the words, separately for abstracts and text.
- Number of tables and figures submitted.
- Indication of any source of support of the work (funding, grants, contracts, facilities, equipments, drugs).
- Notification of any conflict of interests or declaration of the absence of conflict of interests. The information about conflict of interests must be reported on a separate page.
7. Abstracts page
The page of the abstracts should contain, in the following order:
- Abstract in Italian (not required for English articles and for editorials).
- Three to five keywords in Italian (not required for English articles and for editorials).
- Abstract in English (not required for editorials).
- Three to five keywords in English (not required for editorials).
The abstract of original articles and of clinical and epidemiological investigations must be structured in the following sections: 1) Background; 2) Aims; 3) Methods and results; 4) Conclusions.
8. Text
The text of original articles and of clinical and epidemiological investigations must be structured in the following sections:
- Introduction
- Methods
- Results
- Discussion
- Conclusions
9. Bibliography (references)
Cardiologia Ambulatoriale – Outpatient Cardiology adheres to the SAGE Vancouver reference style (“author-number system”). References must be numbered consecutively in Arabic numeral in the order in which they appear in the text. Reference numbers must be typed in the text as superscripts. Each reference should include last name and the initials of first name of cited authors, in addition to the indications of the journal or the book of origin. Do not separate initials with spaces or full points, but add a full point after last initial before the title.
Journal articles
Journal titles should be abbreviated according to the standard in the Index Medicus-Medline. The journals not indexed in the Index Medicus-Medline should be cited using their full name. All authors must be cited if they are 6 or less. Cite only the first 3 authors, followed by et al, if more than 6
Each reference must include, in the order: a) last name and initials of first name of all authors, followed by full point (.); b) title of the article cited, followed by full point (.); c) name of the journal and year of publication, followed by semicolon (;); d) number of the volume, followed by colon (:); e) initial and final pages of the article (written in full). In case of Abstracts, the abbreviation “abstr”, enclosed in brackets, must be reported after the page numbers.
Personal communications, manuscripts in preparation and other unpublished data should not be listed in the bibliography, but only mentioned in the text.
Example:
Friedberg DH, Schamroth L. Atrial parasystole. Br Heart J. 1970; 32: 172-180.
Books and book chapters
For books should be reported, in the order: authors, title of the book, city of the publisher, name of the publisher, year of publication of the book, initial and final pages of the cited part.
Example:
Schamroth L. I disordini del ritmo cardiaco. Roma: Marrapese, 1981: 59-67.
For chapters of books should be reported, in the order: authors, title of the chapter, name of the editor (editors) followed by the abbreviation “ed” or “eds” (in brackets), title of the book, city of the publisher, year of publication, initial and final page of the chapter.
Example:
Waldo AL, Carlson MD, Henthorn RW. Atrial flutter: transient entrainment and related phenomena. In: Zipes DP, Jalife J (eds). Cardiac electrophysiology from cell to bedside. Philadelphia: WB Saunders, 1990: 530-537.
10. Figures
The journal publishes only black and white figures. If the authors submit color figures, these will be published in black and white. Authors should therefore pay particular attention to the loss of the explanatory power of the figures in the transition from color to black and white. Figures should be cited in the text with Arabic numerals in order of citation. Each figure should be accompanied by a figure legend.
It is essential to provide figures separately from the text (not included in a Word file), with high resolution, in JPEG (minimum 300 dpi), or TIFF / EPS format (minimum 600 dpi). In the case of flow-charts or graphics, a high-resolution Power Point file is usable.
If a figure has already been published, it is mandatory to cite the original Author and provide written permission for its publication obtained from the copyright holder. Authorization of the Author or the publisher is not necessary in case of public domain figures.
Figures legend
The legends of the figures must be written double-spaced on a separate page and numbered with Arabic numerals corresponding to the figure. Abbreviations, symbols or letters shown in the figure must be reported in alphabetical order and described in the legend.
11. Tables
Type and print tables on a separate page using double-spacing, Tables should be consecutively numbered with Arabic numerals in the order they are cited in the text. Associate to each table (after the number) a short title. Abbreviations and symbols shown in the tables must be reported in alphabetical order and explained under the table. If data reported in the table have already been published, it is mandatory to cite the original Author and provide written permission for publication obtained from the copyright holder.
12. Abbreviations and symbols
Do not use abbreviations and symbols in the title of the manuscript and in the abstracts. The first time an abbreviation is used in the text, Authors should indicate full word and its abbreviation in brackets.
13. Covering letter
The manuscript must be accompanied by a covering letter addressed by the corresponding Author to the Editors, which should contain the following information:
- Which article category is submitted.
- Background, previous knowledge on the same topic and innovative features of the current work.
- Aims and synthetic results of the article submitted.
- A statement of any financial or otherwise involvements configurable as conflict of interests. Such information must also be included in the manuscript.
- A statement indicating that all authors have read and approved the article, that the autorship requisites have been met and that each author believes the manuscript the product of an honest work.
- The statement that the work has not been published nor is being considered for publication in other journals.
- The statement that the content of the article or any part of it is not covered by copyright in favor of third parties. In case of submitting any material protected by copyright, corresponding Author must provide the authorization for publication by the holder of copyright.
- The statement, signed by the corresponding Author that the copyright of the article, in case of publication, will be assigned from the Authors to the Publisher.
14. Peer review
The term peer-review indicates critical revision of the articles submitted for publication by authors-peers, that is experts who are not part of the editorial staff. The list of reviewers is periodically published and updated at the end of each year in the latest issue of the journal.
15. Conflict of interests
A conflict of interests arises when an Author (or its affiliation), a reviewer or an Editor have involvements of any nature (personal, professional, financial), able to influence or confuse improperly their actions.
Financial relationships (such as a job employment, remunerated consultations, shareholdings of a company, emoluments or expert opinions ), are the most frequent conflicts. However, conflicts of interest may also occur for other reasons, such as, for example, for personal involvements, academic competition, and intellectual passion.
It is the policy of Cardiologia Ambulatoriale – Outpatient Cardiology to require a declaration of conflicting interests from all Authors or, if no conflict exists, a statement that there is no conflict of interests.
To avoid ambiguity, authors must declare if any, and of what nature are the potential conflicts of interest, reporting such information in a separate page of the manuscript, specifically dedicated, after the title page. Authors may indicate the Editors the name/s of reviewers considered to be unsuitable for examining their manuscript, as they may have potential conflicts of interest, usually for professional reasons. Likewise, reviewers must state whether a potential conflict exists against the manuscript or the authors to be examined.
16. Corrections, retractations and expressions of concern
In the event that in previously published articles are found errors, signaling and corresponding corrections will appear in a later issue of the journal.
When doubts arise on transparency, originality, honesty or integrity of a published work, the Editors should disclose an expression of concern regarding the design, conduction or integrity of the work in a later issue of the journal.
17. Copyright
Cardiologia Ambulatoriale – Outpatient Cardiology asks Authors to renounce the copyright in favor of the Publisher, signing a statement of publishing agreement in the covering letter addressed to the Editors. The journal also asks the Authors to assume full responsibility that the contents of the submitted work or any part thereof is not protected by copyright, excluding any responsibility of the Editors and the Publisher.
18. Redundant / double publications
Only original manuscripts, not previously published or under consideration in other journals, will be considered for publication by Cardiologia Ambulatoriale – Outpatient Cardiology. However, it is allowable to consider for publication a definitive work following a preliminary version (for example an abstract presented in a scientific meeting or the partial version of the current manuscript). Authors who submit a scientific contribution, should inform the Editors, in the covering letter, of all situations which could lead to a redundant or double publication.
Address manuscript to:
G. Giappichelli Editore s.r.l.
Via Po, 2110124 Torino
Tel. 011.8153.542
E-mail: actis@giappichelli.it
Articles should be sent in 3 hard copies, along with the figures used. If sent in electronic form, no hard copies of the articles are required.
