INFORMATION FOR AUTHORS

SCOPE AND FUNDAMENTAL PROCESS

1. Journal of Kırıkkale University Faculty of Medicine, is published by Kırıkkale University Faculty of Medicine.
2. Journal of Kırıkkale University Faculty of Medicine has been following an open access policy since 1999.
3. The publication language of the journal is Turkish and English. Turkish texts should comply with Turkish Language Associations Turkish Dictionary and Spelling Guide (https://www.tdk.gov.tr/).
4. Journal is published on April, August, and December and the volume is completed in three issues.
5. This journal publishes clinical and experimental research articles in the health field, case reports, review articles (published upon invitation, and if submission is desired, editorial approval must be obtained), and letters to the editor (intended to provide criticism/contributions to previously published articles in the journal or to communicate information that has not been or cannot be prepared as an original study).
6. Manuscrips and forms must be sent through the DergiPark system at http://dergipark.gov.tr/kutfd.
7. Scientific and legal responsibility of the published articles belongs to the authors. Opininons and suggestions in the articles and the accuracy of the sources are the responsibility of the authors. All publication rights of the articles accepted for publication belongs to the Journal of Kırıkkale University Faculty of Medicine.
8. The Editorial Board of the journal has the right to accept, correct or not to publish scientific articles that is submitted and all authors accept the editors’ corrections without changing the basic meaning.
9. In order for the manuscripts to be processed immediately, they must fully comply with the writing guidelines. The editor, secretary, and editorial board have the authority to return the manuscripts that do not follow the publication rules back to the author for revision, to edit the manuscript, or to reject them.
10. Submitted manuscripts are first evaluated by the editor, managing editors, and the relevant member of the editorial board. Manuscripts approved by the editorial board are sent for review by at least two reviewers, whose identities remain confidential. If the decisions are tied (one acceptance and one rejection), the manuscript will be assessed by a third reviewer or the editor. Based on the review process, including revisions if need be, the manuscript is either acccepted for publication or rejected. The authority to select reviewers lies entirely with the editorial board. Reviewers may be chosen within the country or from abroad (national or international institutions), depending on the subject of the manuscript. A list of those who serve as reviewers is published on the last issue of the journal for each year.
11. The submission and acceptance dates of the manuscripts are indicated in the issue in which the text is published. 

PUBLICATION RIGHTS AND AUTHORSHIP 
12. The copyright of the articles accepted for publication in the journal belongs to the journal and it is non-refundable. Unreasonable withdrawal requests are not accepted for manuscripts that have reached the publication stage. 
13. The copyright transfer form must be sent to the journal with wet signature or electronically in scanned format by all authors to transfer all local and international publication rights of the article.(https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/journal-file/33981)
14. No fee is charged for articles submitted for publication and published in the journal, and no royalties are paid to authors. 
15. In order for an article to be included in the journal, it must not have been previously published or submitted for publication in another journal. Articles presented at congresses can be accepted if this is declared. 
16. Articles published in the Journal of Kırıkkale University Faculty of Medicine can be accessed free of charge from the journal website (www.kutfd.kku.edu.tr). However, articles, Images, figures, graphs and tables cannot be reproduced completely or partially, archived in a certain system, or used in advertising or promotional materials without the written permission of the Journal of Kırıkkale University Faculty of Medicine. Scientific articles can be quoted on condition that the source is cited.
17. After the manuscript has been submitted to the journal, no additions or deletions of author names or changes in author order will be made unless there is an acceptable reason.

ETHİCAL RULES
18. The scientific and ethical responsibility of the articles belongs to the authors.
19. Authors should comply with national and international rules. Jaournal of Kırıkkale University Faculty of Medicine accepts as a principle to comply with the ethical standards of the Declaration of Helsinki (https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/). Therefore, for experimental, clinical and drug research, it should be stated in the “Materials and Methods” section of the article and at the end of the text that ethics committee approval has been obtained. Patients or volunteers should be informed, their consent should be obtained and this should be written in the “Materials and Methods” section of the article and at the end of the text. In the studies conducted on animals, it should be stated in the “Materials and Methods” section of the text that the study was conducted in accordance with the principles of the “Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals” (https://grants.nih.gov/grants/olaw/guide-for-the-care-and-use-of-laboratory-animals.pdf) and the “International Guiding Principles for Biomedical Research involving Animals” (http://iclas.org/wp content/uploads/2013/03/CIOMS-ICLAS-Principles-Final.pdf) and that ethics committee approval has been received from the relevant institution. A copy of the ethics committee approval should be attached when the article is uploaded to the system.
20. For case reports, patient-identifying information such as photographs, hospital registration numbers, and dates should be concealed and “Informed Consent” should be obtained from the patient or trustee and uploaded to the system.(https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/journal-file/33979)
21. Scientific manuscripts to be submitted to the journal must comply with the recommendations of the ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, http://www.icmje.org/recommendations) and the criteria of the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics, http://publicationethics.org/international-standards-editors-and-authors) and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME). The journal acts in accordance with these criteria.
22. All submitted manuscripts are evaluated with the plagiarism detection programme through DergiPark. The similarity rate should be below 20%.

PREPARATION OF THE MANUSCRIPT
23. The manuscript should be written in standard A4 paper format, double-spaced, with at least 2 cm margins on the margins, in 12-point font size and Times New Roman font. The page number should be added in the lower right corner starting from the first page.
24. The sections of the manuscript should follow the following order: Turkish and English; titles, abstracts and keywords; main text, declarations (declaration of conflict of interest, authors’ contibution rate, acknowledgements, and ethics committee approval / informed consent), references, tables and captions, captions of Images/graphs/figures. The title in the language of the publication should be bold and in all capital letters, the title in the second language should be bold, italicised and the first letter of the words should be capitalised.


Table: Related sections, number of words and sources according to article types
 

* Main text excluding title, abstract (Turkish and English), keywords, references, tables, figures

Title Page: 
It must be prepared properly to the title page format of the journal. The example of the title page is available at the address https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/journal-file/33978 on the “Required Forms” tab at the bottom of the page.
a) The title of the text must be concise and explanatory (Turkish and English ≤150 letters), 
b) The title must be short and it must contain a maximum of 6 words (Turkish and English, ≤50 letters), 
c) All authors should be written with their full names and affiliations according to the order in the manuscript (in the language of publication), 
d) The ORCID numbers of all authors must be written,
e) The address, mobile phone number and e-mail address of the corresponding author must be provided. 

Abstract: 
Abstracts to be written in Turkish and English should comply with the word count according to the article type. For research articles, the abstract should consist of aim, material (patients) and method, results and conclusion sections; for case and review articles, each section should be written as separate paragraphs without using headings. The English abstract must be written as “Abstract: Objective, Material and Methods, Results, Conclusion“. As far as possible, abbreviations should not be used in the abstract, references should not be given, and tables and figures should not be addressed. Since it will be used in electronic publishing, there should be taken great care to the abstract.

Keywords 
Turkish keywords to be written to reflect the essence and main titles of the scientific article should be selected in accordance with the Turkish Scientific Terms (https://www.bilimterimleri.com/), and English keywords should be chosen in accordance with Index Medicus Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) (www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/MBrowser.html). Keywords must not be given in the English and Turkish abstract. English keywords must be titled as “Keywords". Turkish and English keywords must match and must be given in the same order. The first keyword must start with a capital letter, and after a comma, the other keywords should start with a lower case letter.

Main text
The article’s text consist of introduction, materials (patients) and methods, results and discussion. Word limits are presented in the table. In the Introduction section, the aim and necessity of the study should be underlined, only the necessary references should be used and entire literature should not be reviewed. 
In the Materials (patients) and methods section, the choice of experimental or clinical sample should be defined and the sources of the methods, including statistical methods, should be remarked/indicated. In experimental studies, it should be stated that the research on humans or animals was conducted in compliance with the standard ethical rules/guidelines, and also the name, date and number of the ethics committee approval should be given. In the case reports, the statement that informed consent form has been received from participants should be included. Statistical methods should be explained in detail, and randomisation and software details should be given.
In the Results section, the significant results of the study should be explained with text, tables and figures, and the data should not be repeated in the text and tables. 
In the Discussion section, the significant remarks and results of the study should be emphasized and should be compared to similar studies. The paragraph(es) of the discussion should summarize the results of the article. There should not be a separate Conclusion title.In Turkish texts, a comma should be used for decimal numbers, while in English texts, a period should be used. 
Case reports should consist of introduction, case reports and discussion. Rewiev articles should consist of introduction, subtitles about the topic and conclusion. 
Letter to the editor should not consist an abstract. 

Abbreviations and acronyms (internationally recognisable) used in the article should be written clearly in the first place they are used and the shortened form should be shown in parentheses and the shortened form should be used throughout the text.
Declarations
In accordance with the language of manuscript, at least the following 4 headings must be in the order given in the declarations section at the end of the main text: Conflict of interest (whether or not a conflict exists), researchers’ contribution rate (scientific contribution and responsibility), and funding (all kinds of financial support)/ acknowledgements (for those who contributed to the manuscript such as technical support, writing and editing, data collection, analysis, etc.; however, do not fully meet the authorship criteria) and ethical committee approval or informed consent information must be indicated. For case reports, a consent form should also be attached. 

Turkish example
Çıkar Çatışması Beyanı: Yazarlar arasında herhangi bir çıkar çatışması bulunmamaktadır.

Katkı Oranı Beyanı: Anafikir/Planlama: YK,AA; Analiz/Yorum: YK,AA; Veri Sağlama: YK,AA; Yazım: YK,AA; Gözden Geçirme ve Düzeltme: YK,AA; Onaylama: YK,AA 
(https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/journal-file/33982)
Destek / Teşekkür Beyanı: Çalışmada hiçbir kurum ya da kişiden finansal destek alınmamıştır. Araştırmaya katılan öğrencilere teşekkür ederiz.

Etik Kurul Onamı: ….. Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi girişimsel olmayan klinik araştırmalar etik kurul kurulundan onay alınmıştır (Karar no: ….., Tarih: …..).

English example
Conflict of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Funding and Acknowledgment: No financial support was received from any institution or person.

Researchers’ Contribution Rate Statement: Concept/Design:YK, AA; Analysis/Interpretation: YK, AA; Data Collection: YK, AA; Writer: YK, AA; Critical Review: YK, AA; Approver: YK, AA
(https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/journal-file/33982)
Ethics Committee Approval: The study protocol was approved by the ….. University Clinical Research Ethics Committee (Date:…… , Number: …..) 


REFERENCES

The Refrences should be arranged according to the AMA (American Medical Association) format. References should be numbered according to the order in the text. The references within the text should be numbered as superscripts and placed after the punctuation mark at the end of the sentence. They should be sorted by seperating with “comma” without leaving a space between them. When 3 or more consecutive references are written, the first and last references should be written and a “-” sign should be placed between them, for instance [(7,19,21-26)]. Checking references is essential and authors might be contacted for a full text of the reference. The maximum number of references for every article type has been given in the table. In References, punctuation marks should be paid attention, and references should be written simple as shown below:

Article from periodical: In References, if the number of authors is six or less, (all) author(s) surname (double names are adjacent) and name initials (comma between them), if the number of authors is more than six, the first three names should be written and ‘”et al.” (no comma before) should be added in English or ‘’ve ark.’’ in Turkish, and a full stop should be added. Then, the title of the manuscript should be written in sentence order (Capitalise only the initial letter and proper names); if there are punctuation marks such as ".", "?" or ":" in the title, the following sentence should also start with a capital letter. Later, the name of the journal should be written in italic form ( www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals or in accordance with Turkish Medical Index) and should be ended with a full stop. Thereafter, year, volume, issue number (if any, additional issue will be specified) and page numbers (first and last pages, S and page number if it is an additional issue) should be added. There should be no spaces in front and back of the punctuation marks. If the journal is electronic, the electronic edition date should be added after the page number (Epub 2010 Apr 19) and should be written according to the following example below; 


Examples: 
Ide M, Morimitsu T, Ushisako Y, Makino K, Fukiyama M, Hayashi A. The significance of stapedial reflex test in facial nerve paralysis. Acta Otolaryngol Suppl. 1988;446(2):57-63.

Williams J, Edgil D, Wattleworth M, Ndongmo C, Kuritsky J. The network approach to laboratory procurement and supply chain management: Addressing the system issues to enhance HIV viral load scale-up. Afr J Lab Med. 2020;9(1):1022. Epub 2020 Aug 13.

Nomura K, Vitti M, de Oliveira AS, et al. Use of the Fonseca’s questionnaire to assess the prevalence and severity of temporomandibular disorders in Brazilian dental undergraduates. Braz Dent J. 2007;18(2):163-167.

Book: Author(s) surname and initials of name(s), title of the book(initial letters are capitalised), edition number (short), place of publication, publisher, publication year, respectively; a full stop should be placed between them. 

Murray PR, Rosenthal KS, Pfaller MA. Medical Microbiology. 5th ed. London. The Mosby Company, Wolfe Publications Ltd., 2005.

A chapter in a book: Surname and initials of the chapter author(s). The name of the chapter in sentence order. In: Surname(s) initials of the book editor(s), ed(s). The title of the book (initial letters capitalised), edition number (short), place of publication, Publisher, publication year should be given in order, with a full stop between them; after publication year, ":" should be inserted and the first and last page numbers should be written with a "-" mark between them and a full stop should be placed at the end. 

Dahl MV. Granuloma annulare. In: Fitzpatrick TB, Eisen AZ, Wolff K, Freedberg IM, Austen KF,eds. Dermatology in General Medicine. 4th ed. New York. McGraw-Hill Inc, 1993:1187-1191.

Electronic book or book section: Written as a book or a book chapter, ebook ISNN or doi, Publisher, publication year, page numbers

Website: The order should follow as ‘’Name of the site, Access date: Access address’’. World Health Organization (WHO). Accessed date: 11 March 2010 / Erişim tarihi: 11 Mart 2010: http://www.who.int.

Conference proceedings: The order should follow as ‘’ Authors’ surnames and initials. Title of the proceeding. Surnames and initials of the editors. Title of the congress. Title of the congress book; congress date, where it has been arranged, country. Publishing place of the book: Publisher; year. Page number.’’ 

Christensen S, Oppacher F. An analysis of Koza's computational effort statistic for genetic programming. In: Foster JA, Lutton E, Miller J, Ryan C, Tettamanzi AG, eds. Genetic programming. EuroGP 2002: Proceedings of the 5th European Conference on Genetic Programming; 2002 Apr 3-5; Kinsdale, Ireland. Berlin: Springer; 2002. p.182-191.

Thesis: The order should follow as “Author’s surname and the initial of the name. Title of the thesis. Name of the city where the thesis has been prepared. Where it has been prepared (University); year.’’ 


Bal ZÇ. Solunum sistemi örneklerinde Moraxella catarrhalis sıklığı (tez). İstanbul. İstanbul Üniversitesi İstanbul Tıp Fakültesi; 1993.


Tables:
Tables should be numbered with Arabic numerals in the order they appear in the text. Each table should have a title on the same page and should be written in bold and with the symbol (:).
The title of the table, for instance, “Table 1: Sentence Order” should be placed above the table and a full stop should not be placed at the end. Abbreviations and other explanations in the table should be shown as footnotes below the table. Also, texts in the table should be written in sentence order.  However, numbers with 4 or more digits are written in groups of three to be counted from the end and a full stop is placed between them: 4.567, 326.197, 49.750.812, 28.434.250.310.500 etc. 
Non-standard abbreviations should be explained in the footnotes. For instance, “BMI: Body mass index, FPG: Fasting plasma glucose” (space and capital letter after colon). Symbols such as *, †, ‡, §, ||,¶ , **, ††, ‡‡ can be used for footnotes.

Images, figures, graphics, etc: 
The images taken meticulously must be in jpeg, tiff, or png format, with a pixel size of at least 500x400 and a resolution of at least 300 dpi. Images, figures, graphics, etc. must be numbered in the order of their appearance in the text, it must be ensured that they are cited, and figure captions must be specified.
In the title of the figure, for instance, “Figure 1: Sentence Order” should be placed under the figure and a full stop should not be placed at the end. In Turkish publications, figure can be used as an image or a graphic. If the authors of the manuscript want to publish previously published quoted texts, tables, figures, graphs, images, etc, they must obtain written permission from the right holder and authors, and this should be indicated.

Checklist: https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/journal-file/33980

Artificial Intelligence Use Policy

The journal is based on the principles of ethics, transparency, and responsibility in scientific publishing. The use of artificial intelligence tools in manuscript preparation, editorial processes, and peer review is evaluated in accordance with the recommendations of COPE and ICMJE.

Generative artificial intelligence tools, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, etc., cannot be listed as authors. Authorship requires the development of original ideas, scientific interpretation, and ethical and legal responsibility. The authors are fully responsible for the accuracy of the data in the manuscript, the reliability of the sources, the interpretation of the findings, and the validity of the conclusions. Inaccurate information, fabricated references, or misleading content generated by artificial intelligence may be considered an ethical violation.

Patient information, personal data, raw data requiring ethics committee approval, and copyrighted materials must not be uploaded to artificial intelligence systems. Artificial intelligence tools may be used only in a limited manner for language editing, spelling and grammar checks, simplification of expression, and improvement of technical writing quality. The processes of hypothesis development, generation of original ideas, preparation of the discussion section, and drawing scientific conclusions must remain the responsibility of the authors.

If artificial intelligence has been used at any stage of the manuscript, this must be stated under the heading "Artificial Intelligence Declaration" before the References section. The name of the tool used, its version if possible, and the purpose of use must be clearly indicated.

Images generated by artificial intelligence are generally not accepted; however, they may be used in studies concerning artificial intelligence, provided that the source is clearly specified.

Authors must clearly declare the use of artificial intelligence in their ethical statements.

(This statement should be added to the section before the References heading.)

Examples include:

·  The authors confirm that no generative artificial intelligence was used in the writing of this manuscript or in the creation of visuals, tables, or figures.

·   No AI-assisted technology was used in the preparation of this study, except for grammar and spelling checks.

·   Generative artificial intelligence (e.g., ChatGPT 3.5) was used for grammar review of the Introduction and Discussion sections. The authors verified all outputs and assume full responsibility for the content.

If the use of artificial intelligence is concealed, misrepresented, or found to be unethical, the manuscript may be rejected, a published article may be retracted, or the relevant institutions may be notified.

Contact Information:
Kırıkkale Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi
Kırıkkale Üni Tıp Derg Yayın Koordinatörlüğü Yenişehir Mahallesi, İbn-i Sina Caddesi, No:4, Yahşihan KIRIKKALE, TÜRKİYE
E-mail:kutfd@kku.edu.tr
Ph:+90 318 3335066
Web address: https://kutfd.kku.edu.tr
https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/kutfd
 

The Journal of Kırıkkale University Faculty of Medicine (e-ISSN: 2148-9645) requires all authors and peer reviewers to declare any conflict of interest associated with the submission or review of an article. The Journal of Kırıkkale University Faculty of Medicine’s (e-ISSN: 2148-9645) editorial and the publication processes are shaped in accordance with the guidelines of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).The Journal of Kırıkkale University Faculty of Medicine © 2025 by Yaşar Kandur is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

A) Author's Ethical Responsibilities
With the decisions taken by Ulakbim TR Dizin, ‘’Ethics Committee Approval’’ is required for the Studies to be published after 2020. Approval must be obtained from the Ethics Committees established and approved by University Senates or Public Hospitals. In the articles that will be uploaded to our journal, ‘’Ethics Committee Document’’ must be uploaded, as well. If your article is in a category that does not require ethics committee approval, you must indicate this in your article text.
Studies Requiring Ethics Committee Permission
1. Any type of studies conducted with qualitative or quantitative approaches that require data from participants using surveys, interviews, focus group work, observation, experiment and interview techniques.
2. Use of humans and animals (including material/data) for experimental or other scientific purposes,
3. Clinical research conducted on humans,
4. Research conducted on animals,
5. Retrospective studies in accordance with the law on the protection of personal data.
Also;
It is required to state that
*Copyright regulations are complied with for the ideas and the artworks used, permission from the right holders is taken for using the scales, surveys and photographs belonging to the others, and ‘Informed Consent Form” is taken for case reports.
* Retrospective ethics committee approval is not required for the articles that used research data before 2020, those that were produced from master’s/doctoral studies (which must be stated in the article), or those that were submitted to the journal for publication before the year specified above, were accepted but have not been published yet. Please state in the declaration form that your work has this situation.
* In case reports, information regarding the signing of the informed consent/assent form must be included in the article.

Conflict of Interest Statement
Authors must disclose all financial and personal relationships that might bias their work. Financial relationships (such as employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, and paid expert testimony) are the most easily identifiable conflicts of interest and the most likely to undermine the credibility of the journal. To prevent ambiguity, authors must state explicitly in the letter accompanying the submitted manuscript whether potential conflicts do or do not exist.
Copyright (https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/journal-file/33981)
Articles with original material are accepted for consideration with the understanding that, except for abstracts, no part of the data has been published, or will be submitted for publication elsewhere, before appearing in this journal. Authors are required to assign copyright to “The Journal of Kırıkkale University Faculty of Medicine” (e-ISSN: 2148-9645), when their article is accepted for publication. The copyright assignment letter must be signed by all authors (or corresponding authors) and a copy returned to the Managing Editor. Permission must be gained to reproduce any figure, table or extensive extract (over 50 words) from any source that is owned or copyrighted by anyone other than the author or The Journal of Kırıkkale University Faculty of Medicine (e-ISSN: 2148-9645).
Statement of İnformed Consent
Analytical investigations on human participants must include a statement in the Methods section that participants gave their informed consent. It is journal policy that participant anonymity must be preserved in all cases. Research on experimental animals must be approved by an appropriate institutional ethics approval committee and the appropriate approval number must be stated in the Methods section.
Protection of Human and Animal Rights
For experimental, clinical, and drug researches an Ethics Committee report consistent with international agreements on human and animal rights (Helsinki Declaration of 1975, revised 2002 -http://www.wma.net/e/policy/b3.htm and “Guide for the care and use of laboratory animals - www.nap.edu/catalog/5140.html) and an informed consent of patients are required.
Funding
Authors must include a statement in the Methods section that identifies any funding sources for their work.

B) Ethical Responsibilities of the Editors
A similarity report in terms of plagiarism will be requested for the Manuscripts submitted to the The Journal of Kırıkkale University Faculty of Medicine in accordance with the agreement between DergiPark and intihal.net for all manuscript submissions. Authors will be informed during the submission process and the system will prepare a report during the file upload step and the result will be sent to the author via e-mail. The author will be able to complete the submission process at this stage. In order to submit a manuscript to the The Journal of Kırıkkale University Faculty of Medicine, the similarity rate should be maximum 20%.
Copy Editors: They ensure the manuscript complies with the journal's guidelines and ethical standards.
Section Editors and the Editor in Chief send the manuscript to an expert peer reviewer in the relevant field. If the manuscript is deemed suitable for publication by the reviewers, it is accepted for publication.
Language Editors: They correct the grammar and meaning of the manuscript, particularly the English sections.
The final review is conducted by the Journal Editor and Layout Editors, who format the manuscript according to the publication standards. The Editor in Chief is the final authority in the decision-making process for all of the appeals and complaints.

C) Ethical Responsibilities of the Referees
Peer-review process
All manuscripts are submitted for external expert peer review. The journal uses a double-blind peer review system, with two to three referees (members of the Editorial Committee and/or external consultants) independently evaluating all manuscripts. If the reviewers accept to evaluate the manuscript, a 7-day period is given; this period may be extended upon the reviewer’s request. If the evaluation is not completed within an average of 30 days, the manuscript will be sent to another reviewer. The referees will make Suggestions as to the acceptance, revision or rejection of manuscripts. In certain cases, specialist peer reviewers (such as statisticians) will be used, for example, for review of study design features, conduct of the study, presentation of data, statistical analysis, or conclusions. If the referees indicate that a manuscript should be revised, authors will be requested to revise the manuscript along the lines indicated by the referees. Occasionally, resubmitted manuscripts may undergo further peer review.

Once revisions are completed and approved by the Managing Editor, the corresponding author is notified that an article has been accepted for publication. Rejected manuscripts will not be returned to authors. The average length of time from acceptance of a manuscript to publication is 6 months.