To further strengthen academic integrity, standardize ethical practices throughout the entire publication process of the Journal of Anhui Medical University, combat various forms of academic misconduct, and ensure the fairness, transparency, and academic credibility of journal publishing, these guidelines have been formulated in accordance with relevant national laws and regulations such as the Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China and the Academic Publishing Standards – Definition of Academic Misconduct in Journals (CY/T174-2019), while also referencing internationally recognized publishing ethics frameworks including those established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the International Council for Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and tailored to the specific operational context of this journal. The term "publishing ethics" as defined herein refers to the moral principles and behavioral boundaries that all stakeholders involved in the journal's publication process—including authors, reviewers, editors, and publishers—must adhere to in order to collectively uphold the rigor and seriousness of medical academic publishing.

1. Author Ethics

（1）Research Integrity: All submitted manuscripts must be original works by the authors. Authors are required to cooperate with the editorial office by providing supporting materials such as original images, raw data, grant application proposals, and project titles. Practices including multiple submissions, duplicate publications, split publications, or commissioning third-party institutions or unauthorized individuals to write, submit, or revise manuscripts are strictly prohibited. Before submission, authors must confirm that the manuscript has not been formally published in any other publicly available publication or platform. When submitting, authors must provide a signed "Manuscript Submission Declaration Form (Copyright Agreement)" stating that the content is authentic, data is traceable, and there are no instances of academic misconduct such as plagiarism, fabrication, or alteration; nor does it involve state secrets or undisclosed confidential research information.

（2）Rules for Artificial Intelligence-Generated Content (AIGC): When using generative AI tools during paper writing, authors must comply with the "Guidelines for the Use of AIGC in Academic Publishing 3.0" and explicitly disclose the tool name, usage context, and specific purpose and contribution of the generated content at submission. Failure to meet these requirements will be deemed academic misconduct and may result in manuscript rejection or withdrawal.

（3）Authorship and Contribution Requirements: In accordance with the "Recommendations for the Implementation and Reporting of Academic Research and for Editing and Publishing in Medical Journals" issued by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/), co-authorship requires compliance with all four of the following criteria:

① Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND

② Drafting the work or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content; AND

③ Final approval of the version to be published; AND

④ 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.

All individuals meeting all four aforementioned criteria should be designated as authors. Those failing to meet all criteria shall remain anonymous but may be cited in the acknowledgments section. In addition to being accountable for their own contributions, authors must be aware of the specific roles played by other co-authors in the research. Authors should also trust that their co-authors have maintained integrity throughout the study. Author citations must strictly reflect the magnitude of substantive academic contributions. The order of author names, contributions, and affiliated institutions should be agreed upon collectively by all authors prior to submission; any changes to author information are generally prohibited after submission. If adjustments are necessary, a written request from both the first author and corresponding author must explain the rationale, be signed and stamped by all named authors, followed by resubmission of the "Paper Submission Survey Form (Copyright Agreement)" and a revised author contribution statement. We firmly oppose nominal or incidental authorship arrangements lacking genuine academic contribution.

（4）Medical Ethics: All clinical trials must comply with the provisions of the Helsinki Declaration. Clinical trial papers shall adhere to the bioethical principles of "beneficence" and "non-maleficence." All clinical trials involving human subjects and certain animal experiments must submit formal approval documents from an ethics review committee upon submission. For all clinical trials involving human participants, a signed informed consent form with relevant explanations from the participant (or their parents or legal guardians) must be provided. For studies involving experimental animals, authors must strictly implement ethical standards for animal welfare in accordance with China's Guidelines for Ethical Review of Laboratory Animal Welfare (GB/T 35892-2018) (https://openstd.samr.gov.cn/bzgk/gb/newGbInfo?hcno=9BA619057D5C13103622A10FF4BA5D14). Research and medical activities involving gene editing and human embryos must be conducted in compliance with applicable laws, regulations, and ethical guidelines (Ethical Guidelines for Human Genome Editing Research: https://www.most.gov.cn/kjbgz/202407/t20240708_191311.html). According to the "Ethical Review Measures for Life Sciences and Medical Research Involving Human Beings" (https://www.nhc.gov.cn/qjjys/c100016/202302/6b6e447b3edc4338856c9a652a85f44b.shtml), certain types of life sciences and medical research involving human beings may be exempt from ethical review, provided that they use human information data or biological samples without causing harm to individuals, and do not involve sensitive personal information or commercial interests. These include:

① Research using publicly available data lawfully obtained, or data generated through observation of public behavior without interference;

② Research using anonymized information data;

③ Research using existing human biological samples, where the source of the samples complies with relevant laws and ethical principles, the research content and objectives fall within the scope of informed consent, and does not involve the use of human germ cells, embryos, reproductive cloning, chimerism, or heritable genetic modification;

④ Research using human cell lines or cell strains derived from biobanks, where the research content and objectives are within the authorized scope of the provider, and does not involve human embryos, reproductive cloning, chimerism, or heritable genetic modification.

（5）Funding and Citation Guidelines: All funded projects mentioned in the manuscript must be accurately identified. When submitting the manuscript, the project approval document must be provided as supporting evidence. It is strictly prohibited to falsely list affiliated funds, cite projects unrelated to the research content, or reference completed or expired funding grants.

（6）Conflict of interest: Authors should declare any potential conflicts of interest when submitting their manuscripts. A conflict of interest exists when the author's (or their institution/employer's) financial, personal, or affiliative relationships may influence their decisions, work, or manuscript content. If a conflict is identified, all economic interests that could affect the research outcomes must be disclosed—including whether there are commercial ties with pharmaceutical companies, or whether these companies have provided funding for aspects such as study design and implementation, data analysis, manuscript preparation, or publication.

（7）Reference quality: Reference citations must meet high standards, avoiding improper practices such as plagiarism, excessive citation of irrelevant literature, concealment of others' work, or failure to credit sources. All directly quoted content must be accurately attributed to its source.

（8）Manuscript revision and rejection/retraction: Authors must respect the academic feedback from reviewers and provide clear explanations for each review comment. If dissatisfied with the evaluation results, authors may submit formal appeals to the editorial office detailing their reasons. Manuscripts containing serious errors, academic misconduct, or violations of ethical standards will be rejected or withdrawn at any stage of publication. Should fabrication be suspected, the editorial office will conduct further investigations and notify the author's institution or supervisory authority to assist. Upon discovering significant content errors after publication, authors must promptly inform the editorial office and cooperate in issuing a correction statement or initiating the withdrawal process.

2. Ethics of Reviewers

（1）Reviewers must verify in advance whether their research field and expertise align with the assigned manuscript. If their professional background does not cover the manuscript's content, they should promptly notify the editorial office to appoint a suitable reviewer; they must not provide evaluation conclusions beyond their professional competence.

（2）The peer review process must adhere to the core principles of upholding academic integrity and respecting academic freedom. Reviewers should evaluate manuscripts scientifically and objectively based on the principles of fairness, impartiality, confidentiality, and timeliness, addressing both their academic value and identified issues. Their feedback must be constructive and targeted.

（3）No prejudice or discrimination shall be shown regarding the author's research institution, geographic location, academic background, ethnicity, or other factors; no content that disparages the author, engages in personal attacks, or contains unfounded accusations is permitted; and the review process must not be exploited to suppress outstanding research achievements aligned with one's own field of study.

（4）Review experts shall promptly evaluate manuscripts in accordance with the agreed schedule. If they are unable to complete the evaluation and return the manuscript on time, they must immediately notify the editorial department and request a re-evaluation; alternatively, they may recommend another reviewer. Without the approval of the editorial department, review experts shall not arbitrarily assign their students, colleagues, or other individuals to conduct the review on their behalf.

（5）Strictly adhere to peer review confidentiality regulations; maintain complete confidentiality regarding all manuscript content and evaluation process details. Do not publicly discuss manuscript content before the review concludes, do not misuse unpublished original research findings from the manuscript, and do not privately copy or disseminate any part or all of the manuscript under review.

（6）When a peer reviewer has a conflict of interest with the author (e.g., familial relationship, teacher-student relationship, alumni relationship, collegial relationship, or competitive relationship), they must promptly disclose such conflict to the editorial office and recuse themselves to ensure fairness in the review process; they may not conceal any related ties and continue participating.

（7）If reviewers identify that a submitted manuscript has already been reviewed on another platform or journal, they are obligated to report this to the editorial office, provide accurate review comments in accordance with the journal's acceptance criteria, and must not conceal any information regarding duplicate submissions.

3. Editorial Ethics

(1) Editors shall strictly comply with relevant national laws and regulations, and adhere to academic publishing ethics and standards. They must handle all submissions promptly and impartially, making acceptance or rejection decisions based on the paper's importance, originality, scientific rigor, readability, research authenticity, peer review feedback, journal objectives, and publication scope, free from interference by non-academic factors such as commercial interests, personal relationships, or authoritative status.

(2) Editors shall adhere to the principle of confidentiality and strictly implement the double-blind review system, ensuring rigorous protection of reviewers 'information on one hand, and maintaining confidentiality regarding authors' research content on the other.

(3) Editors must not interfere with the independent evaluation judgments of peer reviewers, fully respect the final outcomes of peer review, rigorously verify information about reviewers recommended or requested to recuse themselves by authors, and accept authors' reasonable requests for recusal when legitimate conflicts of interest are identified.

(4) Conduct at least two academic integrity plagiarism checks on all submitted manuscripts, covering both the initial submission stage and the final review stage prior to acceptance, ensuring full oversight of the objectivity and fairness of the entire evaluation process.

(5) Editors should handle authors' appeals with care and organize collective discussions or request peer reviewers to re-evaluate the submissions.

(6) Editors must respect the author's viewpoints and writing style, obtain the author's consent for all critical revisions involving academic perspectives in the manuscript, and subject the final content to dual-standardized review based on publication norms and academic quality requirements, ensuring that the published material complies with all standards of medical academic publishing.

(7) If the editor has any relationship with the manuscript author—such as teacher-student, familial, or direct collaboration—the editor must actively recuse themselves from all aspects of the manuscript processing.

(8) Editors should provide authors with detailed revision suggestions or reasons for rejection whenever possible.

(9) When selecting peer reviewers for papers, editors should avoid having members from the same institution as the authors and must not appoint co-authors as reviewers.

(10) Editors have the obligation to investigate and address cases of academic misconduct. Upon receiving a complaint regarding an submitted paper or published article, editors must take appropriate action. When necessary, they should promptly issue public statements of correction, clarification, retraction, or apology. Editors are also obligated to hold authors and reviewers accountable for any improper conduct to uphold the integrity and reputation of the academic community.

4. Publisher Ethics

(1) This journal adheres to the principle of first publication and only publishes original research findings.

(2) Conduct regular training sessions for editors and reviewers to familiarize them with the journal's workflow, publication guidelines, institutional requirements, and publication standards, thereby ensuring editorial quality.

(3) Strictly address academic misconduct and violations of the journal's rights and interests. For manuscripts that have been accepted for publication, if academic misconduct is identified, the journal reserves the right to reject the manuscript, publish a retraction notice, and notify the author's institution and the relevant journal.

(4) Regularly update detailed information on the journal's official website, including submission guidelines, paper templates, and publication procedures, to provide authors with clear submission instructions and ensure full transparency throughout the entire publishing process.

(5) If content errors or publication omissions are identified in published papers, promptly issue a correction or error notice to ensure the accuracy of academic records.

(6) Strictly comply with relevant copyright laws and regulations; upon acceptance of a manuscript, sign a standard copyright agreement with the author to clarify their rights; pay royalties as required; and provide two copies of the current issue of the journal to the author after publication.

5. Implementation

This specification shall take effect from the date of publication.

Editorial Board of Acta Universitatis Medicinalis Anhui

June 12,2024