GENERAL COMMENTS

Identity and Nature. Pulmonary Circulation (ISSN 2045-8932) is a peer-reviewed international quarterly journal, with editorial offices in Chicago USA, Trivandrum India, Cambridge UK, and London UK, and with contributing editors and editorial board members from more than 20 countries. Each quarter’s issue is published in the last week of the previous quarter. Each issue’s full text is available online (www.pulmonarycirculation.org).

Focus. Pulmonary Circulation is designed to be the main communicating medium connecting clinicians and researchers who are interested in the pulmonary circulation and pulmonary vascular disease. It is expected to serve the interests of people in all parts of the world.

Affiliation. The Journal is a publication of the Pulmonary Vascular Research Institute (PVRI), an independent international medical research organization devoted to increasing awareness and knowledge of pulmonary vascular disease (www.pvri.info).

Indexing. Pulmonary Circulation is indexed/listed with Casper, DOAJ, EBSCO Publishing’s electronic databases, Expanded Academic ASAP, Genamics journalseek, Google Scholar, Health & Wellness research center, Health reference center academic, Hinari, Open JGate, SOCOLOAR, Index Copernicus, SIIC databases and Ulrich’s International periodic Directory.

Fees. Pulmonary Circulation charges authors no fee of any kind, neither for submission nor for processing or publication of manuscripts, nor even for the reproduction of color photographs.

Copyright. While other journals require authors to transfer copyright ownership of their articles to them, Pulmonary Circulation follows the modern trend of open-access journals to allow authors to retain ownership of their own articles, as specified by the ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors). To ensure originality, we merely require authors to assign us First Serial Rights (first publication in a periodical); and we ask only that for any subsequent publication of their articles (as in an anthology or a textbook) the following parenthetical statement appear at the end of it: “(This article was first published in Pulmonary Circulation, volume, number [year] pages.)”

Access. The Journal allows free access (open access) to its contents and permits authors to self-archive the final accepted version of articles on any OAI-compliant institutional/subject-based repository. To achieve faster and greater dissemination of knowledge and information, the Journal publishes articles online as “Ahead of Print” immediately on acceptance.

Reprints. Pulmonary Circulation provides no free reprints. Reprints may be purchased directly from Medknow, the world’s largest publisher of open-access journals (www.medknow.com).

Languages. The Journal is published in English, and there are simultaneous editions (both hard copies and online) in other languages.

For precision in key-word searches online, and as a matter of stylistic consistency, the Journal editors use American English.

• Spellings and words, for example: “pediatrics” rather than “paediatrics,” “caption” rather than “legend,” and (conceivably) “hood and trunk” rather than “bonnet and boot.”

• Punctuation, for example: “sample,” rather than ‘sample’,

Details of how to compose your manuscript in American English automatically are provided in “The Writing Process,” below.

AUTHORS AND CONTRIBUTIONS

AUTHOR REQUIREMENTS

Author Perspectives. Pulmonary Circulation welcomes all contributions—from original research articles to letters to the editor—from clinicians, clinical scientists, investigators, and any other professional working in the pulmonary circulation, pulmonary vascular medicine, or pulmonary vascular disease.

Authorship Criteria. Authorship should be based on substantial contributions to each of these 3 components: concept and design of study or acquisition of data or analysis and interpretation of data; crafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and final approval of the version to be published.

Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not justify authorship. General supervision of the research group is not sufficient for authorship. Each contributor should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content of the manuscript. 

The order of naming the contributors should be based on the relative contribution of each contributor toward the study and the writing of the manuscript. Once submitted, the order cannot be changed without the written consent of all the contributors.

The Journal does not require the publication in its articles of statements of who did what during the preparation of a multiple-author article. For such articles, the authors may make special mention of particular authors’ efforts in the article’s Acknowledgments.

The Corresponding Author. Teams of authors must nominate one individual to be the Corresponding Author who first communicates with the Journal’s editorial office for all matters related to the manuscript (especially any revisions and final approval of the proof pages [“galley proofs”]), and who thereafter will field reader inquiries (his or her name, mailing address and email address having been published on the first page of the article).

CONTRIBUTION COMPONENTS DEFINED

Components added by Journal staff from information provided by authors:

Abstract. A succinct description of the article’s main points.

 Access This Article Online (box). Created by the editors, not the authors.

Acknowledgements. In this optional section you may specify: contributions that need acknowledging but do not justify authorship, such as general support by a departmental chair or individuals who helped collect blood samples and tissue specimen; contributions of technical help; and contributions of financial and material support, which should specify the nature of the support. If the manuscript was presented as part at a meeting, then the organization, place and exact date on which it was presented should be included.

Affiliations. Institutions of the authors (e.g., universities, research institutes), named beneath the by-line, identified by superscripted numbers.

 Article Type. The word or words identifying a contribution above and to the left of the title, where appropriate (e.g., for articles, not for letters to the editor—all defined below in “Your Contribution Type”).

By-line. The authors’ names—without the word “by.”

Captions. Sometimes called legends, these are the lines of text beneath a figure describing the figure. If a figure came from an existing source, then the caption must end with this parenthetical statement: “(Adapted from [source]),” as in: “(Adapted from ref. 53)”

Conclusions. The significance of your findings.

 Correspondence (box). The name, physical mailing address, and email address of the individual authorized by all the authors of the manuscript to communicate with the Journal’s editorial office for all matters related to the manuscript, and to receive communications from readers of the Journal.

Discussion. Discussion of your findings or results—the body of the article.

Figures. With the exception of tables, “figures” are all non-text components of a manuscript—graphs, photographs, line drawings, etc. (Specifications for figures are given below in “The Manuscript Preparation Process.”)

Footnotes. Used only in tables to define symbols.

Introduction. Preliminary remarks to introduce the article’s major subjects and rationale.

Key Words. 3-5 words that describe the content of the manuscript but that are not included in the title of the manuscript.

Materials and Methods. Description of any materials or methods you used which a researcher would need to know in order to duplicate your results.

Permissions. Permission to use copyrighted text or trademarked material. Please see “Legal Requirements,” below.

References. The published sources cited in an article, in the text indicated by a superscripted number, all appearing at the end of the article in the order in which the article cited them (not alphabetically by author names). Pulmonary Circulation employs the same format of reference citation as The New England Journal of Medicine.

Results. Your findings.

Running Head (a.k.a. Running Headline). The line that appears as a header for each page of an article after the first page, identifying the article with condensed versions of its authors and its titles. (Detailed below in “The Manuscript Preparation Process.”)

Sources of Support, Conflicts of Interest. Disclosures of any funding sources and potential conflicts of interest. Please see “Legal Requirements,” below.

Table. A boxed arrangement of data, usually in columns and rows, each table with its own title, its own caption, and, if necessary, its own footnotes to explain any symbols used in the table. Tables with more than 10 columns and/or 25 rows may not be accepted.

Title. The descriptive name of an article. (Detailed below in “The Manuscript Preparation Process.”)

 Components added by Journal staff from information provided by authors.

YOUR CONTRIBUTION

Letter to the Editor
DESCRIPTION: Letters to the Editor pertain directly to an article published in the journal within the preceding 8 weeks. Authors of the original article cited in the letter will be invited to reply. Letters to the Editor should be submitted via the online manuscript submission process described below.
SUGGESTED LENGTH: 300 words
COMPONENTS: text only

Guest Editorial
DESCRIPTION: An informal (“plain English”) statement of opinions or a position on an issue relevant to Pulmonary Circulation readers, by a Journal reader or readers.
SUGGESTED LENGTH: 500 words
COMPONENTS: text only

Editorial
DESCRIPTION: An informal (“plain English”) statement of opinions or a position on an issue relevant to Pulmonary Circulation readers, by a Journal editor or editorial board member.
SUGGESTED LENGTH: 500 words
COMPONENTS: text only

Editor’s Highlight
DESCRIPTION: A Journal editor’s “behind the scenes” or “sneak preview” focus on a particular topic.
SUGGESTED LENGTH: 1,00 words
COMPONENTS: text, possibly with figures

Special Report
DESCRIPTION: A short clinical research paper describing the observations from a small cohort of patients.
SUGGESTED LENGTH: 1,500 words
COMPONENTS: Key Words, text (including a brief Abstract, background and rationale, brief description of methodology, Results, and Discussion); up to 20 references; figures and tables

Case Report
DESCRIPTION: New, interesting and rare cases can be reported. They should be unique, describing a great diagnostic or therapeutic challenge and providing a learning point for the readers. Cases with clinical significance or implications will be given priority.
SUGGESTED LENGTH: up to 1,500 words (excluding Abstract and References)

COMPONENTS: Abstract, Key Words, Introduction, Discussion, Reference (no more than 10), ideally with tables and figures

Field Report
DESCRIPTION: A clinical article that could be described by any of these titles: Guidelines and Consensus, Clinical Trials, Clinical Debates, Personal Perspectives, Clinical Practice,
SUGGESTED LENGTH: 1,500 words
COMPONENTS: as necessitated by the article’s contents

Review Article
DESCRIPTION: A comprehensive review on a topic related to the pulmonary circulation and/or pulmonary vascular disease. Review articles usually are invited by the editors; but unsolicited manuscripts will also be considered for publication. It is expected that these articles will be written by individuals who have done substantial work on the subject or are considered experts in the field.

SUGGESTED LENGTH: up to 15,000 words excluding Abstract, figure captions, tables, and References

COMPONENTS: Abstract, Introduction, Discussion (text), Conclusions (including future directions), References (up to 200), figures (ideally 3-8 schematic diagrams, color images, flow charts, etc.), and tables

Original Research Article
DESCRIPTION: Pulmonary Circulation considers all types of original research articles including clinical and basic research conducted in human subjects and laboratory animals and in vitro, randomized controlled trials, intervention studies, studies of screening and diagnostic tests, outcome studies, cost effectiveness analyses, case-control series, and surveys with high response rates.

SUGGESTED LENGTH: up to 6,000 words
COMPONENTS: Abstract, Key Words, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, References, figures and tables

Study Design for an Original Design Article

Selection and Description of Participants: Clearly describe your selection of the observational or experimental participants (patients or laboratory animals, including controls), including eligibility and exclusion criteria and a description of the source population.

Technical Information: Identify the methods, apparatus (give the manufacturer's name and address in parentheses), and procedures in sufficient detail to allow other workers to reproduce the results. Give references to established methods, including statistical methods (see below); provide references and brief descriptions for methods that have been published but are not well known; describe new or substantially modified methods, give reasons for using them, and evaluate their limitations. Identify precisely all drugs and chemicals used, including generic name(s), dose(s), and route(s) of administration.

Reports of randomized clinical trials should present information on all major study elements, including the protocol, assignment of interventions (methods of randomization, concealment of allocation to treatment groups), and the method of masking (blinding), based on the CONSORT Statement (www.consort-statement.org).

Reporting Guidelines for Specific Study Designs
 

Statistics: Whenever possible quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). Authors should report losses to observation (such as, dropouts from a clinical trial). When data are summarized in the Results section, specify the statistical methods used to analyze them. Avoid non-technical uses of technical terms in statistics, such as “random” (which implies a randomizing device), “normal,” “significant,” “correlation,” and “sample.” Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols. Specify the computer software used. Use upper italics (P=0.048). For all P values include the exact value, not less than 0.05 or 0.001. Mean differences in continuous variables, proportions in categorical variables and relative risks including odds ratios and hazard ratios, should be accompanied by their confidence intervals.

Results: Present your results in a logical sequence in the text, tables, and figures, giving the main or most important findings first. Do not repeat in the text all the data in the tables or figures; emphasize or summarize only important observations. Extra or supplementary materials and technical detail can be placed in an appendix where it will be accessible but will not interrupt the flow of the text; alternatively, it can be published only in the electronic version of the journal.

When data are summarized in the Results section, give numeric results not only as derivatives (for example, percentages) but also as the absolute numbers from which the derivatives were calculated, and specify the statistical methods used to analyze them. Restrict tables and figures to those needed to explain the argument of the paper and to assess its support. Use graphs as an alternative to tables with many entries; do not duplicate data in graphs and tables. Where scientifically appropriate, analyses of the data by variables such as age and sex should be included.

Discussion: Include summary of key findings (primary outcome measures, secondary outcome measures, results as they relate to a prior hypothesis); strengths and limitations of the study (study question, study design, data collection, analysis and interpretation); interpretation and implications in the context of the totality of evidence (“Is there a systematic review to refer to, if not, could one be reasonably done here and now?” or “What this study adds to the available evidence,” or, “Effects on patient care and health policy, possible mechanisms,” etc.); controversies raised by this study; and future research directions (for this particular research collaboration, underlying mechanisms, or clinical research).

General Comments: Do not repeat in detail data or other material given in the Introduction or the Results section. In particular, contributors should avoid making statements on economic benefits and costs unless their manuscript includes economic data and analyses. Avoid claiming priority and alluding to work that has not been completed. New hypotheses may be stated if needed; however, they should be clearly labeled as such.

THE PROCESSES

The Writing Process

Since all manuscripts published by Pulmonary Circulation must conform to the latest version of the ICMJE’s (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors) “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals” (www.icmje.org), we at Pulmonary Circulation strongly recommend that you write your article according to those requirements (as opposed to first writing it and then checking to see if it conforms).

Please write, or compose, your manuscript in a Word or WordPerfect document that has the settings shown below for Text under “The Manuscript Preparation Process.”

The Manuscript Preparation Process

All submissions must be made online through our website (www.journalonweb.com/pc).

First-time authors will have to register at the website. (Registration is free but mandatory.)

Instructions for submission are also available at the Journal’s website (www.pulmonarycirculation.org).

For “simpler” contributions (i.e., those having no figures or abstracts, such as a letter to the Editor or a guest editorial), you need to prepare only a Manuscript file (described below) to be submitted.

For “full article” contributions, please prepare the required 3 separate files for submission at the same time. (You may certainly send them at different times; but Journal policy specifies that no article is put into production until its 4 files have been received). The 3 are: the MANUSCRIPT file (including all tables and all captions); the FIGURES file (all non-text components other than tables—graphs, photos, color images, illustrations, etc.);  and the LEGALITIES file.

Your MANUSCRIPT file (“the text file”)

[1st of the 3 files to be submitted for an article-type contribution]

• The acceptable format is Microsoft Word.

• Maximum file size is 1 MB (.rtf or .doc).

• Please do not zip the files, nor use a pdf, and kindly do not incorporate figures in this file.

• Begin with a cover page (a.k.a. title page) showing: the total number of pages, total number of figures, and word counts for the text (excluding the References, tables and Abstract); type of contribution (original article, case report, review article, clinical trial, letter to editor, etc.); article title and running head (see below); names of all authors (with their highest academic degrees); name(s) of affiliations (department(s) and/or institution(s) to which the work should be credited); criteria for inclusion in the list of authors (please see Authorship Criteria, above.); and the name and contact information of the corresponding author.

• Following your References section, please type the information that Journal staff will put in the little box (Sources of Support and Conflicts of Interest, if any). Your published article will end there, with that little box; however, here in your Manuscript File to be submitted, please follow that (the information to be boxed) with these two things, in this order:
  each actual table with its own title and its own caption; and then
  all figure captions.

Title (of article)

Only the first word of your title is capitalized, with 3 exceptions: the word following a colon is capitalized; acronyms are all capital letters; and any word which is always capitalized is capitalized in the title (e.g., “Smith,” “United Kingdom,” etc.).

• Table titles follow this same rule.

By-line (the authors’ names—without the word “by”)

• Spell out the first name and use an initial with a period for middle name: “John Q. Public”

• 2 authors: use only the word “and”: “Abdul al-Nafis and Mary T. Smith”

• 3 or more authors: use commas, and between the last 2 the word “and” preceded by a comma: “John Q. Public, Abdul al-Nafis, and Mary T. Smith”

Running Head

The line that appears as a header for each page of an article after the first page, identifying the article with condensed versions of its authors and its titles, usually consisting of not more than 50 characters (including spaces). Example:

A RTICLE: 

RUNNING HEAD:

• Because “et” means “and,” it is not preceded by a comma in the running head.

Text (all word components from Abstract to Conclusions)

• Language setting (Tools, Language): English (US).

• Document size: US Letter (8.5 x 11).

• Font type and size: Times New Roman (or equivalent serif font—not a sans-serif or “block letter” font like Helvetica or Arial), 11-pt.

• Paragraphs: single-spaced; no paragraph indents; double-space between paragraphs.

• Spacing: please do not use either the “Spacing Before” or “Spacing After” functions in the paragraph formatting options (both setting should read “0 pt.”).

• Kerning: please do not kern your text (expand or condense words or lines).

• Justification: left-justified text a.k.a. flush left a.k.a. quad left (do not justify margins).

• Page numbers: use automatic page numbers in the footer.

• When submitting your manuscript, please do not send the file with “Track Changes.”

Tables and Table Captions

Tables should be self-explanatory and should not duplicate textual material. The tables along with their numbers should be cited at the relevant place in the text.

• All tables for your article, and each one’s caption, should be placed (in the same Word or WordPerfect document as the text) at the very end of the manuscript’s text, after the References.

• Place each table on its own separate manuscript page.

• Tables must be numbered consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text.

• The table number should be Arabic, followed by a period and a brief title.

• Type the table caption double-spaced.

• For both the table title and the table caption, use the same size type as the text (11-pt.).

• Explain in a footnote beneath the table’s caption all non-standard abbreviations that are used in each table.

• Supply a brief column heading for each column in a table.

• Do not use vertical lines between columns. Use horizontal lines above and below the column headings and at the bottom of the table only. Use extra space to delineate sections within the table.

• Obtain permission for all borrowed, adapted, and modified tables and provide a credit line in the footnote.

• Please remember that tables prepared with Excel are not accepted unless embedded within your text document.

Figure Captions

• Your figure captions must be carefully numbered to reflect the numbers you assigned to your figures (which are submitted separately from your manuscript—in your Figures file, described below).

• For your figure captions, please type them in the order in which they are cited in your text, and so number them here: 1, 2, 3, etc.

• When symbols, arrows, numbers, or letters are used to identify parts of a figure, identify and explain each one in the caption.

• Explain any internal scale (magnification) and identify the method of staining in photomicrographs.

• If your figure was inspired by a published figure of any kind, please end your caption with a parenthetical credit line: (Adapted from [source].)

• If a figure has been published elsewhere, please submit written permission from the copyright owner to reproduce the material—in your Legalities file, described below.

References

• References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text (not in alphabetic order, rather in vancouver style).

• Identify references in text, tables, and legends by Arabic numerals in superscript within brackets after the punctuation marks.

• References cited only in tables or figures’ captions should be numbered in accordance with the sequence established by the first identification in the text of the particular table or figure.

• List all authors for each reference; do not use “et al.”

• The format of references—examples of which may be seen in any previous issue of Pulmonary Circulation—is based on the formats used by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) in Index Medicus and The New England Journal of Medicine.

• Please verify all references against original sources, as the accuracy of reference data is the responsibility of the author.

Your FIGURES file

(all non-text components of your manuscript other than tables)

[2nd of the 3 files to be submitted for an article-type contribution]

During the submission process, you are asked to submit images in the following way:
1. Each figure is submitted separately, and captions are added directly into the website on an individual basis in jpg, gif, png format.
2. Then, please add all figures are into a .doc file in chronological order, and add as ‘Additional supporting material’.

• All figures must be submitted electronically.

• Acceptable formats are: jpg, gif, png.

• Maximum file size is 4 MB.

• Please do not zip the files.

• Submit high-quality figures, either color or black-and-white.

• Figures should be actual size.

• Figures should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which they are first cited in the text.

• Labels, numbers, and symbols should be clear and of uniform size. The lettering for figures should be large enough to be legible.

• Symbols, arrows, or letters used in photomicrographs should contrast with the background.

• Titles and detailed explanations belong in the captions for figures, not on the figures themselves (i.e., in your Manuscript file, not in this Figures file).

• Line art should not contain hair-thin lines (which are easily lost in reproductions).

• Line art must be saved at a resolution of at least 1200 dpi; photographs, CT scans, radiographs, etc, should be saved at a resolution of at least 300 dpi. Figures saved at 72 dpi are not acceptable.

• When graphs, scatter-grams or histograms are submitted, the numerical data on which they are based should also be supplied.

• The Journal reserves the right to crop, rotate, reduce, or enlarge photographs. 

• If needed, videos can also be uploaded (mpg, mpeg, mp4, wmv; maximum file size 20 MB).

Your SIGNS file

[3rd of the 3 files to be submitted for an article-type contribution]

As an umbrella term, Pulmonary Circulation uses the word “sign” as it is used in the discipline of semiotics: “something that stands for something.”

With the exception of numbers (which are symbols of amounts), this file must list and define all signs you use in your manuscript—in the text and in figure and table captions—including especially:

• acronyms (e.g., PASMC, -SNAP, PPAR, WHO, BMPR2, BMPRII, etc.);

• abbreviations (e.g., ctl., ibid., Disp., b.i.d. [bis in die, “twice daily”], etc.); and

• symbols (e.g., mV, R_m(G), Qa, K_v, etc.).

There is no need to alphabetize your list of signs.

Your LEGALITIES file

[4th of the 4 files to be submitted for an article-type contribution]

• A statement affirming that the manuscript has been read and approved by all the authors, that the requirements for authorship have been met, and that each author believes that the manuscript represents honest original work.

• Rights and permissions. (Please see Legal Requirements, below.)

• Ethical considerations. (Please see Legal Requirements, below.)

• Sources of support of each author. (Please see Legal Requirements, below.)

• Conflicts of interest of each author. (Please see Legal Requirements, below.)

The Submission Process

To submit your first manuscript to Pulmonary Circulation, simply follow these 10 easy steps. (For subsequent submissions, you already have your log-in name and password.)

STEP 1: Make sure you have your file or your 4 files ready to send (for text-only contributions, your Manuscript file; for illustrated article-type contributions, your Manuscript file, your Signs file, your Figures file, and your Legalities file).

STEP 2: Access www.journalonweb.com/pc

STEP 3: Create a login name and set a password through a few simple steps.

STEP 4: Log in as author using your login name and password.

STEP 5: Enter the Article Type, Title, Key Words (3-5) and Abstract. (The Abstract, which should not exceed 2,000 characters, can be typed in or cut-and-pasted in the slot in the website.)

STEP 6: Upload the files applicable to your contribution (either “Manuscript” only, or “Manuscript,” “Figures,” “Signs,” “Legalities”) by browsing to locate the files in your computer.

STEP 7:If necessary, here you may add further files such as “Figures” and “Legalities”. Please ensure that figures are uploaded by selecting “Images” and “Additional supporting material.” The copyright form (which may also contain additional permission forms) must be uploaded as “Copyright form.” Upload your documents and additional material by browsing to locate the files in your computer. If you are submitting only a text file, skip this step by selecting “Next step> suggest reviewer.”

STEP 8: Next page is the Preview page. Preview using links to all the files you have submitted.

STEP 9: Click the “Submit the Manuscript” button at the end of the page.

STEP 10: You will receive a notification in your email (please check your “junk” email folder if you don’t see the mail in a few minutes).

The Receiving Process

All manuscripts received are duly acknowledged as having been received and successfully opened.

Before being sent out for review of its contents, each manuscript is checked for its compliance with the Legal Requirements detailed below. Manuscripts that ignore those requirements are returned.

The Review Process

A received manuscript will be reviewed for possible publication with the understanding that it is being submitted solely to Pulmonary Circulation and has not been published anywhere, simultaneously submitted, or already accepted for publication elsewhere.

Pulmonary Circulation editors review all submitted manuscripts initially for suitability for formal peer review. Manuscripts with insufficient originality, ethical or legal problems, serious scientific or technical flaws, or lack of a significant message, are rejected before proceeding to formal peer-review.

A manuscript deemed to be acceptable for review is then sent to reviewers (who many include ones named by the author in the Manuscript Preparation Process).

The Disposition Process

A reviewed manuscript is assigned to an editor who, based on the comments from the reviewers, makes a final decision on its disposition—rejection, acceptance, or acceptance with amendments.

The editor conveys to the author the comments and/or suggestions received from reviewers. The author may be requested to provide a point-by-point response to reviewers’ comments and to submit a revised version of the manuscript. This process is repeated until reviewers, editors, and authors are all satisfied with the manuscript.

The Editing Process

Manuscripts accepted for publication are copy-edited for grammar, punctuation, and other considerations.

Page proofs are sent to the corresponding author.

The corresponding author is expected to return the corrected proofs within a specified time period. It may not be possible to incorporate corrections received after that period. 

The Publishing and Printing Process

An article will be published online and will remain online for 2 weeks, after which it will go for printing.

The Tracking and Troubleshooting Process

Registered authors can keep track of their articles after logging into the website.

Instructions are also available at our website (www.pulmonarycirculation.org).

If you experience any problems during any of these various processes, please don’t hesitate to email the nearest of our editorial offices: the USA (gordonk [at] uic [dot] edu); India (drharikrishnan [at] hotmail [dot] com); and the UK (n.krol [at] imperial [dot] ac [dot] uk).

STYLE REQUIREMENTS

Dashes. None of the dashes ever has either a space before it or a space after it (hyphen: “a one-page article”; en dash: “4–23”; em dash: “The subjects—who were mice—responded well.”). The only exception: multiple hyphens (“In both mid- and long-range plans . . .”).

Ellipses. An ellipsis always has spaces between the 3 periods (“. . .”). While ellipses may be used in informal documents (e.g., emails) to indicate pregnant pauses, their use in scholarly journals is restricted to quotations to indicate that text has been deleted:

“The test was conducted in X township of Y province of Z region in Thailand.”

“The test was conducted . . . in Thailand.”

Italics. Latin terms are never italicized—et al., per, e.g., etc. Words giving directions are italicized:

Table 2 continued

See Case Studies, below.

Numbers. For conversational-type usage, spell out numbers from one to eleven, then use numbers—12, etc. For describing data, always use numbers: “We had two stages, the first involving 2 units, the second involving 4.6 units.”

In Pulmonary Circulation, all numbers of 4 or more digits use commas:

245

1,399

15,000,987

Scientific names. The genus name is always capitalized and always italicized. The species (and subspecies) name is always italicized but never capitalized, even when country names are used:

Homarus americanus (Maine lobster)

For naming species of the same genus, the genus name is spelled out only for the first one:

“Species of lobster include Homarus americanus, sometimes called

the American lobster, and H. gammarus, the European lobster.”

All categories above genus are never italicized and always capitalized (as, for the Maine lobster):

Kingdom Animalia

Phylum Arthropoda

Class Malacostraca

Order Decapoda

Family Nephropidae

Units of Measure. Use the International System of Units, SI (from French Système international d'unités), the modern form of the metric system. A more conventionally used measurement may follow in parentheses. Make all conversions before manuscript submission.

Zip Codes. For US states, a physical mailing address is—by US Postal regulations—the one and only place that Zip Codes may be used (e.g., NJ, AK, NM); in every other usage, including the body of your manuscript, a state should be spelled out or, if parenthetical, abbreviated: “Massachusetts,” “(Boston, Mass.)”

For the answer to any other question about a

Pulmonary Circulation style requirements, simply email

Nikki Krol (n.krol [at] imperial [dot] ac [dot] uk) at the Pulmonary Vascular Research Institute

in London (the PVRI).

LEGAL REQUIREMENTS

Rights and Permissions. It is the responsibility of the authors to obtain permissions for reproducing any copyrighted text or trademarked material used in their articles. A copy of all permissions obtained must accompany the manuscript.

       If a photograph of individuals is used, their pictures must be accompanied by written permission from them to publish the photograph.

Ethical Considerations. The Journal will not publish any manuscript found to be ethically unacceptable. When reporting studies on humans, indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008 (available at www.wma.net). For prospective studies involving human participants, authors are expected to mention approval of a regional or national or institutional or independent Ethics Committee or Review Board, obtaining informed consent from adult research participants and obtaining assent for children aged over 7 years participating in the trial. Ensure confidentiality of subjects by refraining from using participants’ names, initials or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material. When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether the institution’s or a national research council’s guide for, or any national law on the care and use of laboratory animals, was followed. Documentation of approval by a local Ethics Committee (for both human and animal studies) must be supplied by the authors on demand.

Patients’ Right to Privacy. Identifying information should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, sonograms, CT scans, etc., and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian, wherever applicable) gives written informed consent for publication. Authors should remove patients’ names from figures unless they have obtained written informed consent from the patients. When informed consent has been obtained, it should be indicated in the article and a copy of the consent should be included in your Legalities file. 

Warranties of Originality and Compliance

·       Manuscripts are considered only on the legal understanding that they contain original material never before published in article form in any venue.

       Manuscripts are considered only on the legal understanding that they are in full compliance with any applicable NIH or other funding agency requirements.

Sources of Support. All sources of support for the research described in your article must be identified. Such sources include but are not limited to grants, fellowships and scholarships. (See Note following “Conflicts of Interest.”)

Conflicts of Interest. All authors must disclose any and all conflicts of interest they may have with an institution or product that is mentioned in the manuscript and/or is important to the outcome of the study presented. Authors must also disclose:

·       any income which may be perceived as a conflict of interest (including but not limited to employment by an industrial concern, consulting fees, and honoraria); and

·       any conflict of interest with products that compete with those mentioned in their manuscripts (including but not limited to any relationship with pharmaceutical companies, device manufacturers, or other corporations whose products or services are related to an article’s subject matter).

NOTE: Both Sources of Support and Conflicts of Interest are published in a box following an article’s References. For example:

Click here to download instructions

These ready to use templates are made to help the contributors write as per the requirements of the Journal.

Save the templates on your computer and use them with a word processor program. 
Click open the file and save as the manuscript file.

In the program keep 'Document Map' and 'Comments' on from 'View' menu to navigate through the file. 


Download Template for Original Articles/ABSTRACT Reports. (.DOT file)

Download Template for Case Reports.  (.DOT file)

Download Template for Review Articles.  (.DOT file)

Download Template for Letter to the Editor.  (.DOT file)