Authorship and Contributorship

Authors' Responsibilities

Authors of each manuscript are required to provide a confirmation that:

• 1. The manuscript has not been previously published or submitted for consideration elsewhere.
• 2. They have significantly contributed to the work and have given their approval for the final version of the manuscript.
• 3. Their work adheres to the established ethical standards.
• 4. They take full responsibility for all aspects of the work, ensuring that any concerns pertaining to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are duly investigated and resolved.
• 5. They have obtained all necessary permissions to include any figures or tables in the manuscript and are committed to covering the Article Processing Charges (APC), if applicable.

Authorship criteria

We mandate that authors adhere to the criteria recommended by ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors) to determine authorship, which entails the following:

• 1. Making significant contributions to the conception or design of the work, or being involved in the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
• 2. Participating in the drafting of the manuscript or engaging in critical revisions for substantial intellectual content;
• 3. Granting final approval for the version of the work to be published;
• 4. Accepting responsibility for all aspects of the work, ensuring that any inquiries related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are thoroughly investigated and resolved.

We insist that all individuals identified as authors satisfy all four of the aforementioned criteria. Moreover, those who have contributed to certain aspects of the work but do not meet all four criteria should be appropriately acknowledged. The corresponding author is required to obtain written permission from all individuals who are to be acknowledged for their contributions.

Author Contributions

This section is specifically required for original articles, review articles, systematic reviews, and meta-analysis articles. It elucidates the individual contributions made by each author to the manuscript. The assignment of authorship credit should be based on the following criteria:

1) Significantly contributing to the conception and design of the study, the data acquisition, or the analysis and interpretation of the data;

1) Significantly contributing to the conception and design of the study, the data acquisition, or the analysis and interpretation of the data;

2) Involvement in drafting the article or engaging in critical revisions to enrich it with important intellectual content; and

3) Granting final approval for the version of the manuscript to be published.

Authors must satisfy all three of these conditions to qualify for authorship.

Note: Engaging in activities such as securing funding, data collection, language editing, or providing general supervision for the research group alone does not meet the criteria for authorship.

The ‘Author contributions’ section in manuscript should be presented as follows:

• a. Conception and design: [initials of the author name..........]
• b. Acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of data: [initials of the author name......]
• c. Manuscript drafting and revising it critically: [initials of the author name......]
• d. Approval of the final version of the manuscript: [initials of the author name.......]
• e. Guarantor accuracy and integrity of the work: [initials of the author name.........]

[Note: Contribution in “c” and “d” for all authors is obligatory, while the other credits are case based; The ‘Author contributions’ section is not required when there is only one author.]

Modifications to Authorship or Contributorship

In the event of any alterations to the authorship and/or contributorship after the initial submission, explicit approval from all authors must be obtained. This pertains to any additions, deletions, changes in the sequence of authors, or alterations to the attribution of contributions. A detailed explanation of the reasons for the change must be provided to the Editor. In such cases, the Editor reserves the right to verify with any of the authors/contributors whether they have indeed consented to the proposed changes.

Should disagreements arise among authors, AME adheres to the guidance provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), as outlined in the following link: https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts.