1. The Editor(s)-in-Chief should declare any financial, personal or other relationships that might constitute a conflict of interest with the Editorship of the journal.
2. The Editor(s)-in-Chief should ensure that all articles accepted for publication have been assessed by an editor.
3. The Editor(s)-in-Chief should not make decisions regarding manuscripts about which they may have a conflict of interest. In such instances, a senior member of the Editorial Board should be assigned to assume responsibility for overseeing peer-review and making decisions regarding acceptance or rejection.
4. Although the Editor(s)-in-Chief may publish in their own journal, they should ensure the majority of publications come from other authors. A senior member of the Editorial Board should be assigned to assume responsibility for overseeing peer-review and making decisions regarding acceptance or rejection of any manuscript submitted and/or co-authored by the Editor(s)-in-Chief.
5. The Editor(s)-in-Chief should ensure Editorial Board members are not involved with the peer-review or decision-making process of any manuscript where they have a conflict of interest.
6. Editor(s)-in-Chief should provide a professional service to authors. Correspondence should be handled in a timely and respectful manner, and efficient and thorough peer-review carried out. Systems should be in place to ensure editorial staff absences do not result in a reduced service to authors.
7. Editor(s)-in-Chief should make full use of the journal's system and, where necessary, maintain offline tracking systems, in order to preserve a full record of the of peer review of each manuscript.
8. Editor(s)-in-Chief who operate a closed peer-review system for the journal should maintain the anonymity of peer reviewers.
9. Ethics: the Editor(s)-in-Chief and the whole editorial board should comply with the following standards: 

Important statements

A. Statement of Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

Any investigations involving humans and animals should be approved by the Institutional Review Board and Animal Care Committee, respectively, of the institution where the study took place. CEEM will not consider any studies involving humans or animals without the appropriate approval. Informed consent should be obtained, unless waived by the Institutional Review Board, from patients who participated in clinical investigations. Human subjects should not be identifiable, such that patients' names, initials, hospital numbers, dates of birth, or other protected healthcare information should not be disclosed. If experiments involve animals, the research should be based on national or institutional guidelines for animal care and use. Original articles submitted to CEEM that address any investigation involving humans and animals should include a description about whether the study was conducted under an approval by the Institutional Review Board (with or without patient informed consent) and animal care committee, respectively, of the institution where the study was conducted. CEEM can request an approval by the Institutional Review Board or Animal Care Committee for the other types of articles when necessary.

B. Authorship and Author’s Responsibility

The corresponding author takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process, and typically ensures that all the journal’s administrative requirements, such as providing details of authorship, ethics committee approval, clinical trial registration documentation, and gathering conflict of interest forms and statements, are properly completed, although these duties may be delegated to one or more coauthors. The corresponding author should be available throughout the submission and peer review process to respond to editorial queries in a timely manner, and should be available after publication to respond to critiques of the work and cooperate with any requests from the journal for data or additional information or questions about the paper arise after publication.

Authors are responsible for the whole content of each article. Co-authorship should be based on the following 4 criteria: (1) Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; (2) Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; (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. Any persons who do not meet the above 4 criteria, may be listed as contributors in the Acknowledgments section.

There is no limitation on the number of authors except for case reports. We recommend limiting the number of authors to no more than 8 for a case report. Only one author should correspond with the editorial office. CEEM does not allow adding authors or changing the first or the corresponding authors once its decision of ‘Accept as it is’ is made. If any author wishes to be removed from the byline, he or she should submit a letter signed by the author, as well as all other authors, indicating his or her wish to be deleted from the list of authors. Any change in the name order in the byline requires a letter signed by all authors indicting agreement with the same.

C. Originality and Duplicate Publication

Manuscripts under review or published by other journals will not be accepted for publication in CEEM, and articles published in this journal are not allowed to be reproduced in whole or in part in any type of publication without permission of the Editorial Board. Figures and tables can be used freely if original source is verified according to Creative Commons License. It is mandatory for all authors to resolve any copyright issues when citing a figure or table from a different journal that is not open access.

D. Secondary Publication

It is possible to republish manuscripts if the manuscripts satisfy the condition of secondary publication of ICMJE as followings: certain types of articles, such as guidelines produced by governmental agencies and professional organizations, may need to reach the widest possible audience. In such instances, editors sometimes deliberately publish material that is also being published in other journals, with the agreement of the authors and the editors of those journals. Secondary publication for various other reasons, in the same or another language, especially in other countries, is justifiable and can be beneficial provided that the following conditions are met. The authors have received approval from the editors of both journals (the editor concerned with secondary publication must have a photocopy, reprint, or manuscript of the primary version). The priority of the primary publication is respected by a publication interval of at least 1 week (unless specifically negotiated otherwise by both editors).

The paper for secondary publication is intended for a different group of readers; an abbreviated version could be sufficient. The secondary version faithfully reflects the data and interpretations of the primary version. The footnote on the title page of the secondary version informs readers, peers, and documenting agencies that the paper has been published in whole or in part and states the primary reference. A suitable footnote might read: “This article is based on a study first reported in the [title of journal, with full reference].”

E. Process to Manage Research and Publication Misconduct

When the Journal faces suspected cases of research and publication misconduct such as redundant (duplicate) publication, plagiarism, fraudulent or fabricated data, changes in authorship, undisclosed conflict of interest, ethical problem with a submitted manuscript, a reviewer who has appropriated an author’s idea or data, complaints against editors, and etc., the resolving process will be followed by flowchart provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts). The discussion and decision on the suspected cases are done by Editorial Board.

F. Editorial Responsibilities

The editorial board will continuously work towards monitoring/safeguarding publication ethics: guidelines for retracting articles; maintenance of the integrity of the academic record; preclusion of business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standard; publishing corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed; avoiding plagiarism, and fraudulent data. Editors responsibilities shall include: responsibility and authority to rejecte/accept article; avoid conflict of interest with respect to articles they reject/accept; acceptance of a paper when reasonably certain; promoting publication of correction or retraction when errors are found; preservation of the anonymity of reviewers.

G. Conflict of Interest

A conflict of interest may exist when an author (or the author’s institution or employer) has financial or personal relationships or affiliations that could bias the author’s decisions regarding the manuscript. Authors are expected to provide detailed information about all relevant financial interests and relationships or financial conflicts, particularly those present at the time the research was conducted and through publication, as well as other financial interests (such as patent applications in preparation), that represent potential future financial gain. All disclosures of any potential conflicts of interest, including specific financial interests and relationships and affiliations (other than those affiliations listed in the title page of the manuscript) relevant to the subject of their manuscript will be disclosed by the corresponding author on behalf of each coauthor, if any, as part of the submission process. Likewise, authors without conflicts of interest will be requested to state so as part of the submission process. If authors are uncertain about what constitutes a relevant financial interest or relationship, they should contact the editorial office. Failure to include this information in the manuscript will prohibit commencement of the review process of the manuscript. For all accepted manuscripts, each author’s disclosures of conflicts of interest and relevant financial interests and affiliations and declarations of no such interests will be published. The policy requesting disclosure of conflicts of interest applies for all manuscript submissions. If an author’s disclosure of potential conflicts of interest is determined to be inaccurate or incomplete after publication, a correction will be published to rectify the original published disclosure statement. Authors are also required to report detailed information regarding all financial and material support for the research and work, including but not limited to grant support, funding sources, and provision of equipment and supplies as part of the submission process. For all accepted manuscripts, each author’s source of funding will be published.

The authors should disclose all potential conflicts of interest including any research funding, other financial support, and material support for the work, if any exists, in the unblinded full title page. If there is a disclosure, the editors, reviewers, and reader can interpret the manuscripts with this understanding.