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Guide for authors

JHLT Operating Procedures, Policies and Information for Authors

JHLT websites:
https://www.jhltonline.org or https://www.editorialmanager.com/JHLT/default.aspx
AudioSlide Presentation on JHLT Editorial Workflow: Presented by Dr. Daniel Goldstein, MD

Aims and scope
The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation, the official publication of the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation, brings readers cutting-edge clinical practice, basic and translational science in the fields of cardio-pulmonary transplantation, mechanical and biological support of the failing heart, advanced lung disease, pulmonary vascular disease (pulmonary arterial hypertension and CTEPH), extracorporeal support of donor organs, and cell replacement therapy.

Editorial policies
Statements and opinions expressed in the articles and communications herein are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the Editor(s)or publisher, and the Editor(s) and publisher disclaim any responsibility or liability for such material. Neither the Editor(s) nor the publisher guarantees, warrants, or endorses any product or service advertised in this publication. Neither do they guarantee any claim made by the manufacturer of such product or service.

Editorial Office Contact
Any question may be directed to our office by e-mail to [email protected] or [email protected] (Mr. David Newcombe, JHLT Managing Editor). In general, an email receives a response within 72 hours. If there is an urgent issue that requires the editor's attention or intervention, it is usually attended to immediately. The journal website can be accessed at https://www.jhltonline.org.
Please do not contact the Editor-in-Chief via direct personal email. These emails will be ignored.

Manuscript submission
The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation will accept only online submissions of original manuscripts through the Editorial Manager system at https://www.editorialmanager.com/JHLT/default.aspx. Manuscripts submitted through this online system can easily be tracked by the authors, editors, and reviewers through final disposition. The corresponding author involved with a specific manuscript will receive automatic e-mail notification as the manuscript proceeds through the system. Click the 'Register' link on the toolbar at the top left to input author demographics and set up an account. After registration is complete, a notice will be sent via email indicating a user ID and password. Use this information to log in as an author by choosing the 'Login' link on the toolbar and select 'Submit New Manuscript.' Follow the prompts to complete the submission according to the specifications below. Further questions may be directed to the editorial office by e-mail to [email protected] or directly to the Managing Editor, David Newcombe ([email protected]). The user ID and password can be changed at any time.

Duplicate/Prior/Overlapping Publication or Submission
Manuscripts are accepted for review with the stipulation that they are submitted solely to JHLT. Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis or as an electronic preprint, see https://www.elsevier.com/postingpolicy), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere including electronically in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the copyright-holder. Authors should disclose prior publication as an abstract or an electronic preprint in the Cover Letter.

Submission Checklist
Please submit your materials as 6 separate files organized as follows and in accordance with following the guidelines below.

  1. Cover letter of submission, to include author agreement as described below
  2. ICMJE Disclosure form for each listed author (combined into one file)
  3. Manuscript (double spaced, combined into one file):
    • Title page
    • Title of article
    • Full name(s), academic degrees, and affiliations of authors, including each author's ORCID#
    • Name, email address, and any relevant social media pages (i.e. Twitter handle, Facebook page, Mendeley account page, etc.) of corresponding author
    • Reprint and corresponding author byline
    • Manuscript file (double spaced), to include:
      • Introduction
      • Abstract
      • Material and Methods (see below), to include:
        • Statement of IRB/Ethics board approval
        • Statement of compliance with the ISHLT Ethics statement
        • Statement of humane animal care
        • Statement of informed consent
      • Discussion
      • Financial conflict of interest statement (to be included as a separate section after the Discussion and before the references)
      • Author contributions
      • Acknowledgments
      • References
      • Figure Legends
      • Tables (if needed)
      • Figures
  4. Written releases from all persons/patients whose information or likeness is represented or makes them identifiable
  5. Permissions to reproduce material published elsewhere
  6. Supplementary Appendix Material (if needed)

Manuscript Categories

1. For Original Science papers we review them in Clinical, Translational or Basic categories. For these papers, we impose a 250-word limit for the structured abstract and a 3000-word limit for the main text and (excluding tables, figures, and references). We will allow an unlimited supplementary file which is designed to be made available in a PDF form and can enhance the availability of more detailed information. The supplementary file should be provided as a WORD document or PDF and must be structured - see below for details. The articles should, in general, average 8 journal pages with no more than a total of 8 figures/tables and 40-50 references.

Meta-analysis studies and systematic reviews are considered clinical research papers. We recommend reviewing the PRISMA guidelines for constructing such articles.

2. Innovation articles are accepted rarely and reserved typically for major articles that have the potential to substantially advance clinical practice or advance research. Such papers should be no more than 1500 words. The entire double-spaced, typewritten manuscript, including tables, figures, and references should be five to seven pages, and the abstract is not required to be structured and should be no more than four-five sentences.

3. Brief Communication is a unique category that is designed to publish exceptionally novel preliminary information with a high potential to change paradigms and to open new avenues of investigation. Brief Communications must contain substantive information concerning experimental or clinical studies, accompanied by a brief reference list (of no more than ten references) and three display items (Tables/Figures) and no more than 1000 words (not including 150 words for the unstructured abstract). No other subsections are permitted. Supplementary data files are permitted but anything described in such contexts must have a relevant tag in the main paper.

4. Case Anecdotes (which are designed to succinctly describe a novel clinical or surgical direction) and Comments and Opinions (which could represent a reaction to a published article or could be unrelated) should be no more than 500 words (in total main text). Authors are limited to 5 references for the Case Anecdotes, Comments and Opinion category. This communication is retained and indexed in the Cumulated Index Medicus.

5. State-of-the-Art reviews (2500 words) are entertained for publication in the journal only if the article has been invited by the Editor-in-Chief. State-of-the-art reviews must contain a brief abstract of less than 250 words, and ideally, they should contain at least one display item or figure.

6. Perspective pieces (1500 words) acan be a discussion or debate on any ongoing clinical or scholarly issue in the field or a look into the future. Perspectives must contain an unstructured abstract of less than 250 words and they can be unsolicited.

7. A Review Article can be unsolicited. We will consider overviews and topics that are relevant to the readership. The review must be less than 2500 words for the main text. Review articles must have an unstructured abstract of less than 250 words and they should ideally contain one display item.

Study Requirements
1. For observational studies, we recommend using the STROBE criteria.
2. A review article must ideally follow the guidelines for a systematic review and meta analyses must be properly coordinated. We recommend reviewing the PRISMA guidelines for constructing such articles.
3. A Clinical Trial (any research project that prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention and comparison groups to study the cause-and-effect relationship between a medical intervention and a health outcome) must be registered online before the start of patient enrollment. Trials in which the primary goal is to determine pharmacokinetics may be exempt. A list of acceptable registries may be found at http://www.icmje.org. You must indicate the trial registry and its access mechanism at the time of submission. In general, we advise that a list of the investigators, trial protocol, detailed inclusion and inclusion criteria and methodological information be also provided in the supplementary files.

Cover Letter/Author Agreement
The authors must include a cover letter with the manuscript submission that indicates the manuscript has not been published previously and that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. It should be stated that all authors agree with the content of the manuscript. The cover letter should concisely summarize the findings of the study and the importance to the field.

Informed consent
Reports describing data obtained from research conducted in human subjects must contain a statement in the Methods section indicating approval by the institutional review board or Ethics board and affirm that informed consent was obtained as required by the study authorizing entity. In some instances we may ask to see the approval certificates.
All submissions to the journal must attest their strict compliance with the ISHLT ethics statement (http://ishlt.org/ishlt/media/documents/ISHLT_Statement_Transplant-Ethics_2022.pdf). In addition, for specific submissions from countries where it is known that transplants may be performed in violation of these guidelines (e.g. transplants involving executed prisoners), a specific statement to this regard is required. The above statements are required to be made within the Methods section.
Authors should remove information from photographs and manuscripts that might identify a patient. Where this is impossible, submissions must be accompanied by a written release from the patient (or any other person whose likeness is represented).
Manuscripts that do not comply with the requirements regarding informed consent will be returned during the processing phase by the Editorial Office.

Humane animal care
All manuscripts reporting experiments using animals must include a statement in the Methods section giving assurance that all animals received humane care in compliance with the 'Principles of Laboratory Animal Care' formulated by the National Society for Medical Research and the 'Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals' prepared by the Institute of Laboratory Animal Resources and published by the National Institutes of Health (NIH Publication No. 86-23, revised 1996).

Authorship/Author Contributions
Each person designated as author should qualify for authorship. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content. The contributions to author section of the manuscript should concisely detail each author's role in the study, to include their study design, data analysis, writing of manuscript, acquisition of funding. This section should come after the Discussion and before the Acknowledgments and More details for such qualification can be found by accessing http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html.
Authors for whom English is not their native language are strongly encouraged to seek the aid of a professional English language medical editing service. JHLT endorses the use of Elsevier Author Services: https://webshop.elsevier.com/

Acknowledgments
Funding acknowledgments and any other notable acknowledgments (i.e., use of services to enhance writing of the manuscript) should be placed in a separate section, to come after Author Contributions and before Disclosures.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST DISCLOSURE AND MANAGEMENT FOR AUTHORS

Introduction
In order to ensure and protect the integrity of the JHLT, the ISHLT has developed these policies on COI as it applies to the JHLT, its Editor-in-Chief, Deputy Editors, Section Editors, Guest/Other Editors, and Editorial Board members/Reviewers, as well as authors of manuscripts submitted to JHLT for consideration for publication. This policy is based upon the foundational work of The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which updated its Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals in December 2019, see http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf. Further guidance came from the Committee on Publication Ethics, COPE, see https://publicationethics.org/competinginterests and the World Association of Medical Editors, WAME, see http://wame.org/conflict-of-interest-in-peer-reviewed-medical-journals. The JHLT COI principles below are embodied within the ICMJE Recommendations and reflect accepted COI practice for major journals.

Conflict of Interest
An actual or potential conflict of interest occurs when a competing interest (financial, competitive, or otherwise) does or may influence (intentionally or not) the assessment of the validity of the interpretation of data and results. It is recognized that many authors and members of editorial boards have competing interests, and it is often not clear to journal readers, researchers, and editorial board members when a competing interest affects decision-making. Disclosure of all actual or potential conflicts allows all parties to make informed judgments.
The following competing interests or relationships must be disclosed by all Authors, Reviewers, and Editors ("covered individuals"), including when such interests/relationships are those of a spouse, child, or any other individual with whom the covered individual shares income or assets:

  • Employment: Employment with an entity having an investment, licensing, or other commercial interest in the subject matter under consideration must be disclosed.
  • Leadership Position: Service as an officer or director for an entity having an investment, licensing, or other commercial interest in the subject matter under consideration must be disclosed.
  • Consultant/Advisory Role/Expert Testimony: Arrangements with an entity having an investment, licensing, or other commercial interest in the subject matter under consideration must be disclosed if payments are made within the past 24 months or anticipated to be paid in the current or upcoming 12 months, regardless of whether payment was made to the individual or his/her institution. Payments totaling less than $500 per incident are excluded from disclosure requirements.
  • Stock Ownership/Patents: Any ownership interest including stock, options, and warrants (except when invested in a publicly traded fund not controlled by the covered individual) in any publicly traded or privately held company, and/or any patents generating income in the past 24 months or anticipated to generate income in the current or upcoming 12 months must be disclosed if the company is an entity having an investment, licensing, or other commercial interest in the subject matter under consideration.
  • Honoraria: Disclosure of honoraria for presentations or other services is required if payments are made by an entity having an investment, licensing, or other commercial interest in the subject matter under consideration and are paid within the past 24 months or anticipated to be paid in the current or upcoming 12 months, regardless of whether payment was made to the individual or his/her institution. Payments totaling less than $500 per incident are excluded from disclosure requirements. Payments totaling less than $500 per incident are excluded from disclosure requirements.
  • Research Funding: All payments (including in-kind payments) associated with the conduct of research in which the disclosing individual is participating/has participated must be disclosed if the payment is provided by or on behalf of a company having an investment, licensing, or other commercial interest in the subject matter under consideration, and is paid within the past 24 months or anticipated to be paid in the current or upcoming 12 months, regardless of whether payment was made to the individual or his/her institution.
  • Other Compensation: Trips, travel, gifts, or other in-kind payments, including those not directly related to specific research activities, must be disclosed if received from an entity having an investment, licensing, or other commercial interest in the subject matter under consideration and are paid within the past 24 months or are anticipated to be paid in the current or upcoming 12 months, regardless of whether payment was made to the individual or his/her institution, or a third party on the individual's behalf. Payments totaling less than $500 per incident are excluded from disclosure requirements.

Conflict of interest disclosure for authors
The ISHLT and the JHLT currently abide by the ICMJE Recommendations ("the Uniform Requirements") as they relate to authors. Accordingly:

  • All listed authors must complete and submit to JHLT at the time of manuscript submission the ICMJE's standardized disclosure form, which can be found at http://www.icmje.org/disclosure-of-interest. If uncertain as to what might be considered a potential conflict of interest, authors should err on the side of full disclosure of all relationships described above.
  • Such disclosure must include actual or potential conflicts of interest related to all aspects of the manuscript. This includes any actual or potential competing interest related to the design and conduct of the study and interpretation of the study data.
  • In addition, each manuscript, regardless of its type, must include a financial conflict of interest disclosure statement. This statement should be included AFTER the Discussion Section and BEFORE the References in a separate section. This statement must include all funding sources or acknowledgements of contributions of any material nature pertinent to the manuscript and must describe ALL authors' relationships with companies or relevant entities that make products pertinent to the manuscript. The statement must specify the type of relationships (e.g., consulting, paid speaking, grant support, equity, patents) EACH author has with EACH company. The role(s) of any funding organization(s), if any, in the collection of data, its analysis and interpretation, and/or in the right to approve or disapprove publication of the finished manuscript must be described in this statement as well. This information is of serious concern to the Editorial Office and no manuscripts will move forward for processing if this statement is not provided as described herein.
  • Authors must completely spell out all grant funding agency abbreviations.
  • If an author has no conflicts to declare, he or she must indicate None.
  • Failure to include the disclosure statement at the time of manuscript submission will result in the Editorial Office returning the manuscript, which may be resubmitted provided the disclosure is included with the next submission. Allegations of inappropriate disclosure will be investigated.

Consequences of not disclosing COI
There are serious consequences for any author failing to disclose potential or actual conflicts of interest. These will be determined on a case-by-case basis and may include:

  • Ban from publishing in JHLT for from 1 year to indefinitely
  • Expression of concern published in JHLT
  • Retraction of article
  • Instigation of institutional inquiry into scientific misconduct
  • Report to Retraction Watch of misconduct

The use of AI and AI-assisted technologies in scientific writing
Where authors use AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process, these technologies should only be used to improve readability and language of the work and not to replace key researcher tasks such as producing scientific insights, analyzing and interpreting data or drawing scientific conclusions. Applying the technology should be done with human oversight and control and authors should carefully review and edit the result, because AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete or biased. The authors are ultimately responsible and accountable for the contents of the work.
Authors should disclose in their manuscript the use of AI and AI-assisted technologies and a statement will appear in the published work. Declaring the use of these technologies supports transparency and trust between authors, readers, reviewers, editors and contributors and facilitates compliance with the terms of use of the relevant tool or technology.
Authors should not list AI and AI-assisted technologies as an author or co-author, nor cite AI as an author. Authorship implies responsibilities and tasks that can only be attributed to and performed by humans. Each (co-) author is accountable for ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved and authorship requires the ability to approve the final version of the work and agree to its submission. Authors are also responsible for ensuring that the work is original, that the stated authors qualify for authorship, and the work does not infringe third party rights, and should familiarize themselves with our Ethics in Publishing policy before they submit.

STYLE GUIDELINES
Manuscripts should be organized in the following order:

Title page, Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Author Contributions, Acknowledgments, Financial Disclosure Statement, Figures with Legends, References

Number all pages including figures, references and tables.

Title Page
The title page should include the following:

  • Authors and affiliations
  • Corresponding author contact information (see above for details)
  • Running Title
  • List of non-standard abbreviations (i.e. not included in AMA Manual of Style list of commonly used abbreviations)
  • Word count

Abstracts
All manuscripts with the exception of Case Anecdotes, Comments and Opinions, MUST contain an abstract of no more than 250 words that briefly summarizes the content. The abstract should be divided into four sections: Background, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. Brief Communications abstracts must be <150 words and are unstructured. Abstracts should contain no references or abbreviations. Manuscripts submitted without an abstract will NOT be considered for publication. Abstracts will not count toward the total manuscript page count. For innovation articles or perspectives we ask for an unstructured narrative abstract limited to 4-5 sentences.

Graphical Abstract (not required for original submission; may be requested for revised manuscripts)
A graphical abstract should allow readers to quickly gain an understanding of the main take-home message of the paper and is intended to encourage browsing, promote interdisciplinary scholarship, and help readers identify more quickly which papers are most relevant to their research interests. Graphical abstracts can be uploaded selecting "Graphical Abstract" when uploading files. Graphical abstracts should be submitted as a separate file in the online submission system. Image size: Please provide an image with a minimum of 531 1328 pixels (h w) or proportionally more. The image should be readable at a size of 5 13 cm using a regular screen resolution of 96 dpi. Preferred file types: TIFF, EPS, PDF or MS Office files. You can view Example Graphical Abstracts on our information site, https://www.elsevier.com/authors/journal-authors/graphical-abstract. We would typically advise that such a graphical abstract could also be used to develop a central figure for your paper and could be included in the main manuscript for more vivid use since graphical abstracts are only slowly coming in vogue. Please note that you should not include the same graphical abstract and central illustration to avoid redundancy but may have both if they show incremental data.

Material and Methods
JHLT will require authors to strickly follow these guidelines for data reporting:

This section should have sufficient detail to permit reproducibility of data. For animal studies: state species, strain, gender of animals used and sample size employed. Describe any surgical procedure and state that the study was performed in accordance National Institutes of Health (NIH) Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals or equivalent. State the dose, route of administration and frequency of any anesthetic agents.
State the commercial source and catalogue number for all reagents. State how many times each experiment was repeated.
Statistical methods: Describe the statistical methods employed and include measures of variance such as standard deviation, standard error. Individal data points should be included in all graphs and the figure legend should detail if each point reflects an individual biological replicate. For any immunoblots, entire uncut gels should be presented to the reviewers as a supplement.

Graphs and Images: Graphs should show samples size (i.e dot plots) and variation of data, and the figure legends should detail if each point reflects an individual biological replicate. For immunoblots, entire uncut immunoblots should be presented to the reviewers, along with corresponding molecular weight standards, as supplement data. For all images no specific feature should be enhanced, hidden, removed, or moved. For flow cytometric data, the gating strategy for each plot / figure should be shown in a supplement. Additionally, authors should state whether isotype controls, florescence minus one (FMO) or "dump" channels have been employed to define expression levels or identify cell populations of interest.

If irregularities are identified in images, graphs etc., the editors hold the right to inform the author's Institutional Integrity offices (or equivalent) and the funders of the study.

Please note that from January 2021, all revised manuscripts that contain the above image data will be reviewed by a technical editor.

Style, abbreviations, and references
References must contain the full title of the citation. Authors are encouraged to refer to the American Medical Association Manual of Style, 10th Edition as a specific style guide. The title page and abstract should be prepared according to the guidelines listed above. Abbreviations should be used sparingly unless they are commonly accepted such as RNA, CsA, etc. When such a word appears for the first time, it should be written out in full, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. This abbreviation may then be used subsequently when referring to the same term. All hematologic and clinical chemistry measurements should be reported in the metric system in terms of the International System of Units (SI). Abbreviations for titles of medical periodicals should conform to those used in the latest edition of Index Medicus. (A 'List of Journals Indexed in Index Medicus' - with abbreviations is obtainable from the Superintendent of Documents, US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402 at a modest charge.) References should be listed by number in the body of the text and should be listed in the reference section in the same order in which they appear in the manuscript. Include authors' last names and initials, journal, volume, page, and year. Include the city and the publisher's name for books.

Reference examples
(List all authors when six or fewer; when seven or more, list first three and add et al.) Journal article: Salvatierra O, Vincenti F, Armend W, et al. Four-year experience with donor-specific blood transfusions. Transplant Proc 1983;15:924-6.
Books: Eisen HN. Immunology: an introduction to molecular and cellular principles of the immune response. 5th ed. New York: Harper & Row; 1974. p. 406.
Chapters: Fromer PL. Workshop on congestive heart failure. In: Braunwald E, Mock MB, editors. Congestive heart failure. New York: Grune & Stratton; 1982. p. 1-2.

Tables and figures

Figures (Initial Submission)
For initial submission, figures should be placed on the same page as figure Legends to assist in the review process. A single PDF that contains all the manuscript text and Figures should be used for the initial submission. For accepted manuscripts only, all figures must be submitted in final form ready for publication (this includes all labeling, shading, arrows, and other aspects of the figure). Prepare the figures for reduction in size of at most 50% and ensure that the lettering does not vary in size. The final font size (after reduction) should be 6-8 point. The physical dimensions of the figures should match the dimension of the journal.

Tables
Tables must be submitted as separate WORD or EXCEL files and should not be embedded in the main manuscript file. Tables should be used to organize key information in the manuscript. Tables should be used to make the presentation more concise and not used to duplicate what is already contained in the text.
For insights as to what should be included in uncropped gels in any submitted manuscript for consideration at the JHLT that has western blot of similar data, please refer to the reference image which was developed by one of JHLT's Technical Editors.

Supplementary Material
The Supplemental Material section should be used for non-critical data (Figures, Tables), large data sets and non-essential methods and will be hosted online only. This information can be submitted as a single file, for which the first includes the title and list of authors. The pages should be numbered, a table of contents should be provided, text of methods or other text related details, then figures, tables and references, in that order. Errors made in this file cannot be corrected so care must be taken in developing this file which is typically not copy-edited. The figures and tables should be tagged as "Figure S1, S2, and Table S1, S2" - No data should be provided in the supplement that is not home to a tag in the main manuscript.

REVISED MANUSCRIPTS
Revised manuscripts require the following:

  • Point-by-point rebuttal letter. This should include a detailed response to the issues raised by the original review and reference changes in the manuscript to line#, page# and paragraph.
  • 250-word character
  • Twitter handle for Corresponding and 1st author
  • ORCID ID # see https://orcid.orgfor details
  • Manuscript text with changes highlighted in yellow
  • Clean manuscript text
  • Individually uploaded Figures, with the following specifications.
  • All figures should be submitted in final form ready for publication (this includes all labeling, shading, arrows, and other aspects of the figure). Prepare the figures for reduction in size of at most 50% and ensure that the lettering does not vary in size. The final font size (after reduction) should be 6-8 point. The physical dimensions of the figures should match the dimension of the journal. Most figures will be reduced to fit one-column width (3 1/4 inches). Computer-generated illustrations and halftones/line/ tones (either color or black & white) are acceptable. Figures should be submitted in a Graphics Format for PCs (.tiff) on Editorial Manager along with the manuscript. Although we welcome color figures, please note that there is an additional charge for color printing that appear in print. There is no fee for color figures that are accepted for publication that will appear in color online but are print in black & white. Please inform us if you wish to have on line only color figures. Uniform lettering, sizing, type of software used, and logical naming for the artwork files is strongly encouraged when submitting electronically. Line graphs and bar charts should be sent in bitmap TIFF files with a minimum resolution of 1200 dpi, or as EPS files, with a preferred line width of 1 pt. (minimum line width of 0.5 pt.). Bitmap images should be sent as TIFF files and not placed within EPS files. Pictures, photographs and micrographs should be sent as Grayscale TIFF files with a minimum resolution of 300 dpi without lettering, and 500 dpi with lettering. Color images should be sent as CMYK-encoded TIFF images. RGB-encoded color images will be difficult to match for color. Graphs produced in software such as Excel or Word should be submitted in black and white with different types of dashed lines for total clarity. Please visit the publisher's website (https://www.elsevier.com/authors/author-schemas/artwork-and-media-instructions) for detailed instructions and visual guidelines. All illustrations should show optimal clarity of detail. All illustrations should be accompanied by a suitable descriptive text legend.
  • Tables and other components per initial submission

RESEARCH DATA
This journal encourages and enables you to share data that supports your research publication where appropriate and enables you to interlink the data with your published articles. Research data refers to the results of observations or experimentation that validate research findings. To facilitate reproducibility and data reuse, this journal also encourages you to share your software, code, models, algorithms, protocols, methods and other useful materials related to the project. Below are a number of ways in which you can associate data with your article or make a statement about the availability of your data when submitting your manuscript. If you are sharing data in one of these ways, you are encouraged to cite the data in your manuscript and reference list. Please refer to the References section for more information about data citation. For more information on depositing, sharing and using research data and other relevant research materials, visit the research data page.

Data linking
If you have made your research data available in a data repository, you can link your article directly to the dataset. Elsevier collaborates with a number of repositories to link articles on ScienceDirect with relevant repositories, giving readers access to underlying data that gives them a better understanding of the research described. There are different ways to link your datasets to your article. When available, you can directly link your dataset to your article by providing the relevant information in the submission system.For more information, visit the database linking page. For supported data repositories a repository banner will automatically appear next to your published article on ScienceDirect. In addition, you can link to relevant data or entities through identifiers within the text of your manuscript, using the following format: Database: xxxx (e.g., TAIR: AT1G01020; CCDC: 734053; PDB: 1XFN).

Mendeley Data
This journal supports Mendeley Data, enabling you to deposit any research data (including raw and processed data, video, code, software, algorithms, protocols, and methods) associated with your manuscript in a free-to-use, open access repository. Before submitting your article, you can deposit the relevant datasets to Mendeley Data. Please include the DOI of the deposited dataset(s) in your main manuscript file. The datasets will be listed and directly accessible to readers next to your published article online.
For more information, visit the Mendeley Data for journals page.

Data statement
To foster transparency, we encourage you to state the availability of your data in your submission. This may be a requirement of your funding body or institution. If your data is unavailable to access or unsuitable to post, you will have the opportunity to indicate why during the submission process, for example by stating that the research data is confidential. The statement will appear with your published article on ScienceDirect. For more information, visit the Data Statement page.

MANUSCRIPT REVIEW PROCESS AND OUTCOMES
After submission to the journal, the Managing Editor will assess the manuscript to ensure that it is formatted correctly and meets the submission requirements. Failure to do so will lead to the manuscript being returned to the authors. The manuscript will then be assigned to an appropriate Section Editor based upon subject matter expertise. The Section Editor will then decide whether the manuscript merits external peer review or if it should be rejected without review or "streamlined". Any "streamlined" decision by the Section Editor is passed to the appropriate Deputy Editor who can either agree with the decision or decide that the manuscript should be returned to the Section Editor and sent for external peer review. We aim to make all "streamline" decisions within three days. Manuscripts that the Section Editor determines to send out for external peer review will seek reviews from 2-3 external experts. Some of the external peer reviewers may be Editorial Board Members. External peer reviewers are expected to return their reviews within 12 days. Once the Section Editor has acquired all reviews, the Section Editor will then formulate an opinion of the manuscript and communicate with the appropriate Deputy Editor. The Deputy Editor along with the Editor-in-Chief will then render a decision on the manuscript. We aim to render decisions on external peer reviewed manuscripts within three weeks. Manuscripts that are invited for revision will be given Editorial guidance as to what are the key components that need to be addressed to achieve acceptance. All revised manuscripts will be reviewed by a biostatistical editor to assess the quality of statistical methods and analysis. Upon revision, the authors will require to provide a point-by-point rebuttal to the reviewer issues. Please note, that the anonymous reviewer comments and the authors response will be published as a supplement with all published articles. The Editor is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles. The Editor's decision is final. More information on types of peer review can be found at https://www.elsevier.com/reviewers/what-is-peer-review).

Acceptance Rates
Typical acceptance rates for original science articles are in the 10-15% range.

Appeals
Appeals are rarely successful but if the authors wish to challenge a manuscript decision, please email the editorial office with rebuttal letter describing the issues in a point-by-point format.

PUBLISHING POLICIES

Copyright
Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the copyright holder.
Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to transfer copyright to the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation. A letter will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript, and a form facilitating transfer of copyright will be provided.
If excerpts from other copyright works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the articles. Copies of letters granting permission must be submitted with the manuscript.

Open access
The journal offers the option of making an article freely available to all via the ScienceDirect platform. To prevent any conflict of interest, an author can only make this choice after receiving notification that the article has been accepted for publication. The fee of US$3,000 excludes taxes and other potential author fees such as color charges. In some cases, institutions and funding bodies have entered into agreement with Elsevier to meet these fees on behalf of their authors. Details of these agreements are available at https://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies. Authors of accepted articles, who wish to take advantage of this option, are required to complete and submit the order form (available at https://www.elsevier.com/locate/openaccessform.pdf). Whatever access option is chosen, the authors retain many rights as an author, including the right to post a revised personal version of your article on your own website. More information can be found here: https://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights.

Green open access
Authors can share their research in a variety of different ways and Elsevier has a number of green open access options available. We recommend authors see our green open access page for further information (https://elsevier.com/greenopenaccess). Authors can also self-archive their manuscripts immediately and enable public access from their institution's repository after an embargo period. This is the version that has been accepted for publication and which typically includes author-incorporated changes suggested during submission, peer review and in editor-author communications.

Embargo period
For subscription articles, an appropriate amount of time is needed for journals to deliver value to subscribing customers before an article becomes freely available to the public. Generally, we now make papers available online within 1 week of final acceptance in their non-copyedited form to facilitate dissemination of information with immediacy. In some instances, we may choose, at the Editorial Office discretion, to embargo a paper for a specific issue or time. We typically are open to discussing this with authors.

Permission to Reuse
No part of materials published in The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation may be reproduced without written permission of the publisher. For information on requesting permission to reuse The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation, click on https://www.elsevier.com/about/our-business/policies/copyright/permissions. Some requests from other STM signatory publishers qualify for gratis reuse. See the STM website for details: http://www.stm-assoc.org/permissions-guidelines/. Please visit the following website for permission forms and for more information about how to obtain permission to reproduce published data: https://www.elsevier.com/about/our-business/policies/copyright/permissions.
Questions about obtaining permission? Contact the Permissions Helpdesk at [email protected] or (+1) 215-239-3867.