All articles must include an Author Contributions Statement. This statement should specify the individual contributions each author made to the planning, execution, and reporting of the research. Examples include: direct involvement (e.g., conceptualizing and designing the study, conducting the research, data collection, data analysis/interpretation), manuscript preparation (e.g., drafting the manuscript, critical revision for intellectual content), supporting work (e.g., statistical analysis, securing research funding, administrative, technical or material support, supervision, supportive contributions), and others.
The Author Contributions Statement should follow the Conflict of Interest section. The heading "Author Contributions Statement" should be in size 6 boldface type, aligned to the left margin, with a one-character space between the heading and the content. The content itself should be in size 6 regular, aligned to the left margin with no punctuation at the end of sentences. This section should not be numbered in continuation with the main text.
Example:
Conflict of Interest All authors declare no conflicts of interest (or, e.g., XX has received funding from XX company; all other authors declare no conflicts of interest)
Acknowledgements This study received guidance and support from XX in the area of XX
Author Contributions Statement XXX: conducted the research, wrote the manuscript; XXX: data collation, statistical analysis; XXX: study supervision, manuscript revision, funding support