Submission policies

Manuscript preparation and drafting:

Authors should prepare their manuscripts according to the journal’s instructions for authors, which cover article structure, formatting, referencing style, etc. The manuscript must be written in English. 

Originality of work:

Authors must ensure that the work they are submitting is original and has not been published elsewhere. The manuscript should not be under consideration for publication in any other journal. Any form of plagiarism will not be tolerated.

Plagiarism policy:

Plagiarism, defined as appropriating another’s ideas, words, or other creative expression as one’s own, constitutes a clear violation of scientific ethics and may involve copyright infringement subject to legal action.

Plagiarism includes:

• Verbatim or near-verbatim copying of portions of another author’s work without proper attribution through referencing and/or quotation marks.
• Paraphrasing substantial segments from another paper without clearly indicating the source.
• Using equations, figures, or tables from another's work without proper citation and/or permission from the original author or copyright holder.

Please note all submissions are thoroughly screened for plagiarism using iThenticate. Manuscripts exhibiting evidence of plagiarism will be automatically rejected. The acceptable similarity index is ≤20%, with no individual source exceeding 5% similarity. In cases where plagiarism is detected in a published article, the journal will initiate retraction according to our retraction policy.

Data availability:

Wherever applicable, authors should include a statement in their manuscript about the availability of data supporting the results. This might include a link to a repository where the data is stored or an offer to share data upon reasonable request.

Ethics approval and consent:

For research involving human or animal subjects, the manuscript must include a statement that all necessary ethical approvals were obtained, and that all subjects provided informed consent (where relevant).

Authorship:

All individuals listed as authors should have contributed significantly to the design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study, and all have agreed to be listed. The corresponding author should ensure that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper, and have agreed to its submission for publication. All manuscripts must include a contributor role taxonomy (CRediT) statement detailing the specific author contributions made to the work being reported, to ensure transparency around authorship.

Authorship Criteria: 

The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on four criteria: Scholarship, Drafting or revising, approval and accountability. • The substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data of the work; and • Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and • Final approval of the version to be published; and • 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.

Conflict of interest

Authors should disclose any financial or personal relationship with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence their work.

Submission process

Manuscripts should be submitted online via the journal’s submission system. Upon submission, authors will receive an acknowledgement email confirming receipt of the manuscript.

Article processing charges and waivers:

Authors are not required to pay any  Article Processing Charge (APC). 

Revised manuscripts:

For revised manuscripts, authors should resubmit within 30 days through the journal’s online submission system with "Revised" added to the title page. The revision should include a point-by-point response to reviewers’ comments and a tracked changes version showing edits in colored text. All changes should be highlighted and described in a separate document indicating page, paragraph, and line numbers. Figures and tables should be resubmitted even if unaltered. The original submission number and designation as a revised manuscript should be specified by the Journal Manager. Major revisions may undergo re-review. Only one round of major revision is permitted per submission.

After acceptance:

Once a manuscript has been accepted for publication, authors should promptly respond to any copyediting queries and must review and approve the final proofs of their manuscript before it is published.