Policy & Guide

• Publishing Ethics

  
  

  Editors, Reviewers and Authors must abide by the policy of publishing ethics of this journal, which complies with the guidelines and standards of the Committee of Publishing Ethics (COPE).

  
  

  For Editors:

  1. Editors take efforts to ensure the quality of articles published on this journal.

  2. Editors accept or evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

  3. Editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

  4. Editors would take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred. They would not encourage such academic misconduct, or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place. The editorial office would deal with allegations appropriately if there is any allegation of research misconduct.

  5. Publishers and editors should always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.

   

   

  For Reviewers:

  1. Reviewers shall regard the manuscripts with the most professional attitude to make the review process transparent, confidential and fair.

  2. Reviewers should only make comments and decision on the article, instead of on the authors, without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors. 

  3. Once the reviewers find that there are mistakes, plagiarism, suspected forgery of data and other problems in the article, they are obliged to report it to the editorial office.

  4. Reviewers shall not use unpublished papers or materials in its research.

  5. If the reviewers have competition, cooperation or other relations with the author, company or institution related to the article, they should report the conflict of interest and avoid reviewing the article. 

   

   

  For Authors

  1. Academic Misconduct: All manuscripts would be tested by the plagiarism checking system developed by CNKI. Authors should ensure the originality and integrity of the article, without any plagiarism, forgery, tampering and fraud, and that the article has not been published on other journals before. Once any academic misconduct is verified, the journal will immediately reject the manuscript and all submissions from the first author.

  2. Authorship: Those who are named as authors should directly participate in the research work, writing the manuscript or has an important guiding role (such as a graduate tutor). Other contributors of the paper may be listed in acknowledgement. “Gift author” is strictly prohibited. The order of authors shall be collectively determined before submission and shall not be changed thereafter. For a collective piece of work, the authors should specify their contribution in the Authors Contribution Form and submit it along with the manuscript.

  3. Correction: When authors discover a significant mistake or inaccuracy in published work, it is the authors’ obligation to p_r_o_m_p_tly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper. Please refer to the 'Correction & Retraction' page of this website.

  4. Medical Ethics: The ethical issue of the study must comply with common principles of medical ethics. When research participants are humans, the author should explain whether its procedure complied with the ethical standards formulated by relevant committee (institutional, regional or national) responsible for human trials. The approval document of the committee should be submitted (the approval number should be included in the article). Consent letter from research participants or their relatives must be obtained but not submitted to the editorial office. When reporting animal experiments, the study should comply with guidelines published by relevant committee on animal rights, and the approval document should be submitted.

  5. Trial Registration: Clinical trials must include the Universal Trial Number (UTN) obtained from one of the Primary Registries in the WHO Registry Network. The UTN shall be included in the abstract or the main body of the full text.

  6. Conflicts of Interest: All authors must disclose all potential conflicts of interest, i.e., when the financing/ personal status/ affiliation of the authors (or the authors' organization/ employer) may affect the authors' decision, work or manuscript. When a product is involved, the author should also disclose whether there is a conflict of interest against competitive products. Authors should also submit the Statement of Competing Interests along with the manuscript.