Open Access Policy

All research articles published in our journals are fully open access: immediately and freely available to read, download and share.

Articles are published under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. It provides a global framework to support the easy re-use of open-access material and the global exchange of knowledge. Authors retain copyright to their work and allow others to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt their work, provided proper attribution is given, but under the following terms: they must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. They may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.  

The author represents and warrants that the article is his or her original work and that it either has not been published or submitted for publication in any prior form. The author further represents that he or she has the right to grant this license to the journal and that, the article is neither defamatory of any persons or products nor infringing upon any third party’s copyrights. If the article contains material for which the author does not hold the copyright, the author represents that such material is clearly identified and acknowledged within the text and that such use is either with the permission of the copyright holder.

In the event of any subsequent dispute over the copyrights to the material contained in the article, the author agrees to indemnify and hold harmless the journal and its employees for any uses of the article authorized by this agreement.

All the published content is permanent with us; we use Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to locate the Articles throughout the world.


Copyright Statement

 In order to protect the legal rights and interests of both the journal and authors, and in addition to clarify the copyright property and ownership of the journal and authors, the following statement regarding manuscript copyright is made:

  1. The authors declare that they have not submitted the paper for publication anywhere else and that the submitted article has not been published previously.
  2. For any manuscript submitted to the journal, the authors should declare that their submitted paper is their own original work, it does not infringe any rights or disclose any secrets, and that no disputes of intellectual property shall arise in relation to the ranking of author names, and it does not contain or include material taken from other copyrighted sources. Wherever such materials have been included, they must be clearly identified by quotation marks and/or proper citation of such sources.
  3. After publication in the journal, authors retain the copyright of articles. Authors transfer the copyright to the journal to publish the article, use it for indexing, and storing on the journal website for public use.
  4. All published works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. It means that authors reserve all proprietary rights such as patent rights and the right to copy and redistribute the material of published works in any medium or format. Also, they have the right to use all or part of the article in their future works (e.g., lectures, press releases, and reviews of textbooks), remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
  5. In the case of republication of the whole, part, or parts thereof in periodicals or reprint publications by a third party, written permission must be obtained from the Managing Editor of the journal. However, all articles with copyright belonging to the journal may be read and downloaded for free in perpetuity for the purpose of individual study.
  6. Journals, media organizations, websites, and other sources that have received authorization from the journal to use its copyrighted articles, should declare the manuscript source as the journal’s name, or indicate the journal’s web address when downloading or using articles from the journal; otherwise, such use will be deemed as copyright infringement. The responsible persons shall assume any and all liabilities for civil disputes, administrative penalties, or other losses arising or resulting from the unauthorized republication or citation of articles from the journal.
  7. Under the Creative Commons end user license, the readers can reuse portions or extracts from the published article in their works by including attribution to the original work and its author.

Corresponding Author, Co-Authorship

Only individuals who significantly contributed to the conception, design, implementation, or interpretation of the reported study should be given the privilege of authorship. When additional people contributed to the research study in a meaningful way, they should be acknowledged or identified as contributors. The final version of the work has been seen by all co-authors, who have given their approval and consent to its submission for publication.

If the article was jointly prepared by more than one author, any author submitting the manuscript warrants that he/she has been authorized by all co-authors to be agreed on this copyright and license notice (agreement) on their behalf and agrees to inform his/her co-authors of the terms of this policy.

The journal will not be held liable for anything that may arise due to the author(s) internal dispute. The journal will only communicate with the corresponding author.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The journal defines a conflict of interest as “anything that interferes with or could reasonably be perceived as interfering with, the full and objective presentation, commissioning, peer review, editorial decision-making, or publication of research or non-research articles […]. A conflict of interest exists if a person or institution has a relationship, personal or otherwise, which has the potential to compromise or in any way interfere with professional objectivity or judgment in issues related to the relationship.

Authors are not the only stakeholders who may have biases or competing interests. It is just as important for editors, editorial board members, and reviewers to disclose any potential conflicts of interest at all stages of the publication process.

Disclaimer

No responsibility is assumed by the publisher and co-publishers, nor by the editors for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a result of any actual or alleged libelous statements, infringement of intellectual property or privacy rights, or products liability, whether resulting from negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any ideas, instructions, procedures, products or methods contained in the material therein.


Publication Ethics Statement

The publication of an article in our journals is an essential building block in the development of a coherent and respected network of knowledge. It is a direct reflection of the quality of the work of the authors and the institutions that support them. Peer-reviewed articles support and embody the scientific method. It is therefore important to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior for all parties involved in the act of publishing: the authors, the journal editors, the peer reviewers, the publisher, and the society.

Journals rely on the integrity and honesty of their editors to publish the best manuscript that conforms to ethical standards and meets all the requirements as per the mission of the journal for publication.

Journals implement a rigorous peer-review process while following strict ethical policies and standards to ensure that only high-quality scientific literature is contributed to and added to the field of scholarly publishing. Journals take publishing ethics issues very seriously and are trained to proceed in such cases with a zero-tolerance policy.

 

Plagiarism

The unethical act of copying known as plagiarism occurs when someone uses someone else’s ideas, processes, results, words, data, or theories as their own without giving appropriate credit. One of the biggest issues affecting scientific communication in journal publications is plagiarism. Self-plagiarism is the act of an author using a significant portion of their own previously published writing without providing the necessary citations. Plagiarism occurs when the same manuscript, with only minor changes to previously published manuscripts and little new information, is published in numerous journals. We have plagiarism check software (iThenticate) available on our Editors and Reviewer’s panel in the manuscript management system. We encourage our editors and reviewers to use the plagiarism check. The manuscript found to have plagiarism is rejected.

Examples of Plagiarism:

  • Duplicate submission/publication and redundant publication
  • Data fabrication/Data falsification
  • Duplication of text and/or figures (plagiarism)
  • Citation Manipulation
  • Improper Author Contribution or Attribution
  • Redundant Publications
  • Undeclared conflict of interest (CoI)
  • Ethical problems: Research involving humans, Ethical considerations for different human study designs, Participant/patient privacy and informed consent, Research involving animals, plants, and heritage sites, Biosafety, biosecurity, and emerging biotechnology.

Human rights, privacy, and confidentiality

For manuscripts reporting research involving human participants, including but not limited to medical research, journal editors ask authors about patient consent, ethical approval, and confidentiality. However, clinical research must be conducted in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (www.icmje.org) regarding patient consent for human participation in clinical research or research.

Registering clinical trials

The journal asks authors for clinical trial registration numbers. This number should be included in all articles reporting results.