We strive to ensure the highest standards of publication ethics assuring that the articles are peer-reviewed before acceptance or rejection, provide high quality original content for the advancement of science and benefits the scientific community and general public at large.

 

Assessment of articles

All submissions are subjected to in house review by the editors, followed by external peer-review by experts in the field. The identity of the peer-reviewers remains anonymous to the authors. Occasionally, advice may be sought outside the peer-review experts to reach a consensus regarding publication of an article.

 

Plagiarism

According to the journal's policy, all sources of information have to be duly acknowledged. Figures, Tables and data cannot be used from any other publication without prior permission from the publishers/authors as the case may be.

We encourage authors to use original content, copying from other sources is not allowed. In case of similarity with others, due citation has to be included in the manuscript. Once accepted, we check the articles for plagiarism and articles found to have plagiarized content will be rejected. In case plagiarism is detected post-publication, the article will be retracted.

 

Duplicate or redundant submission

We consider only original content for publication. Data published previously in English or any other language in any form will not be considered for publication, except those on a preprint server, institutional repository, conference or in a thesis.

Manuscripts under consideration of publication are not allowed to be submitted elsewhere. In case of a duplicate submission or submission to more than one journal, appropriate sanctions will be implied.

Authors are not allowed to re-use their own data, figures, or copied text without prior permission of the publisher. In any case, similar content has to be appropriately referenced and also described how it differs from their previous publications/data.

Salami slicing (inappropriate division of collective data from one study) into more than one publication may result in rejection of one or both the manuscripts. In case of duplicate submission/publication of data, the article would be retracted and the authors may face sanctions.

 

Biased Citation

Authors found to specifically and advertently using the citations from their own work or from a particular journal would face sanctions. Authors, editors, reviewers and publishers are not allowed to favor citations of particular articles or journals to increase their own citations.

 

Fabrication and falsification

The authors are suggested to be very careful with respect to data analysis, presentation and publication. Duplicate/seemingly duplicate and similar data must be screened very carefully to identify the originality and similarity before submission. For any intentional or unintentional duplication or fabrication of data, authors would be responsible and may attract appropriate sanctions apart from rejection of their published manuscripts.

 

Authorship and acknowledgements

All listed authors must have made a significant scientific contribution for inclusion in the list of authors. This is solely the responsibility of the corresponding author to ensure that all authors have made significant contribution amounting to deserving authorship. Author contributions at the end of the articles are must and should be detailed to specify the contribution of each author. All authors and the editors/journal must approve changes in the authors in the first and subsequent revisions. All others who have contributed but enough to become authors must be acknowledged in the manuscript. Submissions by only the corresponding authors are allowed and the whole responsibility of he originality, data accuracy, accuracy of the references and authors' contributions lies with the corresponding authors of the article.

 

Conflicts of interest

Conflicts of interest or competing interests come into picture when issues other than the core objective of unbiased research come into play at any stage during the planning, execution, writing or publication of the study. All authors are required to declare any conflict or competing interest in the manuscript. In case of declaration of no conflict of interest, authors are assumed to have conducted the study fairly without bias of any nature in conducting, interpreting the results or writing of the manuscript.

All peer reviewers are required to state their conflict of interest before accepting to review the manuscript. In case there are factors that can affect the decision regarding acceptance or rejection of a manuscript, they must be declared by the reviewers.

While the conflicts of interest do not always stop work from being published or prevent someone from being involved in the review process; however, they must be declared. A clear declaration of all possible conflicts – whether they actually had an influence or not – allows others to make informed decisions about the work and its review process. 

Identification of a conflict of interest after the publication may be embarrassing for the authors, reviewers of the editors of the journal and may warrant publication of a corrigendum or re-review the work and take appropriate decisions. While the conflicts may not affect publication, they may affect how readers interpret and use the data.

The following conflicts are most likely to affect the publication and its scientific value:

• Financial funding and other payments, goods and services received or expected by the authors relating to the subject of the work or from an organization with an interest in the outcome of the work
• Affiliations, being employed by, on the advisory board for, or a member of an organization with an interest in the outcome of the work
• Intellectual property patents or trademarks owned by someone or their organization
• Personal, friends, family, relationships, and other close personal connections
• Ideology, beliefs or activism, for example, political or religious, relevant to the work
• Academic competitors or someone whose work is critiqued

 

Conflicts related to authors

 Authors must declare if

• Funding agency could have an influence on the publication.
• If the work was influenced by a specific interest in the outcome of the work
• Affiliation with an organization with a vested interest.
• Were employed or paid by the funder.
• The funders had influence on planning, execution or analysis of data or the decision to publish.

 

Conflicts related to reviewers

Reviewers must declare the following if applicable;

• Have a recent publication or current submission with any author
• Share or recently shared an affiliation with any author
• Collaborate or recently collaborated with any author
• Have a close personal connection to any author
• Have a financial interest in the subject of the work
• Feel unable to be objective

 

Conflict related to editors

Editors must declare conflict of interests in the following manner;

• Have a recent publication or current submission with any author
• Share or recently shared an affiliation with any author
• Collaborate or recently collaborated with any author
• Have a close personal connection to any author
• Have a financial interest in the subject of the work
• Feel unable to be objective in their assessment
• Have not be able to ensure a fair peer review
• Have been biased in their decision-making
• Have reasons that can affect the decision to publish
• The authors have previously discussed their work with the editors.

 

Investigations

Suspected cases of violations of publications ethics policy will be judged by the research integrity team constituted by the chief editor of the journal, and the case may be referred to external peers in case it becomes impossible to arrive at a neutral decision by the editors. We may ask authors to provide all raw data, laboratory records or any other evidence to support their data and arrive at a conclusion in case of disputes.

 

Corrigendum and retractions

According to the decision taken by the research integrity team, a corrigendum may be published in the journal or if the errors are substantial or the breach of conduct is serious, the article may be retracted. The decision of the journal in such cases will be final, irrespective of the agreement of the authors. A notice in this regard will be published on the website of the journal and an explanation from the authors may also be published.

All authors will be asked to agree to the content of the notice.

 

Sanctions

In case it becomes evident that the authors have breached ethics policies in scientific publications, the following may be applied as the case may be:

• Rejection of the manuscript and any other manuscripts submitted by the author(s).
• Not allowing submission for 1-3 years.
• Prohibition from acting as an editor or reviewer.