Ethics

For Authors

1. Authors should observe high standards with respect to publication ethics as set out by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Falsification or fabrication of data, plagiarism, including duplicate publication of the authors’ own work without proper citation, and misappropriation of the work are all unacceptable practices. Any cases of ethical misconduct are treated very seriously and will be dealt with in accordance with the COPE guidelines.

2. AMLC (Academic Manuscript Literature Checking) developed by CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure) is used to detect potential plagiarism. The duplicate rate (total amount) should be less than 10%. Authors should guarantee the manuscript involves no multiple submission.

3. Authors should guarantee that the submitted article does not involve confidential breach and infringement related to intellectual property rights.

4. Forgery refers to data or conclusions that are not obtained from experiments or research, but are forged and tampered by authors. Date forgery is strictly prohibited.

5. An author should be a person who participates in topic selection, study design, data analysis and manuscript drafting. The order of authors shall be determined before submission and shall not be changed thereafter. Other contributors for the manuscript should be listed in acknowledgement. “Gift author” is strictly prohibited. The Authors Contribution Form should be signed and provided when making submission.

6. 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 Statement of Competing Interests along with the manuscript.

For Reviewers

1. Reviewers shall guarantee that they review the manuscripts accurately, objective and fairly on the basis of scientific quality. They should use their professional knowledge and ability to review the innovation, scientificity and practicability of manuscripts, and give a fair evaluation on whether the research method is appropriate, whether the scientific research design is reasonable, whether the results and conclusions are accurate, and whether confidential issues is involved, so as to help the editors select manuscripts. They should put forward detailed comments for problems of manuscripts to help authors make revision.

2. Reviewers should respect the research achievements of authors and avoid reviewing manuscripts with competing interests. The review will only be based on academical standards instead of personal reasons. The selection of manuscripts shall not be affected by authors’ race, gender, religion, belief, social status, qualifications and authority. The review result should be clearly stated with sufficient arguments and facts.

3. Reviewers shall complete comments on manuscripts and feed back to the editorial office within the specified time. In case of any difficulty, the editorial office shall be informed in time.

4. Reviewers shall keep confidential the content of the manuscripts strictly, and shall not release or discuss the manuscripts to others, nor use or publish the data, opinions and conclusions of the manuscripts.

5. All review comments and information must be kept confidential and not used for personal purposes.

6. Reviewers should avoid processing manuscripts for which they have competing interests.

For Editors

1. Editors shall strictly implement laws and national regulations, follow academic and publishing ethical standards, and maintain research integrity. Editors should process manuscripts in a timely and fair manner to keep the publishing plan and article quality.

2. Editors shall respect the research results of authors and comments of reviewers, maintain the authentic records of the review, and keep confidential the data in all aspects of review and revision. Editors and editorial staff shall not disclose any information related to the submitted manuscripts except for providing necessary information to correspondence authors, reviewers and editorial committee members as appropriate.

3. Editors shall select articles fairly, and the acceptance or rejection of articles can only be based on originality, significance, clarity of the article and whether it conforms to the aim and scope of the journal.

4. Editors should encourage academic debate and are obliged to answer questions raised by authors against review comments and results.

5. Editors shall have obligation to investigate academic misconduct and communicate with authors. Once there is an appeal from authors, editors shall process the case timely. If necessary, editors shall publish corrections, clarifications, withdrawals or apologies in a timely manner. Editors have right to trace back the responsibility of authors and reviewers for their academic misconduct.

6. Editors shall protect the information submitted by authors and the identity information of reviewers and other relevant personnel in the editorial office during the blind review.

7. Editors should avoid processing manuscripts for which they have competing interests.

Intellectual Property and Open Science

The editorial office strives to respect the protection of intellectual property and requires editors, authors and reviewers to do so. Any potential infringement should be avoided. Third-party infringement to the intellectual property of the journal is prohibited. On the premise of intellectual property protection, the journal encourages the practice of open science. Authors are encouraged to publish or share their research data whenever appropriate. The data for sharing may include original data, observation records, experimental results, etc. The journal also encourages the sharing of software, code, models, algorithms, protocols, methods and other useful materials. Authors can upload the materials above to an accessible third-party repository and make a proper citation or add a link at the end of the article.

Handling of Academic Misconduct

The journal editorial committee will discuss and determine whether there is an academic misconduct and what is the punishment. Should forgery of data, multiple submission or plagiarism be found, the manuscript will be rejected immediately and the journal will not accept submission from the authors involved in two years. An announcement shall be published and the institutes of the authors shall be notified. All consequences shall be borne by authors. For other types of academic misconduct, once verified, the case will be handled according to national standards and international guidelines, depending on the specific circumstances.