Ethical Guidelines

This journal is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics and academic integrity. Our editorial policies strictly adhere to the core practices and guidelines established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for all parties involved in the scholarly publishing process—including authors, peer reviewers, editors, and the publisher.

Authorship must be based on substantial intellectual contributions to the work. Each listed author must have meaningfully contributed to: (i) conception and design of the study, or acquisition and analysis of data; (ii) drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and (iii) final approval of the version to be published. All authors must agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

This journal generally accepts manuscripts with up to six (6) authors. Submissions exceeding six authors must include a written justification detailing each contributor’s specific role. Non-author contributors (such as technical assistants, language proofreaders, or layout editors) should be recognized in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must jointly agree on the authorship order prior to submission; additions, deletions, or reordering of authors are not permitted after acceptance.

By submitting a manuscript, authors confirm that the work is original, has not been published previously, and is not under consideration elsewhere. All accepted articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission for any third-party material included in the manuscript.

Plagiarism & Similarity Screening

Plagiarism in any form—including verbatim copying, unattributed paraphrasing, data fabrication, and self-plagiarism (text recycling)—is strictly prohibited. Every submitted manuscript undergoes mandatory similarity screening prior to peer review using iThenticate, Turnitin, and Copyleaks. Submissions exceeding the acceptable similarity threshold or exhibiting unethical citation manipulation will be desk-rejected immediately.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) & AI-Assisted Technologies

Authors may use generative AI or AI-assisted tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Copilot, Grammarly AI) solely to improve language readability and grammar. AI tools must never be used to generate scientific conclusions, fabricate data, or manipulate figures. AI systems cannot be listed as co-authors, and any use of AI assistance must be transparently disclosed in the Acknowledgements or Methods section. Human authors retain full legal and ethical responsibility for the integrity of the manuscript.

All authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose any financial, institutional, commercial, or personal relationships that could inappropriately influence—or be perceived to influence—the evaluation or outcome of the research. Authors must state all potential competing interests in a dedicated Conflict of Interest declaration at the end of the manuscript; if none exist, authors should explicitly state: “The authors declare no conflict of interest.”

Authors must fully disclose all sources of financial support, institutional sponsorship, or research grants that funded the study, including official grant numbers where applicable, in a dedicated Funding statement at the end of the manuscript. If the research received no external funding, authors must state that the study was self-funded or supported internally without external grant allocation.

Studies involving human participants, personal survey data, or human tissue must confirm that the research protocol was approved by a recognized institutional ethics committee or Institutional Review Board (IRB) and conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Participant anonymity must be strictly preserved in all text, tables, and figures. Documented informed consent must be obtained from all participants prior to study inclusion and explicitly stated in the manuscript.

Manuscripts passing initial editorial and similarity screening are evaluated through a rigorous double-blind peer review process, where the identities of both authors and reviewers remain strictly confidential. Each manuscript is assessed by at least two (2) independent reviewers whose academic credentials are verified via ORCID, Scopus, Google Scholar, or institutional records. While authors may suggest potential reviewers or request reasonable exclusions, final reviewer selection rests solely with the handling editor.

Invited reviewers are given one (1) week to accept or decline an invitation and two (2) weeks upon acceptance to submit their evaluation via the structured OJS review form, selecting a formal recommendation (Accept, Minor Revision, Major Revision, or Reject).

The Editor-in-Chief (EiC) holds ultimate responsibility for all publication decisions, including manuscript acceptance, rejection, post-publication corrections, and retractions. Editorial evaluations are based exclusively on scientific rigor, originality, clarity, and alignment with the journal’s scope—completely independent of commercial considerations or author nationality, gender, or institutional affiliation.

Editors must recuse themselves from handling any submission in which they have a familial, institutional, or financial conflict of interest. If an author reasonably disputes a reviewer’s critique, the EiC will evaluate the appeal and may appoint an independent adjudicating reviewer.

Any reader, author, or reviewer raising an ethical concern regarding a submitted or published manuscript—or wishing to file an editorial appeal—should contact the Editor-in-Chief via the Contact Information page (concerns involving the EiC are escalated to the Managing/Executive Editor). All allegations of misconduct are investigated systematically following official COPE Flowcharts, which may include requesting raw data from authors, consulting independent experts, or notifying the authors’ home institutions and funding bodies.

To preserve the integrity of the permanent scholarly record while addressing post-publication feedback, this journal distinguishes between two categories of amendments:

• Minor Typographical Adjustment: Formatting or typographical slips that do not alter scientific meaning, data interpretation, or bibliographic metadata may be corrected directly in the published galley.
• Formal Correction (Erratum / Corrigendum): Substantive errors affecting specific figures, equations, or author metadata—without invalidating the study’s core conclusions—are rectified by publishing a linked formal Correction notice with its own DOI and updating relevant indexing databases.

In strict accordance with the COPE Retraction Guidelines, a published article will be formally retracted if clear evidence demonstrates that:

• The findings are unreliable due to data fabrication, falsification, or severe methodological calculation error.
• The work constitutes substantial plagiarism, redundant/duplicate publication, or unauthorized use of third-party data.
• The study involved unethical research practices, lacked required ethics approval, or compromised peer review integrity.

When a retraction is issued, the original metadata and Crossref DOI remain permanently accessible for historical transparency, with the article title prefixed by “RETRACTED:” and linked to a formal Retraction Notice stating the party initiating the retraction and the specific grounds for action.