Plagiarism, Data Fabrication and Image Manipulation

Plagiarism is not acceptable in UK Scientific Publishing Limited journals. Plagiarism includes copying text, ideas, images, or data from another source, even from your own publications, without giving credit to the original source.

Reuse of text that is copied from another source must be between quotation marks and the original source must be cited. If a study's design or the manuscript's structure or language has been inspired by previous studies, these studies must be explicitly cited.

All submissions are checked for plagiarism using the industry standard software Thenticate. If plagiarism is detected during the peer review process, the manuscript may be rejected. If plagiarism is detected after publication, an investigation will take place and action taken in accordance with our policies.

Image files must not be manipulated or adjusted in any way that could lead to misinterpretation of the information provided by the original image. Irregular manipulation includes 1) introduction, enhancement, moving, or removing features from the original image, 2) grouping of images that should obviously be presented separately (e.g., from different parts of the same gel, or from different gels), or 3) modifying the contrast, brightness or color balance to obscure, eliminate or enhance some information.

If irregular image manipulation is identified and confirmed during the peer review process, we may reject the manuscript. If irregular image manipulation is identified and confirmed after publication, we may correct or retract the paper.

Data presented must be original and not inappropriately selected, manipulated, enhanced, or fabricated. This includes 1) exclusion of data points to enhance the significance of conclusions, 2) fabrication of data, 3) selection of results that support a particular conclusion at the expense of contradictory data, 4) deliberate selection of analysis tools or methods to support a particular conclusion (including p-hacking). We strongly recommend preregistration of methods and analysis.

Conflict of Interest Policy

Author’s Declaration of Conflict of Interest

According to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, “Authors should avoid entering into agreements with study sponsors, both for-profit and non-profit, that interfere with authors’ access to all of the study’s data or that interfere with their ability to analyze and interpret the data and to prepare and publish manuscripts independently when and where they choose”.

Authors must identify and declare any personal circumstances or interests that may be perceived as inappropriately influencing the representation or interpretation of the reported research results. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include but are not limited to financial interests (such as membership, employment, consultancies, stocks/shares ownership, honoraria, grants or other funding, paid expert testimonies and patent-licensing arrangements) and non-financial interests (such as personal or professional relationships, affiliations, and personal beliefs).

Any role of the funding sponsors in the design of the study, in the collection, analyses or interpretation of data, in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results must be declared in this section. If there is no role, please state, “The funding sponsors had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, and in the decision to publish the results”.

Authors can disclose potential conflicts of interest via the online submission system during the submission process. The corresponding author must include a summary statement in the manuscript in a separate section “Conflicts of Interest” placed just before the reference list. The statement should reflect all the collected potential conflicts of interest disclosures in the form.

See below for examples of disclosures:

Conflicts of Interest: Author A has received research grants from Company A. Author B has received a speaker honorarium from Company X and owns stocks in Company Y. Author C has been involved as a consultant and expert witness in Company Z. Author D is the inventor of patent X.

If no potential perceived conflicts exist, the authors should state:

Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

UK Scientific Publishing Limited acknowledges the importance of publishing research regarding smoking cessation or reduction in tobacco use. While we accept submissions on these topics, UK Scientific Publishing Limited does not publish studies funded partially or fully by the tobacco industry. Other privately funded studies—for example, those associated with the pharmaceutical or food industries—must clearly state the role of the funder. This statement should cover aspects related to how the study topic was selected, the experimental design, and the collection and analysis of data.

Reviewer’s Declaration of Conflict of Interest

Assigned reviewers should declare competing interests arising from dealing with and reviewing the assigned submission. Since we adopt double-blind peer review in most of our journals and assume that the author identity has been completely masked to the best of our effort, the most important question that could reasonably be perceived as interfering with the reviewer’s peer review of the manuscript is: Could he/she profit or be negatively impacted financially by the peer review of the assigned manuscript?

If the reviewer’s answer to this question is “yes”, he/she should immediately inform the handling editor.

Editorial Board Members, Collection Editors and Editors’s Declaration of Conflict of Interest

Editorial Board Members, Collection Editors and Editors are required to declare any competing interests and may be excluded from the peer review process if a competing interest exists.

In addition, they should exclude themselves from handling manuscripts in cases where there is a competing interest. This may include – but is not limited to – having previously published with one or more of the authors, and sharing the same institution as one or more of the authors.

Where an Editorial Board Member, Collection Editor and Editor is on the author list they must declare this in the competing interests section on the submitted manuscript. If they are an author or have any other competing interest regarding a specific manuscript, another member of the Editorial Board, Collection Editor or Editor will be assigned to assume responsibility for overseeing peer review. These submissions are subject to the exact same review process as any other manuscript.

Editorial Board Members are welcome to submit papers to the journal. These submissions are not given any priority over other manuscripts, and Editorial Board Member status has no bearing on editorial consideration.

Editorial Staff’s Declaration of Conflict of Interest

All UK Scientific Publishing Limited journal editorial staff are required to declare to their employer any interests — financial or otherwise — that might influence, or be perceived to influence, their editorial practices. Failure to do so is a disciplinary offence. UK Scientific Publishing Limited has a strict policy of editorial independence in individual acceptance decisions and editorial standards of quality and significance should never be compromised. While some editors are financially incentivized to achieve journal growth, we are clear in our internal policies and individuals’ contracts or formal objectives that this should be achieved by ensuring submissions of sufficient quality and never by compromising editorial standards.

Types of Conflicts of Interest

Personal or Collaborative

Neither Reviewers nor Editors should take part in the review of manuscripts submitted by authors who are affiliated with their own institution, by authors who are research or project collaborators, or by any authors who are personal friends, family members, or spouses. Reviewers or Editors should not take part in the review or decision-making process of manuscripts submitted by authors who currently represent or have represented a mentor or mentee role or relationship in the past, or those with whom they have collaborated or coauthored in the last 3 years.

Financial or Professional Conflicts

Financial conflicts include any professional or business relationships, financial or commercial interests, or other competing interests that may be viewed as potentially introducing bias into the review process. Neither Reviewers nor Editors should receive professional or personal benefits, salary, board membership, funding or grants from a company or companies with interests in the reported results or other aspects of the manuscript content, honoraria, or hold any other interests in a company whose product is discussed in the article, or intellectual property rights such as patents, royalties, and copyright as a result of their contribution. Reviewers and Editors should not take part in the review or decision-making process of manuscripts where conflicts of interest that may be viewed as potentially introducing bias are present.

Confidentiality and Anonymity

Reviewers and Editors must keep the content of the manuscript, including the abstract, confidential. Reviewers must inform the Editorial Office if they would like a student or colleague to complete the review on their behalf.

UK Scientific Publishing Limited journals perform double-blind peer review. Reviewers should be careful not to reveal their identity to the authors, either in their comments or in metadata for reports submitted in Microsoft Word or PDF format.

Other Conflicts

Any other conflicts of interest, either real or potentially viewed as influencing the outcome of peer review and the decision-making process, should be declared. Reviewers and Editors should evaluate the manuscript’s merit, originality and appropriateness for the journal in accordance with UK Scientific Publishing Limited editorial guidelines. UK Scientific Publishing Limited aims to build journals that are diverse and inclusive, and discrimination based on race, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, religion, country of origin, physical ability, or socio-economic status has no place in UK Scientific Publishing Limited journals. Reviewers and Editors must disclose personal biases that may affect peer review.

In the event of a conflict of interest, alternative Reviewers and/or Editors will be found. If an Editor submits a manuscript to the journal, their submission will be handled by other Editors who do not have a conflict of interest.

Authorship

UK Scientific Publishing Limited follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines which state that in order to qualify for authorship of a manuscript, authors must meet all four criteria:

• Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
• Drafting the work or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content;
• Final approval of the version to be published;
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Those who contributed to the work but do not qualify for authorship should be listed in the acknowledgments. More detailed guidance on authorship is given by ICMJE.

Different disciplines adopt their own criteria, for example, the ICMJE guidelines are well-known in biomedical fields, the APA (American Psychological Association) guidelines are used in Psychology, the EuChemS (European Chemical Society) guidelines are adopted in Chemistry, whereas in the arts, humanities and social sciences, publications by single authors are more common. However, the minimum recognized requirements for authorship are making a substantial contribution to the research and being accountable for the work undertaken (COPE Discussion Document: Authorship).

Any change to the author list during the editorial process or after publication should be approved by all authors, including any who have been removed. We reserve the right to request evidence of authorship, and changes to authorship after acceptance will be made at the discretion of UK Scientific Publishing Limited.

Author Contributions

For complete transparency, all submitted manuscripts should include an author contributorship statement that specifies the work of each author. For research articles with several authors, a short paragraph specifying their individual contributions must be provided.

The following statements should be used: Conceptualization, X.X. and Y.Y.; methodology, X.X.; software, X.X.; validation, X.X., Y.Y. and Z.Z.; formal analysis, X.X.; investigation, X.X.; resources, X.X.; data curation, X.X.; writing—original draft preparation, X.X.; writing—review and editing, X.X.; visualization, X.X.; supervision, X.X.; project administration, X.X.; funding acquisition, Y.Y. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Please refer to the CRediT taxonomy for an explanation of the terms. Authorship must be limited to those who have contributed substantially to the work reported.

The corresponding author should act as a point of contact between the editor and the other authors, keep co-authors informed, and involve them in major decisions about the publication.

Joint first authors can be indicated by the inclusion of the statement “X and X contributed equally to this paper” in the manuscript. The roles of the equal authors should also be adequately disclosed in the contributorship statement.

For review articles, where individual statements are less applicable, a statement should be included that clarifies who was responsible for the ideation, who performed the literature search and/or data analysis, and who drafted and revised the work.

For articles that are principally based on a student’s dissertation or thesis, UK Scientific Publishing Limited recommends that the student is listed as principal author.

Consortium/Group Authorship

If authorship is retained by the consortium or group, the consortium or group should be listed as an author. Individual consortium/group author members listed in the author byline must qualify for authorship according to ICMJE guidelines.

Where work is presented by the author(s) on behalf of a consortium or group, this should be clarified in the author list, for example, “Author A on behalf of XXX Consortium/Group”. The consortium/group will not retain authorship and will only appear in the author list.

If provided, the consortium/group members will be listed in a separate section at the end of the article in Acknowledgments, Appendix or Supplementary Materials.

Authorship and the Use of AI or AI-Assisted Technologies

UK Scientific Publishing Limited follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) position statement when it comes to the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted technology in manuscript preparation. Tools such as ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs) do not meet authorship criteria and thus cannot be listed as authors on manuscripts.

In situations where AI or AI-assisted tools have been used in the preparation of a manuscript, this must be appropriately declared with sufficient details at submission via the cover letter. Furthermore, authors are required to be transparent about the use of these tools and disclose details of how the AI tool was used within the “Materials and Methods” section, in addition to providing the AI tool’s product details within the “Acknowledgments” section.

Authors are fully responsible for the originality, validity, and integrity of the content of their manuscript, including any material contributed by AI or AI-assisted tools, and must ensure, through careful review, that this content complies with all UK Scientific Publishing Limited’s publication ethics policies.

Deceased Authors

If a manuscript is submitted with a deceased author included in the authorship, or if an author passes away during peer review, the corresponding author, or co-authors, should inform the editorial office. If the deceased author was a corresponding author, the authorship group should nominate a co-author for this role. The corresponding author should confirm the contribution of the deceased author and any potential conflicts of interest. Upon publication, a note will be added under the author list.

Changes to Authorship

Authors are expected to carefully consider authorship before manuscript submission. Any change to the author list should be made during the editorial process, before manuscript acceptance. Authorship changes, including any addition, removal, or rearrangement of author names will require the approval of all authors including any to be removed. To request any change in authorship, the journal must receive a completed authorship change form that includes the signatures of all authors, and provides a reason for the change. Any changes to authorship requested after manuscript acceptance will result in a delay in publication. If the manuscript has already been published, requests for a change in authorship will be evaluated and require the publication of a Correction. We reserve the right to request evidence of authorship, and changes to authorship after acceptance will be made at the discretion of UK Scientific Publishing Limited.

Authorship Disputes

UK Scientific Publishing Limited follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines when it comes to resolving authorship disputes that may occur either during processing or post-publication. Here, COPE guidelines clearly state that Journals are not in a position to adjudicate on appropriate authorship contributions (https:/publicationethics.org/resources/discussion-documents/authorship) and that disputed authorship is not usually grounds for retraction when “there is no reason to doubt the validity of the findings” (https://publicationethics.org/retraction-guidelines).

In situations where disputes cannot be settled by the affected parties, Journals will reach out to an appropriate Institution or Governing Body for final adjudication. UK Scientific Publishing Limited reserves the right to amend authorship lists in line with Institution or Governing Body recommendations.

Intellectual Property i.a. Copyright, Patent and Licensing

For all articles published in UK Scientific Publishing Limited journals, the copyright is retained by the authors. Articles are licensed under an open access Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, meaning that anyone may download and read the paper for free. In addition, the article may be reused and quoted provided that the original published version is cited. These conditions allow for maximum use and exposure of the work, while ensuring that the authors receive proper credit.

In exceptional circumstances, articles may be licensed differently. If you have a specific condition (such as one linked to funding) that does not allow this license, please mention this to the Editorial Office of the journal at submission. Exceptions will be granted at the discretion of the publisher.

For previously published content, it is essential that prior to submission, authors obtain permission to reproduce any published material (figures, tables, text, etc.) that does not fall into the public domain, or for which they do not hold the copyright.

Permission is required for:

• Your own work published by other publishers and for which you did not retain copyright.
• Substantial extracts from the work of anyone's works or a series of work.
• Use of tables, graphs, charts, schemes and artworks if they are unaltered or slightly modified.
• Photographs for which you do not hold copyright.
• Permission is not required for:
• Reconstruction of your own table with data already published elsewhere. Please note that in this case, you must cite the source of the data in the form of either "Data from..." or "Adapted from...".
• Very short quotes are considered fair use and therefore do not require permission.
• Graphs, charts, schemes and artwork that is completely redrawn by the authors and significantly changed beyond recognition do not require permission. However, you may need to check the copyright permissions of any underlying data.

Once you have obtained permission, the copyright holder may give you instructions on the form of acknowledgment to be followed. Alternatively, we recommend following the style: “Reproduced with permission from [author], [book/journal title]; published by [publisher], [year]”.

Patents

UK Scientific Publishing Limited journals provide fast, rigorous peer review and rapid publication following acceptance. Accepted articles are immediately available online, complete with a DOI, and published on an ongoing basis regardless of their issue’s date of release. Publication, peer review and editorial procedures, proofreading and copyediting, and any other processes will not be postponed for pending issues relating to patent applications or intellectual property. Authors are responsible for ensuring that all patent applications and intellectual property issues are resolved prior to publication. Any patent applications or registrations should be declared in accordance with UK Scientific Publishing Limited’s Conflicts of Interest Policy.

Citation Policies

Authors should ensure that where the material is taken from other sources (including their own published writing), the source is clearly cited and that appropriate permission is obtained.

Authors should not engage in excessive self-citation of their own work.

Authors should not copy references from other publications if they have not read the cited work.

Authors should not preferentially cite their own or their friends’, peers’, or institution’s publications.

Authors should not cite advertisements or advertorial material.

In accordance with COPE guidelines, we expect that “original wording taken directly from publications by other researchers should appear in quotation marks with the appropriate citations”. This condition also applies to an author’s own work. COPE has produced a discussion document on citation manipulation with recommendations for best practices.

Comments and Complaints

Readers who have concerns or complaints about published papers should first contact the corresponding author to attempt a resolution directly, before contacting the Editorial Office.

The Editorial Office may be contacted in cases where it is not appropriate to contact the authors, if the authors were not responsive, or if the concerns were not resolved. The Editorial Office will coordinate with the complainant, author/s and Editors-in-Chief or Editorial Board members for the investigation, remedy or resolution of any concerns or complaints.

Complaints, comments, or update requests relating to scholarly validity, ethical or legal aspects of either the paper or its review process will be investigated further where appropriate. All complaints, comments or update requests relating to published papers are investigated by the Editorial Office with the support of the Editorial Board and final approval by the Editor-in-Chief. For ethical concerns, final decisions are made by the Editor-in-Chief or Editorial Board members who are supported by the Editorial Office to promote adherence to core principles of publication ethics as expressed by the COPE. Other persons and institutions will be consulted as necessary, including university authorities, or experts in the field. Legal counsel may be sought where the complaint has legal implications.

Personal comments or criticisms will not be entertained. All complaints are investigated, including anonymous complaints. Complainants may request that the Editorial Office handle their complaint confidentially and the Editorial Office, any Editors-in-Chief or other Editorial Board members will attempt to do so insofar as is appropriate and in accordance with our internal procedures.

Decisions about Corrections, Comments and Replies, Expressions of Concerns, or Retractions resulting from an investigation are made by Editors-in-Chief, or Editorial Board members, and communicated to authors. All updates are required to follow our policy on Updating Published Papers.

If a complaint is not considered to be substantiated, then further communication will only be considered if additional information evidencing concerns is presented.

Complainants might not be updated about the status of an investigation until a final decision has been reached, however, complainants will be notified if an update is published. The Editorial Office and Editorial Board members are under no obligation to present further details. Communication will be ended where it is not considered cordial or respectful. Readers with complaints or concerns should be aware that investigations take time to conduct.

When raising concerns to the Editorial Office, please use the Contact Form or contact details below, and, in addition to details about the paper, please also include details of the complaint, its scholarly, scientific or academic validity, a summary of the main points and any other issues, details of any correspondence already had with the authors and a statement clarifying any actual, potential or perceived conflicts of interest.

Updating Published Papers

UK Scientific Publishing Limited recognizes our responsibility to correct scientifically relevant errors, or ethical issues that have been brought to our attention. To offer transparency regarding any changes for our authors and readers, we have the following standardized criteria in place for updates to any of our published papers.

Minor errors

Minor errors that do not affect readability or meaning (e.g., spelling, grammatical, spacing errors) do not qualify for an update, regardless of when or by whom the error was introduced.

Metadata errors

Requests to correct errors in a paper’s metadata (e.g., title, author name, abstract) can be completed, if deemed by the Editorial Office to be a reasonable request. Once approved, the paper will be updated and re-published on our website. Following this, all relevant indexing databases will be notified to ensure that the database versions have also been revised.

Corrections

Requests to correct errors in the following cases can be completed, but must also include the publication of a Correction notice:

• Errors that could affect the scientific interpretation. For example:
  • error in a misleading section of an otherwise reliable publication
  • error in data or interpretation (that does not affect final conclusions)
• Scientifically relevant formatting changes. For example:
  • missing or unclear figures/tables
• Addition or removal of an author from authorship list (including addition or removal of entire affiliations)
• Addition or removal of an entire reference
• Addition or removal of a significant amount of text within the back matter. For example:
  • funding, author contributions, acknowledgments

Once the update request has been approved, the paper will be updated and re-published on our website, along with the publication of a Correction. This notice is a separate publication that links to the updated paper, but is published in the most current Issue of the journal.

The Correction serves the purpose of notifying all readers that a significant change has occurred to the paper, and that the revised version is now available on the website. Following these updates, all relevant indexing databases will be notified to ensure that the database versions have also been revised.

Author Name Change Policy

Some authors might wish to change their names following publication. In such cases, UK Scientific Publishing Limited will update and republish the article and re-deliver the updated metadata to the appropriate indexing databases (please note that all updates are dependent upon the policies of the databases). Our teams are aware that name changes can be sensitive and/or private in nature, for a variety of reasons that may include alignment with gender identity, marriage, divorce, or religious conversion. Therefore, to protect author’s identity, a Correction will not be published and co-authors will not be notified. Authors should contact the journal’s Editorial Office with their name change request.

Retractions

Sometimes a paper needs to be retracted from the body of research literature. This could be due to inadvertent errors made during the research process, gross ethical breaches, fabrication of data, large amounts of plagiarism, or other reasons. Such articles threaten the integrity of scientific records and need to be retracted.

UK Scientific Publishing Limited follows the recommendations of the COPE's Retraction guidelines.

If a Retraction is published, the original publication is amended with a “RETRACTED” watermark, but will still be available on the journal’s website for future reference. However, retracted articles should not be cited and used for further research, as they cannot be relied upon. Retractions are published using the same authorship and affiliation as the paper being retracted so that the notice and the original retracted paper can be properly found by readers within indexing databases. The Retraction notice will also be published in the current Issue of the journal. Partial Retractions might be published in cases where results are only partially wrong.

A paper will only be completely removed from UK Scientific Publishing Limited’s website and relevant indexing databases in very exceptional circumstances, where leaving it online would constitute an illegal act or be likely to lead to significant harm.

Borders and Territories

Potential disputes over borders and territories may have particular relevance for authors in describing their research or in an author or editor correspondence address, and should be respected. Content decisions are an editorial matter and where there is a potential or perceived dispute or complaint, the editorial team will attempt to find a resolution that satisfies the parties involved.

UK Scientific Publishing Limited stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.