Ethical policy for journals

WORLD SCIENTIFIC'S POSITION STATEMENT ON AUTHORSHIP AND AI TOOLS

Authors must be honest in presenting their results and conclusions of their research. Research misconduct is harmful for knowledge. It could mislead other researchers.

Research results
Fabrication, falsification or selective reporting of data with the intent to mislead or deceive is unethical, as is the theft of data or research results from others. The results of research should be recorded and maintained to allow for analysis and review. Following publication, the data should be retained for a reasonable period and made available upon request. Exceptions may be appropriate in certain circumstances in order to preserve privacy, to assure patent protection, or for similar reasons.

Authorship
All those who have made a significant contribution should be given chance to be cited as authors. Other individuals who have contributed to the work should be acknowledged. Articles should include a full list of the current institutional affiliations of all authors, both academic and corporate.

Competing interests
All authors, referees and editors must declare any conflicting or competing interests relating to a given article. Competing interests through their potential influence on behaviour or content or perception may undermine the objectivity, integrity or perceived value of publication.

Peer Review
We are committed to prompt evaluation and publication of fully accepted papers in all World Scientific publications. To maintain a high-quality publication, all submissions undergo a rigorous review process. Characteristics of the peer review process are as follows:

• Simultaneous submissions of the same manuscript to different journals will not be tolerated.
• Manuscripts with contents outside the scope will not be considered for review.
• Papers will be refereed by at least 2 experts as suggested by the editorial board.
• In addition, Editors will have the option of seeking additional reviews when needed. Authors will be informed when Editors decide further review is required.
• All publication decisions are made by the journal's Editors-in-Chief on the basis of the referees' reports. Authors of papers that are not accepted are notified promptly.
• All submitted manuscripts are treated as confidential documents. We expect our Board of Reviewing Editors and reviewers to treat manuscripts as confidential material as well.
• Editors and reviewers involved in the review process should disclose conflicts of interest resulting from direct competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with any of the authors, and remove oneself from cases in which such conflicts preclude an objective evaluation. Privileged information or ideas that are obtained through peer review must not be used for competitive gain.
• Our peer review process is confidential and identities of reviewers cannot be revealed.

Recommended Citations in Peer Review
During the peer review process, or when authors have their work provisionally accepted for publication, they may encounter instances where Handling Editors or peer reviewers ask them to consider citing additional sources to ensure a more comprehensive discussion. These references may include papers published in the same journal. World Scientific strongly opposes the practice of demanding authors to include references solely to boost citation numbers without any scientific justification, commonly known as "coercive citation". Nevertheless, we acknowledge that there are situations where suggesting recent items for inclusion is valid, particularly when they guide readers to relevant discussions related to previous issues of the Journal. The decision to incorporate such references is solely left to the authors and must not be a prerequisite for manuscript acceptance. Authors who believe they are facing undue pressure to include such references are encouraged to contact ethics@wspc.com.

Plagiarism
Reproducing text from other papers without properly crediting the source (plagiarism) or producing many papers with almost the same content by the same authors (self-plagiarism) is not acceptable. Submitting the same results to more than one journal concurrently is unethical. Exceptions are the review articles. Authors may not present results obtained by others as if they were their own. Authors should acknowledge the work of others used in their research and cite publications that have influenced the direction and course of their study.

World Scientific is a member of CrossCheck. All manuscripts submitted will be checked for plagiarism (copying text or results from other sources) and self-plagiarism (duplicating substantial parts of authors' own published work without giving the appropriate references) using the CrossCheck database. Plagiarism is not tolerated. If plagiarism is discovered postpublication, we will follow our guidance outlined in the Corrections and retractions section.

Duplicate submission
Simultaneous submissions of the same manuscript to different journals will not be tolerated. The submitted article will be removed without consideration.

Corrections and retractions
All authors have an obligation to inform and cooperate with journal editors to provide prompt retractions or correction of errors in published works.

• The journal will issue retractions if:
• There are clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) or honest error (e.g. miscalculation or experimental error);
• The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper crossreferencing, permission or justification (i.e. cases of redundant publication);
• It constitutes plagiarism;
• It reports unethical research.
• The journal will issue errata if:
• A small portion of an otherwise reliable publication proves to be misleading (especially because of honest error);
• The author list is incorrect (i.e. a deserving author has been omitted or somebody who does not meet authorship criteria has been included).

Other forms of misconduct include failure to meet clear ethical and legal requirements such as misrepresentation of interests, breach of confidentiality, lack of informed consent and abuse of research subjects or materials. Misconduct also includes improper dealing with infringements, such as attempts to cover up misconduct and reprisals on whistleblowers.

The primary responsibility for handling research misconduct is in the hands of those who employ the researchers. If a possible misconduct is brought to our attention, we will seek advice from the referees and the Editorial Board. If there is the evidence, we will resolve the matter by appropriate corrections in the printed and online journal; by refusing to consider an author's future work, for a given period, and by contacting affected authors and editors of other journals.

Minor misdemeanours may not lead to formal investigations, but are just as damaging given their probable frequency, and should be corrected by teachers and mentors.

Data Sharing
We encourage authors to share the data in their research provided the data sharing conforms to relevant privacy regulations imposed by the studies. Authors are also encouraged to cite data and provide a data availability statement to confirm the presence or absence of shared data.

Human and Animal Rights
If the work involves the use of human subjects, the author should ensure that the work described has been carried out in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans; Uniform Requirements for manuscripts submitted to Biomedical journals. Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.

All animal experiments should comply with the ARRIVE guidelines and should be carried out in accordance with the U.K. Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, 1986 and associated guidelines, EU Directive 2010/63/EU for animal experiments, or the National Institutes of Health guide for the care and use of Laboratory animals (NIH Publications No. 8023, revised 1978) and the authors should clearly indicate in the manuscript that such guidelines have been followed.

• Review Board Approval (for human and animal studies)
  All authors should seek approval to conduct research from an independent local, regional, or national review body (eg. Ethics committee, institutional review board). Approval by a responsible review body does not preclude Editors from forming their own judgement whether the conduct of the research was appropriate.

• Declaration of ethical approval for study
  Authors should declare the ethical approval obtained for conducting this study. This should include the name of the approving body (Institutional Review Board/ Ethics Committee etc.); the approval number; and the date of approval. If the institution does not require ethical approval for reporting individual cases, case series etc or there is a waiver of ethical approval (e.g., basic science studies involving cadaver specimens etc), please state so.

• Declaration of informed consent
  Authors should declare that there is no information (names, initials, hospital identification numbers or photographs) in the submitted manuscript that can be used to identify patients. If there is identifiable information and this information is essential for scientific reasons, written informed consent must be obtained from the patient (parent or guardian) and submitted along with the manuscript.

Clinical Trial Results
In line with the position of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, the journal will not consider results posted in the same clinical trials registry in which primary registration resides to be prior publication if the results posted are presented in the form of a brief structured (less than 500 words) abstract or table. However, divulging results in other circumstances (e.g., investors' meetings) is discouraged and may jeopardise consideration of the manuscript. Authors should fully disclose all posting in registries of results of the same or closely related work.

Reporting Clinical Trials
Randomized controlled trials should be presented according to the CONSORT guidelines. At manuscript submission, authors must provide the CONSORT checklist accompanied by a flow diagram that illustrates the progress of patients through the trial, including recruitment, enrollment, randomization, withdrawal and completion, and a detailed description of the randomization procedure. The CONSORT checklist and template flow diagram are available online.

Registration of Clinical Trials
Registration in a public trials registry is a condition for publication of clinical trials in this journal in accordance with International Committee of Medical Journal Editors recommendations. Trials must register at or before the onset of patient enrolment. The clinical trial registration number should be included at the end of the abstract of the article. A clinical trial is defined as any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects of health outcomes. Health-related interventions include any intervention used to modify a biomedical or health-related outcome (for example drugs, surgical procedures, devices, behavioural treatments, dietary interventions, and process-of-care changes). Health outcomes include any biomedical or health-related measures obtained in patients or participants, including pharmacokinetic measures and adverse events. Purely observational studies (those in which the assignment of the medical intervention is not at the discretion of the investigator) will not require registration.

How to raise a concern
We strive to adhere to the standards guided by the core practices and policies outlined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Anyone who believes that research published by World Scientific has not been carried out in line with these principles should raise their concerns with the relevant editor, or email ethics@wspc.com

Concerns will be addressed by following COPE guidelines where possible.