Ethics and Disclosure

1. Ethical Commitment

The Journal is committed to honesty, accountability, fairness, transparency, and responsible research communication. Authors, editors, reviewers, and the publisher are expected to comply with applicable law, institutional requirements, and recognised standards of scholarly publishing ethics.

2. Authors’ Responsibilities

Authors must submit original work; report methods, data, proofs, computations, results, and limitations accurately; credit sources; ensure all authors approve the manuscript; disclose relevant funding, competing interests, permissions and ethical approvals; respond to editorial queries; and promptly report material errors discovered after publication.

3. Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship should reflect substantial intellectual or scholarly contributions to the conception, design, methods, analysis, interpretation, or drafting/revision, together with approval of the final manuscript and willingness to be accountable. Administrative support or funding acquisition alone does not automatically justify authorship. The corresponding author must ensure all authors approve the manuscript, author order, and submission. Changes after submission require a rationale, written agreement from all affected authors, and editorial approval. Unresolved disputes may be referred to the relevant institution.

4. Plagiarism and Duplicate Publication

Plagiarism, unattributed use of others’ work, inappropriate text recycling, duplicate publication, and misappropriation of ideas are unacceptable. Similarity-checking results are evaluated in context rather than by percentage alone. Authors must disclose related publications, submitted manuscripts, preprints, conference versions, and overlapping datasets and explain the distinct contribution of the submission.

5. Fabrication, Falsification, and Manipulation

Fabrication includes inventing data, results, proofs, or experiments. Falsification includes manipulating data, computational procedures, images, or results to misrepresent the research. The Journal may request source data, code, logs, proof details, or other supporting evidence. Confirmed or unresolved serious concerns may lead to rejection or post-publication action.

6. Mathematical and Computational Integrity

Authors should state assumptions and definitions precisely, provide valid derivations or proofs for principal claims, and ensure numerical examples and simulations are accurately reported. Computational papers should describe algorithms, parameter choices, software and package versions, simulation design, random seeds where relevant, and sufficient implementation details to support verification. Do not claim code, data, or materials are available unless they can actually be accessed.

7. Human Participants, Personal Data, and Animals

Where research involves human participants, personal information, clinical records, or animal data, authors must state relevant ethics approval or exemption, identify the approving body and reference where available, and describe consent and privacy safeguards. Authors must comply with applicable data-protection rules and obtain permission to publish identifiable information where required. Animal research must meet applicable legal and institutional welfare requirements. If approval was not required, explain why.

8. Data, Code, and Reproducibility

Authors should provide data availability and, where relevant, code/software availability statements. Data and code should be deposited in a suitable repository when feasible, with persistent identifiers or links. Restrictions based on privacy, confidentiality, licensing, law, or contracts should be explained. The Journal may request data, code, and computational details to assess a manuscript.

9. Artificial Intelligence

AI tools may assist authors but cannot be authors and cannot assume responsibility for scholarly claims. Authors remain responsible for accuracy, originality, citations, derivations, code, statistical output, and interpretation. Substantive AI use for drafting, data generation or analysis, coding, image creation, or interpretation must be disclosed as required by the Journal. Authors must verify AI-assisted output and must not use AI to fabricate evidence or conceal plagiarism. Routine spelling or grammar assistance may be treated differently under the Journal’s instructions. Editors and reviewers must not upload confidential submissions or sensitive data to public or unsecured AI services. AI must not replace independent scholarly judgement.

10. Competing Interests

Authors must disclose financial and non-financial interests reasonably perceived to influence the work, including employment, consultancy, grants, honoraria, equity, patents, personal relationships, institutional roles, or professional competition. A competing interest does not automatically invalidate research, but it must be disclosed and managed. Editors and reviewers must also disclose conflicts and recuse themselves where impartiality cannot be maintained.

11. Funding

Identify financial and in-kind support, funder names, and grant numbers where applicable. State whether the funder had any role in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, or the decision to submit. If no specific external funding was received, the authors must state so.

12. Declarations in Manuscripts

Include a Declarations section before the references covering: Funding; Competing interests; Author contributions; Data availability and code/software availability; Ethics approval or exemption; Informed consent or consent for publication; AI-use disclosure where required; and permissions for reused third-party material. If a heading is not applicable, state “Not applicable” where the Journal requires the heading to remain. All declarations must be accurate.

13. Reviewer Ethics

Reviewers must assess manuscripts objectively, constructively, and on time. Reports should explain criticism and avoid personal, discriminatory, or defamatory remarks. Reviewers must maintain confidentiality, disclose conflicts, and not use unpublished ideas or results for their own benefit. Review invitations must not be transferred without prior permission. Requests for irrelevant citations or citation padding are inappropriate.

14. Allegations and Corrective Action

The Journal will assess credible allegations fairly and confidentially where practicable. It may seek author responses, consult independent experts, request supporting records, or contact institutions where justified. Outcomes may include rejection, correction, expression of concern, retraction, or referral to an appropriate institution, proportionate to the evidence.

15. Corrections and Retractions

A correction may be appropriate for an error that does not undermine central findings. Retraction may be considered when findings are unreliable, serious misconduct is established, or other substantial grounds mean the article should not be relied upon. An expression of concern may be issued while a significant investigation remains unresolved. Notices should identify the affected article and explain the reason.