CONTENTS

Submission checklist

Article Type Specifications

Author Instructions for manuscript format

Manuscript Format

Structure of the Manuscript

Title Page

Subdivisions

Introduction

Materials and methods

Results and discussion

Conclusions

Acknowledgments

Figures

Tables

REFERENCES

Cover Letter to the editor

Submitting Paper

Article-processing and publishing charges

ETHICAL GUIDELINES AND POLICIES FOR AUTHORS

Publications ethics statement

Plagiarism, data fabrication, and image manipulation

Multiple, redundant and concurrent submission

Submission declaration and verification

Peer Review

Declaration of conflict of interest

Permissions

Research involving animals and human subjects

Contributors/authorships

Changes to authorship

Copyright

License

Open access

Use of inclusive language

Funding source

Sharing articles

Article withdrawal, retraction, and correction

Replies/responses and comments to published work

Rejected article appeal

Patient consents

Privacy

Reporting Standards

Acknowledgment of Sources

Privacy of Participants

Data retention and access

Submission checklist

You can use this list to carry out a final check of your submission before you send it to the journal for review. Please check the relevant section in this Guide for Authors for more details.

Before submission of your manuscript, make sure:

• Read the aims and scope section of AJLS for the suitability of your manuscript.
• Use Microsoft word for manuscript preparation.
• To read ethical guidelines of AJLS and consider these guidelines.
• Checked for plagiarism.
• All authors have given approval for submission of the manuscript to AJLS.
• The manuscript has not been previously published, in whole or in part, and that it is not under consideration by any other journal.
• All authors agree on the order (sequence) of author names in the manuscript.
• All authors certify that all experiments involving (if any) animals or human subjects were designed and performed with the compliance with relevant laws regarding human care and the use of subjects.
• If any data (table or figure) is reproduced, written permission is taken from the owner/publisher.
• If there is any conflict of interest, it is declared in the statement of conflict of interest.
• All authors have read and agreed to author guidelines and editorial policies

Confirm the following items are present in the manuscript:

One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:

• E-mail address
• Full postal address

All essential files have been uploaded:

Manuscript:

• Include keywords
• All figures (include relevant captions)
• All tables (including titles, description, footnotes)
• Confirm all figure and table citations in the text match the files provided

Further attentions:

• The manuscript has been 'spell-checked' and 'grammar checked
• All references cited in the Reference List are cited in the text

Supplementary data

Supplementary data (materials) may be published with your article. If supplementary data is required or author wants to publish supplementary data, they should submit supplementary data with proper caption.

Article Type Specifications

Author Instructions for manuscript format

Manuscript Format

Structure of Manuscript

Full length Review and Mini Review

Title, authors, affiliations, abstract, keywords, introduction, other sections (depends on each review), conclusions, acknowledgments, references, tables and figures.

Full length Research Paper and Short Communication

Title, authors, affiliations, abstract, keywords, introduction, materials and methods, results and discussion, conclusions, acknowledgments, references, tables and figures.

Title Page

Title: A short, informative title and of 150 characters or less. Avoid abbreviations. It must be Bold, 14 size font size and Calibri font.

Author names and affiliation: Complete name of author (s), spell check names. Write affiliation of authors below author names with a lower case superscript letter. Italic and Calibri font size 11.

Corresponding author: Corresponding author must be identified with the asterisk. Ensure email address is given for correspondence with corresponding author.

Present/permanent address: If an author moved from the place where originally work was done, a present address may be given as a footnote to that author’s name. Font size 11.

Abstract: A brief and factual abstract is needed. Abstract should be 100-250 words. Abstract must state aim of the study, main results and major conclusions. Abstract should be able to stand alone. Try to avoid references in abstract. Calibri Font size should be 11.

Keywords: Provide 3-6 keywords. Avoid “and” in keywords. Use detectable and established keywords.

Subdivisions

Divide your article into clearly defined and numbered sections. Subsections should be numbered 1, then subsection 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, ), 2. then subsection 2.1, etc. (the abstract is not included in section numbering). Example:
1. INTRODUCTION
2. MATERIALS AND METHODS
  2.1 Materials
  2.2 Sampling
3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4. CONCLUSIONS

Introduction

Provide adequate background of the study and present aims of the study. Avoid summary of results or detailed literature.

Materials and methods

Complete details must be provided for reproducibility. If a method is already published, only reference is enough.

Results and discussion

A combined results and discussion section is appropriate to avoid repetition of results. Only relevant results should be provided. Discussion explains the importance of results in context of existing literature.

Conclusions

The main conclusions drawn from results should be presented in a short Conclusions section (Maximum 100-250 words). Conclusions must not contain references.

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments section must be added after conclusions. Mention here those who have helped in research funding, in write up manuscript and in research.

Figures

Each figure/illustration must have caption, it must not be attached with the figure. In text figure must be denoted as Fig.1. Figure caption must be denoted as “Fig.1.”. Maximum number of figures must be 8. Multiple figures can be expressed as one figure. Figures must be placed at the end of manuscript after references. All figures must be of high quality.

Tables

Maximum number of tables allowed is 8. In text table must be denoted as Table 1. Tables must be placed at the end of manuscript. All tables must be of high quality.

References

Based on CSE style manual 7th edition. Style can be downloaded from endnote styles. Each reference is numbered and sequentially ordered as they appear in the text. In text, reference numbers should be written in line with text. Published conference abstracts, numbered patents and proceedings may be included in reference list. A DOI can be used to cite and link to electronic articles where an article is in-press and full citation details are not yet known, but the article is available online.

References in Text:

The style advocated by CSE suggests that numbers appear in superscript, and appear before punctuation marks (commas or periods).

Example:

These infections may arise from the external auditory meatus in otitis externa, or from the middle ear cavity in otitis media ¹. While gram negative bacilli are commonly associated with chronic otitis media particularly Pseudomonas and Proteus sp. ^2,3. The effect of CEBs is much better for the mitigation of biofilm compared to that reported by Celin et al. ⁴. Kim et al. ⁵ demonstrated that the bacterial strain AH4 degraded.

List of references

Number the references in the list in the order in which they appear in the text.

Article Reference:

1. Xu H, Liu Y. Reduced microbial attachment by d-amino acid-inhibited AI-2 and EPS production. Water research 2011;45(17):5796-5804.

Book Reference:

2. Andrews K, Miller K, Hoschler O, Stanford P, Hardelid M, Zambon N. Chapter: Book Name. year of publication; volume: pages. Publisher

Website Reference:

References to websites should mention authors (if available), title of the cited page, full URL, and at date accessed.

Conference proceeding:

Vivian VL, editor. Child abuse and neglect: a medical community response. 1st AMA National Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect; 1984 Mar 30-31; Chicago. Chicago: American Medical Assoc; 1985. 256 p

Cover Letter to Editor

A word template can be downloaded here

A Signed cover letter in Word or PDF format or scanned copy must be uploaded separately with the manuscript. Cover letter must include:

• Title of manuscript
• Authors Names and contribution of each author in paper
• Novelty statement
• Any conflict of interest
• A Statement that It is certified that this manuscript has not been previously published, in whole or in part, and that it is not under consideration by any other journal .
• All authors certify that all experiments involving animals or human subjects were designed and performed with the compliance with relevant laws regarding human care and use of subjects.
• All authors have read and agree to author guidelines and editorial policies
• All authors agree its submission to the Abasyn Journal of life Sciences
• Sign of the corresponding author with name and affiliation

Submitting Paper

The manuscript files should be submitted online by uploading at the Submit Manuscript. If one finds difficulty in uploading, then one can contact the journal staff. It is mandatory to include a signed covering letter to the editor.

Response to reviewers’ comments or responses to the initial check can be submitted with the revised manuscript.

Files to be uploaded:

1. Cover Letter* (Download word template)
2. Title page (title, author names, affiliations, corresponding author email) (download template)
3. Manuscript (article) file* (Download Word template for Research Paper) (Template of Review paper)
4. Conflict of interest file* (Download word template)
5. Copyright agreement (Download Word template)
6. Turnitin plagiarism report*
7. Permission from owner (if any) to reproduce data (table or figures)
8. Bioethics review Board/institutional committee approval certificate (if experiments involved animals and human subjects)
9. Response to initial check
10. Response to Reviewers comments (Download word template)
11. Supplementary data file (if any)
12. Other file (if any)

Article processing and publishing charges

There is NO FEE for article processing/handling and publishing in AJLS.

Abasyn journal of life sciences is an Open Access journal. Open access allows all interested readers to view, download, print, and redistribute any article without a subscription, enabling far greater distribution of an author's work than the traditional subscription-based publishing model.

ETHICAL GUIDELINES AND POLICIES FOR AUTHORS

Publications ethics statement

AJLS follow Ethical guidelines of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) Pakistan and the Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE). AJLS also follow mutually agreed Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing by COPE and Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), and World Association of Medical Editors (WAME). AJLS uses COPE’s procedures and HEC guidelines for dealing with potentially unethical behavior by authors, reviewers or editors.

Ethical issues raised by readers will be investigated by the editorial office following procedures recommended by COPE and HEC guidelines. Disputes on the validity of research reported in published papers can be settled by the editorial board. For disputes around authorship, data ownership, author misconduct, etc., where necessary we will refer to external organizations such as a university ethics committee. The authors are asked to respond to any substantiated allegations made against them.

Plagiarism, data fabrication, and image manipulation

Plagiarism is not acceptable in AJLS. Plagiarism is commonly defined as the representation of the words or ideas of another as one's own in any academic work (Rutgers University, Academic Integrity Policy, Section 2C). In scientific writing and publishing, plagiarism most often occurs when ideas or key phrases are taken from a literature source and the source is not cited. Copying a sentence from another work and merely replacing a few words in that sentence also is considered plagiarism.

Plagiarism is prohibited because it is dishonest. Authors who do not credit the original sources of ideas and phrases are guilty of stealing the original authors’ scientific contributions. Scientific discoveries and progress build on the previous accomplishments of other scientists. They deserve—and receive—proper recognition when their contributions used in current works are acknowledged with proper citations. 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.

Plagiarism includes copying text, ideas, images, or data from another source, even from your own publications, without giving credit to the original source. All submissions will be subjected to plagiarism evaluation before editorial processing. Authors should be experienced enough to differentiate ethical behaviors (e.g. citation and quotation) from unethical ones (e.g. general plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and copy-and-paste). Manuscripts that cannot pass the plagiarism (<19%) evaluation pre-screening, will be automatically rejected without review and the plagiarism evaluation will not be provided to authors and strict action will be taken against the author. All papers submitted must pass through an initial screening and will be checked through the advanced plagiarism detection software (Turnitin). If plagiarism is detected after publication, we may publish a Correction or retract the paper.

Multiple, redundant and concurrent submission

An author should not, in general, publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical behavior and is unacceptable.

In general, an author should not submit for consideration in another journal a paper that has been published previously, except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis or as an electronic preprint.

Publication of some kinds of articles (e.g. clinical guidelines, translations) in more than one journal is sometimes justifiable, provided certain conditions are met. The authors and editors of the journals concerned must agree to the secondary publication, which must reflect the same data and interpretation of the primary document. The primary reference must be cited in the secondary publication.

Submission declaration and verification

Authors must accept full responsibility for the content of their articles. The Members of the Editorial Board and the Publisher of the journal are not responsible for the statements and opinions expressed by the authors in their articles/write-up published in the journal. To use the copyrighted material (for example table, figure, etc.), the author/s must seek permission from the Author/s and Publisher of the material and send a copy of the permission letters via e-mail to the Administrative Editor for records. In case, if it is not possible then do not use that material.

While submitting the paper the author (s) must give a declaration in the cover letter that “the article has not been published or sent for publication elsewhere”. And the authors acknowledge that they have disclosed all and any actual or potential conflicts of interest with their work or partial benefits associated with it.

Peer Review

AJLS operates double-blind peer review, meaning that the author and reviewer do not know the identity of each other.

At least two review reports are collected for each submitted article. Suggestions of reviewers can be made by the academic editor during pre-check. Alternatively, Chief Editor or editor will use qualified Editorial Board Members, qualified reviewers from our database, or new reviewers identified by web searches for related articles.

Checks applied to all reviewers:

• That they hold no conflicts of interest with the authors, including if they have published together in the last five years.
• That they hold a Ph.D. (preferable).
• They must have recent publications in the field of the submitted paper
• We ask reviewers to inform the journal editor if they hold a conflict of interests that may prejudice the review report, either in a positive or negative way.
• Enough guidelines must be provided to reviewers together with a review comments form for recording comments.

Invited reviewers will be asked to:

• Accept or decline any invitations quickly, based on the manuscript title and abstract
• Suggest alternative reviewers if an invitation must be declined
• Request an extension in case more time is required to compose a report
• Let us know if anyone else, such as a student, will participate in writing the review.

As part of the assessment, reviewers will be asked:

to rate the originality/novelty, significance, quality of the presentation, scientific soundness, interest to the readers, overall merit and English level of the manuscript;

• to provide a detailed, constructive review report.
• to provide an overall recommendation for the publication of the manuscript;
• Accept in Present Form: The paper is accepted without any further changes.
• Accept after Minor Revisions: The paper is in principle accepted after revision based on the reviewer’s comments. The authors are given five days for minor revisions.
• Reconsider after Major Revisions: The acceptance of the manuscript would depend on the revisions. The author needs to provide a point by point response or provide a rebuttal if some of the reviewer’s comments cannot be revised. Usually, only one round of major revisions is allowed. The authors will be asked to resubmit the revised paper within ten days and the revised version will be returned to the reviewer for further comments.
• Reject: The article has serious flaws, makes no original contribution, and the paper is rejected with no offer of resubmission to the journal.

Manuscripts submitted to AJLS should meet the highest standards of publication ethics:

• Manuscripts should only report results that have not been submitted or published before, even in part.
• Manuscripts must be original and should not reuse text from another source without appropriate citation.
• For biological studies, the studies reported should have been carried out in accordance with generally accepted ethical research standards.

If reviewers become aware of such scientific misconduct or fraud, plagiarism or any other unethical behavior related to the manuscript, they should raise these concerns with the in-house editor immediately. Reviewers must not recommend citation of work by themselves or close colleagues when it is not clearly necessary to improve the quality of the manuscript under review.

To assist academic editors, AJLS staff handles all communication with reviewers, authors, and the external editor; however, Academic Editors can check the status of manuscripts and the identity of reviewers at any time. Reviewers are given 14-21 days to write their review. For the review of a revised manuscript, reviewers are asked to provide their report within 5 days. In both cases, extensions can be granted on request.

A paper can only be accepted for publication by an academic editor, editor or chief editor based on expert reviewers' comments.

Journal editors will check to make sure that there is no conflict of interest before contacting reviewers and will not consider those with competing interests. Reviewers are asked to declare any conflicts of interest. Authors can also enter the names of potential peer reviewers they wish to exclude from consideration in the peer review of their manuscript, during the initial submission progress. The editorial team will respect these requests so long as this does not interfere with the objective and thorough assessment of the submission.

Declaration of conflict of interest

A Conflict of Interest is defined as a set of conditions in which professional judgment concerning a primary interest, such as the validity of research, may be influenced by a secondary interest. A Conflict of Interest (sometimes called a Disclosure Statement) is a notification from the author that there's no financial/personal interest or belief that could affect their objectivity, or if there is, stating the source and nature of that potential conflict. Authors must declare personal relationships with others or any financial with organizations that could inappropriately effect (bias) their work and this publication can result in a gain or loss financially. Examples of conflict include consultancies, employment, stock ownership, paid expert testimony, honoraria, Patent applications, patent registrations, direct academic competition, and funding or other grants. The corresponding author is expected to obtain relevant information from all authors. The declaration must be included in cover letter. Declaration statements will be published after the acknowledgment section.

Permissions

It is important to take permission for reproducing material from other published sources (figures, tables, text, etc.) that do not fall into the public domain, or for which they do not hold the copyright. Any part of the article accessed from another source should be accompanied by a signed letter of consent from the copyright holder, which may be the author, journal or the publisher.

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 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 the 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

Research involving animals and human subjects

When reporting experiments on human subjects, please indicate whether the procedures were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) or with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 (as revised in 1983). Include Institutional Review Board or Animal Care and Use Committee approvals. Also, authors must have informed consent from patients or guardians. If a patient is dead, then the data protection act does not apply but the author must seek permission from a relative. If an animal is used in experiments, authors must seek permission (clearance certificate) from the bioethics committee of the department/institute or university.

Contributors/authorships

AJLS follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines which state that in order to qualify for authorship of a manuscript, authors must satisfy the following:

• 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 revising 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 the International Council of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Any change to the author list during the editorial process or after publication should be approved by all authors, including many who have been removed. The corresponding author should act as a point of contact between the editor and the other authors and should keep co-authors informed and involve them in major decisions about the publication. We reserve the right to request evidence of authorship, and changes to authorship after acceptance will be made at the discretion of AJLS.

Changes to authorship

Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the journal Editor. To request such a change, the Editor must receive the following from the corresponding author: (a) the reason for the change in author list and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed.

Copyright

For all articles published in AJLS, the copyright is retained by the author(s), provided proper credit is given to AJLS and it is properly cited.

License

The content of AJLS is licensed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial License 4.0 (CC BY NC).

Open access

Articles published in AJLS are Open-Access articles distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License 4.0 (CC BY NC). All content is freely available without any charge to the user or his/her institution. Users can read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from AJLS or the author for non-commercial purposes.

Use of inclusive language

Inclusive language acknowledges diversity, conveys respect to all people, is sensitive to differences, and promotes equal opportunities. Articles should make no assumptions about the beliefs or commitments of any reader, should contain nothing which might imply that one individual is superior to another on the grounds of race, sex, culture or any other characteristic, and should use inclusive language throughout. Authors should ensure that writing is free from bias.

Funding source

The authors should list all funding sources in the Acknowledgments section. The authors are responsible for the accuracy of their funder designation.

Sharing articles

Articles published in AJLS can be distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License 4.0 (CC BY NC). All content is freely available without any charge to the user or his/her institution. Users can read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from AJLS or the author for non-commercial purposes.

Article withdrawal, retraction, and correction

AJLS has the same policy regarding corrections and retractions. We differentiate between Addendum, Erratum, Corrections, Retractions, Comments, and Expressions of Concern. For any paper that is updated, the previously published version remains available from the abstract page, except for Retractions where the original PDF remains available but is prominently water-marked as retracted. Articles will only be completely removed from the website when there is a legal requirement to do so.

Complaints made against papers or requests to update are thoroughly investigated by the Editorial Office with the support of the Editorial Board and final approval by the Editor-in-Chief. Other persons and institutions will be consulted as necessary, including university authorities, or experts in the field.

Addendum

If crucial information was omitted from the original publication, an Addendum can add new content to the paper. In this case, the existing content does not change.

Erratum

Erratum is used to fix formatting, technical and other non-scientific errors (including changes to authorship).

Corrections

Any changes after publication that affect the scientific interpretation of a paper made to a paper are announced using a Correction.

Retractions

An article needs to be completely removed from the research literature if either the content or authorship is misleading, or if it failed to comply with legal or ethical requirements, especially related to the protection of research participants. AJLS follows the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for retraction. The primary purpose of retraction is to correct the publication record; it is not used as a sanction against authors and readers must be careful in interpreting motives behind actions that lead to retraction.

Replies/responses and comments to published work

Comments are short letters from readers about the results reported or the experimental methods used in a published article. When a Comment is received, the authors will be approached to provide a Reply and, where possible, the Comment and Reply will be published together. Further action, such as Correction or Retraction, may follow the receipt of a Comment if deemed necessary by the Editorial Office. Comments and Replies will undergo peer review at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.

We recommend Comments where readers have a different interpretation of results to the authors, have suggestions or feedback about the methodology used, or if they would like to propose an extension of the research.

Rejected article appeal

Authors may appeal a rejection by sending an e-mail to the Editorial Office of the journal. The appeal must provide a detailed justification, including point-by-point responses to the reviewers' and/or Editor's comments. The Managing Editor of the journal will forward the manuscript and related information (including the identities of the referees) to the Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editor, or Editorial Board member. The academic Editor being consulted will be asked to give an advisory recommendation on the manuscript and may recommend acceptance, further peer-review, or uphold the original rejection decision. A reject decision at this stage is final and cannot be reversed.

Patient consents

Appropriate consents, permissions, and releases must be obtained where authors wish to include case details or other personal information or images of patients and any other individuals in an AJLS publication.

Privacy

Collection of information

We collect information about you in three ways: directly from your input, from third-party sources, and through automated technologies. The types of personal information that we collect directly from you depend on the content and features of the Service you use and how you otherwise interact with us.

Use of information

During registration, information like name, valid email address, affiliation, etc are collected which are used to properly set up accounts to use AJLS services. Some of the information can be used by AJLS to contact you regarding the manuscript. We may also use your personal information to respond to your requests, inquiries, comments or concerns. We may also use your information to invite you to submit manuscripts or review manuscripts.

Data retention

We retain your personal information for as long as necessary to provide the Service and fulfill the transactions you have requested, or for other essential purposes such as complying with our legal obligations, maintaining records, resolving disputes, maintaining security, detecting and preventing fraud and abuse, and enforcing our agreements.

Safeguard/security of information

Usage information collected will be safeguard by Journal against any theft, misuse, loss. Precautions will be used to protect your data from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration and destruction using appropriate technical and organizational measures.

Your choices

As a registered user you will have the option to update your account information. Users can request for his personal information which AJLS holds on the website. We will delete information when author request to deactivate his account. However, some information will be retained for a certain period to comply with legal duties and to answer issues. AJLS may be linked to other databases, so please note AJLS will be not responsible for the privacy practices of other websites, nor their services or contents.

Changes in policy

Also, AJLS have the right to change this policy without prior notice. Your continued use of any service following the posting of any changes will mean that you have accepted and agreed to the changes.

Contact

If you have any questions about privacy policies of AJLS, please contact us from AJLS contact us a section from the homepage.

Reporting Standards

• It is the author(s)' responsibility to ensure that the research report and data contain adequate detail and references to the sources of information in order to allow others to reproduce the results.
• Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

Acknowledgment of Sources

• A paper must always contain a proper acknowledgment of the work of others, including clear indications of the sources of all information quoted or offered, except what is common knowledge.
• The author(s) must also acknowledge the contributions of people, organizations and institutes who assisted the process of research, including those who provided technical help, writing assistance or financial funding (in the acknowledgment).
• It is the duty of the author(s) to conduct a literature review and properly cite the original publications that describe closely related work.

Privacy of Participants

• Authors must respect the privacy of the participant of research and must not use any information obtained from them without their informed consent.
• The authors should ensure that only information that improves understanding of the study is shared.
• Authors must ensure that in instances where the identity of the participant needs to be revealed in the study, explicit and informed consent of the concerned party is obtained
• In the case of the demise of a participant, consent must be obtained from the family of the deceased

Data retention and access

If any question arises about the accuracy or validity of the research work during the review process, the author(s) should provide raw data to the Editor.