1. Publication Ethics Statement

Academic ethics are the necessary fundamental principle of research and the foundation for scientists’ and engineers’ reputation. To promote academic integrity and publish high-quality scientific works, ETP journals issues the following Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement about the expected ethical behavior for all parties related to paper publication, including the author, the peer reviewer,  and the ETP journal editors.

ETP journals follows the best practices such as those outlined by these organizations:

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)

Council of Scientific Editors (CSE)

2. Authorship

2.1. Author Contributions

An 'author' is generally considered to be someone who has made substantive intellectual contributions to a published study. To qualify as an author, one should have (i) made substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; and (ii) been involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and (iii) given final approval of the version to be published.

The individual contributions of authors to the manuscript should be specified, and initials should be used to refer to each author’s contribution (e.g., AB analyzed and interpreted the patient data regarding the hematological disease and the transplant. CD performed the histological examination of the kidney and was a major contributor to writing the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript). We encourage authors to use the roles definition of CRediT.

All manuscripts must be submitted by an author and may not be submitted by a third party.

The corresponding author takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal and editorial office during the submission process, throughout peer review, and during publication. The corresponding author is also responsible for ensuring that the submission adheres to all journal requirements including, but not exclusive to, details of authorship, study ethics and ethics approval, clinical trial registration documents, and conflict of interest declaration. The corresponding author should also be available post-publication to respond to any queries or critiques. Although the corresponding author has primary responsibility for correspondence with the journal, the journal editors should send copies of all correspondence to all listed authors.

2.2. Acknowledgment

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the ‘Acknowledgment’ section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help or writing assistance, or a department chair who provided only general support. The involvement of scientific (medical) writers or anyone else who assisted with the preparation of the manuscript content should be acknowledged, along with their source of funding.

2.3. Authorship Change

If the change to the authorship list is appropriate and in keeping with the guidelines given above, the corresponding author will be asked to provide written confirmation that all other authors listed on the manuscript at that time give their consent. ETP journals  will individually inform anyone who is added or removed from the author list.

2.4. How to Process Authorship Disputes

To manage authorship disputes we follow COPE guidelines, particularly How to spot authorship problems. In case of any authorship disputes, a clear explanation from the authors should be submitted to be evaluated by the journal and the decision will be made based on the recommendations of the COPE and other related organizations including but not limited to the ICMJE. If not, we require an authoritative statement from the authors' institution(s) concerning authorship qualification.

3. Ethical Guidelines for Authors

• Originality and plagiarism: Only entirely original papers can be submitted to ETP journals. All the work or words of others should be cited or quoted appropriately. Plagiarism and fraudulent date papers will not be considered for publication by ETP journals.
• Data access and retention: The raw data of the research should be available even after the paper’s publication for at least ten years.
• Ethics of experimentation: Approval from the relevant body is required for the studies, such as humans, animals, cell lines, field sampling, and potential biosafety implications.
• Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication: Papers should not be published in more than one journal. Submitting the same research in different languages and the under-review manuscripts to different journals are also unethical behavior, which are unacceptable by  ETP journals.
• Authors must state that all data in the article are real and authentic.
• Authors must disclose any potential conflict of interest associated with the manuscript.
• Authors should actively participate in the peer-review process and provide suitable responses to the comments raised by peer reviewers on time.
• All authors must have significantly contributed to the research and fulfill the authorship criteria recommended by the ICMJE.
• If errors and inaccuracies are found by the authors after publication of their paper, they need to be promptly communicated to the editors of this journal so that appropriate actions can be taken.

4. Ethical Guidelines for Reviewers

• Reviewers should maintain the confidentiality of the complete review process.
• Reviewers should have no conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors, and/or the research funders.
• Reviewers’ views should be expressed clearly with supporting arguments and the judgments should be objective.
• Promptness is necessary. If the selected reviewer feels inadequate to review the paper or cannot promptly review the paper, the reviewer should inform the editor and drop out of the peer review process of the paper.
• Reviewers should comply with the editor’s written instructions on the journal’s expectations for the scope, content, and quality of the review.
• Reviewers should determine the scientific merit, originality, and scope of the work; indicating ways to improve it, and recommend acceptance or rejection using whatever rating scale the editor deems best.
• Reviewers should provide advice to the editor, but the final decision on an article is made by the editor.
• Reviewers should provide detailed, constructive, and unbiased evaluation, in a timely manner, of the scientific content of the manuscript.
• Reviewers should point out relevant published work which is not yet cited.
• Reviewers should avoid personal comments or criticism. If reviewers have any interest that might interfere with an objective review, they should either decline the role of the reviewer or disclose the conflict of interest to the editor and ask how best to address it.
• Reviewers should notify the editors of the journal of any ethical concerns in their evaluation of submitted manuscripts; such as any violation of ethical treatment of animal or human subjects or any considerable similarity between a previously published article and any reviewed manuscript.

5. Ethical Guidelines for Editors

• Editor of a journal has complete responsibility and authority to make editorial decisions on all manuscripts submitted for peer-review and publication.
• Editor should treat all authors with fairness, courtesy, objectivity, and honesty. All manuscripts are to be assessed objectively based on their academic merit and free of all commercial or self-interests.
• Editor should have no conflict of interest with respect to articles they reject/accept.
• When errors are found in a manuscript, the editor should promote publication of corrections or retractions.
• Editor shall ensure that the peer-review process is fair, unbiased, and timely. Research articles must typically be reviewed by at least two independent reviewers.
• Editor shall ensure to preserve the reviewers’ anonymity.
• Editor shall not disclose any information concerning submitted manuscripts before publication of the manuscript.
• Editor shall cooperate with the publisher to describe, implement, and regularly review policies for handling ethical issues and allegations or findings of misconduct by authors and anyone else involved in the peer-review process.
• Editor shall be vigilant in avoiding the possibility of editors and/or reviewers delaying a manuscript for suspicious or unusual reasons.
• Editor is responsible for developing mechanisms, in cooperation with the publisher, to ensure timely publication of accepted manuscripts.

6. Potential Conflicts of Interest

Authors, reviewers, and editors must declare whether there are any competing interests with regard to the publication of a study. The authors will declare the COI in every published paper. Also, the editors and reviewers should declare the COI to the editorial office.

6.1. Conflicts of Interests for Authors

A competing interest exists when the authors’ interpretation of data or presentation of information may be influenced by or may be perceived to be influenced by, their personal, political, academic relationships or financial relationship with other people or organizations, such as reimbursement for salaries, equipment or supplies, or a personal belief that may influence their objectivity and motivation, and consequently affect the data interpretation. This can include competing patents, grants, funding, employment, personal relationships, and strong ethical beliefs, among other factors. Such conflicts must be declared, as they may affect the integrity or reliability of the science in the study, as well as that of otherwise unassociated studies in the same journal. The statements of competing interests for public funding sources, including government agencies, and charitable or academic institutions, are best to be included.

Full disclosure of the competing interests is to be made in the cover letter and manuscript at the time of submission, even if the author judges that it has not influenced the work. If no potential perceived conflicts exist, the authors should state: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

6.2. Conflicts of Interests for Reviewers and Editors

External peer reviewers must disclose any conflicts of interest that could bias their opinions of the manuscript, and they should disqualify themselves from reviewing specific manuscripts if they believe it appropriate. Should any such competing interest be declared, the journal editor will judge whether the reviewer’s comments should be recognized or will interpret the reviewer’s comments in the context of any such declaration.

ETP journals require that editorial staff or editors not be involved in processing their own academic work. The Editor or members of the Editorial Board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in the journal. In these cases, the peer review process will be managed by alternative members of the Board. Submissions will be assigned to at least two independent outside reviewers. The submitting Editor/Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process. Decisions will be made by other Editorial Board Members who do not have a conflict of interest with the author.

6.3. 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. Reviewer 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.

• 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 our editorial guidelines.

• 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.

ETP 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.

7. Copyright and Licensing

For articles published in ETP journals, the copyright will be retained by the authors. Articles are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the article is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

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.

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.

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]”.

8. How to Process Ethical Concerns

The editors of ETP journals enforce a rigorous double-blind peer-review process together with strict ethical policies and standards to ensure to add high-quality scientific works to the field of scholarly publication. Unfortunately, cases of plagiarism, data falsification, image manipulation, inappropriate authorship credit, and the like, do arise. The editors of ETP journals take such publishing ethics issues very seriously and are trained to proceed in such cases with a zero-tolerance policy.

Our in-house editors will investigate any allegations of publication misconduct and may contact the authors' institutions or funders if necessary. If evidence of misconduct is found, appropriate action will be taken to correct or retract the publication.

8.1. Appeals 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 are 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 detail. Communication will be ended when it is not considered cordial or respectful. Readers with complaints or concerns should be aware that investigations take time to conduct.

8.2. Updating 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 the authorship list (including addition or removal of entire affiliations)

◊ Addition or removal of an entire reference

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 to notify 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.

• Retractions

(a) Retracting article will be considered if there is 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), or if the findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission or justification (i.e., cases of redundant publication), or if the paper constitutes plagiarism, or if the paper reports unethical research.

(b) The main purpose of retractions is to correct the literature and ensure its integrity rather than to punish authors who misbehave.

(c) The retracted paper will not be removed from the journal online issues. But notices of retraction will be promptly published and linked to the retracted article, accurately stating the information of the retracted article, the reason(s) for retraction, and who retracts the article, which will be freely available to all readers.

(d) Articles may be retracted by their author(s) or by journal editorial office. In some cases, retractions are issued jointly. And the journal editor has the final decision about retracting articles.

• Author Name Change after publication

Some authors might wish to change their names following publication. In such cases, we will update 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.

9. Contact

The complaints issues can be written to edtor@etpub.com. We will process the complaints immediately.