AIMS Press is a member of COPE, all AIMS Press’journals adhere to the publication ethics and malpractice policies outlined by COPE .

Publication Misconduct

AIMS Press makes all reasonable efforts to investigate publication misconduct, including fabrication, falsification, plagiarism and Redundant Publication.

•  Fabrication is making up data or results and recording or reporting them.
•  Falsification is manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record.
•  Plagiarism is the appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit.
•  Redundant Publication: The submission has not been published nor is it under consideration for publication elsewhere. Authors also shall not submit their manuscripts to other outlets while under review at AIMS Press journals. Violation will result in the rejection of their submissions (if still under review) or retraction of their published paper, the incidence will be reported to their institutions and they will be charged with the cost of reviewing.

AIMS Press reserves the right to contact the institutions of the authors to investigate possible publication misconduct if the editors find conclusive evidence of misconduct before or after the publication. The AIMS Press is a member of CrossCheck, and we will screen the submitted content for originality. If misconduct is suspected journal Editors will act in accordance with the relevant COPE guidelines: http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines

Reviewers’responsibilities and Editors’ responsibilities

All submissions to AIMS Press journals are subject to rigorous review. AIMS Press provides a review report form to make reviews systematic and accurate. The reviewer should focus on the quality of both the research and the manuscript and aim at providing constructive comments to bring the final paper to its best quality. This allows fair, rapid, comprehensive and comparable assessment of research. The editor of AIMS Press will evaluate manuscripts without regard to the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy. The decision will be based on the paper’s importance, originality and clarity, and the study’s validity and its relevance to the journal's scope. Current legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism should also be considered.

AIMS Press is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics and takes publication malpractice and conflicts of interest very seriously. Some personal, financial and professional affiliations or relationships may be considered conflicts of interest. All authors, AIMS Press editors and reviewers are required to disclose any actual and potential conflicts of interest at submission.

The review process of AIMS Press is strictly confidential and should be treated as such by reviewers and editors. Reviewers and editors must not take any confidential information they have gained in the review process and use it before the paper is published.

AIMS Press believes that an efficient editorial process that results in timely publication provides a valuable service both to authors and to the scientific community at large.

Authorship

The list of Authors should accurately reflect who carried out the research and who wrote the article. All multi-authored papers should include an Authors’ Contributions’ section at the end of the paper. When the corresponding author submits an article, this implies that all authors and responsible authorities where the work was carried out have approved its publication.

•  The list of Authors should correspond to the following criteria; (1) the conception and design of the study, the acquisition of data, or the analysis and interpretation of data; (2) drafting the article or critically revising its important intellectual content; (3) final approval of the version submitted. The corresponding author has to declare the contributions of individual authors when submitting the article. Please follow the ICMJE definitions when defining authorship.
•  All Authors must meet these criteria for authorship and, conversely, no-one should be omitted from the list if he/she meets these criteria.
•  To add, delete or rearrange author names in the authorship before acceptance, you must declare (a) the reason for adding, deleting or rearranging the name(s) and (b) written confirmation (by e-mail, fax or letter) from all authors, including those who have been removed or added, that they agree with the proposed change. Any changes made to authorship after the article is published are not allowed.

Use of AI tools declaration

We follow COPE's guidelines and policies regarding the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools: COPE Policy on AI tools

Conflict of Interest

All Authors, Referees and Editors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. They may include:

•  Employment – recent, current and anticipated by any organization
•  Sources of funding – research support by any organization
•  Personal financial interests – stocks and shares in companies that may gain or lose financially through publication; consultation fees or other forms of remuneration from organizations; patents or patent applications whose value may be affected by publication
•  Membership of relevant organizations
•  Working or having recently worked in the same institution or department as the authors
•  Having recently been supervisors, mentors, mentees, close collaborators or joint grant holders with the authors
•  Having a personal relationship with any of the authors

All manuscripts must include a competing interests section. If the authors have no competing interests please state ‘The authors declare no conflict of interest”.

Fundamental errors in published works

Post-publication corrections

Correction

We will publish a correction of your article if a significant error is discovered after publication. In the following cases, the authors can contact the journal editorial office and request to correct the errors and publish a correction on the journal:

1. Errors that could affect the scientific interpretation.
2. Addition or removal of an author from authorship list.
3. Addition or removal of an entire reference.
4. Addition or removal of a significant amount of text within the back matter.

Once the request from the author is approved by Editor in Chief, the paper will be updated and re-published on our website, along with the publication of a Correction. After these updates are completed, the publisher will notify all relevant indexing databases to ensure that the database versions have also been revised.

Retractions

Articles may be withdrawn, retracted, removed or replaced after publication if they contain substantial errors that cannot be corrected by publishing an correction, or if ethical violations come to light after publication.

The Editor in Chief will lead the Editorial board members to investigate the retraction request and make the final decision whether the retraction should be made or not. Once the retraction request is approved, the original publication is amended with a “RETRACTED” watermark, but will still be available on the journal’s website for future reference.

AIMS Press follows the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for retraction.

Funding Disclosure

The authors are requested to identify the organizations, institutions or people who provided financial support for conducting the research and/or preparing the article when you submit your article. Examples of funding are:
•  Research funds – the source and any grant numbers should be included in the acknowledgements section at the end of the paper
•  Funding of the article processing charge for an open access article – this should be included in the acknowledgements section
•  Funding for writing, language editing or editorial assistance – this should be included in the acknowledgements section.