Research and Publication Ethics

All journals published by this publisher strictly adhere to ethical standards and core publication practices established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA) and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME). All disputes and issues shall be resolved in accordance with the COPE guidelines.

Research Data Policy

The publisher advocates open research data and transparent data management. All empirical, experimental, computational, and survey research manuscripts must ensure the authenticity, integrity, and traceability of original research data.

1. Data Availability Statement

All submitted manuscripts are encouraged to include a standardized Data Availability Statement to clearly declare the accessibility status of research data. Authors must explicitly state whether the original raw data, processed data, analytical code, experimental records, and supplementary materials are publicly available, restricted, or unavailable due to legitimate ethical, legal, or commercial reasons. All data availability statements must be accurate, specific, and verifiable.

For publicly available data, authors must provide complete access links, repository names, and persistent identifiers. For restricted or confidential data, authors must provide detailed and legitimate reasons, formal institutional approval documents, and feasible data access procedures for qualified researchers upon reasonable request. Manuscripts without a valid data availability statement will be returned for supplementation or desk-rejected.

The journal handles disputes related to published and unpublished data sets in accordance with the COPE guidelines.

2. Long-term Data Preservation and Retention

Authors are obligated to preserve all original research data, experimental records, calculation scripts, statistical analysis files, test parameters, and relevant supplementary research materials for long-term archiving and academic verification. Research data must be retained for a minimum period required by institutional rules and international academic norms to ensure post-publication reproducibility, academic inspection, and dispute verification.

Authors must ensure complete data integrity, avoid data tampering, deletion, or arbitrary modification after publication. The journal reserves the right to request original data, raw experimental records, and analytical files for random spot checks, academic verification, and post-publication audit at any time during peer review or after formal publication.

3. Qualified Public Data Repositories

The journal strongly encourages authors to deposit all reusable research data into credible, discipline-matched, publicly accessible data repositories before publication. Acceptable repositories include official international academic databases, discipline-specific trusted repositories, institutional official data platforms, and certified open science repositories. Typical qualified repositories include general open-data platforms and professional repositories covering hydropower, engineering, computer science, social science, medical science, and interdisciplinary research fields.

4. Repository Eligibility Standards

To ensure data standardization, security, and long-term accessibility, all selected data repositories must conform to the FAIR Data Principles and meet the following criteria: (1) provide persistent and stable identifiers such as DOI for archived data; (2) support permanent public access or standardized controlled access; (3) implement professional data backup, version management, and long-term preservation mechanisms; (4) comply with international data security, privacy protection, and open science specifications; (5) possess independent academic credibility and standardized data review mechanisms; (6) be publicly traceable and internationally recognized within the corresponding research discipline. Repositories without stable archiving mechanisms or formal academic certification are not accepted.

5. Standardized Data Citation Requirements

The journal advocates treating research data as formal academic research outputs and emphasizes standardized data citation in all published articles to comply with global open science and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data principles.

Authors must formally cite archived datasets in the reference list following unified academic data citation specifications. All publicly deposited data must be cited with complete information including dataset title, author, repository name, publication year, and persistent DOI or access link. Proper data citation helps standardize academic attribution, protect data contributor rights, improve research reproducibility, and promote standardized open data sharing.

6. Special Data Restrictions

For research involving sensitive personal information, human biological data, clinical confidential data, restricted industrial data, or copyrighted data, authors must strictly abide by privacy protection laws and ethical requirements. Public deposition of sensitive data must undergo de-identification and anonymization processing. Any unauthorized public disclosure of confidential or sensitive data is prohibited and will be regarded as a breach of publication ethics.

Conflict of Interest

All authors, reviewers, and editors must fully disclose any potential or actual conflict of interest (COI) that may affect the objectivity of research, review, or editorial decisions, in accordance with The Recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) standards.

Common conflicts of interest include but are not limited to financial sponsorship, commercial cooperation, patent interests, personal academic competition, and kinship relationship. Undisclosed conflict of interest will be regarded as academic irregularities.

1. Definition of Conflict of Interest

Competing interests fall into two core categories: financial interests and non-financial interests. Relevant interests accrued within the three years prior to manuscript submission, as well as ongoing long-term affiliations, require mandatory disclosure.

Financial Conflict of Interest

Direct research funding, project grants or financial sponsorship from commercial bodies supporting the research described in the submitted work;

Consultancy fees, honoraria, paid lecture fees, travel subsidies and material support from organizations holding commercial interests related to the research topic;

Ownership of shares, stock options, relevant patents, licensing revenue and other intellectual property benefits linked to the study’s findings;

Paid advisory or board appointments at commercial enterprises with direct relevance to the manuscript’s research field.

Non-Financial Conflict of Interest

Close academic links including recent supervisor-student relationships, ongoing joint research projects or repeated grant cooperation with any author of the submitted manuscript within the past three years; concurrent employment at the same research institution;

Personal connections such as immediate family ties or long-standing close personal relationships with contributing authors; notable academic rivalry directly related to the manuscript’s research content;

Formal positions in industry associations or advocacy organizations whose institutional positions may interfere with objective interpretation of the research results.

2. Disclosure Requirements for Different Parties

(1) Authors

All authors must complete the publisher’s standard conflict of interest disclosure form at the point of manuscript submission. Submissions without completed disclosure will not be forwarded to peer review.

A formal conflict of interest statement will be published as part of the final article. Where no competing interests exist, the standard wording “The author(s) declare(s) no conflict of interest” shall be used. Where conflicts apply, authors must list relevant items specifically.

Authors are required to clearly specify the funder’s involvement in research design, data collection, analysis and manuscript drafting within their disclosure. If funding organizations took no part in any stage of the research process, this detail must also be stated explicitly.

Should legal confidentiality agreements prevent full disclosure of certain interests, authors must state such restriction openly in the published COI note.

Authors must update their disclosure promptly if new competing interests emerge between initial submission and formal online publication.

(2) Peer Reviewers

Reviewers are required to complete a conflict check before accepting an invitation to assess a manuscript. Anyone identifying substantial relevant competing interests must decline the review assignment immediately.

Mandatory recusal from reviewing applies to individuals who share institutional affiliation, recent collaborative history or family connections with manuscript authors, hold direct financial benefit linked to the research outcome, or have competing unpublished work with contradictory core conclusions.

For minor, low-impact conflicts after full declaration, the handling editor may retain the reviewer only after fully documenting the disclosed interest in the journal’s internal record system.

3. Editorial Team and Editorial Board Members

All full-time editors, editor-in-chief and editorial board members submit an annual full conflict of interest declaration to the publisher’s ethics administration team and report newly arising competing interests within two weeks once new relevant appointments or affiliations are confirmed.
Any editor with proven relevant conflicts must withdraw fully from all procedures of the affected manuscript, including reviewer selection, peer review follow-up and final publication decisions. The manuscript will be reassigned to an alternative independent editor for subsequent processing.
When editorial board members or in-house editors submit their own original research to journals under the publisher’s management, the whole peer review and decision process is managed by an independent external editorial team; the submitting editor shall not participate in any evaluation or decision step.

4. Internal Publishing Staff

Production, editorial administration, and operational employees must declare personal or institutional interests likely to compromise impartial manuscript handling. Staff with confirmed conflicts related to specific papers will be excluded from proofreading, typesetting and publication arrangement of the relevant articles.

5. Post-submission Verification and Remedial Measures

Prior to final acceptance and publication, editorial offices conduct routine checks of submitted COI declarations. Where information is missing or incomplete, authors are required to supplement their disclosure before production starts.
If undisclosed conflict of interest is found after formal publication, the publisher follows COPE’s established misconduct workflows to carry out formal investigation:

When hidden conflicts are judged likely to distort research findings or peer review outcomes, the journal first issues an Expression of Concern, followed by formal correction or article retraction according to COPE’s post-publication policies;
Where omitted disclosure does not materially affect research validity, a formal correction notice supplementing missing COI information is published alongside the original article.

All COI declaration documents including author forms, reviewer declarations and annual editor reports are stored permanently within the publisher’s manuscript archive to meet DOAJ’s record-keeping audit standards.

6. Public Transparency

Every finalized author conflict of interest statement forms an indispensable fixed section of the formally published article and is freely accessible to all readers. The full text of Conflict of Interest Policy is permanently published on each journal’s website under the Publication Ethics section to satisfy DOAJ’s public transparency requirements.

Authorship

Authorship qualification strictly complies with ICMJE four authorship criteria.

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; and
Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and
Final approval of the version to be published; and
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.

All contributors who do not meet authorship criteria should be listed in the Acknowledgments section with clear contribution descriptions.

Honorary authorship, gift authorship, ghost authorship, and unauthorized changes to the author list are prohibited. All authors must confirm the final author order and contribution details before submission.

1. Contributor Roles (CRediT Taxonomy)

This journal adopts the Contributor Role Taxonomy (CRediT, https://credit.niso.org/) to transparently document individual contributions. All submitted manuscripts must include a CRediT author statement specifying roles:

Conceptualization: Ideas; formulation of research goals.
Data curation: Management and maintenance of research data.
Formal analysis: Statistical, mathematical, or computational analysis.
Funding acquisition: Acquisition of financial support for the project.
Investigation: Conducting experiments or data collection.
Methodology: Development or design of methodology.
Project administration: Management and coordination of research activities.
Resources: Provision of materials, instrumentation, or other tools.
Software: Programming and software development.
Supervision: Oversight and leadership of research activity.
Validation: Verification of results and reproducibility.
Visualization: Preparation of published figures and data presentations.
Writing—original draft: Preparation of the initial draft.
Writing—review & editing: Critical review and revision.

CRediT roles are assigned by the authors and approved by all contributors.

2. Changes to Authorship

After submission, additions, deletions, or reordering of authors requires:

A formal request from the corresponding author;
A signed statement of agreement from all original and new authors;
A clear explanation of the reason for the change.

The journal reserves the right to decline authorship changes after peer review or publication.

3. Authorship Disputes

In case of authorship order or eligibility disputes before or after publication, the journal will:

Request formal documentation of contributions from all parties;
Rely on institutional mediation or investigation outcomes where available;
Not alter the published author list without written consensus of all authors or a formal institutional/court ruling.

4. AI-Generated Content (AIGC) Policy

AI tools (e.g., LLMs, generative AI) may be used for language polishing or typesetting only with full disclosure.
AI/LLMs cannot be listed as authors; they are acknowledged in the methods or acknowledgments section.
Authors must ensure that AI-assisted content is original, legally compliant, and free from plagiarism or copyright infringement.

Misconduct Policy

In accordance with COPE’s misconduct handling guidelines, the publisher strictly prohibits all forms of academic and publication misconduct, including but not limited to plagiarism, self-plagiarism, duplicate submission, multiple publication, data fabrication, data falsification, image tampering, result manipulation, citation manipulation, and peer review fraud.

Once misconduct is suspected, the editorial office will launch a formal investigation, collect relevant evidence, verify facts, and record the whole process. Confirmed misconduct will result in corresponding penalties including manuscript rejection, immediate online retraction, public announcement of misconduct, and temporary or permanent submission ban for the involved authors. The publisher will report serious repeated misconduct to relevant academic institutions and industry associations.

Correction, Retraction and Withdrawal Policy

Article Correction: For minor errors, omissions, or expression inaccuracies that do not affect the core research conclusion, the journal will publish a formal Correction notice to revise and supplement the published content, ensuring academic accuracy.

Article Retraction: For published articles with confirmed academic misconduct, serious data errors, untrustworthy research conclusions, or major ethical violations, the journal will initiate retraction procedures in accordance with COPE standards, publish a formal Retraction notice, mark the article as retracted on the official website, and retain the original publication record for academic transparency.

Manuscript Withdrawal: Authors may withdraw unaccepted manuscripts before the final editorial decision. Voluntary withdrawal after peer review progress will be recorded, and a $200 is needed to pay for the former editorial process. Excessive unreasonable withdrawal may affect future submission qualifications.

Preprint Policy

The publisher fully supports and recognizes preprint sharing in line with international academic norms. Authors are allowed to post their original manuscripts on legitimate preprint platforms before formal peer review.

Preprint posting does not constitute duplicate publication and will not affect the peer review and publication qualification of the manuscript. After formal publication, authors are required to update the preprint version with the official published article information, journal citation, and DOI. The publisher does not accept manuscripts that have been formally published in other peer-reviewed journals or undergone formal journal publication procedures.

Human Subjects Research Ethics

All studies involving human participants, identifiable human data, human tissue samples, and human biological materials must be performed in accordance with the ethical principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Written approval from an official institutional ethics review board/Institutional Review Board (IRB) is mandatory before research initiation.

All participants must provide voluntary, informed, written consent. Authors must clearly state in the manuscript the ethics committee name, approval number, informed consent procedure, and participant rights protection measures. For research using de-identified, anonymized public human data without personal identifiable information, authors must provide valid data source certification and prove no privacy infringement risk.

Vulnerable Populations Research Protection

Research involving vulnerable populations including minors, pregnant women, elderly individuals, patients with cognitive impairment, disabled groups, prisoners, low-income populations, and marginalized communities requires enhanced ethical protection and stricter risk assessment.

Such research can only be conducted when the research objective cannot be achieved through non-vulnerable subjects. Authors must obtain parental/legal guardian written consent for minor participants, and ensure additional privacy protection, minimal risk exposure, and fair benefit distribution. The manuscript must explicitly describe special protection measures, risk control strategies, and compliance with local and international human research ethical regulations.

Animal Research Ethics

All animal experiments and animal-based research must follow international animal welfare principles and obtain prior approval from the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) or official animal ethics review institution.

Authors must guarantee humane animal care, standardized feeding, scientific experimental design, minimal animal suffering, and compliance with the 3Rs principles. Manuscripts must specify the animal species, strain, quantity, feeding environment, experimental operation specifications, ethics approval number, and animal welfare supervision measures. Any illegal animal experimentation, abusive operation, or unapproved animal research is strictly prohibited and will be regarded as academic misconduct.

Clinical Trial Registration Policy

In strict accordance with the recommendations of International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) standards, all prospective clinical trials must complete public registration before participant recruitment. A clinical trial is defined as any research study that prospectively assigns human participants to health-related interventions to evaluate health outcome effects, including drug trials, surgical trials, medical device trials, behavioral intervention trials, and dietary intervention trials.

Eligible registration platforms include WHO-recognized primary registries, such as ClinicalTrials.gov and other official ICTRP network platforms. Authors must provide the official trial registration number and registration link during manuscript submission. Unregistered clinical trials, retrospective registration, or incomplete registration information will result in desk rejection. Post-publication supplementary registration is not accepted.

Biological Cell and Biomedical Research Ethics

All studies involving human biological cells, stem cells, somatic cells, cell lines, human tissue specimens, genetic materials, and bioengineering research must obtain formal institutional ethical approval and legal research authorization.

Authors must ensure that all cell sources are legal, traceable, and ethically sourced, without illegal collection, trading, or unauthorized use of human biological resources. For research involving gene editing, cell modification, and high-risk biomedical experiments, authors must provide complete risk assessment reports and safety supervision certification. The journal prohibits any research violating biosecurity, bioethics, and relevant national and international biomedical regulatory provisions.

All cell experiments must confirm cell line authenticity, avoid cross-contamination, and provide cell source information and authentication statements in the manuscript to ensure experimental reproducibility and biosafety compliance.