Manuscripts submitted to LIDSEN journals should follow the guidelines listed below. Editors will check each manuscript. Lack of the following statement or failure to meet the requirements may result in rejection. Even after publication, any concerns associated with ethics are still subjects to further investigation and action.
Research involving human subjects, human material, human tissues or human data should comply with the Declaration of Helsinki. Prior to initializing research, an appropriate approval, licensing or registration must be obtained from an institutional review board or equivalent ethics committee(s).
LIDSEN journals require authors to include a section (Ethics Statement), describing how the ethical principles were considered when the experiment was designed and ensured when conducted. The description should contain, at least:
Relevant documents showing that research received the appropriate approval and was carried out ethically should be provided if requested by the editors.
Identifying information of participants should not be shared or disclosed unless strictly necessary for the submission. Written consent for the use of that information should be obtained from participants in that case. Where the participants are unable to provide full informed consent themselves, such as in the case of participants who are not adults or who are deceased, the written Informed Consent must be obtained from their legal guardians or relatives. The process of obtaining consent should include sharing the article's contents to be published with the individuals. Authors may use this Consent Form template or use an adapted one but should confirm in writing that it adheres to the same terms outlined in the template. This form should be completed in full, hand-signed, and saved securely, and if requested, authors should share this with the journal Editorial Office. After the authors obtain the written Informed Consent, a statement to confirm its receipt must be included within the manuscript.
In the case of reported studies involving vulnerable populations, authors should be fully aware of and manage the potential risks that may arise and should be prepared to provide any documentary evidence to the journal, if needed, such as written Informed Consent and any relevant discussion documents from the Ethics Committee.
If there were animals used in an experiment, the authors are required to comply with the internationally-accepted "3Rs" principles and get approval first from the ethics committee in their institutes.
"3Rs" principles are summarized below:
LIDSEN journals require authors to include a section (Ethics Statement), describing how ethical principles were considered when the experiment was designed and ensured when conducted. The description should contain, at least:
LIDSEN journals endorse the NC3Rs ARRIVE Guidelines (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments). Authors and reviewers are strongly recommended to use the ARRIVE Guidelines Checklist.
Experimental research using plants (either cultivated or wild) including collection of plant material, must comply with institutional, national, or international guidelines. LIDSEN journals recommend the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
Voucher specimens must be deposited in a public herbarium or other public collection providing access to deposited material. LIDSEN journals ask authors to include a section (Ethics Statement), detailing the populations sampled on the site of collection (GPS coordinates), date of collection, and document the part(s) used in the study where appropriate.
Authors must describe what cell lines were used and their origin so that the research can be reproduced.
For de novo cell lines derived from human tissue, an appropriate approval from an institutional review board or equivalent ethics committee and consent from the donor or next of kin should be obtained.
Authors are strongly encouraged to register their clinical trials in suitable publicly available databases, including those listed on the ICMJE website, as well as any of the primary registries that participate in the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform or ClinicalTrials.gov.
Authorship confers credit on the author and, in the academic field, it forms the basis for rewards and career advancement. Authorship also implies responsibility for published work. A discussion document from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) discusses Authorship, stating that different disciplines adopt their own criteria for authorship, however, the minimum recognized requirement for authorship is making a significant contribution to the work reported and being accountable for the work undertaken.
A manuscript submitted to a LIDSEN journal in which you are listed as an author means that you fulfill the following four authorship criteria. Authors are also advised to be aware that no other individuals deserving of authorship have been omitted.
The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) defines the Role of Authors and Contributors, and every article submitted to our medical journals should comply with this guideline.
For each submission to the LIDSEN journals, at least one author should be designated as the corresponding author. The corresponding author is the one individual who takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer-review, and publication process, or when issues arise regarding the paper after publication. It is also the responsibility of the corresponding author to keep the co-authors informed of the status of the manuscript and to involve them in any revisions and decisions on the article.
If members of a consortium or group meet the criteria for authorship, they can be designated authorship by a group name. Individuals in a consortium or group will be listed in the article through the addition of a note. All named authors will be accountable for all aspects of the published work, including its accuracy and integrity. If the consortium or group is involved in this work as a collaborator, the consortium/group members will be listed in the Acknowledgments section.
If a paper is submitted with a deceased author included in the authorship, or if an author passes away while the paper is under peer review, a note will be added to the published article to indicate this. The corresponding author should notify the Editorial Office if such a situation exists, and co-authors have the responsibility to confirm the contributions made by the deceased author and any potential conflicts of interest. If the deceased author was a corresponding author, a co-author should be nominated for this role.
LIDSEN follows the COPE position statement on "Authorship and AI tools" which states that artificial intelligence (AI) tools, such as ChatGPT or others based on Large Language Models (LLMs), cannot be listed as an author of a paper.
If such an AI or AI-assisted tool is used by the author to develop any portion of the article, a declaration with sufficient details must be provided through a cover letter upon submission. Furthermore, authors are required to transparently disclose which AI or AI-assisted tool was used and how it was used in the “Materials and Methods” section or the "Acknowledgements" section of the article. Authors are fully responsible for the content of their article, even those parts produced by an AI or AI-assisted tool, and must carefully review the result to ensure its accuracy or integrity.
Authors are also advised to adhere to the following terms when using AI or AI-assisted tools in:
Where authors use AI or AI-assisted tools in the writing process, it is essential to be aware that these tools should only be used to improve the readability and language of the work.
The use of AI or AI-assisted tools to create or alter images in an article, including graphic abstracts, is not permitted. Adjustments to brightness, contrast, or color balance are acceptable provided that such adjustments do not obscure or eliminate any information present in the original.
If the use of AI or AI-assisted tools is part of the research design or research methods, such as in AI-assisted imaging approaches to generate or interpret the underlying research data, the AI tool’s product details, including name, version, and manufacturer, and how it was used must be described in a reproducible manner in the “Methods” section.
Changes in authorship, including the addition of authors, the removal of authors, or the reordering of authors, must comply with our authorship criteria. In case of any change of authorship, the corresponding author has the responsibility of obtaining the consent of all authors.
Any request for the change to authorship can only be made prior to publication, and this request may be rejected if clear reasons and evidence of author contribution are not provided.
Name changes may occur in the course of an author's career for various reasons, including marriage, divorce, and similar, and they may wish to update the published articles to reflect this change.
In cases where an author requests a name change, LIDSEN will update the metadata associated with the article and redeliver it to the indexing service. Please be aware that third-party websites and services may have their own bibliographic policies regarding author name changes, and LIDSEN has no authority to control their updates.
In consideration of the author's privacy, we will neither post a correction notice to the paper nor notify co-authors of the change.
Any individual who does not meet the criteria of authorship but has contributed to the article, such as the acquisition of funding; general supervision of a research group or general administrative support; writing assistance; or language editing, should be listed in the “Acknowledgments” section of the article, and their contributions should be specified. Authors have the responsibility to notify those acknowledged individuals and obtain their permission to be acknowledged in the article.
To ensure transparency, a section on Author Contributions should be included in the article, specifying the contributions made by each author. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the descriptions for individual contributions are accurate and have been reviewed, discussed and agreed by all authors. The Author Contributions statement will be published with the final article.
LIDSEN adopts CRediT (Contributor Role Taxonomy) to describe each author’s individual contributions to the work. CRediT (Contributor Role Taxonomy) includes 14 roles, that can be used to represent the roles typically played by contributors to research outputs. Please be aware the roles are not intended to define what constitutes authorship. Authors should meet the authorship criteria of LIDSEN.
An example of the Author Contributions statement:
Author Name: Conceptualization, writing – original draft, formal analysis, writing – review and editing. Author Name: Software, writing – review and editing. Author Name: Methodology, writing – review and editing. Author Name: Conceptualization, writing – original draft, writing – review and editing. All authors have read and approved the published version of the manuscript.
If the manuscript has a single author, it is necessary to include the statement "The author conducted all the research work for this study" in this section.
Please refer to the CRediT taxonomy for an explanation of the above terms.
LIDSEN follows the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in the management of authorship disputes. In the COPE authorship discussion document, COPE clearly states the journals are not in a position to adjudicate authorship disputes.
It is the responsibility of all individuals engaged in this work to determine who should be listed as an author and in which order the authors should be listed. In situations where disputes are raised and cannot be settled between authors, journals will refer them to the institution where the work was performed for an investigation and final adjudication.
The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, in its Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals, gives the following guidance: “The potential for conflict of interest and bias exists when professional judgment concerning a primary interest (such as patients' welfare or the validity of research) may be influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain).” Competing interests can be financial or non-financial interests in nature. Authors, peer reviewers, and editors should disclose the potential competing interests when fulfilling their roles in the process of article review and publication. Complete disclosure demonstrates a commitment to transparency and helps to maintain trust in the scientific process, and does not necessarily indicate a bias.
When submitting a manuscript, authors should declare all competing interests in detail that relate to or which can be perceived to relate to the article. If there are no competing interests to declare, the authors should also include a statement in the article to confirm that there are no relevant financial or non-financial competing interests to report. Journal editors will take these disclosures fully into account when processing articles. Such disclosures will be published online as part of the article to assist readers in evaluating the article.
A statement of conflicts of interest must be included in the manuscript as a separate section, which should be placed before the reference list. Authors may also disclose potential conflicts of interest in a cover letter or via the manuscript submission system during the submission process.
Sample disclosure statements of competing interests
Authors may refer to the following template: “Author A has received research sponsorship from Company A. Author B is the inventor of Patent B (Patent No. xxx, Patent Name xxx). Author C owns stock in Company C. We have fully disclosed all potential competing interests to LIDSEN.”
Authors should state "The authors have declared that no competing interests exist." in this section.
Reviewers or editors should declare their relationships and activities that might bias their evaluation of a manuscript.
Reviewing or making decisions on a specific manuscript should be avoided if a conflict with the content or authors of a manuscript exists and the journal will seek alternative reviewers or editors.
Reviewers and editors are not permitted to use information obtained from the work they are reviewing to further their own interests, and the entire content of the article, including the abstract, should be kept confidential.
If an editor submits a manuscript to a journal, his or her submission will be processed by another editor who does not have a conflict of interest.
For scholarly publication, it is essential that appropriate and relevant literature be cited in the article so as to establish the authority and scholarly nature of any claim made in the article.
It is recommended to read COPE's discussion document on "Citation Manipulation", which discusses the key issues and existing solutions around unethical citation practices. Authors should also read the Instructions for Authors on the LIDSEN Journal page for information on how to cite references in the main text and compose the reference list.
Articles published in LIDSEN journals will be under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) License, unless otherwise noted. The copyright is retained by the author(s). Under this license, authors agree to make articles, including data, graphics, and supplements, legally available for reuse, without permission or fees, for virtually any purpose. Any individual or institution is free to copy, distribute, reproduce, or reuse these publications, as long as the author and original source are properly cited.
Some articles (especially Reviews) may contain figures, tables, or text taken from other publications that are not in the public domain, or for which the authors do not hold the copyright. In such cases, authors need to inquire with the original copyright holder to seek and obtain permission to reproduce the original material prior to submission. Where minor cosmetic changes are made to the original material, authors still need to seek permission to use it. Where substantial modifications are made to avoid needing permission to reproduce, the original source still needs to be acknowledged.
Fair use (in the US) or fair dealing (in the UK) allows for using limited portions of a work including quotes without the need to seek permission from the rightsholder, provided it is reproduced for purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports. Whether a predetermined percentage or amount of a work that can be used without permission qualifies as “fair use” depends on all the circumstances, so it is best to seek permission to avoid infringement if there is any doubt as to whether the material requires permission. Please be aware that quotations of songs or poems will always require permission.
Authors are advised to read the following guidelines if permission is required to be obtained.
If the article contains copyrighted material that is distributed under a Creative Commons License, authors may not need to obtain permission from the copyright holder, provided that the authors re-use it in accordance with the terms and conditions of its license.
In cases of plagiarism, duplicate publication, or other intellectual property violations, LIDSEN will follow COPE's guidelines, and advice from Legal counsel may be sought if necessary.
LIDSEN editors agree to defend the confidentiality of authors and peer-reviewers following ICMJE policy
All material will be handled in confidence unless confidentiality has to be breached due to allegations of misconduct. In such cases, authors and reviewers will be notified first.
A preprint is the draft version of a scholarly manuscript posted by the author(s) in an openly accessible preprint server before it has been submitted to a journal for peer review. Please be aware that authors should be cautious about referencing preprints that were posted and never subsequently published in a peer-reviewed journal.
LIDSEN journals allow the submission of preprints. If your submission to a LIDSEN journal has already been presented on a preprint server, please follow the following guidelines:
We also recommend that authors read the COPE discussion document on "preprints" and the ICMJE preprint guidelines.
To maximize transparency and reproducibility, authors are encouraged to follow the consensus-based discipline’s guidelines to report their studies. Different study designs have developed different reporting guidelines, examples include:
Further guidelines and standards for medicine and health research are promoted on the EQUATOR network, and for bioscience research are promoted on the Minimum Information Guidelines from Diverse Bioscience Communities (MIBBI).
LIDSEN stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations and will respect the authors’ decisions regarding the designations of territories in its published material.
LIDSEN endorses the definition of editorial independence given by the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), which states that "Editors-in-Chief should have full authority over the editorial content of the journal". LIDSEN and its journals will not interfere with the review and selection of articles, nor will it influence the editor's decision to accept an article for publication. Editorial decisions will be based mainly on the validity of the work and its importance to readers independently of commercial considerations.
We strictly adhere to the criteria specified by COPE, OASPA, WAME and DOAJ for ethical scholarly publishing with maximum transparency. Therefore, we hope that reviewers who take review commitments would also follow the ethical requirements. We recommend reviewers refer to COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers when reviewing manuscripts that are submitted to LIDSEN journals.
Prompt communication between the journal and reviewers is critical to facilitate consistent, fair, and timely review of manuscripts. We would expect reviewer candidates to:
It is critical that reviewers provide unbiased review comments. Prior to reviewing, reviewers should declare all competing interests related to the manuscript. Competing interests may be personal, economic, intellectual, professional, political, or religious in nature. If you are unsure of a competing interest that may prevent you from conducting the review, please notify the journal and seek advice.
Respect the confidentiality of the peer review process and information from the article should not be used or distributed in part or in whole until the article is published. Reviewers should also be careful not to reveal their identity to authors.
Reviewers are required to prepare their own reports, and they are not allowed to impersonate others during the review process. If you want to invite others to participate in the peer review process, you must seek permission in advance from the journal editorial office. The name of any individuals who have contributed to the review should be included in the signature of the review report.
Reviewers should report any suspected misconduct to the editorial office for further investigation. For example, you may notice a large number of similarities between the manuscript you are reviewing and a manuscript submitted to another journal at the same time or a published manuscript. For any ethical concerns, please contact the editorial office directly by email.
We strictly adhere to the criteria specified by COPE, OASPA, WAME and DOAJ for an ethical scholarly publishing with maximum transparency. Therefore, at each stage of the editorial process, all editors should follow the ethical requirements:
We recommend editors to refer to Responsible Research Publication: International Standards for Editors when judging manuscripts and controlling the editorial process.
Scientific misconduct includes but is not limited to duplicate submission/publication, plagiarism, data fabrication, image manipulation, breaches in copyright, citation manipulation, undisclosed competing interests, etc. Regarding any allegations of misconduct pre-publication and post-publication, LIDSEN will take all necessary action in a serious and conscientious manner following Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines.
Duplicate Submission: Authors submit the same manuscript, in the same or different languages, simultaneously to more than one journal.
Duplicate Publication: Publication of a paper that overlaps substantially with one already published, without a citation to the previous publication.
Duplicate submission/publication is not acceptable for LIDSEN journals. Authors should state upon submission that the manuscript is an original work, has not been published before, and is not being considered for publication elsewhere.
Abstract or poster displayed presented at a scientific meeting, trial results in any registry (in the form of a brief structured abstract or tables), dissertations and theses in university archives, and preprint may be an exception to this rule, but please inform us for evaluation and include a note or citation in the manuscript.
Where duplicates are identified, LIDSEN will take necessary actions in accordance with the COPE flowchart on Redundant (duplicate) publication.
Plagiarism refers to presenting the work of others as one’s own and without giving credit to the original source. This can include copying data, images, words, or ideas from any materials in electronic or print formats.
LIDSEN uses Crossref Similarity Check powered by iThenticate to screen for unoriginal material. iThenticate is a tool that allows a submitted manuscript to be compared against an extensive database of published content. Where overlap is found, the results of the Similarity Check will be examined by the journal to determine whether it constitutes plagiarism.
If plagiarism is identified, LIDSEN will take necessary actions in accordance with the COPE flowchart on Plagiarism.
Text recycling is where authors reuse portions of their own previously published works, such as text, data, and images, usually without proper citation.
If it is unavoidable for authors to refer to their own previously published work, authors must be transparent by providing appropriate citations and need to ensure that reuse is in line with copyright policy.
LIDSEN will refer to the COPE Text Recycling Guidelines when handling particular cases of text recycling.
It is considered a serious form of misconduct that deliberately takes inappropriate manipulation, adjustment, or fabrication of data for the purpose of misleading readers about scientific interpretations. This damages the integrity of the scholarly record and will have long-term consequences. When study data is collected in the form of images, changes to the images may produce misleading results.
Inappropriate image manipulation includes:
In cases of suspected data fabrication and image manipulation, LIDSEN will deal with them in accordance with COPE guidelines.
To maintain transparency in scientific research, authors, editors or reviewers are required to declare any relevant competing interests. Editors and reviewers should avoid any form of involvement in submissions in which they have significant competing interests, as this may affect their ability to provide a fair and balanced assessment. For more information, please visit the Competing Interests policy.
Misconduct that breaches copyright occurs when material containing copyright is used, but appropriate permissions as instructed by the copyright holders have not been obtained. For more information, please visit the Copyright and License policy.
Manipulative citation occurs when inappropriate citations are made or recommended for some self-interest. Those may be excessive self-citation of an author’s own work, excessive citation to the journal publishing the citing article, and editors or reviewers forcing authors to cite their own previously published papers without due justification as to why those papers are necessary to cite. For more information, please visit the Citation Policy.
Authors are required to be honest about their authorship. Those who qualify for authorship must be listed as authors, and each author listed should meet the authorship criteria. However, if an author deliberately does not comply, this will be considered a form of misconduct. Of particular concern are: (1) Ghost Author: Someone who is omitted from an authorship list despite qualifying for authorship; (2) Guest or Gift Author: A guest or gift author is someone who is listed as an author despite not qualifying for authorship. Guests are generally people brought in to make the list look more impressive. Gift authorship often involves mutual professional enhancement.
The journal will follow the COPE flowchart if any authorship issues are identified. For more information, please visit our guide to defining authorship.
LIDSEN recognizes and values the contribution of the peer review process to adding high quality research to the academic community and takes a zero-tolerance attitude towards attempts to manipulate the process. Where there is evidence of peer review manipulation, the necessary action will be taken to protect the integrity of the scholarly record.
Allegations of misconduct should be directed to the Editorial Office of the relevant journal or the LIDSEN publisher at info@lidsen.com. All allegations will be investigated confidentially by the LIDSEN Ethics Committee in accordance with COPE guidelines. If a case cannot be resolved through discussion with the author, it can be reported to the relevant institution. If a case involves another publication, the editor may contact that publication to synchronize any concerns.
LIDSEN recognizes the published article as the Final Version of Record, but it may be necessary to make changes to the published version due to some scientifically relevant errors or ethical issues. The editor will give careful consideration to the necessity for updating published papers and will follow the COPE Guidelines when dealing with such cases.
To ensure the integrity and transparency of the scholarly record, any necessary changes will be accompanied by a post-publication notice, such as a Correction, a Retraction, an Expression of Concern, a Comment and Reply and in rare circumstances a Removal, that will be permanently linked back to the original article. All these notices will be published for free.
The following errors may be considered necessary to publish a Correction statement, provided that the error does not affect the published article's final conclusion and scholarly integrity.
If a decision has been taken to correct an article, the LIDSEN Journal will:
In case, after the publication, it is recognized that there are significant errors in the article leading to potentially invalid conclusions or that research misconduct or publication misconduct has taken place, LIDSEN will follow COPE's Retraction guidelines to investigate and will issue a Retraction if the specific case meets the criteria for retraction.
Articles may be retracted if:
If a decision has been taken to retract an article, LIDSEN will:
To ensure the integrity and transparency of the scientific record, LIDSEN discourages the removal of the Version of Record. Articles may be removed in cases where the nature of the problem is so serious that it cannot be addressed by issuing a retraction or correction statement. This may be a very limited circumstance, for example, the violation of legal rights, or if following the findings presented in the article would pose a significant risk to public health.
If a decision has been taken to remove an article, LIDSEN will:
An Expression of Concern may be published to alert readers to potentially misleading information contained in the article if the investigation of issues related to an article is inconclusive or a judgment cannot be reached within a significant period of time. However, in such cases, there must be well-founded grounds to suggest that the concerns are valid. The Expression of Concern will be linked back to the published article it relates to. When the investigation has been completed, a Retraction or Correction notice may follow the Expression of Concern alongside the original article.
Comment articles involve providing commentary or criticism on previously published works in the journal. If a comment is deemed appropriate, the authors of the published article may be invited to submit a reply in response to the comment. Both Comments and Replies may be subject to peer review to ensure their scientific reasonableness and will be organized in accordance with the following terms.
LIDSEN Journals follow the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in handling cases of appeals and complaints.
If an author wishes to appeal a decision made by the journal's editors, please send a letter of appeal to the Journal Office, in which the author will need to: (1) provide a detailed explanation of why you disagree with the decision; (2) provide strong evidence and, if necessary, provide new data/information in response to editors' and reviewers' comments. Please be aware that editors will consider one appeal per article, and the editor’s decision following an appeal is final. Additional appeals on the same paper will not be considered if it is in the absence of sufficient new evidence to change the editor’s opinion from the prior review.
If you wish to submit a complaint on aspects of the journal's editorial management or publication ethic, please contact the Journal Office. Complaints will be reviewed initially by the Managing Editor to check if they deserve further investigation. Those deserving of further investigation should fulfill the following minimum criteria:
If the Managing Editor is involved in your complaints, please contact the publisher at info@lidsen.com.
Those complaints which, after initial assessment, are considered not suitable for further investigation will be advised of the specific reasons. Those deemed suitable for further investigation will be dealt with following standard procedures. Any complaint will be acknowledged promptly. During the period of investigation, other individuals and institutions involved may be consulted if necessary. If the complaint has legal implications, then legal advice will be sought. The complainant will be informed if a final decision is made. 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. All updates are required to follow our Policy on Updating Published Papers.
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