Advanced Studies in Biology

Publication Ethics

Advanced Studies in Biology is committed to following the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics). It is a duty of our editors to follow Cope Guidance for Editors and our peer-reviewers must follow COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers.

Responsibilities of Editors

The editors have the responsibility and the duty to guarantee the originality of the manuscript and to verify the typology of the article, and the correspondence to the aims and scopes of the journal. The editors have to evaluate carefully the assignment of the article to reviewers with an adequate scientific experience level regarding the article topic. The editors also have the responsibility to assure the greatest transparency towards the authors during the whole evaluation proasbs.

Responsibilities of Reviewers

The reviewers must treat the papers respectfully, honestly and confidentially. They should inform the editors of any possible conflict of interest with the research or its sponsors. Reviewers must provide honest and constructive evaluation of the papers and shouldn't use the results and data of the papers in any unethical way.

Responsibilities of Authors

Manuscripts submitted to Advanced Studies in Biology will be considered for publication with the understanding that the same work has not been published and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. In particular, the authors have the following responsibilities:
•   To produce an original manuscript regarding text, figures, graphics, data, etc.;
•   To cite appropriately all works of other authors used in the paper;
•   To use the journal guidelines.

Corresponding Author

Regarding articles whose number of authors is bigger than one, a corresponding author should be nominated. The corresponding author will be responsible for the manuscript during the whole proasbsing of the paper: from the submission to the publication, including the review and submission or revised version. The corresponding author should ensure that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Co-authors

Each co-author is responsible for the correct presentation of the article and its contents, assuring the research originality and the fact that the article hasn't been published in other journal.

Ethical violations

Advanced Studies in Biology will immediately reject papers leading to the following ethical violations:
      - Data fabrication and falsification
      - Plagiarism
      - Self-plagiarism
      - Simultaneous submissions
      - Duplicate publication
      - Overlapping publications
      - Redundant publications
      - Selective reporting
      - Misleading reporting
      - Improper author contribution or attribution
      - Gift authorship
      - Citation manipulation
      - Impact factor manipulation
      - Index/influence measure manipulation
      - Undeclared/fake financial support for publication
      - Undisclosed conflicts of interest

In addition to the immediate rejection of the infringing manuscript, Hikari Ltd will not consider any other papers submitted to any of our journals by the same authors (individually or in combination with other authors). The authors of the infringing manuscript will be dismissed from serving on the Editorial Board of any journal published by Hikari Ltd.

Conflict of Interest

A conflict of interest exists when judgement regarding the research is influenced by factors such as financial gain or personal relationships. All authors are required to disclose any financial, personal or other associations that may influence or be perceived to influence their work.

Plagiarism

Advanced Studies in Biology will immediately reject papers leading to plagiarism or self-plagiarism.

Corrections of errors; retractions, etc.

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author's obligation to notify the publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

Retraction of a paper is applied in the following cases:
    -   The paper leads to ethical violations (plagiarism, data fabrication, falsification, simultaneous submissions, duplicate publications, etc.)
    -   The paper contains errors which couldn't be corrected in a subsequent erratum notice.
    -   A published paper could be subjected to a new review and evaluation process if concerns have been raised about the content of the paper with a subsequent retraction upon negative evaluation.

When a reader discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in a paper or book published by Hikari Ltd, or have any other complaint about editorial content (plagiarism, duplicate papers, etc.), he/she should make a complaint by e-mail to: hikari@m-hikari.com . We welcome complaints as they provide an opportunity for improvement, and we aim to respond quickly and constructively.

Independence of editorial decisions

Hikari Ltd is committed to ensuring that commercial revenue has no impact or influence on editorial decisions.