Manuscripts submitted to journals of Hikari Ltd 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 which bear novelty and correctness regarding text, figures, graphics, data, etc.
• To cite appropriately all works of other authors used in the paper.
• To use the journal guidelines.

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 processing 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.

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.

Journals of Hikari Ltd 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
• Bibliographic data/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.

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.

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.

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

Papers submitted to Hikari journals will be screened for plagiarism using software based tools for plagiarism detection. Hikari journals will immediately reject papers leading to plagiarism or self-plagiarism.