Aim and Scope

Prevention and Treatment of Natural Disasters (PTND) is an international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal devoted to original research work on all aspects of natural hazards, reflecting on the mechanisms of natural disasters, disaster prevention, treatment, and risk management, as well as community resilience assessment and enhancement under natural disasters. PTND is interested in all types of natural disasters, with an emphasis on weather and climate disasters (e.g., tropical cyclones, floods, wildfires, and extreme winds) and geological disasters (e.g., earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and landslides).

Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Mechanisms and nature of hazardous phenomena;
• Disaster prevention, mitigation, and adaptation;
• Disaster preparedness, response, and recovery;
• Disaster risk management;
• Resilience assessment and enhancement of physical and social infrastructure systems.

 Publication Frequency

The Prevention and Treatment of Natural Disasters is published semiyearly online.

 Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate Gold Open Access to its content as it believes that making research freely available to the public helps promote the research results benefiting the scholarly community.

• Higher Visibility, Availability, and Citations – free and unlimited accessibility of the publication over the internet without any restrictions, increases citation of the article;
• Ease of Search – publications are easily searchable in search engines and indexing databases;
• Rapid Publication – accepted papers are immediately published online.

Types of Publications

Manuscripts submitted to Prevention and Treatment of Natural Disasters should neither be published previously nor be under consideration for publication in another journal. The main types of publications are listed below.

_Article

These are original research manuscripts. The work should report scientifically sound experiments and provide a substantial amount of new information. The article should include the most recent and relevant references in the field. The structure should include an Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusions (optional) sections, with a suggested minimum word count of 5000 words.

_Review

Reviews offer a comprehensive analysis of the existing literature within a field of study, identifying current gaps or problems. They should be critical and constructive and provide recommendations for future research. No new, unpublished data should be presented. The structure can include an Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Relevant Sections, Discussion, Conclusions, and Future Directions, with a suggested minimum word count of 6000 words.

_{Communication}

Communications are short articles that present groundbreaking preliminary results or significant findings that are part of a larger study over multiple years. They can also include cutting-edge methods or experiments, and the development of new technology or materials. The structure is similar to an article and there is a suggested minimum word count of 2000 words.

_Editorial

These are non-peer-reviewed texts used to announce the launch of a new journal, a new section, a new Editor-in-Chief, a Special Issue, or an invited editorial. The main text should provide a brief introduction of the purpose and aim of the Editorial—to present the new journal, close the Special Issue, report on a pressing topic, etc. Editorials should not include unpublished or original data, although must provide a Conflict of Interest statement. Editorials prepared for the launch of new journals may also include a short biography of the Editor-in-Chief.

Peer Review Process

All manuscripts sent for publication in PTND is strictly and thoroughly peer-reviewed by experts (this includes spontaneous submissions, and invited papers). The Managing Editor of the journal will perform a technical pre-check of the manuscript's suitability upon receipt. The Editorial Board Member will be notified of the submission and invited to perform an editorial pre-check. The Editorial Office will then organize the peer-review process performed by independent experts and collect at least two review reports per manuscript. To uphold transparency and keep authors informed on the progress of the peer review, a preliminary version of the reviewers' reports, collected during the peer-review process, is made accessible to authors via the OJS platform. We ask our authors for adequate revisions (with a second round of peer-review if necessary) before a final decision is made. The final decision is made by the Editor-in-Chief, the Editorial Board Member or the Collection Editor. Accepted articles are copy-edited and English-edited.

Pre-Check

The pre-screening stage consists of two main steps: a technical pre-check performed by the Editorial Office and an editorial pre-check performed by an academic editor.

Immediately after submission, the journal’s Managing Editor will perform the technical pre-check to assess:

• The overall suitability of the manuscript to the journal/Topical Collection;
• Manuscript adherence to high-quality research and ethical standards;
• Standards of rigor to qualify for further review.

The Editor-in-Chief, the Editorial Board member or the Collection Editor will be notified of the submission and invited to perform an editorial pre-check. During the editorial pre-check phase, the academic editor will assess the suitability of the submission with respect to the scope of the journal, as well as the overall scientific soundness of the manuscript, including the relevance of the references and the correctness of the applied methodology. The academic editors can decide to reject the manuscript, request revisions before peer review, or continue with the peer review process and recommend suitable reviewers.

Collection Editors of Topical Collections are not able to make decisions regarding their own manuscripts submitted to their Topical Collection, as this would constitute a conflict of interest. An Editorial Board member will instead be responsible for decision making. The Collection Editor will be unable to access the review process except in their role as author. Similarly, Editors-in-Chief or other Editorial Board members are not able to access the review process of their manuscript except in their role as authors.

Peer Review

From submission to final decision or publication, one dedicated UK Scientific Publishing Limited staff member coordinates the review process and serves as the main point of contact for authors, academic editors, and reviewers.

UK Scientific Publishing Limited’s journals operate double-blind peer review, where in addition to the author not knowing the identity of the reviewer, the reviewer is unaware of the author’s identity.

At least two review reports are collected for each submitted article. The academic editor can suggest reviewers during pre-check. Alternatively, UK Scientific Publishing Limited editorial staff will use qualified Editorial Board members, qualified reviewers from our database, our reviewer board, or new reviewers identified by web searches for related articles.

The following criteria are applied to all reviewers:

• They should hold no conflicts of interest with any of the authors;
• They should not come from the same institution as the authors;
• They should not have published together with the authors in the last five years;
• They should hold a PhD or be a MD (applicable for medical journals);
• They should have relevant experience and have a proven publication record in the field of the submitted paper (Scopus or ORCID);
• They should be experienced scholars in the field of the submitted paper;
• They should hold an official and recognized academic affiliation.
• Reviewers who are accepted to review a manuscript are expected to:
• Have the necessary expertise to judge manuscript quality;
• Provide quality review reports and remain responsive throughout peer review;
• Maintain standards of professionalism and ethics.

Reviewers who accept a review invitation are provided 7–10 days to write their review via our online platform, OJS. Extensions can be granted on request. Decision categories include：

• Accept: Accepted manuscripts will be published in the current form with no further modifications required.
• Accept with Revisions: Manuscripts receiving a revisions decision will be published under the condition that minor/major modifications are made. Revisions will be reviewed by an editor to ensure necessary updates are made prior to publication.
• Resubmit for Review: The submission needs to be reworked, but with significant changes, may be accepted. However, It will require a second round of review.
• Reject: Rejected manuscripts will not be published and authors will not have the opportunity to resubmit a revised version of the manuscript.

When reviewing a revised manuscript, reviewers are asked to provide their report within 3 days. Extensions can also be granted on request.

To assist academic editors, UK Scientific Publishing Limited staff handle all communication with reviewers, authors, and the external editor. Academic editors can check the status of manuscripts and the identity of reviewers at any time, and are able to discuss manuscript review at any stage with UK Scientific Publishing Limited staff.

Publishing Ethics

Prevention and Treatment of Natural Disasters requests all members involved in the journal publishing process to adhere to the Code of Conduct and to its Best Practice Guidelines by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

The editors of this journal enforce a rigorous peer-review process together with strict ethical policies and standards to ensure to add high quality scientific works to the field of scholarly publication. Unfortunately, cases of plagiarism, data falsification, image manipulation, inappropriate authorship credit, and the like, do arise. The editors of Prevention and Treatment of Natural Disasters take such publishing ethics issues very seriously and are trained to proceed in such cases with a zero tolerance policy.

The in-house editors will investigate any allegations of publication misconduct and may contact the authors' institutions or funders if necessary. If evidence of misconduct is found, appropriate action will be taken to correct or retract the publication. Authors are expected to comply with the best ethical publication practices when publishing with Prevention and Treatment of Natural Disasters.

Plagiarism, Data Fabrication and Image Manipulation

Plagiarism is not acceptable in UK Scientific Publishing Limited journals. Plagiarism includes copying text, ideas, images, or data from another source, even from your own publications, without giving credit to the original source.

Reuse of text that is copied from another source must be between quotation marks and the original source must be cited. If a study's design or the manuscript's structure or language has been inspired by previous studies, these studies must be explicitly cited.

All submissions are checked for plagiarism using the industry standard software Thenticate. If plagiarism is detected during the peer review process, the manuscript may be rejected. If plagiarism is detected after publication, an investigation will take place and action taken in accordance with our policies.

Image files must not be manipulated or adjusted in any way that could lead to misinterpretation of the information provided by the original image. Irregular manipulation includes 1) introduction, enhancement, moving, or removing features from the original image, 2) grouping of images that should obviously be presented separately (e.g., from different parts of the same gel, or from different gels), or 3) modifying the contrast, brightness or color balance to obscure, eliminate or enhance some information.

If irregular image manipulation is identified and confirmed during the peer review process, we may reject the manuscript. If irregular image manipulation is identified and confirmed after publication, we may correct or retract the paper.

Data presented must be original and not inappropriately selected, manipulated, enhanced, or fabricated. This includes 1) exclusion of data points to enhance the significance of conclusions, 2) fabrication of data, 3) selection of results that support a particular conclusion at the expense of contradictory data, 4) deliberate selection of analysis tools or methods to support a particular conclusion (including p-hacking). We strongly recommend preregistration of methods and analysis.

Human and Animal Rights Policy

_{Human Research}

If human subjects were used in the experiments, authors must identify the committee or organization (e.g., author’s Institutional Ethics Review Board) approving the experiments in the Materials and Methods section of the manuscript, which should also detail ethics approval information such as the name of the granting committee or organization and the approval identifiers, i.e., reference numbers. Our journal requires that authors provide proof of research ethics or ethics statement along with the submission. In the case that ethics approval identifiers are not available, written approval from the granting committee or organization must be provided as a confidential supplementary file.

In the manuscript, include a statement in the Materials and Methods section confirming that the experiments were carried out in adherence to the ethical principles set out in the WMA Declaration of Helsinki or other relevant institutional and national guidelines and regulations and that informed consent was obtained from all human subjects. For investigations undertaken on human subjects, the manner in which the informed consent was obtained from the study participants (i.e., oral or written) should be stated clearly as well.

The authors should inform the study participants of the purpose(s) of publication, the possible risks and benefits as a result of the experiment, and the patient's right to withhold or withdraw consent. Consent should be obtained from the parent(s) or legal guardian(s) if the study participant is a minor.

Authors are obliged to declare and clearly specify any restrictions on the availability or the use of human data in the manuscript.

_{Patient Anonymity and Privacy}

Human subjects have a right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. Identifying information or patient identifiers, including patient names, initials, date of birth, contacts, medical record numbers, hospital numbers, and geographical location, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, or pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Efforts must be made by the authors to at least mask or conceal any identifying information of the patients that appear in writing or within photographs.

Authors are obliged to explain to the patient if revealing the patient’s identity cannot be fully avoided, e.g., an image of an identifiable body part like the face has to be published in the report. The relevant identifying information to be published, e.g., the image, must be shown to the patient, and consent for publication taken for the use of that information in the publication. If the patient dies, then consent must be obtained from the next of kin or legal representative. We shall consider the author's version of the consent form for publication if all the essential items as shown in our sample consent form were included.

All submissions will be checked for documentation of patient consent for publication and for any potentially identifying information. Submissions that include identifying patients.

_{Animal Research}

For studies describing testing on regulated animals (i.e., all live vertebrates and/or higher invertebrates), authors must identify the committee or organization (e.g., author’s Institutional Ethics Review Board) approving the experiments in the Materials and Methods section of the manuscript, which should also detail ethics approval information such as the name of the granting committee or organization and the approval identifiers, i.e., reference numbers. For research conducted on non-regulated animals, a statement should be made as to why ethical approval was not required. Our journal requires that authors provide proof of research ethics or ethics statement along with the submission. In the case that ethics approval identifiers are not available, written approval from the granting committee or organization must be provided as a confidential supplemental file.

Authors are encouraged to follow the ARRIVE guidelines while reporting animal research. In the manuscripts, any additional guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals that were used in the experiment should be indicated. Briefly, the authors should also include animal details (e.g., species, gender, age, weight), animal housing conditions and husbandry information, and relevant steps taken to ameliorate the pain and suffering of the animals in the Materials and Methods section.

Specifically, experiments on non-human primates must be performed in accordance with the recommendations set out in the Weatherall report (The Use of Non-Human Primates in Research).

_{Application of Cell Lines}

To ensure research reproducibility, authors must declare what cell lines were used in their experiment and the source or origin of all cell lines utilized. It is advisable to provide information regarding the authentication of cell lines and testing for mycoplasma contamination.

The generation of de novo cell lines derived from human tissue must be approved by the relevant ethics committee (or the author’s Institutional Ethics Review Board). Authors must identify the committee or organization (e.g. author’s Institutional Ethics Review Board) approving the experiments in the Materials and Methods section of the manuscript, which should also detail ethics approval information such as the name of the granting committee or organization and the approval identifiers, i.e., reference numbers. Our journal requires that authors provide proof of research ethics or ethics statement along with the submission. In the case that ethics approval identifiers are not available, written approval from the granting committee or organization must be provided as a confidential supplementary file. Authors must confirm that they obtained consent from the donor or next of kin for deriving a cell line from the donor.

Authorship

UK Scientific Publishing Limited follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines which state that in order to qualify for authorship of a manuscript, authors must meet all four criteria:

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

Those who contributed to the work but do not qualify for authorship should be listed in the acknowledgments. More detailed guidance on authorship is given by ICMJE.

Different disciplines adopt their own criteria, for example, the ICMJE guidelines are well-known in biomedical fields, the APA (American Psychological Association) guidelines are used in Psychology, the EuChemS (European Chemical Society) guidelines are adopted in Chemistry, whereas in the arts, humanities and social sciences, publications by single authors are more common. However, the minimum recognized requirements for authorship are making a substantial contribution to the research and being accountable for the work undertaken (COPE Discussion Document: Authorship).

Any change to the author list during the editorial process or after publication should be approved by all authors, including any who have been removed. We reserve the right to request evidence of authorship, and changes to authorship after acceptance will be made at the discretion of UK Scientific Publishing Limited.

Author Contributions

For complete transparency, all submitted manuscripts should include an author contributorship statement that specifies the work of each author. For research articles with several authors, a short paragraph specifying their individual contributions must be provided.

The following statements should be used: Conceptualization, X.X. and Y.Y.; methodology, X.X.; software, X.X.; validation, X.X., Y.Y. and Z.Z.; formal analysis, X.X.; investigation, X.X.; resources, X.X.; data curation, X.X.; writing—original draft preparation, X.X.; writing—review and editing, X.X.; visualization, X.X.; supervision, X.X.; project administration, X.X.; funding acquisition, Y.Y. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Please refer to the CRediT taxonomy for an explanation of the terms. Authorship must be limited to those who have contributed substantially to the work reported.

The corresponding author should act as a point of contact between the editor and the other authors, keep co-authors informed, and involve them in major decisions about the publication.

Joint first authors can be indicated by the inclusion of the statement “X and X contributed equally to this paper” in the manuscript. The roles of the equal authors should also be adequately disclosed in the contributorship statement.

For review articles, where individual statements are less applicable, a statement should be included that clarifies who was responsible for the ideation, who performed the literature search and/or data analysis, and who drafted and revised the work.

For articles that are principally based on a student’s dissertation or thesis, UK Scientific Publishing Limited recommends that the student is listed as principal author.

Consortium/Group Authorship

If authorship is retained by the consortium or group, the consortium or group should be listed as an author. Individual consortium/group author members listed in the author byline must qualify for authorship according to ICMJE guidelines.

Where work is presented by the author(s) on behalf of a consortium or group, this should be clarified in the author list, for example, “Author A on behalf of XXX Consortium/Group”. The consortium/group will not retain authorship and will only appear in the author list.

If provided, the consortium/group members will be listed in a separate section at the end of the article in Acknowledgments, Appendix or Supplementary Materials.

Authorship and the Use of AI or AI-Assisted Technologies

UK Scientific Publishing Limited follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) position statement when it comes to the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted technology in manuscript preparation. Tools such as ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs) do not meet authorship criteria and thus cannot be listed as authors on manuscripts.

In situations where AI or AI-assisted tools have been used in the preparation of a manuscript, this must be appropriately declared with sufficient details at submission via the cover letter. Furthermore, authors are required to be transparent about the use of these tools and disclose details of how the AI tool was used within the “Materials and Methods” section, in addition to providing the AI tool’s product details within the “Acknowledgments” section.

Authors are fully responsible for the originality, validity, and integrity of the content of their manuscript, including any material contributed by AI or AI-assisted tools, and must ensure, through careful review, that this content complies with all UK Scientific Publishing Limited’s publication ethics policies.

Deceased Authors

If a manuscript is submitted with a deceased author included in the authorship, or if an author passes away during peer review, the corresponding author, or co-authors, should inform the editorial office. If the deceased author was a corresponding author, the authorship group should nominate a co-author for this role. The corresponding author should confirm the contribution of the deceased author and any potential conflicts of interest. Upon publication, a note will be added under the author list.

Changes to Authorship

Authors are expected to carefully consider authorship before manuscript submission. Any change to the author list should be made during the editorial process, before manuscript acceptance. Authorship changes, including any addition, removal, or rearrangement of author names will require the approval of all authors including any to be removed. To request any change in authorship, the journal must receive a completed authorship change form that includes the signatures of all authors, and provides a reason for the change. Any changes to authorship requested after manuscript acceptance will result in a delay in publication. If the manuscript has already been published, requests for a change in authorship will be evaluated and require the publication of a Correction. We reserve the right to request evidence of authorship, and changes to authorship after acceptance will be made at the discretion of UK Scientific Publishing Limited.

Authorship Disputes

UK Scientific Publishing Limited follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines when it comes to resolving authorship disputes that may occur either during processing or post-publication. Here, COPE guidelines clearly state that Journals are not in a position to adjudicate on appropriate authorship contributions (https:/publicationethics.org/resources/discussion-documents/authorship) and that disputed authorship is not usually grounds for retraction when “there is no reason to doubt the validity of the findings” (https://publicationethics.org/retraction-guidelines).

In situations where disputes cannot be settled by the affected parties, Journals will reach out to an appropriate Institution or Governing Body for final adjudication. UK Scientific Publishing Limited reserves the right to amend authorship lists in line with Institution or Governing Body recommendations.

Conflict of Interest

Author’s Declaration of Conflict of Interest

According to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, “Authors should avoid entering into agreements with study sponsors, both for-profit and non-profit, that interfere with authors’ access to all of the study’s data or that interfere with their ability to analyze and interpret the data and to prepare and publish manuscripts independently when and where they choose”.

Authors must identify and declare any personal circumstances or interests that may be perceived as inappropriately influencing the representation or interpretation of the reported research results. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include but are not limited to financial interests (such as membership, employment, consultancies, stocks/shares ownership, honoraria, grants or other funding, paid expert testimonies and patent-licensing arrangements) and non-financial interests (such as personal or professional relationships, affiliations, and personal beliefs).

Any role of the funding sponsors in the design of the study, in the collection, analyses or interpretation of data, in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results must be declared in this section. If there is no role, please state, “The funding sponsors had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, and in the decision to publish the results”.

Authors can disclose potential conflicts of interest via the online submission system during the submission process. The corresponding author must include a summary statement in the manuscript in a separate section “Conflicts of Interest” placed just before the reference list. The statement should reflect all the collected potential conflicts of interest disclosures in the form.

See below for examples of disclosures:

Conflicts of Interest: Author A has received research grants from Company A. Author B has received a speaker honorarium from Company X and owns stocks in Company Y. Author C has been involved as a consultant and expert witness in Company Z. Author D is the inventor of patent X.

If no potential perceived conflicts exist, the authors should state:

Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

UK Scientific Publishing Limited acknowledges the importance of publishing research regarding smoking cessation or reduction in tobacco use. While we accept submissions on these topics, UK Scientific Publishing Limited does not publish studies funded partially or fully by the tobacco industry. Other privately funded studies—for example, those associated with the pharmaceutical or food industries—must clearly state the role of the funder. This statement should cover aspects related to how the study topic was selected, the experimental design, and the collection and analysis of data.

Reviewer’s Declaration of Conflict of Interest

Assigned reviewers should declare competing interests arising from dealing with and reviewing the assigned submission. Since we adopt double-blind peer review in most of our journals and assume that the author identity has been completely masked to the best of our effort, the most important question that could reasonably be perceived as interfering with the reviewer’s peer review of the manuscript is: Could he/she profit or be negatively impacted financially by the peer review of the assigned manuscript?

If the reviewer’s answer to this question is “yes”, he/she should immediately inform the handling editor.

Editorial Board Members, Collection Editors and Editors’s Declaration of Conflict of Interest

Editorial Board Members, Collection Editors and Editors are required to declare any competing interests and may be excluded from the peer review process if a competing interest exists.

In addition, they should exclude themselves from handling manuscripts in cases where there is a competing interest. This may include – but is not limited to – having previously published with one or more of the authors, and sharing the same institution as one or more of the authors.

Where an Editorial Board Member, Collection Editor and Editor is on the author list they must declare this in the competing interests section on the submitted manuscript. If they are an author or have any other competing interest regarding a specific manuscript, another member of the Editorial Board, Collection Editor or Editor will be assigned to assume responsibility for overseeing peer review. These submissions are subject to the exact same review process as any other manuscript.

Editorial Board Members are welcome to submit papers to the journal. These submissions are not given any priority over other manuscripts, and Editorial Board Member status has no bearing on editorial consideration.

Editorial Staff’s Declaration of Conflict of Interest

All UK Scientific Publishing Limited journal editorial staff are required to declare to their employer any interests — financial or otherwise — that might influence, or be perceived to influence, their editorial practices. Failure to do so is a disciplinary offence. UK Scientific Publishing Limited has a strict policy of editorial independence in individual acceptance decisions and editorial standards of quality and significance should never be compromised. While some editors are financially incentivized to achieve journal growth, we are clear in our internal policies and individuals’ contracts or formal objectives that this should be achieved by ensuring submissions of sufficient quality and never by compromising editorial standards.

Copyright and Licensing

_Copyright

The authors shall retain the copyright of their work but allow the Publisher to publish, copy, distribute, and convey the work.

_License

Prevention and Treatment of Natural Disasters publishes accepted manuscripts under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Authors who submit their papers for publication by Prevention and Treatment of Natural Disasters agree to have the CC BY 4.0 license applied to their work, and that anyone is allowed to reuse the article or part of it free of charge for any purpose, including commercial use. As long as the author and original source are properly cited, anyone may copy, redistribute, reuse, and transform the content.

Indexing & Archiving

As a new journal, the Editorial Team behind Prevention and Treatment of Natural Disasters is currently doing its best to have the journal indexed in databases all around the world.

The journal has been indexed/included by

Google Scholar

Scilit

WorldCat (OCLC)

J-Gate

Article Processing Charges (APC)

This journal is open access, and the Article Processing Charge (APC) is 600 USD, which is applicable only to authors whose manuscripts have been successfully accepted after peer-review.

At UK Scientific Publishing Limited, we strongly believe that the APC should not become a barrier in the publication process. A range of discounts or waivers are offered to authors who are not able to cover the APC.

Payments can be made through Wire transfer - Authors can make the APC payment directly to the Publisher; please find the relevant banking information below:

• Account Name: UK SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHING LIMITED
• Bank Name: Lloyds Bank
• Account number: 39175763
• Sort code: 309950

We only receive payment in US Dollars (USD). Please reference the invoice number/article ID in the payment description column to ease the verification process.

An APC invoice will be sent to the authors after their manuscripts have been accepted. Articles will only be published after the APCs have been paid. Authors are required to clear the APC payment before the invoice is due (generally, an APC invoice is due within 20 days after issuance). Typically, the invoice will be addressed to the corresponding author(s). In any case that the payer’s details should be amended, please inform our editors via email.

UK Scientific Publishing Limited will refund the paid APC if an article fails to be published due to an error made by the publisher. The paid APC will only be refunded if a correction to the error is not executed within 30 days of publication.

Author Appeals

Authors may appeal a rejection by sending an e-mail to the Editorial Office of the journal. The appeal must provide a detailed justification, including point-by-point responses to the reviewers' and/or Editor's comments. Appeals can only be submitted following a “reject and decline resubmission” decision and should be submitted within three months from the decision date. Failure to meet these criteria will result in the appeal not being considered further. The Managing Editor will forward the manuscript and related information (including the identities of the referees) to a designated Editorial Board Member. The academic editor being consulted will be asked to provide an advisory recommendation on the manuscript and may recommend acceptance, further peer review, or uphold the original rejection decision. This decision will then be validated by the Editor-in-Chief. A reject decision at this stage is final and cannot be reversed.

Comments and Complaints

Readers who have concerns or complaints about published papers should first contact the corresponding author to attempt a resolution directly, before contacting the Editorial Office.

The Editorial Office may be contacted in cases where it is not appropriate to contact the authors, if the authors were not responsive, or if the concerns were not resolved. The Editorial Office will coordinate with the complainant, author/s and Editors-in-Chief or Editorial Board members for the investigation, remedy or resolution of any concerns or complaints.

Complaints, comments, or update requests relating to scholarly validity, ethical or legal aspects of either the paper or its review process will be investigated further where appropriate. 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. For ethical concerns, final decisions are made by the Editor-in-Chief or Editorial Board members who are supported by the Editorial Office to promote adherence to core principles of publication ethics as expressed by the COPE. Other persons and institutions will be consulted as necessary, including university authorities, or experts in the field. Legal counsel may be sought where the complaint has legal implications.

Personal comments or criticisms will not be entertained. All complaints are investigated, including anonymous complaints. Complainants may request that the Editorial Office handle their complaint confidentially and the Editorial Office, any Editors-in-Chief or other Editorial Board members will attempt to do so insofar as is appropriate and in accordance with our internal procedures.

Decisions about Corrections, Comments and Replies, Expressions of Concerns, or Retractions resulting from an investigation are made by Editors-in-Chief, or Editorial Board members, and communicated to authors. All updates are required to follow our policy on Updating Published Papers.

If a complaint is not considered to be substantiated, then further communication will only be considered if additional information evidencing concerns is presented.

Complainants might not be updated about the status of an investigation until a final decision has been reached, however, complainants will be notified if an update is published. The Editorial Office and Editorial Board members are under no obligation to present further details. Communication will be ended where it is not considered cordial or respectful. Readers with complaints or concerns should be aware that investigations take time to conduct.

When raising concerns to the Editorial Office, please use the Contact Form or contact details below, and, in addition to details about the paper, please also include details of the complaint, its scholarly, scientific or academic validity, a summary of the main points and any other issues, details of any correspondence already had with the authors and a statement clarifying any actual, potential or perceived conflicts of interest.

Withdrawal Policy

If the author decides to withdraw an article after it has been accepted (but not yet published),  he/she would be required to pay a penalty fee. Authors are advised to keep in mind that an article should only be withdrawn if the authors detect significant errors or flaws, as it is not an acceptable practice to withdraw an article after it has been sent for peer review. The withdrawal process is considered to be complete once the author receives a confirmation of withdrawal from the Journal Editorial Office.