As a global open access publisher, Angus Academic Press is dedicated to disseminating cutting-edge scholarly research among scientific community by advocating an immediate, world-wide and barrier-free access to the research we publish. To ensure all publication meeting our ethical and scientific quality standards, each submission goes through a rigorous review process, including pre-peer-review by relevant editorial board, a single-blind peer-review process by scientific experts, revision following reviewers’ comments as well as final approval by the editorial board. Editorial Policies Authorship and Contribution Conflicts of interest Corrections & Retractions Appeals and Complaints Peer-review Publication Ethics Statement Research Ethics Research Involving humans Research involving animals Research involving cell lines Research involving plants Informed consent Standards of reporting Privacy Crossmark

Editorial Policies Overview

The following describes the editorial policies and general guidelines in the publication process of Angus Academic Press journals. Most particularly, Angus Academic Press journals’ editorial policies strictly adopts and continuously strive to adhere to the following standards and requirements: COPE - Committee on Publication Ethics ICMJE - International Committee of Medical Journal Editors STM - International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers WAME– World Association of Medical Editors It should be noted that editorial policies of some particular Angus Academic Press journals, may be different from one another. You are advised to refer to each journals’ detailed policies before submitting your manuscripts.

Authorship and Contribution

The listed authors include all of the individuals who have made substantial contributions to the intellectual content of an article in terms of the conception, drafting, and revising of the work and the acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of the data. Their approval is required for the submitted version as well as any substantially modified version to which they have contributed. Further, all of the listed authors are considered personally responsible for all aspects of the work and must guarantee that any questions regarding its accuracy or integrity—even for aspects of the work in which an individual author did not personally take part—are appropriately examined, resolved, and documented in the article. On the other hand, involvement in the securing of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of a research group does not in itself justify listing as an author. Rather, those who have contributed to the work in such ways should be listed in the acknowledgments.

Editors and Journal Staff as Authors

In the circumstances where Editors or editorial staff of the journal submit their own studies to the journal, they shall not be involved in the reviewing process, and the review process must be made transparently and rigorously. Submissions authored by editors or editorial staff of the journal will be handled by another editor who has least COIs with the authors to minimize the bias.

Abstracting and Indexing

To increase your searchability, Angus Academic Press journals are indexed by major abstracting and indexing databases. Please visit the Indexing and Abstracting page of each journal for a detailed information.

Article Processing Charges (APCs)

With all the journals published in full open access, Angus Academic Press allows free and unrestricted access to the full text of academic articles for scholars from all over the world. Manuscripts once accepted for publication after peer-review will incur a processing fee. Please check the Article Process Charge page of each journal for specific APCs.

Conflicts of interest (COIs)

COIs, also referred to as “competing interests”, indicate the potential to influence the validity or objectivity of research. COIs may include personal, financial, intellectual, professional, political or religious in nature. Editors, authors, and reviewers may be involved into COIs, and Angus Academic Press considers it essential to identify and seek to mitigate them so as to ensure the integrity of its role in the dissemination and preservation of knowledge. In order to limit COIs, all roles involved in the peer-review process must identify and declare any personal circumstances or associations that may be perceived as having such influence and acknowledge all funding sources for the work. Failure to declare competing interests may result in decline of a manuscript. However, COI statements relating to public funding sources, such as government agencies and charitable or academic institutions, need not be supplied. COIs are not considered permanent; such relationships that have ended more than two years prior to the submission of a manuscript need not be identified as sources of potential conflict.

Corrections & Retractions

Angus Academic Press journals will issue corrections, and/or retraction statements, when deemed proper.

Corrections

Angus Academic Press aims to publish every article online in its final form. Upon receiving the proofs of their accepted manuscripts, authors will have an opportunity to check for errors and oversights. Occasionally, a mistake is pointed out in a published article, necessitating the issuance of a correction statement. A correction is a statement rectifying an error or an omission ,Authors or readers may submit such a statement either through the journal’s online manuscript submission system (https://journal.angus-publishing.com/index.php/about/index), or by sending an email, along with the submission ID, to the Angus Academic Press ’s editorial office (AngusPress@163.com). A corrected article is not removed, or replaced, from the journal’s website,. A correction notice, published and linked to the corresponding article, is freely accessible to all readers. Author’s Correction: An Author’s Correction may be published to correct an important error(s) made by the author that affects the scientific integrity of the published article, the publication record, or the reputation of the authors or the journal. The Managing Editor of that manuscript will be responsible for handling the correction process. Publisher’s Correction: A Publisher’s Correction may be published to correct an important error(s) made by the journal that affects the scientific integrity of the published article, the publication record, or the reputation of the authors or of the journal.

Retractions

A retraction is a notice that a previously published paper should no longer be regarded as part of the published literature or: that indicates that an article has been withdrawn from the publication in which it appeared after it was published. The primary purpose of a retraction is to ensure the integrity and completeness of scholarly records by withdrawing any manuscript which is found to contain infringements of professional ethical codes, major errors, or where its main conclusion is seriously undermined as a result of new evidence coming to light. Violations of professional ethical codes include multiple submissions without proper citations or permission, redundant publications, fake claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data, etc. Major errors cover any or all miscalculations or experimental errors, intentionally or due to honest mistakes. The retraction will be referred to the Editors-in-Chief, Associate Editors, and the Managing Editor who have handled the paper. Retracted articles will not be removed from the printed copies of the journal (e.g., from libraries) nor from the electronic archives. Their retracted status will be indicated as clearly as possible. Bibliographic information about the article will be retained to ensure the permanence and integrity of the published scientific record. When an article is retracted, in most of the cases, the original manuscript is corrected and is bi-directionally linked (to and from) the published retraction notice which details the original error. For the purpose of transparency, when corrections made to the original article affect any data, figures, tables or texts, the retraction notice will display the original data alongside the corrected version. When a correction is not possible, all existing versions of the article will remain unchanged but will contain the bi-directional links, to and from, the published retraction notice. The notice of retraction is permanently linked to its corresponding retracted article and is freely available and accessible by all readers. Articles may be retracted by their Author(s), by the Journal Editors, or by the Publisher, i.e., Angus Academic Press . In all instances, the retraction should indicate the reason for the action as well as the entity behind the decision. A retraction made without the unanimous agreement of the authors is feasible and indicated as such.

Appeals and Complaints

Angus Academic Press is open for further discussion after either a publication or a rejection of a manuscript.

Appeal against a Rejection

Authors may appeal a rejection, or request further discussions or post-publication revisions, by contacting the Journal’s Editorial department. When making such an appeal or request, Authors must provide a detailed justification for their request, with a description of the situation, including point-by-point responses to the reviewers’ and/or editor’s comments. The Journal’s Managing Editor will then forward the manuscript and the related information (including the identities of the referees) to the Editor in charge (either one of the Editors-in-Chief or, an Editorial Board Member with any conflict of interest (COI), who will render a final and irreversible decision. Appeals will only be considered from the originally submitting Authors. All information will be kept confidential. As a general rule, an appeal to a Rejection Decision will only be considered if: the authors can clearly and convincingly demonstrate that the final decision was based on an error made by a Referee or by the Editors during review if important additional data can be provided if a convincing case of bias in the process can be clearly demonstrated Authors who wish to appeal an Editorial decision should submit a formal letter of Appeal to the Journal by contacting the journal editorial office (AngusPress@163.com) . Please include the manuscript number in the email subject line and on the appeal letter. If an appeal is successful, the Authors will be sent instructions on how to proceed. If an appeal merits further consideration, the Editor may decide to submit the Authors' response and the revised paper for further peer review.

Complaints

Complaint about Scientific Content Authors may contact the relevant Journal to file a complaint. The Editor-in-Chief or the Handling Editor will consider the Authors’ argument and the Reviewers’ reports, and will decide whether: The decision to reject should stand Another independent opinion is required The appeal should be considered The complainant will be informed of the decision with an explanation when appropriate. Decisions on appeals are final and new submissions take priority over appeals.

Complaint about Processes

Authors may contact the Journal directly to raise a complaint concerning the process. The Editor-in-Chief together with the Handling Editor will investigate the matter. The complainant will be given appropriate feedback. Feedback is provided to relevant stakeholders to improve processes and procedures.

Complaint about Publication Ethics

Authors may send an email to AngusPress@163.com concerning ethical issues or complaints. The Editor-in-Chief or the Handling Editor will diligently follow the guidelines published by the Committee on Publication Ethics in asse

Editorial Peer-review

Model of peer review

There are different models of peer review, all of which have merits and disadvantages. Angus Academic Press conducts single-blind peer-review, and will initially check all manuscripts before these are sent to peer-review. A subject-specific PhD-level academic editor carries out an initial check before peer-review.

Initial checks

Before proceed to the peer-review cycle, all submitted manuscripts received by the Editorial Office will be initial-checked by a subject area specialist Managing Editor to decide whether they are (1) correctly formatted/prepared, (2) follow the ethical policies of the journal, (3) fit the scope of the journal and (4) scientifically sound. Manuscripts that do not meet the journal's requirements and standards will be rejected before peer-review. After the initial check, the managing editor will send the qualified manuscripts to journals' Editor(s). Editor(s) will make initial decisions on whether the manuscripts will be sent for peer-review. No judgment on the significance or potential impact of the work will be made at the initial check stage. Manuscripts that are inadequately prepared will be returned to the author(s) for revision and resubmission. Rejection decisions at this stage will be verified by the Editor(s).

Peer-review

All original articles, reviews, and other types of papers including invited papers published in Angus Academic Press journals go through a vigorous and thorough peer-review procedure. After an initial check, the manuscript is assigned to a handling editor, who then manage the peer-review and otherwise oversees the whole process. Minimum of two independent reviews will be count. The peer-review is single-blind in nature, meaning that the reviewers know the identities of the authors whose work they are assessing but that the authors do not know the identities of the reviewers. Minor or major revisions may be requested to author(s). The final decision regarding acceptance is usually made by the journal’s Editor(s).

Confidentiality

The confidentiality should be respected during the peer review process. Any details of a manuscript or its review shall not be revealed before publication. Academic contents during peer-review should not be breached and used by any roles who involved in the peer-review process.

Special Issues

Many journals publish special issues as part of the scheduled journal volumes. Special issues are often devoted to investigating the emerging or “hot” topics, or conference, or to exploring alternative perspectives on familiar themes. A special issue can be handled by a Guest Editor. Most special issues are developed when a subject expert identifies a demand for an issue in a particular area and approaches a journal Editor to propose an issue. Please check the policies of special issue application.

Editorial Decision

The decision regarding publication may take one of four forms.

Accept

The paper is in principle accepted based on the reviewers’ comments. The decision to publish is not based solely on the scientific validity of an article’s content but may also take into account such considerations as its extent and importance.

Minor revisions

The paper is to be accepted after it has undergone minor revisions specified in the reviewers’ comments. In this situation, authors have five days to complete the minor revisions along with point-by-point responses to the comments or to provide a rebuttal letter.

Major revisions

The paper may be accepted provided that it is thoroughly revised. In this case as well, the authors must provide a point-by-point response or rebuttal to the comments, and the revised version is sent to the same reviewer for further comment.

Decline

Articles are rejected without the possibility of acceptance after revision when they are found to suffer from serious flaws and/or to make no substantial original contribution to the scholarship. Decisions are communicated to the corresponding author in a formal letter, along with reviewer feedback and any other requirements from the journal office

Revisions

In the cases in which revisions are called for, then, authors are expected to provide point-by-point responses to the reviewers’ comments, especially in those instances in which they disagree with the comments. Usually author(s) will have a certain long time to resubmit the revised manuscript for both a major or a minor revision. In most cases, the revised manuscript is re-assigned to the original Editor(s). The editor(s) may make a new decision based on their own assessment of the revised manuscript and your response to reviewers, or request a new round of peer-review.

Transferring to Other Journals

Authors can request that submissions (with referee reports, if relevant) rejected from one Angus Academic Press journal be transferred to another Angus Academic Press journal for further consideration there. Manuscripts will never be transferred between the journals without an author’s consent. We trust that reviewers for any Angus Academic Press journal are willing to have their reviews considered by the editors of another Angus Academic Press journal.

Publication Ethics Statement

Angus Academic Press follows COPE core practices that are applicable to all involved in publishing scholarly literature: editors and journal teams, publishers and institutions. Angus Academic Press takes vigorous ethical policies and standards on any publication ethical issues. Any allegations of research or publication misconducts are not tolerant, and further sanctions will be taken once the evidence of misconduct is confirmed, including retractions and corrections of a published material. To verify the originality of content submitted to our journals, we use iThenticate to check submissions against previous publications. (or some example of general plagiarism like coping, double submission, manual data making, omission or addition of authors, retracting papers after publication in cases where plagiarism is identified). Angus Academic Press is obliged to provide authors with appropriate layouts based on correct information presented by authors. Angus Academic Press also takes responsibility for any mistakes made by the publisher and endeavors to avoid these in all cases

Plagiarism, duplicate/redundant publication

Plagiarism includes copying text, ideas, images, or data from another source, even from your own publications, without giving any credit to the original source. Plagiarism is strictly not acceptable in any submissions to Angus Academic Press . All sources must be cited at the point they are used, and reuse of wordings must be limited, be attributed to, or quoted, in the text. Manuscripts that are detected to have plagiarism will be rejected (if unpublished) or retracted (if published), as appropriate. Duplicate submission/publication refer to the practice of submitting the same study to two journals or publishing more or less the same study in two journals. These submissions/publications can be nearly simultaneous or years later. Redundant publication (salami publishing) refers to the situation that one study is split into several parts and submitted to two or more journals.

Fabrication, falsification, and image manipulation

Data fabrication is the intentional misrepresentation of research data by making-up findings, recording, or reporting of results. Data falsification is the manipulation of research materials, equipment, or processes, including omitting and changing data, with the intention of giving a false impression. Changes to images can create misleading results when research data are collected as images. Inappropriate image manipulation is one form of fabrication or falsification that journals can identify. The authors of submitted manuscripts or published articles in which the results are found to have been fabricated, falsified, or subjected to image manipulation, will be sanctioned, and their published articles will be retracted immediately.

Citation manipulation and systematic manipulation

Angus Academic Press defines citation manipulation as the act of excessive citation of articles, with the purpose of increasing citation rates and raising a journal's impact factor. Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) released a discussion document, explains how coercive citation manipulation has been practiced by editors and reviewers, and distinguishes between legitimate and illegitimate reasons for self-citation. Systematic manipulation refers to repeat use of dishonest or fraudulent practices by an individual or a group of individuals to prevent or influence the independent assessment of a piece of scholarly work by an independent peer; or inappropriately attribute authorship of a piece of scholarly work; or publish fabricated or plagiarised research.

Research Ethics

Research Involving Human Subjects, Animals, and Cell Lines

Humans

All studies involving human subjects or human-related data or material, must have adhered to the standards established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and COPE’s Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines. These standards require that all,research performed on human subjects including research on identifiable human material and data, must follow the international rules set out in the Declaration of Helsinki of 1964, revised in 2013 (wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki/). Authors shall include upon submission of their manuscript, a written statement briefly describing the aim of the experiment, a justification for the undertaken grouping in terms of race/ethnicity, age, disease/disabilities, religion, sex/gender, sexual orientation, or other socially constructed ordering, and whether or not an approval from an appropriate ethics committee or a local institutional review board (IRB) has been obtained before conducting the study. If such an approval was obtained, the original source and reference shall be provided to the journal’s editor at the time of submission and shall appear in the article.

Animals

Experiments performed using animals must be conducted under strict ethical standards and rigorous protocols aimed at safeguarding animals welfare. Authors should refer to and adhere to relevant international, national, and/or institutional guidelines e.g. the local and national regulations in accordance with the U.K. Animals Act and associated guidelines, the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, the Code of Practice for the Housing and Care of Animals Used in Scientific Procedures, Angus Academic Press supports the ARRIVE guidelines for reporting experiments using live animals and encourages authors to consult it as a checklist for full compliance. Experiments involving vertebrates or regulated invertebrates must be carried out in accordance with the ethical guidelines provided by the authors’ institution and national or international regulations. Where applicable, a statement regarding granted ethics permissions granted or/and animal licenses should be included in the manuscript. When ethical approval is not required for animals use, a clear statement describing the reasons behind that determination should be included in the manuscript. For all cases, a statement should be included confirming that all efforts were made to alleviate sufferings of animals in use, with a detailed description of the means and ways it was achieved.

Cell Lines

All articles reporting on research involving cell lines that are published in Angus Academic Press journals must state the origin of the lines in the Methods section. For established cell lines, the provenance should be stated and references provided to either a published paper or to a commercial source. If previously unpublished de novo cell lines were used, including any acquired from another laboratory, the authors of the article must supply details regarding the necessary approval from an institutional review board or ethics committee, as well as confirmation of written informed consent in the case of human cell lines.

Research Involving Plants

Experimental research on plants (cultivated and wild), including the collection of plant materials, must be conducted in compliance with applicable institutional, national, and international guidelines. We therefore recommend that authors consult the Convention on Biological Diversity as well as the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Informed Consent

For reporting that include case details, personal information, and/or images of patients, authors must obtain signed informed consent for publication from patients/guardians before submission of their manuscript. An consent for publication should be obtained from participating adults, parents, legal guardians, or legally authorized individuals, and clearly declared in the manuscript. Authors should also disclose to participants in their studies any personally identifiable material that could possibly be made public, be available on the Internet, and/or in print upon publication. In the absence of a written consent, manuscripts may still be considered for publishing, if all identifying information has been removed. While every precaution must be taken to protect the privacy of research subjects and the confidentiality of their personal information
 , when consent is not available nor attainable, the Editor could exercise his prerogatives of publishing those manuscripts when deemed that considerations of public interest outweigh privacy issues.

Clinical Study Reporting Guidelines

For articles in the life sciences, standards of reporting guidelines have been devised to help authors ensure that they have provided a comprehensive description of their research, making it easier for others to assess and reproduce the work; When reporting clinical studies, authors are encouraged to follow the reporting guidelines listed below: Randomized trials (CONSORT) Observational studies (STROBE) Systematic reviews (PRISMA) Case reports (CARE) Qualitative research (SRQR) Diagnostic / prognostic studies (STARD) Quality improvement studies (SQUIRE) Economic evaluations (CHEERS) Animal pre-clinical studies (ARRIVE) Study protocols (SPIRIT) Clinical practice guidelines (AGREE)

Crossmark

All articles published in Angus Academic Press have a designated DOI registered to that version, and are permanently published. In cases where authors seek to revise, change and/or update an article, a new version of that article must be published. Once published, a version cannot be altered or withdrawn, and all the versions are permanently available on the Angus Academic Press ’s website. Angus Academic Press participates in the Crossmark scheme to record any changes in all individual versions. Crossmark is an initiative to provide a standard way for readers to locate the current version of an item of content. By applying the Crossmark button, [add member name] is committing to maintaining the content he/she publishes, and to alerting readers to changes if and when they occur. Clicking on the Crossmark button reveals the current status of a document such as whether its content has been updated, corrected, or retracted, and in some cases, access additional publication record information such as key publication dates (submission, revision, acceptance), plagiarism screening status, funding information, peer reviews, and data repositories.