ONLINE MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION
An online submission and tracking service via Internet facilitates a speedy and cost-effective submission
of manuscripts. The full manuscript has to be submitted online via Bentham's Journal Management System
(JMS) at http://jms.eurekaselect.com/journals/iemamc /
View submission instructions.
Manuscripts must be submitted by one of the authors of the manuscript, and should not be submitted by
anyone on their behalf. The principal/corresponding author will be required to submit a Copyright Letter
along with the manuscript, on behalf of all the co-authors (if any). The author(s) will confirm that the
manuscript (or any part of it) has not been published previously or is not under consideration for
publication elsewhere. Furthermore, any illustration, structure or table that has been published
elsewhere must be reported, and copyright permission for reproduction must be obtained.
For all online submissions, please provide soft copies of all the materials (main text in MS Word or
Tex/LaTeX), figures/illustrations in TIFF, PDF or JPEG, and chemical structures drawn in ChemDraw
(CDX) / ISISDraw (TGF) as separate files, while a PDF version of the entire manuscript must also be
included, embedded with all the figures/illustrations/tables/chemical structures etc.
It is imperative that before submission, authors should carefully proofread the files for special
characters, mathematical symbols, Greek letters, equations, tables, references and images, to ensure
that they appear in proper format.
References, figures, tables, chemical structures etc. should be referred to in the text at the
appropriate place where they have been first discussed. Figure legends/captions should also be provided.
A successful electronic submission of a manuscript will be followed by a system-generated acknowledgement
to the principal/corresponding author. Any queries therein should be addressed to [email protected]
EDITORIAL POLICIES
For journals and eBooks, the following publication policies are applied by Bentham Science
.
Peer Review
Bentham Science Publishers follows the single blind peer-review procedure for
submissions of all manuscripts to its journals, except for a selected number of patent journals
where double blind review is followed.
All submitted articles/eBook chapters are subjected to an extensive peer review in consultation with
members of the journal’s editorial board and independent external referees (usually three
reviewers). All manuscripts/chapters are assessed rapidly and the decision based on all the peer
reviewers' comments, taken by the journal’s Editor-in-Chief/eBook Editor, is then conveyed to the
author(s).
Submissions from the Editor-in-Chief will undergo independent peer-review and will be submitted to
another Editor for his decision on acceptance.
Reprints
High-quality, bound/unbound, print/e-prints can be purchased for all published articles and book
chapters.
Editorial Policies
Articles/chapters must be submitted by one of the authors of the manuscript, and should not be
submitted by anyone on their behalf. The principal/corresponding author will be required to submit a
Copyright Letter along with the manuscript, on behalf of all the co-authors (if any). The author(s)
will confirm that the manuscript (or any part of it) has not been published previously or is not
under consideration for publication elsewhere. Furthermore, any illustration, structure or table
that has been published elsewhere must be reported, and copyright permission for reproduction must
be obtained.
Appeals and Complaints
Authors who wish to make a complaint should refer it to the Editor-in-Chief of the relevant journal.
For edited eBook series, the chapter contributors may direct their complaints to the Editor of the
eBook. Complaints to the Publisher may be forwarded to [email protected]
Conflict of Interest
Financial contributions to the work being reported should be clearly acknowledged, as should any
potential conflict of interest.
Plagiarism Prevention
Bentham Science uses the iThenticate software to detect instances of overlapping
and similar text in submitted manuscripts. iThenticate software checks content against a database of
periodicals, the Internet, and a comprehensive article database. It generates a similarity report,
highlighting the percentage of overlap between the uploaded article and the published material. Any
instance of content overlap is further scrutinized for suspected plagiarism according to the
publisher’s Editorial Policies. Bentham Science allows an overall similarity of 20%
for a manuscript to be considered for publication. The similarity percentage is further checked
keeping the following important points in view
Low Text Similarity
The text of every submitted manuscript is checked using the Content Tracking mode in iThenticate.
The Content Tracking mode ensures that manuscripts with an overall low percentage similarity
(but may have a higher similarity from a single source) are not overlooked. The acceptable limit
for similarity of text from a single source is 5%. If the similarity level is above
5%, the manuscript is returned to the author for paraphrasing the text and citing the
original source of the copied material.
It is important to mention that the text taken from different sources with an overall low
similarity percentage will be considered as a plagiarized content if the majority of the article
is a combination of copied material.
High Text Similarity
There may be some manuscripts with an overall low similarity percentage, but a higher percentage
from a single source. A manuscript may have less than 20% overall similarity but there may be
15% similar text taken from a single article. The similarity index in such cases is higher than
the approved limit for a single source. Authors are advised to thoroughly rephrase the similar
text and properly cite the original source to avoid plagiarism and copyright violation.
Types of Plagiarism
We all know that scholarly manuscripts are written after a thorough review of previously
published articles. It is therefore, not easy to draw a clear boundary between legitimate
representation and plagiarism. However, the following important features can assist in
identifying different kinds of plagiarized content. These are:
Reproduction of others words, sentences, ideas or findings as one’s own without proper
acknowledgement.
Text recycling, also known as self-plagiarism. It is an author’s use of a previous
publication in another paper without proper citation and acknowledgment of the original
source.
Poor paraphrasing: Copying complete paragraphs and modifying a few words without changing
the structure of original sentences or changing the sentence structure but not the
words.
Verbatim copying of text without putting quotation marks and not acknowledging the work
of the original author.
Properly citing a work but poorly paraphrasing the original text is considered as
unintentional plagiarism. Similarly, manuscripts with language somewhere between
paraphrasing and quoting are not acceptable. Authors should either paraphrase properly
or quote and in both cases, cite the original source.
Higher similarity in the abstract, introduction, materials and methods, and discussion
and conclusion sections indicates that the manuscript may contain plagiarized text.
Authors can easily explain these parts of the manuscript in many ways. However,
technical terms and sometimes standard procedures cannot be rephrased; therefore Editors
must review these sections carefully before making a decision.
Plagiarism in Published Manuscripts
Published manuscripts which are found to contain plagiarized text are retracted from the
journal’s website after careful investigation and approval by the Editor-in-Chief of the
journal. A ‘Retraction Note’ as well as a link to the original article is published on the
electronic version of the plagiarized manuscript and an addendum with retraction notification in
the particular journal.
For further details, please visit: https://www.eurekaselect.com/research-misconduct
Copyright and License
Gold Open Access (Subscription Journals and eBooks)
Accepted articles can be published online for free open access. Open access publishing provides
maximum dissemination of the article to the largest audience. All authors will be asked to
indicate whether or not they wish to pay to have their paper made freely available on
publication. If authors do not select the 'Gold Open Access' option, then their article will be
published with standard subscription-based access.
Copyright (Subscription Journals and eBooks)
Editors/Authors who contribute in a Bentham’s Journal/eBook will transfer copyright to their work
to Bentham Science Publishers. Submission of a manuscript to the respective
journals implies that all editors/authors have read and agreed to the content of the copyright
letter.
Ethical Approval of Studies and Informed Consent
For human or animal experimental investigations, it is a prerequisite to provide a formal review and
approval, or review and waiver, by an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee,
which should be documented in the paper. 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 in the Methods section.
Authors are encouraged to obtain patient consent when they use confidential case material. Consent is
not necessary in the case of very brief case vignettes which do not contain identifying information
or if the case material is disguised sufficiently to prevent identification of the patient.
In obtaining consent, the author(s) should discuss the purpose(s) of publication, the possible risks
and benefits to the patient and the patient's right to withhold or withdraw consent. In the case of
a minor patient, consent should be obtained from the parent(s) or guardian(s).
Standard Protocol on Approvals, Registrations, Patients Consents & Animal Protection
All clinical investigations must be conducted according to the Declaration of Helsinki principles.
Authors must comply with the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors
(www.icmje.org) with regard to the patient’s consent for research
or participation in a study. Patients' names, initials, or hospital numbers must not be mentioned
anywhere in the manuscript (including figures). Editors may request that authors provide
documentation of the formal review and recommendation from the institutional review board or ethics
committee responsible for oversight of the study.
Errata and Corrections in Published Articles
Authors and readers are encouraged to notify the Editor-in-Chief if they find errors in published
content, authors’ names and affiliations or if they have reasons for concern over the legitimacy of
a publication. In such cases the journal will publish an ERRATUM in consultation with
Editor-in-Chief and authors of the article, and/or replace or retract the article.
Article Withdrawal
Articles in Press (articles that have been accepted for publication or published as E-pub Ahead of
Schedule but which have not been formally published with volume/issue/page information) that include
errors, or are determined to violate the publishing ethics guidelines such as multiple submission,
fake claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like, may be “Withdrawn” from
the journal. Withdrawal means that the article files are removed and replaced with a PDF stating
that the article has been withdrawn from the journal in accordance with BSP Editorial Policies.
Article Retraction
Published articles (with volume/issue/page information) which may contain infringements of
professional ethical codes, such as multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism,
fraudulent use of data or the like are retracted.
A retraction note titled “Retraction: [article title]” signed by the authors and/or the
Editor-in-Chief is published in the paginated part of a subsequent issue of the journal and
listed in the contents list.
In the electronic version, a link is made to the original article.
The online article is preceded by a screen containing the retraction note. It is to this
screen that the link resolves; the reader can then proceed to the article itself.
The original article is retained unchanged with a watermark on the PDF indicating on each
page that it is “retracted.”
The HTML version of the document is removed.
Redundant (multiple) publication/ Re-publication
Abstracts and posters of conferences, results presented at meetings (for example, to inform
investigators or participants about findings), results databases (data without interpretation,
discussion, context or conclusions in the form of tables and text to describe data/information where
this is not easily presented in tabular form) are not considered prior publication.
Authors who wish to publish translations of the articles that have been published elsewhere should
ensure that they have appropriate permission(s), indicate clearly that the material has been
translated and re-published, and indicate clearly the original source of the material. The
Editor-in-Chief may request copies of related publications if he/she is concerned about overlap and
possible redundancy.
PERMISSION FOR REPRODUCTION
Permission to Reuse Bentham Content
Bentham Science has collaborated with the Copyright Clearance Center to meet our customer’s
licensing, besides rights & permission needs.
The Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink® service makes it faster and easier to secure permission
from Bentham Science’s journal titles. Visit
Journals by Title and locate the desired
content. Then go to the article’s abstract and click on “Rights and Permissions” to open the
RightsLink’s page. If authors can't find the content they are looking for or can't get the rights
they need, please contact us at
[email protected]
Third-Party Permissions
Authors are responsible for managing the inclusion of third-party content as an author/editor of a
work. We refer to 'third party content' as any work that authors haven't developed themselves and
have copied or adapted from other sources. Text, figures, photographs, tables, screenshots, and
other items may be included.
Unless the figure is in the public domain (copyright-free) or permitted for use under Creative Commons or other open licences, the author must get permission from the copyright holder(s).
Published/reproduced material should not be included unless written permission has been obtained from
the copyright holder, which should be forwarded to the Editorial Office in case of acceptance of the
article for publication.
Open Access Articles
Articles are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode), which permits unrestricted distribution and reproduction in any medium, as long as the work is properly credited/attributed. For more details, please visit Open Access Policy
Disclaimer
Responsibility for the content published by Bentham Science Publishers in any of its
journals, including any opinions expressed therein, rests exclusively with the author(s) of such
content. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, BSP (on its own behalf, and on behalf of
its staff and members of its editorial board) disclaims responsibility for any and all injury and/or
damage (whether financial or otherwise) to persons or property, resulting directly or indirectly
from any ideas, methods, instructions or products (including errors in the same) referred to in the
content of any of BSP’s journals. Any dispute arising, including any claim shall be governed
exclusively by the laws of the United Arab Emirates, as applied in the Emirate of Sharjah.
COPYRIGHT / SELF-ARCHIVING POLICY
Authors who publish in Bentham Science print & online journals will transfer copyright to their work to Bentham Science Publishers. Submission of a manuscript to the respective journals implies that all authors have read and agreed to the content of the Copyright Letter or the Terms and Conditions. It is a condition of publication that manuscripts submitted to this journal have not been published and will not be simultaneously submitted or published elsewhere. Plagiarism is strictly forbidden, and by submitting the article for publication the authors agree that the publishers have the legal right to take appropriate action against the authors, if plagiarism or fabricated information is discovered. By submitting a manuscript, the authors agree that the copyright of their article is transferred to the publishers if and when the article is accepted for publication. Once submitted to the journal, the author will not withdraw their manuscript at any stage prior to publication.
It is mandatory that a signed copyright letter also be submitted along with the manuscript by the author to whom correspondence is to be addressed. The article should not contain any such material or information that may be unlawful, defamatory, fabricated, plagiarized, or which would, if published, in any way whatsoever, violate the terms and conditions as laid down in the copyright agreement. Copyright letter can be downloaded from the journal's Web site. Download the Copyright letter.
PERMISSION FOR REPRODUCTION
Permission to Reuse Bentham Content
Bentham Science has collaborated with the Copyright Clearance Center to meet our customer’s
licensing, besides rights & permission needs.
The Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink® service makes it faster and easier to secure permission
from Bentham Science’s journal titles. Visit
Journals by Title and locate the desired
content. Then go to the article’s abstract and click on “Rights and Permissions” to open the
RightsLink’s page. If authors can't find the content they are looking for or can't get the rights
they need, please contact us at
[email protected]
Third-Party Permissions
Authors are responsible for managing the inclusion of third-party content as an author/editor of a
work. We refer to 'third party content' as any work that authors haven't developed themselves and
have copied or adapted from other sources. Text, figures, photographs, tables, screenshots, and
other items may be included.
Unless the figure is in the public domain (copyright-free) or permitted for use under Creative Commons or other open licences, the author must get permission from the copyright holder(s).
Published/reproduced material should not be included unless written permission has been obtained from
the copyright holder, which should be forwarded to the Editorial Office in case of acceptance of the
article for publication.
Open Access Articles
Articles are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode), which permits unrestricted distribution and reproduction in any medium, as long as the work is properly credited/attributed. For more details, please visit Open Access Policy
SELF-ARCHIVING
By signing the Copyright Letter the authors retain the rights of self-archiving. Following are the
important features of self-archiving policy of Bentham Science journals
Authors can deposit the first draft of a submitted article on their personal websites, their
institution’s repositories or any non-commercial repository for personal use, internal
institutional use or for permitted scholarly posting.
Authors may deposit the ACCEPTED VERSION of the peer-reviewed article on their personal
websites, their institution’s repository or any non-commercial repository such as PMC, arXiv
after 12 MONTHS of publication on the journal website. In addition, an
acknowledgement must be given to the original source of publication and a link should be
inserted to the published article on the journal's/publisher’s website.
If the research is funded by NIH, Wellcome Trust or any other Open Access Mandate, authors
are allowed the archiving of published version of manuscripts in an institutional repository
after the mandatory embargo period. Authors should first contact the Editorial Office of the
journal for information about depositing a copy of the manuscript to a repository.
Consistent with the copyright agreement, Bentham Science does not allow archiving of FINAL
PUBLISHED VERSION of manuscripts.
The link to the original source of publication should be provided by inserting the DOI number
of the article in the following sentence: “The published manuscript is available at
EurekaSelect via https://www.eurekaselect.com/openurl/content.php?genre=article&doi=.
There is no embargo on the archiving of articles published under the OPEN ACCESS PLUS (GOLD
OPEN ACCESS) category. Authors are allowed deposition of such articles on institutional,
non-commercial repositories and personal websites immediately after publication on the
journal website.
DECLARATION OF INTEREST/FUNDING SOURCES
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
AUTHORS
All potential conflicts of interest (competing interests) that could have a direct or indirect
influence on the work must be disclosed by the authors. Even if an author does not have a
conflict, disclosing affiliations and interests allows for a more comprehensive and open
approach, which leads to a more accurate and objective evaluation of the work. Conflicts of
interest, whether genuine or imagined, are a perspective to which the readers are entitled.
The publication of a conflict statement in the article itself, as well as the submission of the
conflict disclosure form, is required for all types of papers. It is not necessarily the case
that a monetary relationship with examination support or funding for counseling work is
inappropriate. Even if the authors do not have any conflict of interest, they still need to
provide a confirmation statement in their manuscripts, i.e., “The author(s) confirm(s) that
there is no conflict of interest related to the manuscript.”
The following are some examples of potential conflicts of interest that are directly or
indirectly related to the research:
Financial competing interests include (but are not limited to):
Type of support/grant number
Institutional Conflicts of Interest
Funds received by the author
Funds received by the institution
Travel allowances for the research
Funds received for article preparation and reviewing
Funds for conducting review activities
Support provided for article writing assistance, for drugs, equipment, etc
Paid lectures
Pending fund or grant
Financial conflicts of interest can be personal as well as institutional. Personal conflict of
interest occurs when a contributor involved in the publication process either receives an amount
of money or expects to receive some financial help (including any other financial benefits such
as patents or stocks, gifts or services) that may impact the work related to a specific
publication. More importantly, in academic research, such financial relationships can lead to
institutional conflicts of interest (COIs) because the economic interests of the institution or
institutional representatives may unsuitably affect the decision-making process.
An institutional conflict of interest arises in a situation when financial interests of an
institution or any institutional official (e.g., investments held by the university in a
company) have the potential to unduly influence the research conducted by its employees or
students, or pose an unacceptable risk to human subjects. Such conflicts usually arise in a
state of affairs where a research project directly offers assistance or a benefit to an external
entity via evaluation, validation, trial or test of an invention, product, drug, service or
technology, and the institution holds a financial interest with the external entity. Such
financial interests incorporate, but are not limited to, receipt of licensing payments or
royalties from the external entity, or ownership interest with the external entity. When human
subjects are involved in any research project, and the institution supports such a financial
interest, the conflict of interest is speculated to be unreasonable.
Non-financial competing interests include (but are not limited to):
In addition, interests other than monetary and any funding (non-financial interests) should be
declared if they are relevant to readers. Personal relationships or conflicting interests
directly or indirectly related to research, as well as professional interests or personal
opinions that may impact your research, are examples of these.
Intellectual property, in basic terms, refers to any intangible property that is the result of
creativity, such as patents, copyrights, etc. Similarly, this section seeks to know about
copyright and patent (licensed patent, pending or issued) and any payment received for
intellectual property, such as:
Patent
Licensed Patent
Issued Patent
Pending Patent
Royalties
Licensee
Remarks
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
All conflict of interest disclosure forms are collected by the corresponding author. It is
sufficient for the corresponding author to sign the disclosure form on behalf of all authors in
author collaborations when legal agreements for representation allow it. The
templates of the form can be found here.
Disclosure form
ICMJE disclosure form
Before the reference list, the corresponding author will include a summary statement in the text
of the article that reflects what is reported in the potential conflict of interest disclosure
form (s). Author(s) may declare(s) names of reviewers who they think might have a potential
conflict of interest; therefore, Editorial Office could avoid inviting such reviewers for an
unbiased opinion.
UNDISCLOSED CONFLICT OF INTEREST
Undisclosed conflict of interest cases before or after the publication of an article are dealt
with as per the guidelines of COPE.
Undisclosed conflict of interest in a submitted article (View
COPE guidelines)
Undisclosed conflict of interest in a published article (View
COPE guidelines)
For more information on COIs, see the guidance from the ICMJE.
PEER REVIEWERS
Bentham Science tries to conduct a transparent peer-review process with the help of the reviewers
who do not have any conflict of interest with the authors. In this connection, reviewers who
belong to the same institute or countries as authors are not invited to review manuscripts.
However, it is not possible for the Editorial Office to be aware of all competing interests;
therefore, it is expected from authors to submit:
List of reviewers who they think have a conflict of interest to ensure a transparent and
unbiased review process.
The Editorial Office expects reviewers:
Not to accept manuscript review requests if they have any potential conflict of interest
and inform the Editorial Office accordingly.
To decline review requests if they have recently published or submitted an article with
any of the authors listed in the manuscript.
To inform the Editorial Office if they have any personal relationship with the authors or
work in the same institutes as of authors, which could affect the review transparency.
To abstain from reviewing and informing the Editorial Office/Editor-in-Chief/Handling
Editors about any scientific misconduct or fraud, plagiarism, conflict of interest, or
any other unethical behavior related to the manuscript, which they found while reviewing
it.
During the submission of review comments, reviewers are asked to reconfirm that they do not have
any conflict of interest related to the article. After confirming the below statement, they can
submit their comments.
“I hereby confirm that I don’t have any conflict of interest related to the manuscript.”
If, however, there are still any remaining interests, then reviewers must mention those in the
‘Confidential’ section of the review form.
Reviewers are not encouraged to contact authors directly regarding any of their conflicts of
interest. Peer reviewers should follow journals’ policies in situations they consider to
represent a conflict to reviewing.
UNDISCLOSED CONFLICT OF INTEREST
If reviewers intentionally undisclosed any conflict of interest, then they will be blacklisted
for any future peer reviewing activity of the journal.
The Editorial Office always ensures that an author, if added after peer review activity of a
manuscript, is not part of the reviewers’ list who have conducted a peer review of the same
manuscript.
EDITORS
Editors must not review submitted manuscripts if they have any personal, professional or
financial involvement/conflict of interest with the authors of the manuscript. Every participant
involved in the peer review process, including editorial board members, reviewers, and editors,
must declare any potential conflicts of interest to ensure a transparent and unbiased review
activity.
Editors-in-Chief or Editors who are responsible for the initial and final decision should recuse
themselves to review or take decisions on any manuscript that is written by authors affiliated
to the same institute as of editor, or if they have been a family member, competitor,
collaborator, or have published any manuscript in last 3 years with the authors associated with
the manuscript. They can however nominate someone else on the Board who could provide a neutral
opinion on the manuscript.
The Editorial office recommends editors to follow COPE and
WAME
guidelines to process such manuscripts which involves their personal relationship.
Manuscripts submission by an Editor/Editor-in-Chief
The initial and final decision on the manuscripts submitted by an Editor/Editor-in-Chief will be
taken by any other member of the Board. The Editorial Office will identify members who do not
have any potential conflict of interest with the Editor or Editor-in-Chief.
Acknowledgements
Any research assistants or other individuals who assisted with the research but are not listed as authors, such as those who carried out the literature review, produced, computerized, and analyzed the data, or helped with the language, writing, or proofreading of the article, or offered any comments or suggestions, should be acknowledged. Briefly, everyone who has contributed significantly to the improvement of the paper should be acknowledged. It is recommended to mention the "Declared None" if there is no acknowledgement for the study.
Guest or honorary authorship based solely on position (e.g. research supervisor, departmental head)
is discouraged.
The specific requirements for authorship have been defined by the International Committee of Medical
Journal Editors (ICMJE; www.icmje.org). Examples of authors'
contributions are: 'designed research/study', 'performed research/study', 'contributed important
reagents', 'collected data', 'analyzed data', 'wrote paper' etc. This information must be included in the submitted manuscript as a separate paragraph under the heading 'Authors' Contribution'. The
corresponding author is responsible for obtaining permission from all co-authors for the submission
of any version of the manuscript and for any changes in the authorship.
Standard Protocol on Approvals, Registrations, Patient Consents & Animal Protection
All clinical investigations must be conducted according to the Declaration
of Helsinki principles. For all manuscripts reporting data from studies involving human
participants, formal review and approval by an appropriate institutional review board or ethics
committee is required. For research involving animals, the authors should indicate whether the
procedures followed were in accordance with the standards set forth in the eighth edition of Guide
for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (grants.nih.gov/grants/olaw/guide-for-the-care-and-use-of-laboratory-animals_prepub.pdf/;
published by the National Academy of Sciences, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.).
Research Involving Animals
Research work on animals should be carried out in accordance with the NC3Rs ARRIVE Guidelines. For
In Vivo Experiments, visit https://www.nc3rs.org.uk/arrive-guidelines
Authors must clearly state the name of the approval committee, highlighting that legal and ethical
approval was obtained prior to initiation of the research work carried out on animals, and that the
experiments were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations stated below.
US authors should cite compliance with the US National Research Council's "Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory
Animals"
The US Public Health Service's "Policy on Humane Care
and Use of Laboratory Animals" and "Guide
for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals"
UK authors should conform to UK legislation under the
Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 Amendment Regulations (SI 2012/3039).
European authors outside the UK should conform to Directive
2010/63/EU.
Research in animals must adhere to ethical guidelines of The
International Council for Laboratory Animal Science (ICLAS) has also published ethical
guidelines.
The manuscript must clearly include a declaration of compliance with relevant guidelines
(e.g. the revised Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 in the UK and Directive
2010/63/EU in Europe) and/or relevant permissions or licences obtained by the IUCN Policy
Statement on Research Involving Species at Risk of Extinction and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna
and Flora.
Research Involving Plants
All experimental research on plants (either cultivated or wild), must comply with international
guidelines. The manuscript must clearly include a declaration of compliance of field studies with
relevant guidelines and/or relevant permissions or licences obtained by the IUCN Policy Statement on
Research Involving Species at Risk of Extinction and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and
Flora.
Consent for Publication
If the manuscript has an individuals’ data, such as personal detail, audio-video material etc.,
consent should be obtained from that individual. In case of children, consent should be obtained
from the parent or the legal guardian.
A specific declaration of such approval and consent-to-disclose form must be made in the copyright
letter and in a stand-alone paragraph at the end of the Methods section especially in the case of
human studies where inclusion of a statement regarding obtaining the written informed consent from
each subject or subject's guardian is a must. The original should be retained by the guarantor or
corresponding author. Editors may request to provide the original forms by fax or email.
All such case reports should be followed by a proper consent prior to publishing.
AUTHORSHIP
AUTHORSHIP CRITERIA
Bentham Science Publishers requires that all
individuals listed as authors must have made a
substantial contribution to the design, performance,
analysis, or reporting of the work. The role of
authors is judged on the basis of ICMJE and COPE guidelines.
Authorship Declaration
All contributing authors are required to sign a
copyright letter, mentioning complete details,
including full name, affiliation, email address,
ORCID ID and their role in the article. After
successful electronic submission of a manuscript, a
system-generated acknowledgement will be sent to all
authors on their provided email addresses.
AUTHORS AND INSTITUTIONAL AFFILIATIONS
The Corresponding Author must provide a final list of authors at the time of submission, ensuring the correct sequence of the names of authors, which will not be considered for any addition, deletion or rearrangement after final submission of the manuscript. The
email address of the principal author should be
provided with an asterisk. However, the complete
address, business telephone numbers, fax numbers and
e-mail address of the corresponding author must be
stated to receive correspondence and galley proofs.
Bentham Science Publishers recommends that all
contributors regularly update their profiles on
SCOPUS/ORCID and other databases.
The corresponding author must have the approval of all other listed authors for the submission and publication of all versions of the manuscript.
AUTHOR IDENTIFICATION
Authors are strongly recommended to use their ORCID
ID when submitting an article for consideration.
Alternatively, they can acquire an ORCID ID via the
submission process. For more information about ORCID
IDs, visit here.
CHANGES TO AUTHORSHIP
At the time of initial submission, the finalized list
of authors in correct sequence should be provided,
which will not be changed once the publication
process has started.
If any change is essential, then it can only be done
after the approval of the Editor-in-Chief upon
receiving the following details from the
corresponding author:
- The reason for the change in the author list
and/or their sequence
- A proper justification should be provided
for changes in authorship.
- Correction of existing names should be
accompanied by a notice to the
Editor-in-Chief of the journal.
- A written confirmation from all the co-authors
is a prerequisite for any amendment or removal.
Any amendment to the authors' list will only be considered and approved by the Editor-in-Chief after complete verification. Publication of the manuscript will be withheld during consideration of the request. However, if the manuscript has already been published online, requests approved thereafter by the Editor-in-Chief will result in an erratum or corrigendum. The corresponding author is responsible for obtaining permission from all co-authors for any changes in the authorship.
Here is some advice by COPE on authorship issues. Bentham strives to follow these guidelines.
AUTHORSHIP AND AI TOOLS
Bentham Science Publishers recognizes that authors use a variety of tools for preparing articles related to their scientific works, ranging from simple ones to very sophisticated ones.
According to the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) guidelines, "AI tools cannot meet the requirements for authorship as they cannot take responsibility for the submitted work. As non-legal entities, they cannot assert the presence or absence of conflicts of interest nor manage copyright and license agreements".
The pertinence of such tools may vary and evolve with public opinion, due to which the use of AI-powered language tools has led to a significant debate. These tools may generate useful results, but they can also lead to errors or misleading results; therefore, it is important to know which tools were used for evaluating and interpreting a particular scientific work.
Considering the above we require that:
- The authors to report any significant use of such tools in their works, such as instruments and software along with text-to-text generative AI consistent with subject standards for methodology.
- All co-authors should sign a declaration that they take full responsibility for all of its contents, regardless of how the contents were generated. Inappropriate language, plagiarized and biased contents, errors, mistakes, incorrect references, or misleading content generated by AI language tools and the relevant results reported in scientific works are the full and shared responsibility of all the authors, including co-authors.
- AI language tools should not be listed as an author; instead, authors should follow clause (1) above.
General Advice:
Advice on how to spot authorship problems
Before Publication:
Corresponding author requests addition of extra author before publication
Corresponding author requests removal of the author before publication
After publication:
Request for addition of extra author after publication
Request for removal of author after publication
NON-AUTHOR CONTRIBUTORS
Activities such as the acquisition of funding,
general supervision of a research group or general
administrative support, writing assistance,
technical editing, language editing, and
proofreading alone do not qualify any contributor
for authorship. Such contributors may be
acknowledged individually or together as a group in
the acknowledgement section. Further details for
writing acknowledgements are available here.
Persons not meeting authorship criteria can be
acknowledged in the acknowledgement section of the
article rather than being enlisted as authors.
GUEST OR HONORARY AUTHORSHIP
All contributing authors should contribute
substantially to the article and sign the copyright
letter. Bentham Science Publishers discourages
authorship based solely on position (e.g., a
research supervisor or a departmental head). We use
COPE
guidelines for identifying any suspected
ghost, guest or gift authorship.
APPEALS AND COMPLAINTS
Generally, the editorial decisions are not reverted. However, authors who think that their manuscript was
rejected due to a misunderstanding or mistake may seek an explanation for the decision. Appeals must
give sound reasoning and compelling evidence against the criticism raised in the rejection letter. A
difference of opinion as to the interest, novelty, or suitability of the manuscript for the journal will
not be considered as an appeal. The EIC and other relevant editors will consider the appeal and the
decision thereafter taken by the journal will be deemed final. Acceptance of the manuscript is not
guaranteed even if the journal agrees to reconsider the manuscript, and the reconsideration process may
involve previous or new reviewers or editors and substantive revision.
Authors who wish to make a complaint should refer them to the Editor-in-Chief of the journal concerned.
Complaints to the Publisher may be emailed to [email protected]
PAGE CHARGES/QUICK TRACK PUBLICATION
PAGE CHARGES
No page charges will be levied to authors for the publication of their article. However, the authors
may decide for some paid-for editorial services such as open access publication and/or a faster
overall publication for their article(s).
QUICK TRACK PUBLICATION
For this journal an optional fast publication fee-based service called QUICK TRACK is available to
authors for their submitted manuscripts.
QUICK TRACK allows online publication within 2 weeks of receipt of the final approved galley proofs
from the authors. Similarly the manuscript can be published in the next forthcoming PRINT issue of
the journal. The total publication time, from date of first receipt of manuscript to its online
publication is 12 weeks, subject to its acceptance by the referees and modification (if any) by the
authors within one week.
Authors who have availed QUICK TRACK services in a BSP journal will be entitled for an exclusive 30%
discount if they again wish to avail the same services in any Bentham journal
For more information please contact the Editorial Office by e-mail at [email protected].
REFUND POLICY
Bentham Science offers three major services related to its publications:
- Subscription services (to subscribers, institutes, libraries, customers, etc.): Involving access to published content based on certain charges for corporates, academic institutes, and individuals.
- Editorial / Author Pre-publication services (to editors, authors, etc.): Quick track processing, language editing, etc.
- Editorial / Author Post-publication Promotional Services (to authors, institutions and organizations): Open Access Plus, Animated Abstracts, Sharing PDF on KUDOS, reprints, etc.
Since these services are optional in nature and are offered for specific services rendered, hence refunds are not allowed against the availed and charged services, except under special cases.
LANGUAGE AND EDITING
Authors should seek professional assistance for the correction of grammatical, scientific, and typographical errors before submission of the revised version of the article for publication.
You may use the professional editing services of our nominated English Language editing organizations TopEdit or Eureka Science.
Please note that we accept a language certificate, only from one of the above two language editing organizations.
PROOF CORRECTIONS
Authors will receive page proofs of their accepted paper before publications. To avoid delays in
publication, proofs should be checked immediately for typographical errors and returned within
48 hours. Major changes are not acceptable at the proof stage.
The corresponding author will be solely responsible for ensuring that the revised version of the
manuscript incorporating all the submitted corrections receives the approval of all the co-authors
of the manuscript.
OPEN ACCESS PLUS (GOLD OPEN ACCESS)/REPRINTS
OPEN ACCESS PLUS (GOLD OPEN ACCESS)
Bentham Science also offers authors the choice of “Open Access Plus (Gold Open Access)” publication
of articles at a fee of US$ 750 per article. This paid service allows for articles to
be disseminated to a much wider audience, on the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode).
Authors are asked to indicate whether or not they wish to pay to have their article made more widely
available on this “Open Access Plus (Gold Open Access)” basis. Where an author does not opt-in to
this paid service, then the author’s article will be published only on Bentham Science’s standard
subscription-based access, at no additional cost to the author.
Authors who select the “Quick Track” publication option (see below) and also wish to have their
article made available on an “Open Access Plus (Gold Open Access)” basis will be entitled to a
50% discount on the “Open Access Plus (Gold Open Access)” publication fee.
For more information please contact us at e-mail: [email protected]
REPRINTS
Printed reprints and e-prints may be ordered from the Publisher prior to publication of the article.
First named authors may also order a personal online subscription of the journal at 50% off the
normal subscription rate by contacting the subscription department at e-mail: [email protected].
REVIEWING AND PROMPTNESS OF PUBLICATION
All papers submitted for publication are immediately subjected to preliminary editorial scrutiny by the
Editor-in-Chief regarding their suitability. The Editor-in-Chief determines if the manuscript
(a) falls within the scope of the journal and
(b) meets the editorial criteria of Bentham Science Publishers in terms of originality
and quality.
Manuscripts that appear to be suitable are then subjected to single/ double blind peer-review by, usually
two, neutral eminent experts. The services of eminent international experts are sought through
invitations to conduct the peer-review of a submitted manuscript, keeping in view the scope of the
manuscript and the expertise of the reviewers. The identity of the reviewers is not disclosed to the
authors. The anonymity of reviewers ensures objective and unbiased assessment of the manuscript by the
reviewers.
Before sending the manuscripts to reviewers, Bentham Science seeks consent from
potential reviewers about their availability and willingness to review. Correspondence between the
editorial office of the journal and the reviewers is kept confidential. The reviewers are expected to
provide their reports in a timely fashion since a prompt review leads to timely publication of a
manuscript which is beneficial not only to the authors but to the scientific community as well.
The editorial process and peer-review workflow for each journal are taken care of by a team of Senior
Editors, Editorial Board Members (EBMs) and dedicated Journal managers who have the required expertise
in their specific fields.
Bentham Science Publishers carries out independent review of all articles. The reviewers are selected
according to their expertise, from our, regularly updated, referee database.
On the basis of reviewer comments, the Editors may recommend acceptance, revision or rejection of a
manuscript.
After review of the manuscript by at least two independent experts, in addition to the views of the
Editor, the decision is relayed to the authors, which may be categorized as:
Accept without changes
Revisions Required
Reject
Bentham Science requests not to have the manuscripts peer-reviewed by those experts who
may have competing interest with the author(s) of a submitted manuscript. It is not possible for Editors
to be aware of all competing interests; it is therefore expected that the reviewers would inform the
Editor-in-Chief/Handling Editor if they notice any potential competing interest during the course of
review of a manuscript. Moreover, the reviewers are expected to inform the Editors or editorial office
of the journal if they have a conflict of interest in carrying out the review of a manuscript submitted
by any author/contributor of the manuscript.
Papers which are delayed by the authors in revision for more than 30 days are required to be re-submitted
as a new submission. Papers accepted for publication are typeset and proofs are dispatched to authors
for any corrections prior to final publication.
PLAGIARISM PREVENTION
Bentham Science Publishers
uses the iThenticate software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted
manuscripts. iThenticate software checks content against a database of periodicals, the Internet, and a
comprehensive article database. It generates a similarity report, highlighting the percentage overlap
between the uploaded article and the published material. Any instance of content overlap is further
scrutinized for suspected plagiarism according to the publisher’s Editorial Policies. Bentham Science
allows an overall similarity of 20% for a manuscript to be considered for publication. The similarity
percentage is further checked keeping the following important points in view
Low Text Similarity
The text of every submitted manuscript is checked by using the Content Tracking mode in iThenticate.
The Content Tracking mode ensures that manuscripts with an overall low percentage similarity (but
which may have a higher similarity from a single source) are not overlooked. If the similarity level
is significantly high, then the manuscript is returned to the author for paraphrasing the text and
citing the original source of the copied material.
It is important to mention that the text taken from different sources with an overall low similarity
percentage will be considered as a plagiarized content if the majority of the article is a
combination of copied material.
High Text Similarity
There may be some manuscripts with an overall low similarity percentage, but a higher percentage from
a single source. For instance, a manuscript may have less than 20% overall similarity but there may
be 15 % similar text taken from a single article; the similarity index in such cases is higher than
the approved limit for a single source. Authors are advised to thoroughly rephrase the similar text
and properly cite the original source to avoid plagiarism and copyright violation.
Types of Plagiarism
We all know that scholarly manuscripts are written after a thorough review of previously published
articles. It is therefore, not easy to draw a clear boundary between legitimate representation and
plagiarism. However, the following important features can assist in identifying different kinds of
plagiarized content. These are:
Reproduction of others words, sentences, ideas or findings as one’s own without proper
acknowledgement.
Text recycling, also known as self-plagiarism. It is an author’s use of a previous
publication in another paper without proper citation and acknowledgment of the original
source.
Paraphrasing poorly: Copying complete paragraphs and modifying a few words without changing
the structure of original sentences or changing the sentence structure but not the words.
Verbatim copying of text without putting quotation marks and not acknowledging the work of
the original author.
Properly citing a work but poorly paraphrasing the original text is considered as
unintentional plagiarism. Similarly, manuscripts with language somewhere between
paraphrasing and quoting are not acceptable. Authors should either paraphrase properly or
quote and in both cases, cite the original source.
Higher similarity in the abstract, introduction, materials and methods, and discussion and
conclusion sections indicates that the manuscript may contain plagiarized text. Authors can
easily explain these parts of the manuscript in many ways. However, technical terms and
sometimes standard procedures cannot be rephrased; therefore Editors must review these
sections carefully before making a decision.
Plagiarism in Published Manuscripts
Published manuscripts which are found to contain plagiarized text are retracted from the journal
website after careful investigation and approval by the Editor-in-Chief of the journal. A
‘Retraction Note’ as well as a link to the original article is published on the electronic version
of the plagiarized manuscript and an addendum with retraction notification in the journal concerned.
For further details, please visit: https://www.eurekaselect.com/research-misconduct
E-PUB AHEAD OF SCHEDULE
Bentham Science Publishers
is pleased to offer electronic publication of accepted papers prior to scheduled publication.
These peer-reviewed papers can be cited using the date of access and the unique DOI number. Any final
changes in manuscripts will be made at the time of print publication and will be reflected in the final
electronic version of the issue. Articles ahead of schedule may be ordered by pay-per-view at the
relevant links by each article stated via the E-Pub
Ahead of Schedule
Disclaimer
Articles appearing in E-Pub Ahead-of-Schedule sections have been peer-reviewed and accepted for
publication in this journal and posted online before scheduled publication. Articles appearing here
may contain statements, opinions, and information that have errors in facts, figures, or
interpretation. Accordingly,
Bentham Science Publishers
, the editors , authors and their respective employees are not responsible or liable for
the use of any such inaccurate or misleading data, opinion or information contained of articles in
the E-Pub Ahead-of-Schedule.
Member of Cope
