Ethics and Malpractice
Applied Biological Research agrees to follow the ethical standards as determined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). We expect author(s) to be dutiful to these ethical standards and pay due care to the authorship, plagiarism, duplicate publication, presentation of data, citation, as well as ethical approval and Intellectual Property Rights. For all the parties involved in the act of publishing (the authors, the journal editors, the peer reviewers, and the publisher) it is essential to abide by the standards of expected ethical behaviour.
Authorship: Author is a person who has actively participated in the research and is solely responsible for all the portions of contents in the manuscript. The authorship, in case of joint authors, should be limited to those who have substantially contributed to the concept, design of research, execution and acquisition, analysis and interpretation of data as well as in drafting the manuscript and its revision. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship is discouraged by the journal, unless and until proper reasons for the act is provided by the corresponding authors along with written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all authors, including the affected ones, that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. Only in rare cases the journal considers such changes in authorship. Manuscript submission implies that all authors have read and approved the final version of manuscript; and agree to the manuscript submission to this journal. All authors must be responsible for the quality, accuracy and ethics of research. In case there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of research project, they should be duly acknowledged or listed as contributors. Authors in their manuscript should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. The data should be presented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate. The corresponding author should ensure that all relevant co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper.
Plagiarism: Plagiarism is the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own. The authors should ensure entirely the original works, and if the authors use the work and/or words of others it should appropriately be cited. The journal holds no responsibility for plagiarism. If a published paper is later found to be extensively plagiarized or duplicate/redundant publication, a note of retraction will be published by the journal, and the copies of correspondence will be sent to the author's Head of the Institute/University for appropriate action against authors.
Duplicate Publication: Simultaneous submission of same manuscript to more than one journal is unethical and is unacceptable. Manuscript submissions will be considered for publication only if they are submitted solely to this journal. Any manuscript that has almost similar hypothesis, methodology, results, discussion and conclusions to a published article is a duplicate article and is prohibited, even if it is published in different languages.
Fabrication of Data: Fabrication, manipulation or falsification of data is an ethical violation and is prohibited. Also, fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.
Citations Manipulation: The only relevant citations should be used in the manuscripts. Irrelevant (self) citation to increase author(s)'s citation (h-index) or unnecessary citation to improve the references are not allowed.
Ethic Approval: All authors have to follow the ethical guidelines for journal publication. The authors are dutybound to obtain prior permission from the officials of the Institution/ University, where the work is to be undertaken, for conducting the experiments on animals including human and the work reported should not violate the law. Animal related experiments, prior to their execution, should be got examined and approved by the professionals (Institutional Ethical Committee) with respect to the moral aspects. Researches on human beings must comply with the Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for Experiments Involving Humans [http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/index.html]; EU Directive 2010/63/EU for Animal Experiments [http://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/lab_animals/legislation_en.htm]; Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals [http://www.icmje.org]. Human/animal details may be included only if they are essential for scientific purposes and the author(s) need to obtain written permission from the individual, parent, owners or guardian. All the manuscripts reporting the findings of experimental study involving human/animal subjects should provide a statement confirming that each subject or subject's guardian obtains an informal consent, after the approval of experimental protocol by the ethics committee. While reporting the experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed or not. Needless cruelty in animal experimentations is not acceptable to the journal.
Intellectual Property Right: Author(s) must obedient to the law and/or ethics in treating the object of research and pay due attention to the legality of material sources and intellectual property rights.
Conflict of Interest and Source of Funding: Author(s) must properly disclose and acknowledge all the sources of institutional, private and corporate financial and logistic support for the research within the manuscript.
Fundamental Errors in Published Works: When an author finds a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author's obligation to promptly notify the editor or publisher of journal and cooperate with the editor to retract the wrong information and correct the paper
Review Process
The acceptance of a manuscript implies that it has been reviewed and recommended by at least two reviewers, one of whom is usually from the Editorial Advisory Board. Authors will generally be notified of acceptance, rejection, or need for revision within 2 to 3 months of receipt. Manuscript is rejected, if the content does not fall within the purview of journal or does not meet the ethical standards, the required quality and journal's format or ignores correspondence in three months. Manuscripts can also be rejected if there are two reviewers who gave a negative note or the authors do not satisfactorily revise the paper. The primary criteria for publication are scientific quality and applied biological significance. The accepted papers will be published in a chronological order. This journal is published in January, April, July and October (starting on January 2018). However, online publication shall be done immediately after acceptance.
The Review Process conducted double blind, where the identity of authors and reviewers are concealed. Information on their identity can only be granted with the consent of both sides. Authors are asked to propose a list of 3-5 names of prospective reviewers. Managing editor may choose to invite them or not. Authors can also propose that someone does not review.
Galley Proofs of accepted manuscript will be sent to the corresponding author by email for thorough check up and corrections, if any. To avoid delay in publication, corrected proofs should be returned within 3 days.
Peer Review
Peer review assists the editors in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the authors may also assist the authors in improving the paper. The editor is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers in making decision regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editor may be guided by the policies of the Editorial Board of the Journal. The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers and the publisher, as appropriate. Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process. Any manuscripts received for review is treated as confidential documents and is not shown to or discussed with others, except when authorized by the editor. Reviews is conducted objectively. Personal criticism of author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views explicitly with supporting arguments. Reviewers should identify the relevant published work that has not been cited by authors. Any statement regarding previous published observation, derivation or argument should be accompanied by the relevant citation. Reviewers should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.
Copyright: Submission of a manuscript implies that the submitted work has not been published earlier (except as part of a thesis or report, or abstract) and neither under consideration for publication elsewhere. Also, its publication has been approved by all the authors. If and when the manuscript is accepted for publication, the author(s) have to transfer its copyrights to the publisher. Authors or others are allowed to multiply article as long as not for commercial purposes. For new invention, authors are suggested to manage its patent before published.
Disclaimer: No responsibility is assumed by the publisher nor by the editors for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a result of any actual or alleged defamatory statements, infringement of intellectual property or privacy rights, or products liability, whether resulting from negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any ideas, instructions, procedures, products or methods contained in the material therein.
