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The publication of an article in a peer-reviewed Journal is an essential building block in the development of a coherent and respected network of knowledge. Simultaneously, the published paper is also a direct reflection of the quality of the work of the authors and the institutions that support them. It is necessary for all parties involved in the act of publishing to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior, such as the author, the Journal editor, the peer reviewer, the publisher. The《Air Force Engineering University Journal》adheres to the principles of research integrity and standardized publishing in consideration of relevant publishing ethics guidelines, such as those outlined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the journal has formulated editorial and publishing ethics standards based on its actual working conditions. The journal will rigorously adhere to and implement national policies and regulations related to editorial and publishing activities, standardizing the behaviors of journal editors, reviewers, and authors throughout the editorial and publishing process.
I. Responsibilities and Obligations for Each Main Part
1.Duties of Editors
(1) Correct Decisions whether to publish or not: The editors of the journal have the determination to carry the articles submitted to the journal to be published, and are to hold themselves responsible to the contents published in accordance with the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision. During publication decision, editors should evaluate the strength of the arguments raised by the reviewers and by the authors, and also consider other information not available to either party.
(2) Fairness-keeping in Academic Controversy: Follow the principle of objectivity and neutrality, and should not have prejudice against the author's workplace, gender, professional title, academic honor, etc, editorial independence, decisions and content should not be compromised by commercial or financial interests, or by any specific arrangements with advertising clients or sponsors. In the cases of academic controversy, editors should assume a neutral and impartial standpoint between the disputing parties.
(3) Confidentiality-keeping: Editors keep confidential all details about a submitted manuscript and do not comment to any outside organization about manuscripts under consideration or rejected by the Journal. Editors are not allowed to discuss manuscripts with third parties or to reveal information about correspondence and other interactions with authors and reviewers. Editors do not release reviewers' identities to authors or to other reviewers, and at the same time, not release authors' identities to reviewers.
(4) Disclosure and Avoidance of Potential Interest Conflict: At the early stage of manuscript submission, editors should call attention to the potential conflicts of interests behind the manuscript, and check through the authors' statement on those interest issues for exhaust disclosure. If necessary, editors may inform the authors about the examples of potential conflicts of interests and help them in disclosure.
(5) Active Participation and Cooperation in Investigation of Academic Misconduct: In the cases of academic misconducts, editors are involved in revelation and required to cooperate in investigation and testimony. If necessary, corrections, clarifications, retractions or apologies should be made public in a timely manner.
2. Duties for Reviewers
(1) Decisions of Supply Editors with Publication Support: Reviewers make an independent assessment of the importance and technical accuracy of the results described in the manuscript, to provide the editors with necessary information needed to reach a decision. Reviewers should also instruct the authors on how they can strengthen their paper to the point where it may be acceptable. As far as possible, a negative review should explain to the authors the weaknesses of their manuscript, so that rejected authors can understand the basis for the decision.
(2) Completion of Review Process in Time: The Journal are committed to rapid editorial decisions and publication, and we believe that an efficient editorial process is a valuable service both to our authors and to the scientific community as a whole. We therefore ask reviewers to respond promptly within the number of days agreed. If reviewers anticipate a longer delay than previously expected, we ask them to let us know so that we can keep the authors informed and, where necessary, find alternatives.
(3) Confidentiality-keeping: As a condition of agreeing to assess the manuscript, all reviewers undertake to keep submitted manuscripts and associated data confidential, and not to redistribute them without permission from the Journal.
(4) Persistence of Objective Standards: Reviewers should base their judgment on the technical soundness, including creativity, significance, convincingness and logic, etc., of the manuscript.
(5) Respect for Documents in Existence and Work Done by Others: Reviewers are expected to carefully check if the authors have appropriately cited the publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.
(6) Disclosure and Avoidance of Potential Interest Conflict: We ask reviewers to draw our attention to anything that might affect their review, and to decline to review in cases where they feel unable to be objective. For example, if you work in the same department or institute as one of the authors; if you have worked on a paper previously with an author; or you have a professional or financial connection to the article. These should all be listed when responding to the editor’s invitation for review.
3. Duties for Authors
(1) Reporting Standards: Authors of reports on original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.
(2) Maintenance of Paper Raw Data Being Open to the Public if Necessary: Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data if practicable, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.
(3) Persistence of the Principles and Avoidance of Plagiarism: The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited or quoted. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.
(4) Avoidance of Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication for One Article: An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.
(5) Respect for the Documents in Existence and the Work Done by Others: Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source.
(6) Observation of the Principles of Signature: Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant submission to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.
(7) Dealing Carefully with Subjects Caused Possibly by Social Ethic Conflict: If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must clearly identify these in the manuscript. If the work involves the use of animal or human subjects, the author should ensure that the manuscript contains a statement that all procedures were performed in compliance with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and that the appropriate institutional committee(s) have approved them. Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.
(8) Disclosure of Interest Relationship in Detail and Avoidance of Potential Interest Conflicts: All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed. Potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed at the earliest stage possible.
(9) An Obligation to Correct Fundamental Errors in the Published Works in Time: When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the authors obligation to promptly notify the Journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper. If the editor or the publisher learn from a third party that a published work contains a significant error, it is the obligation of the author to promptly retract or correct the paper or provide evidence to the editor of the correctness of the original paper.
4. Serious Promise Given by the Editorial Department of 《Air Force Engineering University Journal》:
We are committed to ensuring that advertising, reprint or other commercial revenue has no impact or influence on editorial decisions. In addition, We will assist in communications with other journals and/or publishers where this is useful to editors. Finally, we are working closely with other publishers and industry associations to set standards for best practices on ethical matters, errors and retractions.
II. Disposition of Academic Misconduct
We have always been adhering to the strict academic ethical standards and putting absolutely an end to all forms of academic misconduct. Once any academic misconduct is discovered throughout the entire publication process, we will assist relevant institutions in conducting investigations and take measures such as withdrawing the manuscript and notifying relevant units against blatant misconduct. We use the “Academic Misconduct Literature Checking System (AMLC) for Scientific Journals” to detect academic misconduct in submissions. For articles with a “text similarity ratio” exceeding 20% in the detection results, withdrawal procedures will be followed. Academic misconduct includes but is not limited to the following types:
1.Duplicate Publishing
(1) Multiple Submissions for the Same Paper: Submitting the same paper or multiple papers with minor differences (such as title, keywords, abstract, author order, or author affiliation), to multiple journals or transferring to other journals within the agreed or legal time limit.
(2) Separation Publishing: Splitting research results that are essentially based on the same topic, data, and materials, and could have been published at once, into several publishable units as multiple papers.
(3) Republishing: Improperly repeating a large amount of content that has already been published in previous works in the same paper without appropriate explanation.
Furthermore, the following two situations will not be considered as duplicate publication:
(1) Abstracts, brief reports, presentations to conference attendees of research findings, data sets (undefined data, discussions, article content or conclusions presented in tabular form, and written descriptions of data/information that are not easily presented in lists) presented at academic conferences.
(2) Papers accurately translated into other languages with relevant permission, clearly indicating that the paper has been translated and republished, and indicating the original source.
If a paper is found to have content duplication, the editorial department will withdraw the paper and publish a notice of withdrawal.
2. Authors Concealment of Interest Conflict from Editors
Authors are responsible for disclosing conflicts of interest that may affect their ability to conduct objective research. This includes economic interests (such as patents and stocks, consulting fees, lecture fees), personal, political, intellectual, or religious interests. If the editor discovers that the author has deliberately concealed conflicts of interest, the author will be notified to add a conflict of interest statement.
3. Fabrication and Falsification
(1) Fabrication: Fabricating or inventing data or facts.
(2) Falsification: Intentionally altering data and facts to make them untrue.
In addition to falsifying and tampering with the content of the paper, it also includes malicious manipulation of data. If the paper is found to have fabrication or falsification issues, the editorial office will withdraw the paper and publish a notice of withdrawal.
4. Plagiarism
Plagiarism: An author directly takes other people's or existing ideas, opinions, data, images, research methods, or textual expressions without attribution or explanation as his own things to publish in his name, and excessively quotes the content from other people's published literature in his article.
If plagiarism is found in the paper, the editorial department will withdraw the paper and publish a retraction notice.
III. Appeal Mechanism
Only by providing sufficient information or evidence (such as providing other factual information, correcting information, attaching additional materials, or appealing against conflicts of interest and unfair peer review) can the author appeal, and can this journal accept and hear the case in accordance with the relevant information and evidence.
IV. Retracting submission
(1) Once academic misconduct or legal restrictions are confirmed, the retraction notice will be published in the printed version of the latest issue, and listed in the journal directory;
(2) The retraction notice will clearly cite the original text, give the reason for the retraction, and detailed evidence will be published in the online version of the journal;
(3) The paper will be promptly withdrawn from the journal website and database platform;
(4) “Retraction notice” is used as a title.
