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Submission & Author Guidelines

Tecno Scientifica Publishing is an independent academic publisher with an editorial team comprising many of the world’s leading researchers. We are committed to advancing the frontiers of science and technology by publishing high-quality research. As a company we take responsibility for disseminating new ideas and knowledge to a wide audience across the globe and to ensure that the information we publish can be easily found, shared and used for the benefit of the research community and society at large. Manuscripts submitted to Tecno Scientifica Publishing must adhere to internationally accepted standards for research practice and reporting, including, but not limited to, responsible data management, image preparation, reproducibility and reporting procedures. Tecno Scientifica Publishing follows the ethical frameworks of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). All concerns and disputes discovered after publication shall be addressed according to COPE guidelines and may lead to a correction, retraction or expression of concern. Authors’ institutions or affiliates may be contacted where appropriate.

Authorship Standards

Researchers publish their work in academic journals for a number of reasons, but mainly to get recognized and rewarded for their efforts. As with all recognition, this is tied to a responsibility of deciding who will be added as an Author of a particular article and in which order the Authors will be listed. Following a fair and transparent system for allocating credit to Authors is important for two reasons:

  • A transparent authorship system promotes responsible conduct of research and determines who will be held accountable for reporting research findings.
  • A fair credit system motivates researchers to produce more work that supports the advancement of their scientific field.

The entire research and publication process is based on trust and openness, and establishing a fair system to allocate credit is essential for the development of new knowledge and ideas. Tecno Scientifica Publishing encourages Authors to follow the authorship criteria recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). For ease of reference, this means that Authors should meet all of the conditions below to qualify for authorship:

  • Made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
  • Drafted the work or revised it critically for important intellectual content; AND
  • Gave final approval of the version to be published; AND
  • Agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Corresponding Author

The Authors of an article have to select one person from their group to take responsibility for communicating with the Editors of the journal to which the article has been submitted during the submission, peer review and publication process. This corresponding Author will also ensure that all of the journal’s administrative requirements are met such as providing documentation on authorship details, approval from ethical committees, gathering information on competing interests, completing forms and statements, etc. The corresponding Author is expected to be available throughout the submission and peer-review process to answer editorial queries timely, and during the production process after acceptance to assist the Editors or production managers with any requests for additional information.

Author Statement of Contribution

To enhance transparency, Authors are encouraged to add a detailed contributor statement to their manuscript showing the specific contribution that each Author made to the article. Examples could be: literature search, study design, manuscript writing, data collection, data analysis, etc. If all Authors contributed equally to a publication, this can be indicated in the cover letter accompanying a submission or in the online submission system for a journal depending on how the editorial workflow is configured.

Note that such transparency is desired to avoid certain types of authorship. For example, the following should be avoided at all cost:

  • Ghost authorship: this means excluding Authors from the article which do satisfy all the required authorship criteria (i.e. they contributed, but are not listed as an Author).
  • Guest authorship: this means adding an Author name to an article with the expectation that the addition of this name will improve the chance of acceptance and publication.
  • Gift authorship: this means adding Authors to the article who did not contribute anything to the research or manuscript preparation.

Authorship Order

There is no “one-size-fits-all” rule when it comes to determining the sequence of authors for an article, as this can vary by culture, by journal and by discipline. It is the responsibility of the Authors themselves to determine the order. In case of disagreement, the Authors are expected to resolve the issue prior to submitting their manuscript for publication. Any disputes which arise after submission may delay or prevent publication of the article. In any case, Editors are not expected to adjudicate or resolve disputes between Authors.

Authorship Changes

Tecno Scientifica Publishing adheres to the COPE guidelines for authorship changes. Authors are expected to carefully review the list and order of all Authors of a manuscript before submitting it for publication. In the event Authors wish to make changes to the list of Authors after a manuscript has been submitted, a proper justification should be provided to the Editor in writing and signed by all Authors including those being added, removed or re-arranged. If changes are requested after an article has been accepted for publication, the Editor will consider the request and hold the manuscript for publication until a decision has been made. In cases where the article has already been published and assigned a volume and issue number, any requests for authorship changes which are approved by the Editor will result in a corrigendum.

Acknowledgements

Any contributors to a study which do not fulfill the authorship criteria should be mentioned in an Acknowledgements section. For example, the help of a technical services team (e.g. animal technicians, facilities managers, etc.) can be mentioned where relevant. Also, any funding agencies which may have funded the research should be acknowledged.

Role of Funding Source

Authors are required to disclose and list any parties which have made a financial contribution to the research and/or the preparation of the article and to briefly describe the role that such party may have had in the work (if any). If the funding source(s) had no involvement in the work beyond providing a financial contribution, then this should be explicitly stated as well.

Competing Interest

Trust, transparency and objectivity are crucial ingredients for well-conducted research and for the advancement of science. As such, ideas, scientific findings and discoveries should not be influenced by particular views, value commitments, community bias or personal interests. However, we are aware that competing interests are inevitable in the academic arena and that their existence does not automatically infer any wrong-doing. The challenge is not to eliminate them, but to acknowledge and deal with them appropriately.

A competing interest is any actual, apparent or potential direct or indirect monetary, personal relationship that compromises or influences judgment and objectivity. Authors should report the following: financial support, funding support by trade sectors and organizations that may have a commercial interest in a publication, direct employment (part-time or full-time), personal interest (consultation fees or owning a stock in a company commissioning the research work and which may lose or gain financially from the publication), compensations for attending conferences and other honoraria, awarded or incomplete patents or patent applications (submitted by authors or their institutions) and other non-financial competing interests such as specific relationships or specific roles. Other forms of interest based on personal motivations and intentions are harder to manage and it is the Author's responsibility to report these conflicts.

Reporting a competing interest may not invalidate a manuscript and the final decision, but Authors are required to declare any conflicts to allow Editors to make an informed judgment of the work. Authors are requested to disclose any competing interest at the submission stage by filling an Author Declaration of Potential Conflict form. The corresponding Author is expected to provide a declaration on behalf of all the Authors. A competing interest statement will be published at the end of each article whether or not a competing interest actually exists. In cases where Authors are bound by confidentiality agreements, we encourage Authors to inform the handling Editor and to indicate this in a cover letter during the submission process. In such situations, Authors should explicitly declare in a disclosure statement that they are bound by a confidentiality agreement.

Reporting Research

Authors submitting clinical trial papers must adhere to the reporting guidelines corresponding to their study design such as the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT). They should present a flow diagram and include the CONSORT checklist during the initial submission stage, preferably attached to a cover letter. For non-randomized trials, Authors have to use Transparent Reporting of Evaluations with Nonrandomized Designs (TREND) and other specialized guidelines as appropriate. For meta-analysis, Authors are expected to follow the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and include the flow diagram and PRISMA checklist together with a cover letter. For systemic reviews, Authors are also encouraged to follow PRISMA guidelines but this is not a mandatory requirement. For other types of health- or medicine-related research, refer to the Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research (EQUATOR) Network for the appropriate guidelines that were designed to support transparency, reproducibility and accuracy of research reporting.

Human Subjects

Researchers are required to conduct their studies in accordance with an approved protocol and acceptable research standards. If the research submitted involves human subjects, Authors should ensure that the work is compliant with the Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects (Declaration of Helsinki) of the World Medical Association and the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Approval from a local ethics committee is required and should always be included at the manuscript submission stage in the cover letter accompanying a submission or in the online submission system for a journal depending on how the editorial workflow is configured. Although some Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) may exempt certain article types from their approval (e.g. case reports), IRB review may still be necessary to make that determination. Editors may request a copy of the IRB letter during manuscript submission.

Tecno Scientifica Publishing advocates anonymity and takes all the necessary steps to protect the privacy of those who participate in research. Appropriate consents, permissions and releases must be obtained where authors wish to include case details or other personal information or images of patients and any other individuals in an Tecno Scientifica Publishing publication. The consent obtained should comply with all applicable laws and regulations concerning the privacy and/or security of personal information, including, but not limited to, the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 ("HIPAA") and other U.S. federal and state laws relating to privacy and security of personally identifiable information, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) (EU) 2016/679 and member state implementing legislation, Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, India's Information Technology Act and related Privacy Rules (together collectively referred to as the "Data Protection and Privacy Laws"). It is the responsibility of the Authors to ensure that:

  • Each individual, or the individual's legal guardian or other person with legal authority to act on the individual's behalf who appears in any video, recording, photograph, image, illustration or case report (or in any other identifiable form) is made aware in advance of the fact that such photographs are being taken or such video, recording, photograph, image, illustration or report is being made, and of all the purposes for which they might be used, including disclosure to Tecno Scientifica Publishing and use by Tecno Scientifica Publishing or its licensees in any work or product. That individual, legal guardian or person with legal authority must give his/her explicit written consent. If such consent is made subject to any conditions (for example, adopting measures to prevent personal identification of the person concerned), Tecno Scientifica Publishing must be made aware in writing of all such conditions. Written consents must be retained by the Authors and copies of the consents or evidence that such consents have been obtained must be provided to Tecno Scientifica Publishing on request.
  • The form of written consent complies with each requirement of all applicable Data Protection and Privacy Laws. Particular care should be taken with obtaining consent where children are concerned (in particular where a child has special needs or learning disabilities), where an individual's head or face appears, or where reference is made to an individual's name or other personal details.
  • In the case of a child, if parents or guardians disagree on the use of the images of that child, then consent should be deemed not to have been given and those images should not be used. It is also important to ensure that only images of children in suitable dress are used to reduce the risk of images being used inappropriately.
  • Even if consent has been obtained, care must be taken to ensure that the portrayal and captioning of the individual concerned are respectful and could not be seen as denigrating that individual.

Furthermore, special consideration must be given to ensure that:

  • Patients' and research subjects' names, initials, hospital or social security numbers, dates of birth or other personal or identifying information should not be used.
  • Images of patients or research subjects should not be used unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and explicit permission has been given as part of the consent. Even where consent has been given, identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential.
  • If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, authors should provide assurances that such alterations do not distort scientific meaning.

Formal consents are not required for the use of entirely anonymized images from which the individual cannot be identified, such as x-rays, ultrasound images, pathology slides or laparoscopic images, provided that these do not contain any identifying marks and are not accompanied by text that might identify the individual concerned. If consent has not been obtained, it is generally not sufficient to anonymize a photograph simply by using eye bars or blurring the face of the individual concerned.

Finally, it is important to note that all Authors have to follow the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) for the Protection of Research Participants during the planning stage, implementation stage and prior to submission. In the submission cover letter or where otherwise indicated by the Editors, Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that human consent has been obtained. Editors will check documentation of patient consent during peer review and prior to publication and will look for any potentially identifying information. Submissions that include identifying patient information without patient consent will not be considered for publication. If identifying information is discovered post publication, the article will be temporarily withdrawn while any content compromising participant privacy is removed.

Animal Subjects

All animal experiments should be carried out in accordance with the Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments (ARRIVE) guidelines developed by the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement & Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3RS). As per ARRIVE guidelines, Authors should clearly indicate in the appropriate section of the submitted article that such guidelines have been followed during the course of the research.