Authorship

Eligibility for Authorship

Authorship is reserved for individuals who have made substantial scholarly contributions to the conception or design of the research; experimental work, data acquisition, analysis or interpretation; or manuscript drafting or critical revision, and who agree to take responsibility for their contributions and the integrity of the work. All listed authors must approve the final manuscript and consent to its submission and publication.

Contributors who do not satisfy the journal's authorship criteria—including technical assistants, professional language editors, routine supervisors, and funding-only contributors—should be acknowledged with their permission rather than assigned honorary authorship. Gift, guest, and ghost authorship are unacceptable.

Contribution Statement

The manuscript should include an Author Contributions section identifying each author's roles. The journal recommends use of the CRediT contributor taxonomy, where appropriate (e.g., conceptualization, methodology, investigation, formal analysis, data curation, software, validation, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, visualization, supervision, project administration, funding acquisition).

Corresponding Author

The corresponding author coordinates journal correspondence; confirms the completeness and accuracy of author metadata and affiliations; obtains all coauthors' approval; and communicates editorial correspondence and proofs to the author group. The corresponding author must provide a reliable email address.

Changes to the Author List

Requests to add, remove, or reorder authors after initial submission require a written explanation and consent from all affected authors. Changes after acceptance will be considered only in exceptional circumstances and may delay publication. Where agreement cannot be reached, the editorial office may request clarification from the authors' institutions; the journal does not adjudicate institutional employment or intellectual property disputes.

Use of Artificial Intelligence

AI systems and chatbots cannot qualify as authors because they cannot accept accountability for research integrity. Substantive use of generative-AI tools must be disclosed as described in the journal's AI Policy; the responsible human authors remain accountable for all content.