1. Review procedure:
The editorial department will check the duplication and preliminary review of all submitted manuscripts. Articles that lack sufficient physical connotation and novelty, or contain content out of the scope of the journal, unreliable research methods, unreliable results, wrong basic concepts, or cannot support the main conclusions, or have poor writing quality, or fail duplication review will be directly rejected and will not be sent to the external peer reviewer. Authors of such manuscripts can appeal. For manuscripts that pass the preliminary review, the editor will select at least two reviewers for the external peer review, and sometimes ask reviewers to review the revised manuscript. When the review report is inconclusive, the editor will initiate additional review procedures. For controversial manuscripts, editors will consult the editorial board.
2. Selection of external peer review experts:
The selection of external peer review reviewers is critical to maintaining the academic quality of the journal. The editorial department will comprehensively consider multiple factors when selecting external peer review reviewers, including academic level, reputation, academic impartiality, review report, and review speed. Reviewers, whose review comments are rough, general or whose review time is too long, and reviewers who are too harsh or lax, should be avoided in the selection.
3. Accept or reject a review for external peer review expert:
Before accepting a review, please ensure that the content of the manuscript is close enough to your area of expertise, so that you can provide professional opinion. If it is quite different from your area of expertise, or you do not have time to review the manuscript in the near future, please refuse to review the manuscript, and you are welcome to make suggestions for alternate reviewers.
4. Peer review time:
In order to make the article published as soon as possible, the external reviewers are requested to return the review comments within 12 days after the receipt of the manuscript. The editorial system will automatically send reminders to the external reviwers on the 1st and 7th days after the overdue period, and the editorial department will manually remind them on the 15th days after the overdue period.
5. Anonymity and confidentiality of the peer review process:
The peer review adopts a single-blind review system. The editorial office will not disclose the identities of reviewers to authors or to other reviewers throughout and after the review process. Reviewers must not refer to any material from the peer review process as their own research. When reviewing the manuscript, the reviewer should not discuss with the author. If you have any questions, contact the editor to ask. In case of inconvenience, reviewers can write their comments separately in the comments column designated merely for the editors on the review page.
6. Conflict of interest notification:
It is critical that reviewers disclose conflicts of interest to editors. Please notify the editor if you have a direct competition, a direct collaboration, or other relationship with the author that may prevent you from evaluating the manuscript objectively.
7. Review report writing requirements:
When writing a review report, please be objective, clear and concise, and avoid overly negative or controversial comments. The review report should include review comments and recommendations on whether to accept or not.
(1) Review comments: comments on the originality, the importance of the content of the manuscript, the academic quality, the scientific rigor, the language expression of the manuscript. and suggestions for revision, ect., should be included..
(2) Recommendations: give suggestions for publication, publication after revision, review after revision, or rejection of the manuscript, and provide the corresponding reasons for the suggestion.
8. Author appeal:
Authors can appeal the editor's rejection decision on the manuscript. In the event of an appeal, the manuscript and all relevant information, including the identities of reviewers, will be sent to an editorial board member. If there is no suitable candidate in the editorial board, the editor will select a suitable scientist in the corresponding field to review the appealed manuscript. Review comments will be sent to authors along with the decision of acceptance or rejection.
