Editorial Policy

1. Conflict of interest

Authors, editors, and reviewers must declare if there is a conflict of interest, such as an employment relationship, financial interest, or personal relationship, with respect to a submitted paper. Employment relationships include directors and boards of directors of companies, members of government councils, consultant contracts, etc. related to the content of papers. Financial interests include funding, ownership of financial instruments such as stocks, and patent applications. Personal relationships include teacher-student relationships, co-researchers such as co-authors of papers, and being affiliated with the same institution. In the case of large institutions, different departments or research institutes are not considered the same institution.

(1) Author

Authors must include a “Conflict of interest” section in their papers to declare whether they have any employment or financial interests related to the submitted paper. Conflicts of interest related to employment or financial interests must have occurred within the past three years at the time of submission. When recommending a reviewer, it is preferable to recommend a researcher who has no conflicts of interest, including a personal relationship, such as co-researchers, same affiliation, supervisory relationship, etc. with the reviewer candidate. If authors recommend a researcher who has a conflict of interest, this should be clearly stated.

(2) Editor

If there is a conflict of interest related to the submitted paper, the editor in charge of the paper shall declare it to the Editorial Office. If an Editor has a conflict of interest, it is up to the Editor-in-Chief to decide whether to request an editor. Conflicts of interest related to financial interests must be within the past three years at the time of submission.

(3) Reviewer

If there is a conflict of interest related to a submitted paper, the Reviewer shall declare it to the Editor in charge or the Editorial Office. If a reviewer has a conflict of interest, it is up to the editor in charge to decide whether to request a reviewer or not. These conflicts of interest apply to those within the past three years at the time of submission.

2. Authorship

Authors’ names should be properly listed. According to the ICMJE standards (https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html), the criteria are as follows:

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
Drafting the work or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content; AND
Final approval of the version to be published; AND
Agreement 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.

In some cases, such as when an author is deceased before submission of the paper, it may be appropriate to add him/her to the list of authors with notes even if the above criteria are not met. Persons who do not meet the criteria for inclusion as authors but have contributed to the paper should be appropriately mentioned in the acknowledgments. All authors agree to the content and publication of the manuscript and are responsible for the content of the paper. If author(s) wish to add or delete the author(s) after submission, the author must obtain the consent of all remaining authors. When submitting as a group author or consortium, author(s) must also decide on a Corresponding Author. AI (including generative AI software) shall not be added to the list of authors. If AI is used, the details of how it was used should be written in the most appropriate place, such as “Materials and “methods” section or Acknowledgments section. To be able to uniquely identify authors, we recommend registering with an Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID). If it is difficult to comply with the above criteria, you must state this in the cover letter at the time of submission.

(February, 2025)