Publication Ethics Statement

Studies in Humans and Animals Policy

The NJF Biomedicine Journal(NJF-BMJ) is committed to maintaining the highest ethical standards in research involving both human and animal subjects. Authors submitting manuscripts reporting on studies in humans or animals must adhere to the following guidelines:

Ethical Approval:For studies involving human subjects, authors must provide details of the ethical approval obtained from relevant Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) or Ethics Committees. The manuscript should include the approval number, date, and the name of the approving institution.
Informed Consent for Human Studies:Authors conducting research involving human subjects must obtain informed consent. The manuscript should clearly state that informed consent was obtained from all participants, and the consent process should be described, including any potential risks and benefits.
Patient Anonymity: Authors should take measures to ensure patient anonymity and confidentiality. Identifying information, unless essential to the study, should be avoided, and explicit consent should be obtained if such information is necessary.
Animal Welfare: For studies involving animals, authors must adhere to ethical guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals. Details of institutional approval or certification, as well as compliance with relevant animal welfare regulations, should be provided in the manuscript.
Compliance with Guidelines:Authors should follow internationally accepted guidelines, such as the Declaration of Helsinki for human studies and the ARRIVE guidelines for animal studies. Failure to comply with these guidelines may result in the rejection or withdrawal of the manuscript.

NJF-BMJ prioritizes the responsible and ethical conduct of research involving both human and animal subjects. Authors are encouraged to consider the welfare and ethical implications of their studies and provide transparent documentation of ethical approval and adherence to guidelines in their manuscripts. Non-compliance with these policies may lead to the rejection or withdrawal of the manuscript from consideration for publication.

Informed consent and patient details

The NJF Biomedicine Journal (NJF-BMJ) prioritizes ethical considerations in the publication of research involving human subjects. Authors submitting manuscripts that include patient details must adhere to the following guidelines:

Informed Consent:Authors are required to obtain informed consent from patients or participants involved in their studies. Manuscripts reporting on clinical studies or cases should explicitly state that informed consent was obtained from all participants. The process of obtaining informed consent, including any potential risks and benefits, should be described in the manuscript.
Patient Anonymity: Authors should take precautions to ensure patient anonymity. Identifying information, such as names, addresses, or specific details that could reveal the identity of the patients, should be avoided unless absolutely necessary for the scientific narrative. In such cases, explicit consent must be obtained, and the manuscript should clearly state that this information is essential to the study.
Ethical Approval: Manuscripts reporting on research involving human subjects must include details about the ethical approval obtained from relevant Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) or Ethics Committees. Authors should provide the approval number and institution details in the manuscript.
Compliance with Regulations: Authors should ensure compliance with relevant national and international regulations regarding the use of patient details in research. This includes adherence to the Declaration of Helsinki and other applicable guidelines.
De-Identification: If patient details are essential to the research but cannot be fully anonymized, authors must carefully de-identify the information to the greatest extent possible. Any potential risk to patient privacy should be discussed in the manuscript.

NJF-BMJ is committed to upholding the highest ethical standards in biomedical publishing. Authors are encouraged to consider patient welfare, privacy, and consent throughout the research process and clearly communicate these considerations in their submitted manuscripts. Failure to comply with these guidelines may result in the rejection or withdrawal of the manuscript from consideration for publication.

Conflicts of interest

Authors must declare all relevant interests that could be perceived as conflicting. Authors should explain why each interest may represent a conflict. If no conflicts exist, the authors should state this. Submitting authors are responsible for coauthors declaring their interests.

Preprints

It is important to recognize that according to Elsevier's sharing policy, preprints may be disseminated freely at any point in time, and their distribution, for instance, on a preprint server, does not constitute prior publication (refer to the section on 'Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication' for further details).

Declaration of generative AI in scientific writing

In the context of scientific writing, when authors employ generative AI and AI-assisted tools, their use should be limited to enhancing language and readability, under human supervision and control. It's crucial for authors to meticulously examine and revise the output, since AI can produce outputs that seem credible but may be inaccurate, incomplete, or biased. As per Elsevier's AI policy for authors, AI and AI-assisted technologies must not be credited as an author or co-author, nor cited as such, since authorship entails responsibilities and duties uniquely assignable to humans. This guidance pertains solely to the writing process and does not encompass the utilization of AI tools for data analysis and insight generation in research.

Authors are required to declare the employment of AI and AI-assisted technologies in the manuscript preparation as per the following guidelines. This disclosure will be included in the final published version of the document. It is important to emphasize that the authors bear full responsibility and accountability for the content of their work.

Disclosure instructions

Authors are required to disclose the utilization of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in their manuscript's writing process. This should be done by including a statement in the main manuscript file, positioned in a newly created section titled 'Declaration of Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process', and placed just before the References list.

The statement should specify: "During the creation of this work, the author(s) employed [NAME TOOL / SERVICE] for [SPECIFIC PURPOSE]. Following the use of this tool/service, the author(s) thoroughly reviewed and amended the content as necessary, and assume(s) complete responsibility for the publication's content."

It should be noted that this declaration excludes the use of standard tools for grammar, spelling, and reference checks. If no such AI tools were used, there is no need to include this statement.

Author contributions

To ensure transparency, corresponding authors are obligated to detail the contributions of co-authors to the manuscript, utilizing the designated roles outlined in the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) system. This taxonomy identifies 14 distinct roles, each specifying a particular type of contribution to the academic work, including Conceptualization, Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Funding Acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project Administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing - Original Draft, and Writing - Review & Editing. It should be noted that not every role may be relevant to each manuscript, and individual authors may fulfill several roles. Additional information and an illustrative example are provided for clarification.

Reporting clinical trials

Randomized controlled trials must adhere to the CONSORT guidelines and, upon manuscript submission; authors are required to submit the CONSORT checklist along with a flow diagram. This diagram should clearly depict the patient progression through the trial stages, such as recruitment, enrollment, randomization, withdrawal, and completion, as well as provide a comprehensive explanation of the randomization process. The CONSORT checklist and a template for the flow diagram can be accessed online.

Funding statement

Authors must state how the research and publication of their article was funded, by naming financially supporting body(s) (written out in full) followed by associated grant number(s) in square brackets (if applicable), for example: “This work was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council [grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]; the National Science Foundation [grant number zzzz]; and a Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant”.

If the research did not receive specific funding, but was performed as part of the employment of the authors, please name this employer. If the funder was involved in the manuscript writing, editing, approval, or decision to publish, please declare this.

Acknowledgments

All acknowledgments (if any) should be included at the very end of the manuscript before the references. Anyone who made a contribution to the research or manuscript, but who is not a listed author, should be acknowledged (with their permission).

Ethical guidelines

In any studies on human or animal subjects, the following ethical guidelines must be observed. For any experiments on humans, all work must be conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki (1964). Manuscripts describing experimental work that carries a risk of harm to human subjects must include a statement that the experiment was conducted with the human subjects’ understanding and consent, as well as a statement that the responsible ethics committee has approved the experiments. In the case of any animal experiments, the authors must provide a full description of any anesthetic or surgical procedure used, as well as evidence that all possible steps were taken to avoid animal suffering at each stage of the experiment.

Appeals

Authors may appeal if they feel that the decision to reject was based on: i) a major misunderstanding over a technical aspect of the manuscript; or ii) a failure to understand the scientific advance shown by the manuscript. Appeals requesting a second opinion without sufficient justification will not be considered. To lodge an appeal, please contact the journal by email, quoting your manuscript number. Appeals will only be considered from the original submitting author.