Authorship Criteria

Authorship must be grounded exclusively on substantive intellectual, conceptual, and empirical contributions to the research. In accordance with COPE and international conventions, each listed author must fulfill all four of the following criteria:

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. 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.

The journal adopts the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) framework. A transparent Author Contribution Statement outlining each contributor's specific role (e.g., Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Investigation, Writing – Original Draft, Supervision) must be explicitly presented in a dedicated statement prior to the References section.

Submissions with an exceptionally large number of contributors must include an explicit justification in the cover letter detailing each co-author's substantial intellectual involvement. Non-author contributors who provided purely administrative, translation, financial, or routine technical assistance must be acknowledged in an Acknowledgements section rather than listed as authors. Ghost authorship and gift/honorary authorship are strictly prohibited.

Authors must confirm the definitive author ordering prior to initial submission. In accordance with COPE guidelines, any subsequent request to alter authorship (adding, removing, or reordering author names) after submission or acceptance requires written formal consent signed by all listed and proposed authors, accompanied by documented academic justification delivered to the Editor-in-Chief.