General Considerations

• Research manuscripts should comprise:
  • Front matter: Title, Author List, Affiliations, Abstract, Keywords.
  • Research manuscript sections: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions (optional).
  • Back matter: Supplementary Materials, Acknowledgments, Author Contributions, Conflicts of Interest, References.
• Review manuscripts should comprise the front matter, appropriate literature review sections, and the back matter. The manuscript template may also be used to prepare the front and back matter of review manuscripts.
• Abbreviations should be defined the first time they appear in the abstract, main text, and figure or table captions. Abbreviations should be used consistently throughout the manuscript.
• SI Units (International System of Units) should be used. Imperial, US customary, and other units should be converted to SI units whenever possible.
• Equations: If you are using Microsoft Word, please use the Microsoft Equation Editor or MathType. Equations must remain editable and should not be submitted as images.
• Research Data and Supplementary Materials: Publication of a manuscript implies that authors should make the materials, data, and protocols necessary to support and reproduce the reported findings available to readers, subject to applicable ethical, legal, privacy, confidentiality, or other legitimate restrictions. Any restrictions on the availability of materials, data, or information should be disclosed at the submission stage.

Front Matter

These sections should appear in all manuscript types.

• Title: The title of the manuscript should be concise, specific, informative, and relevant to the content of the work. Abbreviations and acronyms should generally be avoided in the title unless they are widely recognized and essential for clarity.
• Author List and Affiliations: Authors' full first and last names must be provided. Initials of middle names may be included. Complete institutional affiliations should be provided, including department or institution, city, postal code, and country. At least one author must be designated as the corresponding author, and a valid email address must be provided.
• Abstract: The abstract should be approximately 200 words and presented as a single paragraph. It should provide a concise and objective summary of the background and purpose of the study, the methods or approach used, the principal results, and the main conclusions or implications. The abstract should not contain results that are not presented and supported in the main text and should not exaggerate the conclusions of the study.
• Keywords: Three to ten relevant keywords should be provided after the abstract. Keywords should accurately represent the subject matter of the article and should be sufficiently specific to facilitate indexing and discoverability.

Research Manuscript Sections

• Introduction: The introduction should place the study in an appropriate context and explain its relevance. It should clearly define the research problem, objectives, and, where applicable, the hypotheses or research questions. The current state of research should be reviewed critically and relevant literature cited. The introduction should conclude with a clear statement of the aim and contribution of the work.
• Materials and Methods: Methods should be described in sufficient detail to allow other researchers to understand, replicate, and build upon the reported work. New methods, models, algorithms, frameworks, or protocols should be described in detail, while established methods may be described briefly with appropriate references. The name and version of relevant software should be provided. Where applicable, authors should indicate whether source code, datasets, models, or other computational materials are publicly available.
• Results: Results should be presented clearly, concisely, and objectively. Authors should report the principal findings of the study and provide appropriate analyses, tables, figures, or other supporting evidence where necessary.
• Discussion: Authors should interpret their results in relation to the research objectives, previous studies, and relevant theoretical or practical considerations. The implications and significance of the findings should be discussed, together with important limitations of the study. Directions for future research may also be identified. The Results and Discussion sections may be combined where appropriate.
• Conclusions: A separate Conclusions section is optional. When included, it should concisely summarize the principal findings, contributions, implications, and, where appropriate, directions for future research.

Back Matter

• Supplementary Materials: Authors should describe any supplementary materials published alongside the manuscript, including datasets, figures, tables, appendices, source code, or other supporting files. Each supplementary item should be clearly identified and appropriately referenced in the manuscript.
• Acknowledgments: Authors may acknowledge individuals, institutions, or organizations that contributed to the work but do not meet the criteria for authorship. All sources of financial support should also be disclosed.
• Author Contributions: Each listed author must have made a substantial contribution to the work and must approve the submitted version of the manuscript. Authorship should be limited to individuals who have contributed substantially to the conception, design, execution, analysis, interpretation, or preparation of the work.
• Conflicts of Interest: Authors must identify and disclose any financial, personal, professional, or other interests that could be perceived as influencing the research or its interpretation. If no conflicts of interest exist, authors should state: "The authors declare no conflicts of interest."
• References: References must be numbered consecutively in the order in which they first appear in the text, including references cited in tables and figure captions. Each reference should be listed individually at the end of the manuscript. Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) should be included whenever available.

References

Citations in the Text

Every reference cited in the text must appear in the reference list, and every reference included in the reference list must be cited in the text. References should be cited using Arabic numerals enclosed in square brackets. Citation numbers should be assigned consecutively according to the first appearance of each source in the manuscript.

Once a reference has been assigned a number, the same number must be used whenever that source is cited again.

• Reference numbers should appear in square brackets, for example [1], [2], or [3–5].
• Multiple individual references should be separated by commas, for example [1, 3, 5].
• A continuous range of references should be indicated with an en dash, for example [1–5].
• The same reference number must be used for all subsequent citations of the same source.

Citing More Than One Reference at a Time

When citing more than one source at a time, list individual reference numbers separated by commas. Consecutive references may be presented as a range.

Web References

For web sources, authors should provide, where available, the author or organization, title of the webpage or document, full URL, publication or update date, and the date on which the source was accessed.

Data References

The journal encourages authors to cite datasets that support or are directly relevant to the published research. Dataset references should include the author(s), dataset title, repository, version where applicable, year, and a persistent identifier such as a DOI. Authors should add [dataset] immediately before the reference in the reference list where appropriate.

Reference List

References should be numbered according to their order of first citation in the manuscript.

Journal Abbreviations

Journal titles should be abbreviated according to the List of Title Word Abbreviations (LTWA). If an established abbreviation is unavailable, the full journal title may be used.

Preparing Figures, Schemes and Tables

• Figures and schemes should be provided at a sufficiently high resolution for publication. A minimum resolution of 300 dpi is recommended for raster images. Common file formats are accepted; TIFF, JPEG, EPS, and PDF are preferred where appropriate.
• All figures, schemes, and tables should be placed in the manuscript close to their first citation and numbered consecutively according to their order of appearance (Figure 1, Figure 2, Table 1, Table 2, etc.).
• All figures, schemes, and tables must have a concise and informative title or caption.
• All table columns should have clear explanatory headings. Tables should be created as editable tables rather than inserted as images. Font sizes should remain legible and should generally not be smaller than 8 pt.
• Authors are encouraged to prepare figures and graphical materials in color where this improves clarity. There is no additional charge for the publication of color graphics.

Supplementary Materials and Software Source Code

Data Availability

To support the integrity, transparency, and reproducibility of research, authors are encouraged to make the data underlying their findings available through recognized data repositories or as supplementary material, whenever ethical, legal, confidentiality, privacy, or other legitimate restrictions do not prevent public sharing. Where data cannot be made publicly available, authors should clearly state the reason and describe the conditions under which access may be provided.

Computer Code and Software

For research in which novel computer code, algorithms, or software have been developed, authors are encouraged to make the relevant code available through a recognized public repository or as supplementary material, where possible. The name and version of software used in the research should be clearly stated. Any restrictions on access to proprietary or confidential code should be disclosed.

Supplementary Material

Additional data, figures, tables, appendices, code, and other supporting files may be uploaded as "Supplementary Files" during manuscript submission. Supplementary files may be made available to reviewers as part of the peer-review process. Authors are encouraged to use common, non-proprietary file formats whenever possible.

References in Supplementary Files

Citations and references in supplementary files are permitted. References that are also cited in the main manuscript should use the same numbering as in the main reference list. References appearing exclusively in supplementary material should be presented consistently and clearly within the supplementary file.