Article Withdrawal Policy

In few cases, the articles may include infringements of ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like. Articles in Press that have been accepted for publication but which have not been formally published may be withdrawn from the journal.

  1. Article Retraction
    Infringements of ethical codes, such as multiple submission, fake claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like. Occasionally a retraction will be used to correct errors in submission or publication. Standards for dealing with retractions have been proposed by a number of scholarly bodies, and this best practice is adopted for article retraction by journal:

    • A retraction note titled “Retraction: [article title]” signed by the authors and/or the editor is published in the paginated part of a subsequent issue of the journal and listed in the contents list.
    • In the electronic version, a link is made to the original article.
    • The online article is preceded by a screen containing the retraction note. It is to this screen that the link resolves; the reader can then proceed to the article itself.
    • The original article is retained unchanged save for a watermark on the pdf indicating on each page that it is “retracted.” The HTML version of the document is removed.
  2. Article Removal: Legal Limitations
    In some cases, it may be needed to remove an article from the online database. This will only happen where the article is clearly defamatory, or infringes legal rights of others, or where the article is, or we have good reason to expect it will be, the subject of a court order, or where the article, if acted upon, might pose a serious health risk. In such conditions, while the metadata (Title and Authors) will be retained, the text will be replaced with a screen demonstrating that the article has been removed for legal reasons.
  3. Article Replacement
  4. In cases where the article, if acted upon, might pose a serious health risk, the authors of the original article may wish to retract the flawed original and replace it with a corrected version. In such condition, the steps for retraction will be followed but with considering that the database retraction notice will publish a link to the amended re-published article and a history of the document.