Manuscript Submission and Review Procedure

Authors are invited to submit their work through the Open Journal Systems submission portal accessible at this link. To track the progress of your manuscript, log in to ojs.lifeconfluxpress.com/index.php/lifeconflux and select "Submissions". For technical assistance with the submission platform, please consult our FAQs or contact us at technical@lifeconfluxpress.com. For any submission-related inquiries, feel free to reach out to editorial@lifeconflux.com. It's worth noting that this journal does not levy any submission fees.

Support for Preparing Your Manuscript

Life Conflux Press Editing Services offers comprehensive support for authors, including professional English language editing, translation services, manuscript formatting, figure preparation, and graphical abstract design to ensure a high-quality submission. For general guidance on writing and preparing your manuscript, explore our resources on Preparing Your Article. Additionally, Life Conflux now supports Free Format submissions, simplifying the process for authors.

Peer Review Process

This journal employs a single-blind peer review model. Manuscripts are reviewed only if they meet the quality and relevance criteria set by the Editor-in-Chief. In-house submissions are handled with special care to prevent any potential bias in the review process. Moreover, the journal participates in Life Conflux Press's Refer & Transfer program, ensuring valuable research is not overlooked. If a manuscript is not accepted, authors may receive recommendations to transfer their work to another suitable Life Conflux Press journal.

External Peer Review

At Life Conflux, we conduct external peer review for all published content and have established procedures to support and ensure the quality of research articles. Each published article will include a download link to the peer-reviewed material as evidence of the peer review process.

Our distinctive peer review process offers researchers the opportunity to receive rigorous, transparent, and constructive feedback from domain experts. It is important to note that every manuscript submitted to the Life Conflux journal undergoes several scientific integrity assessments before peer review, multiple checks during the review process, and final verification prior to publication.

Conflicts of Interest for Editors and Reviewers

Handling editors and reviewers are required to consider the following potential conflicts of interest before accepting any editing or review assignment:

• Family: Is any author a spouse, significant other, family member, or very close personal friend? Review editors should also not be a member of the same family as the handling editor.

• Collaborations: Have you hosted a Life Conflux Research Topic with any of the authors within the past two years? Are you currently collaborating or have you collaborated on a research project or publication with any of the authors within the past two years? Have you worked together in an advisory or direct supervisory capacity within the past five years? As a student or in a direct subordinate capacity in the past five years? Note: Review editors should not accept assignments if they have a close professional relationship with the handling editor that could compromise the objectivity of the review.

• Affiliation: Are you affiliated with the same institution as any of the authors? Has this affiliation resulted in interactions, collaborations, or mutual interests with the authors that would compromise your impartiality in conducting this review? Are you a current member of a committee or department that coincides with an affiliation with any of the authors?

• Financial: Do you have a business or professional partnership with any author? Do you have financial interests or business relations with any organization involved in this research or in the preparation of the manuscript? Do you have any financial interest or competing interests in the content of the manuscript that might affect your ability to perform an objective review?

Peer Review Manipulation

Life Conflux adheres to COPE's standards for ethical peer review. Our research integrity team investigates any allegations or indications of misconduct or peer-review manipulation during the peer review process. This includes citation manipulation, false reviewer identity, conflicts of interest, and any activity that may unduly influence the outcome of the review process.

Authors, editors, and reviewers are expected to fulfill their responsibilities in the review process objectively, honestly, and in accordance with ethical standards. All parties must report any attempts to manipulate the peer review process and alert the journal accordingly.

Acts Constituting Peer Review Manipulation

• Falsifying reviewer and editor identities or credentials

• Colluding with others to manipulate review outcomes

• Fabricating or plagiarizing review reports

• Engaging in coercive or biased reviewing practices (including peer review rings)

• Recommending reviewers with known conflicts of interest without disclosing these conflicts

• Obfuscating or failing to disclose known conflicts of interest of editors, reviewers, or authors

• Coercing reviewers into providing favorable or biased evaluations

• Any other actions that could reasonably compromise the objectivity and integrity of the peer review process

If an investigation uncovers evidence of peer review manipulation, Life Conflux will take necessary action, which may include retracting the affected publication or revoking acceptance if the manuscript is still under review. The determination of what constitutes reasonable evidence of peer review manipulation is at the discretion of Life Conflux, aiming to ensure fairness and objectivity throughout the investigation.

All concerns and allegations will be investigated according to COPE guidelines. For instructions on how to raise doubts about unethical behavior in peer review, please refer to our Complaints Procedure.

Editorial Board Quality

Only leading experts and established members of the research community are appointed to the Life Conflux Editorial Boards. Chief Editors, Associate Editors, and Review Editors are all listed with their names and affiliations on the Journal pages and are encouraged to publicly list their publication credentials.

Associate Editor Assignment Quality

Associate Editors oversee the peer-review process and make final acceptance decisions on manuscripts. Editorial decision power is distributed within Life Conflux because we believe that many experts within a community should be able to shape the direction of science for the benefit of society.

Submitting authors can choose a preferred Associate Editor to handle their manuscript, based on their judgment of who would be an appropriate expert. However, there is no guarantee for this preference; Associate Editors can decline invitations at any time, and the assigned Associate Editor can also be overridden by the Chief Editor before or during the review process.

Associate Editors are required to accept only those manuscripts they have no conflicts of interest with (as stated in their review invitation and assignment emails).

If it becomes clear that the Associate Editor has a conflict of interest or cannot perform the peer-review adequately and timely, a new Associate Editor can be assigned by the Chief Editor, who has full control over the peer-review process.

The Associate Editor initially checks that the article meets basic quality standards and has no obvious objective errors.

Reviewer Assignment Quality

Associate Editors personally select and invite the most suitable reviewers for the peer-review of the manuscript, including Review Editors from the board or external reviewers.

They are aided by the Collaborative Review Forum software, which suggests relevant Review Editors based on matching expertise with the manuscript topic. However, Associate Editors can choose any reviewer they deem adequate.

Should no reviewers be assigned within a certain timeframe, the Life Conflux platform intervenes and invites the most appropriate Review Editors using algorithms that match reviewer expertise with the submitted manuscript.

Reviewers are mandated to only accept to review a manuscript if they have no conflicts of interest (as specified in their review invitation and assignment emails).

Life Conflux continuously refines its algorithms to better match Review Editors with manuscripts and codes additional checks into the platform, such as conflict of interest reviews.

If a reviewer shows a conflict of interest or cannot perform the peer-review adequately and timely, they shall be replaced by an alternative reviewer selected by the Associate Editor or Chief Editor, who can intervene at any point in the review process.

Independent Review Stage Quality

During the Independent Review Stage, assigned reviewers conduct an in-depth review of the article independently to ensure complete freedom of opinion.

Reviewers are assisted by an online standardized review questionnaire tailored to different article types, designed to facilitate rigorous evaluation according to objective criteria and the Life Conflux Review Guidelines.

Interactive Review Stage Quality

The Associate Editor evaluates the reviews and activates the "Interactive Review," informing the authors of the extent of revisions required to address the reviewers’ comments. This starts the Interactive Discussion Forum where authors and reviewers gain full access to all review reports.

At this stage, manuscript and review quality are enhanced by allowing direct real-time discussion between authors and reviewers until consensus is reached and a final version of the manuscript is endorsed by the reviewers. Reviewer identity is protected to safeguard complete freedom of opinion.

Reviewers can recommend rejection if the authors do not meet requests to correct objective errors or if the article's overall quality is deemed insufficient.

In case of disputes, authors or reviewers can trigger an arbitration and alert the Associate Editor, who can assign more reviewers and/or bring the dispute to the attention of the Chief Editor. The Associate Editor can also mediate the process to ensure a constructive revision stage.

Decision Stage Quality

Acceptance decisions require unanimous agreement among all reviewers and the handling Associate Editor.

The names of the Associate Editor and reviewers are disclosed on published articles to encourage thorough and rigorous reviews, acknowledge contributors, and promote transparency and accountability in peer review.

Associate Editors can recommend rejection to the Chief Editor, who ensures authors' rights were upheld during the peer-review process and can ultimately reject the article if it lacks quality, contains objective errors, or if the authors unreasonably refused to address raised points.

Chief Editors have the authority to comment on the review process, change assigned editors, serve as reviewers, or even as handling editors for the manuscript, ensuring quality through independent action in their online editorial office.

Safeguards against Financial Conflicts of Interest

Decisions on manuscript acceptance are made solely by leading researchers acting as Associate Editors, who are not part of Life Conflux staff. There is no financial incentive for accepting articles, as they are not paid for their roles as Associate or Review Editors, and any award scheme is not linked to manuscript acceptances.

Chief Editors receive an honorarium if their specialty section or field reaches certain submission levels. However, this honorarium is based on the total number of submitted articles during a calendar year, not on the number of accepted articles, ensuring no financial incentive exists for manuscript acceptance.

Post-Publication Stage Quality

The Life Conflux platform enables post-publication commenting and discussions on papers, providing the possibility to critically evaluate articles even after the peer-review process.

Life Conflux has a community retraction protocol in place to retract papers when serious concerns have been raised and validated by the community, including ethical concerns, honest errors, or scientific misconduct.

The journals of Life Conflux strictly adhere to publication ethics and policies, conducting a legal audit if required. Below are the responsibilities of authors, reviewers, and editors. It is expected that all parties involved follow the best ethical practices outlined.

Editor's Responsibilities

Editors are responsible for overseeing the peer review process with fairness, timeliness, diligence, and respect:

• Ensure every submitted manuscript undergoes peer review by at least two experts in the relevant field.

• Evaluate manuscripts based on academic merit, originality, and relevance to the journal's scope without regard to the author's personal attributes or affiliations.

• The editorial board makes independent decisions regarding manuscript publication, free from external government agencies' influence.

• Maintain confidentiality regarding submitted manuscripts except when communicating with potential reviewers, corresponding authors, or publishers as appropriate.

• Do not use unpublished information from manuscripts for personal research or benefit without clear written consent from the authors.

• Recuse themselves from manuscripts where they have conflicts of interest and delegate handling to another editorial member.

• Take proactive measures in cases of suspected misconduct or unethical behavior concerning submitted or published articles, even if discovered years after publication.

Reviewer's Responsibilities

Reviewers assist editors in making informed decisions and help authors improve their manuscripts through the peer review process:

• Fulfill their role responsibly by conducting reviews impartially and providing clear, objective arguments to support comments.

• Decline invitations to review manuscripts when unavailable, indisposed, or lacking sufficient expertise.

• Do not share, store, or discuss manuscript-related information with outsiders without prior consent from the journal's Editorial Board.

• Report any overlapping manuscripts (published or unpublished) they are aware of to the editors.

• Recuse themselves from manuscripts where they have conflicts of interest and ensure unpublished manuscript information is not used inappropriately.

Author's Responsibilities

Authors are accountable for the data and information presented in their article, taking responsibility for the significance of their original research:

• Present authentic and original research; fraudulent, inaccurate statements, plagiarized content, or results are not tolerated.

• Submit raw materials or data along with the manuscript for review and be prepared to make this data publicly available if necessary.

• Avoid submitting identical research content or text to more than one journal and do not submit an article already published elsewhere.

• List only individuals who have made significant contributions to the article as authors, taking responsibility for the content.

• Disclose any conflict of interest that could bias the results or the manuscript and all sources of financial support for the research work.

• Clearly describe research involving chemical procedures or unusual hazards in the manuscript.

• Ensure studies involving animal or human participants comply with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and have approval from appropriate committees.

• Cooperate with the peer review process, including submitting required data, clarifications, ethics approval proofs, copyright permissions, participant or patient consents, and revising manuscripts as necessary.

Simplified Submission Process: Free Format Submission

Life Conflux now offers a Free Format submission process, designed to simplify and streamline your manuscript submission experience.

Before initiating your submission, please ensure you have the following ready:

• Your manuscript: This should be provided as an editable file that includes text, figures, and tables, or in separate files, depending on your preference. Your manuscript must encompass all required sections such as the abstract, introduction, methods, results, and conclusions. Figures and tables should come with legends and be uploaded in the highest possible resolution (vector format for figures is recommended). References can be submitted in any consistent style or format throughout the manuscript. Supporting information should be submitted in separate files. Please note that if your manuscript, figures, or tables are difficult to read, or if the English language quality is poor, the manuscript may be returned to you for revision.
• An ORCID ID, available free at https://orcid.org. (Why is this important? If accepted and published, your article will be linked to your ORCID profile. Institutions and funders increasingly require authors to have ORCID IDs.)
• The title page of your manuscript, which should include:
  • Details of your co-authors, including their affiliations and email addresses. (Why is this important? We need to keep all co-authors informed about the outcome of the peer review process.)
  • Statements related to our ethics and integrity policies, which may include any of the following (Why are these important? They help us maintain rigorous ethical standards for the research we publish):
    • Data availability statement
    • Funding statement
    • Conflict of interest disclosure
    • Ethics approval statement
    • Patient consent statement
    • Permission to reproduce material from other sources
    • Clinical trial registration

To submit your manuscript, log in at Life Conflux Online Submission System and follow the guided steps to complete your submission.