Editorial Guidelines

1. Editorial Independence and Integrity

NAS Publisher strictly upholds the principle of editorial independence. Editors-in-Chief and members of the Editorial Board maintain full authority over the editorial content, peer-review outcomes, and final acceptance or rejection decisions of manuscripts submitted to their respective journals. Commercial considerations, external corporate bodies, or financial sponsors do not influence editorial judgments.

2. Duties and Responsibilities of Editors

Editors acting on behalf of NAS Publisher journals are expected to commit to high standards of professional ethics and efficiency:

• Fairness and Impartiality: Evaluate all manuscripts on their academic merit, originality, and relevance without regard to authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy.
• Confidentiality: Treat all submitted manuscripts and correspondence as strictly confidential material. Details must not be disclosed to anyone other than corresponding authors, reviewers, potential reviewers, and editorial staff.
• Conflict of Interest Management: Recuse themselves from handling manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships/connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions linked to the papers.
• Promptness: Ensure an efficient, transparent peer-review and publication workflow, avoiding unnecessary delays in processing submissions.

3. Manuscript Screening and Peer-Review Oversight

Editors oversee the end-to-end evaluation lifecycle of a submission:

• Initial Screening: Assess incoming manuscripts for general suitability, scope alignment, and originality (including mandatory plagiarism checks). Papers lacking basic scholarly rigor or outside the journal's scope may be desk-rejected.
• Reviewer Selection: Appoint independent, qualified peer reviewers with relevant subject-matter expertise, ensuring a balanced double-blind peer-review environment.
• Decision Making: Formulate balanced, objective final publication decisions (Accept, Revise, or Reject) based heavily on peer-review feedback, academic standards, and journal scope.

4. Handling Ethical Concerns and Misconduct

If editors uncover evidence of research misconduct, data fabrication, plagiarism, or redundant publication, they must act decisively in cooperation with the publisher, following COPE guidelines to issue retractions, expressions of concern, or corrections.