Contributed substantially to the conception or design of the study, data acquisition, or the analysis or interpretation of research findings.

Participated in drafting the manuscript or critically revising it for important intellectual content, analysis, arguments, or scholarly interpretation.

Reviewed and approved the final version of the manuscript and agreed to its submission or publication in the journal.

Agreed to be accountable for the work and to cooperate in addressing questions concerning the accuracy, validity, or integrity of any part of the research.

All authors must agree on the order of authorship before submission. The corresponding author is responsible for confirming that all co-authors have approved the submitted manuscript, the author list, and the order of authors.

For multi-author manuscripts, the journal encourages a statement identifying each author's contribution. Where appropriate, authors may use the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT), including conceptualization, methodology, investigation, data curation, formal analysis, writing—original draft, and writing—review and editing.

Funding acquisition, administrative assistance, general supervision, technical support, or language editing alone do not justify authorship. Individuals who have contributed to the work but do not meet all authorship criteria may be acknowledged with their permission.

Changes to authorship are subject to the approval of the Editor-in-Chief. The editorial process may be paused until the request has been assessed and the relevant concerns have been resolved.

Requests to change authorship after publication will be assessed in accordance with the journal's publication ethics policy and relevant Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidance. Where appropriate, an approved change may be communicated through a formal correction notice.

The journal does not permit gift authorship, guest authorship, honorary authorship, ghost authorship, or any other practice that misrepresents an individual's actual contribution to the scholarly work.

Generative AI tools cannot be listed as authors because they cannot assume responsibility for the accuracy, integrity, and accountability of scholarly work. Authors must disclose the use of generative AI when it has substantially contributed to the development, analysis, interpretation, or writing of the manuscript. The disclosure should identify the tool, its purpose, and the relevant aspects of the work in which it was used.

Authors remain fully responsible for the originality of the manuscript, validity of research data, accuracy of references and citations, compliance with research ethics, and correctness of all claims. The use of AI tools does not transfer or diminish the authors' responsibility for the published work.

All authors must disclose relevant financial and non-financial conflicts of interest that could reasonably be perceived to influence their research or its interpretation. If no relevant conflicts exist, authors should provide a declaration confirming this.

Authorship disputes will be handled fairly, impartially, and confidentially. The editorial team may request written explanations, evidence of contributions, and confirmation of consent. If a dispute cannot be resolved through the journal's editorial process, the matter may be referred to the relevant author's institution for further investigation.