JPFSM upholds the highest standards in scholarly publishing.
Before submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors must ensure that they have read and complied with the journal’s policies. The journal reserves the right to reject without review, or retract, any manuscript that the Editor-in-Chief believes may not comply with these policies.
The responsibilities of the journal’s authors, editors, reviewers and publisher regarding research and publication ethics are described in full below.
Submission to the journal implies that the manuscript has not been previously published (in part or in whole, in any language), is not in press, and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.
Authors must inform the editors if any related manuscripts are under consideration, in press or published elsewhere. The availability of a manuscript on a publicly accessible preprint server does not constitute prior publication (see ‘Preprints’).
If authors choose to submit their manuscript elsewhere before a final decision has been made on its suitability for publication in JPFSM, they should first withdraw it from the journal.
Submission
JPFSM welcomes manuscript submissions from authors based anywhere in the world.
Submission of a manuscript to the journal implies that all authors: have approved it, warrant it is factual, have agreed to its submission, and have the right to publish it.
Originality
Submission to the journal implies that the manuscript is original work. The journal may use Similarity Check plagiarism software (provided by Crossref and powered by iThenticate) to screen manuscripts for unoriginal content. By submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors agree to this screening. Any manuscript with an unacceptable level of unoriginal material may be rejected or retracted at the Editors’ discretion.
Preprints
To support the wide dissemination of research, the journal encourages authors to post their research manuscripts on community-recognized preprint servers, either before or alongside submission to the journal. This policy applies only to the original version of a manuscript that describes primary research. Any version of a manuscript that has been revised in response to reviewers’ comments, accepted for publication or published in the journal should not be posted on a preprint server. Instead, forward links to the published manuscript may be posted on the preprint server. When submitting a manuscript which is also posted on a preprint server, authors must disclose preprint posting information (registered server and DOI).
Authors should retain copyright in their work when posting to a preprint server.
Secondary Publication
A manuscript can be approved for secondary publication if it meets the conditions of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommendations, and the Editor-in-Chief acknowledges its necessity as a secondary publication. If secondary publication of a manuscript is desired, please submit to the Editorial Office a summary of the manuscript content and a reason for the necessity of secondary publication. A manuscript submitted for secondary publication will be reviewed in the same manner as other manuscripts not previously published.
Scooping
When assessing the novelty of a manuscript submitted to the journal, the editors will not be influenced by other manuscripts that are posted on community-recognized preprint servers after the date of submission to JPFSM (or after the date of posting on a preprint server, if the manuscript is submitted to the journal within 4 months).
Authorship
Submission to the journal implies that all authors have seen and approved the author list. Changes to the author list after manuscript submission – such as the insertion or removal of author names, or a rearrangement of author order – must be approved by all authors and the editor.
The contributions of all authors must be described at submission based on the International Committee of Medical Journal of Editors (ICMJE) recommendations as follows:
- Substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work.
- Drafting the work or critically revising it for important intellectual content.
- Final approval of the version to be published.
- Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Each manuscript must contain a ‘Contributions’ section before the References section as described in the ‘Manuscript Preparation’ section below.
Authors cannot be added or deleted from the paper after peer review, nor order of authors changed, without valid reasons and the approval of the Editor-in-Chief.
Image integrity
Authors may digitally manipulate or process images, but only if the adjustments are kept to a minimum, are applied to the entire image, meet community standards, and are clearly described in the manuscript. All images in a manuscript must accurately reflect the original data on which they are based. Authors must not move, remove, add or enhance individual parts of an image. The editors reserve the right to request original, unprocessed images from the authors. Failure to provide requested images may result in a manuscript being rejected or retracted.
Reproducing copyrighted material
If a manuscript includes material that is not under the authors’ own copyright, the authors must obtain permission from the copyright holder(s) to reproduce it.
If a manuscript includes previously published material, the authors must obtain permission from the copyright owners and the publisher of the original work to reproduce it. The authors must cite the original work in their manuscript.
Copies of all reproduction permissions must be included with the manuscript when it is first submitted.
Availability of data and materials
Authors must disclose the source of publicly available data and materials, such as public repositories or commercial manufacturers, by including accession numbers or company details in their manuscript, as appropriate.
Authors may make their own data and materials available by linking from their manuscript to J-STAGE Data (see below) or other relevant community-recognized public databases or digital repositories. All data sets must be made available in full to the editors and reviewers during the peer review process if requested. Authors commit to preserving their data sets for at least five years from the date of publication in the journal.
The journal encourages authors to grant reasonable requests from colleagues to share any data, materials and experimental protocols described in their manuscript.
J-STAGE Data
JPFSM recommends that the data underlying the manuscript be made available on J-STAGE Data, a data repository operated by the Japan Science and Technology Agency. Authors who opt to make data available on J-STAGE Data should contact the Editorial Office for further instructions. If authors wish to publish data from J-STAGE Data, they must submit the data and its metadata to the editorial board for peer review. The copyright of the data published by J-STAGE Data is held by JSPFSM. Data is made available under the Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International).
Animal/human experimentation
Authors of manuscripts describing work involving humans and/or human tissues must demonstrate that the work has been performed in accordance with the ethical standards formulated in the Helsinki Declaration of 1964, it revisions, and/or the latest version of the Ethical Guideline for Medical and Biological Research Involving Human Subjects.
Experiments describing work with the human genome should be conducted according to the Japanese Government's “Ethical Guidelines for Human Genome/ Gene Analysis Research”.
Furthermore, work in relevant manuscripts must have received approval from the appropriate Institutional Ethics Committee (IEC) prior to being undertaken. The 'Materials and Methods' section must include the relevant ethics statements and specify: the study was carried out in accordance with the appropriate guidelines, and the name of the approving institutional review board or equivalent committee(s) with the approval number.
Manuscripts describing animal experiments must be conducted in accordance with the experimental animal guidelines of the institution as well as the appropriate government guidelines, such as those published by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. The ‘Materials and Methods’ section of relevant manuscripts must include required ethics statements and specify: the study was conducted according to the appropriate guidelines, the full name of the institutional Animal Care and Use Committee or equivalent ethics committee that approved the work, and the associated permit number(s).
Clinical trial registration
The journal adheres to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) policy on Clinical Trials Registration, which recommends that all clinical trials are registered in a public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrollment as a condition of consideration for publication. Manuscripts describing clinical trials must include the registration number of the trial and the name of the trial registry.
Reporting guidelines
The journal requires authors to follow the EQUATOR Network's Reporting Guidelines for health research. Study types include, but are not limited to, randomized trials, observational studies, systematic reviews, case reports, qualitative research, diagnostic and prognostic studies, economic evaluations, animal pre-clinical studies and study protocols.
Author competing interests and conflicts of interest
In the interests of transparency, the journal requires all authors to declare any competing or conflicts of interest in relation to their submitted manuscript. A conflict of interest exists when there are actual, perceived or potential circumstances that could influence an author’s ability to conduct or report research impartially. Potential conflicts include (but are not limited to) competing commercial or financial interests, commercial affiliations, consulting roles, or ownership of stock or equity.
Authors should list all funding sources for their work in the Acknowledgements section of their manuscript.
When submitting a manuscript, all authors must fill out a "Self-declared Conflict of Interest Declaration Form" (Form 1) regarding their conflict of interest (COI) status in accordance with the JSPFSM guidelines, and upload it to the online submission review system upon first submission.
Authors should declare any conflicts of interest after the Conflict of Interest section as described in the ‘Manuscript Preparation’ section below.
Confidentiality
The journal maintains the confidentiality of all unpublished manuscripts. By submitting their manuscript to the journal, the authors warrant that they will keep all correspondence about their manuscript (from the Editorial Office, editors and reviewers) strictly confidential.
Self-archiving (Green Open Access) policy
Self-archiving, also known as Green Open Access, enables authors to deposit a copy of their manuscript in an online repository. JPFSM encourages authors of original research manuscripts to upload their article to an institutional or public repository immediately after publication in the journal.
Long-term digital archiving
J-STAGE preserves its full digital library, including JPFSM, with Portico in a dark archive (see https://www.portico.org/publishers/jstage/). In the event that the material becomes unavailable at J-STAGE, it will be released and made available by Portico.
Advertising Policy
The journal does not accept advertising on its article pages, the journal’s website, or elsewhere.
