Until the matter is clarified, no additional submissions by any author of the disputed manuscript or published article will be considered for publication. If scientific misconduct is confirmed by the institution, and no request for retraction is made either by the institution or by any author, the Editor-in-Chief will report his/her findings to a representative of the IJF Publications Committee, and in consultation with a representative of the IJF Council, will decide appropriate action.

Only the Corresponding Author, coauthors, and appropriate representative(s) of the relevant institution(s) will be apprised of the status of, or any action(s) taken in response to, allegations of scientific misconduct.

RETAIN ORIGINAL DATA

Authors are expected to retain the original, raw data presented in a published article for the length of time required by the authors’ funding source or institution; if the institution or funding source does not have a data retention policy, then data should be kept for at least 6 years after publication of the article.

 DISCLOSURES

All funding sources must be disclosed in a footnote to the title; anonymous or pseudonymous funders are not permitted. Any potential conflict of interest in a submitted manuscript must be disclosed in the “Conflict of Interest Statement” section of the online submission system. All disclosures will remain confidential during the review process, but papers accepted for publication will acknowledge conflict of interest and financial interests in a published disclaimer describing the nature of the interests. If authors declare no conflict of interest or financial interests, this also will be noted in a published disclaimer.

IMAGE MANIPULATION

Figures in manuscripts considered for acceptance will be screened for evidence of manipulation. Manuscript acceptance is contingent upon a satisfactory outcome of the screening process. As a result of screening, authors may be asked to supply the original (raw) data upon which the figures were based. Inability to supply the original data may result in rejection of the manuscript. If the editors deem that the manipulation has affected the interpretation of the data, the manuscript will be rejected for publication. Cases of suspected misconduct may be referred to the institution of the Corresponding Author; the Editor-in-Chief may also contact the co-authors and/or the funder(s) of the research. 

 PRIOR PUBLICATION

Submission of a manuscript to The Journal implies that the content has not been published previously and will not be submitted for publication elsewhere while the manuscript is under review. The Journal considers research results (excluding abstracts and student dissertations) to have already been published if they are publicly available with a fixed content, i.e., content is in an unalterable form and are citable in any language. Previous publication of a particular figure may not prevent subsequent publication in the journal if that figure is essential to the submitted paper and does not constitute the major contribution. Previously published portions of a paper must be accompanied by a permission release from the copyright holder and must be cited. Preprints, whether paper copies or postings on a publicly accessible Web site, are not considered publications, nor are poster presentations of work at a conference. Authors who post to a preprint site must retain copyright of the work.  

UNIQUE MATERIALS

It is required that unique materials developed for manuscripts published in The JI that are not available from commercial supplier, will be made available, within reason, to qualified investigators for their own noncommercial use. An agreement to this effect is included in the Manuscript Submission Form. A reasonable amount may be charged by authors to cover preparation and shipping of the requested material. Any restrictions on sharing of materials (for example, Material Transfer Agreements or patents) that apply to unique materials developed for the manuscript must be disclosed in the Materials and Methods section of the paper.