Publication Ethics Statement

Spectrum of Mechanical Engineering and Operational Research (SMEOR) is committed to maintaining high standards of integrity, transparency, fairness, accountability, and editorial independence throughout the submission, peer-review, editorial, publication, and post-publication processes.

Authors, editors, reviewers, Editorial Board members, Guest Editors, and the Publisher are expected to follow recognized principles of responsible scholarly publishing and the journal's applicable editorial and publication ethics policies.

The general principles governing responsible scholarly conduct are further supported by the journal's Responsible Publication Practices and Basic Aspects of Transparency policies.

SMEOR considers relevant principles and guidance provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) when addressing research and publication ethics concerns.

Authors' Responsibilities

Authors are responsible for ensuring that:

• The submitted manuscript represents original scholarly work and accurately reports the research performed, methods used, analyses conducted, and results obtained.
• The manuscript does not contain fabricated, falsified, manipulated, intentionally misleading, or knowingly inaccurate data, results, statements, images, references, or other research material.
• Plagiarism, inappropriate duplication, redundant publication, and undisclosed substantial reuse of previously published or unpublished material are avoided. Detailed requirements concerning plagiarism and inappropriate textual reuse are provided in the journal's Plagiarism Policy.
• The manuscript is not simultaneously under consideration for publication by another journal.
• Relevant prior dissemination of the work, including preprints, theses or dissertations, conference papers, conference proceedings, working papers, or other closely related versions, is transparently disclosed where appropriate.
• A manuscript developed from a previously presented or published conference paper provides a substantial and identifiable scholarly contribution beyond the earlier version. The earlier version must be disclosed and appropriately cited.
• All individuals listed as authors have made appropriate scholarly contributions to the work, have reviewed and approved the submitted version, and accept responsibility for their contributions.
• Individuals who do not satisfy appropriate authorship requirements are not included as authors. Ghost, guest, honorary, purchased, fabricated, or otherwise inappropriate authorship is not permitted.
• Any proposed change to authorship after submission, including the addition, removal, or rearrangement of authors, is promptly communicated to the Editorial Office and supported by an appropriate explanation and the agreement of the affected authors.
• All funding sources and other relevant financial or material support are accurately and transparently disclosed. Detailed requirements concerning funding and related transparency are provided in the journal's Basic Aspects of Transparency policy.
• All financial, professional, personal, academic, institutional, or other interests that could influence, or reasonably be perceived to influence, the research, interpretation, or publication of the work are appropriately disclosed in accordance with the journal's Conflict of Interests policy.
• The manuscript respects applicable research ethics, privacy, confidentiality, intellectual property, copyright, licensing, and other relevant legal or ethical requirements.
• Where third-party material is reproduced or adapted, authors have the necessary rights or permissions for the intended use unless such use is permitted by an applicable license, law, or another relevant legal exception. Detailed requirements are provided in the journal's Copyright and Licensing policy.
• Research data, computational procedures, experimental methods, mathematical models, algorithms, simulations, and other relevant elements of the study are reported with sufficient accuracy and transparency to permit appropriate scientific evaluation and, where reasonably possible, reproducibility.
• Any use of Generative AI or AI-assisted technologies complies with the journal's Use of Generative AI and AI-Assisted Tools policy.
• Authors cooperate with reasonable editorial requests for underlying data, source files, computational records, documentation, ethical approvals, permissions, or other evidence reasonably necessary to evaluate the integrity of the submitted or published work.

If authors discover a significant error, omission, or inaccuracy in their submitted or published work, they must promptly inform the Editorial Office and cooperate with the journal in determining whether clarification or corrective action is necessary. General principles concerning accuracy are provided in the journal's Accuracy policy, while formal amendments to published articles are governed by the Retraction and Correction Policies.

Editors' Responsibilities

The Editor-in-Chief and editors involved in manuscript handling are responsible for maintaining the integrity, fairness, independence, confidentiality, and scholarly quality of the editorial process.

Editors are responsible for:

• evaluating manuscripts on the basis of their scientific quality, originality, methodological soundness, relevance, clarity, contribution, and suitability for the scope of the journal;
• ensuring that editorial decisions are not influenced by inappropriate commercial, financial, institutional, personal, political, or other considerations unrelated to scholarly evaluation;
• selecting appropriately qualified and independent reviewers and taking reasonable measures to identify and manage potential conflicts of interest;
• maintaining the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts, peer-review reports, reviewer identities, editorial correspondence, and other confidential information obtained during the editorial process;
• not using unpublished information, ideas, data, methods, models, algorithms, or other confidential material obtained through manuscript handling for personal, professional, academic, competitive, financial, or commercial advantage;
• not uploading confidential manuscripts, figures, data, supplementary files, peer-review reports, or related submission materials to Generative AI or AI-assisted systems in violation of the journal's Use of Generative AI and AI-Assisted Tools policy;
• declaring and appropriately managing relevant conflicts of interest and recusing themselves from manuscript handling where their independence or impartiality could reasonably be questioned;
• considering reviewers' assessments critically rather than treating reviewer recommendations as automatically determinative of the editorial decision;
• taking appropriate action when credible concerns relating to plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, inappropriate authorship, citation manipulation, peer-review manipulation, conflicts of interest, unethical research, or other forms of misconduct are raised; and
• supporting appropriate post-publication action where necessary to maintain the accuracy and integrity of the scholarly record.

The independence of editorial decision-making is governed in detail by the journal's Editorial Independence policy.

Editorial conflicts of interest are governed by the journal's Conflict of Interests policy.

Guest Editors' Responsibilities

Guest Editors are subject to the same standards of confidentiality, impartiality, editorial independence, conflict-of-interest management, and publication ethics as other editors of SMEOR.

Guest Editors are responsible for:

• ensuring that manuscripts submitted to a special or thematic issue fall within its approved scholarly scope;
• assisting in the identification of appropriately qualified and independent reviewers;
• maintaining the journal's established peer-review and editorial standards;
• protecting the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts and review materials;
• declaring relevant conflicts of interest and withdrawing from manuscript handling where their independence or impartiality could reasonably be questioned;
• ensuring that authors, reviewers, institutions, or other parties receive no inappropriate preferential treatment; and
• following the journal's established policies concerning peer review, research integrity, authorship, AI use, confidentiality, editorial independence, and publication ethics.

Guest Editors may not independently alter or circumvent the journal's established editorial, ethical, or peer-review standards for a special issue. Where a Guest Editor has a relevant conflict of interest concerning a manuscript, the manuscript must be handled by an appropriately qualified independent editor.

Reviewers' Responsibilities

Reviewers are expected to:

• accept review assignments only where they have sufficient expertise to provide a meaningful and objective assessment of the manuscript;
• inform the Editor promptly if they are unable to complete the review within the requested period or believe that the manuscript falls outside their area of expertise;
• provide objective, constructive, evidence-based, and professionally expressed assessments of the scientific, methodological, technical, and scholarly aspects of the manuscript;
• declare any actual, potential, or reasonably perceived conflict of interest before accepting or continuing a review assignment;
• treat manuscripts, data, figures, supplementary files, review reports, correspondence, and all other information obtained through peer review as confidential;
• not use unpublished information, ideas, methods, data, results, models, algorithms, or other material obtained through peer review for personal, academic, professional, financial, commercial, or competitive advantage;
• not attempt to identify or directly contact authors in a manner that could compromise the journal's double-blind peer-review process;
• inform the Editor if they identify or reasonably suspect plagiarism, substantial duplication, fabrication, falsification, inappropriate image manipulation, citation manipulation, or another serious ethical concern;
• recommend additional references only where those references are genuinely relevant and necessary to improve the accuracy, context, completeness, or scholarly quality of the manuscript;
• not request citations primarily to increase citations to their own publications, publications of colleagues or associates, articles published in SMEOR, or publications in another journal; and
• comply with the journal's Use of Generative AI and AI-Assisted Tools policy.

Detailed requirements concerning reviewer conduct, confidentiality, independence, conflicts of interest, and protection of unpublished scholarly material are provided in the journal's Peer Reviewer Conduct and Intellectual Property policy.

Protection of confidential manuscript information and unpublished intellectual contributions is further addressed in the journal's Protecting Intellectual Property policy.

Publisher's Responsibilities

The Publisher provides the organizational, technical, production, administrative, and publishing infrastructure necessary for the operation and long-term sustainability of SMEOR while respecting the editorial independence of the journal.

The Publisher is responsible for:

• supporting the Editor-in-Chief, Editorial Board, and Editorial Office in maintaining appropriate scholarly publishing standards;
• respecting and protecting the independence of editorial decisions;
• not interfering in the acceptance, revision, or rejection of individual manuscripts for commercial, financial, personal, institutional, or other inappropriate reasons;
• supporting appropriate procedures for addressing ethical complaints, allegations of misconduct, Corrections, Expressions of Concern, Retractions, and other post-publication matters;
• supporting preservation, accessibility, transparency, and integrity of the published scholarly record;
• respecting copyright, licensing, intellectual property, confidentiality, and applicable legal obligations; and
• supporting transparent journal policies and responsible editorial and publishing practices.

The respective responsibilities of the Publisher and editorial leadership are further defined in the journal's Editorial Independence policy.

Research and Publication Misconduct

Potential research or publication misconduct may include plagiarism, fabrication or falsification, inappropriate authorship, duplicate or redundant publication, citation manipulation, peer-review manipulation, undisclosed conflicts of interest, breaches of confidentiality, unethical research practices, or other conduct that may compromise the integrity of the research, editorial process, or scholarly record.

Detailed procedures for assessing allegations, obtaining responses, referring matters to institutions where appropriate, and applying proportionate editorial measures are provided in the journal's Unethical Behaviour policy and Responsible Publication Practices.

Post-Publication Responsibilities

Responsibility for the integrity of the scholarly record continues after publication. Credible concerns concerning published articles will be assessed on the basis of the available evidence and the journal's applicable policies.

Errors and inaccuracies are addressed under the journal's Accuracy policy.

Where formal amendment of the published record is necessary, Corrections, Expressions of Concern, Retractions, or article removal will be handled in accordance with the journal's Retraction and Correction Policies.

Complaints concerning editorial procedures or appeals against editorial decisions are handled separately under the journal's Procedures for Dealing with Complaints and Appeals.

Confidentiality and Intellectual Property

Submitted manuscripts, peer-review reports, editorial correspondence, data, figures, supplementary materials, and other unpublished materials obtained through the editorial process must be handled confidentially. Individuals with access to such materials must respect the intellectual property and legitimate rights of authors and other contributors.

Detailed requirements are provided in the journal's Protecting Intellectual Property policy and, for reviewer-specific obligations, in the Peer Reviewer Conduct and Intellectual Property policy.