Ethical Principles

Prismalia Journal is committed to integrity, transparency, accountability, fairness and respect throughout the editorial and publication process.

Editorial decisions are based on the scientific quality, originality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance and relevance of each manuscript. Decisions must not be influenced by commercial, institutional, political, ideological or personal interests.

Authors, reviewers, editors and members of the publishing team are expected to act honestly and responsibly and to cooperate with any legitimate inquiry concerning the integrity of submitted or published work.

Author Responsibilities

Authors must:

• Submit original and accurate scholarly work.
• Ensure that the manuscript is not simultaneously under consideration by another journal.
• Report methods, data, results and limitations honestly and transparently.
• Cite and acknowledge all relevant sources and contributions.
• Obtain the necessary ethical approvals, permissions and informed consent.
• Declare funding, conflicts of interest and the use of generative artificial intelligence.
• Provide access to supporting data or explain legitimate restrictions on access.
• Notify the journal promptly when a significant error is identified before or after publication.
• Cooperate with editorial corrections, investigations or retractions when necessary.

Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship must be limited to individuals who made substantial contributions to the work, participated in drafting or critically revising the manuscript, approved the final version and accept responsibility for the publication.

Prismalia Journal recommends the CRediT taxonomy for describing author contributions.

Changes in Authorship

Requests to add, remove or reorder authors after submission must be supported by a written explanation and the explicit agreement of all listed and affected contributors.

Authorship changes after acceptance or publication are considered only in exceptional and properly documented circumstances.

Originality, Attribution and Plagiarism

Submitted manuscripts must be original and must appropriately acknowledge the words, ideas, data, images, methods and results of other sources.

The journal may use similarity-detection software and additional editorial checks before, during or after peer review.

Unacceptable practices include:

• Direct plagiarism.
• Paraphrasing without proper attribution.
• Unauthorized translation of previously published material.
• Self-plagiarism or substantial text recycling.
• Misappropriation of ideas, methods, data or images.
• Fabricated or unverifiable references.
• Citation manipulation.

Duplicate, Redundant and Simultaneous Publication

Authors must not submit the same manuscript simultaneously to more than one journal or publish substantially the same work more than once without transparent disclosure and appropriate justification.

Manuscripts derived from theses, dissertations, conference papers, preprints or institutional reports may be considered when:

• The previous version is disclosed during submission.
• The submitted manuscript represents a substantial development.
• The original source is cited and linked when applicable.
• No contractual or copyright restrictions are violated.

Fragmenting one study into multiple publications without a valid scientific reason, commonly known as salami publication, is not permitted.

Data, Results and Image Integrity

Authors must retain accurate records of the research and must not fabricate, falsify, selectively suppress or misleadingly manipulate data, results, images or statistical analyses.

Adjustments to images are acceptable only when they improve clarity without altering, concealing or misrepresenting the underlying information.

Authors may be asked to provide:

• Original datasets.
• Unprocessed images.
• Analysis files or code.
• Research instruments.
• Ethics approvals and consent documents.
• Documentation supporting reported results.

Failure to provide reasonable supporting evidence may lead to rejection, suspension of review, correction, expression of concern or retraction.

Research Involving Humans, Animals or Sensitive Data

Research involving human participants, animals, biological materials, personal data or vulnerable populations must comply with applicable ethical principles, institutional requirements and national legislation.

When ethical approval is required, the manuscript must identify:

• The name of the approving committee or authority.
• The approval or protocol number.
• The date of approval, when applicable.
• The procedures used to obtain informed consent.

When approval was not required, authors must include a clear and justified statement explaining why.

Animal research must describe appropriate measures taken to protect animal welfare and minimize unnecessary harm.

Informed Consent, Confidentiality and Privacy

Authors must obtain informed consent when required and must protect the confidentiality, dignity and privacy of participants.

Names, photographs, clinical details, recordings, institutional identifiers or other potentially identifying information must not be published without valid authorization.

Anonymization must be sufficient to prevent the reasonable identification of participants. Merely removing a name may not be adequate when other contextual information remains identifiable.

Conflicts of Interest

Authors, reviewers and editors must disclose any relationship or circumstance that could influence, or reasonably appear to influence, their judgment.

Potential conflicts include:

• Financial interests.
• Employment or consulting relationships.
• Institutional affiliations.
• Personal or family relationships.
• Academic competition or disputes.
• Recent collaborations.
• Intellectual property interests.
• Political, ideological or professional commitments.

The existence of a conflict does not automatically prevent publication, but it must be declared and appropriately managed.

Funding and Sponsor Involvement

Authors must identify all sources of funding and provide grant or project numbers when applicable.

The role of the funder or sponsor in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation and the decision to publish must be disclosed.

When no external funding was received, the manuscript must state this explicitly.

Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence

The use of generative AI or AI-assisted technologies during research or manuscript preparation must be declared transparently.

The declaration must identify:

• The tool and provider.
• The purpose for which it was used.
• The part of the work in which it was used.
• The verification and supervision performed by the authors.

Artificial intelligence tools cannot be listed as authors and cannot assume responsibility for the content.

Authors remain fully responsible for originality, factual accuracy, citations, data protection, intellectual property and the final published content.

Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers

Reviewers must:

• Provide objective, constructive and respectful evaluations.
• Accept assignments only within their competence.
• Complete reviews within the agreed timeframe.
• Protect the confidentiality of manuscripts and review reports.
• Disclose conflicts of interest immediately.
• Refrain from contacting authors directly.
• Avoid using unpublished information for personal, academic or commercial benefit.
• Report suspected plagiarism, fabrication, unethical research or other integrity concerns to the editor.
• Avoid uploading manuscripts to unauthorized generative AI or external processing tools.

Reviewer identities are protected under the journal's single-anonymized peer-review model.

Ethical Responsibilities of Editors

Editors must:

• Assess manuscripts fairly and independently.
• Select qualified and impartial reviewers.
• Manage conflicts of interest.
• Protect confidential editorial information.
• Base decisions on academic and ethical considerations rather than personal or commercial interests.
• Investigate credible allegations of misconduct.
• Recuse themselves from manuscripts in which they have a conflict.
• Correct the scholarly record when reliable evidence of an error or misconduct is identified.

An editor submitting a manuscript to Prismalia Journal must have no role in its evaluation or decision. The process must be delegated to an independent editor.

Publisher Responsibilities

Chaski Group supports the editorial independence of Prismalia Journal and provides the infrastructure required for publication, access, preservation and dissemination.

The publisher is responsible for:

• Protecting the integrity and continuity of the journal.
• Supporting transparent editorial policies.
• Preventing commercial interference in editorial decisions.
• Maintaining published content and metadata.
• Supporting corrections, expressions of concern and retractions when required.
• Preserving access to the scholarly record.

Research and Publication Misconduct

Misconduct may include, but is not limited to:

• Fabrication or falsification of data.
• Plagiarism or misappropriation.
• Manipulation of images or results.
• Undisclosed duplicate publication.
• Improper authorship.
• Peer-review manipulation.
• Fabricated reviewer identities.
• Citation manipulation.
• Failure to disclose relevant conflicts of interest.
• False ethical approval or consent information.
• Use of fraudulent or unverifiable references.

When concerns arise, the journal may request explanations, documentation, raw data or institutional confirmation. Review or publication may be suspended while the matter is assessed.

Complaints and Allegations

Concerns about submitted or published content may be sent to the journal's official editorial email.

A complaint should include:

• Identification of the manuscript or article.
• A clear description of the concern.
• Supporting evidence or documentation.
• Contact information for follow-up.

Allegations are handled confidentially and impartially. The journal may contact authors, reviewers, editors, institutions, ethics committees or other relevant authorities when necessary.

Corrections, Expressions of Concern and Retractions

Prismalia Journal is committed to maintaining an accurate and transparent scholarly record.

Corrections

A correction may be published when a verified error affects part of an article but does not invalidate its main findings.

Expressions of Concern

An expression of concern may be issued when substantial doubts exist but an investigation remains incomplete or inconclusive.

Retractions

An article may be retracted when its findings are unreliable because of major error or misconduct, when it contains substantial plagiarism or duplicate publication, or when it reports unethical research.

Retraction notices must identify the affected article, explain the reason and remain publicly accessible. The original article should remain part of the scholarly record and be clearly marked as retracted rather than silently removed.

Detailed procedures will be available in the journal's Corrections and Retractions Policy .