Plagiarism

LUMEN Publishing House scans each article accepted for publication with the Crossref Similarity Check - iThenticate software only after the article is considered final, so as not to make any changes that may increase the likelihood to be above the accepted limit, which is at most 5% to 10% similarity (in accordance with the specific of each article). LUMEN expresses zero  tolerance to plagiarism. The articles that were proven to have plagiarism elements will automatically be rejected from publication.

If the article exceeds the 10% similarity threshold, but it is not proved to be plagiarised, the editor sends the article back to the authors, to motivate the identified similarities, and eventually to correct possible negligence. Each additional scan will be charged with 7 euros.

The authors whose works have been identified with similarities beyond the accepted limit will have to accept that all costs incurred by the editorial staff for the processing of the article will be withheld from the already paid fees.

The full refund of the open-access fee for articles identified with plagiarism suspicions is only possible through the formation and express acceptance of the Ethics Committee of the Affiliate Institution of each of the authors.

Authorship

LUMEN adheres to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommendations related to authorship.  ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:

• Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
• Final approval of the version to be published; AND
• 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 (ICMJE: Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors, 2022).

These authorship criteria are intended to reserve the status of authorship for those who deserve credit and can take responsibility for the work. In the group of authors, an author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work, in order to being accountable for the parts of the work he/she has done. Also, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors.

Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.

All authors must agree on publication and be able to support research by answering questions about this research. Contributors who do not meet the criteria to be authors should be included in the acknowledgments.

As regards the authors' order, this should respect the volume of work and the importance of the scientific contribution of each author. Presenting in alphabetical order, mentioning the equal contribution of each author in acknowledgment, draws attention to the equal quoting of each author.

Lead Author (First Author)

In the case of publications with multiple authors, one author should assume the role of lead author. Even in different publications, the lead author is different to the first author; in all LUMEN Publishing Journals, the lead author is considered to be the first author and corresponding author. We admit exceptions, based on an all-authors’ request, for the corresponding author to be mentioned as being different to the lead author, with special mention, and is placed as the last author. Authors should decide to be equally responsible for the paper; in this case, they are mentioned in alphabetical order, with the acknowledgement that all authors have an equal contribution to the article.

Co-authors
All co-authors of a publication are responsible for:

• Authorship: By providing consent to authorship to the lead author, co-authors acknowledge that they meet the authorship criteria set above. A co-author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.
• Approval: By providing consent to authorship to the lead author, co-authors are acknowledging that they have reviewed and approved the manuscript.
• Integrity: Each co-author is responsible for the content of all appropriate portions of the manuscript, including the integrity of any applicable research.
• An individual retains the right to refuse co-authorship of a manuscript if s/he does not satisfy the criteria for authorship.

Non-Author Contributors

Where contributors meet fewer than all 4 of the above criteria for authorship, those should not be listed as authors, but they should be acknowledged.

In accordance with ICMJE guidelines, here are some examples of activities that alone (without other contributions) do not qualify a contributor for authorship:

• acquisition of funding;
• general supervision of a research group or general administrative support;
• and writing assistance, technical editing, language editing, and proofreading.

In addition, those whose contributions do not justify authorship may be acknowledged individually or together as a group under a single heading (e.g. "Clinical Investigators" or "Participating Investigators"), and their contributions should be specified (e.g., "served as scientific advisors," "critically reviewed the study proposal," "collected data," "provided and cared for study patients," "participated in writing or technical editing of the manuscript") (ICMJE: Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors, 2022).

Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged are included above.

When submitting the manuscript, author must supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.

Third party submissions - Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:

• Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
• Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
• Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.

Based on previous editorial experience, where appropriate, LUMEN reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.

Because acknowledgment may imply endorsement by acknowledged individuals of a study’s data and conclusions, LUMEN reserves the right to require that the corresponding author obtain written permission to be acknowledged from all acknowledged individuals.

Funding

All research articles should have a funding acknowledgement statement included in the manuscript in the form of a sentence under a separate heading entitled ‘Funding’ directly after your Acknowledgements and Declaration of Conflicting Interests, if applicable, and prior to any Notes and References. The funding agency should be written out in full, followed by the grant number in square brackets, see following example (the text in bold is mandatory, unless specified otherwise by the journal):

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Y Institute [grant number xxx].

Multiple grant numbers should be separated by comma and space. Where the research was supported by more than one agency, the different agencies should be separated by semi-colon, with “and” before the final funder. Thus:

This work was supported by the X [grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]; the Y [grant number zzzz]; and the Z [grant number aaaa].

There are cases where research is not funded by a specific project grant, but rather from other resources available to a university, college or other research institution. Where no specific funding has been provided for the research, we ask that corresponding authors use the following sentence:

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Please mention this information under a separate heading entitled “Funding” directly after any Acknowledgements and Declaration of Conflicting Interests (if applicable), and prior to any Notes and References.

When submitting the manuscript, author must supply any information about funding agencies separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.

Declaration of conflicting interests

Though this policy our journal requires a conflict-of-interest statement or conflict of interest disclosure from any submitting or publishing author.

In accordance with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) statement, “conflicts of interest comprise those which may not be fully apparent and which may influence the judgment of author, reviewers, and editors. They have been described as those which, when revealed later, would make a reasonable reader feel misled or deceived. They may be personal, commercial, political, academic or financial. “Financial” interests may include employment, research funding, stock or share ownership, payment for lectures or travel, consultancies and company support for staff” (COPE, 2017)

As many scholars, researchers and professionals may have potential conflicts of interest, that could have an effect on their research, LUMEN journals require a formal declaration of conflicting interests enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated published article.

Manuscripts will be evaluated fairly and will not necessarily be rejected when any competing interests are declared.

Here are some examples of conflicts of interest:

Having received fees for consulting.

Having received research funding.

Having been employed by a related company.

Holding stocks or shares in a company which might be affected by the publication of your paper.

Having received funds reimbursing you for attending a related symposium, or talk. (Note: it is not expected that details of financial arrangements be disclosed when a competing interest is declared.)

Any other interests which the reasonable reader might feel has affected the research author may also wish to declare them.

Author obligations regarding conflicting interests

Prior submission, author will be asked to certify that:

All forms of financial support, including pharmaceutical company support (if the case), are acknowledged in the author’s contribution.

Any commercial or financial involvements that might present an appearance of a conflict of interest related to the contribution are disclosed in a covering letter accompanying the contribution and all such potential conflicts of interest will be discussed with the Editor as to whether disclosure of this information with the published contribution is to be made in the journal.

That you have not signed an agreement with any sponsor of the research reported in the contribution that prevents you from publishing both positive and negative results or that forbids you from publishing this research without the prior approval of the sponsor.

That you have checked the manuscript submission guidelines to see whether the journal requires a Declaration of Conflicting Interests and have complied with the requirements specified where such a policy exists.

• How do I make a declaration?

If you are submitting to or publishing your manuscript in a journal which requires you to make a Declaration of Conflicting Interests, please include such a declaration at the end of your manuscript after any Acknowledgements and prior to the Funding Acknowledgement, Notes (if relevant) and References, under the heading 'Declaration of Conflicting Interest'. If no conflict exists, please state that 'The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest'.

You may find the following useful resources to refer to for more information on Conflict-of-Interest policies, existing codes of practices and more general good practice in relation to journal publication ethics:

• View the Guidelines published on good publication and the Code of Conduct by the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE).
• View the guidelines published by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors(ICMJE).

Manuscript submission

How to submit your manuscript

 Go online at the Submissions page of the LUMEN Proceedings Open Journal System and 1) Register by creating your profile or 2) Login into already created account on the OJS (if the case).

Check the Submission Preparation Checklist.

Once logged in into your account, start New Submission and follow the submission’ stages, from 1 to 5, by filling out each stage properly.

1. Start > 2. Upload Submission > 3. Enter Metadata > 4. Confirmation > 5. Next Steps

All new submissions receive an ID that is used to identify the article. This ID should be kept throughout the entire evaluation process, included in all correspondence and in documents related to the open-access fee.

Before submitting an article to our Proceedings, the author(s) must make sure the manuscript is not under evaluation elsewhere.

When the author(s) submit a revised version of an article, the document should be submitted under the same submission ID, not by creating a New Submission. In exceptional cases, the revised version of an article could be sent by e-mail, specifying the submission ID.

ORCID

As we are doing our best to support an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process LUMEN allows ORCID iDs to be present in article metadata ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID 

Our OJS platform allows this link to be made in few seconds. In addition, your ORCID iD is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.

On acceptance & publication

LUMEN Production

Your LUMEN Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be sent by PDF to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly.

Manuscript Procedure Time 

• The average time during which the preliminary assessment of manuscripts is conducted - 90 (Days)
• The average time during which the reviews of manuscripts are conducted - 180 (Days)
• The average time in which the article is published - 200 (Days)

Access to your published article

LUMEN provides authors with online access to their final article.