Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

CPSS Transactions on Power Electronics and Applications  is committed to ensuring ethics in publication and quality of articles.
Conformance to standards of ethical behavior is therefore expected of all parties involved: Authors, Editors, and Reviewers.

A. AUTHORSHIP
Authorship and co-authorship should be based on a substantial intellectual contribution, and any part of an article essential to its main conclusions must be the responsibility of at least one author. In order to qualify for authorship of a manuscript, authors must meet all four criteria:

1. Major contributions including but not limited to the following aspects of the work: conception, design, acquisition, analysis, interpretation of data;

2. Critically drafting the work or reviewing and/or revising it for intellectual content;

3. Final approval of the version for publication, including references;

4. Agreeing to take responsibility for all aspects of the work and ensuring that any questions regarding the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are properly investigated and resolved.

The order of the authors shall be at the discretion of the authors in articles with multiple authorship. The list and order of the authors should be established before paper submission. Any change to the author list during the editorial process should be approved by all authors, including any who have been removed, and be approved by the Editor-in-Chief. Changes of authorship or in the order of authors are not accepted after acceptance of a manuscript. We reserve the right to request evidence of authorship.

Requests to add or delete author(s) during the editorial process is a serious matter, and may be considered only after receipt of written approval from all authors and detailed explanation about the role/deletion of the new/deleted author(s). Upon request authors should be prepared to send relevant documentation or data in order to verify the validity of the results. This could be in the form of raw data, samples, records, etc. The decision on accepting the change rests with the Editor-in-Chief of the journal.

One “corresponding” author must be designated in the case of articles with multiple authors. The corresponding author has the responsibility for overseeing the publication process and ensuring the integrity of the final document. Co-authors have responsibility for work submitted under their names. They should remain knowledgeable in so far as possible regarding the contents and status of the article, including the nature of any revisions.

B. RESPONSIBILITIES OF AUTHORS OF ARTICLES

Authors should avoid misrepresentation of research results, as such misrepresentation can damage the trust in the journal and ultimately the whole scientific enterprise. Authors are encouraged to ensure that the first formal publication of their results takes the form of a peer reviewed article. Authors have made significant contributions to the scientific work and thus share collective responsibility and accountability for the results.

When submitting an article, be aware that simultaneous submission of manuscripts to more than one journal is not permitted. Original research results must be novel and not previously published (partly or in full), unless the new work concerns an expansion of previous work (please provide transparency on the re-use of material to avoid the hint of text-recycling (“self-plagiarism”)). Methods and materials should be described in sufficient detail to allow others to replicate and build on published results. All research data should be presented to the referees and the editors to facilitate the review process.

Authors have an obligation to confirm that no data have been fabricated or manipulated (including images) to support the conclusions. Plagiarism in any form is unacceptable and is considered a serious breach of professional conduct, with potentially severe ethical and legal consequences. CPSS TPEA defines plagiarism as the utilization of someone else’s prior ideas, processes, results, or words without clearly recognizing the original author and source. (For more details about plagiarism detection please check Section E).

Authors should ensure that all co-authors and relevant authorities at the institute or organization where the work has been carried out have provided consent to submit prior to the submission of the work. Any content (including figures, text, tables, etc.) generated by artificial intelligence (AI) should be identified, and authors should be responsible for the content and declare the use of it fully and truthfully. In the Acknowledgments section, there should be a brief explanation regarding the AI system, the specific sections of the manuscript that use AI-generated content, and the level at which the AI system was used. When the AI system was used for editing and grammar enhancement, authors are recommended to disclose the information in Acknowledgments section. It is essential to clearly acknowledge the financial support of the work being reported and of the authors within the article, and also to disclose any potential conflict of interest. 

Authors should obtain permission to publish from the copyright holder for any previously published content (including quotations, figures or tables). Once an article has gone through the review process and a decision for final acceptance has been rendered, authors should communicate errors and inaccuracies found promptly. Any substantial and unauthorized changes made to the accepted article must be communicated in writing to the Editor-in-Chief, who then will decide if a re-review is necessary. This includes addition or removal of any citations. Failure of such notification may be considered as author misconduct, and at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief may be reported as such to the Editorial Board of CPSS TPEA.

C. REVIEWERS OF ARTICLES

Peer review is an essential part of the publication process, all manuscripts submitted to the journal are strictly and thoroughly peer-reviewed by experts. To ensure that CPSS TPEA maintains the highest quality standards for its published papers, reviewers should be chosen for their high qualifications and objectivity regarding a particular article.

Each published article will be reviewed by a minimum of two independent reviewers using a single-blind peer review process, where the identities of the reviewers are not known to the authors, but the reviewers know the identities of the authors. Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts when they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

Reviews should be carried out objectively, with observations clearly formulated and supported by arguments, so that authors can utilize them to enhance their paper. Generating and uploading peer review opinions by artificial intelligence (AI) is not allowed, such behavior would be considered disrespectful and a breach of confidentiality. Information contained in an article under review is confidential and shall not be shared with others, nor shall reviewers use non-public information contained in an article to advance their own research or financial interests.

D. EDITORS

The Editor-in-Chief supervises journal activities, with the aim to ensure success of the journal within the scientific community. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for the scientific quality and development of the journal. The Editor-in-Chief is expected to maintain connection to the Editorial Board and assist the Editorial Office in the management of the journal. The Associate Editors should support Editor-in-Chief of the journal to maintaining oversight of the editorial process for individual manuscripts in their section, and advise on the strategic development of the journal. The Advisory Committee Members will provide guidance to the Editor-in-Chief regarding journal development strategies and policies.

Unpublished articles must be treated as confidential documents by all individuals involved in the editorial process. Articles submitted by the Editor-in-Chief or an Editor of the publication shall be handled by another Editor of the publication. The Editor-in-Chief should provide to the authors a written rationale for editorial decisions regarding an article submitted for publication. This is especially important if the article is being rejected.

Editors should act in a reasonable and responsive manner when ethical complaints are presented in relation to a submitted manuscript or published paper. The Editor-in-Chief or another editor of the publication shall not perform or accept any action that has the sole purpose of increasing the number of citations to influence the bibliometric independent measures of quality or impact of the journal.

E. PLAGIARISM DETECTION
Plagiarism is a threat to scholarly publishing in general. Originality of the submitted work can be maximized through screening to prevent publication of plagiarized content. For maximum effectiveness in CPSS TPEA, all CPSS TPEA articles shall be submitted to a plagiarism detection process prior to being reviewed. Editorial Office staffs utilize a plagiarism detection process to prescreen all articles upon submission. Any article found to have plagiarized content at Level 1, 2 or 3, as defined in IEEE PSPB Operations Manual Subsection 8.2.4.D, shall have its review suspended. Editorial Office staffs shall inform each author that review of their article has been suspended due to its similarity to previously published work, and provide the author with an opportunity to explain the similarity. If the investigating staff finds that no plagiarism has occurred, the article should be released for the normal review process.

F. POST-PUBLICATION CORRECTIONS AND RETRACTIONS

Once an article has been published, it is the journal and the authors` responsibility to correct scientifically relevant errors, or ethical issues that have been brought to our attention. Errors that could affect the scientific interpretation, scientifically relevant formatting changes and addition/removal of an entire reference should be corrected by publishing a Correction. Decisions about Correction is made by Editor-in-Chief. Once the update request has been approved, the correction will be publishing in the most current Issue of the journal.

Sometimes a paper needs to be retracted from the body of research literature. This could be due to inadvertent errors made during the research process, gross ethical breaches, fabrication of data, large amounts of plagiarism, or other reasons. Decisions about Retraction is made by Editor-in-Chief. The Retraction will be publishing in the most current Issue of the journal. The reason must be given in the published Correction or Retraction note.