For Authors

Authors are invited to make a submission to this journal. All submissions will be assessed by an editor to determine whether they meet the aims and scope of this journal. Those considered to be a good fit will be sent for peer review before determining whether they will be accepted or rejected.

Before making a submission, authors are responsible for obtaining permission to publish any material included with the submission, such as photos, documents and datasets. All authors identified on the submission must consent to be identified as an author. Where appropriate, research should be approved by an appropriate ethics committee in accordance with the legal requirements of the study's country.

An editor may desk reject a submission if it does not meet minimum standards of quality. Before submitting, please ensure that the study design and research argument are structured and articulated properly. The title should be concise and the abstract should be able to stand on its own. This will increase the likelihood of reviewers agreeing to review the paper. When you're satisfied that your submission meets this standard, please follow the checklist below to prepare your submission.

Submission Preparation Checklist

All submissions must meet the following requirements.

• This submission meets the requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
• This submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration.
• All references have been checked for accuracy and completeness.
• All tables and figures have been numbered and labeled.
• Permission has been obtained to publish all photos, datasets and other material provided with this submission.

Copyright Notice

Authors who publish with this journal retain the copyright in their work and grant the journal the right of first publication.

All articles are published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0). This licence allows anyone to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon the material for any purpose, including commercially, provided that appropriate credit is given to the authors and the journal, a link to the licence is provided, and any changes made are indicated.

Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the published version of the work (for example, deposit in an institutional repository or publication in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (for example, in institutional repositories, on preprint servers or on personal websites) before and during the submission process.