Plagiarism in any form — verbatim copying, paraphrasing without attribution, self-plagiarism, duplicate publication, or the reuse of figures, tables or data without permission — is unacceptable.

•      Every submission is screened with [Turnitin / iThenticate] before review and again before publication.

•      Threshold: an overall similarity index above [15]%, or more than [5]% from any single source (excluding references and correctly quoted material), triggers editorial review of the report; the figure alone is not decisive, as the editors assess the nature of the overlap, not only its size.

•      Manuscripts found to contain plagiarism are rejected. Where plagiarism is detected after publication, the article is retracted, a retraction notice is published, and the authors' institutions and co-authors are informed.

•      Authors found to have plagiarised may be barred from submitting to the journal for [3] years.