Policies
Publication of any material in Dailyleftnews.com denotes that all its authors have agreed to its content and have ensured that Dailyleftnews.com’s policies have been fully adhered to. Non-compliance with these policies may mean that an article fails the pre-publication checks and cannot be published.
If an article is accepted for publication by Dailyleftnews.com, Dailyleftnews.com will publish your article on the Dailyleftnews.com website in advance of any peer review being performed on the article. We seek to ensure that the content we produce, publish and for which we provide a platform is responsible, and has been selected and produced without bias. We respect the intellectual property rights of our contributors and seek to avoid unethical publishing behaviors such as plagiarism, defamation and cultural misappropriation.
Our Publication Terms and Conditions set out the publishing standards by which we operate. We require that all work sets out to be fair and accurate, differentiates between fact and opinion, is obtained by straightforward and ethical means, and is promptly corrected where inaccurate or misleading. The acceptability of any article shall be decided by Dailyleftnews.com at its discretion. Dailyleftnews.com reserves the right, at its discretion, to not proceed with publication at any time or to remove the Content following publication if there are legal or ethical concerns with the article.
Authors of posters and slides must ensure that their research and presentations adhere to the policies outlined for posters and slides.
1. Originality
All articles submitted to Dailyleftnews.com must be original; the work, or large parts of it, must not have been published previously or be currently under consideration or review elsewhere. If there is any significant overlap with another paper, this must be cited in the article and mentioned on submission. Dailyleftnews.com checks for plagiarism in articles; if clear plagiarism (including self-plagiarism) is identified, the article will be rejected.
Dailyleftnews.com strongly discourages excessive or inappropriate self-citation.
Submitted articles with content that infringes copyright may be rejected if the problematic sections cannot be removed.
Authors who wish to reproduce a figure or table from a previous copyrighted publication are responsible for obtaining the permission of copyright holders and for clearly referencing the original source. Figures that were previously published under a creative commons license may be reused under the condition of the specific license that applies to those figures.
2. Publication criteria and authorship
The Dailyleftnews.com platform is set up to make it easy for active scientists, clinical researchers and research scholars in all fields to share their research rapidly, and to facilitate a constructive academic discussion. Dailyleftnews.com does not have Editors who make an editorial judgement on whether results and data presented in a given article are ‘valid’; this is ultimately the authors’ responsibility and assessed by expert reviewers.
Publication criteria for research outputs presenting original data and results:
At least one author on the article (who should have made a key contribution to the article) must meet these key criteria for it to be suitable for publication in Dailyleftnews.com.
Anyone who has contributed but does not meet the criteria for authorship (for example, purely technical or writing assistance) should be listed in the ‘Acknowledgments’ section. The involvement of any professional scientific or medical writer assistance must be declared. Authors should obtain permission to include the name and affiliation, from all those mentioned in the Acknowledgments section.
Correspondence with authors: If an author requires a change to the article, the editorial office will require confirmation of the identification of the individual. Usually, this will be via sending an email using the email address that Dailyleftnews.com has stored on the system. If this is no longer possible, please contact the editorial team, who will be able to assist with confirmation of identification.
Changes in authorship: If the author list of an article changes following its publication, a new version of the article can be published with an explanation included in the ‘Amendments’ section at the top of the new version. Any changes in authorship must be confirmed by all authors. If the editorial team is unable to contact an author, the corresponding author is responsible for facilitating communication. In agreement with DAILYLEFTNEWS.COM guidelines, the editorial team cannot take responsibility for resolving any disputes over authorship; any disagreements amongst the authors must be settled by the authors’ institution(s).
Changes to author names: Dailyleftnews.com understands that authors, reviewers or commenters may wish to change their names for many reasons, including gender identity recognition, marriage, divorce and other personal reasons. Following a name change request, the editorial office will require confirmation of the identification of the individual, as per all communications with authors, as we will need to check you are requesting the name change on your own behalf. To avoid any distress this process may cause, Dailyleftnews.com is keen to work with researchers to enable them to provide identification on their own terms. We do not require legal or official proof of a name change.
Researchers should note that the corresponding author will be contacted to make them aware that a name change has taken place. Researchers may wish to inform their co-authors of the change, for example so that they use an updated offline copy or change the way they cite the publication. Or researchers can rely on a notification from us to the corresponding author alone and the updated online version. Please inform us if we should wait until a particular date to enact the name change to give researchers time to communicate with co-authors if desired. If there are any reasons that the corresponding researcher should not be contacted, please let us know.
For articles, any change of name will not require a new version of the article to be created; all existing versions will be edited to reflect the change and the DOI will remain the same. A Notice of Change will not be posted to articles unless requested by the researcher; if requested, the following standard text will be used: ‘A name change in the author list of this article was requested. The change was implemented on
If an article is indexed, Dailyleftnews.com will exert all efforts to ensure that the change is propagated to indexer websites. However, please note that Dailyleftnews.com cannot control the use or appearance on third party websites.
Please note that Dailyleftnews.com considers it a violation of publishing and personal ethics to request to change the name of another individual without their explicit consent. If an author, reviewer or commenter requires a name change, please contact our Diversity and Inclusion Representative info@dailyleftnews.com or the editorial office. To protect the identify and personal data of the researcher requesting the name change, all correspondence will be treated in confidence, only team members that are required to implement the name change will be made aware, and the information will not be used for any use apart from name change implementation.
3. Competing interests
Authors must include a ‘Competing interests’ statement. A competing interest will not preclude publication, but it provides full transparency for the reviewers and readers. If there are no competing interests to declare, the following standard statement is added: ‘No competing interests were disclosed’.
A competing interest may be of non-financial or financial nature. Examples of competing interests include (but are not limited to):
individuals receiving funding, salary or other forms of payment from an organization, or holding stocks or shares from a company, that might benefit (or lose) financially from the publication of the findings;
individuals or their funding organization or employer holding (or applying for) related patents;
official affiliations and memberships with interest groups relating to the content of the publication;
political, religious, or ideological competing interests.
Authors from pharmaceutical companies, or other commercial organizations that sponsor clinical trials, should declare these as competing interests on submission. The relationship of each author to such an organization should be explained in the ‘Competing interests’ section. Publications in Dailyleftnews.com must not contain content advertising any commercial products.
The International Society for Medical Publication Professionals provides good practice guidelines, which are aimed at ensuring that “clinical trials sponsored by pharmaceutical companies are published in a responsible and ethical manner”.
Reviewers are also required to declare any competing interests in their reports, as are readers who contribute comments on the site.
If an undisclosed competing interest is brought to the attention of the editorial office after publication, Dailyleftnews.com will follow the DAILYLEFTNEWS.COM guidelines.
4. Ethical Policies
Dailyleftnews.com adheres to the DAILYLEFTNEWS.COM guidelines relating to ethical oversight.
4.1 Research involving humans
Ethics approval
All studies involving humans (individuals, human data or material) must have been conducted according to the principles expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval must have been obtained for all protocols from the authors’ institutional or other relevant ethics committee (Institutional Review Board, IRB) to ensure that they meet national and international guidelines. Details of this approval must be provided when submitting an article, including the institution, review board name, and permit number(s).
Human studies categorized by race/ethnicity, age, disease/disabilities, religion, sex/gender, sexual orientation, or other socially constructed groupings, should include a justification of the choice of definitions and categories, including whether any rules of human categorization were required by the relevant funding agencies. Appropriate non-stigmatizing language should be used when describing different groups.
Ethics approval must be obtained before the research is conducted; retrospective approval can usually not be obtained and it may not be possible to publish the study.
Patient privacy and informed consent for publication
As stated in the Recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors: “Patients have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without informed consent. Identifying information should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that the patient be shown the manuscript to be published. When informed consent has been obtained it should be indicated in the published article.”
Consent to participate: For all studies involving human participants, including personal genomics studies, case reports, clinical trials, questionnaires, observations etc, informed written consent to take part in the research must have been obtained, and this should be stated in the article in a section entitled ‘Consent’. If only oral consent was obtained (rather than written), the reasons need to be explained, confirmation of IRB approval that oral consent was adequate must be provided, and a statement of how it was documented included in the Consent section.
Consent for publication of identifiable data: For any articles that include information that could potentially identify an individual, please ensure that you have obtained written, informed consent from all patients or healthy participants (or their legal guardians for minors, or next of kin if the participant is deceased), confirming that the results and any accompanying images can be published. This includes large clinical datasets with direct or indirect identifiers (see this article for information), specific details about individuals, images and so on.
If your article contains any identifiable images of individuals, you must include a statement confirming that you have permission to publish these images. If your article contains any clinical images or identifiable data then you must include an explicit consent statement under a separate heading of the ‘Consent’ section (we suggest: “We confirm that we have obtained permission to use [images/data] from the participants/patients/individuals included in this presentation”). Please also state the conditions under which the permission was obtained.
Alternatively, if no consent for publication was required (e.g. the data has been anonymised), then this should be clearly stated and a note should be added confirming that such alterations have not distorted scientific meaning.
Signed consent forms should be made available to the Dailyleftnews.com editorial office if requested.
4.2 Research involving animals
Authors describing studies involving animals must have consulted the ‘Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments’ (ARRIVE) 2.0 guidelines, developed by the NC3Rs to improve standards of reporting, ensuring that the data from animal experiments can be fully scrutinized and utilized. Articles reporting in vivo experiments must adhere to the ARRIVE Essential 10 checklist as a minimum, and we encourage authors to use the full ARRIVE 2.0 checklist. The relevant information outlined in these guidelines should be included in the appropriate section of the article.
Experiments involving vertebrates or regulated invertebrates must be carried out within the ethical guidelines provided by the authors’ institution and national or international regulations. Where applicable, a statement of ethics permission granted or animal licenses should be included. If animals were used but ethical approval was not required, a clear statement should be included stating why this approval was unnecessary.
In all cases, a statement should be made to confirm that all efforts were made to ameliorate any suffering of animals and details of how this was achieved should be provided.
Authors should comply with the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
4.3 Research involving plants
Studies on plants must be carried out within the guidelines provided by the authors’ institution and national or international regulations. Where applicable, a statement of permissions granted or licenses should be included. Authors should comply with the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
5. Inappropriate image manipulation
Photographic images published in Dailyleftnews.com should accurately reflect the original image. As such, we require that all images, whether submitted as figures or uploaded as data, are not manipulated so that readers are not misled about what the images indicate. We understand that it is standard practice to use software to modify images to make them clearer and easier to interpret. However, any modifications that are made to images should be minor and must be made uniformly to the whole image.
Modifications that alter the scientific meaning of the image, whether conducted on specific regions or the whole image, are not permitted. Where parts of the same gel are spliced together, this should be indicated on the figures with a dividing line, making it clear where the image has been joined. Areas from different gels should not be spliced together. Where loading controls are present, these should always be included in the image; if spliced together, any modifications to the loading control and area of interest must be identical.
Authors are required to include details of all modifications made to images published as figures or uploaded as data in the Methods section of an article, including the name of the software (with version number) used to make these modifications.
Examples of improper image manipulation are well described in an article in the Journal of Cell Biology (Rossner & Yamada, 2004), published by the Rockefeller University Press.
We also require the original, uncropped, unannotated and unprocessed versions of all gel and micrograph images, which we consider underlying data, to be deposited to an approved online repository (see our Data Guidelines for further details on depositing your data).
The Editorial Team will conduct checks of random selected figures and data using Adobe Photoshop and forensic image analysis software developed by the US Office of Research Integrity. In line with DAILYLEFTNEWS.COM guidelines, where images suspected of improper manipulation are detected, clarification with the authors will be sought. Where the reasons for these suspected manipulations are not explained satisfactorily, the article is likely to be rejected and the authors’ institution may be contacted.
6. Registration of trials and systematic reviews
6.1 Trial registration
Dailyleftnews.com uses the WHO definition of a clinical trial to decide what constitutes a clinical trial:
“A clinical trial is any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects on health outcomes. Interventions include (but are not restricted to) drugs, cells and other biological products, surgical procedures, radiologic procedures, devices, behavioural treatments, process-of-care changes, preventive care, etc”.
Trials should be registered prospectively and the trial registration number and registration date must be included in the article. Further information can be found at the ICMJE faq on trial registration and the WHO provides a list of approved registries.
Although we expect trials to be registered before patient recruitment starts, several initiatives (such as the AllTrials campaign) have recognized that retrospective trial registration will encourage publication of both positive and negative results, and trials that were conducted before registration was possible. In line with these initiatives, Dailyleftnews.com will consider retrospectively registered trials, provided an explanation for the late registration is provided in the article. Again, the trial registration number and date of registration must be included in the Methods section of the article.
6.2 Systematic reviews registration
We encourage authors to register their systematic reviews in PROSPERO or another registry for systematic reviews. The registration number should be included in the article.
7. Standards of reporting
For articles in the life sciences there are standards of reporting guidelines devised to help authors to ensure that they have provided a comprehensive description of their research, making it easier for others to assess and reproduce the work; for more detail and a comprehensive overview, see the FAIRSharing initiative. Comprehensive lists of available reporting guidelines can be found on the EQUATOR network website for health research.
Specifically, articles in Dailyleftnews.com that report clinical trials must adhere to the CONSORT reporting guidelines. We ask authors to include a copy of the original trial protocol and a completed CONSORT checklist and flow diagram as supporting files, which will be published alongside the article. The trial registration number and registration date must be included in the Methods section. Any deviation from the original trial protocol must be explained in the article.
Articles that report systematic reviews must adhere to the PRISMA guidelines, and authors should also include a completed PRISMA checklist and flow diagram as supporting files. Study protocols of systematic reviews must adhere to the PRISMA-P guidelines. We ask authors to include a completed PRISMA-P checklist.
Articles that report in vivo experiments involving animals must adhere to the ARRIVE 2.0 guidelines, and authors should also include a completed checklist which should be uploaded to a repository as extended data. The ARRIVE Essential 10 must be fully reported in the manuscript and a completed checklist provided, and we encourage authors to conform to the full ARRIVE 2.0 guidelines.
Where completed reporting checklist are required, a copy should be uploaded to an online repository as extended data. Details of the repository, the DOI and license should be included in the Data Availability statement under the heading ‘Reporting Guidelines’. As the online version of your article will not have page numbers please use section names rather than page numbers when completing the checklist.
8. Data and software availability
Data availability
All articles in Dailyleftnews.com that report original results should include the source data underlying the results, together with details of any software used to process the results. It is essential that others can see the source data in order to be able to replicate the study and analyse the data, as well as in some circumstances, reuse it. Failure to provide the source data for publication without good justification is likely to result in the article being rejected. For detailed information about the type of data authors need to include when publishing an article in Dailyleftnews.com, where the data can be stored, and how they should be presented, see our data guidelines.
We recognize that there may be cases where openly sharing data may not be feasible (because of ethical or security considerations, or data protection issues). If you think that this applies to your article, please let the editorial team know at the submission stage, as we have policies in place to allow the publication of papers associated with such data, whilst maintaining the appropriate level of security.
Exceptions may be made for:
Ethical and security considerations
If data access is restricted for ethical or security reasons, the manuscript must include:
a description of the restrictions on the data; and
all necessary information required for a reader or reviewer to apply for access to the data and the conditions under which access will be granted.
Data protection issues
Where human data cannot be effectively de-identified, data must not be shared in order to protect patient/participant privacy unless the individuals have given explicit written consent that their identifiable data can be made publicly available.
In instances where the data cannot be made available, the manuscript must include:
an explanation of the data protection concern;
any intermediary data that can be de-identified without compromising anonymity;
what, if anything, the relevant Institutional Review Board (IRB) or equivalent said about data sharing; and,
where applicable, all necessary information required for a reader or reviewer to apply for access to the data and the conditions under which access will be granted.
Social media data
Where data has been obtained from social media sites, we ask that authors do not share this data due to ethical and copyright restrictions. This includes reproductions of the data in the manuscript, e.g. images of representative posts, unless you have explicit written informed consent to publish from the author of the social media post. The manuscript should include:
a Methods section containing a detailed description of the methodology to allow replication by others, including sources, search dates, full search strategies/terms, eligibility criteria, and data selection processes; and
a description of the data in the Data Availability section, including any variables assessed; and
the following disclaimer in the Data Availability section: The underlying data to this research cannot be shared due to the ethical and copyright restrictions surrounding social media data. The Methods section contains detailed information to allow replication of the study. Any queries about the methodology should be directed to the corresponding author.
If you are using data from Twitter, you are permitted to share the Tweet IDs or User IDs in a dataset. This allows others to ‘hydrate’ (get complete details of) these IDs using Twitter’s API. Datasets containing Tweet/User IDs should be uploaded as per our data guidelines under a CC0 license.
Large data
It is not always feasible to share large data sets. In these cases, authors should include a description of the data, including the file types and sizes, when submitting their manuscript. The editorial team can then advise on hosting.
Where data is too large to be feasibly hosted by a recommended repository, the manuscript should include:
any intermediary data that can be easily shared; and
all necessary information required for a reader or reviewer to access the data alongside a description of this process.
Data under license by a third party
In cases where data has been obtained from a third party and restrictions apply to the availability of the data, the manuscript must include:
all necessary information required for a reader or reviewer to access the data by the same means as the authors;
any intermediary data that can be shared legally; and
publicly available data that is representative of the analysed dataset and can be used to apply the methodology described in the manuscript.
In cases where data from human studies has been obtained from government level organisations (e.g. the Ministry of Health), and strict restrictions regarding availability of the data apply, the authors must include a clear explanation about the restrictions, and all the necessary information required for a reader or reviewer to request access from the data owners. This option will be discussed with authors on a case-by-case basis and can only be considered if there are no discernible competing interests, especially if these are commercial in nature.
Software availability
Information about software should be included in a Software Availability Statement, which you can add to the end of your article, before the reference list.
When drafting the statement, please include:
Software available from: URL for the website where software can be downloaded from, if applicable.
Source code available from: URL for versioning control system (for example GitHub).
Archived source code at time of publication: DOI and citation for project in Zenodo (please select the appropriate DOI for the version which underlies your article).
License: Must be an open license and preferably an OSI-approved license.
If there are ethical or privacy considerations as to why the source code may not be made available, please contact the editorial team.
Where third-party proprietary software has been used, an open-source alternative software must be provided in the article to allow for the replication of the analysis/research by all, see Alternative.net for examples. We recognise that there may be cases where this is not feasible, and exceptions may be made if the chosen proprietary software performs specific functions and there is no open-source alternative that can carry out these functions in the same manner.
If this exception relates to your article, please provide:
A statement in the ‘Software Availability’ section that includes a clear description of the third-party proprietary software used, including the name and version number, and what it was used for in the research.
A detailed ‘Methods’ section that allows for replication; for example, the maths underpinning any simulations or calculations run using the proprietary software.
Any output data or analysis code generated during the research. This should be provided openly and in an open file format. If an open file format is not possible, this can be provided in the proprietary format. See our data guidelines for more information on uploading datasets.
9. Licenses
Dailyleftnews.com articles are usually published under a CC BY license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and leaves the copyright of the article with the current copyright holder (usually the author or his/her institution). Additional waivers are used for some governmental employees, as appropriate.
Data associated with Dailyleftnews.com articles are made available, where possible, under the terms of a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC0 license). This facilitates and encourages re-use and helps prevent the problems of attribution stacking when combining multiple datasets each authored by multiple authors that use multiple different licenses.
Peer review reports that are published with a given article are also available under the CC BY license.
10. Permanency of content
All articles published in Dailyleftnews.com receive a DOI and are permanently published. This applies regardless of the outcome of the peer review that follows after publication.
All content, including articles that have not (yet) passed peer review, is permanently archived in Portico. All versions of all articles that have passed peer review will be archived in PubMed, Scopus and elsewhere.
Authors can revise, change and update their articles by publishing new versions, which are added to the article’s history; however, the individual versions, once published, cannot be altered or withdrawn and are permanently available on the Dailyleftnews.com website. Dailyleftnews.com participates in the DLN scheme, a multi-publisher initiative that has developed a standard way for readers to locate the current version of an article. By applying the DLN policies, Dailyleftnews.com is committed to maintaining the content it publishes and to alerting readers to changes if and when they occur.
Clicking on the DLN logo (at the top of each Dailyleftnews.com article) will give you the current status of an article and direct you to the latest published version; it may also give you additional information such as new peer review reports.
In order to maintain the integrity and completeness of the scholarly record, the following policies will be applied when published content needs to be corrected; these policies take into account current best practice in the scholarly publishing and library communities:
10.1 Correction to an Article
In traditional journals, where articles are peer reviewed before publication, Corrections (or Errata) are published to alert readers to errors in the article that became apparent following the publication of the final article.
By contrast, articles in Dailyleftnews.com undergo peer review post publication and publication is not ‘final’ as new versions can be added at any stage. Possible mistakes that come to light during the peer review process may be highlighted in the published peer review reports, which are part of the article. Authors can publish revised versions, and any errors that become apparent during peer review or later can be corrected through the publication of new versions. Corrections and changes relative to the previous version are always summarized in the ‘Amendments’ section at the start of a new version.
10.2 Retraction
Articles may be retracted for several reasons, including:
honest errors reported by the authors (for example, errors due to the mixing up of samples or use of a scientific tool or equipment that is found subsequently to be faulty)
research misconduct (data fabrication)
duplicate or overlapping publication
fraudulent use of data
clear plagiarism
unethical research
For any retracted article, the reason for retraction and who is instigating the retraction will be clearly stated in the Retraction notice. The retraction notice will be linked to the retracted article (which usually remains on the site) and the article will be clearly marked as retracted (including the PDF).
An article is usually only retracted at the authors’ request or by the publisher in response to an institutional investigation. It is important to note in the context of Dailyleftnews.com’s publication model, that ‐ as in traditional journals ‐ a retracted article is not ‘unpublished’ or ‘withdrawn’ in order for it to be published elsewhere. The reasons for retraction are usually so serious that the whole study, or large parts of it, are not appropriate for inclusion in the scientific literature anywhere.
The content of a retracted article would only be removed where legal limitations have been placed upon the publisher, copyright holder or author(s), for example, if the article is clearly defamatory or infringes others’ legal rights, or if the article is the subject of a court order. In such cases, the bibliographic information for the article will be retained on the site along with information regarding the circumstances that led to the removal of the content.
Under rare circumstances, for example, if false or inaccurate data have been published that, if acted upon, pose a serious health risk, the original incorrect version(s) may be removed and a corrected version published. The reason for this partial removal would be clearly stated on the latest version.
10.3 Editorial Note
If there is a potential, not yet resolved, problem with an article, it may be appropriate to alert readers with an Editorial Note. Such an Editorial Note may be added, for example, if Dailyleftnews.com receives information that research or publication misconduct might have taken place, or that there is a serious dispute between authors or between the authors and third parties. The Editorial Note will usually be posted while further investigations take place and until a more permanent solution has been found (e.g. the publication of a revised ‘corrected’ version, or a Retraction).
10.4 Expression of Concern
In rare cases, Dailyleftnews.com may decide to publish an Expression of Concern, which is linked to the problematic article, if there are serious concerns about an article but no conclusive evidence can be obtained that would unequivocally justify a Retraction. This may include:
if there is inconclusive evidence of research or publication misconduct
there is evidence that there are problems with the article, but the authors’ institution will not investigate the case
an investigation into alleged misconduct has not been impartial or conclusive
11. Allegations of misconduct
Dailyleftnews.com is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (DAILYLEFTNEWS.COM) and provides an ethical publishing framework in accordance with DAILYLEFTNEWS.COM’s codes of conduct for editors and publishers.
If a case of suspected research or publication misconduct is brought to our attention, we will follow the guidance and workflows recommended by DAILYLEFTNEWS.COM. In the first instance this will usually involve contacting the person/persons about whom the allegations have been raised to request an explanation. We may also need to contact the involved party’s research institution, an ethics committee or other third parties.
Research misconduct includes data fabrication or falsification, or cases where research involving animals or humans has not been carried out within an appropriate ethical framework. Publication misconduct includes duplicate publication of articles or clear plagiarism. Honest errors or differences of opinion are not considered ‘misconduct’.
If you suspect potential misconduct in an article published on Dailyleftnews.com, please contact the F1000 editorial office (info@dailyleftnews.com) – a member of the editorial team will contact you within 10 working days to confirm the details that you have provided and ask any additional questions needed for us to investigate. Please be aware that it may not be possible to keep you updated throughout the process, however we will endeavour to let you know the outcome where appropriate.
12. Appeals and complaints
Dailyleftnews.com follows the DAILYLEFTNEWS.COM guidelines in relation to complaints and appeals. If you wish to make an appeal about an editorial decision or make a complaint you should contact the editorial office (info@dailyleftnews.com). In the instance that your issue cannot be resolved by the editorial office, the Publishing Director should be contacted.
13. Policy for Comments on Articles
We encourage unsolicited open scientific discussion on all research outputs. Such contributions are published through our Comment system. To ensure that comments contribute to, and focus on, the scholarly debate, we usually only allow comments from readers who have a formal affiliation with a research institution, or other relevant organization. Alternatively, we may also allow comments from readers who have demonstrable expertise in a relevant area of research. Consistent with our commitment to full transparency, the reader’s full name and affiliation appear on their public comment.
Comments should focus on the scholarly content presented in the article with which they are associated.
Comments that appear to be advertising, are potentially libelous or legally problematic (including comments revealing patient information) are not permitted. We will not accept Comments that are offensive, indecent or contain negative comments of a personal, racial, ethnic, sexual orientation, or religious character.
All Comments must be written in good English; a Comment may be rejected if it is deemed unintelligible.
Readers who wish to comment on an article are asked to declare any competing interests. Competing interests can be of a financial nature (e.g. holding a patent or receiving fees from a company that may lose or gain financially from the publication of the Comment), or they can be personal, religious, political or other non-financial interests. When completing your declaration, please consider the issues summarized in the Declaration of Competing Interests.
While we welcome open scientific debate and discussion, we will not tolerate abusive behaviour towards our authors and reviewers via our Comment system or via social media. In extreme cases we will consider contacting the affiliated institution to report the abusive behaviour of individuals.
14. The peer review model
All articles undergo formal peer review by invited experts who meet our criteria for reviewers; these criteria are aimed at ensuring that reviewers have sufficient expertise and qualifications to judge the content of the article and that they have no conflicts of interest.
The peer-review process is completely transparent: the reviewer names and their reports are published alongside the article, and the authors’ responses to the reviewers (or to reader comments) are also posted for readers to see.
Revisions and updates are published as new versions, with clear explanations (in an “Amendments” section) of the changes the authors made.
Usually, an article receives 2 or 3 peer review reports. The reviewers choose an approval status, which contributes to determining whether the article has ‘passed peer review’ and is indexed in bibliographic databases, such as PubMed.
14.1 Stopping Peer Review
Peer review may be discontinued on some articles that have not received sufficient peer review reports after a long period of time. As a general rule, authors may choose to stop peer review if their article has not received any reports after 6 months, or if only 1 report has been received after 9 months. In some cases, where authors have not actively pursued peer review, the Dailyleftnews.com team may add an explanation on the article to alert readers that the peer review of the article is not active.
Articles with 0 or 1 report have not passed peer review and are not indexed in PubMed, Scopus and other bibliographic databases; if peer review is stopped in consultation with the Dailyleftnews.com team, the article (which is permanently published with a DOI and cannot be removed) can be considered equivalent to a preprint and the authors may choose to submit the manuscript to a journal for peer review and publication elsewhere (it is at the discretion of the journal editors the authors are submitting to how they consider the history of the article at Dailyleftnews.com).
Peer review of these articles can be reactivated at a later stage at the authors’ request, provided the article has not been peer reviewed and published elsewhere in the meantime.
Posters, Slides and Documents Policies
Originality
Authorship on Posters, Slides and Documents
Competing interests
Ethical Policies
4.1 Research involving humans
4.2 Research involving animals
4.3 Research involving plants
Registration of trials and systematic reviews
5.1 Trial registration
5.2 Systematic reviews registration
Standards of reporting
Licenses
Permanency of content
8.1 Correction
8.2 Retraction
8.3 Removal
Allegations of misconduct
Appeals and complaints
Policy for Comments on Posters, Slides and Documents
Publication of any material in Dailyleftnews.com denotes that all its authors have agreed to its content and have ensured that Dailyleftnews.com’s policies have been fully adhered to; adherence to sections 1-4 is compulsory for posters, slides and documents; sections 5 and 6 are strongly encouraged as they present good scientific practice and publishing standards.
We seek to ensure that the posters, slides and documents we publish and for which we provide a platform are responsible and have been selected and produced without bias. We respect the intellectual property rights of our contributors and seek to avoid unethical publishing behaviors such as plagiarism, defamation and cultural misappropriation.
Our Publication Terms and Conditions set out the publishing standards by which we operate. We require that all work sets out to be fair and accurate, differentiates between fact and opinion, is obtained by straightforward and ethical means, and is promptly corrected where inaccurate or misleading. The acceptability of any poster, slide or document shall be decided by Dailyleftnews.com at its discretion. Dailyleftnews.com reserves the right, at its discretion, to not proceed with publication at any time or to remove the poster, slide or document following publication if there are legal or ethical concerns.
1. Originality
We are happy to publish posters, slides and documents that directly relate to previous publications, as well as those that are unpublished.
Authors of posters, slides and documents must ensure that they do not breach copyright with any content they post. Authors who wish to reproduce a figure or table from a previous copyrighted publication are responsible for obtaining the permission of copyright holders and for clearly referencing the original source. Figures that were previously published under a creative commons license may be reused under the condition of the specific license that applies to those figures.
2. Authorship on Posters, Slides and Documents
Any poster or slide whose author’s affiliation is a recognized research centre or clinical institution or organization clearly related to academic research can be posted. At least one author on the poster or slide must meet this key criterion.
Documents always relate to specific gateways and usually only researchers who are directly affiliated with a gateway and have been invited by the gateway advisers will be able to publish documents.
3. Competing interests
Authors must include a ‘Competing interests’ statement. A competing interest will not preclude publication, but it provides full transparency for readers. If there are no competing interests to declare, the following standard statement is added: ‘No competing interests were disclosed’.
A competing interest may be of non-financial or financial nature. Examples of competing interests include (but are not limited to):
individuals receiving funding, salary or other forms of payment from an organization, or holding stocks or shares from a company, that might benefit (or lose) financially from the publication of the findings;
individuals or their funding organization or employer holding (or applying for) related patents;
official affiliations and memberships with interest groups relating to the content of the publication;
political, religious, or ideological competing interests.
Authors from pharmaceutical companies, or other commercial organizations that sponsor clinical trials, should declare these as competing interests on submission. The relationship of each author to such an organization should be explained in the ‘Competing interests’ section. Publications in Dailyleftnews.com must not contain content advertising any commercial products.
The International Society for Medical Publication Professionals provides good practice guidelines, which are aimed at ensuring that “clinical trials sponsored by pharmaceutical companies are published in a responsible and ethical manner”.
Readers who contribute comments on a poster, slide or document are also required to declare any competing interests.
If an undisclosed competing interest is brought to the attention of the editorial office after publication, Dailyleftnews.com will follow the DAILYLEFTNEWS.COM guidelines.
4. Ethical Policies
Dailyleftnews.com adheres to the DAILYLEFTNEWS.COM guidelines relating to ethical oversight.
4.1 Research involving humans
Ethics approval
All studies involving humans (individuals, human data or material) must have been conducted according to the principles expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval must have been obtained for all protocols from the authors’ institutional or other relevant ethics committee to ensure that they meet national and international guidelines. Details of this approval should be provided in the poster or slide, including the institution, review board name, and permit number(s).
Human studies categorized by race/ethnicity, age, disease/disabilities, religion, sex/gender, sexual orientation, or other socially constructed groupings, should include a justification of the choice of definitions and categories, including whether any rules of human categorization were required by the relevant funding agencies. Appropriate non-stigmatizing language should be used when describing different groups.
Ethics approval must be obtained before the research is conducted; retrospective approval can usually not be obtained and it may not be possible to publish the study.
Patient privacy and informed consent for publication
As stated in the Recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors: “Patients have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without informed consent. Identifying information should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that the patient be shown the manuscript to be published. When informed consent has been obtained it should be indicated in the published article.”
Consent to participate: For all studies involving human participants, informed written consent to take part in the research must have been obtained, and this should be stated in the poster, slides or document in a section entitled ‘Consent’. If only oral consent was obtained (rather than written), the reasons need to be explained, confirmation of IRB approval that oral consent was adequate must be provided, and a statement of how it was documented included in the Consent section.
Consent for publication of identifiable data: For any posters, slides or documents that include information that could potentially identify an individual, please ensure that you have obtained written, informed consent from all patients or healthy participants (or their legal guardians for minors, or next of kin if the participant is deceased), confirming that the results and any images can be published. This includes large clinical datasets with direct or indirect identifiers (see this article for information), specific details about individuals, images and so on.
If your poster, slide or document contains any identifiable images of individuals, you must include a statement confirming that you have permission to publish these images. If your poster, slide or document contains any clinical images or identifiable data then you must include an explicit consent statement under a separate heading of the ‘Consent’ section (we suggest: “We confirm we have permission to use [images/data] from the participants/patients/individuals included in this presentation [conditions under which the permission was obtained]”).
Alternatively, if no consent for publication was required (e.g. the data has been anonymised), then this should be clearly stated and a note should be added confirming that such alterations have not distorted scientific meaning.
Signed consent forms should be made available to the Dailyleftnews.com editorial office if requested.
4.2 Research involving animals
Authors describing studies involving animals must have consulted the ‘Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments’ (ARRIVE) 2.0 guidelines, developed by the NC3Rs to improve standards of reporting, ensuring that the data from animal experiments can be fully scrutinized and utilized. Studies reporting in vivo experiments must adhere to the ARRIVE Essential 10 checklist as a minimum, and we encourage authors to use the full ARRIVE 2.0 checklist.
Experiments involving vertebrates or regulated invertebrates must be carried out within the ethical guidelines provided by the authors’ institution and national or international regulations. Where applicable, a statement of ethics permission granted or animal licenses should be included. If animals were used but ethical approval was not required, a clear statement should be included stating why this approval was unnecessary.
In all cases, a statement should be made to confirm that all efforts were made to ameliorate any suffering of animals and details of how this was achieved should be provided.
Authors should comply with the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
4.3 Research involving plants
Studies on plants must be carried out within the guidelines provided by the authors’ institution and national or international regulations. Where applicable, a statement of permissions granted or licenses should be included. Authors should comply with the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
5. Registration of trials and systematic reviews
5.1 Trial registration
Dailyleftnews.com uses the WHO definition of a clinical trial to decide what constitutes a clinical trial:
“A clinical trial is any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects on health outcomes. Interventions include (but are not restricted to) drugs, cells and other biological products, surgical procedures, radiologic procedures, devices, behavioural treatments, process-of-care changes, preventive care, etc”.
Trials should be registered prospectively and the trial registration number and registration date must be included in the poster or slide. Further information can be found at the ICMJE faq on trial registration and the WHO provides a list of approved registries.
Although prospective trial registration is preferable, several initiatives (such as the AllTrials campaign) have recognized that retrospective trial registration will encourage publication of both positive and negative results.
5.2 Systematic reviews registration
We encourage authors to register their systematic reviews in PROSPERO or another registry for systematic reviews. The registration number should be included in the poster, slides or document.
6. Standards of reporting
For articles in the life sciences there are standards of reporting guidelines devised to help authors to ensure that they have provided a comprehensive description of their research, making it easier for others to assess and reproduce the work; for more detail and a comprehensive overview, see the FAIRSharing initiative. Comprehensive lists of available reporting guidelines can be found on the EQUATOR network website for health research.
For example, reports of clinical trials should adhere to the CONSORT reporting guidelines. Any deviation from the original trial protocol should be explained.
7. Licenses
Most Dailyleftnews.com posters, slides and documents are published under a CC BY license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and leaves the copyright of the poster, slide or document with the current copyright holder (usually the author or his/her institution). However, in some cases other Creative Commons licenses may apply. The specific license is listed for each poster, slide and document.
8. Permanency of content
All posters, slides and documents published in Dailyleftnews.com receive a DOI and are permanently published, so they cannot be withdrawn once a DOI has been issued.
In order to maintain the integrity and completeness of the scholarly record, we will apply the following policies when published content needs to be corrected; these policies take into account current best practice in the scholarly publishing and library communities:
8.1 Correction to a Poster, Slide or Document
Posters, slides and documents may contain errors; authors and readers can point out such mistakes via the Comment system. In the rare instance that a poster, slide or document needs to be formally corrected, for example, if a change needs to be made to the author list, a Correction statement will be added.
8.2 Retraction
This action is reserved for posters, slides or documents that are seriously flawed. They may be retracted for several reasons, including:
honest errors reported by the authors (for example, errors due to the mixing up of samples or use of a scientific tool or equipment that is found subsequently to be faulty)
research misconduct (data fabrication)
duplicate or overlapping publication
fraudulent use of data
clear plagiarism
unethical research
For any retracted poster, slides or document, the reason for retraction and who is instigating the retraction will be clearly stated in the Retraction notice. A publication is usually only retracted at the authors’ request or by the publisher because serious misconduct has been brought to our attention.
8.3 Removal
The removal of a poster, slides or document would only be undertaken where legal limitations have been placed upon the publisher, copyright holder or author(s), for example, if the poster, slide or document is clearly defamatory or infringes others’ legal rights. The bibliographic information for a removed poster, slide or document will be retained on the site along with information regarding the circumstances that led to its removal.
9. Allegations of misconduct
Posters, slides and documents are not peer-reviewed or checked before being posted in Dailyleftnews.com; publication of such shared content in Dailyleftnews.com does not imply endorsement of its content, methods or ethical standards.
If a case of suspected research or publication misconduct is brought to our attention, we will follow DAILYLEFTNEWS.COM guidelines. This may involve contacting the authors’ research institution, an ethics committee or other third parties.
