The Academy of Transdisciplinary Learning & Advanced Studies (ATLAS) serves the international transdisciplinary community and society at large in several ways, including the publication of Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & Science that show the results of current transdisciplinary or interdisciplinary scientific research and practice. The prevention of publication malpractice is one of the important responsibility of the editorial board of editors, authors, and reviewers to maintain high ethical standards relating to the submittal, review, and publication of manuscripts.

Acknowledgment is given to ASCE, ASME, AGU, and Declaration of Helsinki of 1975 for drawing on their guidelines in the development of this document.

Plagiarism

Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & Science (TJES) by ATLAS is committed to publishing only original material -- research that has neither been published elsewhere nor is under review elsewhere. All manuscripts are subject to plagiarism screening by iThenticate. Software is used to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. If plagiarism is detected during the peer review process, the manuscript may be rejected.

Duplicate Submission

Manuscripts that are discovered to have been published elsewhere, or to be under review elsewhere, will suffer duplicate submission actions.

False Data Creation

Submitted manuscripts that are found to have false or inaccurate data will incur data fabrication and falsification sanctions.

Author Contribution

All authors of the submitted manuscript must have made a significant scientific contribution to the research. It is imperative to list everyone who made a considerable contribution including students.

Sanctions

In the case that there is a documented violation of any of the above-mentioned publication policies, the following sanctions will be used: Immediate rejection of the manuscript; Prohibition against all of the authors for any new submissions to TJES.

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

• An author's main responsibility is to present a brief and accurate account of the research project completed, together with an objective discussion of its importance.

• An author should quote and give proper acknowledgment to those publications effective in determining the nature of the reported work to direct the reader to previously done research necessary to an understanding of the present work. 

• The submitted manuscript shall not contain plagiarized material or falsified research data. The use or presentation of the materials of another person from an existing source without appropriate acknowledgment to that source prohibited
• Fragmentation of research work is prohibited.
• An author should not submit research work for review more than one paper describing essentially the same research to more than one journal of primary publication.
• To protect the integrity of authorship, only authors who have notably contributed to the research and paper preparation shall be listed as co-authors. 
• Manuscripts should not be submitted for publication with obvious commercial intent. 
• An author should make any changes to a paper after it has been accepted without consulting with the editor of the journal. 
• The authors should disclose to the editor any potential conflict of interest -- a consulting or financial interest in a company that might be affected by publication of the research outcome included in a manuscript.

Ethical Responsibilities of Editors

• Without having any conflict of interest, determine acceptance or rejection of all materials considered for publication.
• Manage and oversee the review process -- reviewers should not have any conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors and/or the research funders.
• Maintain and promote consistent ethical policies for the journal
• Oversee and act to enforce those policies as needed in a fair and consistent manner
• Maintain a commitment to standards of high quality and maintain the anonymity of reviewers.
• An editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
• An editor will at any time evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers

• If a reviewer feels not qualified to review a paper, the reviewer shall return the manuscript promptly to the editor of the journal.
• A reviewer shall objectively make a decision on the quality of a manuscript on its own merit and shall respect the intellectual independence of the author(s). Personal criticism should not be made.
• If an article submitted for review presents a potential conflict of interest or the reviewer has a personal bias, the reviewer shall return the manuscript promptly to the editor of the journal.
• A reviewer should treat a manuscript sent for review as a confidential document.
• Reviewers shall explain and support their decision about the paper adequately so that editors and authors may understand the basis of their comments. Disapproving judgments should have a clear, complete, and logical explanation from the reviewer.
• If a reviewer see any considerable similarity between the manuscript under consideration and any published manuscript reviewer should promptly notify the attention of the editor of the journal.
• Unpublished materials or any other information included in a submitted manuscript are confidential and shall not be used in the research of a reviewer or distributed without having the consent of the author(s).
• If a reviewer has clear evidence that a manuscript includes plagiarized material or falsified research data, or evidence of concurrent submission, the reviewer shall notify the editor of the journal.

Research Ethics

• Research Involving Human Subjects

  If the research involves human subjects, human material, human tissues, or human data, authors must declare that the investigations were carried out following the rules of the Declaration of Helsinki of 1975 (https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki/).  A statement including the project identification code, date of approval, and name of the institutional review board (or ethic committee) should be cited in the Methods Section of the article. If research involves human subjects, authors are encouraged to get advice from institutional review board or ethic committee.

• Research Involving Cell Lines

  If the research involves with cell lines authors should state the origin of any cell lines. For created cell lines the source should be stated and references must be given to either a published paper or to a commercial source. If the gifted from another laboratory unpublished de novo cell lines were used, details of institutional review board or ethics committee approval must be provided.