Editorial Policies

Peer Review

Viser Technology Pte. Ltd. follows a double-blind peer-review procedure for submissions of all manuscripts to its journals.

All submitted manuscripts are subjected to a fair, unbiased, and extensive peer review in consultation with the assigned journal's Editorial Board Member and independent internal or external referees (usually two reviewers), which have expertise in the field of the submitted manuscripts. The peer-review applies a short and rapid, but fair and professional assessment on all submitted manuscripts. The journal's Editor-in-Chief is then decided on the submitted manuscripts based on all the peer reviewers' comments before conveying to the author(s).

All submissions from the Editor-in-Chief will undergo independent peer-review and assess by the journal's Editorial Board Member or in-house Editor for the decision on acceptance.

Ethical Approval of Studies and Informed Consent

For human or animal experimental investigations, it is a prerequisite to provide a formal review and approval, or review and waiver, by an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee, which should be documented in the paper. For investigations undertaken on human subjects, the manner in which the informed consent was obtained from the study participants (i.e., oral or written) should be stated clearly in the Materials and Methods section.

The authors must obtain patient consent either orally or written when they use confidential case material. However, patient consent is not required for very brief case vignettes that do not contain identifying information or if the case material is masked sufficiently to prevent the identification of the patient.

The authors should inform and discuss with the recruiting patients on the purpose(s) of publication, the possible risks and benefits to obtain, and the patient's right to withhold or withdraw consent. In the case of a minor patient, consent should be obtained from the parent(s) or guardian(s). The authors should not perform any misconduct or deceive the recruiting patients in obtaining their consent.

Standard Protocol on Approvals, Registrations, Patients Consents & Animal Protection

Human: All clinical investigations must be conducted according to the Declaration of Helsinki principles, as revised in 2000 and 2008. Authors must comply with the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (www.icmje.org) in conjunction with the patient's consent for research or participation in a study. Patients' names, initials, or hospital numbers must not be mentioned anywhere in the manuscript (including figures). Editors may request the authors to provide documentation of the formal review and recommendation from the institutional review board or ethics committee responsible for oversight of the study if necessary.

Animals: All original research manuscripts involving the use of animals, the authors should indicate whether relevant international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals were conducted accordingly. The authors must include details of animal welfare (such as species, number, gender, age, weight, housing conditions, welfare, training and the fate of the animals at the end of the experiment) and relevant details of steps taken to ameliorate suffering in all works in the Materials and Method section of a manuscript. Similarly, any experiments involving animals from clients or private institutions, the authors are required to get informed client consent and adhere to a high standard (best practice) of veterinary care. These details should be included in the Materials and Methods section of the manuscript.