Authorship

Those who have made substantial contributions should be listed as authors.  All co-authors who have contributed appropriate portions of the content must agree to the manuscript submission. Any requests for addition or removal of author(s) before/after publication must seek approval of the Editors. The corresponding authors must ensure that all authors have agreed and approved the manuscript submission to the journal. The corresponding authors must read and sign on the prescribed form of copyright transfer statements which will be sent by MJBS.

Research Misconduct

Copying, stealing, or manipulating intellectual properties of another person constitute acts of plagiarism whereas fabrication and falsification are considered fraud or research misconduct. It is incumbent on all authors to refrain from acts of plagiarism, fabrication, or falsification associated with the manuscript. Any plagiarism, fraud or research misconduct will be reported by Journal Editors.

Manipulation of images may lead to manipulation of results and infringe the image integrity. It is prohibited and not allowed to enhance, obscure, move, remove or introduce a specific feature within an image. Exception and acceptable merely subject to manipulating images for improved clarity such as adjustments of brightness, contrast or colour balance as long as they do not obscure or eliminate information present in the original material.

Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publications, in the case of authors using published figures, data and/or copyright materials in the submitted manuscript, it is the responsibility of authors and corresponding authors to:

1. acknowledge the sources in the manuscript:
2. obtain permission from the original publisher; and
3. cite the original article and acknowledge the duplication in the figure/table caption.

Upon submission of the manuscript, the author(s) must confirm and agree that no similar work has been or will be submitted or published elsewhere in any language.

The author are not permitted and restrained from publishing and submitting concurrently the same essential research manuscript in more than one journal of primary publication, which is considered as misconduct.

Availability of Materials and Data Access

Upon acceptance of publication, all authors must agree that sample materials and data described in the article are to be made available to the scientific community for non-commercial purposes. Such sample materials and data may include, but are not limited to, biological samples, sequence data, images, statistical data, etc.

Manuscripts must contain sufficient details, and necessary materials or information must be made available upon request to enable the research work can be repeated by other researchers. However, the legitimate interests of the authors will be protected with appropriate agreements to restrict the field of use of sample materials or data that have been made available.

Any experiment or research conducted must be in compliance with all current laws of the country or countries involved. Authors describing experimental studies involving animals/human in their manuscripts must obtain approval from their respective Institutional Animal/Human Ethics Committee prior to manuscript submission. This document must be made available upon request. Misconduct in animal use will result in cancellation of the submitted manuscript.

Authors describing research which involves biological resources or collection of biological samples in their manuscripts must obtain research permits from their respective local or state government department (such as Forest Department, Fishery Department, etc.). Permit number or approval reference number (if any) must be listed in the acknowledgment section of the manuscript. Authors should include statement in the manuscript that informed consent obtained for implementation with human subjects and the privacy right of human subjects must always be observed.

Article Retraction or Correction

It is the responsibility of the authors to promptly report to the Editors if significant errors or inaccuracy have been identified in their published articles. The Editors will decide to retract or to notify the authors to make necessary correction of the article in the form of an erratum.

Confidential process

All the communication between the authors and the journal must be treated as confidential, including email communication, reviewers’ reports, etc. Authors are restricted from posting any confidential materials on any website or published materials, without prior permission from the journal, regardless if the submission is published or rejected. 

Reviewer suggestions

MJBS journals practice a double-blind peer review process. However, authors are welcome to suggest suitable reviewers to review their submitted manuscript. Authors may also request to exclude individuals from reviewing their manuscript due to possible conflict of interest. However, the decision on the reviewers is made by the journal editors.