Authorship should be based on substantial scholarly contributions to the research and responsibility for the published work. All individuals listed as authors must have made meaningful intellectual contributions to the study and must approve the final manuscript.

The journal requires authors to meet the following criteria:

1. Make a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the study, data collection, data analysis, interpretation of results, or development of research software.
2. Participate in drafting the manuscript or critically revising it for important intellectual content.
3. Approve the final version of the manuscript for publication.
4. Agree to be accountable for their contributions and to help ensure that questions concerning the accuracy or integrity of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

All authors must satisfy the applicable authorship criteria. Individuals who contribute to specific aspects of the research but do not meet the authorship criteria should be acknowledged appropriately rather than automatically included as authors.

The corresponding author is responsible for coordinating communication between the journal and all co-authors. The corresponding author must ensure that:

• All listed authors have approved the manuscript and agreed to its submission.
• The author list, affiliations, and order of authorship are accurate and agreed upon by all authors.
• Each author's contribution is described accurately in the author contribution statement.
• Relevant funding information, conflicts of interest, ethical approvals, and other required declarations are disclosed.
• All co-authors are informed of editorial decisions and significant manuscript revisions.

The corresponding author must not include individuals who do not qualify for authorship or exclude individuals who meet the authorship criteria.

The journal requires a transparent statement describing the individual contributions of each author. Authors are encouraged to use the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT), a standardized framework that identifies 14 distinct roles in research and scholarly publication.

The CRediT statement must reflect the actual contributions of each author. An author may be assigned multiple roles, and the same role may be assigned to multiple authors. Not all roles are applicable to every manuscript.

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the contribution statement is accurate and agreed upon by all authors. The declared contributions do not replace or modify the journal's authorship criteria.

The author list and order of authorship should be agreed upon before manuscript submission. Any request to add, remove, or reorder authors after submission must be justified in writing and submitted to the editor for consideration.

Such requests must include confirmation from all authors regarding the proposed change, including the consent of any author being added or removed. The journal may request additional documentation before making a decision.

Authorship changes after acceptance will generally not be permitted, except where a correction is justified by exceptional circumstances and approved by the journal in accordance with its publication ethics policies.

The journal does not permit ghost authorship, guest authorship, or gift authorship.

• Ghost authorship: Excluding an individual who has made a qualifying contribution to the research.
• Guest or gift authorship: Including an individual who does not meet the authorship criteria, including honorary or courtesy authorship.

Providing funding, general supervision, administrative support, language editing, or proofreading alone does not automatically qualify an individual for authorship. Such contributions may be acknowledged where appropriate.

Individuals who have contributed to the research but do not meet the authorship criteria may be recognized in the Acknowledgments section. Authors should obtain permission from acknowledged individuals before naming them in the manuscript.

Financial support, institutional assistance, and other relevant contributions must be disclosed where applicable.

All authors share responsibility for the integrity of the published work. Each author is accountable for their own contributions and must cooperate in addressing concerns about the accuracy, reliability, or integrity of the research.

The journal may request clarification or supporting documentation if authorship or contribution information is incomplete, inconsistent, or potentially misleading. Allegations of authorship misconduct will be handled in accordance with the journal's publication ethics policies and applicable guidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

By submitting a manuscript, the corresponding author confirms that the author list, order of authorship, and contribution statements have been reviewed and approved by all authors.