Review process

Submissions are subject to the peer-review process including invited papers. Submissions will firstly be filtered by the editorial board before entering the peer review process. For general issues, the editorial board will handle the peer review process, for special issues, the guest editors have the autonomy to choose their preferable reviewers, the editorial board will offer help when the guest editors are in need.

The authors will receive reports from the reviewers (normally 2-3 blind reviews, peer reviewers need to have completed a PhD in a relevant field and have published at least one peer-reviewed article) with the following decisions: 1) Accept, 2) Accept with minor revision, 3) Accept with major revision, 4) Resubmit, 5) Reject.

For 1), the paper will be accepted and passed to copyediting.

For 2), the author will be given three months of time to complete the revision, the paperwill be reviewed again by the editors, and the paper will be passed to copyediting if it isconsidered satisfactory.

For 3), the author will be given six months of time to complete the revision, the revisedpaper will be passed to the reviewers again to decide if the revisions are satisfactorilymade.

For 4), the author will be able to resubmit when the paper is rewritten according to thecomments.

For 5), no resubmission is allowed.