i. The submitting author must be registered with the online submission system of the journal. The author can create his or her own username and password. After logging in, upload your manuscript and any related document, e.g. figures, videos, supplementary materials, etc. All the necessary components must be supplied prior to the final submission. The Editorial Office will send a confirmation email containing the unique manuscript ID number after the final submission;

ii. The assistant editor will check the manuscript against the guidelines of the journal. At this stage, the manuscript may be returned to the author with requests to provide missing information;

iii. The Handling Editor will assign the manuscript for peer review if it is accepted after the initial inspection. The editor-in-chief or the associate editors (if appropriate) will evaluate the scope, fit, quality, originality and interest of the manuscript. The manuscript will then be sent out to external reviewers or rejected depending on whether the criteria of the journal are met or not;

iv. The Handling Editor will request initially for 3-5 potential peer-reviewers to review that manuscript; the Handling Editor can herself/himself serve as a peer-reviewer. Each peer-reviewer will be asked to return critical comments in two weeks; the Handling Editor will consider the experts’ opinions and make an initial decision to accept, reject, or request a revision;

v. If this manuscript needs to be revised, the assistant editor can directly forward the critical comments in combination with the revision decision to the authors for revision within one month (Minor Revision) or two months (Major revision); the author must respond to each comment made by the reviewers and the Handling Editor, and resubmit. Usually the revised manuscript will be re-evaluated by the original Handling Editor, who will either make an immediate decision or send the manuscript for further review prior to making a decision. Some journals allow multiple manuscript revisions;

vi. If this manuscript is recommended to be accepted or rejected, the Assistant Editor must forward this decision to executive editor-in-chief or editor-in-chief for approval. The approval result will return to the Editorial Office and then to the authors. After receiving the approval result, the author is free to submit it to another journal;

vii. Each accepted manuscript will be forwarded to the product editor for edition and publication. In order to ensure your accepted manuscript is not delayed, we urge authors to ensure that their manuscript is complete and all items completed prior to acceptance;

viii. Our editorial staff will be on hand to answer your questions quickly and efficiently if you are unable to find the answer to your question. Contact details for Editorial Office are on the online submission site. You can also check the status of your manuscript at any time by logging into the site;

ix. The assistant editor assists executive editor-in-chief to monitor the entire process.