Editorial Policies

Aims and Scope

Current Bioinformatics aims to publish all the latest and outstanding developments in bioinformatics. Each issue contains a series of timely, in-depth/mini-reviews, research papers and guest edited thematic issues written by leaders in the field, covering a wide range of the integration of biology with computer and information science.

The journal focuses on advances in computational molecular biology, encompassing such niche areas as DNA/RNA/protein sequence alignment and prediction, genes and multi-source heterogeneous networks reconstruction, 3D genome, and spatial transcriptomics computation. The problems belong to the molecules, and the techniques are involved in artificial intelligence and algorithms. Developments in these fields directly affect key issues related to molecular biology, medicine, development of agricultural products, environmental protection, etc.

Current Bioinformatics is an essential journal for all academic and industrial researchers who want expert knowledge on all major advances in bioinformatics.

Sections

Life Sciences

Peer Review Process

Bentham Science Publishers follows the double-blind peer review procedure for submissions of all manuscripts to its journals.

All submitted articles are subjected to an extensive peer review in consultation with members of the journal’s editorial board and independent external referees (usually three reviewers). All manuscripts/chapters are assessed rapidly and the decision based on all the peer reviewers' comments, taken by the journal’s Editor-in-Chief, is then conveyed to the author(s).

Submissions from the Editor-in-Chief/Co-Editor/Editorial Board Members will undergo independent peer review and will be submitted to another Editor for his decision on acceptance. For further details, please visit complete guidelines at: https://benthamscience.com/pages/peer-reviews

Use of Generative AI and AI-assisted Technologies in the Peer Review Process

Since the use of AI technology has increased, it has brought its own challenges regarding the originality of the review of submitted manuscripts. Bentham Science has been striving to improve its policies accordingly. With time, we will continue to update our policies to support our reviewers, authors, and editors.

The quality of the peer review of submitted articles has been our top priority. The reviewers are advised not to use AI technologies or any other related assisting resources to generate review reports that could compromise the integrity and confidentiality of the reports.

The full Reviewer Guidelines are available here: https://www.benthamscience.com/journal/65/guideline-for-reviewers

Indexing

Abstracted & Indexed in:

Archiving and Copyright:

Journal Database:

Copyright

Authors who publish in Bentham Science print & online journals will transfer copyright to their work to Bentham Science Publishers. Submission of a manuscript to the respective journals implies that all authors have read and agreed to the content of the Copyright Letter or the Terms and Conditions. It is a condition of publication that manuscripts submitted to this journal have not been published and will not be simultaneously submitted or published elsewhere. Plagiarism is strictly forbidden, and by submitting the article for publication the authors agree that the publishers have the legal right to take appropriate action against the authors, if plagiarism or fabricated information is discovered. By submitting a manuscript, the authors agree that the copyright of their article is transferred to the publishers if and when the article is accepted for publication. Once submitted to the journal, the author will not withdraw their manuscript at any stage prior to publication.

It is mandatory that a signed copyright letter also be submitted along with the manuscript by the author to whom correspondence is to be addressed. The article should not contain any such material or information that maybe unlawful, defamatory, fabricated, plagiarized, or which would, if published, in any way whatsoever, violate the terms and conditions as laid down in the copyright agreement. For more details, please visit Rights and Permissions

Permission to reuse Bentham content

Bentham Science has collaborated with the Copyright Clearance Center to meet our customer's licensing, besides rights & permission needs.

The Copyright Clearance Center's RightsLink® service makes it faster and easier to secure permission from Bentham Science's journal titles. Visit Journals by Title and locate the desired content. Then go to the article's abstract and click on "Rights and Permissions" to open the RightsLink's page. If authors can't find the content they are looking for or can't get the rights they need, please contact us at permissions@benthamscience.net

Third-Party Permissions

Authors are responsible for managing the inclusion of third-party content as an author/editor of a work. We refer to 'third party content' as any work that authors haven't developed themselves and have copied or adapted from other sources. Text, figures, photographs, tables, screenshots, and other items may be included.

Unless the figure is in the public domain (copyright-free) or permitted for use under Creative Commons or other open licenses, the author must get permission from the copyright holder(s).

Published/reproduced material should not be included unless written permission has been obtained from the copyright holder, which should be forwarded to the Editorial Office in case of acceptance of the article for publication.

Open Access Articles

Articles are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode), which permits unrestricted distribution and reproduction in any medium, as long as the work is properly credited/attributed. For more details, please visit Open Access Policy

Archiving policies

Self-Archiving

Following are the important features of the self-archiving policy of Bentham Science journals:

• Authors can deposit the first draft of a submitted article on their personal websites or their institution's repositories for personal use, internal institutional use, or for permitted scholarly posting only.
• Authors may deposit the ACCEPTED VERSION  of the peer-reviewed article on their personal websites, their institution's repository or the non-commercial repositories, PMC and arXiv, after 12 MONTHS  of publication on the journal website. For personal use, internal institutional use, or for permitted scholarly posting only.
• In case of (b) above, an acknowledgement must be given to the original source of publication and a link must be inserted to the published article on the journal's/publisher's website. The link to the original source of publication should be provided by inserting the DOI number of the article in the following sentence: "The published manuscript is available at EurekaSelect via https://www.eurekaselect.com/openurl/content.php?genre=article&doi=insert DOI
• If the research is funded by NIH, Wellcome Trust or any other Open Access Mandate, authors are allowed the archiving of published versions of manuscripts in the nominated institutional repositories, after the mandatory embargo period. Authors should first contact the Editorial Office of the journal for information about depositing a copy of the manuscript to a repository. Consistent with the copyright agreement, Bentham Science does not allow archiving of FINAL PUBLISHED VERSION of manuscripts unless under an Open Access mandate as above. Archiving, under any of the above mentioned Open Access mandates, is done under the terms of the Creative Commons License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 - Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International.
• There is no embargo on the archiving of articles published under the OPEN ACCESS PLUS category. Authors are allowed deposition of such articles on institutional, non-commercial repositories and personal websites immediately after publication on the journal website. This is done under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License CC-BY 4.0.In case of any form of archiving, an acknowledgement must be given to the original source of publication and a link must be inserted to the published article on the journal's/publisher's website. The link to the original source of publication should be provided by inserting the DOI number of the article in the following sentence: "The published manuscript is available at EurekaSelect via https://www.eurekaselect.com/openurl/content.php?genre=article&doi=insert DOI

Long-term archiving of Bentham science content

To ensure permanent access to our publications, Bentham Science has an agreement with Portico to have a long-term preservation of the content published in its journals.

Conflict of interest

Financial contributions and any potential conflict of interest must be clearly acknowledged under the heading ‘Conflict of Interest’. Authors must list the source(s) of funding for the study. This should be done for each author. For more details, please visit: Conflict Of Interest

Confidentiality

Bentham Science Publishers maintains the confidentiality of the submitted manuscript and its content. The editors are advised not to disclose any information on submitted manuscripts before their publication.

The peer review of a manuscript is a confidential process. Bentham follows a double-blind peer review process where the identities of both the reviewer and author are kept undisclosed to each other, ensuring anonymity and maintaining confidentiality throughout the entire review procedure.

Reviewers should keep the whole process completely confidential. They should consult the EIC/senior editor and take permission before consulting another colleague for help in the peer-review of the submitted manuscript.

Reviewers should not disclose any information whatsoever to anyone before the publication of the manuscript.

Plagiarism prevention

Plagiarism means copying or paraphrasing another writer's content, be it a text, a result or an observation, and stating it as one's own, without citing a reference to the original source. Therefore, authors should acknowledge and cite references to the work of other scientists in their manuscripts. The author should ensure that all the sources are authentic and that there is no discrepancy in the content of the manuscript.

Bentham Science is vigilant in checking and identifying the primary sources of the data within the content by using the iThenticate software to detect instances of overlapping and similarity of text in submitted manuscripts. iThenticate software verifies the content against a database of periodicals, materials on the Internet, and a comprehensive article database. The software generates a similarity report in percentage that matches the article in process and the published material. This similarity is further scrutinized for suspected plagiarism according to the publisher's Editorial Policies. The generated report comprises the overall percentage of the content reused.

The Credibility of Sources- Acknowledgements

The study of an author has to be original. If there are credible sources of the content referred to in the manuscript, the author needs to cite all of them. Authors are advised to use iThenticate before submitting a manuscript to ensure that there are no instances of plagiarism. Authors are required to provide proper consent from the individuals and contributions of other authors should be acknowledged.

Bentham Science has different editorial policies for authors who have more than one publication. Following those policies, the authors need to specify the sources of the submission in their recent work. For further details, please visit the following link of Editorial Policies for Concurrent Publication/Simultaneous Submission at https://benthamscience.com/pages/editorial-policies-main

Bentham Science strictly follows COPE guidelines to detect plagiarism. For clearer insight, authors may refer to the flowcharts provided by COPE by clicking here or visiting the COPE website.

Fabricating and stating false information

To ensure the scholarly integrity of every article, Bentham Science will publish post-publication notices. The authors of the published articles, or those who have submitted the manuscripts with false information, or fabricated the supporting data or images, will be liable for sanctions, and their papers will be retracted. For further details, please visit complete guidelines at: https://benthamscience.com/fabricating-stating-false-information

Preprint policy

A preprint is an early version of an article that has not yet been accepted for publication in a journal.

Articles submitted to a journal which have not been published and will not be simultaneously submitted elsewhere for publication can be considered for publication. Preprints are usually deposited on the author's own web page in an institutional repository, or on a preprint server. However, they are not considered as ahead-of-print or early access publications.

Preprint archiving on any recognized, non-profit preprint server is entirely supported and encouraged by the BSP. Preprints deposited in designated preprint repositories at the same time as, or before, submission to a journal are not considered as prior, citable publications by the BSP Journals.

Human and animal rights

Research Involving Humans

All clinical investigations should be conducted according to the Declaration of Helsinki principles. For all manuscripts reporting data from studies involving human participants, formal review and approval by an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee are required.

Patient Consent

Compliance with the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (www.icmje.org) is recommended, in accordance with the patient’s consent for research or participation in a study as per the applicable laws and regulations regarding the privacy and/or security of personal information, including, but not limited to, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 ("HIPAA") and other U.S. federal and state laws relating to confidentiality and security of personally distinguishable evidence, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (EU) 2016/679 and member state implementing legislation, Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, India's Information Technology Act and related Privacy Rules, (together "Data Protection and Privacy Laws").

It is the responsibility of the author to ensure that:

• Patients' names, initials, or hospital numbers are not mentioned anywhere in the manuscript (including figures).
• Authors are responsible for obtaining the patient consent-to-disclose forms for all recognizable patients in photographs, videos, or other information that may be published in the Journal, in derivative works, or on the journal’s website and for providing the manuscript to the recognizable patient for review before submission.
• The consent-to-disclose form should indicate specific use (publication in the medical literature in print and online, with the understanding that patients and the public will have access) of the patient's information and any images in figures or videos, and must contain the patient's signature or that of a legal guardian along with a statement that the patient or legal guardian has been offered the opportunity to review the identifying materials and the accompanying manuscript.
• If the manuscript has an individuals’ data, such as personal details, audio-video material, etc., consent should be obtained from that individual. In case of children, consent should be obtained from the parent or the legal guardian.
• A specific declaration of such approval and consent-to-disclose form must be made in the copyright letter and in a stand-alone paragraph at the end of the article especially in the case of human studies where inclusion of a statement regarding obtaining the written informed consent from each subject or subject's guardian is a must. The original should be retained by the guarantor or the corresponding author. Editors may request to provide the original forms by fax or email.
• All such case reports require proper consent to be obtained from patients before publishing.

Editors may request that authors provide documentation of the formal review and recommendation from the institutional review board or ethics committee responsible for oversight of the study. The editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned requirements. The author will be held responsible for false statements or failure to fulfill the above-mentioned requirements.

Non-Identifiable Images

Anonymous images, that do not identify the individual directly or indirectly, such as through any identifying marks or text, do not require formal consent, for example, X-rays, ultrasound images, pathology slides or laparoscopic images.

In case consent is not obtained, concealing the identity through eye bars or blurring the face would not be acceptable.

Research Involving Animals

For research involving animals, the authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the standards set forth in the eighth edition of “Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals” (grants.nih.gov/grants/olaw/guide-for-the-care-and-use-of-laboratory-animals_prepub.pdf published by the National Academy of Sciences, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.).

Research work on animals should be carried out in accordance with the NC3Rs ARRIVE Guidelines. For In Vivo Experiments, please visit https://www.nc3rs.org.uk/arrive-guidelines

Authors should clearly state the name of the approval committee, highlighting that legal and ethical approvals were obtained prior to initiation of the research work carried out on animals, and that the experiments were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations stated below.

• US authors should cite compliance with the US National Research Council's " Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals"
• The US Public Health Service's "Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals" and "Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals"
• UK authors should conform to UK legislation under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 Amendment Regulations (SI 2012/3039).
• European authors outside the UK should conform to Directive 2010/63/EU.
• Research on animals should adhere to ethical guidelines of the International Council for Laboratory Animal Science (ICLAS) ethical guidelines.
• The manuscript should clearly include a declaration of compliance with the relevant guidelines (e.g. the revised Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 in the UK and Directive 2010/63/EU in Europe) and/or relevant permissions or licenses obtained by the IUCN Policy Statement on Research Involving Species at Risk of Extinction and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Animal Ethics Guidelines for Studies Involving Animal Subjects

Ethics Approval Exemption:

If a study is exempted from ethics approval, authors must indicate the reasons for exemption in the ethical statement.

Following is an example of Ethical Statements:

"This study involving animal subjects is exempted from ethics approval for [specific reasons]. The exemption was evaluated and authorized by [Full name of ethics committee], ensuring adherence to ethical standards”.

Client-Owned Animals:

Client-owned animals (non-commercially available animals such as pets or livestock) should be studied exercising best practices in veterinary care. Authors must confirm that the owner(s) (or their legal representatives) have provided written consent for this purpose.

Following is an example of Ethical Statements:

"The animal study was evaluated and authorized by [Full name of the ethics committee]. The owners provided written informed consent for their animals' involvement in this study, ensuring ethical treatment and compliance with standards."

International Standards and 3Rs Principle:

Studies involving animals must comply with internationally accepted standards and adhere to the 3Rs principles (Replace, Reduce, Refine).

• Replace: Whenever possible, replace animals with alternatives.
• Reduce: Reducing the number of animals used and
• Refine: Refining experimental settings can reduce animal damage.

Authors are encouraged to follow the ARRIVE guidelines (Reporting in Vivo Experiments) for reporting experiments involving live animals.

An example of Ethical Statements:

"This study adheres to internationally accepted standards for animal research, following the 3Rs principle. The ARRIVE guidelines were employed for reporting experiments involving live animals, promoting ethical research practices."

Euthanasia Protocols:

Studies on euthanasia, including chloral hydrate, ether, and chloroform overdose, are severely discouraged. Authors should include an in-depth description of any anesthetic, surgical, or euthanasia procedures conducted throughout the study.

If the experimental details explained in the study violate the standard animal research procedure, editors may seek extra documentation, such as approval forms and relevant literature citations.

Research involving plants

All experimental research on plants (either cultivated or wild), should comply with international guidelines. The manuscript should include a declaration of compliance of field studies with relevant guidelines and/or relevant permissions or licenses obtained by the IUCN Policy Statement on Research Involving Species at Risk of Extinction and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Hazard study

Any unusual risks associated with the use of any chemicals, procedures, or equipment used in the work must be explicitly stated by the author in the manuscript, preferably in both the materials and methods section and the declaration section. For more information, visit The World Medical Association (https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/public-health/chemicals)

Sex and gender equity in research (sager) guidelines

We strive to promote gender and sex equity in research and adhere to the guidelines of Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) to ensure inclusivity and rigor of the work. All authors submitting research papers are required to follow the Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) guidelines. These guidelines are intended to encourage the inclusion of sex and gender considerations in research in order to improve the rigor and relevance of our publications.

The SAGER guidelines for reporting sex and gender information in methodology or study design, data analysis, results, and interpretation of findings are strongly encouraged. Authors of review articles are advised to address the methods used for selecting, locating, extracting, and synthesizing data; systematic reviews are required to do so.

Research conducted in special or critical situations

Bentham Science expects all contributors to respect values of justice, benevolence, and autonomy when conducting research. We understand that certain situations such as medical emergencies or humanitarian crises may differ from non-emergency scenarios. Bentham Science recommends that research efforts should not hurt human subjects/respondents or the researchers, and should be conducted with sufficient scientific rigor as permissible in these situations, respectively. Care should be taken to address potential problems faced by persons who may be victims of disasters or involved in a medical emergency. These are vulnerable individuals and their privacy and dignity should be respected. Researchers should make note of this in their research and identify potential issues in their work that may arise because of such situations. Research directed in emergency circumstances should be to the greatest advantage of survivors involved in the research and with the goal of minimizing any future casualties. For guidance, the essential requirements of research in emergency situation are the preservation of human life, wellbeing and security, along with the rights to protection, privacy and confidentiality of subjects.

Unethical behavior

Unethical behavior and misconduct may be pointed out by anyone to the Editor and Publisher with sufficient evidences. The Editor, in consultation with the Publisher, will initiate investigation against this Unethical misconduct, complete the procedure till an unbiased decision is reached, and maintain confidentiality throughout the process of the investigation. The Author should be given the opportunity to reply to all minor or major accusations.

In case of serious breaches, the employer may be informed where appropriate, by the Editor/Publisher, after reviewing all available information and evidences or after seeking help from experts in that field.

Conclusion

• Author(s) and Reviewers must be informed in case of misinterpretation or mishandling of International Acceptable Standards
• A strict notice should be sent to the author and reviewer to avoid future unethical misconduct
• An Editorial on the reported misconduct should be published or official notice of unethical behavior should be posted on the website
• Official letter about this misconduct should be issued to the Head of Departments, Funding Agencies of the accused author and the reviewer, as well as Abstracting & Indexing Agencies.
• Where required, retraction and withdrawal of publication may be undertaken from the Publisher’s journal in discussion with the Head of the Department of the author or reviewer, and other higher authorities should be informed
• The Publisher may impose restrictions for some period on future publications from the accused author in the journals

Consent for Publication

If the manuscript has an individuals’ data, such as personal detail, audio-video material etc., consent should be obtained from that individual. In case of children, consent should be obtained from the parent or the legal guardian.

A specific declaration of such approval and consent-to-disclose form must be made in the copyright letter and in a stand-alone paragraph at the end of the article especially in the case of human studies where inclusion of a statement regarding obtaining the written informed consent from each subject or subject's guardian is a must. The original should be retained by the guarantor or corresponding author. Editors may request to provide the original forms by fax or email.

All such case reports should be followed by a proper consent prior to publishing.

Proof corrections

Authors will receive page proofs of their accepted paper before publications. To avoid delays in publication, proofs should be checked immediately for typographical errors and returned within 48 hours. Major changes are not acceptable at the proof stage.

The corresponding author will be solely responsible for ensuring that the revised version of the manuscript incorporating all the submitted corrections receives the approval of all the co-authors of the manuscript.

Errata or a corrigenda and corrections in published articles

Authors and readers are encouraged to notify the Editor-in-Chief if they find errors in published content, authors’ names and affiliations or if they have reasons for concern over the legitimacy of a publication. In such cases the journal will publish an ERRATUM or a CORRIGENDUM, in consultation with Editor-in-Chief and authors of the article, and/or replace or retract the article.

Article withdrawal

Articles in Press (articles that have been accepted for publication or published as E-pub Ahead of Schedule but which have not been formally published with volume/issue/page information) that include errors, or are determined to violate the publishing ethics guidelines such as multiple submission, fake claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like, may be “Withdrawn” from the journal. Withdrawal means that the article files are removed and replaced with a PDF stating that the article has been withdrawn from the journal in accordance with BSP Editorial Policies.

Article retraction

If any manuscripts are published, having certain assigned information of volume/issue/page number, and it is found that there are infringements of professional ethical codes in their content, such as plagiarism, excess similarity with some other article, fraudulent use of data, etc., then such manuscripts are retracted.

• A retraction note entitled “Retraction: [article title]” (for example Retraction: ABC experiment involving XYZ species) is published in the paginated part of the next scheduled issue of the journal and is also listed in the table of contents.
• The retraction note is approved by the Editor-in-Chief of the concerned journal.
• A link to the original article is displayed in the online (electronic) version.
• A screen containing the note of retraction appears before the electronic version of the article present on the website. On the screen, a link for the complete article is present, i.e. to access the retracted article.
• The link/webpage of the original article remains unchanged, however a watermark is shaded on its downloadable PDF document, in order to explicitly give the message that the article was retracted.

Further details are available at: https://benthamscience.com/research-misconduct

Concurrent publication/simultaneous submission

It is a condition of publication that manuscripts submitted to the Bentham journal have not been published and will not be simultaneously submitted or published elsewhere. Plagiarism is strictly forbidden, and by submitting the article for publication the authors agree that the publishers have the legal right to take appropriate action against the authors, if plagiarism or fabricated information is discovered.

Abstracts and posters of conferences, results presented at meetings (for example, to inform investigators or participants about findings), results databases (data without interpretation, discussion, context or conclusions in the form of tables and text to describe data/information where this is not easily presented in tabular form) are not considered prior publication.

Authors who wish to publish translations of the articles that have been published elsewhere should ensure that they have appropriate permission(s), indicate clearly that the material has been translated and re-published, and indicate clearly the original source of the material. The Editor-in-Chief may request copies of related publications if he/she is concerned about overlap and possible redundancy.

Appeals and complaints

Generally, the editorial decisions are not reverted. However, authors who think that their manuscript was rejected due to a misunderstanding or mistake may seek an explanation for the decision. Appeals must give sound reasoning and compelling evidence against the criticism raised in the rejection letter. A difference of opinion as to the interest, novelty, or suitability of the manuscript for the journal will not be considered as an appeal. The EIC and other relevant editors will consider the appeal and the decision thereafter taken by the journal will be deemed final. Acceptance of the manuscript is not guaranteed even if the journal agrees to reconsider the manuscript, and the reconsideration process may involve previous or new reviewers or editors and substantive revision.

Authors who wish to make a complaint should refer them to the Editor-in-Chief of the journal concerned. Complaints to the Publisher may be emailed to info@benthamscience.net

Handling post-publication matters

To maintain the integrity of scientific research, Bentham Science carries out investigations regarding the concerns raised by authors and/or readers. However, authors are always provided a chance to respond to all complaints/comments. We may require reviewers to go over the original data and consult with experts involved, in order to solve and conclude the investigation.

Post Publication Discussions may be published online after review and are usually accompanied by a response from the original authors. For more details, please visit: Post-Publication Discussions and Corrections.

Disclaimer

Responsibility for the content published by Bentham Science Publishers in any of its journals, including any opinions expressed therein, rests exclusively with the author(s) of such content. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, BSP (on its own behalf, and on behalf of its staff and members of its editorial board) disclaims responsibility for any and all injury and/or damage (whether financial or otherwise) to persons or property, resulting directly or indirectly from any ideas, methods, instructions or products (including errors in the same) referred to in the content of any of BSP’s journals. Any dispute arising, including any claim shall be governed exclusively by the laws of the United Arab Emirates, as applied in the Emirate of Sharjah.