Chain, sponsored by the Nonferrous Metals Society of China and Beihang University and published by Youke Publishing Co., Ltd., has the responsibility to maintain the rigour of scientific research and protect the researchers' intellectual property rights. In order to comply with the Publishing Ethics Committee of journal publishing ethics rules, Chain Publication Ethics have been formulated as the guideline for the editing and publication of Chain.

The journal uses plagiarism detection software to screen the submissions. If plagiarism is identified, the COPE guidelines on plagiarism will be followed (see Redundant publications and 

plagiarism below).

(COPE guidelines website: https://publicationethics.org/guidance?f%5B0%5D=type%3A21)

Ethical guidelines for journal publication

Each peer-reviewed article published in Chain is an approval of the progress of scientific research in the field of comprehensive multi-dimensional transportation encompassing waterways, railways, roadways, aviation and space, and comprehensive transportation. It directly reflects the quality of the authors' work and the institutions that support them. Peer-review is designed to support and embody scientific methods.

Therefore, it is very important that all parties involved in the act of publication, including the author, journal editors, peer reviewers, publishers, and social organizations, should common to perform Publication Ethics as the moral behavior standards.

Chain recognizes Publication Ethics as our moral behavior, and takes our duties of guardianship over all stages of publishing extremely seriously.

1. Guidelines of the paper

1.1 The papers published in Chain should be the original scientific paper and the content should be relevant with the Chain's scope.

1.2 A paper should contain sufficient details, such as the research work and the experimental methods, data must be guaranteed to be true. If any references and open literature resources are quoted in the paper, they should be listed in detail for peer evaluation.

1.3 It should be avoided to split one research result into fragmented papers to submit.

1.4 Contention issues and the words in the paper should be clear and concise. Photographs and graphs in the paper should be of high quality. If the authors have used the work and/or words of others, they must be appropriately cited or quoted.

1.5 Please give clear indication of research funding sources in the paper, if the research work is supported by the funds.

1.6 After the publication of the paper, the copyright belongs to the authors.

2. Redundant publications and plagiarism 

Authors are to submit original research for publication; this requires that there will be no previous or concurrent publication of the same article and its findings. As such, an author may not submit his or her research to multiple journals at the same time, and instead should wait for the final decision on the paper before submitting the research to another journal. Where an author is found to have made simultaneous submissions, the paper will be rejected. The author's institution will be notified and the author will be barred from submitting papers to this journal. 

Authors may use works of their own that have been published previously, provided the previous article is properly cited, and differs in some way from the current study. 

Authors should gain the appropriate permission prior to publication where the research paper incorporates various figures, tables and images. 

All papers submitted to Chain will be screened for plagiarism by Crosscheck software iThenticate.  

Disclosing the use of artificial intelligence: If you or your co-authors have used Artificial Intelligence Generated Content (AIGC) tools such as ChatGPT and others based on large language models (LLMs) to develop any portion of a manuscript, their use must be described transparently and in detail in the Methods section.

3. Peer review and fair editing

This journal utilizes a single-blind peer review process in which the reviewers' names and information are withheld from the authors. All contributions will be initially assessed by the editor (including Editor-in-Chief (EiC), handling editors and assistant editors, similarly hereinafter) for suitability for the journal. Papers deemed suitable are then typically sent to at least two independent expert reviewers to assess their scientific quality. The EiC is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles. The EiC's decision is final. Editors are not involved in decisions about papers which they have written themselves or have been written by family members or colleagues or which relate to products or services in which the editor has a conflict of interest. Any such submission is subject to all the journal's usual procedures, with peer review handled independently of the relevant editors. (For detailed information, please refer to Instructions for Authors)

4. Paper correction and retraction policy 

4.1 Authors have an obligation to correct mistakes once they discover a significant error or inaccuracy in their published article or the errors found by the readers. The author(s) is/are requested to contact the Journal and explain in what sense the error is impacting the article. A decision on how to correct the literature will depend on the nature of the error. This may be a correction or retraction. The retraction note should provide transparency on which parts of the article are impacted by the error. 

4.2 Upon request, authors should be prepared to send relevant documentation or data in order to verify the validity of the results presented. This could be in the form of raw data, samples, records, etc. Sensitive information in the form of confidential or proprietary data is excluded. 

If there is suspicion of misbehavior or alleged fraud, the Journal and/or Publisher will carry out an investigation following COPE guidelines. If, after investigation, there are valid concerns, the author(s) concerned will be contacted under their given e-mail address and given an opportunity to address the issue. Depending on the situation, this may result in the Journal's and/or Publisher's implementation of the following measures, including, but not limited to: 

• If the manuscript is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to the author. 

• If the article has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the infraction: 

- a correction may be placed with the article, 

- an expression of concern may be placed with the article, 

- or in severe cases retraction of the article may occur. 

The reason will be given in the published correction, expression of concern or retraction note. Please note that retraction means that the article is maintained on the platform, watermarked "Retracted" and the explanation for the retraction is provided in a note linked to the watermarked article. 

• The author's institution may be informed. 

• A notice of suspected transgression of ethical standards in the peer review system may be included as part of the author's and article's bibliographic record.

5. Duties of authors

5.1 Authors should cherish the opportunity of publication on Chain and maintain the reputation of Chain.

5.2 Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and it is unacceptable. When submitting the manuscript, all authors should certify the manuscript is the original one and hasn't been published on or submitted to other journals.

5.3 Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant intellectual contribution to the theoretical development, system or experimental design, prototype development, execution, and/or the analysis and interpretation of data associated with the work contained in the article, and contributed to drafting the article or reviewing and/or revising it for intellectual content. The others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all authors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and have agreed to its submission for publication.

5.4 Please indicate one author as the corresponding author in the case of articles with multiple authors. The corresponding author has responsibility for communication with the editorial office, overseeing the publication process and ensuring the integrity of the final document.

5.5 Once the list and order of authors has been established, it should not be altered without permission of all living authors of that article. Due to a result of special circumstances, if it is necessary to change, the corresponding author should put forward a written application including the consent of all authors before the EiC makes a final decision on the paper. It can be modified after EiC approval. Please note that changes to authorship cannot be made after acceptance of a manuscript.

5.6 All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed. Examples of potential conflicts of interest which should be disclosed include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed at the earliest stage possible.

6. Duties of editors

6.1 For Chain, the EiC is ultimately accountable for acceptance or rejection of an article.

6.2 Articles submitted by the EiC or an associate editor or assistant editor shall be handled and reviewed by another EiC or handling editor of Chain.

6.3 Editors should treat all manuscripts fairly. An editor should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regarding to ethnic, religion, nationality, gender, age, or affiliation of the authors. However, editors may consider the relevance of the manuscript of the authors in its early or to other manuscripts contemporaneous period. The handling editors and assistant editors can recommend rejection to EiC if the manuscript is not accord with the requirements of Chain in the theme, breadth, depth, and English expression.

6.4 Editors should respect the independence of the author's ideas. For unpublished manuscripts, editors may not use their content without the consent of the author. The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about the submitted manuscript to anyone other than the reviewers, potential reviewers, EiC, and the publisher, as appropriate.

6.5 Editors should exercise their responsibilities based on the EiC or AE's suggestions that whether the paper needs to be modified or it can be published. No matter what the outcome of the review is, reviewers' comments and marked articles are normally returned to the author in any case.

6.6 It is essential that the editor assure that the anonymity of the reviewers is protected during the review process. Editors shall not disclose the contents of manuscripts under review. Everything within this review process must be done openly, but the reviewer anonymity policy can protect the review results from the interference of authors.

6.7 Editors should respect the opinions of EiC and AE. The editor must not arbitrarily refuse the reviewers' comments, unless the editor deems them clearly to be irrelevant, incorrect, or otherwise inappropriate. In particular, editors should not arbitrarily ignore reviewers' suggestions for modifications of the article without sufficient technical cause to do so.

6.8 If an article is returned for revision, it is important to make clear to the corresponding author whether, on the one hand the article will be accepted if the indicated changes are made or, on the other hand, the article will be resubmitted to the reviewers for further review.

6.9 Once the EiC confirms that the manuscript can be published, the editor should prepare for publication as soon as possible.

6.10 The submitted manuscript written by editor(s)/guest editor(s) him/herself should be handled by other editors or AE who has no conflict of interest.

6.11 If there is sufficient evidence to show that the published paper has mistake(s), Editors should take corrective action whenever possible and the corrected text can be provided by the mistake finder or the author of the manuscript.

7. Duties of reviewers

7.1 Manuscript review is an essential step in the process of publishing and peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication. So, Chain shares the view of many people that all scholars who wish to contribute to publications have an obligation to do a fair share of reviewing.

7.2 Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify and return the manuscript to the editor immediately. Or they should remind the editor of the possibility of delaying the review and give a possible return time.

7.3 Based on the standards of maintaining a high level of scientific and textual expression, referees should objectively evaluate the quality of the manuscript, the level of the experiments and the theory, the rationality of the interpretation and inference. Referees should respect the independence of the author's thought.

7.4 Selected referee shall not have a personal or business relationship with the authors or partner of the paper affecting the evaluation impartial.

7.5 Information contained in an article under review is confidential and shall not be shared with others, nor shall reviewers use non-public information contained in an article to advance their own research or financial interests.

7.6 Referee comments should be explained sufficiently with the basis of his (her) judgment in order to be understood by the editor and the author. The facts or opinions in the evaluation comments shall be attached to related literature to avoid lacking basis assertions.

7.7 Referees should identify whether the important relevant published works have been cited or not by the authors. It is absolutely forbidden guiding the authors to cite the reviewer's own paper. The authors should be reminded of the substantive similarities between the author's manuscript content and published papers or manuscripts submitted to other journals.

7.8 Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate.

8. Punitive measures

8.1 Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. And that is highly likely to have serious moral and legal consequences.

8.2 After screened, if the paper is found there are more than 30% (excluding the reference section) similar to the previous published journal articles or more than 50% similar to the authors' own papers published in conference proceedings, the paper will be regarded as plagiarism and will be rejected.

8.3 In case an author has submitted the paper under consideration to another journal, the paper will be rejected. Chain will inform the institute of the author and other journals within the field of computer and electronic engineering, and will reject to publish all the papers submitted by this author permanently.

9. After acceptance

9.1 Article publishing agreement: All articles in Chain shall be published on an open access mode, the authors will be asked to sign an OA license agreement for the article, which will ensure the widest possible protection and dissemination of information under copyright laws.

9.2 Proof reading: The purpose of the proof is to check for typesetting errors and the completeness and accuracy of the text, tables, and figures. Authors will have a chance to double check symbols, formulas, and figure legends before final publication, for these may accidentally have been changed during typesetting. Substantial changes in content, e.g., new results, corrected values, title, and authorship, are not allowed without the approval of the EiC. After online publication, further changes can only be made in the form of an Erratum, which will be hyperlinked to the article.

9.3 Online first: The article will be published online after receipt of the corrected proofs. This is the official first publication citable with the DOI. After release of the printed version, the paper can also be cited by issue and electronic article number.

After final publication, substantial changes in content such as new results and corrected values are not allowed without the approval of the EiC. Erratum might be needed for further corrections.

10. Archive

The publisher is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of the published content in Chain.

11. Open access, article licensing, copyright, and APC

11.1 All articles in Chain shall be published on an Open Access mode.

11.2 The Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY) shall apply to all articles published in Chain.

11.3 Copyright in articles published in Chain shall remain vested in the authors or original copyright holders.

11.4 Authors are required to pay the Article Processing Charge (APC) after the manuscripts  accepted after 31st December 2026. Please note that Chain is a subsidized Open Access journal where Youke Publishing Co., Ltd. pays for the publishing costs incurred by the journal before 31st December 2026.