The manuscript submission and peer review process can be, at its basic level, broken down into the following 7 steps:

● The Author submits a manuscript.
● The Editor assigns Reviewers to the manuscript.
● The Reviewers review the manuscript.
● The Editor makes the first decision.
● The Author makes revisions and resubmits if necessary.
● The Editor makes a final decision.
● The Staff contacts the Author with the decision.

Once the manuscript has passed a quality control check, it is assigned to the strict single-blinded peer review process for a decision, either to accept, revise, or reject the article. Before manuscripts are sent for review, invited peer reviewers are confirmed regarding their availability, conflicts of interest with the manuscript, and their agreements to have their names and comments published afterward. A peer review report together with the reviewer's name, if permitted, will be posted at the end of the article. Most manuscripts will be evaluated by 3-5 external reviewers. The average time from the submission to the first editorial decision is 1 month. The review time could be shortened to 7 days for the paper with sophisticated review comments from other recognized journals in the field. According to these comments, the academic editors will make a decision to accept, reject, request a revision, or send to another peer review.

Manuscripts received from Editorial Board members will be screened by the Editor-in-Chief and sent to external peer reviewers. If the Editor-in-Chief is the author, then the article will be screened by Assistant Editors and sent to external peer reviewers. The Editorial Board Members who are authors will also be excluded from publication decisions.