Science of Sintering is an open access journal. 

ISSN: 1820-7413 (online); 0350-820X (print)


Science of Sintering is a unique journal in the field of science and technology of sintering. 

Science of Sintering publishes papers on all aspects of theoretical and experimental studies, which can contribute to the better understanding of the behavior of powders and similar materials during consolidation processes. Emphasis is laid on those aspects of the science of materials that are concerned with the thermodynamics, kinetics and mechanism of sintering and related processes. In accordance with the significance of disperse materials for the sintering technology, papers dealing with the question of ultradisperse powders, tribochemical activation and catalysis are also published. 

Science of Sintering journal is published four times a year. 

Types of contribution: Original research papers, Review articles, Letters to Editor, Book reviews. 


Abstracting and Indexing 

    • SciSearch (Science Citation Index – Expanded, ISI Alerting Services, Materials Science Citation Index) 
    • Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA)
    • Chemical Abstract Service (CAS)
    • Referativnyi Zhurnal
    • INSPEC

 

EDITORIAL POLICY

EDITORIAL RESPONSIBILITIES

The Editor(s)-in-Chief is/are responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the Science of Sintering will be published. The Editor(s)-in-Chief appoint(s) Associate Editors and together they chose regional Editors and Editorial Board Secreteriate. The Editor(s)-in-Chief and the Editorial Board are guided by the Editorial Policy and constrained by legal requirements in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism.

The Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to decide not to publish submitted manuscripts in case it is found that they do not meet relevant standards concerning the content and formal aspects. The Editorial Staff will inform the authors whether the manuscript is accepted for publication within three weeks from the date of the manuscript submission.

Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board must hold no conflict of interest with regard to the articles they consider for publication. If the Editor-in-Chief feels that there is likely to be a perception of a conflict of interest in relation to their handling of a submission, the selection of reviewers and all decisions on the paper shall be made by the Editorial Board.

Editor-in-Chief shall evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content free from any racial, gender, sexual, religious, ethnic, or political bias.

The Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Staff must not use unpublished materials disclosed in submitted manuscripts without the express written consent of the authors. The information and ideas presented in submitted manuscripts shall be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.

The Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Staff shall take all reasonable measures to ensure that the reviewers remain anonymous to the authors before, during and after the evaluation process.

The Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editors are responsible for journal management and implementing the journal policies, including appointment and removal of Regional Editors and the members of the Editorial Secretariat.

AUTHORS’ RESPONSIBILITIES

Authors warrant that their manuscript is their original work, that it has not been published before and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Parallel submission of the same paper to another journal constitutes a misconduct and eliminates the manuscript from consideration by the Science of Sintering.

In case a submitted manuscript is a result of a research project, or its previous version has been presented at a conference in the form of an oral presentation (under the same or similar title), detailed information about the project, the conference, etc. shall be provided in the Acknowledgments. A paper that has already been published in another journal cannot be reprinted in the Science of Sintering.

It is the responsibility of each author to ensure that papers submitted to the Science of Sintering are written with ethical standards in mind. Authors affirm that the article contains no unfounded or unlawful statements and does not violate the rights of third parties. The Publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.

Reporting standards
A submitted manuscript should contain sufficient detail and references to permit reviewers and, subsequently, readers to verify the claims presented in it. The deliberate presentation of false claims is a violation of ethical standards.

Authors are exclusively responsible for the contents of their submissions and must make sure that they have permission from all involved parties to make the data public.

Authors wishing to include figures, tables or other materials that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright holder(s). Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.

Authorship
Authors must make sure that all only contributors who have significantly contributed to the submission are listed as authors and, conversely, that all contributors who have significantly contributed to the submission are listed as authors. If persons other than authors were involved in important aspects of the research project and the preparation of the manuscript, their contribution should be acknowledged in a footnote or the Acknowledgments section.

Acknowledgment of Sources
Authors are required to properly cite sources that have significantly influenced their research and their manuscript. Information received in a private conversation or correspondence with third parties, in reviewing project applications, manuscripts and similar materials, must not be used without the express written consent of the information source.

Plagiarism
Plagiarism, where someone assumes another's ideas, words, or other creative expression as one's own, is a clear violation of scientific ethics. Plagiarism may also involve a violation of copyright law, punishable by legal action.

Plagiarism includes the following:

  • Word for word, or almost word for word copying, or purposely paraphrasing portions of another author's work without clearly indicating the source or marking the copied fragment (for example, using quotation marks);
  • Copying equations, figures or tables from someone else's paper without properly citing the source and/or without permission from the original author or the copyright holder.


Any paper which shows obvious signs of plagiarism will be automatically rejected.

In case plagiarism is discovered in a paper that has already been published by the journal, it will be retracted in accordance with the procedure described below under Retraction policy.

Conflict of interest
Authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might have influenced the presented results or their interpretation.

Fundamental errors in published works
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal Editor or publisher and cooperate with the Editor to retract or correct the paper.

By submitting a manuscript the authors agree to abide by the Editorial Policy of the Science of Sintering.

REVIEWERS’ RESPONSIBILITIES

Reviewers are required to provide written, competent and unbiased feedback in a timely manner on the scholarly merits and the scientific value of the manuscript.

The reviewers assess manuscript for the compliance with the profile of the journal, the relevance of the investigated topic and applied methods, the originality and scientific relevance of information presented in the manuscript, the presentation style and scholarly apparatus.

Reviewers should alert the Editor to any well-founded suspicions or the knowledge of possible violations of ethical standards by the authors. Reviewers should recognize relevant published works that have not been cited by the authors and alert the Editor to substantial similarities between a reviewed manuscript and any manuscript published or under consideration for publication elsewhere, in the event they are aware of such. Reviewers should also alert the Editor to a parallel submission of the same paper to another journal, in the event they are aware of such.

Reviewers must not have conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors and/or the funding sources for the research. If such conflicts exist, the reviewers must report them to the Editor without delay.

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 the Editor without delay.

Reviews must be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. reviewers must not use unpublished materials disclosed in submitted manuscripts without the express written consent of the authors. The information and ideas presented in submitted manuscripts shall be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.

PEER REVIEW

The submitted manuscripts are subject to a peer review process. The purpose of peer review is to assists the Editor-in-Chief in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author it may also assist the author in improving the paper. The journal applies singe-blind peer review: the authors are revealed to the reviewers, but the reviewers remain anonymous to the authors. Each manuscript is normally reviewed by at least two reviewers.

Normally, the review process should not take longer than three weeks.

The choice of reviewers is at the Editors-in-Chief's discretion. The reviewers must be knowledgeable about the subject area of the manuscript; they must not be from the authors' own institution and they should not have recent joint publications with any of the authors.

All of the reviewers of a paper act independently and they are not aware of each other’s identities. If the decisions of the two reviewers are not the same (accept/reject), the Editor-in-Chief shall make the final decision. During the review process Editor may require authors to provide additional information (including raw data) if they are necessary for the evaluation of the scholarly merit of the manuscript. These materials shall be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.

The Editorial team shall ensure reasonable quality control for the reviews. With respect to reviewers whose reviews are convincingly questioned by authors, special attention will be paid to ensure that the reviews are objective and high in academic standard. When there is any doubt with regard to the objectivity of the reviewers or quality of the review, additional reviewers will be assigned.

PROCEDURES FOR DEALING WITH UNETHICAL BEHAVIOUR
Anyone may inform the editors and/or Editorial Staff at any time of suspected unethical behaviour or any type of misconduct by giving the necessary information/evidence to start an investigation.

Investigation

  • Editor-in-Chief will consult with the Editorial Board on decisions regarding the initiation of an investigation.
  • During an investigation, any evidence should be treated as strictly confidential and only made available to those strictly involved in investigating.
  • The accused will always be given the chance to respond to any charges made against them.
  • If it is judged at the end of the investigation that misconduct has occurred, then it will be classified as either minor or serious.


Minor misconduct
Minor misconduct will be dealt directly with those involved without involving any other parties, e.g.:

  • Communicating to authors/reviewers whenever a minor issue involving misunderstanding or misapplication of academic standards has occurred.
  • A warning letter to an author or reviewer regarding fairly minor misconduct.


Major misconduct
The Editor-in-Chief, in consultation with the Editorial Board, and, when appropriate, further consultation with a small group of experts should make any decision regarding the course of action to be taken using the evidence available. The possible outcomes are as follows (these can be used separately or jointly):

  • Publication of a formal announcement or editorial describing the misconduct.
  • Informing the author's (or reviewer's) head of department or employer of any misconduct by means of a formal letter.
  • The formal, announced retraction of publications from the journal in accordance with the Retraction Policy (see below).
  • A ban on submissions from an individual for a defined period.
  • Referring a case to a professional organization or legal authority for further investigation and action.

When dealing with unethical behaviour, the Editorial Staff will rely on the guidelines and recommendations provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).


RETRACTION POLICY

It is a general principle of scholarly communication that the editor is solely and independently responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the journal shall be published. In making this decision the editor is guided by policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. An outcome of this principle is the importance of the scholarly archive as a permanent, historic record of the transactions of scholarship. Articles that have been published shall remain extant, exact and unaltered as far as it is possible. However, very occasionally circumstances may arise where an article is published that must later be retracted or even removed. Such actions must not be undertaken lightly and can only occur under exceptional circumstances, such as:

  • Article Withdrawal: Only used for Articles in Press which represent early versions of articles and sometimes contain errors, or may have been accidentally submitted twice. Occasionally, but less frequently, the articles may represent infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like.
  • Article Retraction: Legal limitations upon the publisher, copyright holder or author(s), infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like. Occasionally a retraction will be used to correct errors in submission or publication.

Article Withdrawal
Articles in Press (articles that have been accepted for publication but which have not been formally published and will not yet have the complete volume/issue/page information) that include errors, or are discovered to be accidental duplicates of other published article(s), or are determined to violate our journal publishing ethics guidelines in the view of the editors, may be “Withdrawn” from Science of Sintering. Withdrawn means that the article content (HTML and PDF) is removed and replaced with a HTML page and PDF simply stating that the article has been withdrawn according to the Science of Sintering Policy on Article in Press Withdrawal with a link
to the current policy document.

Article Retraction
The retraction of an article by its authors or the editor under the advice of members of the scholarly community has long been an occasional feature of the learned world. Standards for dealing with retractions have been developed by a number of library and scholarly bodies, and this best practice is adopted for article retraction by Science of Sintering:

  • In the electronic version, a link is made to the original article.
  • In the electronic version of the original article a link is made to the retraction note and it is clearly stated that the article is retracted.
  • The original article is retained unchanged save for a watermark on the.pdf indicating on each page that it is “retracted.”

In an extremely limited number of cases, it may be necessary to remove an article from the online database. This will only occur where the article is clearly defamatory, or infringes others’ legal rights, or where the article is, or we have good reason to expect it will be, the subject of a court order, or where the article, if acted upon, might pose a serious health risk. In these circumstances, while the metadata (Title and Authors) will be retained, the text will be replaced with a note indicating the article has been removed for legal reasons.

OPEN ACCESS POLICY

Science of Sintering is an Open Access Journal. All articles can be downloaded free of charge and used in accordance with the Creative Commons — Attribution 4.0 International license.

The journal does not charge any fees at submission, reviewing, and production stages.

Self-archiving Policy

Science of Sintering endorses self-archiving of the final published version (Publisher's version/PDF) of the article, not just peer-reviewed final drafts. Author's Pre-print, Author's Post-print (accepted version) and Publisher's version/PDF may be used on author's personal website (including social networking sites, such as ResearchGate, Academia.edu, etc.) and departmental website, or deposited in an institutional repository and subject-based repositories, such as PubMed Central, Europe PMC or arXiv, any time after publication. Publisher copyright and source must be acknowledged for deposit of Author's Post-print (accepted version) or Publisher's version/PDF and a link must be made to article's DOI.

Copyright

Authors retain copyright of the published article and have the right to use the article in the ways permitted to third parties under the Creative Commons — Attribution 4.0 International license. Full bibliographic information (authors, article title, journal title, volume, issue, pages) about the original publication must be provided and a link must be made to the article's DOI. Science of Sintering is published by association for ETRAN Society

This license allows to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, remix, transform, and build upon it for any purpose, even commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given to the original author(s), a link to the license is provided and it is indicated if changes were made.

DISLAIMER

The views expressed in the published works do not express the views of the Editors and Editorial Staff. The authors take legal and moral responsibility for the ideas expressed in the articles. Publisher shall have no liability in the event of issuance of any claims for damages. The Publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.