1. Commitment to Research Integrity

The Editorial Board and the publisher are committed to maintaining the highest ethical standards. The publisher and editors shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers involving research misconduct, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification or fabrication, among other forms of misconduct. Under no circumstances shall the journal or its editors encourage such misconduct or knowingly allow it to take place.

2. Definition of Research Misconduct

Research misconduct includes actions that compromise the integrity of the research record. The principal forms of misconduct addressed by JET include:

• Plagiarism: The appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit.
• Data Falsification and Fabrication: Manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data (falsification); or making up data or results and recording them (fabrication).
• Citation Manipulation: Excessive self-citation, coercive citation (where editors or reviewers pressure authors to cite specific papers to inflate citation counts), or honorary citations that do not reflect genuine scholarly relevance.
• Image Manipulation: The inappropriate enhancement, obscuring, moving, removing, or introduction of specific features within a digital image or schematic.

3. Plagiarism Screening and Prevention Steps

JET applies a strict approach to plagiarism prevention and implements the following screening procedures:

• Initial Screening: All submitted manuscripts are screened using professional similarity-detection software, including Turnitin and Crossref Similarity Check powered by iThenticate, before entering the peer-review process. Authors are strongly encouraged to conduct their own similarity checks before submission.
• Similarity Thresholds: The overall similarity rate of a submitted manuscript should not exceed 30%. In addition, manuscripts must not contain excessive similarity to any single source. Similarity scores are assessed in context and do not, by themselves, establish whether plagiarism has occurred.
• Editorial Review and Rejection: The Editorial Board manually evaluates flagged similarity reports. Manuscripts containing clear plagiarism or significant text recycling without appropriate attribution may be rejected.
• Final Verification: The final camera-ready version undergoes a secondary similarity check to verify compliance before official publication.
• Data Review: If concerns or anomalies arise during the review process, editors reserve the right to request relevant raw experimental datasets, simulation source code, or hardware parameters from authors to help verify research integrity, subject to applicable confidentiality, intellectual property, and legal restrictions.

4. Handling Allegations of Misconduct

If the publisher or editors become aware of an allegation of research misconduct concerning a manuscript under review or a published article, JET will assess and address the allegation in accordance with applicable publication ethics principles and relevant COPE guidance.

5. Investigation Procedure

• Initial Assessment: The Editor-in-Chief conducts an initial assessment of the allegation, whether raised by a whistleblower, reader, reviewer, or another party, to evaluate its credibility and determine whether it falls within the scope of research misconduct.
• Investigation: If the allegation is considered credible, the journal initiates an appropriate and confidential investigation. The Editor-in-Chief may consult the Editorial Board or external experts as necessary. The author or authors concerned will be contacted and given a fair opportunity to respond and provide relevant explanations or evidence.

6. Resolution and Consequences

The journal determines appropriate action based on the findings of the investigation, the seriousness of the concern, and the available evidence. Possible outcomes include:

• No Misconduct Found: If the allegation is not substantiated, the case will be closed and the relevant author or authors informed.
• Minor Infractions: Where appropriate, honest errors or limited issues involving overlapping text may be addressed through a correction or other proportionate editorial action.
• Major Misconduct: Confirmed cases of serious plagiarism, data fabrication or falsification, or other severe ethical breaches may result in retraction of the published article. The retraction notice will explain the reason and be permanently linked to the original article. Where justified and appropriate, the journal may notify the author's institution and restrict future submissions for a specified period or permanently.

Any correction, retraction, or other post-publication action will be handled in accordance with JET's Corrections, Retractions, and Article Removal Policy.