As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

• The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
• The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, RTF, or WordPerfect document file format.
• Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
• The text is single-spaced; uses an 11-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
• The text adheres to the stylistic and references requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines, which are found in About the Journal.
• If submitting to a peer-reviewed section of the journal, the instructions in Ensuring a Blind Review have been followed.
• The manuscript includes an Author Contributions statement that clearly describes the contribution of each author.
• The manuscript includes a Conflict of Interest statement. If no conflict of interest exists, this should be explicitly stated.
• The manuscript includes an AI Use Disclosure statement, where applicable, in accordance with the journal's Generative AI Policies.
• The manuscript includes a Funding Statement identifying the source(s) of financial support for the research and/or publication. If no funding was received, this should be explicitly stated.
• The manuscript includes a Data Availability Statement indicating whether and how the data supporting the findings can be accessed. If data are not publicly available, the statement should provide the reason, where appropriate.