Editorial policy

The journal THERMAL SCIENCE is dedicated to publishing original scientific papers presenting new results of fundamental and applied research in different, but closely connected fields: fluid mechanics (mainly turbulent flows), heat transfer, mass transfer, combustion and chemical processes, in single, and specifically in multi-phase and multi-component flows (including flows of nanofluids), high-temperature and chemically reacting flows. The important characteristic of the journal is to present fundamental results of the investigations of different and mutually connected physical and chemical processes, applicable in solving complex engineering processes in real conditions, and their mutual influences, present in thermal engineering, energy generating or consuming equipment and systems, process and chemical engineering equipment and devices, ecological engineering. Along with the use of conventional energy sources, special attention is paid to the use of renewable energy sources (solar energy, biomass, geothermal energy, etc.), energy efficiency and environmental protection. In order to create a basis for an optimal selection of scientific topics and address the mutual influence of fundamental research, applied research and R&D and present and future energy needs of industry and society, papers dedicated to strategic considerations of the complementary use of different energy sources, conventional, alternative and renewable, and sustainable development are welcome. It is the aim of this journal to publish papers written by experts from different fields: mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, fluid dynamics, thermodynamics and related fields.

THERMAL SCIENCE also has an important role in informing international scientific community about the recent, and most prominent fundamental results achieved in developing countries, especially in South-East Europe, and particularly in Serbia. It also seeks to inform the scientists in South-East Europe about recent achievments in fundamental and applied science in developed countries, as they serve as the basis for rapid technology development.

To achieve and maintain high international standards of the published papers, reputed experts from different countries are involved in the journal’s International Advisory Board (45 experts from 25 countries, from Europe, America, Australia and Asia) and the Regional Editorial Board (12 members from South-East European countries: Bosnia&Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia and Turkey).

The journal THERMAL SCIENCE, published by the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, was founded in 1997 by the Yugoslav Society of Heat Transfer Engineers (now the Society of Thermal Engineers of Serbia).

The journal THERMAL SCIENCE publishes original papers that have not been published previously: scientific papers, review papers, short communications. The journal THERMAL SCIENCE has special sections: OPEN FORUM for fast information about new results as communications and short papers, and New Books, to inform about the most interesting books that have been published recently.

THERMAL SCIENCE is an Open Access journal.

Contributions to the Journal should be submitted in the English language, with an abstract also in English.

The Journal THERMAL SCIENCE is issued 6 times per year, and, from time to time, it publishes special issues (Supplements) dedicated to specific topics.

The journal THERMAL SCIENCE is indexed by Thompson Scientific (beginning with Vol. 11, 2007, No. 1. 2007) and abstracted in: Science Citation Index Expanded (also known as SciSearch®), Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition, Web of Science, EBSCO, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Scopus and DOISerbia.

Editorial responsibilities

The Editor-in-Chief, Subject Editors and the National Editorial Board are responsible for deciding which articles submitted to THERMAL SCIENCE will be published. The Editor-in-Chief, Subject Editors and the National 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 two weeks after receiving from authors manuscript revised following reviewers comments.

The Editor-in-Chief and Subject Editors must hold no conflict of interest with regard to the articles they consider for publication. If an Editor 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 Edittor-in-Chief.

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

Author's 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 THERMAL SCIENCE.

The Authors also warrant that the manuscript is not and will not be published elsewhere (after the publication in THERMAL SCIENCE) in any language without the consent of the Editorial Board.

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 Acknowledgements. A paper that has already been published in another journal cannot be reprinted in THERMAL SCIENCE.

It is the responsibility of each author to ensure that papers submitted to THERMAL SCIENCE 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. Book reviews and technical papers should be accurate and they should present an objective perspective.

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 be referred on the reference used, or to have 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.

Please note that all submissions are thoroughly checked for plagiarism.

Any paper which shows obvious signs of plagiarism will be automatically rejected and those authors will not be permitted to submit papers to THERMAL SCIENCE for three years.

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, and authors will will not be permitted to submit papers to THERMAL SCIENCE for three years.

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 THERMAL SCIENCE’s Editorial Policies.

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, Subject Editors and Editorial Board in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author it may also assist the author in improving the paper. Scientific papers, review papers, short communications are subjected to the review process, and book reviews are reviewed by the Subject Editor of the field, or the Editor-in-Chief.

Reviews are anonymous (single-blind procedure), and at leat two positive reviews should be obtained for a positive decision - acceptance of the paper after minor or major revision. In case MAJOR changes are demanded by reviewers, the revised version of the paper will be sent again to the reviewers for their FINAL OPINION. Reviewers are not paid for their reviews.

The choice of reviewers is at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief and Subject Editors. 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. Editors 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.

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 may assign additional reviewers.

During the review process Editors 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 reviews or the quality of the review, additional reviewers will be assigned.

Procedures for dealing with unethical behavior

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 Subject Editors 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 Subject, 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

Legal limitations of the publisher, copyright holder or author(s), infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or any major misconduct require retraction of an article. Occasionally a retraction can be used to correct errors in submission or publication. The main reason for withdrawal or retraction is to correct the mistake while preserving the integrity of science; it is not to punish the author.

Standards for dealing with retractions have been developed by a number of library and scholarly bodies, and this practice has been adopted for article retraction by Thermal Science: in the electronic version of the retraction note, a link is made to the original article. In the electronic version of the original article, a link is made to the retraction note where it is clearly stated that the article has been retracted. The original article is retained unchanged, save for a watermark on the PDF indicating on each page that it is “retracted.”

Open access policy

THERMAL SCIENCE is an Open Access Journal. All articles can be downloaded free of charge and used in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.

The journal THERMAL SCIENCE journal is funded by Article Processing Charges that are paid by the authors of each scientific paper after a positive decision of the Editor-in-Chief (i.e. the acceptance of a paper for publication). The book reviews and the non-scientific contributions are exempt from paying. The Article Processing charge is 180 Euros per paper. Bank fees and commissions are not included in the amount. Payment can be made only through the bank account of the Society for Thermal Engineer of Serbia. Upon receiving a positive decision on manuscript publishing, the author is going to receive a letter with payment instructions from the journal’s administrative office. The Editor-in-chief has exclusive right to waive Participation fee in special situations. Waiver requests may be submitted to the Editor-in-Chief (bakicv@vinca.rs).

Self-archiving Policy

The journal THERMAL SCIENCE allows authors to deposit Author's Post-print (accepted version) and Publisher's version/PDF in an institutional repository and non-commercial subject-based repositories, such as arXiv or similar) or to publish it on Author's personal website (including social networking sites, such as ResearchGate, Academia.edu, etc.) and/or departmental website, at any time after publication. 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.

Copyright

Authors retain copyright of the published article. The article is published under the - Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND) licence. 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. The third parties who wish to use the article in a way not covered by the the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND) licence must obtain a written consent of the publisher. This license allows others to download the paper and share it with others as long as they credit the journal, but they cannot change it in any way or use it commercially.

Disclaimer

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.