Editorial note.

As our readers know, J-AIM is the most preferred and highly accessed Journal in the field of Ayurveda and integrative medicine. The Journal is indexed in PubMed, Scopus, Scimago and Scholar among many other reputed scientific databases. At many instances members of the editorial board also prefer to submit their articles. Such practice is common in other reputed specialty Journals. In fact, J-AIM encourages editorial board members to actively contribute. However, no special privileges are given to anyone. All scientific manuscripts including editorials are subjected to peer review. J-AIM follows a double blind peer review process where identity of authors and reviewers is not revealed to each other. The review generally involves two to six subject experts. The editorial team consisting of associate editors and assistant editors are involved in the entire article cycle starting from submission to final recommendation. The entire review process is carefully structured so as to minimize possibility of bias.

J-AIM functions on principles of scientific excellence, publication ethics and transparency. It makes mediatory that every article is submitted only through the online manuscript submission and review system managed by Medknow (Wolters Kluwer) as the publisher. J-AIM is member of the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and Indian Association of Medical Journal Editors. These professional bodies have given guidelines related to publication ethics and conflict of interests.

This note is regarding an article entitled ‘Determinants of Prakriti, the Human Constitution Types of Indian Traditional Medicine and its Correlation with Contemporary Science’ published in latest issue of J-AIM.[1] The decision to submit this article was taken by corresponding author. Satyamoorthy. Another coauthor Valiathan is on editorial advisory board, who has no competing interests. Bhushan Patwardhan, Editor-in-Chief of J-AIM is also one of the 30 coauthors. This article involves reputed scientists from 9 Indian Institutes and this study was supported by Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor and the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India under a national initiative known as ‘Science Initiatives in Ayurveda.’

The editorial team has followed COPE and WAME guidelines to avoid any potential bias and conflict of interest. None of the reviewers had any conflict or competing interest. The date-wise records of all editorial steps are available in the journal system.

The article bearing manuscript number 376_2013 was submitted on November 29, 2013. Any of the coauthors directly or indirectly associated with the editorial board were not involved in the editorial process. The editorial team made the review process even more stringent. The respective associate editor assigned seven eminent experts from India and abroad as reviewers. The review and revision process took 64 days. The decision of final acceptance was taken on January 27, 2014. The article was published online on September 9, 2014, almost after 9 months. The editorial team declares that there was no competing interest. This article followed routine peer review process and its publication is entirely based on merit.

We are publishing this note in the interest of transparency and publication ethics in accordance with advice given by COPE in a similar case.[2]