Focus and Scope

The topics of interest for submission include, but are not limited to:

1.Artificial Intelligence

• Basic Theory and Application of Artificial Intelligence
• Artificial Intelligence Tools & Applications
• Artificial Neural Networks
• Neural Network and Deep Learning
• Machine Learning
• Big Data Analysis and Processing
• Reasoning and Evolution
• Cognitive Science
• Knowledge Science and Knowledge Engineering
• Knowledge Representation; Knowledge-Based Systems
• Natural Language Processing and Understanding
• Natural Computing  & Evolutionary Calculation

2.Robotics Science and Engineering

• Modeling and Identification
• Robot Control
• Mobile Robotics
• Tele-Robotics
• Machine Perception and Virtual Reality
• Robot Sensing and Data Fusion
• Localization, Navigation and Mapping
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Multiagent Systems
• Swarm Intelligence

3.Other Related Topics

• Computer Vision and Image Processing
• Feature Extraction, Grouping and Segmentation
• Intelligent Control
• Pattern Recognition Theory and Application
• Intelligent System Architectures; Intelligent Web
• Information Retrieval and Web Search
• Intelligent Transportation
• Intelligent Planning and Scheduling
• Biometric Identification
• Bioinformatics and Artificial Life
• Non-classical Computing and Novel Computing Models
• Pervasive Computing and Ambient Intelligence
• Rough Set and Soft Computing

Section Policies

Editorial

Editorial reflects the opinion of an Editorial Board member or staff for a particular Journal highlighting recent changes, concerned issues or announcements in relevance to the journal. This may include editorial management and policies.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Review Article

Reviews Article is summarized descriptions of recent findings and significant developments at a particular subject area of research considering the journal's scope. They should include critical assessments of novel technologies, evaluation of subject advancement, elucidate unresolved questions, comparative analysis with a substantial coverage of previous works and highlight future prospects. Although there are no restrictions with the length and content of a review, authors should consider drawing readers' attention and interest with quality information.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Researcher in Spotlight

Researcher in Spotlight is written by the Editorial Office of JAI for introducing researchers who have published valuable articles in this journal.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Communication

Communications are short articles that present groundbreaking preliminary results or significant findings that are part of a larger study over multiple years. They can also include cutting-edge methods or experiments, and the development of new technology or materials. The structure is similar to an article and there is a suggested minimum word count of 2000 words.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Original Research Article

Original Research Article should contain completely new principal research testifying major contributions to the field. The study should represent new findings or discoveries in a subject area that were not published before. The report may contain significant findings, methodology importance and considerable evidence to the conclusions.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Peer Review Process

The journal operates a double-blind peer-review process, meaning that both author and reviewer identities are concealed in the reviewing. Each article is assigned to at least two independent reviewers, followed by a final decision by the Editor-in-Chief, or another academic editor approved by the Editor-in-Chief. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for the academic quality of the publication process, including acceptance decisions, approval of Guest Editors and special issue topics, and new Editorial Board members.

Pre-check

Immediately after submission, this check is initially carried out by the managing editor:

• To assess suitability of the manuscript to the journal/section/special issue;
• To assess qualification and background of authors;
• To reject obviously poor manuscripts;
• To check the plagiarism using the industry standard iThenticate software.

The Academic Editor, i.e., the Editor-in-Chief in the case of regular submissions, or the Guest Editor in the case of Special Issue submissions, or an Editorial Board Member in case of a conflict of interest, will be notified of the submission and invited to check and recommend reviewers.

Peer-review

At least two independent review reports are collected for each submitted article. Candidate reviewers can be recommended by the academic editor during pre-check. Alternatively, Frontier Scientific Publishing editorial staff will use qualified Editorial Board Members, qualified reviewers identified by web searches for related articles. Editor-in-Chief is responsibility for overseeing the entire peer review process and the academic quality of the journal.

The following checks are applied to all reviewers:

• That they hold no conflicts of interest with the authors, including if they have published together in the last five years;
• That they hold a PhD (exceptions are made in some fields, e.g. medicine);
• They must have recent publications in the field of the submitted paper;
• They have not recently been invited to review a manuscript for any Frontier Scientific Publishing

To assist academic editors, Frontier Scientific Publishing staff handle all communication with reviewers, authors, and the external editor; however, Academic Editors can check the status of manuscripts and the identity of reviewers at any time. Reviewers are given two weeks to write their review. For the review of a revised manuscript, reviewers are asked to provide their report within three days. In both cases, extensions can be granted on request.

A paper can only be accepted for publication by an academic editor. Employed Frontier Scientific Publishing staff can only reject papers: it would create a clear conflict of interest if they were permitted to accept a paper as their salary is paid for by the APC of accepted articles.

Editor Decision

Acceptance decisions on manuscripts, after peer review, are made by an academic editor, either the Editor-in-Chief, a Guest Editor, or another suitable Editorial Board member. When making an editorial decision, we expect that the academic editor checks the following:

• The suitability of selected reviewers;
• Adequacy of reviewer comments and author response;
• Overall scientific quality of the paper.

The editor can select from: accept, minor revision required, major revisions required, resubmit for review decline.

Reviewers make recommendations, and Editors-in-Chief are free to disagree with their views. If they do so, they should justify their decision, for the benefit of the authors.

Editorial independence is extremely important and Frontier Scientific Publishing does not interfere with editorial decisions. In particular, no paper is published without the agreement of an academic editor and Frontier Scientific Publishing staff do not advise academic editors about accepting or rejecting articles.

Revision

In cases where only minor revisions are recommended, the author is usually requested to revise the paper before referring to the external editor. Articles may or may not be sent to reviewers after author revision, dependent on whether the reviewer requested to see the revised version and the wishes of the Academic editor. Apart from in exceptional circumstances, we allow a maximum of two rounds of major revision per manuscript.

Production

Frontier Scientific Publishing carries out production on all manuscripts, including language editing, copy editing and conversion to PDF. Language editing is carried out by professional English editing staff. In the small number of cases where extensive editing or formatting is required, we charge authors an additional fee (with authors’ prior approval). The authors are also free to use other English editing service, or consult a native English-speaking colleague—the latter being our preferred option.

Publication Frequency

quarterly

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Manuscripts are published under the (CC BY-NC 4.0) publishing license, which allows the manuscript to be freely shared or used for non-commercial purposes, as long as attribution is given. Authors are welcome to post the published manuscript on personal websites, institutional repositories, and any other database.

Editorial Policies

Authors should read the “Author Guidelines” before making a submission, and make sure that the manuscripts were written in accordance to the style and specifications of the journal’s policy.

All manuscripts submitted to Journal of Autonomous Intelligence are subject to rigorous peer review. Prior to the peer review process, the manuscripts will be screened for acceptable English language, novelty and relevance to the Focus and Scope of the journal.

Any manuscripts submitted to Journal of Autonomous Intelligence will be treated as confidential materials. The manuscripts will not be disclosed to anyone except individuals such as editorial staff, reviewers and editors who participate in the initial screening, review, processing and preparation of the manuscript for publication (if accepted).

A manuscript would not be considered if it has been published or is currently under consideration for publication in any other journals. In the cover letter, authors must state that neither the manuscript nor any significant part of it is under consideration for publication elsewhere or has appeared elsewhere in a manner that could be construed as a prior or duplication of the same work. The authors are required to notify the editorial team if the findings and data in their submissions have been presented in conferences.

Publishing Ethics

Frontier Scientific Publishing (FSP) follows the following practices, guidelines and standards for its journals:

ICMJE: Medically related FSP journals follow the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. The guidelines comprehensively cover all aspects of editing, from how the journal is managed to details about peer review and handling complaints. The majority of the recommendations are not specific to medical journals and are followed by all Frontier Scientific Publishing journals.

The Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing developed by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) and World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).

TOP covers transparency and openness in the reporting of research. Our journals aim to be at level 1 or 2 for all aspects of TOP. Specific requirements vary between journals and can be requested from the editorial office.

PRISMA covers systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Authors are recommended to complete the checklist and flow diagram and include it with their submission.

ARRIVE contains guidelines for reporting in vivo experiments. Authors are recommended to verify their work against the checklist and include it with their submission.

Compliance with the standards and guidelines above will be taken into account during the final decision and any discrepancies should be clearly explained by the authors. We recommend that authors highlight relevant guidelines in their cover letter.

COPE has defined measures against data fabrication, duplicate publication, plagiarism and retraction, etc. All complaints submitted by the authors to the journal will be addressed promptly according to the procedure set out in the COPE complaints and appeals. The complainant may direct all inquiries and correspondence to the publisher at emily.lee@front-sci.net.

Publication Frequency

The publication frequency of Journal of Autonomous Intelligence is bimonthly.

Ethical Oversight

JAI strictly follow the Ethical Oversight policy of COPE, and supervise and encourage the implementation of best academic practice. We will make every effort to find out and put an end to unethical behaviors such as plagiarism, multiple submissions, data fraud, etc., and ensure the fairness and credibility of scientific research. 

Authors should submit the Informed Consent Statement if the research involving people while the submitting section, e.g. “The Informed Consent has been obtained from all the subjects involved in this study”. Human subjects have a right of privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. Any research involving people without the Informed Consent Statement, JAI will reserve the right to reject the manuscript. If subjects are the vulnerable populations, please obtain the oral or written Informed Consent from their parent or guardian. Necessary efforts should be made by the authors to conceal any identifying information of the subjects.

For studies that involve testing on animals, it is the best that authors should identify the committee or organization (e.g. author’s Institutional Ethics Review Board) during the submitting section of the manuscript, and it should detail ethics approval information such as the name of the granting committee or organization and the approval identifiers, i.e. reference numbers. If without any ethics approval information, please explain the reason to the editor.

Publisher will ensure that the research published is only for academic exchange in the journal. The collected information is privacy, and only for the used exclusively for the stated purpose of the journal. It will not be available for any other purpose such as any marketing practices.

Special Issue Policy

A Special issue is a collection of papers collected by experts in a certain field as Guest Editors, and it is not a regular issue of the journal. The Guest Editors are responsible for the proposal of the Special Issue and its scope. Papers in a Special Issue are complied into a regular volume/issue.

Benefits of publishing a Special Issue

• Articles published in a Special Issue could have more citations than a regular issue since they study the same or similar interests, which could wider the impact of the special topic and maximize the community engagement.
• A special issue may promote the exchange of the experts and research results in the same filed more conveniently.
• Readership of the Special Issue may be enhanced through advertising efforts of Guest Editors and authors, which could further expand the impact of Guest Editors or the Special Issue.

2. Special Issue Proposal

Usually, the Editorial Office will invite the experts of the special scientific fields to be Guest Editors. Guest Editors will submit a topic proposal for the Special Issue. JAI also welcomes proposals from authors and readers on a topic within their field of subjects. Please find the Apply for special issue for a new proposal.

A Special Issue Proposal should include:

Title of Special Issue: Please summarize a title to reflect the subject of the Special Issue.

Guest editors: Please list all the Guest Editors’ information including name, affiliation, country, interests, email. Guest Editors make up a group to co-edit the Special Issue, among which there is a leader.

Summary: The guest editor needs to provide a summary of Special Issue including the introduction, main topics, type of submissions, and keywords. It briefly describes the aim and themes of the Special Issue.

Collecting plan: Guest Editors should provide a list of contributors.

3. Guideline of Special Issue

Special Issue Ethics:

JAI abides by the Code of Conduct of COPE and its Best Practice Guidelines. All Guest Editors and Assistant Editors need to protect the confidentiality of all submissions and reviewers. Guest Editors and reviewers must strictly abide by the policy of Conflict of Interest in the journal; if there is any potential conflict of interest, please take the initiative to inform the Editorial Office so as to evaluate whether it needs to change reviewers or editors. Authors should declare any potential conflict of interest to the publisher during the submitting section, and abide by the Ethical oversight of JAI . JAI firmly rejects all unethical behaviors and requires all submissions to comply with JAI’s Editorial Policies. Any Guest Editor or reviewer should not ask authors to include their own papers for more citations if they are not relevant.

Special Issue Workflow:

New submissions should be submitted through the journal system. Guest Editors will check the content relevance to the scope of this Special Issue. Then, Assistant Editors will verify the originality of the submission with iThenticate. For the fairness and rigor of academic achievements, any manuscript unsuitable for originality will be rejected.

Guest Editors have the responsibility to oversight all the peer-reviewed process. They will assign new submissions to at least two reviewers for peer review. Submissions from Guest Editors should not be reviewed by this Guest Editor or experts from his/her affiliation. All the recommend decisions will be collected to Guest Editors, and they will make the final decisions and notify the authors.

If there are no enough papers submitted, Guest Editors may take actions for more submissions such as extending the submission deadline. However, the times of extending deadline is best to be not more than twice.

All accepted manuscripts will move to production, and they will be both on the list of a regular issue and Special Issue.

Misconduct Policy

Duplicate Submission

Manuscripts submitted to FSP’s journals should:

1) not have been published before;

2) not concurrently be submitted elsewhere.

If part of a manuscript has been published or will be published elsewhere, the authors must let the editors know in a cover letter. If duplicate submission is detected during peer review, the manuscript may be rejected. If it is detected after publication, the manuscript may be retracted.

Plagiarism

FSP does not approve of plagiarism. Plagiarism detection software is used to verify the originality of submitted manuscripts. If a manuscript uses a text copied directly from another source, this text must be written in quotation marks and the original source must be cited. If any kind of plagiarism, including self-plagiarism, plagiarism of others' results, falsification of data, fabrication of data, is detected during the review process, the manuscript may be rejected. If it is detected after publication, the manuscript may be retracted.

Data falsification/fabrication

Neither the Publisher’s policies nor the statements of its editors should encourage data fabrication and falsification. In support of reproducibility, FSP supports initiatives such as clinical trial registration and the use of standardized reporting guidelines to ensure that studies can be replicated. Institutions should be notified if there are suspicions of misconduct by their researchers and evidence should be provided to support these concerns. Institutions should inform the Journal the proven cases of misconduct that affect the reliability or attribution of work published by the Journal. The Journal will be prepared to publish retractions or corrections (in accordance with COPE retraction guidelines) upon receipt of investigated findings of misconduct.

Authorship

Authorship should be limited to people who have contributed substantially to the work. The corresponding author must have obtained permission from all the authors mentioned in the manuscript. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring adherence to all editorial and submission policies and for any communications and actions that may be necessary after publication. A maximum of two corresponding authors are allowed for the associated responsibilities. The corresponding author must include written permission from the authors of the work concerned for any mention of any unpublished material included in the manuscript, for example, data from manuscripts-in-press, personal communication, or work in preparation.

In order to be listed as an author for a paper, one should have contributed sufficiently in the project. A co-author is expected to have contributed to some component of the work which led to the paper, or be involved in interpretation of its results. All authors should have a say in the final approval of the version to be published, in addition to reviewing the final manuscript prior to submission.

Individuals who do not meet the above requirements, but have provided a valuable contribution to the work, may be acknowledged for their contribution as appropriate to the publication.

Changes to Authorship

Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript is accepted for publication. The corresponding author should provide the reasons for the change in authorship list and the proof of written confirmation from all authors (including the existing authors, author(s) to be added and/or removed) agreeing with such change, to the Editorial Office.

The requests for authorship changes need to be approved by the Editorial Office before any changes can be made.

Conflict of Interest

The authors must declare any conflict of interest with any financial body or funding agency or anything else that might influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All authors, members, reviewers and editors must disclose any association that poses a conflict of interest in connection with the manuscript. A declaration of interests for all authors must be received before an article can be reviewed and accepted for publication.

For authors:

While submitting, authors must list all competing interests relevant to this work, including but not limited to:

• Funding sources
• The role of sponsors in the work design, data collection, and results of the analysis.
• Whether the author is serving on the editorial board of this journal submitting to.

For editors and reviewers:

Editors and reviewers must declare any possible conflict of interests in connection with the manuscript, and if necessary, they must avoid the peer review process. When Editorial Board Members publish articles in the served journal, the editorial office will actively emphasize it so that the authors know that they recuse the potential peer review process.

Common reasons for editors and reviewers to be replaced include but are not limited to:

• The editor or reviewer works at the same organization as one of the authors.
• The editor or reviewer is one of the authors of this work.
• The editor or reviewer is on the avoidance list from the author(s).
• The editor or reviewer has a financial relationship or personal relationship with an author.

Correction & Withdrawal Policies

Correction

The Frontier Scientific Publishing values the integrity of academic activities and the completeness of academic achievement records, ensuring that academic papers are kept as recordable and unchanging as they are published. However, it is difficult to find out the individual non-normative phenomena in the manuscript or the inattention of the author, even if carefully reviewed by the editor. Therefore, correcting academic records is sometimes necessary. The decision to change the record is of great importance, and the publisher will take different measures based on the article's situation, roughly in the following forms:
1. Expression problem
2. Correction (error in the layout or error in the content)
3. Cancellation
4. Remove
All of the above measures are aimed at correcting the article and reminding the reader, but not punishing the author. 

The possible correction includes erratum or corrigendum.

Erratum

An erratum relates a correction of errors caused by the publisher. Ideally, all articles need to be checked for all possible errors by the authors during the final proofreading stage before they are finally published online, but minor errors are unavoidable. If the author/reader finds any errors online, please contact jai@front-sci.com.

Corrigendum

Corrections are errors that are caused by the author. Authors discovering such errors should contact the journal editor, who will assess the likely impact of the change and decide on the appropriate course of action, as appropriate. JAI will make corrections to published articles only after receiving approval and instructions from the editor.

Withdrawal
If you decide to withdraw your manuscript after it has been accepted (but not yet published), a processing fee of USD 200 is chargeable upon withdrawal.

If the measures taken (such as retraction) are not initiated by the author, or only the unilateral action of the author before the both sides reached an agreement, the publisher does not need to compensate the author for economic losses, and the article processing charge will not be returned to the author.

A retraction is a request to withdraw an article that has already been published. It is important to note that retractions are only initiated for articles with evidence of potential academic misconduct, and once a retraction has been initiated, the article page will not disappear and the word "retracted" will be marked, and all authors of the article and their institutions will be notified of the retraction.

For intentional or unintentional irregularities in articles published in the journals, the editors of the journals have the responsibility of supervising the review, and the process of which should involve the authors and reviewers. The editor will follow the publisher's retraction guidelines and other acceptable academic principles (eg. COPE's retraction guidelines) to select the best solution to the problem.

Copyright and License

Authors contributing to this journal agree to publish their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, allowing third parties to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it, under the condition that the authors are given credit, that the work is not used for commercial purposes, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of this license are made clear. With this license, the authors hold the copyright without restrictions and are allowed to retain publishing rights without restrictions as long as this journal is the original publisher of the articles.

Preprint Policies

Authors are permitted to post their non-peer-reviewed original research manuscripts to preprint servers before submitting to Journal of Autonomous Intelligence. 

Authors are not allowed to post any versions of articles that have been revised as a result of peer review, accepted for publication or published in the journal on a preprint server. The manuscript whose corresponding preprint version has been indexed (e.g. in MEDLINE or PubMed) will not be considered.

We encourage formal citation of preprints in the reference list if appropriate.

Advertising Policy

Disclaimer

• For authors: Once submitting a manuscript, it means that you have been aware of all publishing policies & ethics,  and will strictly abide by them.
• For reviewers: Once accepting the request to become a reviewer, it means that you must be aware of the peer review policies, and proactively disclose of all potential conflicts of interest, and guarantee that an article will be judged fairly and objectively. 
• For publisher: This journal  is not liable to the statements, perspectives, and opinions contained in the published articles. The appearance of advertisements in the journal shall not be construed as a warranty, endorsement, or approval of the products or services advertised and/or the safety thereof. This journal and the Publisher disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any ideas or products referred to in the articles or advertisements.

Article Processing Charges (APCs)

The Article Processing Charges (APCs) are meant to support the journal’s associated expenses. The publication fee for each manuscript accepted for publication is USD 1500.

Waiver Policy

For high-quality articles graded by our editorial board members and authors from low-income countries with difficulty to pay the APCs, FSP will access in a case-by-case basis and may approve certain discount to ensure the publication. FSP reserves the rights to approve or decline any such request. Please contact: jai@front-sci.com Publishing fees or waiver status should not influence editorial decision making.

Language

The manuscripts submitted to Journal of Autonomous Intelligence should be written in English. Authors whose first language is not English may have their manuscripts professionally edited before the final submission, and ensure the academic paper could be fully understood by its prospective readers.

Indexing & Archiving

JAI is indexed, cataloged and/or included by several world-class abstracting/indexing databases:

Scopus

CNKI

Google Scholar

Crossref

WorldCat

• All the articles published online will be archived by Portico for long-term digital preservation.
• Authors are encouraged to self-archive the final version of their published articles into institutional repositories (such as those listed in the Directory of Open Access Repositories).
• Authors are also encouraged to use the final PDF version published on the website of Frontier Scientific Publisher.

Human & Animal Research

If the subjects were humans or animals, authors should detail ethics approval information such as the name of the granting committee or organization and the approval identifiers, i.e. reference numbers. In the case that ethics approval identifiers are not available, written approval from the granting committee or organization must be provided as confidential supplemental file during submission stage.

The manuscript should confirm that the experiments were carried out in adherence to the ethical principles set out in the WMA Declaration of Helsinki and CARE guidelines, meanwhile, the informed consent was obtained from all human subjects. Experiments on non-human primates should be performed in accordance with the recommendations set out in the Weatherall report (The Use of Non-Human Primates in Research). Authors are encouraged to follow the ARRIVE guidelines while reporting animal research. Please look for and refer to the appropriate reporting standards as found on EQUATOR Network, which have been adopted by the field of the works or which apply to their study design.

For human subjects, the informed consent should be obtained from the participants (i.e., oral or written). The authors should inform the participants of the purpose(s) of publication, the possible risks and benefits as a result of the experiment, and the patient's right to withhold or withdraw consent. Consent should be obtained from the parent(s) or legal guardian(s) if the subjects are the participation of vulnerable populations.

Patient Anonymity and Privacy

The human subject’s right to privacy shall not be violated without informed consent. Subject identifying information, including patient name, initials, date of birth, contact information, photographs, fingerprints, and other identifying information, may not be published in an article except for scientifically necessary purposes and when the subject (or his or her guardian) is aware of the implications of publication. Authors must endeavor to conceal any patient identifying information that appears in writing or photographs.

If it is not possible to completely avoid revealing the patient's identity, the author is obligated to explain this to the patient and obtain his or her consent to use this information in the publication. If the patient is deceased, the consent of the next of kin or legal guardian should be obtained. Submissions containing patient-identifying information will not be considered for publication without the patient’s consent.

Please refer to the ICMJE Privacy and Confidentiality Guidelines for more information on patient anonymity and privacy.