3.1 Submission

NOLTA welcomes manuscript submissions from authors based anywhere in the world.

Submission of a manuscript to the journal implies that all authors: have approved it, warrant it is factual, have agreed to its submission, and have the right to publish it.

3.2 Originality and duplicate submission

All submitted manuscripts must contain original work.
The journal may use “iThenticate” to screen manuscripts for unoriginal content.
By submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors agree to this screening. Any manuscript with an unacceptable level of unoriginal material may be rejected or retracted at the Editor’s discretion.

Submitted manuscripts may include material that has previously been made available in outlets such as those listed below, as long as the original source is referenced:

1. patent gazettes
2. university theses or technical reports
3. abstracts or proceedings of a conference organized by IEICE or another academic organization
4. corporate technical journals or bulletins that are not distributed outside the given organization
5. newspaper articles or similar
6. community-recognized preprint servers, author’s web pages or similar

Manuscripts may not be submitted to another journal while under consideration by NOLTA, including versions of essentially the same content in another language.
If authors choose to submit their manuscript elsewhere before a final decision has been made on its suitability for publication in the journal, they should first withdraw it from the journal.

3.3 Preprints

Authors are encouraged to post manuscripts under review to preprint servers under the following conditions.

1. Authors may upload their submitted manuscript, the revised version after first review, the author-accepted manuscript, and the article of record.
   When the article of record is published, authors should replace any other versions of their manuscript on the preprint server with the article of record, if possible.
2. When uploading their manuscript to a preprint server, authors do not need to request permission from NOLTA if all of the following conditions are met:
1. Copyright notices are displayed (e.g., © 2024 IEICE)
2. Appropriate attribution is provided (e.g., author name(s), title, journal name, volume, issue, page, year of publication, etc.)^*.
3. All authors have consented (in cases where the organization to which the author belongs uses the manuscript or there are co-authors).

* Manuscripts uploaded to preprint servers that do not allow copyright notices do not have to show copyright notices, as long as the server is approved by the IEICE.
The IEICE has approved Jxiv and arXiv for this condition.
Please also refer Q & A, No. 9 on the Copyright FAQ.

3.4 Scooping

When assessing the novelty of a manuscript submitted to the journal, the editors will not be influenced by other manuscripts that are posted on community-recognized preprint servers after the date of submission to the journal (or after the date of posting on a preprint server, if the manuscript is submitted to the journal within 4 months).

3.5 Authorship

Submission to the journal implies that all authors have seen and approved the author list.
Changes to the author list after manuscript submission—such as the insertion or removal of author names, or a rearrangement of author order—must be approved by all authors and the editor.

Authorship of articles conveys credit and involves the accountability of those listed in the author list. Authors must fulfill the criteria that follow herein (adapted from McNutt et al., 2018, DOI:10.1073/pnas.1715374115; licensed under CC BY 4.0).

Each author is expected to have:

• made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work; or have drafted the work or substantively revised it; and
• approved the submitted version (and any substantially modified version that involves the author’s contribution to the study); and
• agreed both to be personally accountable for the author’s own contributions and to ensure that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even ones in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and the resolution documented in the literature.

Authors are required to include a statement that specifies the contribution of each author as per the `Author contribution’ section in the article template.

Given that artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as large language models (LLMs) and various openly available services cannot meet the requirement above, are not legal entities, and cannot take responsibility for the work, they cannot be listed as an author of a manuscript.

3.6 Data falsification, data fabrication and image integrity

Authors must not falsify or fabricate data. Authors may digitally manipulate or process images, but only if the adjustments are kept to a minimum, are applied to the entire image, meet community standards, and are clearly described in the manuscript.
All images in a manuscript must accurately reflect the original data on which they are based.
Authors must not move, remove, add or enhance individual parts of an image. The editors reserve the right to request original, unprocessed images from the authors.
Failure to provide requested images may result in a manuscript being rejected or retracted.

3.7 Reproducing copyrighted material

If a manuscript includes material that is not under the authors’ own copyright, the authors must obtain permission from the copyright holder(s) to reproduce it.

If a manuscript includes previously published material, the authors must obtain permission from the copyright owners and the publisher of the original work to reproduce it.
The authors must cite the original work in their manuscript.

Copies of all reproduction permissions must be included with the manuscript when it is first submitted.

For further information, see the IEICE Provisions of Copyright.

3.8 Availability of data and materials

Authors must disclose the source of publicly available data and materials, such as public repositories or commercial manufacturers, by including accession numbers or company details in their manuscript, as appropriate.

Authors may make their own data and materials available in Appendices, or by linking from their manuscript to a relevant community-recognized data repositories.
All data sets must be made available in full to the editors and reviewers during the peer review process, and must be made publicly available by the date of publication.
Authors commit to preserving their data sets for at least 3 years from the date of publication in the journal.

The journal encourages authors to grant reasonable requests from colleagues to share any data, materials and experimental protocols described in their manuscript.

3.9 Animal/human experimentation

Authors of manuscripts describing experiments involving humans or materials derived from humans must demonstrate that the work was carried out in accordance with the principles embodied in the Declaration of Helsinki, its revisions, and any guidelines approved by the authors’ institutions.
Where relevant, the authors must include a statement in their manuscript that describes the procedures for obtaining informed consent from participants regarding participation in the research and publication of the research.

Authors of manuscripts describing experiments involving animals or materials derived from animals must demonstrate that the work was carried out in accordance with the guidelines approved by the authors’ institution(s).

3.10 Use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools

As per Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidance, authors must disclose and fully describe any use of generative or non-generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools (also known as large language models, or LLMs) in the appropriate section.
This includes, but is not limited to, using AI tools to collect or analyze data, produce or amend images or graphics used in the manuscript, or write all or part of the manuscript.
Authors must be transparent and describe which tools they used and how the tools were used.
Other use will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. In all cases, authors remain responsible for the content of their submitted manuscript.

Authors should be aware that there are ongoing concerns about the copyright status of any AI generated content.
Authors must adhere to the instructions in Section `Reproducing copyrighted material’ of this document and comply with relevant statutory and other copyright laws.

It is acceptable to use non-generative AI tools to improve the readability of a manuscript, such as through spelling and grammar checking, but any such use should be declared at submission and in the `Artificial intelligence tools’ declaration section as per the article template.

Reviewers and Editors must not upload unpublished manuscripts to any AI tool or service. Doing so would breach privacy and confidentiality provisions, as described elsewhere in this document.
There are also potential copyright issues if unpublished material is uploaded to a third-party service.

3.11 Author competing interests and conflicts of interest

In the interests of transparency, the journal requires all authors to declare any competing or conflicts of interest in relation to their submitted manuscript.
A conflict of interest exists when there are actual, perceived or potential circumstances that could influence an author’s ability to conduct or report research impartially.
Potential conflicts include (but are not limited to) competing commercial or financial interests, commercial affiliations, consulting roles, or ownership of stock or equity.

Authors should list all funding sources for their work in the `Funding’ section of their manuscript.

3.12 Confidentiality

The journal maintains the confidentiality of all unpublished manuscripts.
By submitting their manuscript to the journal, the authors warrant that they will keep all correspondence about their manuscript (from the IEICE Transactions Section, editors and reviewers) strictly confidential.

3.13 Self-archiving (Green Open Access) policy

Authors are encouraged to post their NOLTA articles to publicly accessible repositories.
Permission requests to post manuscripts are unnecessary, in the case of using published articles for non-commercial purposes and as long as the use does not unfairly infringe on the IEICE’s interests.
However, the following conditions must be met.

1. Conditions (all of which must be met)
1. Copyright notices are displayed (e.g., © 2024 IEICE)
2. The original source is cited (e.g., author name, title, journal, volume, issue, page, year of publication, etc.)
3. Consent is obtained from author(s) (in cases where the organization to which the author belongs uses the manuscript or there are co-authors)
4. The publisher’s version is posted as a PDF (when using the whole published article)
2. Permitted repositories
   The repository adheres to statutory copyright provisions and the conditions of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.
3. Permitted format and timeframe
   Authors may post only whole, underived and unaltered PDFs of their articles, any time after publication in the journal.

For more information, please refer to Q & A, No. 1 in the Copyright FAQs.
See also the journal’s Terms of Use.

3.14 Long-term digital archiving

J-STAGE preserves its full digital library, including the journal, with Portico in a dark archive (see https://www.portico.org/publishers/jstage/).
In the event that the material becomes unavailable at J-STAGE, it will be released and made available by Portico.

3.15 Privacy

The IEICE collects the personal information of authors when manuscripts are submitted to NOLTA.
The IEICE may use this information only for improving its publishing services and providing authors with further benefits.
Examples of such activity are statistical analysis of submissions, e-mail alerts of the latest journal updates, requests for comments, and suggestions about NOLTA services.
Personal identifiable information will not be disclosed to any party unless required by law.
The IEICE may share aggregated information with partners.

3.16 Withdrawing submissions

Authors should avoid withdrawing submitted manuscript, but if it is necessary, authors must send a withdrawal request letter in PDF format by e-mail to the IEICE Transactions Section.
The letter should include:

1. Manuscript number
2. Manuscript title
3. Author names
4. Reason for the withdrawal
5. Date and signatures of all authors or date and signature of the corresponding author^†.

If a manuscript is withdrawn after acceptance, the journal will impose the relevant publication fees to recoup expenses incurred.

The IEICE Transactions Section will notify the authors of the date of manuscript withdrawal.

† In cases where the corresponding author is the sole signatory, they must obtain agreement from all authors to withdraw the manuscript and state this in the withdrawal request letter.

3.17 Advertising policy

The journal, its articles, and the society’s websites do not accept advertising.

4.1 Editorial and peer review process

The journal uses single-anonymized peer review.
When a manuscript is submitted to the journal, it is assigned to one of the journal’s Secretaries, who performs initial screening.
Manuscripts that do not comply with the manuscript preparation instructions or are deemed unsuitable for publication are rejected without review.
The remaining manuscripts are assigned to an Associate Editor who assigns two reviewers to assess each manuscript.
The deadline for submission of the reviewers’ reports within approximately 30 days.

Upon receipt of the two reviewers’ reports, the Associate Editor makes the first decision on the manuscript.
This can be “Accept,” “Conditional Accept,” or “Reject.” In cases of conditional acceptance, authors may resubmit a revised version of their manuscript for re-review.
The deadline for submission of revised manuscripts is 60 days from the date of the decision letter for articles destined for the Regular Section and 28 days for articles in Special Sections (Special Issues).
Revised manuscripts submitted after this deadline are usually treated as new submissions.

When submitting revised manuscripts, authors must include a letter to the Associate Editor that details the revisions made in response to the reviewers’ and Associate Editor’s comments.
Additions and corrections in the revised manuscript itself must be marked so that any changes can be clearly identified.
The Associate Editor may send revised manuscripts to reviewers for their feedback or may use his or her own judgement to assess how closely the authors have followed the editor’s and the reviewers’ comments on the original manuscript.

The Associate Editor then makes a recommendation to the Editor-in-Chief on the manuscript’s suitability for publication based on the resubmission.
The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for making the final decision to accept or reject each manuscript.

In cases where a revised manuscript is deemed to need further revision, the Associate Editor or Editorial Committee may invite the authors to submit a newly revised version as a new submission, following the procedure outlined below.

Rejected manuscripts that have been suitably revised in response to the final decision letter (including any comments from peer reviewers) may be submitted as new manuscripts.
To expedite the review process, authors are encouraged to include in their submission the original manuscript’s ID number and a reply letter that details how the manuscript has been revised.

The members of the Editorial Committee act in advisory roles, providing feedback as reviewers and making suggestions to improve the journal.
In cases where the Editor-in-Chief is an author on a manuscript submitted to the journal, a member of the Editorial Committee is responsible for making the final decision on the manuscript’s suitability for publication in the journal.
The Editorial Committee has advisory and oversight functions, for instance in cases of possible duplicate submission or publication.

As a rule, no change in the list of authors is permitted. Nonetheless, if in the process of revising a manuscript the need arises to expand or reduce the list of authors or modify the order of their names, authors may make a request by attaching a written explanation at the time of the revision.
Requests to make a change to the list of authors will be granted only if the NOLTA Editorial Committee deems the reasons cited in the written explanation to be valid.
No change in authorship is permitted once a manuscript has been accepted for publication.

4.2 Reviewer selection, timing and suggestions

Reviewers are selected based on their expertise in the field, reputation, recommendation by others, and/or previous experience as peer reviewers for the journal.

Reviewers are asked to submit their review within 3 weeks of accepting the invitation to review.
Reviewers who anticipate any delays should inform the IEICE Transactions Section as soon as possible.

When submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors may suggest reviewers that they would like included in or excluded from the peer review process.
The Associate Editor may consider these suggestions but is under no obligation to follow them.
The selection, invitation and assignment of peer reviewers is at the Associate Editor’s sole discretion.

4.3 Reviewer reports

It is the journal’s policy to transmit reviewers’ comments to the authors in their original form.
However, the journal reserves the right to edit reviewers’ comments, without consulting the reviewers, if they contain offensive language, confidential information or recommendations for publication.

4.4 Acceptance criteria

NOLTA publishes articles on outstanding inventions, innovations, and findings that are influential and important to nonlinear science.
If a manuscript satisfies the journal’s requirements and represents a significant contribution to the published literature, the Associate Editor may recommend acceptance for publication in the journal.

Manuscripts that do not adhere to the journal’s scope or Instructions for Authors are rejected before peer review.
Manuscripts deemed to be of minor importance or relevance to nonlinear science are rarely accepted, even if reporting novel findings or outcomes.
Authors are strongly advised to write their manuscripts as clearly and simply as possible so that the significance of their accomplishment can be readily ascertained.

If a manuscript does not meet the journal’s requirements for acceptance or revision, the Associate Editor will recommend rejection.

4.5 Editorial independence

The NOLTA Society, the IEICE has granted the NOLTA Editorial Committee complete and sole responsibility for all editorial decisions.
The NOLTA Society, the IEICE will not become involved in editorial decisions, except in cases of a fundamental breakdown of process.

Editorial decisions are based only on a manuscript’s scientific merit and are kept completely separate from the journal’s other interests.
The authors’ ability to pay any publication charges has no bearing on whether a manuscript is accepted for publication in the journal.

4.6 Appeals

Authors who believe that an editorial decision has been made in error may lodge an appeal with the Associate Editor handling their manuscript.
Appeals are only considered if the authors provide detailed evidence of a misunderstanding or mistake by a reviewer or editor.
Appeals are considered carefully by the NOLTA Editorial Committee, whose decision is final.
The guidelines of the COPE are followed where and when relevant.

4.7 Confidentiality in peer review

The journal maintains the confidentiality of all unpublished manuscripts.
Editors and reviewers will not:

1. Disclose a reviewer’s identity unless the reviewer makes a reasonable request for such disclosure
2. Discuss the manuscript or its contents with anyone not directly involved with the manuscript or its peer review
3. Use any data or information from the manuscript in their own work or publications
4. Use information obtained from the peer review process to provide an advantage to themselves or anyone else, or to disadvantage any individual or organization
5. Share or upload the content of the manuscript with any AI tool or public platform

In addition, reviewers will not reveal their identity to any of the authors of the manuscript or involve anyone else in the review (for example, a post-doc or PhD student) without first receiving permission from the Associate Editor.

4.8 Editor and reviewer conflicts of interest in peer review

A conflict of interest exists when there are actual, perceived or potential circumstances that could influence an editor or reviewer’s ability to act impartially when assessing a manuscript.
Such circumstances might include having a personal or professional relationship with an author, working on the same topic or in direct competition with an author, having a financial stake in the work or its publication, or having seen previous versions of the manuscript.

Reviewers and members of the journal’s Editorial Committee undertake to declare any conflicts of interest when handling manuscripts.
An editor or reviewer who declares a conflict of interest is unassigned from the given manuscript and replaced by a new editor or reviewer.

Editors try to avoid conflicts of interest when inviting reviewers, but it is not always possible to identify potential bias.

4.9 Errata and retractions

The journal recognizes the importance of maintaining the integrity of published literature.

A published article that contains an error may be corrected through the publication of an Erratum.
Errata describe errors that significantly affect the scientific integrity of a publication, the reputation of the authors, or the journal itself.
Authors who wish to correct a published article should contact the editor who handled their manuscript or the IEICE Transactions Section with full details of the error(s) and their requested changes.
In cases where co-authors disagree over a correction, the Editor-in-Chief may consult the Editorial Committee or external peer reviewers for advice.
If an Erratum is published, any dissenting authors will be noted in the text.

A published article that contains invalid or unreliable results or conclusions, has been published elsewhere, or has infringed codes of conduct (covering research or publication ethics) may be retracted.
Individuals who believe that a published article should be retracted are encouraged to contact the journal’s IEICE Transactions Section with full details of their concerns.
The Editor-in-Chief will investigate further and contact the authors of the published article for their response.
In cases where co-authors disagree over a retraction, the Editor-in-Chief may consult the Editorial Committee or external peer reviewers for advice.
If a Retraction is published, any dissenting authors will be noted in the text.

The decision to publish Errata or Retractions is made at the sole discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.

4.10 Editors as authors in the journal

Any member of the journal’s Editorial Committee, including the Editor-in-Chief, who is an author on a submitted manuscript is excluded from the peer review process.
Within the journal’s online manuscript submission and tracking system, they will be able to see their manuscript as an author but not as an editor, thereby maintaining the confidentiality of peer review.

A manuscript authored by an editor of the journal is subject to the same high standards of peer review and editorial decision making as any manuscript considered by the journal.

4.11 Responding to potential ethical breaches

The journal will respond to allegations of ethical breaches by following its own policies and, where possible, the guidelines of COPE.

5.1 Copyright and licensing

The copyrights of all articles in journals published by the IEICE, in whatever medium they may be presented, are transferred to the IEICE by submitting the Copyright Transfer and Article Charge Agreement.
However, authors retain the right to copy, translate or modify their own manuscripts.
In cases where authors wish to translate an article published in NOLTA into another language or submit any portion of it to another publication, they must first seek permission from the IEICE and appropriately cite the NOLTA article in the derivative publication.
All articles published in NOLTA from October 1st, 2022, are made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND).
This license allows users to share unmodified articles non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given.

• Deed of CC BY-NC-ND:
  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Legal code of CC BY-NC-ND:
  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode

5.2 Article processing charge

There are many costs associated with publishing scholarly journals, such as those of managing peer review, copy editing, typesetting and online hosting.
To cover these costs in the absence of journal subscriptions, authors (or their representatives) are asked to pay article processing charges (APCs).
Once an article is accepted for publication, the authors are requested to pay a mandatory APC (tax included):

1. JPY 132,000 if at least one of the authors is an IEICE member.
2. JPY 154,000 if none of the authors is an IEICE member.

Note that manuscripts comprising more than 30 pages in a galley-proof layout are not considered for publication. Note also that manuscript is held for publication until the payment is completed.

There is no submission fee.

5.3 Overseas Membership Development Program

As part of the journal’s effort to support IEICE Overseas Members residing in Asia (except Republic of Korea, Taiwan, China and Singapore), Africa, Central America and South America, the Overseas Membership Development Program (OMDP) provides a discount on APCs.
For details on eligibility for each Membership grade, please refer to the IEICE web page at https://www.ieice.org/eng_r/assets/pdf/rules/OMDP_en.pdf.

If the first author of an accepted manuscript meets the requirements of the OMDP, the APC will be reduced by 60\%.
Furthermore, in cases where the first author is an Overseas Student Member, the APC will be reduced by 80\%.
In all cases, authors should apply to the OMDP at the time of submission.

8.1 Advance publication (from the October 2026 issue onward)

The accepted papers will be published online on J-STAGE soon after the payment is completed. Please note that advance publication articles have not been proofread. These articles will be replaced by the finalized versions after proofreading. The date of advance publication is the date of publication of the article. To cite an advance publication article, the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) of the article should be used. The DOI is a unique identifier for each article and cannot be changed after official publication.

Style for listing cited advance publication articles:
[1] S. Yamada and T. Gales, “Noise synchronization in a weakly coupled chemical oscillators,” NOLTA IEICE, Jan. 2027. DOI:10.1587/nolta.2026ENP0889

Style for listing cited articles after official publication: Same as for advance publication articles, or,
[1] S. Yamada and T. Gales, “Noise synchronization in a weakly coupled chemical oscillators,” vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 55-59, Jan. 2027. DOI:10.1587/nolta.2025ENP0889

8.2 Proofs

Page proofs are sent to the corresponding author as a PDF.
Minor and typographical errors should be corrected on a printout or by PDF mark-up and returned to the IEICE Transactions Section within 3 days of receipt.
If corrections are not received within this time, the manuscript may be published as is. Note that the journal does not accept any change in the title or names of authors, including the order of the listed authors, at the proofs stage.