Digital technologies have dramatically changed fundamental aspects of society. The resulting challenges give rise to new questions that are best addressed through multidisciplinary research. The Journal of Digital Life aims to provide authors in academia, private enterprise, and public institutions a forum for their multidisciplinary research and endeavor. The journal publishes peer-reviewed, open access articles in the social sciences, life sciences, engineering, and frontier sciences. Research fields of interest include, but are not limited to, medicine, biochemistry, physiology, sports science, education, business management, information science, and civil engineering.
The Journal of Digital Life, which publishes articles online as soon as they are ready, brings together a broad global audience of the public, researchers, policymakers and those in the private sector.

The journal welcomes five manuscript types, all of which are subject to peer review: Articles, Technical Articles, Review Articles, Secondary Publications, and Reports.

Articles
Articles describe new concepts and findings and reach clear conclusions based on supporting evidence.

Technical Articles
Technical Articles contain novel data or new methods that justify publication. They may describe applied technologies for practical uses.

Review Articles
Review Articles are overviews of the literature in a specific field. They should take a balanced approach to the issues raised and discussed.

Secondary Publications
Secondary Publications are English translations of articles originally published in a language other than English. The full conditions for this manuscript type are described in the ‘Secondary publication’ section below.

Reports
Reports contain preliminarily results or describe the process of research, and can comprise material such as white papers, working papers, and research notes.

The journal upholds the highest standards in scholarly publishing.

Before submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors must ensure that they have read and complied with the journal’s policies. The journal reserves the right to reject without review, or retract, any manuscript that the Editor believes may not comply with these policies.

The responsibilities of the journal’s authors, editors, reviewers and publisher regarding research and publication ethics are described in full below.

Submission to the journal implies that the manuscript has not previously been published (in part or in whole, in any language), is not in press, and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, except as described in the ‘Secondary publication’ section. The availability of a manuscript on a publicly accessible preprint server does not constitute prior publication (see ‘Preprints’). However, authors must inform the editors if any related manuscripts are under consideration, in press or published elsewhere.

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.

Submission
The journal 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.

Originality
Submission to the journal implies that the manuscript is original work. The journal may use Crossref’s Similarity Check plagiarism software to screen manuscripts for unoriginal material. 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 editors’ discretion.

Preprints
To support the wide dissemination of research, the journal encourages authors to post their research manuscripts on community-recognized preprint servers, either before or alongside submission to the journal. This policy applies only to the original version of a manuscript that describes primary research. Any version of a manuscript that has been revised in response to reviewers’ comments, accepted for publication or published in the journal should not be posted on a preprint server. Instead, forward links to the published manuscript may be posted on the preprint server.

Authors should retain copyright in their work when posting to a preprint server.

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 on which the submitted manuscript was posted on a preprint server, if the manuscript is submitted to the journal within 4 months).

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

Authors are encouraged to consider the Council of Science Editors (CSE) principles governing authorship. According to the CSE guidelines on Authorship and Authorship Responsibilities (and references therein), each author is expected have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data; or have drafted the work or substantively revised it. Authors have also agreed to be held accountable for their own contributions to the work; can identify which co-authors are responsible for other parts of the work; have confidence in the integrity of the work; and have reviewed and approved the final manuscript and any resubmissions. Contributors who do not qualify for authorship may be included in the Acknowledgments section instead.

Authors are required to include an Author Contribution Statement that specifies the contribution of each author, as detailed in the template file.

Given that artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as large language models (LLMs) and various openly available services do not meet the requirements above, they cannot be listed as an author of a manuscript.

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.

Reproducing copyrighted material
If a manuscript includes material that is not under the authors’ own copyright, the authors must obtain permission from the copyright owner(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 to the journal.

Secondary publication
One of the main ambitions of the journal is to ensure the dissemination of knowledge, especially knowledge that is otherwise inaccessible to the journal’s broad international audience. Following the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) policy on ‘Overlapping publications’, the journal therefore considers articles that have been previously published in a language other than English if the following conditions are met:

• • All authors of the original publication agree to the secondary publication, but understand that acceptance in the journal is not guaranteed.
• • The manuscript undergoes full peer review.
• • Editors from both journals approve of the re-publication.
• • Full copyright permissions, as described in the ‘Reproducing copyrighted material’ section, are supplied upon manuscript submission.
• • A reasonable period of time has elapsed before publication of the English version, to maintain the priority of the original publication. An appropriate period will be decided by the editors of both journals.
• • The journal’s audience is different to the original publication’s audience. Differentiating elements can include that the original publication and the original journal are published wholly in Japanese; the original journal is not listed in PubMed, the Science Citation Index Expanded (Clarivate Analytics), Scopus (Elsevier) or other large international database; and the original journal has a restricted distribution (e.g. in print to members of a society only). Authors should contact the Editor-in-Chief for clarification if needed.
• • The secondary publication faithfully reflects the data and interpretations of the original publication.

Fulfilling these conditions ensures that the manuscript meets the novelty requirement for journal acceptance.

Secondary publications will include text that indicates they are fully peer-reviewed translations of an original publication and will contain a statement such as: “This article is based on a study first reported in [journal title, with full reference].”

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 a Data Availability Statement, as appropriate. Authors may make their own data and materials available by linking from their manuscript to relevant community-recognized public databases or digital repositories. All data sets must be made available in full to the editors and reviewers during the peer review process, if necessary or upon request, and consideration made for them to 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.

Animal/human subject studies
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. This includes the use of photographs or videos that show images of a person. Image processing or other methods are permitted to protect a person’s privacy; any image processing methods should be described in an appropriate section of the manuscript. See the journal’s article template for more information on the Institutional Review Board Statement and Informed Consent Statement.

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).

Specimen collection
Manuscripts describing the collection of archaeological, geological, paleontological or wildlife specimens or samples should include detailed information on their provenance and collection methods. Authors must include a statement in their manuscript describing the relevant ethics guidelines, local laws and collection permits under which the research was conducted.

Use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools
As per the COPE position statement on Authorship and AI tools, 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 Methods 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 describe which tools they used and how the tools were used. In general, the use of generative AI tools is allowed only where that use is an integral part of the research design or methods. Any other uses will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis by the editors. In all cases, authors remain responsible for all 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 the ‘Reproducing copyrighted material’ section 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.

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.

After a manuscript is accepted, the journal, publisher and/or their authorized service providers may use AI tools to prepare the manuscript for publication. 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. See the journal’s article template for more information on the Conflicts of Interest statement.

Authors should list all funding sources for their work in the Funding section of their manuscript. See the journal’s article template for more information. Confidentiality The journal maintains the confidentiality of all unpublished manuscripts. By submitting a manuscript to the journal, the authors warrant that they will keep all correspondence about their manuscript (from the Editorial Office, editors and reviewers) strictly confidential. Self-archiving (Green Open Access) policy Self-archiving, also known as Green Open Access, enables authors to deposit a copy of their manuscript in an online repository. The journal publishes works under a CC BY 4.0 license, which means that authors (or others) can upload any or all versions of a manuscript to an institutional repository immediately after publication in the journal, as long as the conditions of the license, and other copyright requirements described elsewhere in this document, are satisfied. A link from the repository article page to the published article’s DOI must be included. 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. Advertising policy The journal does not accept advertising on its article pages, the journal’s website, or elsewhere. Privacy The personal information of the author who is registered as the corresponding author will be provided to the Editorial Board and reviewers as contact information. This personal information will also be displayed as part of the published article. When an author designates a co-author as a corresponding author, the author must clearly inform the co-author of the purpose for which their personal information (e.g., name, e-mail address, affiliations) will be used and obtain their prior consent.

Editorial and peer review process
The journal uses single anonymized peer review. When a manuscript is submitted to the journal, the Editorial Office assigns it to an Editor with expertise in the relevant subject area. The Editor then selects two appropriate reviewers to assess the manuscript. The deadline for submitting reviewer reports is 2 weeks, regardless of the article type.

Once the reviewers’ reports have been received, the Editor determines whether the manuscript should be accepted, rejected, or revised. Authors who are asked to revise their manuscript must do so within 2 weeks, otherwise it may be treated as a new submission. The Editor may send revised manuscripts to peer reviewers for their feedback or may use his or her own judgment to assess how closely the authors have followed the comments on the original manuscript. The Editor then makes a final decision on the manuscript’s suitability for publication in the journal.

One of the Editors-in-Chief acts as an arbitrator when necessary. Further details about the peer review process are available at the journal’s peer review webpage. 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 first review within 2 weeks of accepting the invitation to review. Reviewers who anticipate any delays should inform the Editorial Office 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 Editor may consider these suggestions but is under no obligation to follow them. The selection, invitation and assignment of peer reviewers is at the Editor’s sole discretion.

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.

Acceptance criteria
If a submitted or revised manuscript satisfies the journal’s requirements and represents a significant contribution to the published literature, the Editor may decide to accept it for publication in the journal.

Articles in the journal must be:

• • within the subject area of the journal’s scope
• • novel and original
• • descriptions of technically rigorous research
• • of high interest to the journal’s audience
• • important additions to the specific field explored in the manuscript.

Secondary publications are considered as per the details in the ‘Secondary publication’ section.

If a manuscript does not meet the journal’s requirements for acceptance or revision, the Editor may decide to reject it.

Editorial independence
The journal owner, Sankei Digital Inc., has granted the journal’s Editorial Board complete and sole responsibility for all editorial decisions. Sankei Digital Inc. 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.

Appeals
Authors who believe that an editorial decision has been made in error may lodge an appeal with the Editorial Office. 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 Editor-in-Chief, whose decision is final. The guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) are followed where relevant.

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

• • disclose a reviewer’s identity unless the reviewer makes a reasonable request for such disclosure
• • discuss the manuscript or its contents with anyone not directly involved with the manuscript or its peer review
• • use any data or information from the manuscript in their own work or publications
• • use information obtained from the peer review process to provide an advantage to themselves or anyone else, or to disadvantage any individual or organization
• • share or upload the content of the manuscript to 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 Editor.

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 include (but are not limited to) 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 Board undertake to declare any conflicts of interest when handling manuscripts. An editor or reviewer who declares a conflict of interest is unassigned from the manuscript in question and is 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.

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 Editorial Office 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 Board 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 Editorial Office 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 Board 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 at the sole discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.

Editors as authors in the journal
Any member of the journal’s Editorial Board, 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.

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.

The journal is fully Open Access and uses the Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 (Attribution 4.0 International) license. This license allows users to share and adapt an article, even commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given.

Authors are required to complete a Copyright Transfer Agreement form and supply it upon acceptance. All copyrights (including the rights in Articles 21 through 28 of the Copyright Law of Japan) to the material published in this journal shall belong to or be transferred to Sankei Digital Inc.

Some funding bodies require articles funded by them to be published under a specific Creative Commons license. Before submitting your work to the journal, check with the relevant funding bodies to ensure that you comply with any mandates.

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). There is no submission fee.

The APCs are:
Article, Review Article, Secondary Publication, Report: 150,000 Japanese yen per article Technical Article: 20,000 Japanese yen per page

Additional publication fees (15,000 Japanese yen per page) may be charged for manuscripts of more that 10 journal-typeset pages.

Authors of accepted manuscripts will be invoiced for the APC before publication of their manuscript, and publication is dependent on the successful remittance of any outstanding invoices.

All manuscripts must be submitted via the journal’s online submission system, Editorial Manager: https://www.editorialmanager.com/digitallife/default.aspx. The original or revised manuscript text may be uploaded as a PDF or Microsoft Word file, but a Word file is required for the final manuscript text. Figures may be submitted separately in several other formats.

If you encounter any problems with online submission, please contact the Editorial Office at the details provided in the Contact section.

Authors should follow the instructions in this section to ensure the prompt and accurate peer review and production of their manuscripts. The journal’s Microsoft Word template should be used. It contains descriptions of the necessary contents and layouts of manuscripts, As well as information about the author declarations that are required (i.e. Author Contributions, Funding, Institutional Review Board Statement, Informed Consent Statement, Data Availability Statement, Acknowledgments, Conflicts of Interest statement).

A sample PDF of the journal’s style is also available, as are other guides available from the journal’s website.

Authors can include video files with their manuscripts (.mp4, .mov or .avi). The duration of videos should be limited to one minute.

Style
Manuscripts should be prepared in Microsoft Word or other appropriate software using double line spacing throughout, with margins of at least 3 cm.

As a general rule, the length of manuscripts should not exceed 10 pages on A4-sized pages. The title, abstract, text, references, tables, and figures must be included within the page count.

English standard
Manuscripts should be written in clear, grammatically correct English. If a manuscript is not clear due to poor English, it may be rejected without undergoing peer review.

Format
The first page of each manuscript should contain: Title, authors’ full names, affiliations, key words, and the name and full address (including e-mail address) of the corresponding author. The main text and other sections should follow the format described below and in the Microsoft Word template and sample PDF.

Title
The title should describe the content of the article briefly but clearly. A concise, descriptive title is important for search purposes by third-party services. Do not use the same main title with numbered minor titles, even for a series of papers by the same authors. Do not use abbreviations in the title, except those used generally in related fields.

Authors
For each author, provide their full given and family names, and any middle initials.

Affiliations
Provide the full name and address of each author’s institution(s) (including laboratory, department, institute and/or university, city, state and country). When authors belong to different institutions, their respective addresses should be indicated by superscript numbers. When an author has a new address, it should be listed in a footnote and indicated by a superscript symbol (such as * and **).

Key words
A maximum of 5 key words should be provided.

Abbreviations
Each abbreviation should be defined in parentheses after its non-abbreviated term when it first appears in the text (except in the Title and Abstract).

Units
The International System of Units (SI) or SI-derived units should be used. More information on SI units is available from the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM).

Supplementary material
Supplementary materials provide additional content that enhances the understanding of a manuscript, though they are not essential. These materials may include data, text, audio, or video files.

Since supplementary materials undergo peer review, they must be submitted in their final version along with the manuscript. Once a manuscript is accepted for publication, authors will not be allowed to make any changes to the supplementary materials.

Manuscripts that are accepted for publication are copyedited and typeset by the journal’s production team before publication. The journal is published continuously online as articles are ready for publication. All communication regarding accepted manuscripts is with the corresponding author. The date of acceptance is the date when the Editor formally accepts the manuscript for publication in the journal.

Proofs
Page proofs are sent to the corresponding author, who should check and return them within 7 days. Only essential corrections to typesetting errors or omissions are accepted; excessive changes are not permitted at the proofing stage.

To contact the Editorial Office or the Editor-in-Chief, please write to:

Digital Life Editorial Office
SANKEI DIGITAL Inc.
1-7-2 Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku,
Tokyo 100-8077,
Japan

E-mail: info-digitallife@sankei.co.jp

Revised on April 1, 2025