Published articles form part of the permanent scholarly record. Post-publication changes are therefore made only when they are necessary to correct, clarify, or protect the reliability of that record.

Where a formal post-publication action is required, the journal will normally publish a separate notice that is permanently accessible and clearly linked to the affected article. The original publication record will be retained whenever possible.

A correction may be issued when an error or omission is identified in a published article but the overall results, conclusions, and reliability of the work remain valid.

Corrections may address significant errors in information such as author details, affiliations, figures, tables, data presentation, funding disclosures, acknowledgments, or other content where correction is necessary for an accurate publication record.

A published article may be retracted when reliable evidence shows that its findings, data, conclusions, or publication record are seriously unreliable, invalid, or otherwise unsuitable to remain in the literature without a formal retraction notice.

Grounds for retraction may arise from serious research or publication integrity concerns, major errors, unethical research, duplicate or redundant publication, compromised peer review, or other circumstances that substantially affect the reliability or legitimacy of the publication. Detailed definitions of misconduct are provided separately in the journal's Publication Ethics and related policies.

A retraction may be initiated by the journal, authors, publisher, or following information from an institution or other relevant party. The final decision to retract rests with the journal's responsible editor after consideration of the available evidence.

Retraction is intended to correct the scholarly record, not to punish authors. Except where removal is legally or ethically necessary, a retracted article will normally remain accessible so that its publication history is transparent.

The article landing page and available full-text versions should be clearly identified as retracted and linked to the corresponding retraction notice.

An Expression of Concern may be issued when significant questions have been raised about a published article but sufficient evidence is not yet available to determine whether a correction, retraction, or other action is required.

This may occur, for example, while an institutional or other appropriate investigation is ongoing, when evidence is inconclusive, or when obtaining a reliable outcome is taking an extended period.

An Expression of Concern is not a lesser form of retraction. It is a temporary or intermediate notice intended to alert readers to unresolved concerns. The notice may later be followed by a correction, retraction, or statement that resolves the concern when sufficient evidence becomes available.

Complete removal of published content is reserved for rare and exceptional circumstances where continued public access would create a serious legal, privacy, confidentiality, security, or other substantial harm that cannot adequately be addressed through correction or retraction.

Where an article or part of an article must be removed, the journal will normally retain a publicly accessible bibliographic record and publish a removal notice explaining the reason for the action to the extent legally and ethically permissible.

Where bibliographic metadata are affected by a correction or other post-publication action, the journal will update the relevant metadata maintained by the journal and, where technically possible, communicate corrected metadata to relevant registration, indexing, and discovery services.

Persistent identifiers and links associated with the publication should be preserved whenever possible so that corrections, retractions, and other notices remain discoverable and connected to the original scholarly record.