Rules and Regulations of PaCER 2020

The following are the rules and regulations that govern registration and participation in PaCER 2020. Please make sure you go through every detail in this section before you take part in the competition!

General Definitions

  1. “Author(s)” means the author(s) of the papers which have been submitted to the competition.
  2. “Company” means WorldServe Online, WorldServe Education, WorldServe Consultancies and/or its affiliates, the organizers of the Competition.
  3. “Competition” means the 1st All India Paper writing Competition on Emerging Research also known as a paper writing competition titled “PaCER 2020” or "PaCER".
  4. "Country" means India.
  5. “Participant(s)” means the registered Author(s) who is/are participating in the Competition.
  6. “Registrant(s)" means any person(s) who participates in the Competition and who
    • is residing in India
    • is of sound mind and health and
    • enters the Competition in accordance with the Rules and Regulations stated below. Employees of WorldServe, of the advertising agency which has been appointed from time to time, and also employees of the sponsors; and members of their immediate family; persons other than Indian nationals, or Indian nationals living out of India, or those who do not qualify under the definition of resident of India as per the Income Tax Act, 1961 or those not conversant in spoken English, are ineligible to enter the Competition.
  7. “Rules and Regulations” means these Rules and Regulations governing the Competition, stated herein in entirety, as may be amended from time to time by the Company.
  8. “Winner(s)” means the first 3 paper(s) which have been awarded the highest score at the end of the competition
  9. "Publisher" means the publication house which will publish the papers.
  10. "PiCES" means the journal in which all papers will be published - The International Journal on Perspectives in Communication, Embedded-systems and Signal-processing" (PiCES)

    General Rules and Regulations

  1. Participation in the Competition by sending entries shall be considered to be acceptance of these Rules and Regulations.
  2. If authors are unclear as to the Rules & Regulations of participation, he/she will have to send an email to pacer2020@pices-journal.com. The Company shall make reasonable endeavours to respond thereto. The above shall not, however, be a ground for extension of time / deadlines as specified herein.
  3. An entry/ies is not transferable.
  4. This competition is open only to residents of the Republic of India.
  5. Participants must be 18 years or older as on 1st June 2020.
  6. There is no regional restriction for the authors to submit.
  7. The Author(s) acknowledges that he/she has voluntarily chosen to participate in the Competition at his / her free-will and is willing to bear all risk, costs & consequences arising from such participation in the Competition. It is a condition of entry and participation in the Competition that the Author(s) has/have not entered into any contractual, commercial, sponsorship agreement or other arrangement for example with a publishing company or an individual to act as the Author(s)’s manager in respect of his/her paper writing abilities or the products thereof or in respect of his/her name, likeness, image or biography which might be in breach of the Author Copyright Form or the Rules & Regulations or otherwise prevent the Author(s) from participating in the Competition or sponsorship thereof.
  8. Employees/ Friends and Family of PaCER/ PiCES/ WorldServe shall strictly be not allowed to take part in the competition. In case such individuals do take part, they shall be disqualified with no refund.
  9. The paper submitted must be in English.
  10. The paper must be related to the scope of the competition. Please check the List of Topics for more information. Any papers submitted irrelevant to the scope of this competition will be rejected and no refund shall be given.
  11. The paper submitted must neither be previously published, nor be under consideration for any other competition or journal.
  12. Each paper must be an original analysis and must be the author’s own work. Papers previously published are not eligible. In case previously published papers are submitted, they will be disqualified and no refund shall be given.
  13. Papers discussing literature survey, methodologies and approaches, results and comparative studies are also accepted. Survey/ Review papers ARE ALLOWED.
  14. In case you are submitting a review/ survey paper, make sure the paper does not contain any images from the reviewed papers.
  15. All the formatting instructions must be strictly adhered to. Papers not following the format specified by the competition might be given a second chance to submit their paper with the necessary formatting changes. Failing this opportunity, the paper will be rejected, and no refund shall be given.
  16. Up to 20% of plagiarism shall be permitted. This shall be calculated with the help of a third-party software. In case the paper is found to be beyond the permissible plagiarism limits, the authors will be intimated to make changes to the paper. The authors can then resubmit the paper within the timeframe specified. In case the authors fail to revert within the deadline given or revert back with a second version which is also beyond the permissible levels of plagiarism, the paper shall be rejected. No refund shall be given.
  17. Copying from one’s own work i.e. self-plagiarism is also not allowed!
  18. There is no cap on the number of authors per paper.
  19. There is no cap on the number of pages per paper. However, a minimum of 2 pages is a requirement.
  20. Papers must be submitted via the submission portal itself.
  21. Each paper must have a corresponding author. Any communication with respect to the paper shall be conducted only with the corresponding author via email.
  22. The competition committee has the right to edit and format the paper, however it shall not edit the contents of the paper.
  23. The Company’s decision (or, where appropriate, the decision of the Judges) is final and binding.
  24. Each paper is eligible to win only one prize.
  25. Papers shall be published with no requirement of any paper presentation.
  26. You are free to withdraw from the competition at any point of time before the results are announced. No refund shall be given.
  27. Neither Google Scholar © nor its affiliates are in anyways associated with this competition.
  28. Neither the German National library (DNB) nor its affiliates are in anyways associated with this competition.
  29. The Competition shall be held only if it receives a minimum of 25 entries. This shall be a transparent process and the number of entries shall be displayed on the home page .
  30. In the unfortunate event of the competition not being held due to not receiving minimum entries, the papers shall still be published in PiCES and all authors shall still receive participation e-certificates (provided the papers are plagiarism free and conform to the paper format provided).
  31. Company and its sub-contractors cannot and shall not be held accountable/ liable for any disruptions/ stoppages/ interruptions or cancellation of the Competition on account of any factors beyond their control.
  32. If any provision of these Rules & Regulations is held by any court or other competent authority to be void or unenforceable in whole or part, the other provisions of these Rules & Regulations and the remainder of the affected provisions shall continue to be valid.
  33. These Rules & Regulations and the Competition shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of India and the Author(s) submit irrevocably to the jurisdiction of the Courts in Bengaluru.
  34. Apart from the entitlement to be part of the Competition “PaCER”, the Author or his/her legal guardian will have no other rights or claims against the Company or the Publishers.
  35. For the sake of clarity, it is stated that the Author(s) of the Competition shall not be paid any consideration.
  36. The Company, Judges, the sub-contractors used by Company for the Competition, and any person or entity connected with the competition, administration or judging of the Competition shall be under no liability whatsoever to the Author(s) or the Contributors, in respect of any loss, damage suffered by the Author(s) or Contributors arising from or pursuant to the Competition or for any and all loss, damage, cost, expense or injury to life or property sustained by the Author(s) or Contributors at any stage of the Competition thereof whether or not caused by (1) the administration (including scheduling) of the Competition (2) the Author’s or any third party’s participation in the Competition, or being selected or disqualified; (3) as a result of the decisions of the Judges or Company; (4) as a result of any comment, remark, judgment, view, criticism, critique, opinion and/or observation made and/or passed by the Judges and/or Company; and/or (5) any printing, typographical or technological errors in any materials associated with the Competition. Notwithstanding the generality of the foregoing, the Relevant Parties expressly exclude liability for all direct, indirect and consequential loss or damage, including but not limited to loss or damage to property or for loss of profit, business, revenue, goodwill or anticipated savings pursuant to the Competition. In no event will the measure of damages include, nor will the Relevant Parties be liable for, any amounts for indirect, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages of any party, including third parties; or for damages attributable to the Author(s); or circumstances beyond the Relevant Parties including the Company’s reasonable control.
  37. The Author(s) hereby agree to indemnify the Company or its affiliates against any claims that might arise from their actions or omissions while participating in the Competition.
  38. The Company/ Publisher or any of its affiliates will not be liable for any loss of earnings, employment or otherwise caused to the Author(s) and arising as a result of his/her participation in the competition, if selected.
  39. The Winner(s) and/or the Author(s) of the Competition agrees that he/she shall hold harmless the Company, its employees, officers, sub-contractors or any other person in connection with the prize won by him/her and/or in relation to the Competition including but not limited to the procedure in the Competition and shall also not file in person/ through any family member and/or third party any applications, criminal and/or civil proceedings in any courts or forum in India against sponsor and/or Company to claim any damages or reliefs.
  40. The Author(s) agree to release, discharge, and covenant, not to sue the Company or any of its associate agencies and each of their respective officers, directors, agents, representatives and employees, and/or any other agencies or individuals connected with the Competition in any manner, from any and all claims, actions, damages, liabilities, losses, cost and expenses, in any way arising out of or resulting from the Author(s) involvement in the selection process.

    41. Registration and Submission

  41. Any number of entries are allowed per participant. Separate registration must be done per paper.
  42. Any number of entries are allowed per institution. Separate registration must be done per paper.
  43. All undergraduate and postgraduate students registering must be enrolled in institutions recognized by AICTE.
  44. Students can be part-time or full-time enrolled in their course of study.
  45. After submitting paper to the competition, no addition/deletion of authors will be allowed.
  46. After submitting paper to the competition, correction of grammatical/spelling errors, changing structure of paragraphs and addition/deletion of personal details shall be allowed to a certain extent on a later date - ONLY after the paper passes format and plagiarism checks.
  47. Each registration includes e-certificates for all authors participating.
  48. Repeated submissions of different versions of the same paper are not allowed. In case repeated submissions of the same paper are found, ONLY the first version uploaded shall be considered.

    49. Payment

  49. All payments must be made through the payment page provided.
  50. Only ONE paper submission is allowed per payment ID.
  51. Registration fee is per paper basis and not per author basis.
  52. Registration fee paid for a paper includes all authors in that paper. Separate payment for each author need not be done.
  53. PaCER/ PiCES/ WorldServe Online is in no ways responsible for any payment failure/ network issues while paying/ failure at POS errors or any other similar errors occurring during payment with the third-party site - Razorpay. In case of any issues while paying, you must contact Razorpay directly using their helpline.
  54. Registration fee/ entry fee once paid shall not be refunded under any circumstances.
  55. In the unfortunate event of the competition not being held due to not receiving minimum entries, no refund shall be given. However, the papers shall still be published in PiCES and all authors shall still receive participation e-certificates (provided the papers are plagiarism free and conform to the paper format provided).

    56. Jury and Committee

  56. Papers shall be judged on merit. Judgement process shall be double blind, where both authors and also jury shall not know the identity of each other.
  57. Papers will be judged according to the scholarly content including statement of purpose, thesis development, quality of analysis, and use of language.
  58. The employers, companies, organisations or any affiliates of the jury and/or committee members, are in no-ways whatsoever associated with this competition (unless specified).

    59. Prizes

  59. The prize money declared is for the entire team of authors of a paper. The amount shall be directly credited to the account of the corresponding author via online transactions. The money will not be split and credited into the accounts of all the authors of the paper that wins the competition.
  60. In case winner(s) of the prize money do not respond back with their bank account details within 7 days of receiving intimation by e-mail, it shall lead to automatic forfeiture by the authors of the prize and the same award and prize will be conferred to the paper which has been awarded the next highest points by the jury.
  61. The Company, Judges, the sub-contractors used by Company for the Competition, and any person or entity connected with the competition , administration or judging of the Competition are in no ways responsible for the prize intimation email not being delivered correctly to the prize winners.
  62. Prize money shall be transferred ONLY to bank accounts in The Republic of India.

    63. Publication and Indexing

  63. No additional payment is required for publication in PiCES.
  64. All papers submitted to the competition shall be published in PiCES if and only if plagiarism and format checks are passed. Also, any one author must transfer the copyright to PiCES. In case you refrain from transferring copyright, the paper shall not be published, and no refund shall be given.
  65. By transferring copyright to PiCES, you are legally bound not to submit the same paper in its entirety to any other publication house/ competition or upload the same on any public platform without the written consent of PiCES.
  66. In the event of breaching the copyright agreement by any author associated with the paper, action shall be taken by PiCES to remove the paper from the other journal(s)/ website(s) where the paper appears and all the authors associated with the paper shall be barred from entering future editions of the competition. Legal action could also be taken.
  67. All papers which pass format and plagiarism checks shall be published in PiCES. However, date of publication will be on “first come first serve” basis and will be published no later than the December 2020 issue of PiCES.
  68. PaCER/ PiCES/ WorldServe Online is in no way liable for non-inclusion of the paper in Google Scholar©. Google Scholar© is a third-party site which automatically picks entries from the PiCES journal. In the unfortunate yet rare event of Google Scholar© not indexing your paper, we shall not be liable.

    69. Conflict of Interest

  69. The authors must have no affiliations with or involvement in any
    • organization or entity with any financial interest (such as honoraria; educational grants; participation in speakers’ bureaus;
    • membership, employment, consultancies, stock ownership, or other equity interest; and expert testimony or patent-licensing arrangements), or non-financial interest (such as personal or professional relationships, affiliations, knowledge or beliefs) in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript.