Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

Editors' Responsibilities

Publication Decisions on Manuscripts

The editor-in-Chief decides which research submission will be published in this journal. About manuscript evaluation, the editor shall assess the work with no prejudice against the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy. The selection will be impartially made on the paper’s significance, novelty, and clarity, and the study’s legitimacy and its bearing to the journal's scope. Another consideration checks whether the paper adheres to the current legal requirements on libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.

Confidentiality of Information

The editor and any editorial staff are not allowed to divulge any information about a submitted manuscript to others, excluding the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

The editor or the members of the editorial board are barred from using unpublished materials overtly discussed in a submitted paper for their research purposes unless they explicitly seek the author's written consent.

Reviewers' Responsibilities

Contribution to Editorial Decisions

The peer-reviewing process is an aid for the editor and the editorial board when they make editorial decisions as well as helps the author further enhance the paper.

Promptness

When a chosen referee deems oneself unfit to review the research reported in a manuscript or is unable to provide a prompt review, a notification of withdrawal from the review process must be immediately sent to the editor.

Confidentiality of Information

All manuscripts under review in this journal are treated with confidentiality. Disclosure or discussion of such documents with others is strictly prohibited unless approved by the editor.

Standards of Objectivity and Conduct

Only objective reviews are accepted. Subjective criticism of the author is deemed improper. On this note, referees are obligated to deliver their informed opinions with clarity, and the latter must be supported by compelling arguments.

Acknowledgment of Reference Sources

Reviewers are also tasked to recognize cases when the paper under review indicates in the main body a relevant published work but overlooks citing the latter in the reference section. Additionally, they should underline whether the authors declare that their observations or arguments are derived from other publications by acknowledging the respective source. Reviewers will notify the editor if they are cognizant of any sizable resemblance or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest

Confidential information or ideas obtained through peer review must not be shared and used for self-benefit. Reviewers should not evaluate manuscripts that conflict with their interest due to competitive, collaborative, or other contradictory affiliations with any of the authors, companies, or institutions associated with the papers.

Authors' Duties

Reporting Standards

When presenting the findings of original research, authors must ensure accuracy and include an impartial discussion of its significance. Underlying data should also be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should be replicable by covering sufficient detail and references. Falsified or intentionally making erroneous statements constitute unethical behavior and are therefore deemed unacceptable.

Data access and retention

Reviewers may ask the authors to submit the raw data of their study together with the paper for editorial review. Accordingly, they must prepare public accessibility of data if practicable. In any case, authors should guarantee ease of access of such data to other experts for a minimum of ten years after publication (preferably via an institutional or subject-based data repository or other data center), as long as the confidentiality of the participants can be protected and legal rights about proprietary data do not impede their publication.

Originality, Plagiarism, and Acknowledgement of Sources

Authors must submit exclusively original works. They must also appropriately cite or quote the work and/or words of others. Publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work also require citation.

Multiple, Redundant, or Concurrent Publication

In general, papers that fundamentally describe the same research are banned from being published in more than one journal. Committing such an act constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. Submitting manuscripts that have been published as copyrighted material elsewhere is strictly prohibited. Moreover, manuscripts under review by the journal should not be resubmitted to copyrighted publications. However, by submitting a manuscript, the author(s) retains the rights to the published material. In case of publication, they are consenting to the use of their work under a CC-BY license, which allows others to copy, distribute, and transmit the work as well as to adapt the work and use it for commercial purposes.

Authorship of the Paper

Authorship is strictly restricted to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. Co-authors are those who have made significant contributions and therefore should be listed as such.

The corresponding author warrants that all contributing co-authors are included in the author list and no uninvolved persons are mentioned in it. The corresponding author will also confirm the approval of all co-authors regarding the final version of the paper and their agreement to its submission for publication.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

All authors should deliberately state any financial or other fundamental conflicts of interest that may be construed to influence the findings or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should also be expressly acknowledged. If it is not listed in the manuscript, it means that the author has no conflict of interest to state and no supporting agency to add. 

Fundamental Errors in Published Works

When an author discovers a glaring error or inaccuracy in his/her published work, the author’s duty includes promptly notifying the journal editor or publisher and cooperating with the editor to retract or rectify the mistake(s) in the paper through an erratum.

Ethics of Human and Animal Experimentation

All clinical investigations should be conducted in line with the Declaration of Helsinki principles. All manuscripts reporting data from studies involving human participants require a formal review and approval by an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee.

For research involving animals, the authors should indicate whether the procedures followed adhered to the standards outlined in the eighth edition of “Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals”(grants.nih.gov/grants/olaw/guide-for-the-care-and-use-of-laboratory-animals_prepub.pdf published by the National Academy of Sciences, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.).