All parties involved in publishing (editors, authors, reviewers, and the publisher) must agree upon standards of ethical behaviour. We state the following principles of Publication Ethics and a Publication Malpractice Statement based on the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors of the Committee on Publication Ethics—COPE (available at http://publicationethics.org/).
Duties of the Editors
Publication decisions
The Journal’s Editor-in-Chief is responsible for deciding which submitted articles should be published. The Editor-in-Chief may be guided by the policies of the Journal’s Editorial Board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The Editor-in-Chief may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.
Confidentiality
The editors and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
Fair play
Submitted manuscripts are evaluated for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor’s own research without the author’s explicit written consent. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.
Duties of the Reviewers
Contribution to editorial decisions
Peer review assists the Editor-in-Chief in making editorial decisions and, through the editorial communication with the author, may also assist the author in improving the manuscript.
Promptness
Any invited reviewers who feel they need to be more qualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or know that its timely review will be impossible should immediately notify the Editor-in-Chief so that alternative reviewers can be selected.
Confidentiality
Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except if authorised by the Editor-in-Chief.
Standards of objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is unacceptable. Referees should express their views clearly with appropriate supporting arguments.
Acknowledgement of sources
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that the authors have not cited. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor’s attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published data they have personal knowledge.
Disclosure and conflict of interest
Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts with conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any authors, companies, or institutions connected to the manuscripts.
Duties of the Authors
Reporting standards
Authors reporting the results of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed and an objective discussion of its significance. The manuscript should accurately represent the underlying data. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.
Originality and Plagiarism
The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works and that if they have used the work and/or words of others, this has been appropriately cited or quoted. The Journal only allows up to 15% similarities of plagiarism checks via Turnitin or any similar plagiarism checking system. Authors are advised to attach the plagiarism report together with their submission.
Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication
An author should not generally publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one Journal or primary publication. Parallel submission of the same manuscript to more than one Journal constitutes unacceptable publishing behaviour.
Acknowledgement of sources
Proper acknowledgement of the work of others must always be given. Authors should also cite publications that have influenced the nature of the reported work.
Authorship of a manuscript
Authorship should be limited to those who have contributed significantly to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where others have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be named in an Acknowledgement section. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors (according to the above definition) and no inappropriate co-authors are included in the author list of the manuscript and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.
Hazards and human or animal subjects
If the work involves chemicals, procedures, or equipment with any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the authors must clearly identify these in the manuscript. Suppose the work involves the use of animal or human subjects. In that case, the author should ensure that the manuscript contains a statement that all procedures comply with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and that the appropriate institutional committee has approved them. The authors should include a statement in the manuscript stating that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or their interpretation in the manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.
Fundamental errors in published works
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, the author must promptly notify the Editor-in-Chief or publisher and cooperate with the Editor-in-Chief to correct or retract the manuscript.
Duties of the Publisher
In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, the publisher, in close collaboration with the Editors-in-Chief, will take all appropriate measures to clarify the situation and to amend the article in question. This includes the prompt publication of an erratum or, in the most severe cases, the complete retraction of the affected work. The publisher and the Journal do not discriminate based on age, colour, religion, creed, disability, marital status, veteran status, national origin, race, gender, genetic predisposition or carrier status, or sexual orientation in its publishing programs, services and activities.