Privacy Statement

This journal follows the guidelines of the ‘Committee on Publication Ethics’ (COPE) (https://publicationethics.org). This journal follows the ‘Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors’ and the ‘Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers’ as mentioned in COPE website (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Guidelines and https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts).

 

1. Duties of Editors

1.1 Fair play

The submitted manuscripts are assessed for their academic content regardless of the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship or political philosophy. Decisions to edit and publish are not controlled by government regulations or by any other entity outside the journal itself.

1.2 Confidentiality

Editors and editorial staff will not reveal any details about a submitted manuscript to anyone, other than the corresponding author, reviewers, prospective reviewers, other editorial advisors and the publisher, as necessary.

1.3 Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Unpublished materials contained in a submitted manuscript must not be used in the own research of an Editor without explicit written permission of the author(s). Privileged information or ideas that editors receive as a result of manuscript handling would be kept confidential and not used for their personal benefit. Editors will refuse to act as an editor for manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest arising from financial, competitive, collaborative or other relationships/association with any of the authors, companies or organisations linked to the papers; instead, they will ask another board member to handle the manuscript.

1.4 Publication decisions

The journal's editor is responsible for determining which of the submitted papers should be published. The editor may be guided by the policy of the Editorial Board of the journal and limited by such legal provisions as are then in place in respect of libel, violation of copyright and plagiarism. When making this decision, the handling editor can consult with other editors or reviewers.


2. Duties of Peer Reviewers

2.1 Contribution to editorial decisions

Peer review helps the editor to make editorial decisions and, through editorial correspondence with the author, can also assist the author in the refinement of the manuscript.

2.2 Promptness

Any invited referee who feels unqualified to review the research contained in a manuscript or who knows that its timely review would be extremely difficult/impossible should immediately inform the editors and refuse the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.

2.3 Confidentiality

Manuscripts submitted for review must be considered as confidential documents. Except where approved by the editor, they must not be shown or shared with others. This policy is also applicable for the invited reviewers who refuse the invitation to review.

2.4 Standards of objectivity

Reviews should be carried out objectively, and suggestions should be clearly articulated with supporting reasons, so that authors may use them to refine the manuscript. Personal criticism of the author(s) is inappropriate and must be avoided. Referees should clearly express their opinions with suitable and reasonable supporting arguments.

2.5 Acknowledgement of sources

Reviewers should also identify relevant published work which the authors have not cited. Every statement that is an observation, derivation or argument that has been published in previous publications should be followed by the relevant citation. The reviewer should also inform the editors of any apparent resemblance or similarity between the manuscript under consideration and any other manuscripts (published or unpublished) about which they have personal knowledge.

2.6 Disclosure and conflict of interest

Privileged information or concepts gained through peer review must be held confidential and not used for personal gain. Reviewers must not consider reviewing manuscripts in which they have a conflict of interest as a result of a financial, competitive, collaborative or other relationship or association with any of the authors, companies or organisations involved in the submission.

3. Duties of authors

3.1 Reporting standards

Authors documenting the findings of the original research should include an accurate description of the work done and an objective analysis of its importance. The underlying data should be correctly reflected in the manuscript. The paper should contain sufficient detail and references to allow others to reproduce the work. Fraudulent or intentionally false claims represent unethical behaviour and are not permissible.

3.2 Originality and Plagiarism

The authors should ensure that they have written completely original works, and if the authors have used the works and/or the words of others, that they have been properly referenced or quoted. Plagiarism takes several types, from "passing" another's paper as the author's own, to copying or paraphrasing large sections of another's paper (without attribution) to claiming findings from studies by others. Plagiarism, in all its forms, constitutes an unethical behaviour in publishing and is unacceptable.

3.3 Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication

In general, the author should not publish papers presenting fundamentally the same study in more than one journal or primary publication. At the same time, the submission of the same manuscript to more than one journal constitutes an unethical publishing activity and is unacceptable.

3.4 Acknowledgement of sources

Proper acknowledgement of the work of others must always be provided. Authors should also cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.< /p>

3.5 Authorship of the manuscript

Authorship should be restricted to those who have made an important contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made major contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who 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.

3.6 Hazards and human or animal subjects

If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the authors must clearly identify these in the manuscript.

3.7 Disclosure and conflicts of interest

All authors must disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflicts 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.

3.8 Peer review

Authors are obliged to participate in the peer-review process and cooperate fully by responding promptly to editors’ requests for raw data, clarifications, and proof of ethics approval, patient consents and copyright permissions. In the case of a first decision of "revisions necessary", authors should respond to the reviewers’ comments systematically, point by point, and in a timely manner, revising and re-submitting their manuscript to the journal by the deadline given.

3.9 Data access and retention

Authors may be asked to provide the raw data of their study together with the manuscript for editorial review.

3.10 Fundamental errors in published works

When authors discover significant errors or inaccuracies in their own published work, it is their obligation to promptly notify the journal’s editors or publisher and cooperate with them to either correct the paper in the form of an erratum or to retract the paper. If the editors or publisher learns from a third party that a published work contains a significant error or inaccuracy, then it is the authors’ obligation to promptly correct or retract the paper or provide evidence to the journal editors of the correctness of the paper.


4. Duties of the Publisher

4.1 Handling of unethical publishing behaviour

In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism the publisher, in close collaboration with the editor, 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, together with the editors, shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, and under no circumstances encourage such misconduct or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place.

4.2 Access to journal content

The publisher is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research and ensures accessibility by maintaining its own digital archive.

4.3 Fair play

The Publisher and the Journal do not discriminate on the basis of 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.

 

5. Copyright and License

5.1 Submission of a manuscript clearly indicates that: the study has not been published before or is not under consideration for publication elsewhere (except as an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis); its publication is permitted by all authors and after accepted for publication it will not be submitted for publication anywhere else, in English or in any other language, without the written approval of the copyright holder. Authors should mandatorily ensure that submission of a manuscript to this journal would result in no breach of contract or of confidence or of commitment given to secrecy. The journal may consider manuscripts that are translations of articles originally published in another language. In this case, the consent of the journal in which the article was originally published must be obtained and the fact that the article has already been published must be made clear on submission and stated in the abstract. It is compulsory for the authors to ensure that no material submitted as part of a manuscript infringes existing copyrights or the rights of a third party. 

5.2 Submission of a manuscript clearly indicates that authors grant this journal a license to publish the article and identify itself as the original publisher. The submitting author (corresponding author) is responsible for ensuring that the article's publication has been approved by all the other co-authors and after the publication of the paper author-dispute related issues will not be entertained. It is also the corresponding authors' responsibility to ensure that the articles emanating from a particular institution are submitted with the approval of the necessary institution.

5.3 Copyright on any open access article published in this journal is retained by the author(s). The Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) formalizes these and other terms and conditions of publishing articles. Authors also grant any third party the right to use the article freely as long as its integrity is maintained and its original authors, citation details and publisher are identified. This journal gives permission to authors to post final accepted versions or published articles on third party repositories, provided citation details and publisher are identified

5.4 Where an author is prevented from being the copyright holder (for instance in the case of US government employees or those of Commonwealth governments), minor variations may be required. In such cases, the copyright line and license statement in individual articles will be adjusted, for example to state ‘© 2016 Crown copyright’. Authors requiring a variation of this type should inform the journal during or immediately after submission of their article. Changes to the copyright line cannot be made after publication of an article.