Duties of Authors
By submitting any material to the journal, corresponding authors guarantee that:
- Their work is original and free from any form of plagiarism (including redrawing images or schemes by other authors without the consent of the publishers or authors);
- Their work has not previously been published elsewhere, unless otherwise specifically acknowledged, and has not been submitted in any form to any other publisher for simultaneous consideration.
- No procedures, data or outcomes in their research as contained in the paper have been fabricated, falsified or manipulated;
- In the event of multiple authorship, all listed co-authors are aware of the submission process and agree to the manuscript being submitted.
- By submitting an article, the authors agree that the manuscript will undergo a peer-review process according to the editorial policies.
Authors' responsibilities include the following issues:
- All people who comply with the definition of authors (above) should be named as authors on the article, and, similarly, nobody who does not comply should be included as an author. Authors may not be added or deleted after submission without full explanation and written consent of all authors.
- All authors must declare if they have any conflict of interest that may have biased either their research or the article submitted.
- Authors are required to ensure that they do not selectively, or incorrectly, report their findings, or use language to mislead the readers.
- Authors must declare current or recent sources of funding and other payments in the Acknowledgments.
- Authors are responsible for ensuring that all data, theories and quotations are appropriately credited and referenced and the information in each reference is complete and accurate. Proper acknowledgement of other works must be given. If the submission contains illustrations produced by other authors and/or any copyrighted material, authors should obtain permission from the copyright holder to reproduce them. The unattributed copying of another published or unpublished work, or the theft of the ideas of another researcher is considered a serious offence. If suspected authors will be contacted and – if under review – the article will be held until the issue is resolved. Note that all articles are checked for plagiarism when submitted.
- Authors are urged to avoid ‘self-plagiarism’. However, if they reuse portions of their own previously published and copyrighted work, this should be done by using quotations and proper paraphrasing.
- Authors are urged to avoid splitting up research results into several parts to increase the quantity of submissions.
- Authors are responsible for ensuring they have complied with the legal and ethical requirements of their countries and institutions.
- Authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes.
In all cases, the publisher reserves the rights to contact the authors' institutions is serious misconduct has been identified, and to retract any articles in which serious misconduct has been identified.