We encourage authors to adhere to the following ethical principles:
- All contributions should contain clear and accurate attribution of authorship. Names of individuals who have not contributed sufficiently to the work should not appear on the submission.
- To avoid the potential for bias, authors should consider and declare any conflicts of interest inherent in their submissions.
- Authors must declare current or recent sources of funding and other payments in the Acknowledgments if there were any. If no conflict exists, it is still important to indicate in the publication that there were no funding sources and/or no competing interests by stating: ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’. By requiring the disclosure of all funding sources and competing interests, we are seeking to improve the transparency of scientific communications by providing information that could be useful in the review process and in the interpretation of the author's conclusions. It is a statement included at the end of the manuscript, after any acknowledgements and prior to the references.
- By submitting an article, the authors agree that the manuscript will undergo a peer-review process according to the editorial policies.
- 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.
- Authors are required to state in the methods section whether participants provided informed consent and whether the consent was written or verbal. Authors also should provide information about formal ethical review or approval.
- The data is completely anonymous with no personal information being collected; (apart from their name, their publicly available contact details and a record of consent).
- The data is not considered to be sensitive or confidential in nature.
- The issues being researched are not likely to upset or disturb participants.
- Vulnerable or dependent groups are respected.
- There is no risk of possible disclosures or reporting obligations.
- 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.
Editor-in-Chief will review and approve the statement prior to its publication with the paper.