Conflict of interest policy

When issues outside the research could affect the objectivity of the submitted paper or its evaluation, conflicts of interest occur. We ask our authors to declare possible conflicts of interest along with the submitted paper so that we can decide whether or not these conflicts may have exerted any influence and can consequently make informed decisions. Conflicts include affiliations (being related in any affiliation with the organisation interested in the particular outcome of the work); financial (benefits or services received or expected to be received by authors in connection with the object of the work or by an organisation interested in the result of the work); personal relationship (close personal ties) and similar.

By submitting a work, an author must declare any potential conflict of interest in the section Comments for the Editor. In this statement, all potential interests must be explained by elaborating why a conflict of interest may have been involved. The authors must indicate any former, current, and/or possible future benefits and any other payments, goods, perks, or services that could have affected the work. All the presently listed aspects must be honestly and adequately specified in the recognitions section, whether or not they caused a conflict of interest.

On our behalf, we assure you that, in most cases, an honest declaration of interests will not stop work from being forwarded for review and subsequently published.

If you have any doubts about potential conflicts of interest, you can discuss the issue(s) with the editor-in-chief. The journal may initiate rejection if a conflict of interest is revealed during the peer-review stage. The retraction/withdrawal process may be initiated if the paper has already been published.

The journal adheres to a policy whereby editors, editorial board members, and reviewers shall not handle a submitted manuscript if they:

• are an author or co-author of the manuscript;

• have recently co-authored publications with the author(s);

• have received or stand to receive financial compensation related to the subject of the work;

• are currently or have recently been in a personal relationship (such as marriage, parenthood, or other familial ties) or have a recent history of professional collaboration on the same project with the author;

• are direct competitors or have previously discussed the manuscript with the authors.

The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for determining the definition of "recent" and assessing whether a situation compromises the impartiality and transparency of the publishing process.