Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Editorial Responsibilities

Editors evaluate manuscripts on originality, scientific quality, relevance, methodology and ethical compliance. Decisions are independent of authors’ nationality, institution, gender, beliefs or background.

Editors maintain confidentiality, manage conflicts of interest and take appropriate action when misconduct is suspected.

Author Responsibilities

Authors must ensure that:

• The manuscript is original and not under consideration elsewhere.
• Data are accurate and have not been fabricated, falsified or manipulated.
• All sources are properly cited.
• Ethical approval and informed consent were obtained where required.
• All authors meet accepted authorship criteria and approved the submission.
• Funding and competing interests are fully disclosed.
• Errors identified after publication are promptly reported to the journal.

Authorship

Authorship is limited to individuals who made a substantial contribution, participated in writing or revising the manuscript, approved the final version and accept responsibility for the work.

Gift, honorary, ghost and fraudulent authorship are prohibited. AI tools cannot be listed as authors.

Peer-Review Ethics

Reviewers must:

• Maintain confidentiality.
• Provide objective and constructive comments.
• Declare conflicts of interest.
• Avoid using unpublished information for personal benefit.
• Inform the Editor of suspected plagiarism, duplicate publication or misconduct.

Research Misconduct

The journal does not tolerate:

• Plagiarism or text recycling.
• Fabrication or falsification of data.
• Duplicate or redundant publication.
• Inappropriate image manipulation.
• Authorship, citation or peer-review manipulation.
• Undisclosed competing interests.
• Misrepresentation of ethical approval or consent.

The journal may request original data, ethics documents or other evidence and may contact institutions when necessary.

Ethics and Consent

Research involving humans, identifiable data or biological material must have approval from an appropriate ethics committee.

The manuscript must state the committee name, approval number and consent process. Written consent for publication is required when individuals may be identifiable.

Animal studies must receive appropriate ethical approval and comply with recognised animal-welfare standards.

Conflicts of Interest and Funding

Authors, editors and reviewers must disclose financial, professional, institutional or personal relationships that could influence the work.

All funding sources and the role of the funder must be stated.

Artificial Intelligence

Authors must disclose substantive use of AI tools in writing, editing, translation, data analysis, coding or image generation.

Authors remain fully responsible for accuracy, originality, confidentiality, references and final content. AI must not be used to fabricate data, references or results.

Corrections and Retractions

The journal may publish corrections, expressions of concern or retractions when published work contains significant errors, misconduct, plagiarism, unethical research or unreliable findings.

Retraction notices will clearly state the reason and remain linked to the original article.

Complaints and Appeals

Authors, reviewers and readers may submit complaints or appeals concerning editorial decisions, peer review, ethical issues or published content.

Complaints will be handled fairly, confidentially and, where possible, independently of the original decision.

Editorial Independence

Editorial decisions are independent of the publisher, sponsoring institution, advertisers and commercial interests.

Since the journal does not charge any publication fees, editorial decisions are entirely free of financial or commercial influence.

Sanctions

Depending on the seriousness of the misconduct, the journal may:

• Reject or withdraw a manuscript.
• Publish a correction or retraction.
• Notify the authors’ institution, ethics committee or funding agency.
• Restrict future submissions.
• Report fraudulent activity to appropriate authorities.