Ethical Principles

All participants in the publication process—including authors, editors, reviewers, and the publisher—are expected to act with honesty, independence, confidentiality, transparency, and respect for the integrity of the scholarly record.

Editorial decisions are based on scholarly merit, relevance, originality, methodological quality, and the journal's editorial requirements. Decisions must not be influenced by an author's nationality, ethnicity, gender, religion, institutional affiliation, political views, or other irrelevant personal characteristics.

Author Responsibilities

Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made substantial scholarly contributions to the work and who accept responsibility for the published article. Individuals who contributed to the work but do not meet the criteria for authorship should be acknowledged appropriately.

All listed authors should approve the manuscript before submission and agree to its submission to the journal. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all authors are aware of and agree with the submitted version.

Requests to add, remove, or change the order of authors after submission must be explained to the editorial office and require appropriate agreement from the authors involved. The journal may request supporting information and will evaluate authorship changes in accordance with publication ethics principles.

Conflicts of Interest and Funding

Authors must disclose financial, professional, personal, institutional, or other relationships that could reasonably be perceived as influencing the research or its interpretation.

Sources of financial support must be disclosed, including relevant grant information and, where applicable, the role of funders or sponsors in the research design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, or decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethical Oversight

Research involving human participants, personal or sensitive data, animals, or other activities requiring ethical oversight must comply with applicable laws, institutional requirements, and recognized disciplinary standards.

Where ethical approval or informed consent is required, authors should provide an appropriate statement in the manuscript and retain documentation that may be requested by the journal.

Authors must protect participant privacy and confidentiality and obtain appropriate permissions or consent before publishing identifiable personal information, images, or other protected material.

Editor Responsibilities

Editors are responsible for protecting editorial independence and ensuring that manuscripts are evaluated fairly and consistently according to scholarly merit and journal policy.

Editors must protect the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts, reviewer reports, correspondence, and unpublished information obtained through the editorial process.

Editors must declare relevant competing interests and recuse themselves from handling manuscripts where their impartiality could reasonably be questioned. Such manuscripts should be assigned to another suitably independent editor.

Editors must not manipulate citations, pressure authors to cite particular publications for non-scholarly reasons, or attempt to influence journal metrics through inappropriate editorial practices.

Reviewer Responsibilities

Reviewers should accept assignments only when they possess sufficient expertise and can provide an objective and timely assessment.

Manuscripts and review materials must be treated as confidential. Information obtained through peer review must not be used for personal advantage or disclosed improperly.

Reviews should be objective, constructive, evidence-based, and professionally expressed. Personal criticism, discriminatory comments, coercive citation requests, and other inappropriate reviewer conduct are not acceptable.

Reviewers must disclose relevant competing interests and decline or consult the editor regarding an assignment where circumstances could reasonably compromise the independence of the review.

Publisher Responsibilities

The publisher supports the editorial team in maintaining the integrity, independence, transparency, accessibility, and continuity of the journal.

The publisher must not interfere improperly with individual editorial decisions and should provide appropriate systems and administrative support for responsible scholarly publishing.

The publisher works with the editorial team when concerns involving publication ethics, research integrity, or the scholarly record require investigation or corrective action.

Allegations of Research or Publication Misconduct

Concerns involving suspected fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, inappropriate authorship, citation manipulation, undisclosed competing interests, unethical research, peer-review manipulation, or other forms of research or publication misconduct will be taken seriously.

The journal will consider available evidence, provide relevant parties with an appropriate opportunity to respond, and may seek additional information from authors, reviewers, institutions, funders, or other relevant parties when necessary. Cases will be handled with appropriate confidentiality and with reference to applicable COPE guidance.

Complaints and Appeals

Authors and other parties may raise concerns regarding editorial procedures, publication ethics, or editorial decisions through the journal's editorial office. Complaints and appeals should clearly identify the manuscript or publication concerned and provide the reasons and supporting information for the request.

Appeals will be considered independently and fairly. Submission of an appeal does not itself guarantee reversal of an editorial decision.