Publication Ethics, Authorship, and Competing Interests

Ethical Oversight

The journal investigates allegations fairly, confidentially, proportionately, and with an opportunity for response. Concerns may include fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, image manipulation, duplicate publication, citation manipulation, peer-review manipulation, unethical research, undisclosed conflicts, or authorship disputes.

Responsibilities

Editors decide on scholarly merit, protect confidentiality, manage conflicts, document decisions, and issue corrections or retractions when required. Reviewers provide confidential, constructive, evidence-based reports and disclose conflicts. Authors ensure originality, accuracy, ethical approval and consent where required, data integrity, disclosure of funding and conflicts, and cooperation with investigations.

Authorship

Each author must make a substantial contribution to the conception or design, data acquisition, analysis, or interpretation; participate in drafting or critical revision; approve the final version; and accept accountability for the work. Contributors who do not meet all criteria are acknowledged. Requests to add, remove, or reorder authors require a written reason and agreement from all affected authors. Post-publication changes are made through a formal correction.

Competing Interests

Authors, editors, and reviewers must disclose financial, personal, professional, institutional, competitive, or intellectual relationships that could influence—or reasonably appear to influence—the work. Conflicted editors and reviewers are recused. Every article publishes a conflict-of-interest statement.

Investigation and Action

The editor records the concern, screens the evidence, contacts relevant parties, seeks independent advice when necessary, and may contact institutions. Outcomes may include rejection, correction, expression of concern, retraction, reviewer removal, editorial recusal, or referral to an institution. Decisions and reasons are documented.