Publishing policies and ethics

 Authors

1. By submitting the manuscript to the journal, authors ensure that the work is entirely original. If authors have used the work and/or words of others, they should ensure that their citations and references are accurate.

2. The list of authors should accurately reflect those who have made substantial contributions to the manuscript’s conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, or carrying out the research and drafting the manuscript. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, assisted in conducting the research, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors and persons who have provided assistance. The authors can express gratitude to them. To give appropriate credit to each author, the individual contributions of authors should be specified in the manuscript.


3. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper, and that all co-authors have given final approval of the version to be published and have agreed to its submission for publication.

4. Proper acknowledgement of the contribution of others in the area the manuscript is devoted to should always be given. Authors should refer to the publications that have been essential for manuscript preparation. Authors should also cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Data obtained privately, as well as information received from confidential sources, must not be used without the written permission of these sources and compliance with the appropriate procedure for handling confidential information.

5. If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, authors must clearly identify these in the manuscript. If the work involves animal or human subjects, authors should ensure that the manuscript contains a statement that the research and the procedures were conducted according to the existing legislation and all relevant institutional guidelines. The appropriate institutional and/or licensing committee having approved the experiments should be identified. Authors should confirm that informed consent to participate in the study was obtained from all human subjects.

6. Authors of original research should present an accurate account of the results of their work as well as the information about an objective discussion of its significance in a professional environment.

7. In case the author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy after publication of the article, it is the author’s obligation to promptly inform the editorial board of the journal and cooperate with it to retract or correct the paper. If the editorial board learns from a third party that the published work contains a significant error, the author is obliged to retract or correct the paper as soon as possible.

 

 Evaluation of manuscript

 1. The editorial board assumes that peer review is not only a necessary condition for publication of the manuscript, but also the most effective way to enhance its quality and significance. This ensures that the journal maintains high scientific standards. The editorial board guides the reviewers to make their own contribution to the manuscript by scientific editing of the text and providing suggestions for its improvement.

2. Evaluation of the manuscript submitted to the editorial board should not be affected by the gender, race, nationality, language, origin, property status, official position, place of residence, attitude to religion, beliefs of the authors, their membership in public associations, as well as other circumstances.

3. All scientific materials submitted for publication to the journal are checked to prevent plagiarism. The screening system “Antiplagiarism” is used to detect plagiarized content. The originality of the submitted content should be at least 70%.

4. Plagiarism in all its forms is estimated as a gross violation of publication ethics. If plagiarism or other forms of research misconduct are found, the editorial board terminates any cooperation with the author and imposes a ban on that individual’s publications in the journal.
The forms of misconduct, according to the Association of Science Editors and Publishers’ recommendations, include:
1) fabrication and/or falsification of research results;
2) plagiarism;
3) intentional selection or concealment of results, relevant to the findings, in the publication (changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented);
4) false use of statistical or other methods;
5) intentional or careless negligence in hiding the details of the methodology;
6) false information about authorship (attributed ghost and honorary authorship, invisible authorship (without providing references or acknowledging the participation of young researchers);
7) false presentation of the results of other researchers (false citation);
8) unacceptable reusing one’s own previous publication (self-plagiarism and duplicate publications);
9) improper handling of research objects;
10) collusions with the aim to increase citation of the paper artificially.
The journal will contact the author’s head of department/employer and can choose to contact the author’s funding body and inform them of the plagiarism and other forms of unethical behavior in the field of scientific publications revealed. The information about the revealed facts is posted on the journal website. In case the article is published, it should be retracted.

5. Authors should not publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal as original or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript (or overlapping publication) to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. Any manuscript submitted to the journal must not have been previously published in another journal or be under consideration for publication elsewhere. Authors should adhere to publication requirements that the submitted work is original, not plagiarized, and previously unpublished.

6. Underlying data and research materials should be represented accurately in the paper. Manuscript should contain sufficient detail and references to support the conclusions of the study. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

7. The editorial board may ask authors to provide the empirical and raw data supporting the results of the research.

 

Reviewers

1. Reviews should be conducted objectively. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments. Personal criticism of authors is inappropriate.

2. Reviewers should identify relevant published works that have not been cited or included in the reference list by the authors. Any statement that has been previously reported by the authors (an observation, conclusion, procedure, or argument) should be accompanied by the relevant citation or reference.

Reviewers should also call to the editorial board’s attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

3. A reviewer, whose academic qualification does not enable to provide competent evaluation of the submitted manuscript, should notify the executive editor of the journal and decline the invitation to review the scientific paper.

4. Reviewers are required to treat manuscripts confidentially. The editorial board keeps confidential all details about the submitted manuscript and does not comment to any outside organization or third parties about manuscripts under consideration by the journal while they are under consideration or if they are rejected. The editorial board does not disclose any information about the submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, and the journal publisher, as appropriate.

 

 

Chief Editor

1. The chief editor is personally responsible for the final decision about the publication of the submitted manuscript. The grounds for such decision should be validity and scientific value of the information contained in the manuscript.

2. When making the decision to accept the manuscript for publication, the chief editor takes into account the opinions of the reviewers as well as other members of the editorial board.

3. When making the decision to accept the manuscript for publication, the chief editor is guided by the editorial and publishing policies of the journal, except for situations involving direct legislative regulation (the issues regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism).

 

 

Publisher

1. The journal publisher is guided by the publishing policies and ethics and ensures the implementation of its requirements by the editorial board, reviewers and authors. The publisher should adopt policies and procedures that support the editorial board, reviewers and authors in performing their ethical duties under ethics guidelines.

2. The journal publisher should provide support to the editorial board in considering the complaints concerning the ethical issues of the published manuscripts and assist in interaction with other journals and/or publishers, if it contributes to the performance of duties by the editorial board.

3. The journal publisher should contribute to the proper procedures for conducting the researches in order to ensure the compliance of the publishing policies and practices with the ethical requirements. The publisher should also ensure the legal support of the journal publication.

 

 

   Conflict of interest

1. The editorial board follows ethical guidelines and standards accepted by international scientific community. When evaluating the manuscripts the editorial board seeks to prevent conflicts of interest among its members, reviewers, journal publisher and authors.

2. If the editorial board members, reviewers or journal publisher have any competing or conflicting interests (resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies or institutions connected to the papers) preventing them from making an objective and unbiased evaluation of the manuscript, then the relevant persons should declare such interests and disqualify themselves from considering or reviewing the manuscript, and ask another editorial board member or reviewer to consider or review the manuscript and make the decision.

3. The editorial board members together with the reviewers and journal publisher should take reasonably responsive measures in case the ethical complaints concerning the peer review or publication of the submitted manuscript arise. Such measures generally include the interaction with the authors of the manuscript and independent experts, representing legal community (famous legal scholars, practitioners, educational institutions, scientific and research organizations, professional associations and unions of lawyers). The editorial board gives due consideration of the respective complaint or claim made.

4. All authors should disclose any financial and non-financial competing or conflicting interests that may be perceived to influence the results or conclusions of the research. Any competing or conflicting interests relating to the paper must be declared in the manuscript: employment, consultation fees, having stocks or shares, receiving funding, providing expert opinions, patent registration or patent application, receiving grants and other financial support.

5. If the editorial board members, reviewers or journal publisher discover a significant error or any misconduct and provide convincing evidence that the statements or conclusions of the published paper are obviously erroneous, they should notify the chief editor or the chairman of editorial board, who makes a decision to promote the prompt publication of a correction, retraction, expression of concern, to seize the copies of the journal, inform the legal community, refute previously published information, or other decision related to the situation.


6. Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used by the editorial board members, reviewers or journal publisher without the express written consent of the authors. Privileged information or ideas obtained by the editorial board members, reviewers or journal publisher must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.

 

 Retraction

Retraction (retracting a publication) is issued on the official appeal of the editorial office of the journal or the author.
Grounds for retraction: 1) the publication contains plagiarism; 2) redundant publication (the manuscript has previously been published elsewhere); 3) the paper contains falsification; 4) the paper contains significant errors; 5) incorrect author / contributor list; 6) discovering the conflict of interests (and other violations of publication ethics); 7) republication of the article without the consent of the authors.
Retraction of journal materials is carried out in accordance with the recommendations and rules of the Association of Science Editors and Publishers. Retracted articles are clearly identified as such in all electronic sources (on the journal website and any bibliographic databases). The information about the retracted article indicating the information about the author is brought to the attention of the Association of Science Editors and Publishers and the organizations indexing the journal.