Editorial Policy

Ethics in publishing

The author should ensure that the work described has been carried out in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans; Uniform Requirements for manuscripts submitted to Biomedical journals. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed. For investigation of human subjects, the author must state explicitly in the methods section of the manuscript that informed consent was obtained from all participating adult subjects and from parents or legal guardians for minors or incapacitated adults, together with the manner in which informed consent was obtained (i.e., oral or written).

Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest

The Journal requires authors to disclose all and any potential conflicts of interest.
A conflict of interest occurs when an individual's objectivity is potentially compromised by a desire for financial gain, prominence, professional advancement or a successful outcome. Conflicts of interest may be financial or non-financial.

Submission declaration

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis or as an electronic preprint), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere including electronically in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the copyright-holder.

Changes to authorship

Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the journal Editor.

Basic Criteria

Articles should be written in English, using US English spelling, and meet the following basic criteria: the material is original, the information is important, the writing is clear and concise, the study methods are appropriate, the data are valid, and the conclusions are reasonable and supported by the data.

Copyright

Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a 'Journal Publishing Agreement'. An e-mail will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' form or a link to the online version of this agreement.