Authors of original empirical articles must present precise account of the procedures executed and the intentions for deliberately performing such works. All data should be explicitly stated in the paper along with its specific details and sources to ensure that replication can be done in future researches. Inaccurate or fraudulent accounts stated in submitted research articles would enunciate ethical violations since it is not an acceptable practice in scientific publications.

Authors or contributors are required to properly cite and quote sources of literature that they utilized in formulating their research articles. Plagiarism may be manifested in variety of ways such as using another’s paper as the author’s own paper, intentional or unintentional copying or paraphrasing parts of another’s paper without citation, claiming results from research conducted by others. Plagiarism is an unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

Authors should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. Authors should not submit for consideration in another journal a previously published paper.

Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, must not be used without the explicit written permission of the author of the work involved in these services.

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. 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, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed. Examples of potential conflicts of interest which should be disclosed include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed at the earliest stage possible, and must be communicated to the editor in the cover letter when sending the manuscript at the first time.

The editors are accountable for everything published in this journal. They strive to meet the needs of readers and authors; they strive to constantly improve the journal; they have processes in place to assure the quality of the material they publish; they champion freedom of expression; they preclude business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards; they are always willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed; they ensure that the non-peer-reviewed sections of this journal is clearly identified. New editors should not overturn decisions to publish submissions made by the previous editor unless serious problems are identified.

The editors are developing and maintaining a database of suitable reviewers and updating this on the basis of reviewer performance and ceasing to use reviewers who consistently produce discourteous, poor quality or late reviews. The reviewer database reflects the community for the journal and new reviewers will be added as needed, using a wide range of sources (not just personal contacts) to identify potential new reviewers (e.g. author suggestions, bibliographic databases). The editors are regularly reviewing the composition of the editorial board.

The editors are providing clear guidance to editorial board members about their expected functions and duties, which might include:

• acting as ambassadors for the journal
• supporting and promoting the journal
• seeking out the best authors and best work (e.g. from meeting abstracts) and actively encouraging submissions
• reviewing submissions to the journal
• accepting commissions to write editorials, reviews and commentaries on papers in their specialist area
• attending and contributing to editorial board meetings

The editors are consulting editorial board members periodically (several times a year) to gauge their opinions about the running of the journal, informing them of any changes to journal policies and identifying future challenge establishing mechanisms to handle disagreements between themselves and the journal owner/publisher with due process.

The editors are communicating regularly with their journal’s owner and publisher. They are referring troubling cases to COPE, especially when questions arise that are not addressed by the COPE flowcharts, or new types of publication misconduct are suspected considering the appointment of an ombudsperson to adjudicate in complaints that cannot be resolved internally.

The editor of a peer-reviewed journal is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The validation of the work in question and its importance to researchers, practitioners and readers must always drive such decisions. The editor may be guided by the policies of the journal’s editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. Editor’s decisions are based on the manuscript evaluation reports of peer reviewers or editorial board members. A description of peer review processes is published as well as a guidance to authors on everything that is expected of them. This guidance is regularly updated and is referred to this code. The editors are respecting requests from authors that an individual should not review their submission, if these are well-reasoned and practicable.

The editors are publishing submission and acceptance dates for articles. The editors are sending reviewers’ comments to authors in their entirety unless they contain offensive or libellous remarks.

An editor should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors. Double blind reviews will be executed to ensure that biases in the process of evaluating manuscripts are eliminated. In this type of review, reviewers are not aware of the author’s personal and professional profile, the same way as the authors will not be given information regarding the reviewer’s identity.

The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
In addition to that he editors should always protect the confidentiality of individual information obtained in the course of research or professional interactions (e.g. between psychotherapists and patients). It is therefore almost always necessary to obtain written informed consent for publication from people who might recognize themselves or be identified by others (e.g. from case reports or photographs). It may be possible to publish individual information without explicit consent if public interest considerations outweigh possible harms, it is impossible to obtain consent and a reasonable individual would be unlikely to object to publication.

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Editors should recuse themselves (i.e. should ask a co-editor, associate editor or other member of the editorial board instead to review and consider) from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or (possibly) institutions connected to the papers. Editors should require all contributors to disclose relevant competing interests and publish corrections if competing interests are revealed after publication. If needed, other appropriate action should be taken, such as the publication of a retraction or expression of concern. To ensure that commercial considerations do not affect editorial decisions the advertising in this journal operates independently from editorial department.

The editors are encouraging debate and are willing to consider cogent criticisms of work published in this journal.
Authors of criticised material should be given the opportunity to respond. Studies reporting negative results are not excluded. The journal line is open to research that challenges previous work published in this (or other) journals. The editors will not simply reject papers that raise concerns about possible misconduct. They see them ethically obliged to pursue alleged cases.

In case of a suspected misconduct editors should first seek a response from those persons involved. If they are not satisfied with the response, they should ask the relevant employers, or institution, or some appropriate body (the national ethic commission at the ministry of health) to investigate. The editors will make all reasonable efforts to ensure that a proper investigation into alleged misconduct is conducted; if this does not happen, the editors will make all reasonable attempts to persist in obtaining a resolution to the problem. Errors, inaccurate or misleading statements will be corrected promptly and with due prominence. The editors follow the COPE guidelines on retractions.
The editors are supporting authors whose copyright has been breached or who have been the victims of plagiarism.

Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper. Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication, and lies at the heart of the scientific method.

Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor. The editors require reviewers to disclose any potential competing interests before agreeing to review a submission. The editors have installed a system to ensure that peer reviewers’ identities are protected and accessible neither to authors nor to readers.

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor’s attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.