Duties of Editor-in-Chief

1. 1. Fairness and editorial independence: Submitted manuscripts are evaluated solely on the basis of their academic merit and relevance to the journal’s scope.
   2. Confidentiality: Editor-in-Chief/ the Editorial editorial staff is responsible to ensure that any information about a submitted manuscript will not be disclosed to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
   3. Disclosure and conflicts of interest: Editor-in-Chief/ the Editorial will not use unpublished information disclosed in a submitted manuscript for their own research purposes. Privileged information or ideas obtained by editors as a result of handling the manuscript will be kept confidential and not used for their personal advantage. Editor-in-Chief will recuse themselves from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships/connections with any of the authors, companies or institutions connected to the papers; instead, they will ask another member of the Editorial to handle the manuscript.
   4. Publication decisions: The Editor-in-Chief ensures that all submitted manuscripts being considered for publication undergo peer-review by at least two reviewers who are expert in the field. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for deciding which of the manuscripts submitted to the journal will be published, based on the validation of the work in question, its importance to researchers and readers, the reviewers’ comments, and such legal requirements as are currently in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The Editor-in-Chief may confer with other members of the Editorial or reviewers in making this decision.
   5. Investigations: Editor-in-Chief will take responsive measures when ethical concerns are raised with regard to a submitted manuscript or published paper. Every reported act of unethical publishing behaviour will be looked into, even if it is discovered years after publication. If, on investigation, the ethical concern is well-founded, a correction, retraction, expression of concern or other note as may be relevant, will be published in the journal.

Duties of Reviewers

1. 1. Contribution to editorial decisions: Peer review assists Editor-in-Chief in making editorial decisions and, through editorial communications. Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication and lies at the heart of scientific endeavour.
   2. Promptness: Any invited referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should immediately notify the editors and decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.
   3. Confidentiality: Any manuscripts received for review are confidential documents and must be treated as such; they must not be shown to or discussed with others. This applies also to invited reviewers who decline the review invitation.
   4. Standards of objectivity: Reviews should be conducted objectively and observations formulated clearly with supporting arguments so that authors can use them for improving the manuscript. Personal criticism of the authors is inappropriate.
   5. Acknowledgement of sources: Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that is an observation, derivation or argument that has been reported in previous publications should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also notify the editors of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other manuscript (published or unpublished) of which they have personal knowledge.
   6. Disclosure and conflicts of interest: Any invited referee who has conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies or institutions connected to the manuscript and the work described therein should immediately notify the editors to declare their conflicts of interest and decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers can be contacted. Unpublished material disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer’s own. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for the reviewer’s personal advantage. This applies also to invited reviewers who decline the review invitation.

Duties of  the Publisher

1. Handling of unethical publishing behaviour: In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, the publisher, in close collaboration with the editors, will take all appropriate measures to clarify the situation and to amend the article in question. This includes the prompt publication of an erratum, clarification or, in the most severe case, the retraction of the affected work. The publisher, together with the editors, shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, and under no circumstances encourage such misconduct or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place.
2. Access to journal content: The publisher is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research and ensures accessibility and maintaining the digital archive.