The journal adheres to a comprehensive code of ethics derived from the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), defining the duties of all parties in the publication process.

Duties of Editors:

• Make publication decisions on fair, scientific grounds; ensure manuscript confidentiality and fairness of review.
• Investigate any allegation of malpractice, before or after publication, and take appropriate corrective action.

Duties of Reviewers:

• Provide objective, confidential, and timely assessments; disclose any conflict of interest; and decline when lacking competence or time.
• Not use privileged information from the manuscript for personal advantage.

Duties of Authors:

• Ensure originality; disclose funding sources and conflicts of interest; and avoid concurrent submission to more than one journal.
• Promptly report any significant error discovered in published work and cooperate in its correction or retraction.

Research Malpractice:

Malpractice includes fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, duplicate or concurrent publication, ghost or gift authorship, and citation manipulation. The journal handles such cases in accordance with COPE flowcharts; actions may include rejection, correction, retraction, and notification of the author's institution and funders where appropriate.