This Journal is committed to upholding the integrity of the scientific record. As the member of the committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) the journal will follow the COPE guidelines on how to deal with potential acts of misconduct.

Authors should refrain from misrepresenting research results which could damage the trust in the journal, the professionalism of scientific authorship, and ultimately the entire scientific endeavor. Maintaining integrity of the research and its presentation can be achieved by following the rules of good scientific practice, which include:

1. The manuscript has not been submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration.
2. The manuscript has not been published previously (partly or in full), unless the new work concerns an expansion of previous work (please provide transparency on the re-use of material to avoid the hint of text-recycling (“self-plagiarism”)).
3. A single study is not split up to several parts to increase the quantity of submissions and submitted to various journals or to one journal over time (e.g. “salami-publishing”).
4. No data have been fabricated or manipulated (including images) to support your conclusions.
5. No data, text, or theories by others are presented as if they were the author’s own (“plagiarism”). Proper acknowledgments to other works must be given (this includes material that is closely copied (near verbatim), summarized and/or paraphrased), quotation marks are used for verbatim copying of material, and permission are secured for material that is copyrighted.
   Important note: the journal may use software to screen for plagiarism.
   

6. Consent to submit has been received explicitly from all co-authors, as well as from the responsible authorities-tacitly or explicitly-at the institute/organization where the work has been carried out, before the work is submitted.
7. Authors whose names appear on the submission have contributed sufficiently to the scientific work and therefore share collective responsibility and accountability for the results.
8. Authors are strongly advised to ensure the correct author group, corresponding author, and order of authors at submission. Changes of authorship or in the order of authors are not accepted after acceptance of a manuscript.
9. Adding and/or deleting authors at revision stage may be justifiably warranted. A letter must accompany the revised manuscript to explain the role of the added and /or deleted author(s). Further documentation may be required to support your request.
10. Requests for addition or removal of authors as a result of authorship disputes after acceptance are honored after formal notification by the institute or independent body and/or when there is agreement between all authors.
11. Upon request authors should be prepared to send relevant documentation or data in order to verify the validity of the results. This could be in the form of raw data, samples, records, etc. Sensitive information in the form of confidential proprietary data is excluded.

If there is a suspicion of misconduct, the journal will carry out an investigation following COPE guidelines. If, after investigation, the allegation seems to raise valid concerns, the accused author will be contacted and given an opportunity to address the issue. If misconduct has been established beyond reasonable doubt, this may result in the Editor-in-Chief’s implementation of the following measures, including, but not limited to:

• If the article is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to author.
• If the article has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the infraction, either an erratum will be place with the article or in severe cases complete retraction of the article will occur. The reasons must be given in the published erratum or retraction note. Please note that retraction means that the paper is maintained on the platform, watermarked “”retracted” and explanation for the retraction is provided in a note linked to the watermarked article.
• The author’s institute may be informed.