Ethics

We adhere to the Guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in publishing articles in this journal. Authors are expected to be aware of, and comply with, best practice in publication ethics in relation to guest authorship, dual submission, plagiarism, and competing interests. Authors must obtain the required ethics approval from their affiliated institutions where applicable. Reviewers and editors are required to treat manuscripts fairly and in confidence, and to declare any competing interest.

Authorship and Contributorship: When a submission is made to the journal, the author list should be final and correct. All authors listed must have given prior approval to have their name attributed to the work being submitted and agree to publication. The corresponding author must ensure that all authors qualify for and have agreed to authorship. They are responsible for informing all co-authors of relevant editorial information throughout the review process. For transparency, the authors agree to list their institutional affiliations and declare funder affiliations. 

Competing Interests & funding declaration: All authors should disclose any financial or other conflict of interest that may be deemed to influence the results or interpretation of their study. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Data sharing and reproducibility: Articles are published under CC-BY, known as gold open access, which provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Intellectual property: The authors retain the copyright of their work.

Correction & Retraction: In accordance with Guidelines from the Committee on Publication Ethics (where applicable), the publisher handles different kinds of error. All articles have their proofs checked prior to publication by the author and the editor, which should ensure that content errors are not present. Post-publication changes to the publication are only permitted in exceptional circumstances. If an error is discovered in a published article then the publisher will assess whether a Correction Paper or Retraction is required.