Conflicts of Interest

Reviewers/Academic Editor with the Authors

1. Reviewer/Academic Editor works in the same institute as one of the authors;
2. Reviewer/Academic Editor is a co-author, collaborator, joint grant holder, or has any other academic link, with any of the authors within the past three years;
3. Reviewer/Academic Editor has a close personal relationship, rivalry or antipathy to any of the authors;
4. Reviewer/Academic Editor may in any way gain or lose financially from publication of the paper;
5. Reviewer/Academic Editor has any other non-financial conflicts of interest (political, personal, religious, ideological, academic, intellectual, commercial or any other) with any of the authors.

Reviewers/Academic Editor should disclose any conflicts of interest that may be perceived as bias for or against the paper or authors.

Please kindly note that if reviewers are asked to assess a manuscript they previously reviewed for another journal, this is not considered to be a conflict of interest. In this case, reviewers should feel free to let the Editorial Office know if the manuscript has been improved or not compared to the previous version.

Reviewers are also recommended to read the relevant descriptions in the Ethical Guidelines For Peer Reviewers by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Conflict of Interest between the Authors

All the authors should have no conflict of interest before submitting the manuscript.