Publication and Authorship

• All submitted papers are subject to strict peer-review process by at least two international reviewers that are experts in the area of the particular paper. As a result of the review process possible decisions include acceptance, acceptance with revisions, or rejection.
• The factors that are taken into account by reviewers are relevance, soundness, significance, originality, readability and language.
• If authors are encouraged to revise and resubmit a submission, there is no guarantee that the revised submission will be accepted.
• If any Author wishes to abandon the review process or remove his/her article before publication, the article must be formally withdrawn
• Rejected articles will not be re-reviewed.
• No research can be included in more than one publication.
• In accordance with academic and professional protocols, the article cannot be accepted if it is not the author's original work or if it has been published before, or if it is currently under consideration for publication elsewhere.
• The article must not contain any libelous or unlawful statements or in any way infringe the rights of others

Authors' responsibilities

• Authors are expected to adhere to the following ethical guidelines; infractions may result in the application of sanctions , including but not limited to the suspension or revocation of publishing privileges:
• Authors must certify that their manuscripts are their original work.
• Authors must be the owners of the copyright and be entitled to sign the Author Copyright form.
• Authors must certify that the manuscript has not previously been published elsewhere.
• Authors must certify that the manuscript is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere.
• Authors must participate in the peer review process.
• Authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes.
• All Authors mentioned in the paper must have significantly contributed to the research. The co-authors of a paper should be all those persons who have made significant scientific contributions to the work reported and who share responsibility and accountability for the results. Authors should appropriately recognize the contributions of technical staff and data professionals. Other contributions should be indicated in a footnote or an “Acknowledgments” section. The author who submits a manuscript for publication accepts the responsibility of having included as co-authors all persons appropriate and none inappropriate.
• All authors must declare they have read and agreed to the content of the submitted manuscript.
• Authors must state that all data in the paper are real and authentic.
• Plagiarism in any form is not allowed (please refer to the section below for details).
• Authors must notify the Editors/ International Program Committee (here in after IPC) of any conflicts of interest. The authors must reveal to the Editors/ IPC members/IPC members any potential and/or relevant competing financial or other interest (of all authors) that might be affected by publication of the results contained in the authors’ manuscript. Conflicts of interest and sources of funding of the research reported must be clearly stated at the time of manuscript submission and will be included in the published article.
• Images should be free from misleading manipulation.
• Authors must identify all sources used in the creation of their manuscript.
• Authors must identify the source of all information quoted or offered, except that which is common knowledge. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, should not be used or reported in the author’s work without explicit permission from the investigator the information originated with. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, should be treated similarly.
• Authors must cite those publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work and that will guide the reader quickly to the earlier work that is essential for understanding the present investigation.
• In submitting a manuscript for publication, an author should inform the Editor/IPC members of related manuscripts that the author has under editorial consideration or in press. Copies of those manuscripts should be supplied and the relationships of such manuscripts to the one submitted should be indicated.
• It is improper for an author to submit manuscripts describing essentially the same research to more than one conference/journal, unless it is a resubmission of a manuscript rejected for or withdrawn from publication. It is generally permissible to submit a manuscript for a full paper expanding on a previously published brief preliminary account of the same work. However, the preliminary communication should be cited in the manuscript.
• Authors must report any errors they discover in their published paper to the Editors/ IPC members.

Reviewers' responsibilities

• Reviewers should keep all information regarding papers confidential and treat them as privileged information.
• Reviews should be objective, with no personal criticism of the author.
• Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
• Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors.
• Reviewers should also call to the Editors/ IPC members’ attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
• Reviewers should not review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.
• Reviewers can re-referee and/or reject a submitted paper if the paper does not meet the criteria outlined in the review form or if the paper is in some other way deemed possibly unsuitable.
• Reviewers who feel unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript must notify the Editors/ IPC members.

Editors’ / IPC members' responsibilities

• Editors/ IPC members have complete responsibility and authority to reject/accept an article.
• Editors/ IPC members are responsible for the contents and overall quality of the publication.
• Editors/ IPC members should always consider the needs of the authors and the readers when attempting to improve the publication.
• Editors/ IPC members should guarantee the quality of the papers and the integrity of the academic record.
• Editors/ IPC members should publish errata pages or make corrections when needed.
• Editors/ IPC members should base their decisions solely one the papers' importance, originality, clarity and relevance to publication's scope.
• Editors/ IPC members should not reverse their decisions nor overturn the ones of previous Editors/ IPC members without serious reason.
• Editors/ IPC members should preserve the anonymity of reviewers.
• Editors/ IPC members should ensure that all research material they publish conforms to internationally accepted ethical guidelines.
• Editors/ IPC members should only accept a paper when reasonably certain.
• Editors/ IPC members should act if they suspect misconduct, whether a paper is published or unpublished, and make all reasonable attempts to persist in obtaining a resolution to the problem.
• Editors/ IPC members should not reject papers based on suspicions, they should have proof of misconduct.
• Editors/ IPC members should not allow any conflicts of interest between staff, authors, reviewers and board members.
• Editors/ IPC members should have no conflict of interest with respect to articles they reject/accept.

Publishing ethics issues

• Whenever it is recognized that a significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distorted report has been published, it must be corrected promptly and with due prominence.
• If, after an appropriate investigation, an item proves to be fraudulent, it should be retracted. The retraction should be clearly identifiable to readers and indexing systems. Our retraction policy is compliant with the "retraction guidelines" issued by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) .
• Plagiarism in any form constitutes a serious violation of the most basic principles of scholarship and cannot be tolerated. Typical examples of plagiarism are reported in the section “Plagiarism” .
• Editors/ IPC members are always ready to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when need.
• Editors/ IPC members seek to avoid that business needs could compromise intellectual standards.

Plagiarism

Examples of plagiarism include:

• Word-for-word copying of portions of another's writing without enclosing the copied passage in quotation marks and acknowledging the source in the appropriate scholarly convention.
• The use of a particularly unique term or concept that one has come across in reading without acknowledging the author or source.
• The paraphrasing or abbreviated restatement of someone else's ideas without acknowledging that another person's text has been the basis for the paraphrasing.
• False citation: material should not be attributed to a source from which it has not been obtained.
• False data: data that has been fabricated or altered in a laboratory or experiment; although not literally plagiarism, this is clearly a form of academic fraud.
• Unacknowledged multiple submission of a paper for several purposes without prior approval from the parties involved.
• Unacknowledged multiple authors or collaboration: the contributions of each author or collaborator should be made clear.
• Self-plagiarism/double submission: the submission of the same or a very similar paper to two or more publications at the same time.

Notes

Non-compliance with any of the above conditions may result in sanctions.

Our publication ethics and malpractice statements embodies the COPE Code of Conduct.