Editorial Staff and Conflict of Interest Policy

Editorial staff or editors shall not be involved in processing their own submissions. Decisions will be made by other Editorial Board Members who do not have a conflict of interest with the author. Journal staff are not involved in the processing of their work.

Conflict of Interests

All authors are required to disclose any relationships or interests that may improperly influence or bias their work. Financial interests such as:

• Membership
• Employment
• Consultancies
• Stock/share ownership
• Honoraria
• Grants or other funding
• Paid expert testimony
• Patent-licensing arrangements

and non-financial interests such as:

• Personal or professional relationships
• Affiliations
• Personal beliefs

are considered potential conflicts of interest. Authors can disclose potential conflicts of interest through the online submission system.

The corresponding author must include a conflict of interest statement before the reference list. The statement should clearly include all potential conflict-of-interest disclosures.

If no conflicts exist, authors should state clearly:

Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.