Declaration of interest

Conflicts of interest comprise those which may not be fully apparent, and which may influence the judgment of author, reviewers, and editors. All authors must disclose any personal, commercial, political, academic or financial relationships with other people or organisations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. 

If the author has no interests to declare then he should state that: 'Declarations of interest: none'. This summary statement will be ultimately published if the article is accepted.

If the author has interests to declare he or she should submit a separate declaration of interest form which gives detailed disclosures. This is kept as part of the Journal's official records.

Authorship
Authors should declare that all authors have materially participated in the research and/or article preparation and have approved the final article.

Authors should declare that the work in the article has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis). The work is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. In addition, authors need to ensure that the publication of their work is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere including electronically in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the copyright-holder.

 

Changes to authorship 

Authors are expected to ensure that they list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript is accurate. Any rearrangement, addition or deletion of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and approved by the journal Editor.

If there is need to change the authorship of the article, the corresponding author should submit the following documentation to the managing editor.

(a) A document explaining the reason for the change in author list and

 (b) A written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement.

In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed. Only in exceptional circumstances will the Editor consider the addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors after the manuscript has been accepted. While the Editor considers the request, publication of the manuscript will be suspended. If the manuscript has already been published in an online issue, any requests approved by the Editor will result in a corrigendum.