The Editors and the Publisher expect that the authors of papers will have obtained ethical consent and followed those legal and regulatory requirements for human experimentation with drugs, including informed consent, according to procedures which apply in their institution and country. When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether the institution’s or a national research council’s guide for, or any national law on, the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.
Copyright infringement, plagiarism misuse of published articles is taken seriously. We seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software.
Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
The author should disclose any prior distribution and/or publication of any portion of the material to the Editor for the Editor’s consideration and ensure that appropriate attribution to the prior distribution and/or publication of the material is included.