Principles of publication ethics

The journal supports international standards of academic integrity, transparency, and responsible evaluation of scientific results. We consequently compiles with editorial standards COPE Code of Conduct, approved by COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics).

In its activities, the editor is responsible for the publication of works of authorship, which imposes the need to follow the following basic principles:

- When deciding on publishing scientific journal guided reliability of data and scientific significance of the work in question.

- The editor should evaluate manuscripts intellectual content, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, origin, nationality, social status or political affiliation of the authors.

- Unpublished data from manuscripts submitted for consideration must not be used for personal purposes or passed on to third parties without the written consent of the author. Information or ideas obtained in the course of editing and related to possible benefits must be kept confidential and not used for the purpose of personal gain.

- The editor should not allow the information to be published, if there is sufficient reason to believe that it is plagiarism.

- Editor in conjunction with the publisher should not be left unanswered complaints regarding considered manuscripts or published materials as well as the detection of a conflict to take all necessary measures to redress.

Ethical principles in the work of the reviewer

Reviewer provides scientific expertise of copyright material, so that its action must be impartial in nature, involves the following principles:

- Manuscript received for review, should be treated as a confidential document, which can not be passed for review or discussion to third parties who do not have full powers from the editors.

- The reviewer is obliged to give an objective and reasoned assessment of study results. Personal criticism of the author is unacceptable.

- Unpublished data from manuscripts submitted for consideration must not be used for personal purposes reviewer.

- The reviewer who has not, in his opinion, is qualified to assess the manuscript, or can not be objective, for example, in the case of a conflict of interest with the author or organization should inform the editor with a request to exclude it from the review process of this manuscript.

Principles that should guide the author of scientific publications

The author (or group of authors) realizes that bears primary responsibility for the novelty and validity of the results of scientific research, which involves the following principles:

- The authors should provide reliable research results. Knowingly false or fraudulent statements are unacceptable.

- Authors should ensure that the results of studies outlined in manuscript provided, completely original. Borrowed fragments or statements must be filed with the obligatory indication of the author and the source. Excessive borrowing and plagiarism in any form, including unregistered quotes, paraphrasing or assignment of rights to the results of other people's research is unethical and unacceptable.

- It is necessary to recognize the contribution of all persons somehow influenced the course of the study, in particular, the article must be submitted references to the work that made the difference in the research.

- Authors should not submit the manuscript to the journal, which has been submitted to another journal and is under consideration, as well as an article already published in another journal.

- Co-authors of the article should include all persons who have made significant contributions to the study. Among the sponsors is unacceptable to designate persons who did not participate in the study.

- If the author finds significant errors or inaccuracies in the article on the stage of examination or after its publication, it must as soon as possible notify the Editor.

Policy Violations

If the authors fail to adhere to described principles, the editorial board may request revisions to the materials, reject the manuscript, or publish appropriate corrections in accordance with the international COPE guidelines.

Ways for considering complaints and appeals. 

The detailed procedure for considering complaints is defined (see here flowchart according to COPE), contacts for submitting complaints and appeals are provided. The journal promptly responds to complaints. A confirmation letter is sent to the complainant, which confirms the fact of receiving the complaint and determines the deadline (not exceeding one week), during which the Editorial Board undertakes to review the complaint on the merits and notify the complainant. If the Editorial Office receives any complaints about submitted or printed manuscripts, the Editorial Board must take appropriate and reasonable measures to objectively consider these complaints on the merits and resolve the problem (if the fact of ethical violations is confirmed). During the complaint review process, the author should be given the right to respond to any allegations and provide their own comments on the merits of the complaint.

 Retraction and correction after publication. 

The policy of making corrections, additions to already published articles, publication of statements about the removal of articles as well as notifications by the editor to readers about investigation of certain issues regarding the published article by the journal and statements by editors warning readers about serious concerns of the publication integrity are based on COPE instructions (COPE Council. COPE Guidelines: Retraction Guidelines.) and recommendations of the European Association of Scientific Editors. Retractions are made when there is clear evidence that the study results are erroneous and unreliable, due to unethical behaviour, intentional or unintentional error.

Authorship and AI tools

AI tools (big language models, chatbots, image generators) cannot be listed as an author (or co-authors) of a papers. AI tools used in research or manuscript preparation must be disclosed in the cover letter, Acknowledgements, or in the description of the methods used. Authors are responsible for the reliability, accuracy, avoidance of plagiarism, and protection against AI-induced bias. The editorial board reserves the right to reject a manuscript for inappropriate use of AI, and reviewers should refrain from AI-generated reviews to maintain confidentiality. For more information see COPE’s position on authorship and AI tools.

Images and other multimedia generated by AI are not permitted for publication in the journal without the express permission of the editorial board. Subject to evaluation on an individual basis, exceptions may be considered for manuscript content directly related to artificial intelligence or machine learning (e.g., in geographic information systems).

The journal has no article processing charges (APCs).