Ethical guidelines for reviewers

A review must be fair, unbiased and objective; reviewers should refrain from any personal criticism and provide reasonable arguments in support of their opinions.
There should be no conflict of interest between the reviewer and the contributing author(s). If such a conflict occurs, the reviewer must immediately report it to the editorial team and return the manuscript under review.

Rejected manuscripts cannot be used by reviewers for any purposes without the express prior written consent of the editorial team. This shall also mean that the Reviewers must not use any unpublished data obtained from the papers under review in their own research.

Reviewers and editors are obliged to inform the Publisher of any fraudulent use of the intellectual property or duplicate publication. They are also obliged to inform the publisher if they suspect that an ethical violation has occurred.

Review comments are confidential and will only be disclosed to persons involved in the editorial and publishing process.