Conflict of Interest

A conflict of interest exists when professional judgement could be influenced by a secondary interest such as financial gain or personal relationships.

Authors

• Declare all funding sources and financial or personal relationships relevant to the work in the "Conflict of Interest" statement.
• State "The authors declare no conflict of interest" if none exist.

Reviewers

• Decline the invitation if you have a collaboration, institutional, competitive or personal relationship with the authors, or if you can identify them.

Editors

• Editors do not handle manuscripts from their own institution, recent co-authors or close colleagues.
• Submissions by editorial board members are handled by another editor, are fully double-blind, and the author has no access to the review process.
• Editorial decisions are never influenced by advertising, sponsorship or ability to pay.