PEER REVIEW

The submitted manuscripts are subject to a peer review process. The purpose of peer review is to assist the Editor-in-Chief in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communication with the author it may also assist the author in improving the manuscript.

Double-blind peer-review policy is used.

Each paper must be reviewed by at least two peer reviewers.

Under normal circumstances, the first round of review takes less than 8 weeks.

The choice of reviewers is at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief. The reviewers must be knowledgeable about the subject area of the manuscript.

All submitted manuscripts undergo editorial screening. If they meet the basic criteria of academic writing and the technical submission guidelines, they are sent for double-blind peer review by at least two anonymous reviewers. The identities of authors and reviewers remain concealed during the review process. Reviewers are required to disclose any potential conflicts of interest and to report any suspicion of unethical behavior. The reviewers’ evaluation form contains a checklist in order to help reviewers cover all aspects that can decide the fate of a submission. In the final section of the evaluation form, the reviewers must include observations and suggestions aimed at improving the submitted manuscript; these are sent to authors, without the names of the reviewers. All of the reviewers of a manuscript remain anonymous to the authors before, during and after the evaluation process and the authors remain anonymous to reviewers until the end of the review procedure. Based on the reviewers’ evaluations, the Editorial Board makes the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of each submission.

All of the reviewers of a manuscript act independently and they are not aware of each other’s identities. If the decisions of the two reviewers are not the same (accept/reject), the Editor-in-Chief may assign additional reviewers.

During the review process, the Editor-in-Chief may require authors to provide additional information (including raw data) if they are necessary for the evaluation of the scholarly merit of the manuscript. These materials shall be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.

The editorial team shall ensure reasonable quality control for the reviews. With respect to reviewers whose reviews are convincingly questioned by authors, special attention will be paid to ensure that the reviews are objective and high in academic standard. When there is any doubt with regard to the objectivity of the reviews or quality of the review, additional reviewers will be assigned.

Editors and members of the Editorial Board are permitted to submit their own papers to the journal. In cases where an author is associated with the journal, they will be removed from all editorial tasks for that paper and another member of the team will be assigned responsibility for overseeing peer review.