Publication Ethics Statement:

Authors wishing to publish their papers in Publications must abide to the following:

v  Any facts that might be perceived as a possible conflict of interest of the author(s) must be disclosed in the paper prior to submission.

v  Authors should accurately present their research findings and include an objective discussion of the significance of their findings.

v  Data and methods used in the research need to be presented in sufficient detail in the paper, so that other researchers can replicate the work.

v  Simultaneous submission of manuscripts to more than one journal is not tolerated.

v  If errors and inaccuracies are found by the authors after publication of their paper, they need to be promptly communicated to the editors of this journal so that appropriate actions can be taken.

v  Your manuscript should not contain any information that has already been published. If you include already published figures or images, please obtain the necessary permission from the copyright holder to publish under the CC-BY license.

v  Information about the financial support of the research must be provided by the authors. 

2- Research Involving Human Subjects:

• When reporting on research that involves human subjects, human material, human tissues, or human data, authors must declare that the investigations were carried out following the rules of the Declaration of Helsinki of 1975.
• Approval from an ethics committee should have been obtained before undertaking the research. At a minimum, a statement including the project identification code, date of approval, and name of the ethics committee or institutional review board should be stated in Section ‘Institutional Review Board Statement’ of the article. Data relating to individual participants must be described in detail, but private information identifying participants need not be included unless the identifiable materials are of relevance to the research (for example, photographs of participants’ faces that show a particular symptom). Editors reserve the right to reject any submission that does not meet these requirements.
• Example of an ethical statement: "All subjects gave their informed consent for inclusion before they participated in the study. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of XXX (Project identification code)."
• A written informed consent for publication must be obtained from participating patients who can be identified (including by the patients themselves). Patients’ initials or other personal identifiers must not appear in any images. For manuscripts that include any case details, personal information, and/or images of patients, authors must obtain signed informed consent from patients (or their relatives/guardians) before submitting to an MDPI journal. Patient details must be anonymized as far as possible, e.g., do not mention specific age, ethnicity, or occupation where they are not relevant to the conclusions. A template permission form is available to download. A blank version of the form used to obtain permission (without the patient names or signature) must be uploaded with your submission. 

3- Ethical Guidelines for the Use of Animals in Research:

v  MDPI journals endorse the ARRIVE guidelines (www.nc3rs.org.uk/ARRIVE) for reporting experiments using live animals. Authors and reviewers can use the ARRIVE guidelines as a checklist, which can be found at www.nc3rs.org.uk/ARRIVEchecklist.

v  Manuscripts containing original research on animal subjects must have been approved by an ethical review committee. The project identification code, date of approval and name of the ethics committee or institutional review board must be cited in the Methods Section. 

v  For research involving animals, any potentially derived benefits must be significant in relation to harm suffered by participating animals. Authors should particularly ensure that their research complies with the commonly accepted '3Rs':

Replacement of animals by alternatives wherever possible.;

• Reduction in number of animals used;
• Refinement of experimental conditions and procedures to minimize the harm to animals.

4- Ethical Guidelines for Reviewers:

• For general guidance on completing a review report, see information for reviewers. The details here cover some specific ethical issues.
• Potential Conflict of Interests:

We ask reviewers to inform the journal editor if they hold a conflict of interests that may prejudice the review report, either in a positive or negative way. The Editorial Office will check as far as possible before invitation; however, we appreciate the cooperation of reviewers in this matter. Reviewers who are invited to assess a manuscript they previously reviewed for another journal should not consider this as a conflict of interest in itself.

• Confidentiality and Anonymity:
  • Reviewers must keep the content of the manuscript, including the abstract, confidential. They must inform the Editorial Office if they would like a student or colleague to complete the review on their behalf.
  • MDPI journals operate single or double-blind peer reviews. Reviewers should be careful not to reveal their identity to the authors, either in their comments or in metadata for reports submitted in Microsoft Word or PDF format.
  • MDPI journals offer authors the possibility to publish review reports with their papers and for reviewers to sign their open review reports but will not reveal reviewer name until publication and only with their explicit agreement. 

5- Ethical Guidelines for Editors:

• Along with the Editorial Office, Editors-in-Chief, Editorial Board Members, and Guest Editors take responsibility for overseeing the integrity of MDPI’s editorial process. The following provides details on specific ethical aspects of their role.
• If the editor has ethical concerns about a manuscript sent for review or decision or receives information about a possible ethical breach after publication, they must contact the Editorial Office as soon as possible. Our Editorial Office will then conduct an investigation according to COPE guidelines.
• Checks are made by Managing Editors and Assistant Editors. However, editors should still report any concerns on any aspect. Checks include

1. Ethic approval and permissions for research involving human subjects, animals or cell lines.

2. Plagiarism, duplicate publication, and that necessary permission from the copyright holder to include already-published figures or images.

3. An international clinical trial register for pre-register clinical trials or and to cite a reference to the registration in the Methods Section.

4. Author background and qualification.

• When making a final acceptance decision on a manuscript, editors should consider the following:

1. Any facts that might be perceived as a possible conflict of interest of the author(s) must be disclosed in the paper prior to submission.

2. Authors must accurately present their research findings and include an objective discussion of the significance of their findings.

3. Data and methods used in the research need to be presented in sufficient detail in the paper, so that other researchers can replicate the work. 

6- Citation Policy:

• Authors should ensure that where the material is taken from other sources (including their own published writing) the source is clearly cited and that where appropriate permission is obtained.
• Authors should not engage in excessive self-citation of their own work.
• Authors should not copy references from other publications if they have not read the cited work.
• Authors should not preferentially cite their own or their friends’, peers’, or institution’s publications.
• Authors should not cite advertisements or advertorial material.
• In accordance with COPE guidelines, we expect that “original wording taken directly from publications by other researchers should appear in quotation marks with the appropriate citations.” This condition also applies to an author’s own work. COPE have produced a discussion document on citation manipulation with recommendations for best practice.