Conflicts of Interest

All authors are required to disclose any financial or non-financial relationships that could be perceived as a potential conflict of interest and that may influence the research, interpretation of data, or presentation of results.

Financial conflicts of interest may include, but are not limited to, employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership, grants, paid expert testimony, or patent applications. Non-financial conflicts may include personal relationships, academic competition, or intellectual beliefs related to the submitted work.

Authors must include a Conflict of Interest Statement in their manuscript at the time of submission.

If there are no conflicts of interest to declare, authors should include the following statement:

“The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this article.”

Editors and reviewers are also required to disclose any potential conflicts of interest and must recuse themselves from the evaluation process if a conflict exists.

Failure to disclose relevant conflicts of interest may result in editorial action, including rejection of the manuscript or retraction of a published article, in accordance with publication ethics guidelines.