Peer Review

The submitted manuscripts are subject to a peer review process. The purpose of peer review is to assists the Editor-in-Chief in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author it may also assist the author in improving the paper. The review is anonymous and conducted by the reviewers. Reviews must be finished in the period no longer than 30 days after the date on which the manuscript was received by the reviewers. The complete reviewing process should not be longer than 6 month.

The choice of the reviewers is at the Editors’ discretion. The reviewers must be knowledgeable about the subject area of the manuscript; they must not be from the authors’ own institution and they should not have recent joint publications with any of the authors.

In the main review phase, the Editor sends submitted papers to two reviewers, both experts in the field. The reviewers’ evaluation form contains a checklist in order to help referees 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 the authors, without the names of the reviewers.

All of the reviewers of a paper 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 may assign additional reviewers.

During the review process, the Editor may require the 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 the reviewers whose reviews are convincingly questioned by the 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 the quality of the review, additional reviewers will be assigned.