• decide on manuscripts that are eligible for publication in accordance with the editorial board's policy, which refers to applicable legal requirements regarding defamation, copyright infringement, duplication, data fabrication, data falsification, and plagiarism.
• examine the validity of the manuscript and its impact on researchers and readers.
• conduct board meetings of editors and reviewers to decide on the publication of manuscripts if necessary.

Publication decision

• evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Fair play

• must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Confidentiality

• must not use unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript for the editor's own research without the author's express written consent.

Disclosure and
conflicts of interest

• assists the editor in making editorial decisions.
• through the editorial communications with the author may assist the author in improving the manuscript

Contribution to
editorial decision

• notify the editor and excuse oneself from the review process when one feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript
• notify the editor and excuse oneself from the review process when one knows that its prompt review will be impossible 

Promptness

• treat all manuscripts under review as confidential documents.
• must not show to or discuss the manuscript with others except as authorized by the editor.

Confidentiality

• evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.
• convey the results of the review clearly with supporting arguments.
• avoid making personal criticisms of the author.

Fair play

• identify other works that are relevant and have been published, and have not been cited by the author. 
• ensure that every observation, formulation or argument in the manuscript, written based on previously published works, has been cited in accordance with applicable regulations.
• convey to editors if they find similarities in substance or overlap between the manuscript and other published works.

Acknowledgment of Sources

• maintain the confidentiality of information and ideas obtained through the peer review process, and do not use it for personal research.
• notify editors and withdraw from the manuscript review process if they have a conflict of interest, whether from competition, collaboration, or other relationships with the author, companies, and any institutions connected to the manuscript.

Disclosure and
conflict of interest

• submit accurate reports accompanied by objective discussion of the significance of the research conducted.
• present data accurately in the manuscript.
• convey sufficient research and literature details to allow others to replicate the work in the manuscript.
• prevent the delivery of false or deliberately inaccurate statements in the manuscript.

Dissemination of research

• submit raw research data used in the manuscript, when requested for manuscript review.
• retain raw research data for a reasonable duration after the publication of the manuscript.
• provide public access to research data (consistent with the ALPSP-STM Statement on Data and Databases), where applicable.

Data access and retention

• Ensure that the submitted manuscript is an original work.

Originality 

• citing according to the provisions that apply to all works and/or words of others who support the manuscript.
• citing in accordance with the provisions applicable to works that are influential in determining the nature of the manuscript.

Acknowledgement of sources

• prevents publishing manuscripts that essentially describe the same research in more than one major journal or publication.
• prevents submission of the same manuscript to more than one journal simultaneously.

Multiple, redundant, or concurrent publication

• recognize the individual who contributes significantly to the conception, design, implementation, and interpretation of the reported research as the main author.
• recognize the individuals who contribute significantly, as co-authors.
• recognize the individuals who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project as contributors.
• ensure all authors listed have the right to be recognized as authorship in the manuscript.
• ensure that all authors have seen and approved the final form of the manuscript and have approved its submission for publication.

Authorship of the paper

• state clearly in the manuscript if there are chemicals, procedures, or equipment that have a risk of danger in their use.
• state clearly in the manuscript if it must meet the code of research ethics related to human and/or animal subjects

Hazard and
human or animal subject

• disclose any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that could be construed as affecting the outcome or interpretation of the incoming text.
• disclose all sources of financial support for research.

Declaration of competing interests

• notify the editor or publisher and work with the editor to retract or correct the manuscript, when it finds significant errors in the submitted manuscript.

Notification of fundamental error