Conflict of Interest

• The Editor should not edit a submitted paper for those author(s) and/or institution against which s/he has any conflicts of interest (e.g. resulting from competitive, collaborative and/or professional standing).
• The Editor should also apply this guideline on their reviewers and Editorial Board members.
• To ensure unbiased review, the Editor should declare a clear-cut policy for his/her own submission and a research paper submitted by an Editorial Board member, and
• The Editor must publish a list of common interests (e.g. financial, academic and/or any other type) for all Editorial Board members and editorial staff. This list should be updated from time to time.
• To ensure unbiased review, the Editor should declare a clear-cut policy for his/her own submission and a research paper submitted by an Editorial Board member.
• In case of article (s) submitted by the Editor, the decision pertaining to the editor's submitted article/s, one of the Associate Editors must take responsibility for the evaluation of the article and information pertaining to reviewers should be kept confidential.
• Competing interests are situations that could be perceived to exert an undue influence on the presentation, review or publication of a piece of work. These may be financial, non-financial, professional, contractual or personal in nature. Conflicts of Interest do not necessarily mean that an author’s work has been compromised. All authors must include a competing interest declaration in accordance with this journal's author instructions. This declaration will be subject to editorial review and may be published in the article.
• Peer reviewers are expected to declare any competing interests arising at any point during the peer review process. The editor will review the competing interest and work with the reviewer to mitigate the competing interest. Where a reviewer’s competing interest is too significant to mitigate, the reviewer should recuse themselves from reviewing. 
• Editors are responsible for declaring any competing interests, whether they apply to individual articles or to their position as an editor of this journal, and recusing themselves as appropriate.
• Anyone who suspects an undisclosed competing interest regarding a work published or under consideration in this journal should inform the editor or email; alburz@um.uob.edu.pk