ETHICS POLICY STATEMENT 

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The Committee has taken up the obligation to strictly follow all guidelines and recommendations issued by COPE - the Committee on Publication Ethics (for references & details: https://publicationethics.org/core-practices).

More specifically, we would like to emphasize on the following COPE provisions equally applicable to all our authors (current and potential), all members of the Committee and all acting reviewers:

1. All Committee members are responsible for maintaining the right balance between high quality of the materials submitted, their academic integrity and the right for free expression of own thoughts.

2. High standards of academic publishing shall always be prevalent over personal interests and needs of the  Committee members.

3. At any point of time, authors of the already published texts have the right to request a retraction, publish apology, additional clarification or correction. 

4. Committee members are responsible for the final decision on whether the text fits the Conference scope. 

5. The top-priority criterion in the process of any text consideration is originality of the central idea and importance of the core research output.

6. Committee members are responsible for explaining all double-blind review procedures to both reviewers and authors (if needed). 

7. In case of changes in Committee  newer member shall not change the decisions of previous ones.

8. Whenever a plagiarism complaint is filed by an author, reader or Committee members — the Committee members shall initiate the appropriate procedures, using COPE regulations as the benchmark.

9. Articles containing criticism of other academic works, encouraging discussion and/or presenting negative results should be treated equally to standard articles describing authors’ own results. Such articles shall be also subject to standard double-blind review.

10. All editorial rules are similarly applicable to both published and unpublished (under review) texts.

11. Whenever a case of plagiarism has been reported externally, the editors are obliged to fully cooperate on the case and provide all available evidence with the exception of the involved reviewers’ personal details.

12. Committee members are responsible for informing the international databases and catalogues in the cases of text retraction. 

13. All cases of a potential conflict of interests shall be resolved according to COPE regulations.