Authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might have influenced the presented results or their interpretation.

If there is no conflict of interest to declare, the following standard statement should be added: ‘No competing interests were disclosed’.

A competing interest may be of non-financial or financial nature. Examples of competing interests include (but are not limited to):

  • Individuals receiving funding, salary or other forms of payment from an organization, or holding stocks or shares from a company, that might benefit (or lose) financially from the publication of the findings.
  • Individuals or their funding organization or employer holding (or applying for) related patents.
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Authors from pharmaceutical companies, or other commercial organizations that sponsor clinical or field trials or other research studies, should declare these as competing interests on submission. The relationship of each author to such an organization should be explained in the ‘Competing interests’ section. Publications in the journal must not contain content advertising any commercial products.

Funding Information


If a paper is a result of the funded project, authors are required to specify funding sources according to their contracts with the funder.