Research ethics policy

The ethical policy of Fiziol Zh follows the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity (https://www.allea.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/ALLEA-European-Code-of-Conduct-for-Research-Integrity-2017.pdf).
Authors must be honest in presenting their results and conclusions of their research. Research misconduct is harmful for knowledge. It could mislead other researchers.
Research results
Fabrication, falsification or selective reporting of data with the intent to mislead or deceive is unethical, as is the theft of data or research results from others. The results of research should be recorded and maintained to allow for analysis and review. Following publication, the data should be retained for a reasonable period and made available upon request. Exceptions may be appropriate in certain circumstances in order to preserve privacy, to assure patent protection, or for similar reasons.
Authorship
All those who have made a significant contribution should be cited as authors. Other individuals who have no contributed to the work should be acknowledged. Articles should include a full list of the current institutional affiliations of all authors.
Plagiarism
Reproducing text from other papers without properly crediting the source (plagiarism) or producing many papers with almost the same content by the same authors (self-plagiarism) is not acceptable. Submitting the same results to more than one journal concurrently is unethical. Exceptions are the review articles. Authors may not present results obtained by others as if they were their own. Authors should acknowledge the work of others used in their research and cite publications that have influenced the direction and course of their study.
Duplicate submission
Simultaneous submissions of the same manuscript to different journals will not be tolerated. The submitted article will be removed without consideration.
Corrections and retractions
All authors have an obligation to inform and cooperate with journal editors to provide prompt retractions or correction of errors in published works.

• The journal will issue retractions if:
• There are clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) or honest error (e.g. miscalculation or experimental error);
• The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper crossreferencing, permission or justification (i.e. cases of redundant publication);
• It constitutes plagiarism;
• It reports unethical research.
• The journal will issue errata if:
• A small portion of an otherwise reliable publication proves to be misleading (especially because of honest error);
• The author list is incorrect (i.e. a deserving author has been omitted or somebody who does not meet authorship criteria has been included).

Other forms of misconduct include failure to meet clear ethical and legal requirements such as misrepresentation of interests, breach of confidentiality, lack of informed consent and abuse of research subjects or materials. Misconduct also includes improper dealing with infringements, such as attempts to cover up misconduct and reprisals on whistleblowers.
The primary responsibility for handling research misconduct is in the hands of those who employ the researchers. If a possible misconduct is brought to our attention, we will seek advice from the referees and the Editorial Board. If there is the evidence, we will resolve the matter by appropriate corrections in the printed and online journal; by refusing to consider an author's future work, for a given period, and by contacting affected authors and editors of other journals.
Minor misdemeanours may not lead to formal investigations, but are just as damaging given their probable frequency, and should be corrected by teachers and mentors.
Note:
Fiziol Zh verifies all submissions on plagiarism. All manuscripts submitted will be checked for plagiarism (copying text or results from other sources) and self-plagiarism (duplicating substantial parts of authors' own published work without giving the appropriate references). Plagiarism is not tolerated.
For more information about CrossCheck/iThenticate, please visit https://www.crossref.org/crosscheck.html.
Human and Animal Rights
If the work involves the use of human subjects, the author should ensure that the work described has been carried out in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans; Uniform Requirements for manuscripts submitted to Biomedical journals. Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.
All animal experiments should comply with the ARRIVE guidelines and should be carried out in accordance with  EU Directive 2010/63/EU for animal experiments, or the National Institutes of Health guide for the care and use of Laboratory animals (NIH Publications No. 8023, revised 1978) and the authors should clearly indicate in the manuscript that such guidelines have been followed.
Clinical Trial Results
In line with the position of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, the journal will not consider results posted in the same clinical trials registry in which primary registration resides to be prior publication if the results posted are presented in the form of a brief structured (less than 500 words) abstract or table. However, divulging results in other circumstances (e.g., investors' meetings) is discouraged and may jeopardise consideration of the manuscript. Authors should fully disclose all posting in registries of results of the same or closely related work.
Reporting Clinical Trials
Randomized controlled trials should be presented according to the CONSORT guidelines. At manuscript submission, authors must provide the CONSORT checklist accompanied by a flow diagram that illustrates the progress of patients through the trial, including recruitment, enrollment, randomization, withdrawal and completion, and a detailed description of the randomization procedure. The CONSORT checklist and template flow diagram are available online.
Registration of Clinical Trials
Registration in a public trials registry is a condition for publication of clinical trials in this journal in accordance with International Committee of Medical Journal Editors recommendations. Trials must register at or before the onset of patient enrolment. The clinical trial registration number should be included at the end of the abstract of the article. A clinical trial is defined as any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects of health outcomes. Health-related interventions include any intervention used to modify a biomedical or health-related outcome (for example drugs, surgical procedures, devices, behavioural treatments, dietary interventions, and process-of-care changes). Health outcomes include any biomedical or health-related measures obtained in patients or participants, including pharmacokinetic measures and adverse events. Purely observational studies (those in which the assignment of the medical intervention is not at the discretion of the investigator) will not require registration.