IN VITRO AND IN VIVO DEPLETION OF C3 COMPLEMENT ACTIVITY BY A LECTIN FROM CUSCUTA EUROPEA

The editorial policy of BJVM follows the Principles of transparency and best practice in scholarly publishing (version 4; 22 September 2022) of the Committee on Publication Ethics (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Guidelines), the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) and DOAJ (https://doaj.org/apply/transparency/#principles-of-transparency-and-best-practice-in-scholarly-publishing).

Use of personal data

The personal information used on the website of BJVM can be used exclusively for the purposes of the journal and scientific ethics. Personal data will be used in compliance of General Data Protection Regulation of the European Parliament.

Authorship

Authors should have made a substantial and direct contribution to the concept, design, analysis and/or interpretation of data presented in the manuscript. Thus, funding and provision of technical services, patients, or materials, although important, are not considered sufficient contributions to authorship. All authors should participate in writing the manuscript, reviewing drafts and approving the final version. The listed corresponding author should assure that all authors have met authorship standards, that the presented work is entirely original and that if the work of others has been used, this is appropriately cited or quoted.

Proper acknowledgment of contributors other than the authors and sources of financial support/funding for the research or project reported in the article must always be given.

Peer-review policy

All manuscripts submitted to the BJVM are initially assessed by a handling editor with respect to the suitability of the manuscripts to the scope of the journal, compliance to Instructions to authors and the quality of English language. All unsuitable articles are unsubmitted before further processing to peer review. Papers which do not fulfil the basic requirements of the journal, or are out of the scope of the journal may be rejected at this stage.

A decision from this initial phase is usually received within 2 weeks after submission. Manuscripts going forward to the review process are reviewed by at least 2 professional experts of the field. External reviewers are always preferred, although the authors have the right to make recommendations about a preferred reviewer. The peer-review process is single-blind: the reviewer is aware of the authors’ names but should not sign his/her review. The reviews are submitted within 4-5 weeks of the initial editorial decision.

After revision of the manuscript from the authors, it is sent again to the reviewers for either approval or additional comments. If further revision is required, the manuscript is returned to the authors for another round of revision until all reviewers suggestions are met.

The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for making the final decision and for presenting manuscripts decided for publication at the next meeting of the Editorial Board for final approval. The Editorial Board meets at least once monthly to ensure the timely publication.

Ethical duties of the reviewers

The reviewer should accept to review a manuscript when conflict of interest is absent. A confidence should be kept during the review process. The invited reviewer can decline the review if not within his/her field of expertise.

The reviewer is expected to provide a concise general comment on the paper, which evaluates the manuscript subject and states whether:

• The content is in line with the scope of the journal, presents new and original data and supports the study goal.
• The introduction is adequate and cited literature sources correspond to study subject.
• The material and methods are appropriate and ethical principles for handling animals are met.
• The statistical methods of analysis are appropriate.
• The way of data presentation and number of tables and/or figures are adequate.
• The interpretations and conclusions are in line with presented results.
• The language and grammar quality of the text are adequate (reviewers are not required to edit language and grammar).
• The reference list is adequate.

The reviewers should be coherent and consistent in attributing the comments and should be polite when giving them.

Ethical duties of the editors

The Associate Editor and Editor-in-Chief evaluation focus is on its scientific quality of the papers, compliance with the ethical guidelines and preserving confidentiality of reviewers. The Editor-in-Chief should not allow any conflicts of interest during the process of publication.

The Production Editor is responsible for manuscript’s copy-editing and proofreading in line with the BJVM style for the presentation of the content and for the timely publication of content in the Online First section of journal’s website.

Research ethics

BJVM is a scientific journal that respects neutrality in the evaluation of publications, not influenced by political decisions, geopolitical conflicts and territorial disputes. The Editors and Editorial board decisions are independent and not affected by the country of origin of the authors, religion, race, political or human rights issues.

Animal rights

The ethical standards for use of animals in experiments should be strictly followed. National legislation, ethical and regulatory principles should be taken into account. Information for the license for the experiments (approvals issued by institutional ethical committees) should be always provided. The required information should be included in the Material and methods part of manuscripts.

Informed consent

The owners of the animals have the right to allow or restrict publication of pictures or any personal data in the article. Therefore, informed consent is required prior to inclusion of such information in the study.

Conflict of interest

Conflict of interest is present when the editor/reviewer editor/reviewer has supervised any of the authors, works in the same university/research centre with authors, have a close family relationship, other professional or personal dependencies that may compromise their impartiality in the evaluation of the manuscript.

The authors are kindly asked to declare any possible conflicts of interest with the journal editors at the time of submission. The reviewers are carefully selected to avoid conflict of interest and they should inform the Editors if such conflict exists.

Appeal procedure

The constructive criticism with academic approach is more then welcome. Authors can defend their opinion by responding to the editorial comments but should not neglect critical remarks made during the evaluation process. Personal qualification from the part of the participants in the editorial process are not allowed. Authors can submit their appeal on editorial decisions to the Editorial Office of BJVM (bjvm@uni-sz.bg; bjvm@trakia-uni.bg) and must avoid direct contact with the Editorial Office of BJVM. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for contact with the authors during the evaluation process.

Handling publication malpractice

Publication malpractice include fabrication, data falsification, duplication, salamisation or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reporting research results. The journal uses "StrikePlagiarism" to screen all submissions for plagiarism before being processed.

COPE Flowcharts and guidelines (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts) are used in cases of all ethical misbehaviours.

Reviewers should inform the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial board if they suspect manipulation of the data; serious mistakes in or/and omission of important results; and plagiarism. The details about the listed cases are given by COPE guidelines (https://publicationethics.org/oversight). Submitted manuscript with detected plagiarism (already published ideas, data or text belonging to other scientists which are not among the authors) will be immediately rejected. A duplication of work is considered in cases when large parts of previous authors’ publications are re-used without references of the original publication. These cases are not tolerated by BJVM policy. If the article has been published and plagiarism or duplicate publication was detected after that, an announcement on the web page will be published and Editorial board will discuss the application of procedure of retraction.

The findings and decision of publication malpractice or research misconduct may be appealed by the respondent within 30 days after the decision is made and authors are notified.

• Cases when misconduct of an article is applicable

The Editor-in-Chief has to be informed for deviation from the ethical rules of BJVM. The Editorial board takes a decision if there is evidence for misconduct and keeps the case confidential. If the authors help to resolve the issue after its identification by the reviewers, the article is subjected to evaluation, otherwise it is rejected. The Editorial board can take a decision to restrict future publications by the author/s for five years. The guidelines of COPE guidelines are followed in these cases.

• Cases when retraction of an article is applicable

By application of the rules outlined in the COPE Retraction Guidelines, an article can be retracted when there are significant errors in an already published article, declared by the authors or in the case of misconduct. The article can be retracted when the results have been previously published without proper reference or plagiarism has been detected. The decision for retraction of an article is taken by the Editorial board of BJVM after careful check of every case (information can be received by an editor; authors or readers). Such an article stays on the BJVM webpage of with a watermark “Retracted” and information for the retraction is published.

• Cases with identified ethical concerns

Expression of concern can be considered when there is some evidence for improperly conducted experiments or published data. The work will not be published till the moment of case clarification. The authors and their institutions are encouraged to help in this process.

Erratum and Corrigendum

Erratum can be included in a printed issue if insignificant errors in a published article are found and require attention. The original PDF file can be replaced by the corrected PDF file. The errors do not concern the content of the article and its scientific quality. The changes in the article are listed at the end of the revised version.

It is not advisable to use an option to publish corrigendum when the mistakes in the article concern the scientific content (changes in authorship, mistake in the protocols, errors in tables or figures etc.). Corrigendum is published as a separate paper with DOI number different from the that of the original article. The decision for issuing an erratum or corrigendum is taken by the Editorial board.

Revised by April 2024