ETHICAL GUIDELINES

Transparency

Conflict of interests

Archives of Pathology requires authors to declare all conflicts of interest in relation to their work. All submitted manuscripts must include a "Conflicts of Interest" section at the end of the manuscript that lists all conflicting interests (financial and non-financial). When the authors do not have competing interests, the statement must say "The author (s) declare (s) that there are no conflicts of interest." The publisher may request more information regarding conflicts of interest.

Editors and reviewers must also declare any conflicting interests and may be excluded from the peer review process if there is a competing interest.

What constitutes a conflict of interest?

Conflicts of interest can be financial or non-financial. A conflict of interest exists when the authors' interpretation of the data or the presentation of the information may be influenced by, or may be perceived to be influenced by, their personal or financial relationship with other persons or organizations. Authors must disclose any financial competitive interest, but also any non-financial competitive interest that may cause them embarrassment if made public after publication of the manuscript.

Competitive financial interests

Financial conflicts of interest include (but are not limited to):

-Receive reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary from an organization that may in any way gain or lose financially from the publication of the manuscript, either now or in the future.

- Owning shares or stakes in an organization that may somehow gain or lose financially from the publication of the manuscript, either now or in the

- Possess or apply for patents related to the content of the

- Receive reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary from an organization that owns or has applied for patents related to the content of the manuscript.

Non-financial conflicts of interest

They include (but are not limited to) political, personal, religious, ideological, academic and intellectual conflicts of interest.

Commercial organizations

Authors of pharmaceutical companies or other commercial organizations that sponsor clinical trials must declare them as conflicts of interest when submitting them. They must also adhere to the Good Publishing Practice Guidelines for Pharmaceutical Companies (GPP3), which are designed to ensure that publications are produced in a responsible and ethical manner. The guidelines also apply to any company or individual who works on industry-sponsored publications, such as freelance writers, contract research organizations, and communications companies.

Informed consent

When posting identifiable images of human health research participants, authors must include a statement attesting that they have obtained informed consent for the publication of the images. If the participant is deceased, the consent of the participant's closest family members must be sought. All reasonable steps must be taken to protect the anonymity of the patient. Black bars over eyes are not an acceptable means of anonymity. In certain cases, the journal may insist on obtaining evidence of the authors' informed consent. Images without the appropriate consent will be removed from the post.

Publication of clinical data sets

For data sets containing clinical data, authors have an ethical and legal responsibility to respect the privacy rights of participants and protect their identity. Ideally, authors should obtain informed consent for publication of the participant dataset at the time of enrollment for the trial. If this is not possible, the authors must demonstrate that the publication of such data does not compromise anonymity or confidentiality or violate local data protection laws, in order for the data set to be considered for publication. Authors should consider whether the dataset contains direct or indirect identifiers and consult their ethics committee or other appropriate body before submitting if there is a possibility that participants are not completely anonymous. Authors must indicate in their manuscript at the time of submission if informed consent was obtained for the publication of patient data. If informed consent was not obtained, the authors should indicate the reason and which body was consulted in preparing the data set.

AUTHORSHIP

Copyright

At the time of submitting the application, the authors will be asked to agree with the "publication agreement". If extracts from other copyrighted works are included, the author (s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and cite the source in the article.

If a table or figure has been previously published, authors must obtain written permission from the copyright owner to reproduce the material in both print and electronic form and submit it with the manuscript. This is indicated both for illustrations and other materials taken from previously published works that are not in the public domain.

Archives of Pathology provides immediate free access to its content, with the conviction that making this information available to the public favors a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Archives of Pathology adheres to different initiatives that promote free access to knowledge, such as Plan S of the cOAlition S, or the principles of the communication infrastructure for academic publication and open science AmeliCA, which is why all the contents of Archives of Pathology are freely accessible and are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial- CC BY-NC license.

Acknowledgments

All contributors who do not meet the authorship criteria must appear in an "Acknowledgments" section. Some examples of those that could be recognized include a person who provided purely technical help or written assistance, or a department head who only provided general support.

Permissions

Authors are allowed, and even recommended, to publish their work on the Internet (institutional, personal pages, etc.) since it can facilitate exchanges.

Bibliographic references

Authors must be fair, but discriminatory, in their selection of references. Bibliographic details (for example, date and page numbers) must be accurate. Only articles that are genuinely important should be included: citations of marginal relevance should not be included and authors should avoid citing articles in predatory journals or pseudo-journals. Retracted publications should never be cited in the bibliography; when discussing retractions, the notice of retraction should be cited. If a misprint, correction, or editorial expression of concern has been published for reference, it should be included in the bibliography.

Disclaimer

Archives of Pathology is not responsible for the content of any article and the fact that it sponsors its dissemination does not necessarily imply compliance with the exposed theses.

The publisher, in any case, is exempt from all responsibility derived from the possible infringement of intellectual property rights by the author.

INFORMATION STANDARD

Statistical methods

Authors must include complete information on the statistical methods and measures used in their research, including justification for the suitability of the statistical test used. Reviewers will be asked to verify statistical methods, and the manuscript can be submitted for specialized statistical review if deemed necessary.

Data

To drive maximum reuse and utility of published research, we expect authors to adhere to specific field standards available for data preparation and recording. Authors must adhere to best practices in their field for sharing data, with particular attention to maintaining patient confidentiality.

Authors using unpublished genomic data are expected to comply with the guidelines of the Fort Lauderdale and Toronto agreements. Based on widely accepted scientific community standards, the key requirement for third parties using genomic data is to contact the owners of the unpublished data (i.e., the principal investigator and the sequencing center) before undertaking their research. , to advise them on the planned analyzes.

Image integrity and standards

Images submitted with a manuscript for review should be minimally processed (for example, to add arrows to a micrograph). Authors should keep their raw data and metadata files, as editors may request them to assist in manuscript evaluation. If raw data is not available, evaluation of the manuscript can be stopped until the problem is resolved. Some degree of image processing is acceptable for publication, but the final image must correctly represent the original data and meet community standards. The following guidelines will aid in the accurate presentation of data at the image processing level:

- Authors should list all image acquisition tools and image processing software packages used. Authors should document key image collection settings and processing manipulations in the section.

Methodology

- Images collected at different times or from different locations should not be combined into a single image, unless the resulting image is stated to be a time-averaged data product or a time-lapse sequence. If juxtaposing images are essential, the edges should be clearly demarcated in the figure and described in the legend.

- Retouching tools, such as cloning and editing tools in Photoshop, or any feature that deliberately hides manipulations should be avoided.

- Processing (such as changing brightness and contrast) is appropriate only when applied equally to the entire image and applied equally to controls. The contrast should not be adjusted for the data to disappear. Excessive manipulations, such as processing to emphasize one region in the image at the expense of others (for example, by using a biased choice of threshold settings), are inappropriate, as is emphasizing experimental data related to control.

Microscopy

Microscopy settings should be applied to the entire image. Threshold manipulation, expansion or contraction of signal ranges, and alteration of high signals should be avoided. If "pseudo-coloring" and non-linear adjustment (eg "gamma shifts") are used, this should be revealed. Sometimes it is necessary to make adjustments to individual color channels in "merged" images, but this should be indicated in the legend of the figure.

We encourage the inclusion of the following in the final revised version of the manuscript for publication:

- In the Methodology section, specify the type of equipment (microscopes / objective lenses, cameras, detectors, filter model and lot number) and acquisition software used. While we appreciate that there is some variation between instruments, equipment settings for critical measurements should also be listed.

- Display lookup table (LUT) and quantitative map should be provided between LUT and bitmap, especially when using rainbow pseudocolor. It must be indicated if the LUT is linear and covers the entire data range.

- The processing software must be named and the manipulations indicated (such as type of deconvolution, three-dimensional reconstructions, surface and volume rendering, 'gamma shifts', filtering, thresholding and projection).

Authors should indicate the measured resolution at which an image was acquired and any post-processing or averaging that improves the resolution of the image.

MALPRACTICE

Duplicate publication

Articles must be original and not published or submitted for publication elsewhere. This rule also applies to posts in other languages. Archives of Pathology allows and encourages pre-publication on recognized community preprint servers for other scientists to review before formal submission to a journal. Details of the preprint server in question and any accession numbers should be included in the cover letter accompanying the manuscript submission. This policy does not extend to preprints available to the media or advertised outside of the scientific community prior to or during the submission and consideration process.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is when an author tries to pass off someone else's work as their own. Duplicate publication, sometimes called self-plagiarism, occurs when an author reuses substantial parts of their own published work without providing the appropriate references. This can range from getting an identical article published in multiple journals where the authors add small amounts of new data to a previous article.

It can be said that the plagiarism clearly occurred when large chunks of text were cut and pasted. Minor plagiarism without dishonest intention is relatively common, for example, when an author reuses parts of an introduction to a previous article. The editors of Archives of Pathology judge any case they are aware of (either by their own knowledge and reading of the literature, or when the reviewers alert them) on its own merits.

If a case of plagiarism comes to light after the publication of an article, Archives of Pathology will carry out a preliminary investigation, using the guidelines of the Committee on Publications Ethics (COPE). If plagiarism is proven, the journal will contact the institution to which the author belongs and funding agencies, as appropriate. The document containing the plagiarism can also be formally withdrawn or subject to correction.

Manufacture and / or falsification of data

Manufacturing is the practice of inventing data or results and recording and / or reporting them in the research register. Counterfeiting is the practice of altering research data with the intention of giving a false impression.

This includes, but is not limited to, manipulating images, removing outliers or "bad" results, or changing, adding, or omitting data points.

The falsification and fabrication of data call into question the integrity and credibility of the data and, as such, are among the most serious problems in scientific ethics.

Some image manipulation is allowed to improve readability. Proper technical manipulation includes adjusting the contrast and / or brightness or color balance if applied to the entire digital image (not parts of the image). The author must notify the Editor at the time of submission of any technical manipulation. Improper technical manipulation refers to darkening, enhancing, eliminating and / or introducing new elements in an image. See Image Integrity and Standards below for more details.

Recycling of texts

Authors should note that reproducing text from their own past publications is a recycling of text (also known as self-plagiarism) and is in some cases considered unacceptable. When overlapping of text with previous publications by the authors themselves is necessary or unavoidable, duplication should always be reported transparently and should be properly attributed and comply with copyright requirements. If a manuscript contains text that has been published elsewhere, authors must notify the Editor at the time of submission.

MODIFICATIONS, RETRACTIONS AND DELETIONS

The journal Archives of Pathology is committed to maintaining the integrity of the academic record. Therefore, the articles that have been published will be preserved unaltered as far as possible. However, circumstances may arise in which an article is published that must subsequently be modified, retracted or deleted.

In this sense, the policies of the magazine's editorial board are specified in the following points:

Expressions of concern

The journal management may publish an expression of concern if it believes that readers should be informed of the potentially misleading content of an article. The management, aware of the repercussions that such act could have on the reputation of its authors, will only publish such expression after consulting an independent expert committee that renders a judgment on the matter.

Errata and corrections

Authors who find misprints or honest errors, once the article is published, must inform the journal about them. Errata that do not affect the understanding of the text (typographical or formatting errors) may be rejected in order to maintain the integrity of the published works. When errors affect the visibility, possibilities of citation or correct understanding of the article, a warning of the error will be published together with the metadata of the published article and a note of the error together with the file with the content of the error, and a link will be created between both.

Withdrawal of an article

Authors can ask the journal to withdraw their work before publication. To this end, they must send a written request that includes a reasoned justification for such request and, in the case of co-authorship, it must be signed by all interested parties.

Retraction of an article

An article will be retracted in the event that:

- It would have been previously published in another magazine or publication medium.

- Contains false claims of authorship, fraudulent use of data or multiple submission.

- Include libelous or gratuitous comments that damage the personal or professional honor of third parties.

- Contains conclusions that have been previously published and there are no cross references to them.

- Incur in plagiarism or inappropriate authorship.

- Skip a significant conflict of interest during the posting process.

- There is a dispute about its authorship.

The decision to withdraw or delete a work will be made by the journal's management team, after consulting, if necessary, the editorial committee and under the guidelines of the COPE guidelines.

Retractions of published articles will be made by posting a retraction notice, linked to the published article and without altering the original article in any way other than to add a prominent link to the note. In this way, the original article remains in the public domain and the retraction notice will be indexed.

The retraction note will include the title of the work, its authors and a brief description of the reason for the withdrawal. In the PDF version of the article, a watermark will be placed on all its pages, indicating that it is retracted; the html or xml version, if it exists, will be deleted.

There will be no partial retractions. Any retraction is of the entire work.

Deleting an article

An article will only be removed from the database when it infringes the legal rights of others or is the subject of a court order. In this circumstance, although the metadata will be preserved, the text will be replaced by a notice indicating that the article has been withdrawn for legal reasons.

APPEALS AND COMPLAINTS

Appeal against a rejection

If you wish to ask the Editor or the Editorial Committee to reconsider the rejection of a manuscript, you should, in the first instance, contact the Editor of the journal. These are considered appeals that, by policy, should take second place after normal workload. In practice, this means that appeal decisions usually take several weeks. Only one appeal is allowed for each manuscript. Final decisions on appeals will be made by the member of the editorial committee handling the article or the editor.

In general, an appeal against a decision to reject a manuscript will only be considered if:

- The authors can demonstrate that a reviewer or the Editors have made an error that determined the final decision during the review,

or

- if important additional data can be provided,

 or

- whether a convincing case of process bias can be demonstrated.

Authors wishing to appeal an editorial decision should send a formal appeal letter to the journal by contacting the editorial office. Please include the tracking number of the manuscript in the subject line of the email and in the appeal letter.

If the appeals are successful, the authors will receive instructions on how to proceed. If an appeal deserves further consideration, the editor can submit the authors' response and the revised article for peer review.

Complaints

Complaints about our processes or about the ethics of the publication will be dealt with in the first instance by the Editor in charge of the journal.

For complaints about processes

As well as the review time, the Editor will review and respond to the concerns of the complainant. This feedback will be provided to relevant stakeholders to guide improvements in processes and procedures.