Ethics and Security

Journal of Nutrition and Food Security (JNFS)’s editor may present advice about submitted papers on any aspect of a paper that raises concerns, for example, ethical issues or issues of data or materials access. It is important to agree upon the expected standards of ethical behavior for all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer, etc. All research must have been carried out within an appropriate ethical framework.

Authorship and Author’s Responsibility

The journal adheres to the definition of authorship set up by The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The ICMJE recommends that authorship should be based on the following 4 criteria: i) Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; ii) Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; iii) Final approval of the version to be published; and iv) Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. Contributors who do not qualify as authors should be mentioned under ‘Acknowledgements’
The corresponding author takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process. S/he also typically ensures that all the journal’s administrative requirements, such as providing details of authorship, ethics committee approval, clinical trial registration documentation, and gathering conflict of interest statements are properly completed. The corresponding author should respond to editorial queries throughout the submission and peer review process in a timely manner, and should cooperate with any requests from the journal after publication.
Journal of Nutrition and Food Security (JNFS)does not allow adding authors or changing the first or the corresponding authors after the final acceptance of the article. If any author wishes to be removed from the byline, s/he should submit a letter signed by the author, as well as all other authors, indicating his or her wish to be removed from the list of authors. Any change in the name order in the byline requires a letter signed by all authors indicting agreement with the same.

Conflict of Interest

Authors are required to disclose all relationships or interests in relation to their work. All submitted manuscripts must include a ‘Conflict of Interest’ section at the end of the manuscript listing all financial and non-financial conflict of interests. Where authors have no conflict of interests, the statement should read “The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.” A competing interest exists when the authors’ interpretation of data or presentation of information may be influenced by their personal or financial relationship with other people or organizations. Authors should disclose any financial competing interests but also any non-financial competing interests that may cause them embarrassment if they were to become public after the publication of the article. Financial competing interests include (but are not limited to):

In addition, non-financial interests that may be important to readers should be disclosed. These may include but are not limited to political, personal, religious, ideological, academic, and intellectual competing interests. Editors may ask for further information relating to competing interests. Editors and reviewers are also required to declare any competing interests and will be excluded from the peer review process if a competing interest exists.

Conflict of interest for reviewers

The following situations are considered conflicts and should be avoided:

• Co-authoring publications with at least one of the authors in the past 3 years
• Being colleagues within the same section/department or similar organisational unit in the past 3 years
• Supervising/having supervised the doctoral work of the author (s) or being supervised/having been supervised by the author(s)
• Receiving professional or personal benefit resulting from the review
• Having a personal relationship (e.g. family, close friend) with the author(s)
• Having a direct or indirect financial interest in the paper being reviewed

Principles for Publication of Research Involving Human and Animal Subjects

Research involving human subjects, human material, or human data, should include a statement that the studies performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki (as revised in Brazil 2013), available at http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/index.html. and approved by an appropriate ethics committee. If a study has been granted an exemption from requiring ethics approval, this should also be detailed in the manuscript (including the name of the ethics committee that granted the exemption). Authors will be expected to have obtained ethics committee approval and informed patient consent for any experimental use of a novel procedure or tool where a clear clinical advantage based on clinical need was not apparent before treatment. Furthermore, the welfare of animals used for research must be respected. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals have been followed, and that the studies have been approved by a research ethics committee at the institution or practice at which the studies were conducted.
Journal of Nutrition and Food Security (JNFS) encourages authors submitting manuscripts reporting from a clinical trial to register the trials registries & bear a clinical trial registration number and name of the trial. Reports of randomized clinical trials should present information on all major study elements, including the protocol, assignment of interventions (methods of randomization, concealment of allocation to treatment groups), and the method of masking (blinding), based on the CONSORT statement (Moher D, Schulz KF, Altman DG: The CONSORT Statement: Revised Recommendations for Improving the Quality of Reports of Parallel-Group Randomized Trials).
Manuscripts may be rejected if the Editor considers that the research has not been carried out within an appropriate ethical framework. In rare cases, editors may contact the ethics committee for further information.

Clinical Trials Registry

We require, as a condition of considering publication, registration in a public trials registry. Trials must register at or before the onset of patient enrollment. This policy applies to any clinical trial starting enrollment after January 1, 2006. For trials that began enrollment before this date, we require registration by April 1, 2006, before considering the trial for publication. We define a clinical trial as any research project that prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention or comparison groups to study the cause-and-effect relationship between a medical intervention and a health outcome. Studies designed for other purposes, such as pharmacokinetics or major toxicity (e.g., phase 1 trials) are exempt.
We do not advocate one particular registry, but registration must be with a registry that meets the following minimum criteria: (1) accessible to the public at no charge; (2) searchable by standard, electronic (Internet-based) methods; (3) open to all prospective registrants free of charge or at minimal cost; (4) validates registered information; (5) identifies trials with a unique number; and (6) includes information on the investigator(s), research question or hypothesis, methodology, intervention and comparisons, eligibility criteria, primary and secondary outcomes measured, date of registration, anticipated or actual start date, anticipated or actual date of last follow-up, target number of subjects, status (anticipated, ongoing or closed) and funding source(s).
Registries that currently meet these criteria include: (1) the registry sponsored by the United States National Library of Medicine; (2) the International Standard Randomized Controlled Trial Number Registry; (3) the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR); (4) the Chinese Clinical Trials Register; (5) the Clinical Trials Registry - India and (6) the Iranian Clinical Trial Registration (www.IRCT.IR). Reporting of randomized controlled trials should follow the guidelines of The CONSORT Statement.

Informed Consent

For all research involving human subjects, informed consent to participate in the study should be obtained from participants. For all manuscripts that include details, images, or videos relating to individual participants, written informed consents must be obtained from the participants for the publication of these. A statement to this effect should appear in the manuscript. Identifying details (names, dates of birth, identity numbers and other information) of the participants that were studied should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and genetic profiles unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the participant (or parent or guardian if the participant is incapable) gave written informed consent for publication. The final decision on whether consent to publish is required lies with the Editor.

Committee on Publication Ethics

The journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and we are committed to implementing the principles of it.

Complaints Procedures

We hope no complaints will be made. But if it happens, we will try to put it on the agenda immediately. The complainant must be aware that the subject cannot be investigated unless the corresponding author/ author and possibly the institution or company at which the research took place be informed about the complaint. The following procedures are followed:

How to Make a Complaint?

Ethics of scientific publication

Duplicate Submission: Submission of a manuscript implies that it has neither been submitted nor under consideration for publication elsewhere. Manuscripts found to be submitted or under review elsewhere will incur duplicate submission sanctions. The copyright holder's permission must be obtained if previously published tables, illustrations, or texts are included. Previously published material can be cited in a later review or commentary article, but it must be indicated, using quotation marks if necessary.
Duplicate Publication: Manuscripts published elsewhere with the same intellectual material are considered as duplicate publication. If authors have used their own previously published paper, or work that is currently under review as a basis for the submitted manuscript, they are required to cite the previous work. They should also indicate that their submitted manuscript offers novel contributions beyond those of the previous work.
Selective Reporting of Data: Selective reporting of data is inappropriate, especially if unreported data are in disagreement with the findings of the selectively reported data. In accordance with the ICMJE, the JNFS supports publication of studies with negative and contrasting results. The literature review should contain publications relevant to the uniqueness of the research whether composed by other researchers or the present authors. Previous publication of a preliminary report on the data is permissible, if it is stated clearly as a footnote.

Scientific Misconducts
At JNF, we are dedicated to maintaining the highest ethical standards in all aspects of our operations and scholarly publications. Our policy on misconduct is designed to support integrity in the research and publication process, and to address any issues in a fair and timely manner.

Fabrication: Fabrication is the intentional misrepresentation of research results by making up data, such as the one reported in a journal article. JNFS journal will ask the author(s) to provide the raw data for further investigations if necessary.
Falsification: It is manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record. In the initial process of peer review, JNFS journal tries to consider this issue and act accordingly.
Plagiarism: Plagiarism are considered as the serrious publication misconducts by Journal  and deals with them according to COPE guidelines.
 Plagiarism is copying text, ideas, images, or data from another source without crediting the original source. If the text is copied from another source, it should be refer to the original source. The iournal uses standard and reliable plagiarism checker software(iThenticate) and all submitted manuscripts were evaluated immediately after submission of manuscripts and befor publication.If plagiarism is detected, the author(s) will be informed and the manuscript will be rejected.The JNFS  for retraction of a published article uses the COPE flowchart (http://publicationethics.org/sites/default/files/retraction-guidelines-cope.pdf)
 

Article Correction and Retraction
All the Corrections made to a published article will be with the authorization of the editor of the journal. Editors will decide the magnitude of the corrections. Minor corrections are made directly to the original article. For major changes below cases are applicable.

• The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper referencing, permission or justification.
• If the work is plagiarized
• If the work reports unethical research.

The JNFS uses the COPE flowchart for retraction of a published article. http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines

Advertising policy
Currently, advertisements are not accepted in JNFS.

Data sharing policy

The data sharing policy in JNFS is the same as the ones that came in the last updated edition in ICMJE (www.icmje.org/update.html) and we will be committed to implementing them.

Process to Manage Research and Publication Misconduct

The editorial board will incessantly work towards observing publication misconduct such as redundant (duplicate) publication, plagiarism, fraudulent or fabricated data, changes in authorship, undisclosed conflict of interest, ethical problem with a submitted manuscript, a reviewer who has appropriated an author’s idea or data, complaints against editors, and etc. When the journal faces suspected cases of research and publication misconduct, the resolving process will be followed by guidelines provided by the "Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)". The complete guidelines appear on COPE website: http://www.publicationethics.org.uk.

submit an Appeal:
All manuscripts must be submitted as an electronic submission. The authors must declare that it is being exclusively contributed to JNFS. The text should be submitted in Microsoft Word format as an attachment. The figures should be sent in a format of JPEG or GIF which will produce high-quality images in the online edition of the journal. Submission is acceptable by Journal URL:http://www.jnfs.ssu.ac.ir
Manuscripts are received with the understanding that they are not under simultaneous consideration by another publication. The author's transmittal letter must accompany the manuscript and contain these statements: "The manuscript has been seen and approved by all authors involved and is neither being published nor being considered for publication elsewhere. The authors transfer copyright to theJNFS."