For Reviewers

Dear reviewers,

Thank you for your efforts and experience in reviewing. It would be impossible to maintain high standards of publishing research results without it.

The conference materials are reviewed, but this process is loyal. We take into account the fact that based on the conference paper the author will be able to publish a more extended and detailed article in an influential journal in the future.

The review should be confidential. Please, do not disclose the article for review to a third party.

We have listed some general instructions regarding the review report for your consideration below.

To begin with, please consider the following guidelines:

• Read the whole article as well as the supplementary material, if there is any, paying close attention to the figures, tables, data, and methods.
• Your report should critically analyze the article as a whole but also specific sections and the key concepts presented in the article.
• Please ensure your comments are detailed so that the authors may correctly understand and address the points you raise.
• Reviewers should not recommend citation of work by themselves, close colleagues, another author, or the journal when it is not clearly necessary to improve the quality of the manuscript under review.
• Please maintain a neutral tone and focus on providing constructive criticism that will help the authors improve their work. Derogatory comments will not be tolerated.

Review reports should contain the following:

• A brief summary (one short paragraph) outlining the aim of the paper, its main contributions and strengths.
• General concept comments
  Article: highlighting areas of weakness, the testability of the hypothesis, methodological inaccuracies, missing controls, etc.
  Review: commenting on the completeness of the review topic covered, the relevance of the review topic, the gap in knowledge identified, the appropriateness of references, etc.
  These comments are focused on the scientific content of the manuscript and should be specific enough for the authors to be able to respond.
• Specific comments referring to line numbers, tables or figures that point out inaccuracies within the text or sentences that are unclear. These comments should also focus on the scientific content and not on spelling, formatting or English language problems, as these can be addressed at a later stage by our internal staff.

General questions to help guide your review report for research articles:

• Is the manuscript clear, relevant for the field and presented in a well-structured manner? 
• Are the cited references mostly recent publications (within the last 5 years) and relevant? Does it include an excessive number of self-citations?
• Is the manuscript scientifically sound and is the experimental design appropriate to test the hypothesis?
• Are the manuscript’s results reproducible based on the details given in the methods section?
• Are the figures/tables/images/schemes appropriate? Do they properly show the data? Are they easy to interpret and understand? Is the data interpreted appropriately and consistently throughout the manuscript? Please include details regarding the statistical analysis or data acquired from specific databases.
• Are the conclusions consistent with the evidence and arguments presented?
• Please evaluate the ethics statements and data availability statements to ensure they are adequate.

General questions to help guide your review report for review articles:

• Is the review clear, comprehensive and of relevance to the field? Is a gap in knowledge identified?
• Was a similar review published recently and, if yes, is this current review still relevant and of interest to the scientific community?
• Are the cited references mostly recent publications (within the last 5 years) and relevant? Are any relevant citations omitted? Does it include an excessive number of self-citations?
• Are the statements and conclusions drawn coherent and supported by the listed citations?
• Are the figures/tables/images/schemes appropriate? Do they properly show the data? Are they easy to interpret and understand?

Reviewers have enough time (up to 6 weeks) to review the articles. It is their responsibility to notify the editorial board if they can’t make a review prior to the specified deadline.