About the Journal

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Focus and Scope

Publication Frequency

Open Access Policy

License conditions and Copyright Notice

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Conflict of interest

Informed Consent Policy

The process for handling cases requiring corrections, retractions, and editorial expressions of concern

Advertising policy

Abstracting and indexing

Archiving

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Focus and Scope

Ukrainian Neurosurgical Journal is covering research on neurosurgery, including neuroradiology, otoneurology, clinical neurophysiology, organic neurology, neuroimmunology, neurochemistry, and neuropathology; publishes issues of public health organization in the field of neurosurgery; informs on the activities of the Ukrainian Association of Neurosurgeons.

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Publication Frequency

Issue

Manuscript submission deadline

Publication of articles

Sending articles metadata to databases

1

January 10

no later than March 31

no later than April 30

2

April 10

no later than June 31

no later than July 31

3

July 10

no later than September 31

no later than October 31

4

October 10

no later than December 31

no later than January 31

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Open Access Policy

Ukrainian Neurosurgical Journal practices a policy of immediate open access to published content, supporting the principles of the free distribution of scientific information and global knowledge sharing for the common social progress.

The users have an opportunity to read, upload, copy, and distribute the content for educational and scientific purposes with mandatory indication of the authorship.

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License conditions and Copyright Notice

Published articles are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Ukrainian Neurosurgical Journal abides by the CREATIVE COMMONS copyright rights and permissions for open access journals.

Authors, who are published in this Journal, agree to the following conditions:

1. The authors reserve the right to authorship of the work and pass the first publication right of this work to the Journal under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows others to freely distribute the published research with the obligatory reference to the authors of the original work and the first publication of the work in this Journal.

2. The authors have the right to conclude separate supplement agreements that relate to non-exclusive work distribution in the form of which it has been published by the Journal (for example, to upload the work to the online storage of the Journal or publish it as part of a monograph), provided that the reference to the first publication of the work in this Journal is included.

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Conflict of interest

What is a conflict of interest?

A potential conflict of interests exists when an author, peer reviewers or an editor has any relationship that could influence their credibility or undermine his actions. These relationship is also known as double liability, competing interests or competing loyalty.

A conflict of interest militates to perform full and credible research and present its results, expert review and make a decision of publish a manuscript.

A conflict of interest exists when professional judgement concerning primary interest (such as patients' welfare or the validity of research) may be influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain). Perceptions of conflict of interest are as important as actual conflicts of interest.

A conflict of interest could be financial or non-financial, professional or personal. A conflict of interest may occur concerning the affiliation to establishment or organization or another person.

Types of conflicts of interest

The most common form of conflict of interest is financial relationship — employment relationship, consultancies, stock ownership, grants, fees, license and paid expert testimony. The example may include a researcher getting royalty from a company which product he is investigating.

The conflicts may arise for other reasons and include personal or private relationships or rivalries, academic competition or differences in ideologies. The example may include a researcher investigating a product of a company in which his relative or an author and peer reviewer are working and are in interpersonal conflict.

Declaration of any potential conflict of interest is compulsory requirement and an integral part of transparency of investigation.

Who must declare a conflict of interest?

All participants of publication process — authors, peer reviewers, editors — must disclose all relationships that can be viewed as a potential conflict of interest.

Authors

When submitting a manuscript, the authors are responsible for disclosing all competing interests that are likely to appear to interfere their work (financial or private relationships with organizations, commercial companies, producers and distributors of medications, medical and laboratory facilities relevant to the article. All authors must disclose potential conflicts of interest that could be considered to bias the results or conclusions represented in the article.

The author must include the information on a conflict of interest at the end of the manuscript (prior the references) in the section ‘Information disclosure statement’ under the heading ‘Conflict of interest statement’. If any author has no a conflict of interest, you should state: ‘The author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’.

Peer reviewers

Peer reviewers must inform the editor of the journal about any conflict of interest that could bias their opinions of the manuscript and should recuse themselves from reviewing the manuscript if potential bias exists (financial or private interactions with an author of a manuscript and/or organization, commercial companies, producers or distributors of medications, medical or laboratory facilities relative to the article).

If any conflict of interest is disclosed when submitting a manuscript, a peer reviewer should recuse himself from critiquing and send a letter to the editorial board with the following text: ‘Objective peer review is impossible due to a conflict of interest’ and state the content of conflict.

If no conflict of interest, after a manuscript has been reviewed a peer reviewer should state at the end of a review: ‘Peer reviewer declares no conflict of interest’.

Editors and journal staff

The editors should declare their own competing interests (financial or personal relationships with an author and/or organizations, commercial companies, producers and distributors of medications, medical and laboratory facilities related to the article) and, if any reasons for biased decision, recuse themselves from participating in estimating a manuscript. The journal staff should not use the information gained through working with the manuscript for private gain and disclose confidential information to the third persons.

 

Conflict of interest is not non-ethic, but all conflicts of interest existing should be disclosed.

If suspicion on undisclosed conflict of interest, the editorial board is governed by the COPE algorithm

The reviewer suspects undisclosed conflict of interest in a submitted manuscript http://publicationethics.org/files/COI%20submitted.pdf

A reader suspects undisclosed conflict of interest in a published article http://publicationethics.org/files/COI%20published.pdf

 

The journal may use the information about the disclosure of conflict of interest as a factor influencing the decision of the editorial board. The information about conflict of interest is placed at the end of an article (prior the references) in the section ‘Information disclosure statement’ under the heading ‘Conflict of interest statement’.

Disclosure of Funding Sources

The authors should provide with the third-party financing of research work (grants, pensions, donations, medical entities supplying equipment, medications and/or other support contributing to research or writhing an article). It is important to describe in details the role of sponsors in study design; collection, analyzing and interpretation of the data; decision of results publication; preparing and correction of the article. If a sponsor did not participate, the authors should state it. If a research had no any funding, the article should include: ‘The research had no sponsor support’. Information about funding should be placed at the end of a manuscript (prior references) in the section ‘Information disclosure statement’ under the heading ‘Funding’.

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Informed Consent Policy

Ukrainian Neurosurgical Journal to apply informed consent under research ethics, based on Declaration of Helsinki: Ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects and Recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors

 

Informed Consent in Patients and Study Participants
(Based on Recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors)

Patients have a right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. Identifying information, including names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, or pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that an identifiable patient be shown the manuscript to be published. Authors should disclose to these patients whether any potential identifiable material might be available via the Internet as well as in print after publication. Patient consent should be written and archived either with the journal, the authors, or both, as dictated by local regulations or laws.

Nonessential identifying details should be omitted. Informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt that anonymity can be maintained. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of patients is inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance, and editors should so note, that such alterations do not distort scientific meaning.

When informed consent has been obtained, it should be indicated in the published article.

 

Informed Consent
(Based on Declaration of Helsinki: Ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects)

  • Participation by individuals capable of giving informed consent as subjects in medical research must be voluntary. Although it may be appropriate to consult family members or community leaders, no individual capable of giving informed consent may be enrolled in a research study unless he or she freely agrees.
  • In medical research involving human subjects capable of giving informed consent, each potential subject must be adequately informed of the aims, methods, sources of funding, any possible conflicts of interest, institutional affiliations of the researcher, the anticipated benefits and potential risks of the study and the discomfort it may entail, post-study provisions and any other relevant aspects of the study. The potential subject must be informed of the right to refuse to participate in the study or to withdraw consent to participate at any time without reprisal. Special attention should be given to the specific information needs of individual potential subjects as well as to the methods used to deliver the information.
  • After ensuring that the potential subject has understood the information, the physician or another appropriately qualified individual must then seek the potential subject’s freely-given informed consent, preferably in writing. If the consent cannot be expressed in writing, the non-written consent must be formally documented and witnessed.
  • All medical research subjects should be given the option of being informed about the general outcome and results of the study.
  • When seeking informed consent for participation in a research study the physician must be particularly cautious if the potential subject is in a dependent relationship with the physician or may consent under duress. In such situations the informed consent must be sought by an appropriately qualified individual who is completely independent of this relationship.
  • For a potential research subject who is incapable of giving informed consent, the physician must seek informed consent from the legally authorized representative. These individuals must not be included in a research study that has no likelihood of benefit for them unless it is intended to promote the health of the group represented by the potential subject, the research cannot instead be performed with persons capable of providing informed consent, and the research entails only minimal risk and minimal burden.
  • When a potential research subject who is deemed incapable of giving informed consent is able to give assent to decisions about participation in research, the physician must seek that assent in addition to the consent of the legally authorized representative. The potential subject’s dissent should be respected.
  • Research involving subjects who are physically or mentally incapable of giving consent, for example, unconscious patients, may be done only if the physical or mental condition that prevents giving informed consent is a necessary characteristic of the research group. In such circumstances the physician must seek informed consent from the legally authorized representative. If no such representative is available and if the research cannot be delayed, the study may proceed without informed consent provided that the specific reasons for involving subjects with a condition that renders them unable to give informed consent have been stated in the research protocol and the study has been approved by a research ethics committee. Consent to remain in the research must be obtained as soon as possible from the subject or a legally authorized representative.
  • The physician must fully inform the patient which aspects of their care are related to the research. The refusal of a patient to participate in a study or the patient’s decision to withdraw from the study must never adversely affect the patient-physician relationship.
  • For medical research using identifiable human material or data, such as research on material or data contained in biobanks or similar repositories, physicians must seek informed consent for its collection, storage and/or reuse. There may be exceptional situations where consent would be impossible or impracticable to obtain for such research. In such situations the research may be done only after consideration and approval of a research ethics committee.
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The process for handling cases requiring corrections, retractions, and editorial expressions of concern

Our correct errors policy is to consider refutations (readers’ criticisms) of primary research papers, and to publish them if and only if the author provides compelling evidence that a major claim of the original paper was incorrect. Refutations are peer-reviewed, and where possible they are sent to the same referees who reviewed the original paper. A copy is usually also sent to the corresponding author of the original paper for signed comments.

Ukrainian Neurosurgical Journal operates the following policy for making corrections to the print and online versions of peer-reviewed content.

Publishable amendments that affect the publication record and/or the scientific accuracy of published information are published in print and online in the journal. Four categories of amendments are relevant for peer-reviewed material:

Erratum or Publisher Correction. Notification of an important error made by the journal that affects the publication record or the scientific integrity of the paper, or the reputation of the authors or of the journal.

Corrigendum or Author Correction. Notification of an important error made by the author(s) that affects the publication record or the scientific integrity of the paper, or the reputation of the authors or the journal.

Retraction. Notification of invalid results that affect the reliability of a previously published article. The original article is marked as retracted but remains available to readers, and the retraction statement notifying readers of the invalidity of the published paper is bi-directionally linked to the original published paper.

Addendum. Notification of additional information about a paper. Addenda are published when the editors decide that the addendum is crucial to the reader’s understanding of a significant part of the published contribution. Addenda include Editorial Expression of Concern, which is an editorial statement alerting our readership to serious concerns with the published paper.

Readers who have identified an error should send an email to the general email address of the journal, clearly stating the publication reference, title, author and section of the article, briefly explaining the error.

Refutations are typically published in the Communications section (which is both online and printed) sometimes with a brief response from the original authors.

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Advertising policy

The Romodanov Neurosurgery Institute receives advertising support for its print and online editions according to the following principles:

• Advertising is separate from content. Advertisers and sponsors have no advance knowledge of our editorial content, nor do the editors have advance knowledge of advertisers. Content is never altered, added, or deleted to accommodate advertising.

• Advertisers and sponsors have no input regarding any of our editorial decisions or advertising policies. The advertising sales representatives have neither control over, nor prior knowledge of, specific editorial content before it is published.

• Editorial board reserves the right to decline or cancel any advertisement at any time.

• The advertiser to adhere to relevant legal requirements for medical devices and drugs, as well as the regulations of their advertising and promotion.

• The responsibility for the content of promotional materials is borne by the advertiser

• The Romodanov Neurosurgery Institute does not endorse any company, product, or service appearing in its advertising.

• Editorial board does not accept for consideration and does not publish promotional articles.

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Archiving

The Ukrainian Neurosurgical Journal uses modul PKP PN to store archived content in numerous libraries and information centers, ensuring long-term storage of the Journal's archives and automatic recovery of damaged information.

Long-term storage of the log provides as well the non-profit digital library and archive Internet Archive Scholar that works with, and provides services for, thousands of national libraries and archives, universities, governments, research institutions, publishers.

Printed copies of the Journal are also stored in the Repository "Scientific periodical of Ukraine" of the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine.

The journal welcomes archiving by authors of published versions of their articles in accordance with the open access policy.

Authors may at any time archive a PDF version of a published article in personal or institutional repositories or libraries without seeking permission from the journal or publisher, provided they disclose the necessary metadata to ensure correct citation.

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