Policy on Citation Manipulation.

The journal follows the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics to prevent citation manipulation and to ensure that all references included in manuscripts are scientifically relevant and justified.

The following practices are considered unacceptable: coercive citation (forcing authors to add unnecessary citations); excessive author self-citation; excessive citation of the journal in which the article is published; citation stacking (coordinated reciprocal citation between journals).

The editorial office does not require authors to add citations that lack clear scientific justification.

Reviewers should not recommend citing their own publications solely to increase personal citation metrics.

If citation manipulation is detected, the editorial office may: request revision of the manuscript; reject the manuscript; notify the author’s affiliated institution if necessary.