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Peer reviewing of articles submitted to the Journal

All scholarly articles submitted to the Journal's Editorial Board are subject to peer reviewing in compliance with an established procedure as described below.

1. The Editorial Board evaluates suitability of the article for the journal and transmits it for the first reviewing to the Editor-in-Chief, , his(her) Deputy or the Executive Secretary who assess its scientific value and assign reviewers. Members of the Journal Editorial Board and Editorial Council participate in peer review activities as well as external reviewers from among leadings experts who are working in the same scientific directions and had published works related to the topic of the article under reviewing over the last 3 years. Scholarly papers by the Editor-in-Chief are reviewed by external reviewers.
2. Peer reviewing is conducted in a confidential manner. The editorial board transmits to authors of papers copies of reviews or a motivated rejection and is obliged to send copies of reviews to the RF Ministry of Education and Science on request.
3. Terms of peer reviewing must not exceed 2 weeks. This term is checked by the editorial board and may be prolonged at the reviewer's request.
4. In order to obtain a maximum complete and objective review of a paper, the Editorial board designed for reviewers a checklist with questions which the referee must elucidate. Based on this assessment, the referee makes recommendations about the fate of the paper; they are: "publish as is", "publish after correction of deficiencies noted by the referee", "hand over to another referee for additional reviewing", 'reject".
5. If the reviewer suggests to refine and correct the manuscript, the journal's executive secretary sends the text of the review to the author in order to take it into account when preparing a new version of the paper or to reasonably reject it ( partially or completely).The manuscript revised by the author is sent for repeated reviewing .
6. If the author and the reviewer meet insoluble contradictions regarding the manuscript, the editorial board is free to send the manuscript to another referee for reviewing. In conflict situations the manuscript can be handed over for consideration to a member of the editorial board or editorial council. In such cases, the final decision is made by the editor-in-chief.
7. Authors may recommend potential reviewers to review their manuscripts.
8. The manuscript may be sent for additional reviewing to an expert in medical statistics.
9. The author is notified of adverse review via e-mail.
10. The positive review is not a sufficient reason to accept the article for publishing. The final decision on feasibility of publishing an article is made by the editorial board on the grounds of the relevance of the work and its suitability for the journal. In conflict cases the decision is made by the editor-in-chief. Decisions made by the editorial board on every paper are recorded in the minutes of the editorial board meeting.
11. Authors have right to appeal editorial decisions in respect of acceptance or rejection of manuscripts. To see more about Appeals mechanism below.
12. Originals of reviews are preserved at the editorial office over 5 years.

Note for reviewers

When reviewing and preparing a report, the reviewer has to focus on the following questions:

• Actual value of the topic
• Originality and novelty of findings
• Integrity and validity of the vision of the problem in the reference list.
• Accurate statement of goals and objectives of the problem, their relation to the factual material submitted.
• Completeness in describing materials and methods used.
• Adequacy of selected research method.
• Adequacy of statistical analysis.
• Concordance between the results achieved and issues to solve.
• Evaluation of findings.
• Validity of conclusions.
• Scientific importance of results of the work.
• Practical importance of results of the work
• Visual aspects of the material submitted ( tables, figures).
• Comparison of the author's data with literature data.
• Availability of necessary references to all important publications on the topic of the paper
• Quality of the abstract and rightness of selected keywords
• Abidance by ethical principles
• Correctness in reporting outcomes in conclusions and implications if any.
• In case of clinical reviewing: description completeness of clinical picture , laboratory and instrumental research methods, correctness of analysis.

Appeals

Authors have right to appeal the editorial board's decisions in respect of acceptance or rejection of manuscripts.

Appeals procedure

1. In case of the author's disagreement with the editorial board 's decision in respect to acceptance or rejection of the article, the author gives a written request to the journal's editorial board, indicating reasons for appeal.
2. A dispute panel of the journal considers the author's request.
3. Decisions are revised in respect with the article in the following cases:
   • the author submitted additional factual results which have not been taken into account at the primary reviewing of the article.
   • the author submitted an additional material to the article which has not been taken into account at the primary reviewing of the article.
   • the author provided information about conflict of interests which was not made evident at the primary reviewing of the article.
   • the author expressed concern about a biased review.
4. If the grounds are sufficient, the dispute panel can recommend to the editorial board to revise the decision made or keep in force the primary decision in respect to publication of the article.
5. If necessary, the editorial board can invite an additional referee in order to take the final decision.
6. Decisions on acceptance or retraction of the article are made by the journal's editorial board upon the outcome of the revision of the primary decision.
7. The decision of the editorial board upon the revision of the primary decision is final and is not subject to repeated appeal.

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