The following statement of ethical standards applies to all authors, reviewers and editors of scientific papers that are published in NST.

Research Results
Source material of experiments and research results should be recorded and retained for a reasonable time after publication, in a manner that allows analysis and review by other scientists. Exceptions may be appropriate to preserve privacy or to assure patent protection.
Fabrication or falsification of data or reporting intentionally selective data to mislead or deceive the readers is a serious departure from professional conduct. Authors should strive not to allow miss presentation of their data, and not to include other’s data or research results without permission from the original authors or publishers. Plagiarism is a serious breach of ethics and is defined as the substantial replication, without attribution, of significant elements of another article already published by others or by themselves. Explicit acknowledgement should always be given when another work, by others or by themselves, is used in an article.
In case an error is discovered in a published or submitted article, the authors are obliged to make a prompt correction, by publishing an erratum or retraction of the article with approval by all the authors of the article published or submitted.

Authorship
All individuals who have made significant scientific contributions to the research work should be given the opportunity to be included as coauthors. Other persons who have contributed to the study should be acknowledged, but not identified as coauthors. The sources of financial support for the research project should be disclosed.
Every coauthor should be aware of the content of an article to be submitted, agree to its submission, and share appropriate responsibility for the work. Any individual unable to take appropriate responsibility for the article should not be included as a coauthor.
Duplicate submission is the most common ethics violation encountered. It is unethical for authors to publish articles describing essentially the same research result in more than one journal. It is also unacceptable for authors to submit the same manuscript concurrently to more than one journal.
Authors are requested to read the policy on “Submission of original NST papers based on contents already published in conference proceedings, extended abstracts, or the likes” carefully before paper submission.

Peer Review
Peer review provides advice to the editors concerning the publication of research results, and this is an essential step of the scientific publication process. Although reviewing manuscripts is time consuming and sometimes difficult to pursue, all scientists have on obligation to do their fair share of reviewing.
Reviewers’ names are kept confidential and may only be disclosed to journal editors, who are also obliged to maintain confidentiality. All ideas and information that have been obtained during the review process must be kept strictly confidential and not used for competitive advantage.
Reviewers should give unbiased, objective assessment to all manuscripts offered for publication. Reviewers should disclose to the editorial office any potential conflicts of interest due to direct competitive or collaborative relationships with an author(s), and avoid cases in which such conflicts preclude an objective reviewing.
Comments made by reviewers may be seen by the authors. Reviewers should refrain from subjective personalized criticism of the authors. Reviewers’ comments should be given in a way where by authors can understand the basis of the comments and judgments, so that they can be used by the authors to improve the scientific quality of the article.
Reviewers are expected to provide relevant references that have not been cited in the article. They should also call the journal editors’ attention to any substantial similarity between the manuscript and any paper already published or being submitted elsewhere.

Conflict of Interest
All authors are requested to inform the editorial office of any potential conflicts of interest in advance of submitting an article (e.g., employment, stock ownership, patent licenses, etc). Similarly, all reviewers are requested to inform the editorial office of any potential conflicts of interest in advance of reviewing an article (e.g., being a collaborator of one of the authors, etc.). When it is recognized that objectivity and fairness cannot be ensured, the activity should be avoided or discontinued.