About the Journal
Focus and Scope
"Mathematical and Computational Forestry & Natural-Resource Sciences" (MCFNS) is an international scientific journal dedicated to the promotion, publication, and public discussion, of high-quality studies on the basic mathematical and computational research in forestry and natural resource sciences.? The title of the journal is intended to be descriptive of this journal's main focus and scope.? The journal is all-inclusive in the sense that it invites publications from a range of topics varying in scope from "Mathematical Forestry" to "Mathematical Natural-Resource Sciences," and from "Computational Forestry" to "Computational Natural-Resource Sciences." The notions of "Mathematical" and "Computational" sciences are intended to indicate a double focus on two opposite ends of the contemporary natural resource sciences spectrum.? One end is the traditional Rationalist, derivation-based foundation of theoretical thinking that was the origin of all the sciences, but in recent decades, with the growing availability of inexpensive computers, is losing ground to the overriding usage of data-analysis-based studies.? The other end of the spectrum is inevitably what many aspects of natural sciences must converge to in taking advantage of emerging and ever-growing and more readily available super-computing power.? Inasmuch as the increasing computing resources demote the basic analytical research, replacing it with expedient empirical solutions, they promote a different kind of analytical research by opening new ways of structuring scientific pursuits, asking formerly unanswerable questions, and solving formerly insolvable problems with the use of computer-based modeling and simulations.? Exploring the new research possibilities based on ever-growing computing capabilities gives foundation to new computational sciences in Forestry and Natural Resources, in the same manner in which the expanding computer capabilities helped to found such sciences as ``Computational Genetics'' and ``Computational Physics.'' The predominant 21st-century model of scientific pursuit in Forestry and Natural Resource Scientific publishing is right in between the two extremes covered by this journal.? The main modus of that model is to collect data and analyze them using statistical software.? This journal provides a publishing platform for the Forestry and Natural Resource Sciences outside this model by virtue of the journal's focus on theoretical derivations and simulations, discussions, reviews and implementations of new computer-based technologies.? Derivations are encouraged on all scientific bases, such as algebra, geometry, and plain logic.? Similarly, computer simulations are within the scope of this journal's interests, whether they are based on theoretical pseudo-data or massive collections of empirical survey data.? In essence, the "Mathematical and Computational" aspects of natural resource sciences are viewed by this journal as sharing the common platform of the Rationalist approach to research that contrasts with the more mainstream Empiricist studies (statistical analysis of collected data) dominating the present natural resource sciences and predominantly covered by the other excellent forestry and natural resource sciences journals.? By no means is the use of data in describing studies a detriment to publishing manuscripts in this journal, nor is the use of data considered inferior in any way to the more theoretical approaches invited by this journal.? Rather, the use of data alone is not a viable reason for publishing in this journal, as it could be for publishing in the other forestry and natural resource science related journals.? Also, absence of data is not a ground for rejecting a manuscript from publication in this journal, as it could be for the other journals.
Peer Review Process
The?Section Policies?lists the journal sections in the order of the?MCFNS?peer review intensity.? In general, the?Monographs,?Articles,?Reviews, and?Technical Notes, require the highest level of review intensity and the highest number of Referees.? The?Comments,?Editorials?and?Errata, require lesser review with fewer referees and higher latitude regarding review confidentiality, manuscript contents and manner of expression.? The?Covers?and?Letters to Editors?require only consideration by selected?Editorial Board members?and are not considered Peer-reviewed publications.? A consideration by multiple Editorial Board members is the minimum?MCFNS?requirement for publishing any contents on the journal website; nothing can be published on the ?MCFNS website?without consent from at least two?Editorial Board members.
The?MCFNS?peer-review process consists of up to three stages, with varying intensity of reviews between the?different sections of the journal.
The first stage of the?MCFNS?peer-review process is an initial consideration by at least two?Editorial Board members.? All publications of?MCFNS?are subject to this stage.? At this stage, the editors decide if the topic of a candidate manuscript matches the?Focus and Scope of the MCFNS journal?and what, if any, changes need to be done to the content of the manuscript to fit the journal domain.? Three potential outcomes of this stage are: forwarding of the manuscript to the second stage of the?MCFNS?review process; redirecting the manuscript to another journal; or recommending changes in the manuscript content to make it compatible with the?MCFNS Focus and Scope. ?This first review stage?usually takes a few days.? The names of the selected Editorial Board members deciding on topic suitability are confidential, but the reasoning behind the decision is disclosed, and the authors are welcome to provide their rationale for any disagreements with the assessment.
The second stage of the?MCFNS?peer-review process is a double-blind peer review by at least two to four referees, of whom at least one referee must be an expert in the manuscript's topic and at least one referee must be markedly fluent in English language style and grammar and be able to understand and follow the manuscript's topic.? The double-blind aspect of the review may be waived by the editors for?Comments,?Editorials?and?Errata, while individual referees can choose to be identified by names in their reviews of any sections.? The authors are encouraged to submit in their submission letter a list of qualified potential reviewers.? The reviews by?Referees?take usually several weeks, but the journal has also in place an?accelerated review process?if needed. ?The main focus of the second stage of peer-review is scrutiny of the technical content of the manuscript and making sure that the manuscript is clear in its communication, as well as identifying any other opportunities for improving the manuscript.? The journal policy is to give maximum latitude to the authors' individual styles, but at the same time, the journal has a zero-tolerance policy for any refutable algebraic or otherwise factual errors.? The reviewers at this stage are not asked to judge the manuscript topic suitability for the journal publication, but rather for identifying any factual errors that must be corrected before the manuscript can be published.? If authors do not agree with any deficiencies that might be claimed by reviewers, the reviewers will be encouraged to publish their critiques of the reviewed manuscript along with the manuscript itself.? Occasionally, outstanding reviews that the editors deem complementary to the manuscript's content may be published, subject to the reviewer's consent, along with the manuscript, or in the absence of such consent they may be anonymously quoted by the editors in the journal editorial.
The third, additional stage of the?MCFNS?peer-review process, is an?Open Public Peer-Review?of the journal PREPRINTS. ?This stage is intended for an Open-Access worldwide PREPRINT scrutiny, enabling all potential readers to assume the reviewer role for any?MCFNS?manuscript prior to its final publication on the official?MCFNS journal website.? The?Open Public Peer-Review System?is one of the distinguishing marks that sets the?MCFNS?journal apart from the conventional hard copy-based journals, and puts it into the class of the most progressive contemporary journals, such as those of the?Copernicus Publications, which originated the?Public Peer-Review?idea.? The?MCFNS?journal treats the?Public Peer-Review?option as a complement to the traditional peer review described above, rather than as a replacement for it, so that the MCFNS?publications can benefit from the combined strengths of both of these systems.? The?Open Public Peer-Review?is?available on the?OPR?website?until the manuscript is published in its designated issue. ?The publication issue may be subject to balancing of the manuscript backlog versus consistency of the journal production.
Publication Frequency
Journal items will be published collectively, as part of an issue with its Table of Contents, on April?30 and October?30 of each year (note that the publication dates are subject to change).?
Sponsors
The journal welcomes volunteers willing to help with the editorial functions of the journal.
Sources of Support
The support for this journal comes from voluntary work of the MCFNS team, and from the endorsement of their employing institutions. Monetary costs associated with publishing and web hosting are paid by the publication fees of the journal.
Journal History
The idea of the need for this journal was born during the social gatherings of the First International Conference on Forest Measurements and Quantitative Methods and Management & The 1999 Southern Mensurationists Conference, held at the Holiday Inn Beach Resort on Jekyll Island, Georgia, USA. However, the first successful installation of the MCFNS system on commercial servers was completed in 2008 by Rene M Cieszewski. The current technical support in MCFNS system programming is provided by Arun Kumar. The journal is always looking for volunteers proficient in LAMP-related programming to help with the journal web installation technical support, administration and maintenance, and new plug-in developments for the LAMP installation.
