Editorial Policies

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 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 is in contrast to 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 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.

Section Policies

Monographs

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Articles

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Research Notes

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Comments

This section contains such short communications as: Discussions of other articles, Error Reports on any publications in any outlets, Refutations, Technical Disputes, Commentaries, Rejoinders and outstanding Reviews of articles considered for publication in MCF. | Submit | Double-Blind Refereeing | Single-Blind Refereeing | Current Publications |

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Errata

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Letters

These are essentially Letters to Editor, which are considered Non-refereed and are published subject to minimum editorial and peer-review scrutiny regarding their relevance to the professional content of this journal and its mission and contents. | Submit | Double-Blind Refereeing | Single-Blind Refereeing | Current Publications |

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Selected Reviews

Referees' manuscript reviews that are considered by the editors to be either exemplary or otherwise complementary to the published manuscripts will be published as Reviews named or anonymous depending on the consent of their authors. Only editors can submit Reviews for consideration of publication in the MCFNS journal. | Double-Blind Refereeing | Single-Blind Refereeing | Current Publications |

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Editorials

Articles, Notes, or Comments expressing the opinions of MCFNS editors on any given subject matter or event relating to MCFNS function, policy or production, and their accounts of thereof. | Double-Blind Refereeing | Single-Blind Refereeing | Current Publications |

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Special Sections

The Special Section contains publications originated from an identifiable event, such as a Conference, Workshop, or a solicitation of submissions on a selected common theme. Some publications that may have originated outside of this common event may also be included in this section if they match the same theme. The publications in this section may be in any or all of the types published by this journal (Articles, Comments, Editorials, etc.) as well as any other forms defined by the Section Editor. The event originating the Special Section content will be identified by an introductory editorial within this section. | Submit | Double-Blind Refereeing | Single-Blind Refereeing | Current Publications |

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Main Section

The Main Section was created to distinguish the submissions of Special Sections from publications genrated by uncoordinated individual submissions to the MCFNS journal. The publications in this section may be in any or all of the types published by this journal as well as any other forms defined by the Section Editor. | Submit | Double-Blind Refereeing | Single-Blind Refereeing | Current Publications |

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Special Section on Systems Analysis in Forest Resources

This Special Section is dedicated to publications originated from the Symposium on Systems Analysis in Forest Resources. Some publications that may have originated outside of this Symposium may also be included in this section if they match the same theme and were processed and accepted for publication at the time of compiling this Special Section. The publications in this section comply with the general rules defined in the Special Sections definition. | Submit | Double-Blind Refereeing | Single-Blind Refereeing | Current Publications |

Editors

Pete Bettinger, University of Georgia
Mark Ducey, University of New Hampshire
MCFNS Editor

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Special Section on the Southern Forestry GIS Conference

This Special Section is dedicated to publications originated from the Southern Forestry GIS Conference. Some publications that may have originated outside of this Symposium may also be included in this section if they match the same theme and were processed and accepted for publication at the time of compiling this Special Section. The publications in this section comply with the general rules defined in the Special Sections definition. | Submit | Double-Blind Refereeing | Single-Blind Refereeing | Current Publications |

Editors

Pete Bettinger, University of Georgia
MCFNS Editor

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Special Section on Decision Support Tools for Sustainable Forest Management

This Special Section is dedicated to publications originated from the Workshop on Decision Support Tools for Sustainable Forest Management. Some publications that may have originated outside of this Symposium may also be included in this section if they match the same theme and were processed and accepted for publication at the time of compiling this Special Section. The publications in this section comply with the general rules defined in the Special Sections definition. | Submit | Double-Blind Refereeing | Single-Blind Refereeing | Current Publications |

Editors

MCFNS Editor
André Falcão, Tapada Ajuda

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Low-Res PDFs of the Current Issue

This section contains accessible w/o logging in low resolution PDFs for the latest issues. The high resolution PDFs for the latest issues are accessible through logging in by registered users with free subscription. Verified users who self-register themselves and fill in all information receive free subscription.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Open Peer Review

The manuscripts posted here passed the Double-Blind Peer Review and are in principle accepted for publication. They are posted here for an ancillary (secondary) Open Peer Review (OPR). This stage of the review is based on the Open Public Review principle, in which all journal readers are welcome to comment on the content of the manuscripts. Most of the manuscripts here are accessible after logging in. The OPR is added to the MCFNS Peer-Review Process to extend and strengthen its effectiveness; however, the posted here manuscripts can only be rejected if the author(s) refuse to correct a factual error identified by the OPR.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

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 with regard to 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 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 own Table of Contents on February 28 and August 28 of each year.

Author Self-Archiving

This journal permits anyone and encourages authors to post items submitted to the journal, which have passed the MCFNS Double-Blind Refereeing stage, on personal websites or institutional repositories both prior to and after publication, while providing bibliographic details that credit, if applicable, its publication in this journal and while providing the journal URL address. Anyone can read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, and/or link to the full texts of any articles published on the MCFNS.COM website.

Archiving

This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. More...

Indexing/Abstracting

The MCFNS journal indexing/abstracting by:

- DOAJ;
- EBSCO;
- ULR Electronic Journals Library;
- JournalSeek;
- ABC Chemistry (also 1, 2, 3, 4);
- Google; and
- Google Scholar.

Provisions have been made for future application for ISI indexing. However, the ISI rules require about a two-year waiting period before the actual application can be made.

Contemporary Journal Concept

The MCFNS concept of contemporary refereed journal is based on principles of combining strengths of modern technologies, such as computerized networks, with values of traditionally proven practices, such as double-blind reviews by appointed referees. In this respect three major pillars of quality journal production are: Peer Review; Professional Publishing, such as publication typesetting and manuscript production; and publication-related public Peer Exchange or interaction.

The MCFNS Peer Review system combines strengths of expedient editorial decisiveness and traditional Double-Blind and Single-Blind refereeing systems, which are conducted by Manuscript Editors, Appointed referees, and Internet and Networking based open public refereeing (OPR) by members of the public at large. For the best online journal functionality the MCFNS uses the Open Journal System (OJS), MySQL Database, and commercial Linux server.

The journal uses a state of the art Professional Publishing system based on LaTeX 2e, AMSTeX and TeX. To minimize the possibility of errors in typesetting of equations they are compiled from the original computer code provided by the authors rather than typed manually. In addition, the online journal software is set up to allow for comments and public discussion of the articles and the journal are provisioned with an e-errata system that allows to correct the manuscript errors even after its publication.

Finally, following the excellent example of the Nature journal MCFNS holds an associate Peer Exchange blog (Peer-To-Peer) designated for public discussions of related topics and as a repository of non-refereed materials that might be related to the MCFNS journal publications, but suitable for publication in the journal.

Mission and Accuracy

The mission of MCFNS is to publish peer-reviewed basic and applied research in Mathematical and Computational Forestry and Natural Resource sciences. This research can include theoretical solutions, proofs, derivations, software developments, and simulations, in forest management, growth and yield modeling, and other natural resource related studies. Journal items will be published collectively as part of an issue with its own Table of Contents biannually in February and August of each year. However, the journal preprints under Open Public Peer-Review will be posted on the journal preprint website as soon as they satisfy the first two stages of the journal peer review process.

The idea of the described below Open Public Peer-review would be impractical for paper-based journals and inconceivable without the Internet. The realization of this idea is possible because the journal is in electronic format and is Internet-based. We believe that this kind of review is a great idea and we take this concept even further. Unlike the paper-based publishing, the correction of errors in publications can be handled more effectively in electronic journals than it has been in paper-based journals. In addition to the traditional publication of Errata, which alert the readers about any newly discovered errors, the MCFNS implements the ``Last Correction'' date record in the header of the published manuscripts. Any typos, minor errors in type setting, or mere spelling mistakes discovered in the future by the authors or the readers will be corrected on the journal website copies of the publications with the recorded date of the ``Last Correction''. This way instead of circulating various copies of the same paper with different handmade corrections, the authors will be able to send the reader to the journal website with confidence that it will always contain the most up to date and correct copies of the publications.

In addition to the above, the editors of the MCFNS journal make a pledge to uphold the utmost accuracy of presented technical material in the journal publications regardless of the date or review or publication phase. Obviously it is impossible to never make an error; however, if any errors or misrepresentations of technical material are reported to, and substantiated by the MCFNS editors, they will make sure that the necessary corrections are made in an expedient and streamlined manner to revise or amend the erroneous content. In that sense, even though the MCFNS manuscripts are processed swiftly and made available to the public with no usual production delays, they can be considered to be permanently under the Open Public Peer-review process even after their publication.

The MCFNS has the ambition to be the preeminently authoritative journal of mathematical forestry worldwide, and it will not only unconditionally correct its own errors, but it will also publish corrections of any mathematical errors or inaccuracies in other forestry or natural resource journals that do not uphold the same policy or make the implementation of their policy in that regard in any way inconvenient, awkward, or inexpedient. The forestry and natural resource sciences deserve a place with refutability and corrections of errors readily available for anyone to access, and the MCFNS journal will be such a place.

The MCFNS policy on correction of inaccurate mathematical content is simple:

1. a reader reports an error to the editors and provides them with supporting evidence;

2. the editors acknowledge and express gratitude for it, and communicate the report to the authors of the publication containing the error; and

3. the authors (preferably) and/or the editors follow up with a verification and correction of the error in the form of Errata, Comment, or Discussion Article, and in the case of MCFNS publications given consent from the authors, with the correction of the actual article content updated at a new ``Last Correction'' date reported in the article's header.

Anything short of the above 1-2-3 process would, in the opinion of these editors, undermine the journal's accountability, to which this journal is unequivocally committed. Keeping this in mind, the readers may rest assured that any equation found in MCFNS may be safely cited, copied, used and quoted with regards to its origin with the utmost degree of accuracy and reliability. Correction of errors in other journals can be done simply by submitting a manuscript to the journal in a format of Errata (by the original author), Comment, or Discussion Article, which are all encouraged by this journal.

While the insistence on technical accuracy and refutability of this journal contents is non-negotiable, the journal editors will be extremely flexible with regard to various authors' styles and manners of expression. The editors will exercise maximum tolerance with respect to individual author preferences regarding manuscript and citation styles. The authors may choose between name-based and number-based citations depending on their preferences and the manuscript type (e.g., Research Article versus Review Article), and in addition they may use footnote-number-based citations with these styles to achieve an inconspicuous citation effect, similar to the ``Nature'' journal. Overall, the editors will only insist vigorously on grammatical correctness and compliance with rules dictated by external criteria of important journal rankings, such as the ISI indexing. However, if there is a conflict between the required rules and a style preferred by an author, and the author requests so, the editors will gladly publish the original unedited version of the manuscript along with the official compliant version of the edited manuscript as an appendix, or cited within the manuscript non-refereed report published at the non-refereed section of the journal.

Typesetting and Publishing

The MCFNS journal strives for the highest possible publishing standards. This journal applies the highest standards of publishing and professionalism and uses professional publishing systems with rule-based computer typesetting, such as TeX and LaTeX and the professional online journal administration and public delivery system based on the open source Open Journal System (OJS). The use of TeX and LaTeX produces typesetting of outstanding quality and consistency and is applied by all of the highest quality modern publishers, especially for works containing mathematical formulas. However, since many scientists still use word processors in their daily routine work the journal will be accepting camera-ready submissions in MS Word, RTF, PDF, and Open Office formats. Note that in order to publish these manuscripts a substantial amount of work will need to be done to convert them from their original formats to LaTeX. For this reason and for the reasons of accuracy of conversion and typesetting the authors must submit a working programming code for all equations in the manuscript in one of the common computer languages, such as C, FORTRAN, SAS, SPSS, S+, Maple, TeX, LaTeX, or even just Excel code with clearly defined names of all relevant cells. Providing the working code (as opposed to an equation image) may not be necessary for simple equations typeset using Mathtype in MS Word, since those may be translated with available conversion programs. Manuscript objects, such as tables, will need to be produced in MS Word using its Table Object tool, rather than using tabs and spaces, and objects such as figures will need to be submitted separately in EPS postscript format in addition to being embedded within the manuscript for review. In general the manuscripts are peer-reviewed in camera ready format with single spacing and tables and figures embedded in their final intended locations. The journal editors will be grateful to those who submit their manuscripts in LaTeX format.

Peer Exchange

The MCFNS Blog & PEER-TO-PEER Communications website provides a space and forum for any items relating to public discussions and documentations pertaining to the MCFNS journal functions and discussions thereof. The MCFNS Peer-to-Peer website is a moderated document repository and Blog with discussions between the MCFNS Peers. This site may contain any opinions and supporting materials that contribute to understanding of MCFNS publications, journal functions, policies, mission, and other issues.

Free Registration & Logging

The MCFNS journal provides Open Access to all of its published contents, preprints, and its double-blind peer reviewed manuscripts with Free Registration and Logging. In addition, some of the published contents are made available without the registration and logging.

Open Access Accountability

The MCFNS journal provides a platform for the open public discussion of the journal contents. To secure accountability and to encourage sincere professional inputs without incivilities the system is set up to require registration and logging for recording of inputs. Some of the website contents will be available without logging but no peer review comments can be posted on the website without the disclosure of the reviewer identity to the journal editors.

Forestry and Reasoning

By Boris Zeide

Although forestry is commonly viewed as purely an empirical discipline, it actually employs a great deal of reasoning. For starters, simple arithmetic and geometry help a lot. Instead of measuring each tree on a 100 hectare tract, we sample a fraction of the land and multiply the results by the reciprocal of the fraction. Also, we don't climb to the top of a tree to obtain its height. Trig does the trick. But reasoning also includes much more than arithmetic and geometry. For centuries, foresters have tried to determine experimentally whether normal density (density at which growth equals mortality) is optimal--that is, whether it maximizes current stand volume increment. This problem can only be solved analytically because optimal density turns out to be greater than normal density and, therefore, cannot be observed in principle. Mathematical models and the virtual forests they create are not esoteric frills decorating the "real" disciplines of ecology, silviculture, or forest management. Rather, the virtual forest is ecology, physiology, silviculture, mensuration, and everything else that constitutes forestry knowledge. Our methods of obtaining this knowledge are first based on trial-and-error, but later evolve to more efficient ways of reasoning based on logic, mathematics, and computer algorithms. Whether intentionally or not, all scientific publications contribute to this evolution. The International Journal of Mathematical and Computational Forestry intends to make this contribution deliberately, with open eyes.

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