From the Editor-in-Chief

2024 Thanksgiving is around the corner. I would like to express my deepest gratitude for the distinct contributions of so many that form our MBE family: our dedicated editorial board, diligent reviewers, distinguished authors, and last but not the least, our amazing team of professional editorial assistants.

I am glad to report to you that (see https://www.scopus.com/sourceid/5200152802) according to the most respected and open source Scopus data, MBE is a Q1 journal (ranked as 150^th of all 635 journals) in Applied Mathematics. MBE currently has a CiteScore of 3.9 and is on track to achieve 4.0 this year.

Here briefly summarize the main achievements MBE has accomplished in 2024.

--MBE papers are indexed by the top databases such as PubMed, Scopus, Ei Compendex/Engineering Village (Elsevier), etc. Specifically, MBE is indexed by following databases: Current Contents/CompuMath, Current Contents/Physics, Chemical, and Earth Sciences, Dimensions, DOAJ, Ei Compendex/Engineering Village (Elsevier), INSPEC, Mathematical Reviews/MathSciNet, MEDLINE, PASCAL/CNRS, PubMed, Scopus, Biological Abstracts, BIOSIS Previews. MBE papers are Archived in Portico and CLOCKSS.

--CiteScore 2023: 3.9

--CiteScore Ranks 2023: Research areas in Q1: Mathematics - Applied Mathematics;

Q2: Agricultural and Biological Sciences (miscellaneous); Mathematics - Computational Mathematics; Mathematics - Modeling and Simulation.

--MBE rejection rate in 2023 was 76%.

--The median submission to first decision time was 39 days in 2024.

MBE experienced an explosive growth from 2019 to 2023 as we transitioned from a print-based journal to an open-access journal. In the process, we have experienced some growth pains: we grew a bit too fast and covered areas not ready for advanced mathematical applications.

2024 is a year of transition for MBE. To ensure a homogeneous quality control, MBE established an executive editorial board consisting of well-established scholars. Executive editorial board members make decisions or recommendations at all stages of the reviewing process of a submission.

Most desirable manuscripts for MBE are those well-grounded in applications in the general areas of biosciences and engineering. This calls for specific applications that motivated by quality and intriguing data sets (or observations) capable of justifying the need of mathematical modelling efforts and can be used for model validation. The final model is probably a refined one resulting from many iterations and is useful in testing or generating nontrivial and practical hypotheses in applications. MBE also welcomes manuscripts that improve or provide a good alternative to well-known important existing work in a scientific or mathematical manner.

Many of us heard the statement that mathematics is the language of science, or the queen of science. In an era of explosive data and incredible computing power, well-formulated and validated nonlinear mathematical models may provide us the much-needed lens to examine the complex dynamics with amazing clarity and confidence. In this sense, mathematicians who can lead scientific teams to formulate and study such models are becoming the kings of sciences. May MBE be a part of your Kingdom.