The goal of the “Editor’s Choice Articles” project is to promote high-quality articles published in Applied Sciences (ISSN: 2076-3417). Please find below the list of articles carefully handpicked by the scientific editors of the journal, which we believe will be of interest to you.

We would like to thank all of the research groups that authored these exceptional papers for their contribution. We sincerely hope you find these articles of Applied Sciences as useful and insightful as we have found them.

Conference: The 30th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation (MED 2022)

Date: 28 June–1 July 2022

Venue: Divani Apollon Palace & Thalasso, Athens, Greece

Machines (ISSN: 2075-1702) will be attending the 30th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation (MED 2022) as an exhibitor and will be sponsoring a Best Paper Award. This meeting will take place from 28 June to 1 July 2022, at the Divani Apollon Palace & Thalasso seaside resort in Vougliameni, Greece.

MED 2022 is co-sponsored by the IEEE Control Systems Society (CSS), the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS), and the ICUAS Association, Inc.

The theme of MED 2022 centers on control and automation challenges and opportunities in the 21^st century and focuses on system design for autonomy and resilience in high-confidence cyber physical systems. The international conference committee is soliciting technical papers as well as inviting sessions, workshops, and tutorial proposals.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Machines;
• Systems;
• Robotics;
• Automation;
• Smart Cities;
• Applied sciences;
• Applied System Innovation (ASI);
• AI;
• Standards;
• Technologies;
• Big Data and Cognitive Computing (BDCC);
• Modelling.

If you are planning to attend this conference, please do not hesitate to start an online conversation with us. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions you may have. For more information about the conference and virtual booth, please visit the following website: https://www.med-control.org/med2022/.

We are pleased to announce the winners of the Applied Sciences 2020 Best Paper Awards in Environmental and Sustainable Science and Technology, sponsored by MDPI and Applied Sciences (ISSN: 2076-3417). Each winner (corresponding author) will receive CHF 400 and a certificate.

The awards have been granted to:

One Article:

“Chromium(III) Removal from Wastewater by Chitosan Flakes”
by Loris Pietrelli et al.
Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(6), 1925; doi:10.3390/app10061925

One Review:

“Unravelling the Environmental Application of Biochar as Low-Cost Biosorbent: A Review”
by Antía Fdez-Sanromán et al.
Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(21), 7810; doi:10.3390/app10217810

The selection process was incredibly difficult due to the high number of exceptional candidates. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the nominated research groups of the above exceptional papers for their contributions to Applied Sciences.

We are pleased to announce the winners of the Applied Sciences 2020 Best Paper Awards in Applied Biosciences and Bioengineering, sponsored by MDPI and Applied Sciences (ISSN: 2076-3417). Each winner (corresponding author) will receive CHF 400 and a certificate.

The awards have been granted to the following papers:

One Article:

“Observation of Potential Contaminants in Processed Biomass Using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy”
by Jingshun Zhuang et al.
Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(12), 4345; doi:10.3390/app10124345

One Review:

“Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis 2020: Where We Stand”
by Angelo Iacobino et al.
Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(6), 2153; doi:10.3390/app10062153

The selection process was incredibly difficult due to the high number of exceptional candidates. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the nominated research groups of the above exceptional papers for their contributions to Applied Sciences.

For more information about the Applied Sciences awards, please see the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci/awards.

Date: 28 January 2022
Time: 14:00–15:50 (GMT+9)
Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_XL5vSJg2Qze5yItyZXOsog
Participation fee: None
Language: Japanese

The WHO (World Health Organization) has warned that air pollution causes seven million premature deaths every year. PM_2.5, fine inhalable particles measuring 2.5 micrometers and smaller in the atmosphere can contain a variety of toxic chemicals, including carcinogens. In addition, the annual arrival of Yellow Sand has been linked to chronic coughs and congestion, making air pollution a serious public health issue. Three researchers based in Japan who are investigating atmospheric pollution, Yellow Sand, PM_2.5, toxic chemicals, and chronic coughs will present their latest work at this webinar and lead discussions that go beyond the scope of conventional academia.

Chairperson:

• Dr. Kazuichi Hayakawa, Professor Emeritus
  Institute of Nature and Environmental Technology, Kanazawa University
  Title of lecture: Combustion-Derived Organic Pollutants in the Atmosphere

Guest speakers:

• Dr. Akinori Takami, Director
  National Institute for Environmental Studies, Regional Environment Conservation Division
  Title of lecture: Long-Term Trends for Trans-boundary Air Pollutions in Western Japan

• Dr. Hiroyuki Nakamura, Professor
  Department of Hygiene and Public Health, Graduate School of Medicine, Kanazawa University
  Title of lecture: The Effects of Atmospheric Chemicals on Chronic Cough

Prof. Dr. Kazuichi Hayakawa and Prof. Dr. Hiroyuki Nakamura are guest-editing the Special Issue "PM_2.5 and PM₁₀: Atmospheric Behaviors and Correlation with Health Effects" (deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2022).

For any questions about the webinar, please contact MDPI Japan.

It is our great honor to congratulate the Editorial Board Members and Editors in MDPI's journals who have been distinguished as 2021 Highly Cited Researchers by Clarivate, according to Web of Science data. We herewith express our gratitude for the immense impact the named researchers continue to make on scientific progress and on our journals' development.

Clarivate's annual list of Highly Cited Researchers^TM identifies the most highly cited scientists for the past decade. Their impactful papers are among the top 1 per cent in the citation distribution of one or more of 22 fields analyzed in the "Essential Science Indicators", distinguishing them as hugely influential among their peers.

The full list of 2021 Highly Cited Researchers  can be accessed at the following webpage in the Web of Science^TM https://recognition.webofscience.com/awards/highly-cited/2021/.

--- Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) is a Clarivate product.

Academic editors play a crucial role in leading our journals and ensuring that each article undergoes a robust and timely peer-review. With the launch of Topics this year and addition of Topic Editors to our family of academic editors, we decided it would be a good time to restructure our academic boards, thus providing more clarity and support for each role. MDPI is pleased to announce the launch of a new position—Topical Advisory Panel Member, that will replace the previous position of Topics Board Member. The Topical Advisory Panel will be comprised of early career researchers eager to gain experience in editorial work.

The main responsibility of the new members of the Topical Advisory Panel is to regularly provide support to Guest Editors, Topic Editors, and Section Board Members. The responsibilities of the Topical Advisory Panel are available here: https://www.mdpi.com/editors.

Each year, the members’ performances are evaluated, and outstanding members are promoted to the Editorial Board by the Editor-in-Chief.

To qualify as a Topical Advisory Panel Member, applicants must:

• Have expertise and experience in the field related to the journal;
• Have received a Ph.D. in the last 10 years, approximately;
• Have at least 6-8 published papers in the last 5 years as first author or corresponding author;
• Currently hold an independent research position in academia or a government institute.

If you are interested in this role, please contact the editorial office by email.

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Founded in 1996, MDPI was one of the first fully Open Access publisher. Over 25 years MDPI has grown to become the largest Open Access publisher globally, publishing over 160,000 articles across more than 350 journals in 2020. At the core, MDPI was founded in response to a pressing need of fast publication and inclusion. The scholar was set at the centre of the publication process for the first time. Acting as a service provider, rather than a product provider, MDPI exists to help scientists achive their objective to disseminate research results. At MDPI, we believe scientists deserve a better service from the publishing world.

The International Open Access Week (Open Access Week), founded by the SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) Alliance and student partners in 2008, has been successfully running for 13 years. As an advocate and pioneer of open access publishing, MDPI actively responds to the call of International Open Access Week. This year’s theme of “It Matters How We Open Knowledge: Building Structural Equity” highlights the Recommendation’s call for equitable participation from all authors and readers.

For the last 25 years, MDPI has been committed to disseminating open research. Here is a video showing MDPI’s Commitment to Equity, Inclusion and Diversity for More than 25 Years.

International Open Access Week is an important opportunity to catalyze new conversations, create connections across and between communities that can facilitate this co-design, and advance progress in the building of more equitable foundations for opening knowledge—discussions and actions that need to be continued, year in and year out. MDPI has always aimed to provide professional and efficient publishing services to scholars around the world.

Our mission is to make scientific research accessible to everyone; this year, we interview and hold discussions with open science ambassadors on how to build an equal and inclusive environment for open science. Academic editors help us collaborate with more institutions to advocate for open access ideas.

Read our anniversary blog post: "Sharing 'Collective Human Knowledge': The Benefits of Open Access Publication"

Besides this, our scientific community is a key driver of our success and MDPI’s remarkable growth. Despite the pandemic, we have prepared online conferences and workshops to gather scholars from different communities.

The Basel Sustainable Publishing online forum provides an equal opportunity for stakeholders and researchers from multi-cultural environments to exchange ideas and eliminate barriers to participation.

Conference date: 25 October 2021, online
Conference website: https://bspf2021.sciforum.net/
Main topics: MDPI discusses the current dilemma of open access science from various perspectives such as governments, libraries, and publishers, and related measures on how to change the status quo of discrimination from a global perspective.

We aim to support equality, inclusion, diversity, and accessibility in scholarly communications. We collaborate with universities and key laboratories and have scholarly communications with researchers, teachers, and students on open access workshops.

• 25 October 2021
  Energies journal and Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

• 28 October 2021
  Machines journal and State Key Laboratory of Traction Power, Southwest Jiaotong University

• 29 October 2021
  Processes journal and Beijing Institute of Technology

• 29 October 2021
  Coatings journal and Wuhan University of Technology

MDPI is committed to providing open access and high-quality publishing services for scholars and promoting rapid dissemination of academic achievements. We hope to promote the practices and policies of open access publishing and diversify the dissemination of academic achievements.

MDPI will be attending the Advanced Membrane Technology Summit for Water Treatment 2021, jointly hosted by the International Water Association (IWA), China Regional Office and Tongji University, which will be held from 15 to 17 October 2021, in Shanghai, China.

Famous domestic and foreign experts will give keynote speeches during the conference, in addition to poster exhibitions, postgraduate seminars and other academic activities. This summit is focused on the theme of "Sustainable Development of Membrane Water Treatment Technology under the Background of Carbon Peak and Carbon Neutrality". Topics covered by the summit include, but are not limited to, membrane water and wastewater treatment, new theories of membrane processes, advanced membranes and membrane modules, advanced membrane processes and combined processes, sustainable membrane water treatment technologies, and the industrial application of membrane technology.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Membranes;
• Separations;
• IJERPH;
• Applied Sciences;
• Water;
• Toxics;
• Resources;
• Sustainability;
• ChemEngineering.

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit:

https://amts2021.scimeeting.cn/cn/web/index/12145.

QR2MSE2021 & ICRSE2021 is an international forum for the exchange of innovative ideas, cutting-edge research results, and applications of asset management, reliability and quality tools in design, manufacturing, and operation and maintenance of engineering systems. Papers dealing with case studies, reliability data generation, experimental results, best design practice, and effective asset management solutions are of particular interest. All papers accepted will be included in the conference proceedings and submitted to the IEEE digital library and referred in EI Compendex.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Applied Sciences;
• Machines;
• Safety;
• Sustainability;
• Systems;
• Technologies.

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit: http://www.qr2mse.org/.

Applied Sciences (ISSN: 2076-3417, IF 2.679) is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal on all aspects of applied natural sciences published semimonthly online by MDPI. The journal covers all aspects of applied physics, applied chemistry, engineering, environmental and earth sciences, and applied biology. The journal is indexed within Scopus, SCIE (Web of Science), Inspec, CAPlus/SciFinder, and many other databases.

The Applied Sciences editorial team is pleased to announce an open call for Special Issue proposals. This Special Issue will offer a group of authors the opportunity to work on an interconnected set of papers on an innovative topic. We welcome high-quality proposals that will be evaluated in a continuous selection process throughout the year.

Proposals for a Special Issue should have a well-articulated, unifying topic and reflect, on an international level, the best work available in a particular research area (either an established or an important emerging area), in which future investigations may be encouraged by the publication of a set of novel research papers. Hence, the creation of an international group of Guest Editors with some high-quality planned papers is always important when it comes to proposals.

Proposals for Special Issues should be sent to the Editorial Office ([email protected]) or submitted via the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journalproposal/sendproposalspecialissue/applsci.

The following information should be provided in a proposal:

• A 150–200-word summary that clearly states the significance, novelty, technical advancement, and adherence to the scope of the journal of the proposed topic;
• A list of 5–10 keywords relating to the topic;
• A brief resume of the proposed Guest Editors, together with their information (title, name, email, affiliation, personal website, keywords of interests);
• A proposed submission deadline (a Special Issue will usually be open for submissions for 6–8 months);
• A list of at least 20 potential contributors, or a list of 8 planned papers.

As a Guest Editor, you would be responsible for:

• Inviting your peers to submit papers to be published in your Special Issue. These papers will be able to take advantage of the high publicity offered by our open access publishing, our rapid and high-quality peer-review process, and immediate publication after acceptance;
• Checking the suitability of abstracts/manuscripts submitted to the Special Issue;
• Making pre-check decisions regarding whether to send a new submission to peer review;
• Making final decisions regarding whether to accept or reject a paper based on peer-review outcomes.

As a Guest Editor, you would have the following privileges:

• A certificate of recognition as a Guest Editor of Applied Sciences;
• Publishing one paper free of charge in your Special Issue;
• Inviting authors to submit high-quality papers to be published in your Special Issue free of charge or with certain discounts;
• If the Special Issue is successful and features at least 10 manuscripts accepted after full peer review, we can organize it into a printed book and send you a free one as a gift.

Editorial Office’s role:

The Editorial Office will set up the Special Issue website, arrange the promotional material, assist with invitations for paper contributions, and take care of the administrative tasks associated with peer review, including inviting reviewers, collating reports, contacting authors, and arranging professional production before publication.

Please do not hesitate to contact the Editorial Office ([email protected]) if you are interested and would like further details or clarification.

We look forward to receiving your proposals.

Rigorous peer-review is the cornerstone of high-quality academic publishing. Over 369,916 scholars served as reviewers for MDPI journals in 2020. We are extremely appreciative of all those who made a contribution to the editorial process in this capacity. At the beginning of every year, journal editorial offices publish a list of all reviewers’ names to express our gratitude. In addition, this year, the MDPI Top Reviewer Award was announced, to recognize the very best reviewers for their expertise and dedication, and their high-quality, and timely review reports. We are pleased to announce the following winners of the 2020 MDPI Top Reviewer Award:

• Adriana Burlea-Schiopoiu;
• Alban Kuriqi;
• Álvaro González-Vila;
• Alessandro Alaimo;
• Alexey Beskopylny;
• Alexander Yu Churyumov;
• Alberto Fernández-Isabel;
• Andrea Mastinu;
• Antonios N. Papadopoulos;
• Anton Rassõlkin;
• Antonio Humberto Hamad Minervino;
• Arkadiusz Matwijczuk;
• Artur Słomka;
• Baojie He;
• Bartłomiej Potaniec;
• Bojan Đurin;
• Camilo Arturo Rodriguez Diaz;
• Carmelo Maria Musarella;
• Chiachung Chen;
• Chiman Kwan;
• Cristian Busu;
• Danil Pimenov;
• Dan-Cristian Dabija;
• Delfín Ortega-Sánchez;
• Demetrio Antonio Zema;
• Denis Butusov;
• Elena Lucchi;
• Gaurab Dutta;
• Livia Anastasiu;
• M. R. Safaei.

For more information about how to become a reviewer of MDPI journals, please see: www.mdpi.com/reviewers.

UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. In 2020 the SDG Publishers Compact was launched, aimed to inspire publishers and accelerate progress to achieve the 17 goals by 2030. Members of the programme are committed to support the publication of materials that will promote and inspire actions towards SDGs.

MDPI is an eager advocate of SDGs and has already been supporting the programme by creating Special Issues and publishing a series of books on SDGs prior to joining the Compact in 2021. MDPI's Sustainability Foundation initiated the World Sustainability Awards in 2016. We fully support UN's goals to promote sustainable actions that make the world a better place for all and, as part of its commitment, we will focus our actions on SDG10: Reduced Inequalities whilst promoting all 17 SDGs. For more details, please visit the programme’s website: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sdg-publishers-compact/.

Joining this initiative was a unanimous decision. MDPI has in its core values the dissemination of science for all, breaking the wall between research access and under-represented members of the scientific community and the general population. To support this initiative further and continue to support under-represented scientists, MDPI will take a series of actions that will be announced once ready.

The first action MDPI takes is to nominate Dr. Liliane Auwerter as the coordinator of the programme. Dr. Auwerter studied Environmental Process Technology (UTFPR, Brazil), obtained her MSc degree in Water and Environmental Engineering (University of Surrey, UK) and in 2020 completed her PhD in self-healing low-friction materials for water transport (Imperial College London, UK), always focusing on diverse scientific projects that would potentially bring sustainability to industrial processes. As a student in Brazil, she engaged in volunteering activities focused on environmental education and took part in the Millennial Development Goals meetings held at the university.

For more information, please contact:
Dr. Liliane Auwerter
Scientific Officer
[email protected]

MDPI will be attending the 20th National Catalysis Conference in Wuhan, China, which will take place from 15 to 20 October 2021. The theme of the conference is “Catalytic Science and Technology for Green, Low-Carbon, High-Quality Economic Development”. The topics include the science and technology of catalytic materials and catalyst preparation, catalytic materials and catalytic reaction characterization technology and theory, green catalysis, environmental catalysis, energy catalysis, and science and technology in the catalysis process of petroleum and chemical industry.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Catalysts;
• Nanomaterials;
• Coatings;
• Inorganics;
• Applied Sciences;
• Sustainable Chemistry;
• Chemistry;
• Processes;
• Reactions;
• Toxics.

If you are attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit the following link: http://20ncc.mzpco.com/.

In order to specifically develop different research areas and attract more high-quality papers, we are pleased to announce the addition of the following Section in Applied Sciences to cover all the disciplines of natural and applied science:

• “Green Sustainable Science and Technology”

We are now recruiting Editorial Board Members (EBMs) for this Section. If you are an active researcher in one of the aforementioned fields and are passionate about publishing cutting-edge research, please do not hesitate to get in touch ([email protected]). Alternatively, you may wish to submit your work directly via the following link: https://susy.mdpi.com/user/manuscripts/upload/?journal=applsci.

Applied Sciences is an international, peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary, and open access journal published quarterly online by MDPI. The journal covers all aspects of applied physics, applied chemistry, engineering, environmental and earth sciences, and applied biology.

This serves to announce to our valued authors based in Japan that value-added tax, or consumption tax will now be imposed on article processing fees and other service fees for all papers submitted, or resubmitted (assigned new paper IDs), effective from 15 August 2021. The change is in accordance with the Japanese "Act for Partial Revision of the Income Tax Act and Other Acts" (Act No. 9 of 2015), which includes a revision of consumption taxation on cross-border supplies of services such as digital content distribution.

For additional information from the National Tax Agency please see here ("Cross-border supplies of electronic services").

Contact: Setsuko Nishihara, MDPI Tokyo

MDPI will be attending the 12th International Conference on Information Optics and Photonics (CIOP 2021), Xi’an, China, 23–26 July 2021.

CIOP, an annual conference with comprehensive topics on optics and photonics, was initiated in 2007 by Chinese Laser Press, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The 12th International Conference on Information Optics and Photonics (CIOP2021) will be held on 23–26 July 2021 in Xi'an, China.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Applied Sciences (leading journal);
• Electronics;
• Photonics;
• Fibers;
• Optics.

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit: https://www.researching.cn/EN/EventMain/CIOP2021.

MDPI will be attending the IEEE-2021 International Conference of Optical Imaging and Measurement (ICOIM 2021), which is going to be held in Xi’an, China, from the 27^th to the 29^th of August 2021.

Optical imaging and measurement are closely related and have a wide range of applications such as microscopes, telescopes, sensors, etc. Usually, imaging is the basis of measurement, and measurement is a rigorous consideration of imaging results in a quantitative way. This conference covers the broad field of advanced optical imaging and precision measurement technologies, ranging from micro to macro, from static to dynamic, from single physical quantity to multiple. Optical methods continuously have a profound impact on new developments in the field of science and technology, such as milestone breakthroughs, STED optical nanoscope (Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014), and LIGO’s interferometer (Nobel Prize in Physics 2017). This conference is looking forward to opening a discussion between optical scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Applied Sciences (leading journal);
• Journal of Imaging;
• Photonics;
• Sensors.

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit: http://www.icoim.org/.

Conference website: https://asec2021.sciforum.net/

We would like to invite you to join the 2nd International Electronic Conference on Applied Sciences (ASEC 2021) that will be hosted online from 15–31 October 2021. ASEC 2021 will be free of charge for presenters and visitors. There will be an opportunity to publish papers peer-reviewed and accepted for a Special Issue of Applied Sciences (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci/special_issues/2nd_IECAS). MDPI offers a 10% discount on the fees for publication in this Special Issue.

ASEC 2021 aims to promote and advance the exciting and rapidly changing fields representing all aspects of applied sciences. Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

• Optics and Lasers (Session A)
• Chemistry (Session B)
• Applied Biosciences and Bioengineering (Session C)
• Environmental and Sustainable Science and Technology (Session D)
• Applied Physics (Session E)
• Computing and Artificial Intelligence (Session F)
• Applied Dentistry (Session G)
• Foods Science and Technology (Session H)
• Mechanical Engineering (Session I)

We hope that you share our enthusiasm for this project and will join us in ensuring this conference is a success.

We are pleased to report that the 2020 Impact Factor of Applied Sciences has increased to 2.679 from 2.474 in the recent release of Journal Citation Reports®. The journal’s 5-Year Impact Factor is 2.736. Applied Sciences now ranks 101/179 (Q3) in the category “Chemistry, Multidisciplinary”, 38/91 (Q2) in “Engineering, Multidisciplinary”, 201/335 (Q3) in “Materials Sciences, Multidisciplinary” and 73/160 (Q2) in “Physics, Applied”.

Evolution of Impact Factor, Citations and Publications for Applied Sciences:

Source: data according to Journal Citation Reports®, 2020 release, a Clarivate Analytics product.

The 2020 citation metrics have been officially released in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR)!

We are pleased to announce that 85 MDPI journals are included, of which:

• 10 journals received their first impact factor
• 96% of journals increased their impact factor from 2019
• 32 journals (38%) ranked among the top 25% of journals, in at least one category

* Journals given their first Impact Factor in 2021

Source: 2020 Journal Impact Factors, Journal Citation Reports ® (Clarivate, 2021)

Special Issue "Women in Smart Industrial System"

Prof. Dr. Antonella Petrillo

Editorial Board Member of Applied Sciences

Department of Engineering, University of Naples “Parthenope”, Italy

Editorial Board Member of Applied Sciences

Guest Editor of the Special Issue " Women in Smart Industrial System"

Introduction: Antonella Petrillo received her PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Cassino. Her research interests include multi-criteria decision analysis, sustainability, digitalization, smart manufacturing and supply chain management.

Contribution: Prof. Petrillo has published more than 176 peer-reviewed journal/conference papers within the above-mentioned topics, and several books as an editor and/or co-editor. She also serves as an international reviewer for over 50 international journals and she is a member of scientific committees for PhD programs, international conferences and proposal evaluations.

Do you want to say something to celebrate 23^rd June—International Women in Engineering Day?

We are living in an epochal historical period, imaginable (perhaps), predictable (perhaps), but that we never imagined could really happen. This period will be remembered as the time of a world pandemic in a globalized world, the likes of which have never been seen before. A Black Swan. We have no idea what work will look like in 2050. However, we are certain that we are experiencing an epochal period that will change our ways of working as well as our ways of living. We do know that we are living in a period in which revolutions in biotechnology and information technology are putting humanity in the face of difficult trials, perhaps the most difficult trails that it has ever encountered. We are witnessing an epochal paradigm shift in the interaction between “man” and “machine”. The pandemic is proving to be a catalyst for digitization processes. If talent used to be everywhere but opportunities were concentrated in a few places in the world, now talents themselves can create opportunities everywhere. In a future of work where the physical-biological and digital levels will be in symbiosis, the problem will not be a gender issue. Only cooperation and collaboration between motivated minds with a clear goal will be able to overcome the global challenges of the near future. Women, like men, must have this awareness by promoting the empowerment of mankind. We are first women, first men, and then engineers. Science has no gender.

Special Issue "Women in Building Materials"

1. Prof. Dr. Carmen Martínez-García

Department of Chemical, Environmental and Material Engineering, High Polytechnic School of Linares, University of Jaen, Jaén, Spain

Guest Editor of the Special Issue " Women in Building Materials"

Introduction: Since 2015, Prof. Dr. Carmen Martínez-García  has been the Managing Director of the Academic Organization of the University of Jaén. She was previously the Subdirector of Quality and Attention to Disability of the Superior Polytechnic School of Linares of the University of Jaén (2012-2015). Since 2004, Prof. Dr. Carmen Martínez-García  has belonged to the Materials Engineering and Mining Research Group. The lines of research that Prof. Dr. Carmen Martínez-García has worked on are: Materials Engineering, Advanced Materials, Construction Materials and Waste Recovery. Prof. Dr. Carmen Martínez-García’s research work is mainly focused on the line of waste recovery in clay products and the circular economy.

Contribution: Prof. Dr. Carmen Martínez-García has more than 80 contributions to national and international congresses in the area of materials and environment, and 31 articles in international journals indexed in JCR.

2. Prof. Dr. María Teresa Cotes-Palomino

Department of Chemical, Environmental and Material Engineering, High Polytechnic School of Linares, University of Jaen, Jaén, Spain

Guest Editor of the Special Issue " Women in Building Materials"

Introduction: Since 2009, Prof. Dr. María Teresa Cotes-Palomino has been a part of the Materials Engineering and Mining Research Group. The lines of research that Prof. Dr. María Teresa Cotes-Palomino has worked on are: Materials Engineering, Advanced Materials, Construction Materials and Waste Recovery.

Contribution: Prof. Dr. María Teresa Cotes-Palomino has made 54 contributions to national and international congresses in the area of materials and environment, and 10 articles in international journals indexed in JCR.

Do you want to say something to celebrate 23^rd June—International Women in Engineering Day?

It is a very important day to raise awareness and highlight the role of women in a sector traditionally dominated by men. It is essential to make the sector and society aware of the value of women's work and research in engineering and, at the same time, to encourage vocations among young female students, so that they see engineering as their future professional career.

We are pleased to report that the CiteScore of Applied Sciences has increased to 3.0 (from 2.4). For full details of the current CiteScore release, please refer to the journal’s Source profile (https://www.scopus.com/sourceid/21100829268).

MDPI Books recently released Book Builder, a new online tool to conveniently arrange, design and produce an eBook from any content published in MDPI journals. Book Builder offers two functions: on the one hand (1) Selections, available to every registered user of MDPI; on the other hand (2) Special Issue Reprints, which can be used exclusively by Guest Editors of Special Issues.

Selections

In just a matter of a few clicks, all users are now able to assemble books from MDPI articles and receive instantaneous feedback in the form of a fully produced and compiled book (PDF), which can be downloaded or ordered as print copy. Selections can include any paper published with MDPI, picking and combining content from different journals and special issues.

This way, the user may for example choose to compile an ebook focusing around a particular topic, or assemble articles from a group of others.

We invite you to make yourself familiar with the new tool! The Book Builder can be found here: https://www.mdpi.com/books/book_builder.

Special Issue Reprints

The Book Builder allows Guest Editors of MDPI journals to create a reprint from a successfully completed Special Issue or Topical Collection in book format. If you are a Guest Editor for an MDPI journal, you can use the new tool  to create an PDF document which includes all articles published in the Special Issue as well as a book cover and table of contents.

For Special Issues containing a minimum of 5 articles, the Guest Editor can request its publication on the MDPI Book platform. Published reprints are assigned an ISBN and DOI.

In addition to the PDF copy of the Reprint Book, as a token of our gratitude, MDPI offers every Guest Editor one (1) complimentary print copy (via print-on-demand). All contributors benefit from a discount on orders of any additional print copies, to share with colleagues or libraries or others.

Why choose MDPI Books?

In line with our organization's values, MDPI Books publishes all content in open access, promoting the exchange of ideas and knowledge in a globalized world. MDPI Books encompasses all the benefits of open access—high availability and visibility, as well as wide and rapid dissemination. MDPI Books are distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution License, meaning as an author you retain the copyright for your work. In addition, with MDPI Books you can complement the digital version of your work with a high-quality printed counterpart.

If you are interested in editing a book volume or series, or have a monograph manuscript to be considered for publication, please submit your proposal online and look at our Information for Authors.

Contact: Laura Wagner, MDPI Books Manager (email)

In order to specifically develop different research areas and attract more high-quality papers, we are pleased to announce the addition of the following four new Sections in Applied Sciences to cover all the disciplines of natural and applied science:

• Transportation and Future Mobility;
• Biomedical Engineering;
• Neurosciences;
• Fluid.

We are now recruiting Editorial Board Members (EBMs) for these Sections. If you are an active researcher in one of the aforementioned fields and are passionate about publishing cutting-edge research, please do not hesitate to get in touch ([email protected]). Alternatively, you may wish to submit your work directly via the following link: https://susy.mdpi.com/user/manuscripts/upload/?journal=applsci.

Applied Sciences is an international, peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary, and open access journal published quarterly online by MDPI. The journal covers all aspects of applied physics, applied chemistry, engineering, environmental and earth sciences, and applied biology.

In June of this year, MDPI will celebrate the 25th anniversary of its foundation. To mark this significant milestone, we have created a 25th Anniversary page on our website that evokes the development of our company over the past quarter-century.

MDPI has been a pioneer of Open Access publishing ever since the concept was first created.

In a wide-ranging interview, our CEO Delia Mihaila reflects on the company’s 25th anniversary and its contribution to the world of scientific publishing.

Delia considers how MDPI has evolved since starting life in 1996 as a visionary ‘project’ run out of an apartment in Basel, Switzerland, by Dr. Shu-Kun Lin. A chemist who was passionate about the long-term preservation of rare chemical sample, Dr. Lin was determined to help scholars publish their findings as quickly as possible and make their research results available to as wide a readership as possible worldwide. That determination remains unchanged 25 years later.

Today, MDPI is an international organization with over 4,000 employees based on three continents and in ten countries, and ranks among the world's top four academic publishers.

MDPI's mission is to accelerate access to new scientific research, delivering insight faster for researchers worldwide. Read more here about the company's remarkable success story and what the Open Access publishing model can offer the global scientific community.

At MDPI, we strive to make your online publication process seamless and efficient. To achieve this, our team is continuously developing tools and features to make the user experience useful and convenient.

As the number of academic papers continues to grow, so does the need to analyze and work with them on a large scale. This prompted us to design a new feature aimed at helping researchers find journals that are relevant to their publication by matching their abstract topic. In this regard, we designed a similarity model that automatically identifies the most suitable academic journals for your paper.

We are pleased to introduce Journal Selector, a new feature that measures similarity in academic contexts. By simply entering the title and/or abstract into our Journal Selector, the author will see a list of the most related scientific journals published by MDPI. This method helps authors select the correct journals for their papers, highlighting the time of publication and citability.

The methodology is known as representation learning, where words are represented as vectors in hyperspace. Representation helps us differentiate between different concepts within articles, and in turn, helps us identify similarities between them.

We used an advanced machine learning model to better capture the semantic meanings of words. This helps the algorithm make better predictions by leveraging scientific text representation. In turn, this ensures high precision, helping authors decide which journal they should submit their paper to.

The goal is to support authors to publish their work in the most suitable journal for their research, as fast as possible, accelerating their career progress.

Contact: Andrea Perlato, Head of Data Analytics, MDPI (email)

In order to specifically develop different research areas and attract more high-quality papers, we are pleased to announce the addition of the following four new sections in Applied Sciences to cover all the disciplines of natural and applied science:

• Applied Adhesion;
• Applied Thermal Engineering;
• Agricultural Engineering;
• Additive Manufacturing Technologies.

We are now recruiting Editorial Board Members (EBMs) for these sections. If you are an active researcher in one of the aforementioned fields and are passionate about publishing cutting-edge research, please do not hesitate to get in touch ([email protected]). Alternatively, you may wish to submit your work directly via the following link: https://susy.mdpi.com/user/manuscripts/upload/f316fed2fcf2df49bac3cf6c3323ec06?journal=applsci.

Applied Sciences is an international, peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary, and open access journal published quarterly online by MDPI. The journal covers all aspects of applied physics, applied chemistry, engineering, environmental and earth sciences, and applied biology.

In 2020, Applied Sciences received 23,516 articles and published 8176 articles with 25,976 authors，and 18,662 researchers who reviewed a manuscript for us. Applied Sciences articles were cited an estimated 34,182 times in 2020. All submitted manuscripts are peer-reviewed and time from submission to publication is approximately 35 days.

Applied Sciences received the 2019 impact factor (2.474) and established six new sections in 2020 on “Membrane Science and Technology", "Robotics and Automation", "Aerospace Science and Engineering", "Marine Engineering", "Applied Microbiology", and "Applied Micromedicine”. 

High Altmetric Papers

• Effect of Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Tubes Filled with Recycled Materials and Concrete on Structural Capacity of Pile Foundations
  Visar Farhangi et al.
  Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(5), 1554; doi: 10.3390/app10051554

• A Novel Transfer-Learning-Based Approach for Pneumonia Detection in Chest X-ray Images
  Vikash Chouhan et al.
  Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(2), 559; doi: 10.3390/app10020559

• Debonding Detection of Reinforced Concrete (RC) Beam with Near-Surface Mounted (NSM) Pre-Stressed Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) Plates Using Embedded Piezoceramic Smart Aggregates (SAs)
  Yang Liu et al.
  Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(1), 50; doi: 10.3390/app10010050

• Control and Backbone Identification for the Resilient Recovery of a Supply Network Utilizing Outer Synchronization
  Liang Geng et al.
  Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(1), 313; doi: 10.3390/app10010313

• Effect of Micropiles on Clean Sand Liquefaction Risk Based on CPT and SPT
  Visar Farhangi et al.
  Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(9), 3111; doi: 10.3390/app10093111

Collections/Special Issues

Applied Sciences runs Special Issues to create collections of papers on specific topics. The aim is to build a community of authors and readers to discuss the latest research and develop new ideas and research directions. Special Issues are led by Guest Editors who are experts in the subject, who oversee the editorial process for papers. Papers published in a Special Issue will be collected together on a dedicated page of the journal website. High-quality Collections/Special Issues will be printed as books. The book can be made available on Amazon, eBookMall, Apple books, etc.

Top Downloaded Topics:

• Machine Learning
• Biomechanics
• Structural Engineering
• Image Processing
• Diagnostics

Open Calls:

• New Achievements in Structural Dynamics Analysis
  edited by Marek Krawczuk and Magdalena Palacz
  submission deadline: 30 June 2021

• Optical Design and Engineering
  edited by Pin Han, Chun Hung Lai, Yi Chin Fang and Ye Zhi Ting
  topical collection

• Topological Optimization in Engineering Design
  edited by Boyan Stefanov Lazarov
  submission deadline: 30 October 2021

Read full list of call for papers at https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci/special_issues.

On behalf of the editorial team, we would like to express our gratitude to the Editor-in-Chief of Applied Sciences, all Section Editors-in-Chief and Editorial Board Members, as well as to the Guest Editors of Special Issues, Topic Board Members, and Reviewer Board Members, all of whom have ensured the continued success of the journal through their hard work and diligence!

In 2021, Applied Sciences will continue to contribute to academic exchange and sharing of knowledge.

We are pleased to announce the winners of the 2021 Travel Awards, sponsored by MDPI and Applied Sciences. The awards were granted to nine outstanding young researchers working in thematic areas:

This has been a difficult decision given the collection of high-quality applications received for the awards. We would like to thank all the applicants for submitting such a range of diverse and fascinating research topics and congratulate the winners on their accomplishment.

For more information about Applied Science awards, please visit here.

MDPI is proud to adopt the principles of the Coalition for Diversity & Inclusion in Scholarly Communications (C4DISC) to support building equity, inclusion, diversity, and accessibility in scholarly communications.

The C4DISC represents organizations and individuals working in scholarly communications and is focused on addressing issues of diversity and inclusion within the publishing industry.

MDPI’s Managing Editors encourage the Editors-in-Chief and Associate Editors to appoint diverse expert Editorial Boards. This is also reflective in our multi-national and inclusive workplace. We are proud to create equal opportunities without regard to gender, ethnicity, geographic location, sexual orientation, age, disability, political beliefs, religion, or socio-economic status. There is no place for discrimination in our workplace and editors of MDPI journals are to uphold these principles in high regard.

Representatives from C4DISC meet monthly, and have started to implement initiatives to shed light and improve on the lack of diversity in scholarly communications. Some of the initiatives include developing a joint statement of principles; conducting market research; providing training resources, best practices, toolkits, and documentation for our collective memberships; and establishing outreach programs, curricula, events, and publications.

The Coalition is committed to:

• eliminating barriers to participation, extending equitable opportunities across all stakeholders, and ensuring that our practices and policies promote equitable treatment and do not allow, condone, or result in discrimination;
• creating and maintaining an environment that respects diverse traditions, heritages, and experiences;
• promoting diversity in all staff, volunteers, and audiences, including full participation in programs, policy formulation, and decision-making;
• raising awareness about career opportunities in our industries to groups who are currently underrepresented in the workforce;
• supporting our members in achieving diversity and inclusion within their organizations.

At MDPI we have slightly revised the layout for articles to be published in the 2021 Volume, starting at the end of December 2020. As of today, the article templates available for download on ‘Instructions for Authors’ pages have been updated.

The most noticeable change can be found on the first page of the article, where a left-hand column has been created to include the following front matter elements: (i) the recommended citation style for the article, (ii) the publishing history, (iii) as well as the Creative Commons Attribution license used (iv) a standard note regarding affiliations. At the same time, the extra spacing on the left means the authors’ affiliations are now more clearly set apart than before. Other front matter key elements such as journal logo, article type, article title, authors, abstract and keywords remain unchanged.

The blank column on the left runs through all pages in an article; as a result, the main text is slightly more condensed, which improve reader friendliness for smaller screens. Small figures/tables are aligned on the left with standard indenture, while large figures/tables are centered and covering the full width of the page. The revised layout was applied in the article pictured below, to serve as an example:

1) Information is displayed in the left information bar.

2) In the main text, there is a blank column on the left.

3) Small tables/figures are aligned on the left, large tables/figures are centered.

We are pleased to acknowledge that many academic editors who have made an impact on MDPI journals as editorial board members, editors-in-chief, or section editors, are recognized as 2020 Highly Cited Researchers by Clarivate.

Highly Cited Researchers highlights the top 1% of researchers, by citations, in one or more of the 22 fields used in Clarivate Analytics Essential Science Indicators. We offer our congratulations to 279 academic editors of MDPI journals who were recognized as the most influential scholars in their fields in 2020.

The full list of 2020 Highly Cited Researchers  can be accessed on https://recognition.webofsciencegroup.com/awards/highly-cited/2020/

--- Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) is a Clarivate product.

In order to better categorize papers published within the journal, the section “Applied Microbiology” has recently been established. We are now recruiting Editorial Board members for this new section.

If you are an active researcher in the field and are passionate about participating in cutting-edge research publications, please do not hesitate to get in touch ([email protected]). As an Editorial Board member, you will have the following responsibilities:

• To make decisions on whether a manuscript can be accepted, or not, based on the reports we collect;
• To serve as Editor of a Special Issue on a topic related to your research interests when it is convenient for you;
• To review some manuscripts in your area of interest and when you are available;
• To recommend timely topics or appropriate conferences;
• To promote Applied Sciences and increase its visibility at related academic conferences.

In order to better categorize papers published within the journal, the section “Applied Micromedicine” has recently been established. We are now recruiting Editorial Board members for this new section.

If you are an active researcher in the field and are passionate about participating in cutting-edge research publications, please do not hesitate to get in touch ([email protected]). As an Editorial Board member, you will have the following responsibilities:

• To make decisions on whether a manuscript can be accepted, or not, based on the reports we collect;
• To serve as Editor of a Special Issue on a topic related to your research interests when it is convenient for you;
• To review some manuscripts in your area of interest and when you are available;
• To recommend timely topics or appropriate conferences;
• To promote Applied Sciences and increase its visibility at related academic conferences.

Nowadays, more than ever, new strategies need to be developed and implemented to reduce the environmental burden of extraction techniques that are intensively used across all sectors of the (bio)economy and analytical laboratories. The ongoing works towards alternative greenest extraction methodologies, and consequently those contributing to an imperative World Sustainable Development, need to be disseminated to expand the acquired knowledge to other fields and to provide the needed impetus for overcoming the existent limitations.

Thus, the goal of the webinar “Recent Advances in the Development and Application of Green Extraction Techniques” is to share experiences and promote discussion on novel (experimental or theoretical) challenges, advances, and outlooks concerning the development and/or applications of Green Extraction Methodologies. You are all invited to participate!

Date: 13 November 2020

Time: 02:00 pm (CEST)丨2:00 am (EDT)丨10:00 pm (CST ASIA)

Webinar ID: 830 4635 8756

Register for Free Here: https://applsci-1.sciforum.net/

Chair:

	Prof. Dr. Simone Morais Editorial Board Member of Applied Sciences
	Interests: environmental chemistry; green chemistry; new methodologies for (electro)analysis; (bio)sensors; application of functional nanostructured materials

Speakers:

	Associate Prof. Anastasia Detsi
	Presentation: " Exploring Natural Deep Eutectic Solvents as Green Extraction Media of Bioactive Phytochemicals”
	Associate Prof. Dimitris P. Makris
	Presentation: " Natural Deep Eutectic Solvents & their Applications in Polyphenol Extraction – Overview, Challenges, Prospects”
	Associate Prof. Jeongmi Lee
	Presentation: " Application of Deep Eutectic Solvents as Green Extraction Solvents for Natural Bioactive Compounds”

For any questions about the webinar, please send an email to [email protected]

We are pleased to announce that the 1st Electronic Conference on Applied Sciences, chaired by Prof. Dr. Takayoshi Kobayashi from The University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo, Japan will be held from 10 to 30 November 2020 at Sciforum (https://sciforum.net/conference/ASEC2020). All proceedings will be held online.

These are some of the topics that we expect to cover:

• Optics and Lasers
• Nanotechnology and Applied Nanosciences
• Energy
• Materials
• Chemistry
• Acoustics and Vibrations
• Applied Biosciences and Bioengineering
• Environmental and Sustainable Science and Technology
• Applied Physics
• Computing and Artificial Intelligence
• Applied Dentistry

The conference will be completely free of charge—both to attend, and for scholars to upload and present their latest work on the conference platform. There will also be the possibility to submit selected extended papers to the Special Issue of the conference entitled. For information about the procedure for submission, peer review, revision, and acceptance of conference proceedings papers, please refer to the section “Instructions for Authors”.

**Important Dates**:

• Abstract Submission: 28 October 2020
• Notification of Acceptance: 30 October 2020
• Paper Submission Deadline: 31 October 2020

Conference Open: 10–30 November 2020

For more information on IOCN2020, please visit the conference website (https://sciforum.net/conference/ASEC2020) or contact us by email ([email protected]).

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Saulius Juodkazis has been appointed as the Editor-in-Chief of the section “Optics and Lasers” of Applied Sciences. Saulius Juodkazis is Professor of nanophotonics and Director of the nanotechnology facility at Swinburne Centre for Micro-Photonics. His current research is focused on applying principles of light-field enhancement and its spectral control for applications in microoptics, sensing, solid-state lighting, and solar energy conversion.

Professor Juodkazis has contributed to the development of a three-dimensional laser printing with nano-/microscale precision using femtosecond laser for applications in optofluidics, micro-optics, optical memory, and photonic crystals. He has shown, experimentally, the creation of high-pressure density phases of materials using tightly focused ultra-short laser pulses. Currently, his research also includes nanotextured surfaces for sensing, bactericidal, and light-harvesting applications.

Professor Juodkazis received his doctorate in experimental physics and materials science jointly from Vilnius University (Lithuania) and Lyon-I University (France). He has also held previous tenured positions at the Universities of Tokushima and Hokkaido in Japan, and is the author of 320 peer-reviewed journal papers and reviews as well as numerous book chapters. He is Fellow of OSA and SPIE and ChangJiang scholar.

His research area also focuses on nanofabrication, nanophotonics, micro-optics, 3D laser fabrication (additive and subtractive), ablation, light–matter interaction, solar hydrogen, physics, and photonics.

We warmly welcome Prof. Dr. Saulius Juodkazis as the Editor-in-Chief of the section “Optics and Lasers”, and we look forward to achieving many milestones under his leadership. For further information on the journal section, please visit the following link.

https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci/sections/optics

In 2020, we made interviewers with the journal section EiCs:

	"According to all the indicators, Applied Sciences is behaving well. Its content is increasing quantitatively and qualitatively every year. The remarkable everyday work of the administrative editorial staff is one of the reasons why we can be proud of this rising journal. Happy anniversary and best wishes of continuous success !" Section EiC of “Nanotechnology and Applied Nanosciences” -- Prof. Dr. Philippe Lambin
	"On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Applied Sciences, it is a great honor for me to congratulate all the colleagues of the Editorial Board, the Guest Editors and the Editorial team for their great efforts to upgrade Applied Sciences into a high standards international scientific journal. This fact, which is recognized by both Scimago and Journal Citation Reports, is importantly recognized by the scientific community since the quality of the published papers steadily increases.  Finally, I would like to thank for their continuous work that has been done during these very difficult days of COVID-19 pandemic." Section EiC of “Applied Physics”-- Prof. Dr. Nicholas Vassiliou Sarlis
	'With great pleasure we celebrate this year the 10th anniversary of Applied Science. It has been a long journey up to now with some challenges but also with huge satisfactions. In this special occasion we want to really thank all the authors who make the journal successful submitting their research papers but also the anonymous reviewers that have helped to maintain a high quality during these year. It is also worth of mentioning the strong support by top researchers that have proposed special issues on hot topics maintaining the focus of the journal very updated with respect to new research trends. All together with the same enthusiasm we can continue this successful journey trying to improve every year!' Section EiC of “Mechanical Engineering”-- Prof. Dr. Filippo Berto

The section “Optics and Lasers” includes more than 150 Editorial Board members. In order to further develop this section, we are now recruiting additional Editorial Board members for this leading section.

If you are an active researcher in the field and are passionate about participating in cutting-edge research publications, please do not hesitate to get in touch ([email protected]). As an Editorial Board member, you will have the following responsibilities:

• To make decisions on whether a manuscript can be accepted, or not, based on the reports we collect;
• To serve as Editor of a Special Issue on a topic related to your research interests when it is convenient for you;
• To review some manuscripts in your area of interest and when you are available;
• To recommend timely topics or appropriate conferences;
• To promote Applied Sciences and increase its visibility at related academic conferences.

In order to better categorize papers published within the journal, the section "Aerospace Science and Engineering" has been set up recently. We are now recruiting the editorial board members for this new section.

If you are an active researcher in the field and are passionate about participating in cutting-edge research publications, please do not hesitate to get in touch ([email protected]). As an Editorial Board member, you will have the following responsibilities:

To make decisions on whether a manuscript can be accepted, or not, based on the reports we collect;

To serve as Editor of a Special Issue on a topic related to your research interests when it is convenient for you;

To review some manuscripts in your area of interest and when you are available;

To recommend timely topics or appropriate conferences;

To promote Applied Sciences and increase its visibility at related academic conferences.

In order to better categorize papers published within the journal, the section “Marine Engineering” has recently been established. We are now recruiting Editorial Board members for this new section.

If you are an active researcher in the field and are passionate about participating in cutting-edge research publications, please do not hesitate to get in touch ([email protected]). As an Editorial Board member, you will have the following responsibilities:

• To make decisions on whether a manuscript can be accepted, or not, based on the reports we collect;
• To serve as Editor of a Special Issue on a topic related to your research interests when it is convenient for you;
• To review some manuscripts in your area of interest and when you are available;
• To recommend timely topics or appropriate conferences;
• To promote Applied Sciences and increase its visibility at related academic conferences.

The year 2020 marks the 10th anniversary of Applied Sciences, a peer-reviewed open access journal providing an advanced forum for all aspects of applied natural sciences. Applied Sciences has published more than 15,000 papers in the form of reviews, research papers, and communications. More than 1000 of these papers have received over 10 citations. To celebrate this 10th anniversary, we are arranging a series of special content and events. We hope you will join us in celebrating this milestone of our journal and enjoy the collections below.

Collections of Excellent Works

Anniversary Special Issues

10th Anniversary of Applied Sciences: Invited Papers in Electrical, Electronics and Communications Engineering Section
edited by Mohamed Benbouzid
submission deadline 31 Oct 2020 | 5 articles

10th Anniversary of Applied Sciences: Invited Papers in "Optics and Lasers" Section
edited by Totaro Imasaka and Takayoshi Kobayashi
submission deadline 31 Oct 2020 | 7 articles

10th Anniversary of Applied Sciences: Invited Papers in Nanotechnology and Applied Nanosciences Section
edited by Philippe Lambin and Raul Arenal
submission deadline 31 Oct 2020

10th Anniversary of Applied Sciences: Invited Papers in Applied Biosciences and Bioengineering Section
edited by Roger Narayan
submission deadline 31 Oct 2020 | 5 articles

10th Anniversary of Applied Sciences: Invited Papers in Energy Section
edited by Frede Blaabjerg, S. M. Muyeen and Tomislav Dragicevic
submission deadline 20 Dec 2020 | 5 articles

10th Anniversary of Applied Sciences: Invited Papers in Materials
edited by Alexander Chroneos
submission deadline 31 Dec 2020 | 1 article

10th Anniversary of Applied Sciences Invited Papers in Applied Dentistry Section
edited by Gianrico Spagnuolo
submission deadline 30 Jan 2021 | 1 article

We are delighted to announce the establishment of our Open Access agreement with Jisc Collections, which will allow UK institutions to benefit from access to article processing charge (APC) discounts and streamlined payment workflows.

All institutions participating in the agreement will also gain access to the MDPI online submission system where they can find full article metadata and pricing information for easy identification and additional transparency.

Eligible authors affiliated with the participating institutions are prompted to choose the corresponding Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP) when they submit an article via our online submission system.

About Jisc

Jisc's vision is for the UK to be the most digitally advanced education and research nation in the world. At its heart is the super-fast national research and education network, Janet, with built-in cyber security protection.  Jisc also provides technology solutions for its members (colleges, universities and research centres) and customers (public sector bodies), helps members save time and money by negotiating sector-wide deals and provides advice and practical assistance on digital technology. Jisc is funded by the UK higher and further education and research funding bodies and member institutions.

For more information, contact [email protected]

About MDPI

MDPI is a publisher of fully peer-reviewed, Open Access journals with a focus on thorough and rapid editorial processing. Its aim is to ensure that high-quality research is verified and made available to the research community as quickly as possible. MDPI stands at the forefront of the Open Access movement, having launched its first online journal Molecules in 1996. Today, MDPI is a leader in Open Access publishing with over 250 journals across all research disciplines, and all content published under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY).

For any questions about this agreement, please contact the MDPI IOAP team at [email protected].

The updated citation metrics have been released in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), published by Clarivate. The recent release of the JCR includes seventy-one MDPI titles. Out of these, 18 titles are newcomers, receiving a first Journal Impact Factor which is based on citation activity in 2019: Actuators, Agriculture, Biology, Biomedicines, Biosensors, Chemosensors, Children, Healthcare, Journal of Fungi, Journal of Personalized Medicine (JPM), Land, Life, Magnetochemistry, Membranes, Pharmaceuticals, Photonics, Separations and Toxics.

• Out of the previously listed journals, a total of 72 percent boast an increased Impact Factor.
• 25 journals are ranked among the top 25% of journals in at least one of the categories they are ranked for.
• Articles published in 2019 in MDPI journals account for approximately 17 percent of of articles published in gold Open Access journals covered in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI).
  
  

First Impact Factors

Updated Impact Factors

Since 1996, MDPI has been committed to supporting the research community by providing the latest research freely available and making relevant and useful research available as quickly as possible. The world is current experiencing a pandemic of COVID-19, and researchers are working extremely hard to understand it and find a cure.

The values MDPI holds strongly are particularly important at the moment, and we will continue to publish relevant, peer-reviewed research as quickly as possible in open access format. This means that it will immediately be available for researchers, health professionals, and the general public to read, distribute, and reuse. We believe that scientific advancements will be crucial to overcoming this pandemic, and will do everything we can to support researchers working looking for solutions.

COVID-19 Academic Resources Center contains a variety of information related to COVID-19 available from MDPI, including journal articles, special issues, and preprints, among others.

For more information, please visit: https://www.mdpi.com/covid-19

In order to better categorize papers published within the journal, the following four new topical sections have been set up recently:

Membrane Science and Technology 

Robotics and Automation 

Marine Engineering 

Aerospace Science and Engineering 

We are now recruiting the Editorial Board Members (EBMs) for these sections. As an Editorial Board member, you have the following responsibilities:

• Make decisions on whether a manuscript can be accepted or not, based on the reports we collect.
• Serve as Editor of a Special Issue on a topic related to your research interests when it is convenient for you.
• Review manuscripts in your area of interest and when you are available.
• Recommend topics or appropriate conferences.
• Promote Applied Sciences and increase its visibility at related academic conferences.

If you are an active researcher in one of the aforementioned fields and are passionate about participating in the cutting-edge research of the corresponding field, please do not hesitate to get in touch ([email protected]).

Applied Sciences Editorial Office

Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417; CODEN: ASPCC7) published its inaugural issue in 2011; it has experienced tremendous growth in terms of the number and quality of scientific publications, and has been covered by Science Citation Index Expanded (Web of Science) and Scopus.

Applied Sciences was started to help all scientists conduct their own research into the growth of these frontiers by breaking down barriers and connecting the many subfields to cut through this vast forest. These functions allow researchers to see these frontiers and their surrounding (or quite distant) fields and subfields, and provide them the opportunity to incubate and develop their knowledge even further with the aid of this multi-dimensional network.

MDPI will be attending 2020 IAFP Annual Meeting, held in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, 25–28 October 2020.

Each year, the International Association for Food Protection hosts an Annual Meeting, providing attendees with information on current and emerging food safety issues, the latest science, innovative solutions to new and recurring problems, and the opportunity to network with thousands of food safety professionals from around the globe. Held in various locations throughout North America, this meeting has grown over the years to become the leading food safety conference worldwide. IAFP 2020 will be held at the Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland in Cleveland, Ohio. 

The IAFP Annual Meeting is attended by more than 3,800 of the top industry, academic and governmental food safety professionals from six continents. This renowned event owes its reputation and success to the quantity, quality, and diversity of each year’s program; the quality and relevance of exhibits sharing the latest in available technologies; leading experts speaking on a variety of timely topics; and special recognition of outstanding professionals and students for their contributions in the food safety field.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Foods (Leading journal)
• Microorganisms (co-leading)
• Nutrients
• Sustainability
• Safety
• Applied Sciences
• Antioxidants

If you are also attending this conference, feel free to stop by our booth (Booth #736). Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please see the following link: http://www.foodprotection.org/annualmeeting/

As a leading Open Access publisher, MDPI is committed to fostering open scientific exchange in all forms across all disciplines. Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, many researchers have to stay at home and many academic conferences have been cancelled or postponed. In light of these changes, MDPI has adopted numerous initiatives that may help accelerate scientific exchange and provide support to the academics during this period.

Scholarly Community—Encyclopedia

Encyclopedia is an online reference created and curated by active scholars. It aims to highlight the latest research results as well as providing benchmark information for researchers and the general public interested in accurate and advanced knowledge on specific topics.

Comprehensive and Free Literature Database—Scilit

Scilit is a comprehensive, free database for scientists that uses a new method to collate data and index scientific material. Our crawlers extract the latest data from CrossRef and PubMed on a daily basis. This means that newly published articles are immediately added to Scilit.

Display Academic Achievements—SciProfiles

SciProfiles is an innovative social network for researchers and scholars that is developed by MDPI. In line with our broad mission, the purpose of SciProfiles is to accelerate discovery and innovation by facilitating immediate access to research results and providing opportunities for academic networking.

Organize and Participate in Conferences Online—Sciforum

Sciforum is an event planning platform that supports open science by offering the opportunity to host and participate in academic conferences. It provides an environment for scholarly exchange, discussion of topics of current interest, building of networks, and establishing collaborations.

Post Early Versions of Research Outputs—Preprints

Preprints is a platform dedicated to making early versions of research outputs permanently available and citable. We post original research articles and comprehensive reviews, and papers can be updated by authors at any time. Content on Preprints is not peer-reviewed, and feedback can be received from readers.

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MDPI remains committed to open science and open data and has signed a statement, along with more than thirty scholarly publishers, showing our intention to facilitate sharing of new research findings as early on as possible. The initiative sees publishers collectively removing barriers to new research, in the face of a global healthcare crisis.

The world is currently suffering from a global pandemic of the corona virus COVID-19. MDPI expresses its sympathies for all of those affected by the virus and stands in solidarity with medical staff and researchers treating patients and searching for scientific solutions.

MDPI has previously published papers covering corona viruses in addition to new papers on the current outbreak, see all papers here. In particular, Viruses has published a number of Special Issues and papers on the topic (see here, here, and here) as well as a forthcoming Special Issue.

Alongside journal articles, MDPI has been a strong supporter of preprints, which are increasingly being used to rapidly disseminate the latest research, and we run the preprint server Preprints.org. Our database of research articles, Scilit, is free to use and covers all publishers including preprint servers. New papers are often in search results within hours of publication and users can set up alerts for new papers.

Our main priority during this period has been the health and safety of staff, and we continue to allow staff to work at home and closely monitor the situation in all locations in which we work. Despite the restrictions, we continue to provide a full publication service and, by close collaboration with our editorial boards and making use our in-house teams, ensure that there are no unnecessary delays in publishing vital research. Fast and open publication has always been at the core of MDPI values and is now more important than ever.

We hope that a solution to the current situation will emerge soon. In the meantime, we will do our best to continue communicating vital research in all fields.

MDPI will be attending SEBBM 2020, held in Barcelona, Spain, 20th–23rd July 2020.

La Sociedad Española de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular (SEBBM) is committed to promoting research links, encouraging years of study, promoting the dissemination of knowledge, improving teaching, and promoting young scientists among Spanish researchers for the international development of Spanish science and to contribute to scientific aspects of the public interest.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Genes (Leading journal)
• Biomolecules (co-leading)
• Brain Sciences
• Biology
• IJMS
• Applied Sciences
• Antibiotics
• Cancers
• Cells

If you are also attending this conference, feel free to stop by our booth (Booth #17). Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please see the following link:

The advantages of the open access model of scientific publishing are being increasingly recognized in the scientific community. It allows new scientific evidence to be accessed from the moment of publication for free by anyone around the globe, boosting the impact of new research. In response, many funders, libraries and universities have been adopting new principles to accelerate the transition to open access.

Recently, “transformative agreements” have been negotiated between traditional publishers and various institutions. While increasing the number of open access papers, these agreements lack binding commitments to a full transition to open access, their conditions vary across different regions, and access is still limited for many users.

MDPI is a co-signatory of the recent position statement raising concerns about potential downsides of transformative agreements and how they may delay a full transition to open access. The statement highlights that these models “risk perpetuating current limitations on access, transparency and market competitiveness, while simultaneously facilitating excessive charges on the public purse”.

As a pioneering open access journal publisher, MDPI is the first to promote the importance of science being made available to everyone. Our peer-reviewed journals, covering diverse academic disciplines, are fully accessible to the public free of charge under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). This is why, along with other open access publishers, MDPI is a proud signatory of the position paper and is committed to contributing to the replacement of weak transitional agreements with “agreements with publishers that are already fully committed to open science and who offer full, immediate and transparent Open Access”.

Read the position paper here

We are pleased to announce that Encyclopedia will be awarding five Outstanding Contributor Awards for researchers in 2020. The nominations and applications will be assessed by an Evaluation Committee consisting of senior scholars from the Encyclopedia Editorial Board.

Prize for Winners

1. An official certificate;
2. A cash award of 500 CHF or an MDPI discount voucher of 800 CHF.

Application Deadline

31 December, 2020 (Please send your application email with a list of all entries you contributed to our office before the deadline: [email protected])

Candidate Requirements

1. Have a Ph.D. degree;
2. Have more than three qualified entries published in Encyclopedia in 2020.

Evaluation Standards

1. Number of entries published in Encyclopedia in 2020;
2. Quality of entries online (including length, figure quality, and novelty);
3. Impact of entries (including the number of likes, discussion contents, views, and downloads).

If you are a researcher and have not yet contribute entries to Encyclopedia, please do not miss this chance to highlight your research results.

MDPI will be attending the CLEO Laser Science to Photonic Applictions, San Jose, California, USA, May 12-14, 2020

Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics to generate quality face-time with world renowned industry leaders and help achieve your annual sales and marketing goals. Special industry offerings make this event a magnet for executives and scientific equipment users throughout the buying channel. Exhibitors will have extensive, targeted opportunities for exposure and in-depth interaction with key prospects and customers. These high-level buyers are looking to you—the leading product experts, manufacturers and service providers—for the most innovative, cost-effective solutions to support their missions.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Applied Sciences (leading journal)
• Photonics (co-leading)
• Electronics
• Fibers
• Materials

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (Booth #2607). Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit: https://www.cleoconference.org/home/.

We are pleased to announce the winners of the 2020 Travel Awards, sponsored by MDPI and Applied Sciences. The awards were granted to six outstanding young researchers working in thematic areas:

Travel Award in Earth Sciences and Geography 2020

Nicolò Giordano holds post-doc fellowship at Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS) focusing on evaluation of themthermal energy storage potential for buildings and greenhouses in Nunavik, Québec; development of a methodology for oscillatory thermal response tests in borehole heat exchangers to evaluate the subsurface heat capacity; and use of near surface geophysical surveys to image permafrost, monitor the thermal plume of underground storage systems, and characterize the subsurface thermal properties.

Travel Award in Energy 2020

Alfonso González Briones holds a Ph.D. in computer engineering from the University of Salamanca. In 2018, his thesis was second place in the 1st SENSORS+CIRTI Award for the best national thesis in Smart Cities (CAEPIA 2018). Alfonso González Briones is a project manager of Industry 4.0 and Internet of Thing projects at the AIRInstitute. He is also a lecturer for Master of Industry 4.0 at the International University of La Rioja (UNIR).

Travel Award in Environmental and Sustainable Science and Technology 2020

Marco Vocciante joined University of Genoa (UniGe) as Ph.D. student in 2013. He has been involved in projects dealing with mathematical modeling, process data reconciliation and optimization, energy efficiency, and environmental protection. After his Ph.D. appointment in early 2016, he was the holder of a two-year postdoc grant on issues of environmental interest and is currently working as assistant professor at the University of Genoa. He is actively involved in teaching activities of the Department of Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry (DCCI).

Travel Award in Nanotechnology and Applied Nanosciences 2020

Daniel M. Balazs is a postdoctoral research associate from the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Cornell University, U.S. He work includes understanding the growth of single-crystalline colloidal quantum dot arrays, developing scalable techniques for the formation of ordered, electronic-quality quantum dot assemblies, and managing students working on the project.

Travel Award Optics and Lasers 2020

Kayn Forbes is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the School of Chemistry at the University of East Anglia. He obtained his M.S. degree in chemistry in 2014 and Ph.D. in theoretical physics in 2018. He began his independent research fellowship in September 2019, where he has been theoretically studying optical light–matter interactions and photonics.

Stefano Signorini is a postdoctoral researcher from the University of Trento. His research topics include: integrated nonlinear optics and quantum photonics and near- and mid-infrared heralded single photons on a silicon chip. Stefano Signorini is a scientific consultant for Indivenire srl, Trento. His projects include developing a solution to the gas nozzle dripping problem and optimization of the laser cavity of a laser welding machine.

This has certainly been a difficult decision, with such a collection of high quality applications for the awards. We would like to thank all of the applicants for submitting such a range of diverse and fascinating research topics and congratulate the winners for their accomplishment.

For more information about Applied Science awards, please see this page.

MDPI will be attending the 45th International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, Barcelona, Spain, 4–8 May 2020.

ICASSP is the world's largest and most comprehensive technical conference focused on signal processing and its applications. The 2020 conference will feature world-class presentations by internationally renowned speakers, cutting-edge session topics and provide a fantastic opportunity to network with like-minded professionals from around the world.

ICASSP 2020 will feature a mix of national and international speakers, tutorials, workshops and exhibits. Featuring contemporary research, highly regarded presenters and a focus on translating research into practice the conference is sure to be an exciting event for all who attend.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Applied Sciences
• Applied System Information
• Information
• Journal of Imaging
• Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (Booth #23). Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit: https://2020.ieeeicassp.org/.

The Applied Sciences Editorial Board and Editorial Team would like to gratefully acknowledge the time and energy given by reviewers in checking manuscripts submitted to the journal. It is thanks to their efforts that the high quality of the journal and quick submission to publication process are maintained. The median time to first decision is currently and impressive 15.5 days, and the median time to publication is 39 days, which is all because of you.

Please join us in congratulating the six referees below, who will receive the “Applied Sciences 2019 Outstanding Reviewer Awards” in recognition of the quantity, timeliness, and quality of their reviews in 2019. Each of them will receive 500 CHF and a certificate for their outstanding review work.

From left to right:

Prof. Gabor Sziebig
UIT The Arctic University of Norway, Norway

Prof. Hojong Choi
Kumoh National Institute of Technology, Korea

Dr. Aryan Rezaei Rad
EPFL ENAC IIC IBOIS, Switzerland

Dr. Ali Behnood
Purdue University, USA

Dr. Andreas Hoffmann
Max-Born-Institut, Berlin, Germany

Prof. Douglas O'Shaughnessy
Centre Énergie Matériaux Télécommunications, Canada

Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417; Applied Sciences-Basel in Web of Science) is an international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal, published monthly by MDPI AG, Basel, Switzerland. The journal is covered by leading indexing services, including Science Citation Index Expanded (Web of Science) and Scopus. Its 2018 Impact Factor is 2.217, and its five-year Impact Factor is 2.287. For further details, please visit the journal website.

MDPI will be attending the IGARSS 2020, to be held in Hawaii, USA, 19–24 July 2020

Hosted by the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society, the 2020 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS 2020) will be held Sunday, 19 July through Friday, 24 July, 2020 at the Hilton Waikoloa Village in Waikoloa, Hawaii, USA. The main theme of the 2020 symposium is "Remote Sensing: Global Perspectives for Local Solutions".

GARSS 2020 is offering unique perspectives, discussions, research, solutions, and an opportunity to network in a beautiful environment.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

Remote Sensing

Atmosphere

Land

Sustainability

Drones

IJGI

Sensors

Geosciences

Hydrology

Applied Sciences

In order to better categorize papers published within the journal, the following section has been set up:

Applied Physics

We are now recruiting editorial board members (EBMs) for the new section. As an Editorial Board member, you have the following responsibilities:

• Make decisions on whether a manuscript can be accepted or not, based on the reports we collect.
• Serve as Editor of a Special Issue on a topic related to your research interests when it is convenient for you.
• Review manuscripts in your area of interest and when you are available.
• Recommend topics or appropriate conferences.
• Promote Applied Sciences and increase its visibility at related academic conferences.

If you are an active researcher in one of the aforementioned fields and are passionate about participating in cutting-edge research in a corresponding field, please do not hesitate to get in touch ([email protected]).

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Nicholas Vassiliou Sarlis was appointed Section Editor-in-Chief of the section 'Applied Physics' in the journal Applied Sciences.

Dr. Nicholas Vassiliou Sarlis is a Professor in the Department of Physics of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. His research has focused on solid state physics, thermodynamics of point defects, complex systems physics, nonlinear dynamics, the physics of earthquakes, heart rate variability, and natural time analysis.

We are confident that the strong academic background and connections of the new Section Editor-in-Chief will continue to raise the prestige and quality of Applied Sciences while maintaining the efficiency of manuscript processing that Applied Sciences' authors have come to expect.

I4Future- Imaging for the Future: Novel Imaging and Characterization Methods in Bio, Medical and Environmental Research and Technology Innovations is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie action co-funded international, interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral doctoral programme, hosted by the University of Oulu.

I4Future network involves 17 University of Oulu research groups, 10 international partner universities, 11 private companies and 4 multidisciplinary public sector organisations. The programme brings together the complementary and supplementary expertise of internationally accredited researchers with the aim of training young researchers in an interdisciplinary manner in highly relevant sosioeconomic research areas using state-of-the-art techniques.

In October 2019, I4Future became an affiliated project to the journal Applied Sciences. As part of this collaboration, all affiliated I4Future members are now entitled to a discount on the article processing charge (APC) for articles published in Applied Sciences, to Special Issue “Imaging and Characterization of Applied Materials”.

Project: I4Future (Imaging for the Future): https://www.oulu.fi/i4future/

SI: Imaging and Characterization of Applied Materials: 
https://www.mdpi.com/si/applsci/applied_materials

MDPI will be attending the 149th TMS 2020 on minerals, metals, and materials in San Diego, CA, USA, 23–27 February 2020. An Editorial Board Member meeting of Metals will take place during this event. We warmly welcome you join and share your publishing experience with us.

TMS2020 will present more than 85 symposia planned by all five TMS technical divisions and covering a broad range of topics related to minerals, metals, and materials science and engineering. The event will draw more than 4000 attendees and feature four full days of technical programming.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

Metals

Coatings

Materials

Applied Sciences

Nanomaterials

Energies

Journal of Manufacturing and Materials Processing

Entropy

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (Booth #726). Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit: https://www.tms.org/TMS2020.

Applied Sciences, MDPI’s open access journal on all aspects of applied natural sciences, has published more than 10,000 articles and reviews since its inception in 2011. Applied Sciences is covered in the Science Citation Index Expanded in the Web of Science and received an Impact Factor of 2.217 for 2018.

Applied Sciences' current CiteScore in Scopus is 2.52, which equals rank 41/275 (Q1) in "General Engineering". Our sincerest thanks go to the Editor-in-Chief of Applied Sciences, Prof. Dr. Takayoshi Kobayashi; to all the editorial board members; as well as to the Guest Editors of our Special Issues, who have ensured, with their hard work and diligence, the continued success of the journal.

In order to better categorize papers published within the journal, the following section has recently been set up:

Applied Dentistry

We are now recruiting editorial board members (EBMs) for the new section. As an Editorial Board member, you have the following responsibilities:

• To make decisions on whether a manuscript can be accepted or not, based on the reports we collect;
• To serve as Editor of a Special Issue on a topic related to your research interests when it is convenient for you;
• To review some manuscripts in your area of interest and when you are available;
• To recommend timely topics or appropriate conferences;
• To promote Applied Sciences and increase its visibility at related academic conferences.

If you are an active researcher in one of the aforementioned fields and are passionate about participating in cutting-edge research in a corresponding field, please do not hesitate to get in touch ([email protected]).

In order to better categorize papers published within the journal, the section "Food Science and Technology" has been set up recently. We are now recruiting the editorial board members for this new section.

If you are an active researcher in the field and are passionate about participating in cutting-edge research publications, please do not hesitate to get in touch ([email protected]). As an Editorial Board member, you will have the following responsibilities:

• To make decisions on whether a manuscript can be accepted, or not, based on the reports we collect;
• To serve as Editor of a Special Issue on a topic related to your research interests when it is convenient for you;
• To review some manuscripts in your area of interest and when you are available;
• To recommend timely topics or appropriate conferences;
• To promote Applied Sciences and increase its visibility at related academic conferences.

MDPI is pleased to announce the release of SciProfiles, its social network platform for researchers and scholars.

The purpose of SciProfiles is aligned with MDPI’s broad mission to accelerate discovery and innovation by facilitating immediate access to research results and to serve scholars and communities by providing opportunities for academic networking.

SciProfiles also ambitions to serve as a sustainable, transparent and community-driven research evaluation system aligned with the DORA principles (https://sfdora.org/). Through their scientific profiles, academics can highlight their contribution to research communities, and measure their impact on their field, beyond publication numbers and impact factors. SciProfiles is currently a beta version and will enrich to give researchers the possibility to highlight all of their contributions to science and their scientific communities as authors, reviewers, editors, conference organizers, conference panelists, conference keynote speakers, or even as lecturers or student mentors at their University.

The classic components of popular community social networks, including follower/following, classical metrics, endorsements and recommendations (https://www.mdpi.com/about/announcements/1690), comments (https://www.mdpi.com/about/announcements/1397) are or will be very soon highlighted in SciProfiles as open science contributions.

To help increase the impact and visibility of articles and their authors to an appropriate audience, the platform offers a NewsFeed that includes recommendations of relevant content based on interests, publication history, saved searches or colleagues’ recommendations.

SciProfiles’ avatars are now being integrated on several MDPI platforms, meaning that you will directly access researchers’ profiles from any of the MDPI platforms:

MDPI's journal publishing website: www.mdpi.com
MDPI's conference hosting and management website: www.sciforum.net
MDPI's pre-print website : www.preprints.org
MDPI's knowledge sharing website : www.encyclopedia.pub
MDPI's books store: www.mdpi.com/books
MDPI's literature database : www.scilit.net

SciProfiles aims to serve scientific communities at large. It can be embedded into third-party websites and also welcomes integration of data from third-parties.

Dr. Shu-Kun Lin: https://sciprofiles.com/profile/2
Dr. Franck Vazquez: https://sciprofiles.com/profile/FranckVazquez
Dr. Martyn Rittman: https://sciprofiles.com/profile/martynrittman

We are delighted to announce the winners of the 2019 MDPI Writing Prize. Entrants were asked to write on the theme "Judging research: How should research and researchers be evaluated and rewarded?" We received a large number of excellent essays from PhD students and postdocs, and the process of shortlisting and choosing winners was not an easy one. The winners demonstrated excellent writing skills alongside interesting and thought-provoking ideas.

As last year, we will begin the process of collating all entries into a book that will be available in open access format. Alongside promoting good writing skills, we see the prize as a way to promote the voices of early career researchers within broader debates and policy discussions.

Congratulations to all of the participants and especially the winners. The winners are:

1st Prize (500 CHF):
Albin Nilsson (National Centre for Nuclear Research, Warsaw, Poland)
[Read here]

2nd Prize (250 CHF):
Qi Zhang (Shandong University, Jinan, China)
[Read here]
Igor Ogashawara (Indiana University, Indianapolis, US)
[Read here]

3rd Prize (100 CHF):
Margaret Sivapragasam (Universiti Teknologi Petronas, Perak, Malaysia)
[Read here]
Arvind Sharma (The University of Queensland, Gatton, Australia)
[Read here]
Jose Flores-Guerrero (University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands)
[Read here]

The MDPI Writing Prize is an annual award supported by MDPI Author Services, which provides services including language editing, reformatting, plagiarism checks, and image editing.

MDPI is pleased to announce the release of a new functionality giving the possibility for researchers and scholars to endorse, and formally recommend articles to their colleagues.

MDPI was an early signatory of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (https://sfdora.org/read/) which calls for improvement in how quality and impact of scholarly research outputs are evaluated, especially in moving beyond journal-based citation metrics (journal Impact Factor, Scopus Citescore, etc.).

MDPI supports the establishment of article-level impact metrics, including citations, views, downloads, and Altmetric scores. These measures serve as an impact indicator for research articles on a case–by-case basis, assessing paper on its own merit. However, these metrics are also subjective and can give a biased picture of the article impact: they do not directly reflect the quality or the intrinsic scientific value of the article.

In our view, community engagement with publications based on community-driven metrics can help to overcome this limitation. We have therefore launched an option for scholars to endorse articles, indicating their own assessment of its content and making a recommendation to their community. This follows our implementation of the open source Hypothesis commenting tool, which has been available for all articles published by MDPI for over a year (https://www.mdpi.com/about/announcements/1397). Both endorsement and commenting are available for all previously published and forthcoming MDPI articles.

In addition to potentially serving as a sustainable solution to article assessment, endorsements will help scientific communities to identify the most relevant articles, independently of the journal in which it was published.

The code for the endorsing functionality, which relies on DOIs and ORCIDs, will be made available on GitHub with an open source license.

Dr. Shu-Kun Lin, President and Founder
Dr. Franck Vazquez, Chief Scientific Officer
Dr. Martyn Rittman, Publishing Director

We will be attending the 23rd International Conference on Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life Sciences (MicroTAS 2019), to be held at Congress Center Basel, in Basel, Switzerland, on 27–31 October 2019. MicroTAS 2019 represents the continuation of a series of conferences that are considered the premier forum for presenting the latest research in microfluidics, microfabrication, nanotechnology, integration, materials and surfaces, analysis and synthesis, and detection technologies for life science and chemistry. MicroTAS 2019 offers plenary talks as well as contributed oral presentations and posters from selected abstracts. The following open-access journals will be represented:

Micromachines
Biosensors
Coatings
Applied Sciences
IJMS
Sensors

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (booth #21). Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit https://microtas2019.org.

Encyclopedia is a free online reference created and curated by active scholars. It aims to highlight the latest research results as well as provide a comprehensive record of scientific development. If you have any suggestions or questions, please feel free to contact us via [email protected].

In June and July 2019, four societies chose to establish a cooperation with MDPI journals.

As part of this collaboration, the members of these affiliated societies will enjoy a discount on the article processing charges (APC) when submitting articles to the corresponding journals. The collaboration goes beyond the discount benefit offered to members and includes other services as well as cross-promotions.

Further information about these societies:

Spanish Society of Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technology (SEFIG) is a national organization that includes pharmacists and other graduates devoted to pharmaceutical R&D and pharmaceutical education related to the pharmaceutical industry, university education, and research centers or health institutions.

Spanish Society for Cellular Biology (SEBC) was founded in 1984 and it is currently formed by over 350 members. It was initially established as a scientific association to coordinate research and formative activities in the field of Cell Biology.

Canadian Urban Transit Research & Innovation Consortium (CUTRIC) is an innovation consortium that seeks to make Canada a global leader in low carbon smart mobility technologies across heavy-duty and light-duty platforms, including advanced transit, transportation, and integrated mobility applications. It supports the commercialization of technologies through industry-led collaborative research, development, demonstration/delivery, and integration (RDD&I) projects that bring innovative design to Canada’s low-carbon smart mobility eco-system.

Clim4Vitis (Climate Change Impact Mitigation for European Viticulture) is a three-year Horizon 2020 project funded by the European Union Research and Innovation programme. Coordinated by UTAD (Portugal), with the support of PIK (Germany), UNIFI (Italy), LIST (Luxembourg) and SPI (Portugal), the project aims to encourage S&T capacity and performance in grapevine modelling with a vision to implement methods and tools for assessing climate change impacts on European viticulture. First edition of the project Newsletter can be found here.

MDPI will be attending the 35th Annual International Conference on Soils, Sediments, Water, and Energy in Amherst, Massachusetts, USA, 21-24 October 2019.

The Annual Conference on Soils, Sediments, Water and Energy at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst has become the preeminent national conference in this important environmental area. The conference attracts 600-800 attendees annually which includes a wide variety of representation from state and federal agencies, military, industry (including railroad, petroleum, transportation, and utilities), environmental engineering, environmental consulting, and academia.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Applied Sciences
• Climate
• Energies
• Toxics
• Sustainability
• Water

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (Booth #B34). Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit: https://www.aehsfoundation.org/Ecc-Exhibitor-Info.aspx

Applied Sciences, MDPI’s open access journal on all aspects of applied natural sciences, has published more than 8,000 articles and reviews since its inception in 2011. Applied Sciences is now covered in the Science Citation Index Expanded in Web of Science and received an Impact Factor of 2.217 for 2018.

We are pleased to announce that Preprints has passed the milestone of 10,000 posted preprints. We are delighted to have reached this after just over three years of operation. Our congratulations and thanks go to our authors and advisory board who have supported growth of the platform and been crucial to its operation.

You can find further details at https://www.preprints.org/announcement/show/37.

Last week, the DeepGreen initiative in Germany started into an advanced test phase with the publishing partners S. Karger AG, SAGE Publishing, MDPI, Frontiers and De Gruyter, as well as 27 universities from all over Germany, from Hamburg University of Applied Sciences to University of Konstanz.

DeepGreen aims at lowering the barriers for open access publishing by automatically delivering metadata and full text publications from participating publishers to authorized repositories at German universities.

In preparation for a later live operation, the advanced test phase serves to gain experience with extensive data deliveries from publishers and also handling different repository software (including OPUS4, DSpace, EPrints, MyCoRe). DeepGreen thereby acts as a sophisticated platform, receiving articles published by authors affiliated with German universities and depositing these articles to respective university repositories, based on the affiliation metadata. For more information about DeepGreen: https://deepgreen.kobv.de

Karger AG has been a close cooperation partner of the DeepGreen consortium since 2016. S. Karger has more than 80 subscription-based and around 20 open access journals covering a wide spectrum in health science. DeepGreen will assign S. Karger articles to authorized institutions on the legal basis of German alliance and national licenses.

SAGE Publishing  was founded by Sara Miller McCune in 1965 to support the dissemination of usable knowledge and educate a global community. SAGE publishes more than 1,000 journals and over 600 new books each year, spanning a wide range of subject areas. Our growing selection of library products includes archives, data, case studies and video. SAGE remains majority owned by our founder and after her lifetime will become owned by a charitable trust that secures the company’s continued independence. Principal offices are located in Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington DC and Melbourne. SAGE Publishing has been a close cooperation partner of DeepGreen since 2016.

MDPI  is a scientific open access publisher and has been a partner of DeepGreen since 2017. MDPI comprises 205 peer-reviewed journals of various disciplines. All articles are published under a CC-BY license and are freely available without embargo period.

Frontiers  is a scientific open access publisher with 61 journals of over 600 academic disciplines. All articles are peer-reviewed and published freely available under CC-BY license.

De Gruyter  is an academic publisher with more than 700 subscription-based and open access journals of 29 disciplines. Articles provided by De Gruyter will be assigned to institutions with German alliance and national licenses.

There is promising communication with other publishers.

DeepGreen is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the consortium comprises six institutions: the Cooperative Library Network Berlin-Brandenburg, Bavarian State Library, Bavarian Library Network, University Library of the Technische Universität Berlin, University Library of Erlangen-Nuremberg and the Helmholtz Open Science Coordination Office at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences.

Clim4Vitis (Climate Change Impact Mitigation for European Viticulture) is a three-year Horizon 2020 project funded by the European Union Research and Innovation programme. Coordinated by UTAD (Portugal), with the support of PIK (Germany), UNIFI (Italy), LIST (Luxembourg) and SPI (Portugal), the project aims to encourage S&T capacity and performance in grapevine modelling with a vision to implement methods and tools for assessing climate change impacts on European viticulture. First edition of the project Newsletter can be found here.

In July 2019, Clim4Vitis became an affiliated project to the journal Applied Sciences. As part of this collaboration, all affiliated Clim4Vitis members are now entitled to a discount on the article processing charge (APC) for articles published in Applied Sciences, to Special Issue “Climate Change Impact on Viticulture and Potential Adaptation Strategies”.

Project: Clim4Vitis (Climate Change Impact Mitigation for European Viticulture): https://clim4vitis.eu/

SI: Climate Change Impact on Viticulture and Potential Adaptation Strategies: 
https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci/special_issues/Climate_Viticulture

The University of Basel and the MDPI Sustainability Foundation are organizing the First Basel Sustainable Publishing Forum on 9th September 2019.

The aim of this event is to provide background and perspectives on Plan S to Learned Societies, which have to make well-informed decisions to transition their journals to Open Access (OA).

The BSPF will bring together several representatives of Learned societies, Plan S architects as well as representatives from various publishers and publishing platforms. After getting the big picture from cOAlition S, panel discussions will allow to better understand the diverse challenges that Learned societies are facing to transition their journals to OA as well as to identify sustainable, implementable and scalable solutions for successful Open Access transition.

For program details and registration, please follow the link below:
https://sciforum.net/conference/SustainableSolutionsToOpenAccess

The European Wave and Tidal Energy Conference series are international, technical and scientific conferences, focused on ocean renewable energy. EWTEC series are widely respected for their commitment to maintaining high standards in the quality of academic and industrial contributions to their proceedings.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

Journal of Marine Science and Engineering

Sustainability

Water

Energies

Applied Sciences

Electronics

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (Booth #13). Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit: http://www.ewtec.org/conferences/ewtec-2019/.

We are pleased to inform that Applied Sciences received an updated Journal Impact Factor of 2.217 in the recent release of the Journal Citation Reports®. The journal's 5-Year Impact Factor is 2.287. Applied Sciences now ranks 151/293 (Q3) in the category 'Materials Sciences, Multidisciplinary', 67/148 (Q2) in the category 'Physics, Applied' and 89/172 (Q2) in the category 'Chemistry, Multidisciplinary'.

Evolution of Impact Factor, Citations and Publications for Applied Sciences:

Source: data according to Journal Citation Reports®, 2018 release, a Clarivate Analytics product; and Scopus journal metrics.

MDPI will be attending the 45th International Conference on Micro & Nano Engineering (MNE 2019), to be held in Rhodes Island, Greece, 23 - 26 September 2019.

MNE is the core international conference focusing on: micro/ nanofabrication and manufacturing techniques, and application of the fabricated micro/nanostructures, devices and microsystems into electronics, photonics, energy, environment, chemistry and life sciences.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

Nanomaterials

Micromachines

Safety

Coatings

Biosensors

Applied Sciences

Chemosensors

Electronics

Energies

Materials

Journal of Manufacturing and Materials Processing

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (Booth #3). Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit: http://www.cleoeurope.org/.

MDPI will be attending the CLEO/Europe-EQEC 2019, to be held in Munich, Germany, 23–27 June 2019.

CLEO/Europe-EQEC 2019 will be offering an expanded short course programme covering a wide range of exciting topics in photonics and laser technology. Short courses participants are generally targeted individuals who wish to learn about a topic outside their main area of expertise. They are intended for engineers and scientists.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Applied Sciences
• Materials
• Fibers
• Photonics

The journal Section Editor in Chief, Dibyendu Sarkar, has been selected as the 2019 SSSA (Soil Science Society of America) Fellow Award recipient. He will be recognized during the 2019 Annual Meeting in San Antonio, USA.

The SSSA Fellow is the highest recognition bestowed by the Soil Science Society of America. Members of the Society nominate worthy colleagues based on their professional achievements and meritorious service. Up to 0.3 percent of the Society’s active and emeritus members may be elected Fellow.

We want to sincerely congratulate Prof. Dr. Dibyendu Sarkar on this excellent achievement.  

MDPI will attend WHTC 2019 in Tokyo, Japan from 2–7 June 2019.

The World Hydrogen Technologies Convention, consisting of an exhibition and various sessions, is one of the most authoritative international conferences related to hydrogen technologies. WHTC 2019 aims to provide a forum for scientific, industrial, governmental, and general audiences from all over the world to gather together and present their most recent research findings, and to offer a stimulating atmosphere to discuss and exchange ideas on frontier research topics and future possibilities in hydrogen energy technologies through oral / poster presentations and technology exhibitions. This conference will be a place for the sharing and exchange of information on hydrogen-related technologies and policies and also for deepening international cooperation while discussing the future of a low carbon society.

Our representatives will be exhibiting the open access journals Energies, Catalysts, Processes, Safety, Metals, Applied Sciences, and ChemEngineering.

If you will also be in attendance, please stop by our booth. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and to answering any questions you may have regarding open access publishing or our journals. For more information about this conference, please visit http://whtc2019.jp/index.html.

People rely on optics every day. By utilizing the knowledge of how light behaves under different conditions, scientists and engineers develop remarkable technologies that improve our world. In expanding our offerings to the field of optics, MDPI will be launching a broad-interest and high-quality journal, Optics, an open access journal that seeks full research articles in all areas of optics and related interdisciplinary areas. Optics will also act as a medium for exchanging ideas and thoughts regarding the impacts of optical research.

Optics is an international, peer-reviewed open access journal which aims to present cutting edge research related to all aspects of optics. We are now seeking a founding Editor-in-Chief to develop Optics into a leading flagship journal in this field.

The main responsibilities of the Editor-in-Chief include the following:

• Setting the scope and direction of the journal;
• Advising on the strategic development of the journal;
• Ensuring the quality of the published content;
• Coordinating the Editorial Board and stimulating their contributions to the journal;
• Promoting the journal at scientific conferences and through other venues.

We also welcome scientists in the field of optics to join our Editorial Board.

A full application for evaluation should include these items:

• An up-to-date CV;
• A description of the candidate’s vision for Optics.

Applications are due by 20 June 2019. Please send your application or any questions to the Optics Editorial Office ([email protected]).

In order to better categorize papers published within the journal, the following three new topical sections have been set up recently:

Earth Sciences and Geography

Civil Engineering

Applied Industrial Technologies

We are now recruiting the Editorial Board Members (EBMs) for these sections. If you are an active researcher in one of the aforementioned fields and are passionate about participating in the cutting-edge research of the corresponding field, please do not hesitate to get in touch ([email protected]).

Applied Sciences Editorial Office

Applied Sciences, MDPI’s open access journal on all aspects of applied natural sciences, has published more than 6000 articles and reviews since its inception in 2011. Applied Sciences is now covered in the Science Citation Index Expanded in Web of Science and received an Impact Factor of 1.689 for 2017.

Applied Sciences’ current CiteScore in Scopus is 1.98. The CiteScore is a ratio between the number of citations in 2017 to papers published in 2014–2016 in the numerator and the number of papers published in 2014–2016 in the denominator, drawn from Scopus data.

Our sincerest thanks go to the Editor-in-Chief of Applied Sciences, Prof. Dr. Takayoshi Kobayashi; to all the editorial board members; as well as to the Guest Editors of our Special Issues, who have ensured, with their hard work and diligence, the continued success of the journal.

We are pleased to welcome more universities from Poland, Italy, Germany, Brazil and other parts of the world to MDPI's Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP). A warm welcome to the institutions listed below, who have joined the Program in February and March this year.

Authors affiliated with these institutions can now enjoy a discount on the APC for papers accepted for publication in any MDPI journal. If you would like to learn more about our program, please visit: https://www.mdpi.com/about/ioap or email us at [email protected].

We are delighted to announce our participation in Jisc’s Publication Router project, as of March 2019.

Publications Router is a Jisc service that automatically sends notifications about research articles to institutions' systems such as their repositories or CRISs, since May 2015. Through this agreement, MDPI will provide Jisc with daily feeds and information regarding published articles, which will be gathered by their system and delivered to institutions also registered to this service. Nearly all of our articles are published within 15 days of acceptance, so institutions will receive them quite promptly.

The feed will include the full text of the published version of record, with no embargo, so the articles can be exposed immediately for public view. They are accompanied by rich metadata, including confirmation of the immediate CC BY licence, minimising the need for any manual intervention or checking.

For more information about Publications Router, you may contact Jisc’s central helpdesk at [email protected]. For any queries about MDPI’s institutional agreements and collaborations, you may get in touch with MDPI’s Institutional Engagement team at [email protected], which would be very happy to hear from further UK institutions.

The editorial office is pleased to announce the winners of the Applied Sciences 2018 Young Investigator Award in “Biosciences and Bioengineering” and “Environmental and Sustainable” Fields.

They have been granted to: Dr. Thanh Duc Nguyen, an assistant Professor in the Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering, University of Connecticut, USA; and Dr. José Marcos Ortega, who is now an Associate Professor in the Civil Engineering Department of the University of Alicante, Spain.

Dr. Thanh Duc Nguyen was nominated by Prof. Cato T. Laurencin (Chief Executive Officer, Connecticut Institute for Clinical and Translational Science). Dr. Nguyen is a very impressive and innovative young investigator with outstanding research works focused on biodegradable polymers and technologies of transforming materials into “smart” structures at small scales without compromising their excellent biocompatibility and biodegradability for significant applications in vaccine delivery and medical devices.

Dr. José Marcos Ortega was nominated by the Head of the research group “Durability of materials and constructions in Engineering and Architecture” of the University of Alicante, Professor Miguel Ángel Climent Llorca. Dr. Ortega has continued working in the “Durability of materials and constructions in Engineering and Architecture” research group of the University of Alicante. Recently, he attained a position as an associate professor at the Civil Engineering Department of the University of Alicante, where he is also the secretary of the PhD program “Materials, Structures and Soil Engineering: Sustainable Construction”.

It was a difficult decision with such high-quality applications for the awards, and we would like to thank all applicants for submitting their diverse and fascinating range of research topics. On behalf of the assessment committee, we congratulate the winners for their accomplishments. We are proud to support these young scientists and wish them further success in their careers.

The editorial office would like to announce the winners of the Applied Sciences Travel Awards in Nanosciences and Optics fields for 2019.

They have been granted to: Dr. Giuseppe Cavallaro from the University of Palermo, who has demonstrated mobility in the field of Nanotechnology and Applied Nanosciences; and Dr. Juan Sebastian Totero Gongora, a Helena Normanton Research Fellow in Quantum Technology, University of Sussex, United Kingdom.

It was a difficult decision with such high-quality applications for the awards, and we would like to thank all applicants for submitting their diverse and fascinating range of research topics. On behalf of the assessment committee, I congratulate the winners for their accomplishments. We are proud to support these young scientists and wish them further success in their careers.

Dr. Juan Sebastian Totero Gongora, winner in Optics field (left); Dr. Giuseppe Cavallaro, winner in Nanosciences field (right).

Rigorous peer-review is the cornerstone of high quality academic publishing. Over 97,000 scholars served as reviewers for MDPI journals in 2018. We are extremely appreciative of all those who made a contribution to the editorial process in this capacity. At the beginning of every year, journal editorial offices publish a list all reviewers’ names to express our gratitude. In addition, this year the “MDPI Top Reviewer Awards” are announced, to recognize the very best reviewers for their expertise, dedication, high quality, and timely review reports. We are pleased to announce the following winners of the 2018 MDPI Top Reviewer Awards:

• Ali Behnood
• Andrea Pezzuolo
• Angela Gorgoglione
• Anna D'Auria
• Antonio D'Andrea
• Azhar Abbas
• Bogdan Zagajewski
• Chunhui Chen
• Dominika Głąbska
• Dominika Guzek
• Dragan Pamucar
• Francisco J. G. Silva
• Frank Li
• Gianluca Serafini
• Gyorgy Szekely
• Haozhi Pan
• Helvi Heinonen-Tanski
• José Manuel Gómez-Soberón
• Kathy Lewis
• Klara Kosova
• Luis N. López De Lacalle
• M. Z. Naser
• Malwina Tytła
• Masoume Amirkhani
• Matteo Ghidelli
• Moretti Laura
• Petra Schneider
• Roberto Cerchione
• Spyros Papaefthymiou
• Ştefan Cristian Gherghina

Since 2010, MDPI has run its own online submission system. More recently, we have made the software, with accompanying publishing services, available to other publishers as JAMS (Journal and Article Management System). We are now delighted to announce the launch of JAMS Journals, a standardized platform for operating open access journals at low cost.

JAMS Journals provides a comprehensive service, including a shared submission website, journal websites hosted at a URL provided by the publisher, and a full production service. There is a small setup fee and the cost for each published paper is just a few hundred Swiss francs.

The platform demonstrates that running an open access journal can be straightforward and affordable. The JAMS Journals platform is suitable for

• small publishers or groups of scholars looking to launch their own journal;
• existing publishers or societies seeking to explore open access options;
• publishers looking to convert an existing subscription journal to open access.

JAMS journals launches with two journals from Canadian-based publisher Etcetera Publications:

• Canadian Journal of Pesticides & Pest Management (http://www.cjppm.ca)
• Nanotechnology in Agriculture, Food & Environment (http://www.nanoafe.ca)

Dr AJ Al-Rajab (President of Etcetera Publications) comments:

“In the past few months, we were working on our project to launch new open access scientific journals in the field of agricultural and environmental sciences. We decided to go with JAMS for this venture because of the high quality of their services, reasonable prices, professionalism and easy communication. Our portfolio is expected to grow rapidly during 2019 to include more titles covering different areas in agriculture and environment. MDPI earned already our complete satisfaction and we are looking for a long term cooperation.”

Alongside the new platform, we continue to provide flexible, tailored journal management solutions for existing publishers. For any questions or to request a quotation, contact Dr. Constanze Schelhorn ([email protected]).

2018 was a great year for preprints, with increasing numbers of authors looking to make their papers available online before peer review. Along with other preprint servers, our platform Preprints.org  saw an increase in the uptake from authors, and more than double the number of announced papers compared to 2017. In fact, we recently passed two important milestones: 8000 preprints online and 30,000 authors. 

We believe that the whole research community has the opportunity to benefit from work being available online as early as possible. We thank and congratulate our authors for supporting us to make this goal a reality.

In 2019, we will be looking carefully at how to provide better value for authors, maintain efficiency while growing in size, and make sure we remain well-connected with the research community. 

If you want to participate, you can consider screening preprints or joining our advisory board. And, of course, posting your own work.

We are delighted to announce the establishment of our national Open Access agreement with the Austrian Academic Library Consortium (KEMÖ) and the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). Through this national agreement, the Austrian institutions listed below as well as FWF will cover the Article Processing Charges (APC) of manuscripts published by eligible corresponding or funded authors in MDPI journals as long as central funds are available.

All participating institutions have gained access to the MDPI online submission system where they can find full article metadata and pricing information as well as Funder and Grant ID details for easy identification and additional transparency. At the same time eligible authors are benefited from an APC discount which comes at no cost for the institutions.

Eligible corresponding authors affiliated with the participating institutions are prompted to choose the corresponding Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP) when they submit an article via our online submission system. The program will be selected automatically if authors submit their papers using their institutional email address. To claim their discount, FWF funded authors should choose the particular funder and add their Grant ID upon online submission of their manuscript. The institutions will then crosscheck the information and confirm the APC funding.

Eligible authors that have their APC covered by their institution or funder are advised to include the following sentence in their acknowledgments: "Open Access Funding by the [name of the institution/funder]".

The full text of the agreement is openly available online at: http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2536007

For any questions about the agreement, please contact the KEMÖ Consortium at [email protected], FWF at [email protected], or the MDPI IOAP team at [email protected]

The Austrian institutions participating in this agreement are:

• Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
• University for Continuing Education Krems
• University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna
• University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria
• University of Applied Sciences Technikum Wien
• Vorarlberg University of Applied Sciences
• International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
• Institute of Science and Technology Austria
• MCI Management Center Innsbruck
• University of Graz
• University of Linz
• University of Salzburg
• Graz University of Technology
• TU Wien
• University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna
• University of Vienna

This is our first collective agreement with a national library consortium, while the individual institutions around the world participating in our IOAP are now more than 500 - see details here: https://www.mdpi.com/about/ioap. We would be mostly interested in discussing about possible collaborations with other consortia, funders, and institutions in our mutual efforts to accelerate Open Access.

We are pleased to announce the new platform Encyclopedia, which is an online reference created and curated by active scholars. It aims to highlight the latest research results as well as providing benchmark information for researchers and the general public interested in accurate and advanced knowledge on specific topics.

We encourage authors of review articles to quote and adapt the content of their published papers to create Encyclopedia entries. You can create completely new entries on topics in which you have knowledge and expertise. There is no limit on the topics or research fields. All of science and the humanities are included. Each entry will be published directly after submission.

We also have prepared a DOI application function in Encyclopedia. Once a DOI application is approved, the entry website will announce the DOI number and a pdf version with DOI information will be automatically created.

We look forward to your contributions and hope you will make use of this service. Find more about the service at: https://encyclopedia.pub/

We will attend the 32nd International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS 2019). It will be held in Seoul, Korea, 27–31 January 2019, and it will be organized by the society of Micro and Nano Systems (SMNS). MEMS 2019 is one of the premier annual events reporting research results on every aspect of microsystems technology. This conference reflects from the rapid proliferation of the commitment and success of the microsystems research community. In recent years, the IEEE MEMS Conference has attracted more than 700 participants and 800+ abstract submissions and has created a forum to present over 200 select papers in podium and poster/oral sessions. Representatives of the following open-access journals will attend:

Micromachines

Technologies

Chemosensors

Energies

Applied Sciences

Sensors

Fluids

J – Journal of Multidisciplinary Science

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (booth #40). Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit http://mems19.org/html/main.php.

Our colleagues and editors will be attending the TMS 2019 Annual Meeting and Exhibition, to be held in San Antonio, TX, USA, 10–14 March 2019. The following MDPI journals will be represented:

Metals

Materials

Coatings

Applied Sciences

Nanomaterials

Micromachines

Journal of Composites Science

Energies

QuBS

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (#137). Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions you may have.

Our editors and colleagues are attending the 22nd International Conference on Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life Sciences (µTAS 2018). The conference is being held at the Kaohsiung Exhibition Center in Kaohsiung, Taiwan from 11 to 15 November 2018, organized by the Chemical and Biological Microsystems Society (CBMS).

µTAS 2018 continues a series of Conferences that are the premier forum for reporting research results in microfluidics, microfabrication, nanotechnology, integration, materials and surfaces, analysis and synthesis, and detection technologies for life science and chemistry. Representatives of the following open access journals will attend:

Micromachines

Applied Sciences

International Journal of Molecular Sciences (IJMS)

Sensors

Biosensors

Technologies

Diagnostics

Journal of Multidisciplinary Science (J)

If you're attending the conference too, please feel free to stop by our booth (Booth #350). Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit: https://cbmsociety.org/conferences/microtas2018/

We are delighted to announce that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is now a participant of our Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP). Authors funded by the BMGF can enjoy discounts on the APC, while the funder covers the costs of eligible articles centrally. BMGF also has access to the MDPI online submission system where they can find full article metadata and pricing information as well as Grant ID details for easy identification and additional transparency.

We hope that funded authors find the programme beneficial and we are happy to offer our IOAP to other funders that need a streamlined workflow of compliance checking and APC coverage. 

To claim their discount, BMGF funded authors should choose the particular funder and add their Grant ID upon online submission of their manuscript.

For any questions about the BMGF agreement, please contact the funder at [email protected] or the MDPI IOAP team at [email protected].

We congratulate Donna Strickland (University of Waterloo, Canada) on receiving the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics, jointly with fellow physicist Gérard Mourou, for inventing a method for generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses which can be utilized in a variety of applications in science and technology (e.g., advanced material 3D micro-/nano-processing and micro-machining).

One of Dr. Donna Strickland's studies was published in Applied Sciences: Effect of Two-Photon Stark Shift on the Multi-Frequency Raman Spectra Appl. Sci. 2014, 4(3), 390–401. The paper described how linear Raman scattering from two-photon dressed states can lead to the generation of these extra peaks on the low-frequency side of the Raman orders.