Announcements

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: office@encyclopedia.pub)

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 (applsci@mdpi.com).