Announcements

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Loránd Szabó has been appointed Associate Editor of the journal Designs (ISSN: 2411-9660).

Name: Prof. Dr. Loránd Szabó
Email: [email protected]
Affiliation: Department of Electrical Machines and Drives, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Homepage: https://memm.utcluj.ro/szabo_lorand.htm
Interests: variable reluctance machines; fault-tolerant electrical machines; linear and surface motors; condition monitoring and diagnosis of electrical machines; new materials and technologies used in electrical machine manufacturing
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Prof. Dr. Loránd Szabó was born in Oradea, Romania, in 1960. He obtained a B.Sc. and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca (Romania) in 1985 and 1995, respectively. He has worked in the Department of Electrical Machines and Drives since 1999, where he was a lecturer, associate professor, and is now a full professor. He is also the director of the Centre of Applied Research in Electrical Engineering and Sustainable Development (CAREESD) at the same university. He is the author of eight books and book chapters and more than 270 papers in journals and international conference proceedings. He is an IEEE senior member and reviewer of many high IF international journals. He received the 2015 Premium Award for Best Paper in IET Electric Power Applications.

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Loránd Szabó, who shared with us his vision for the journal and his views of the research area and Open Access publishing:

1. What appealed to you about the journal that made you want to take on the role as its Associate Editor?
The design of electrical machines is a complex, time-consuming and demanding engineering task since it requires profound multidisciplinary knowledge of electrical and mechanical engineering, fluid mechanics and thermodynamics, acoustics, manufacturing technology, computer sciences, etc. Unfortunately, this difficult engineering activity is not sufficiently supported by textbooks and scientific papers. Therefore, a relatively new journal on designs is sure to be welcomed by the scientific community working in this field. I consider that, in the position of Associate Editor of this journal, I can contribute to the catalyzation of the publication of new innovative results in this field.

2. What is your vision for the journal?
This being a relatively new journal in MDPI's portfolio, the main aim of the editorial staff should be to obtain indexing in Web of Science and to constantly work for the improvement of its impact factor, so as to achieve at least the Q2 quartile in the near future.

3. What does the future of this field of research look like?
While the designs of classical electrical machines are well established by now, the focus must be set on developing design algorithms for special electrical machines (with permanent magnets, axial and transverse flux, etc.). As there is a permanent need for the further development of all types of electrical machines, the use of diverse optimization techniques is unavoidable. This is a dynamically developing field, where many new publications can be expected.
Electrical machines seem to have almost reached their maximum potential. Even small improvements can only be made by investing an enormous amount of design effort at a significant expense. It can be assumed that advancing to the next technological level in this field can only be achieved with a paradigm shift, namely by employing entirely new approaches regarding topologies, materials used and manufacturing processes. These novel and innovative advances are interdependent, and only when applied together will they bring the needed breakthroughs. All of these are also potential topics of future papers to be published in this field.

4. What do you think of the development of Open Access in the publishing field?
Open Access publication enables all researchers to access scientific papers independently of their financial status, geographical location, etc. Meanwhile, it requires a significant financial effort from the side of researchers willing to publish in this mode. In this context, a special focus must be set on those researchers who cannot afford to publish because they have not had access to scientific literature in the past. These scientists (after a careful selection of course) can be best assisted, according to them, with reduced publication fees.
Another inevitable issue is to correctly maintain the balance between the quantity and quality of the published papers. Here, the reviewer board has a very important role, but it can also be expected that since we offer vouchers for reviewing, some people will agree to review papers outside their expertise or to provide reviews of very low quality. These reviewers must be identified and excluded from future invitations. Thus, the quality of the reviews and the published papers will surely increase the satisfaction of both the editorial staff and the publishing researchers.

We warmly welcome Prof. Dr. Loránd Szabó in taking up his role as Associate Editor, and we look forward to him leading Designs to many more milestones.