Announcements

We are pleased to announce the winners of the 2021 Outstanding Reviewer Awards, sponsored by MDPI and Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300). The awards have been granted to five outstanding scholars in recognition of their excellent contributions to their reviewer process. These scholars have been awarded a prize of CHF 500 as well as a 50% discount towards the publication fee of one paper in 2022.

The award winners are:

Name: Jim W. Kay
Affiliation: School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK

Name: Christophe Chesneau
Affiliation: Department of Mathematics, University of Caen, 14000 Caen, France

Name: Esteban Tlelo-Cuautle
Affiliation: Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (INAOE), Puebla 72840, México

Name: Dr. Dennis Dieks
Affiliation: Freudenthal Instituut History and Philosophy of Science, Utrecht University, 3584 CC Utrecht, Netherlands

Name: Claudio Cremaschini
Affiliation: Research Center for Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics, Institute of Physics, Silesian University in Opava, Bezrucovo nám.13, CZ-74601 Opava, Czech Republic

The selection process was incredibly difficult due to the high number of exceptional candidates. We appreciate every reviewer’s work in facilitating the review process and controlling the quality of manuscripts.

For more information about the Entropy awards, please see the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy/awards.

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.

We are pleased to announce that the Best Paper Award, sponsored by Entropy (ISSN 1099-4300; website: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy), for the 1st International Conference on Novelties in Intelligent Digital Systems (NIDS2021) was granted to the work by Anton Anikin, Oleg Sychev, and Mikhail Denisov (Volgograd State Technical University, Volgograd, Russia). Congratulations!

Title: “Ontology Reasoning for Explanatory Feedback Generation to Teach how Algorithms Work”

Summary: Intelligent tutoring systems are becoming increasingly common in assisting students but are often aimed at isolated subject domain tasks without creating a scaffolding system from lower- to higher-level cognitive skills, with low-level skills often neglected. We designed and developed an intelligent tutoring system, CompPrehension, aimed at the comprehension level of Bloom's taxonomy. The system features plug-in-based architecture, adding new subject domains and learning strategies. It uses formal models and software reasoners to solve the problems, judge the answers, and generate explanatory feedback for the broken domain rules and follow-up questions to stimulate the students' thinking. We developed two subject domain models: an Expressions domain for teaching the expression order of evaluation and a Control Flow Statements domain for code-tracing tasks. Developing algorithms using control structures and understanding their building blocks are essential skills in mastering programming, while ontologies and software reasoning offers a promising method for developing intelligent tutoring systems in well-defined domains (such as programming languages and algorithms). It can also be used for many kinds of teaching tasks. In this work, we used a formal model consisting of production rules for Apache Jena reasoner as a basis for developing a constraint-based tutor for introductory programming domain. The tutor can determine fault reasons for any incorrect answer that a student can enter. The problem the student should solve is building an execution trace for the given algorithm. The problem is a closed-ended question that requires arranging given actions in the (unique) correct order; some actions can be used several times, while others can be omitted. Using formal reasoning to check domain constraints allowed us to provide explanatory feedback for all kinds of errors subject-domain tasks that students can make.

We are pleased to announce that the Best Presentation Award of the XLVII Congress of Polish Physicists 2021, sponsored by Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300), has been granted to Dr. David Ziemkiewicz from Bydgoszcz University of Science and Technology. Congratulations!

Title: “Chaotic Dynamics of the Clock Mechanism”

For centuries, the mechanical pendulum clock has been one of the primary means of measuring time. Its central part is a damped pendulum, kept in motion by the exciting force, the nature of which depends on the type of clock mechanism. The mechanism supplies energy to the pendulum and is simultaneously regulated by it; it is a special case of a self-excited oscillator, and the current feedback makes the dynamics of the system non-linear and often chaotic, with a fractal attractor. In the history of clock development, most attempts to improve the precision of timing have been based on reducing the influence of non-linear effects by minimizing the interaction between the pendulum and the mechanism—so that it is a good approximation of a mathematical free pendulum. A completely different approach was proposed in 1722 by John Harrison. In its construction, the pendulum is in constant contact with the mechanism and vibrates with a very large amplitude. Thanks to modern numerical methods, it is possible to perform a detailed analysis of this type of system (D. Ziemkiewicz, Phys. Rev. E 2021, 103, 062208). It can be shown that under appropriate conditions (correctly identified by Harrison), one can obtain an error of indications at the level of a few seconds per year, which is an unattainable value for other types of mechanical clocks.

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.

We are pleased to announce that the Young Scientist Award, sponsored by Entropy for CCS2021-Satellite on Econophysics 2021, was granted to Dr. Jeremy D. Turiel, from University College London. Congratulations!

“Self-Organised Criticality in High-Frequency Finance: The Case of Flash Crashes”

With the rise of computing and artificial intelligence, advanced modeling and forecasting has been applied to High-Frequency markets. A crucial element of solid production modeling though relies on the investigation of data distributions and how they relate to modeling assumptions. In this work, we investigate volume distributions during anomalous price events and show how their tail exponents <2 indicate a diverging second moment of the distribution, i.e., variance. We then tie the dynamics of flash crashes to self-organised criticality. The findings are of great relevance for regulators and market makers as they advocate for rigorous heavy-tailed modeling of risks and changes in regulation to avoid simultaneous liquidity withdrawals and hard risk constraints which lead to synchronisation and critical events.

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.

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2021 was awarded to Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi. One half of the prize was awarded jointly to Professor Manabe and Professor Hasselmann for the physical modelling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming, according to the Nobel Prize committee, while the other half of the prize went to Professor Parisi for the discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from atomic to planetary scales. The three physicists contributed to the understanding of chaotic and apparently random phenomena.

 Manabe, Hasselmann, Parisi (from left to right) © Nobel Media

"The discoveries being recognised this year demonstrate that our knowledge about the climate rests on a solid scientific foundation, based on a rigorous analysis of observations. This year’s Laureates have all contributed to us gaining deeper insight into the properties and evolution of complex physical systems", said Thors Hans Hansson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics.

Manabe and Hasselman laid the foundations for the climate models used by scientists today. They were among the first to distinguish between climate phenomena on the one hand and random occurrences of the weather on the other hand, and to assess the impact of human activities on the climate from the beginning of the 20th century.

Parisi's novel studies involved identifying hidden patterns in disordered complex materials called spin glasses, a special type of metal alloy in which iron atoms, for example, are randomly mixed into a grid of copper atoms. He constructed a mathematical description of the apparently random behavior of spins. His findings not only impacted physics, but also mathematics, biology, neuroscience and machine learning, because these felds include problems which are related to so-called geometrical frustration.

We send our congratulations to the Nobel Laureates, especially to Giorgio Parisi, who was a one-time author in Entropy (with Juan J. Ruiz-Lorenzo et al.): “Spin Glasses in a Field Show a Phase Transition Varying the Distance among Real Replicas (and How to Exploit It to Find the Critical Line in a Field)”.

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
liliane.auwerter@mdpi.com