Announcements

We are pleased to announce that the website of the MDPI Sustainability Foundation has been revamped! For the past couple of months, our UX UI team and front-end developers have been working hard to launch the website in time for the opening of the Sustainability Awards nominations.

The website is not the only thing that has had a remodeling. Indeed, the format of the Emerging Sustainability Leader Award (ESLA) has been updated. ESLA is now a competition open to individual researchers or start-ups founded by researchers under the age of 35. Nominee applications will go through 2 rounds of selection until the final 3 are decided. The finalists will then be invited to give pitch presentations during the Award Ceremony to win either first place (10,000 USD) or runner-up (2 x 5000 USD).

The World Sustainability Award, on the other hand, remains the same: a total prize money of 100,000 USD is up for grabs by senior individual researchers or groups of researchers from the international research community.

Nominations for both the World Sustainability Award and the Emerging Sustainability Leader award are now open! Check out our new website for more information on how to nominate.

Stanford University has recently published an update of the list of the top 2% most widely cited scientists—the World’s Top 2% Scientists.

The time node of the statistical data of this list is from 1960 to 2022, and it is divided into two lists: "Lifetime Scientific Influence Ranking" and "2022 Annual Scientific Influence Ranking". The "Lifetime Scientific Influence Ranking" counts the comprehensive influence performance of scientists during their careers, and the "2022 Annual Influence Ranking" focuses on highlighting the academic influence of scientists in the previous year. This ranking, considered the most prestigious worldwide, is based on the bibliometric information contained in the Scopus database and includes more than 200,000 researchers from the more than 10 million scientists considered to be active worldwide, with 22 scientific fields and 176 subfields taken into account.

We are pleased to share that 87 Editorial Board Members from Machines (ISSN: 2075-1702) were featured in Stanford University World’s Top 2% Scientists list in 2022.

The latest Stanford rankings reflect the significant influence and research excellence of the scientists, who are committed to furthering their knowledge for the benefit of the world.

We would like to congratulate our Editorial Board Members on their excellent achievement and thank them for their immense contribution to the scientific progression and development of Machines.

MDPI will be attending the 2022 IEEE Transportation Electrification Conference and Expo, Asia-Pacific (ITEC-AP 2022) in Haining, China, which will take place from 28 to 31 October 2022. The ITEC-AP 2022 is organized by Zhejiang University, and aims to provide a forum for sharing knowledge, experience, and ideas in electrical technologies for transportation. Technical sessions, tutorials, exhibitors, and industry activities are planned.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Electronics;
• Machines;
• Actuators;
• Future Transportation;
• Electricity;
• Smart Cities;
• Sustainability;
• Vehicles.

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 that you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit the following link: https://www.itec-ap2022.com/.

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Yaguo Lei has been appointed Section Editor-in-Chief of the Section “Machines Testing and Maintenance” in Machines (ISSN: 2075-1702).

Prof. Dr. Yaguo Lei received his B.E. degree and Ph.D. degree, both in mechanical engineering, from Xi’an Jiaotong University, P. R. China, in 2002 and 2007, respectively. He is currently a professor in mechanical engineering at the Xi’an Jiaotong University, P. R. China. He worked at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, as an Alexander von Humboldt fellow and at the University of Alberta, Canada, as a postdoctoral research fellow. He is also a fellow of ASME, IET, and ISEAM; a senior member of IEEE; and a senior member of CMES, ORSC and CAA; and as an Associate Editor and Editorial Board Member of IEEE TIE, MSSP, NC&A, MST, etc. His research interests include health condition monitoring and intelligent maintenance, big-data-era intelligent fault diagnostics and prognostics, reliability evaluation and remaining useful life prediction, mechanical signal analysis and processing, and mechanical system dynamic modeling. He has pioneered many signal processing techniques and intelligent models for diagnosing mechanical faults. He has accomplished three monographies and published over 80 peer-reviewed papers on signal processing and fault diagnostics.

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Yaguo Lei, who shared his vision for the journal with us, as well as 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 Section Editor-in-Chief?
I have collaborated with the journal Machines for a long time. I have witnessed great development in the journal in the past years, including publication quality, academic impact, etc. The journal has been very much active in the publication of cutting-edge research works in its related fields. The published papers have significantly inspired researchers all over the world. The "Machines Testing and Maintenance" Section has become a remarkable source of the latest research in this field, which is one of the major research areas in my group. Therefore, I feel very much appreciative to be appointed Editor-in-Chief of this Section.

2. What is your vision for the journal?
Considering the great efforts of the journal in the past years, I believe the journal will surely be attracting increasing worldwide attention. At present, high-end machine-related technologies have been hot topics, and the applications of the related research works have achieved great success in real industries. Therefore, the journal will continue to gain interest in the future and lead research in related areas.

3. What does the future of this field of research look like?
In recent years, machine big data have become available, and artificial intelligence technologies have experienced remarkable developments. In my opinion, this field of research will benefit more and more from big data and AI in the future, which enable us to learn underlying machine-related patterns that we did not know before. Big-data-driven machine testing and maintenance will be hot areas, as will the methodologies of integrating both machine big data and physical knowledge.

4. What do you think of the development of open access in the publishing field?
Open access is certainly a future trend in the publishing field. The knowledge produced by scholars all over the world is supposed to be extensively shared to further promote research. The traditional subscription mode has certain limitations in scientific communications. However, as a well-established approach to publication, the traditional way cannot be entirely replaced in the near future, and it will possibly take a long time for everyone to gradually accept this new and beneficial publishing mode.

We warmly welcome Prof. Dr. Yaguo Lei as he starts his new role as Section Editor-in-Chief, and we look forward to him leading Machines to achieve many more milestones.

Peer Review Week began 19 September 2022 under the theme of “Research Integrity: Creating and Supporting Trust in Research”. Through various blog articles, podcast, and webinar, we discussed this crucial subject throughout the week, celebrating the essential role peer review plays in maintaining research quality.

To begin, we held a Webinar on the topic. Professor Peter W. Choate and Dr. Emmanuel Obeng-Gyasi joined Dr. Ioana Craciun, one of MDPI’s scientific officers, for an in-depth discussion.

We invite you to view the event recording:

During the week, the MDPI Blog in a series articles highlighted how good Peer Review safeguards research integrity. The following topics were covered:

• Peer Review Week 2022
• Research Integrity
• What We’ve Learned About Peer Review Reports
• 4 Steps to the Perfect Peer Review Report
• How to Write the Perfect Peer Review Report: An Interview
• Inviting Great Peer Reviewers

In a new edition of Insight Faster, an MDPI podcast, we were delighted to talk to the co-chairs of the Peer Review Week committee, Jayashree Rajagopalan (Senior Manager of Global Community Engagement for CACTUS) and Danielle Padula (Head of Marketing and Community Development at Scholastica) to get their take on this year’s event and its related topics.

You can find the Podcast here.

We hope you enjoy the contents!

The purpose of our Best Paper Awards is to promote and recognize the most impactful contributions published within MDPI journals.

The academic editors of each journal carefully selected reviews and research papers through a rigorous judging process based on criteria such as the scientific merit, overall impact, and the quality of presentation of the papers published in the journal.

We are honored to present the winners in the “Engineering” category, who were selected amongst extensive competition, and congratulate the authors for their outstanding scientific publications.

Actuators:

• “Position Control of Pneumatic Actuators Using Three-Mode Discrete-Valued Model Predictive Control”
  by Haitao Qi, Gary M. Bone and Yile Zhang
  Actuators 2019, 8(3), 56; doi: 10.3390/act8030056
• “Review of Electrothermal Actuators and Applications”
  by Alissa Potekhina and Changhai Wang
  Actuators 2019, 8(4), 69; doi: 10.3390/act8040069

Batteries:

• “Pre-Lithiation Strategies for Rechargeable Energy Storage Technologies: Concepts, Promises and Challenges”
  by Florian Holtstiege, Peer Bärmann, Roman Nölle, Martin Winter and Tobias Placke
  Batteries 2018, 4(1), 4; doi: 10.3390/batteries4010004
• “A Critical Review of Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling Processes from a Circular Economy Perspective”
  by Omar Velázquez-Martínez, Johanna Valio, Annukka Santasalo-Aarnio, Markus Reuter and Rodrigo Serna-Guerrero
  Batteries 2019, 5(4), 68; doi: 10.3390/batteries5040068
• “Critical Review of the Use of Reference Electrodes in Li-Ion Batteries: A Diagnostic Perspective”
  by Rinaldo Raccichini, Marco Amores and Gareth Hinds
  Batteries 2019, 5(1), 12; doi: 10.3390/batteries5010012
• “Life Cycle Analysis of Lithium-Ion Batteries for Automotive Applications”
  by Qiang Dai, Jarod C. Kelly, Linda Gaines and Michael Wang
  Batteries 2019, 5(2), 48; doi 10.3390/batteries5020048
• “Design Strategies for High Power vs. High Energy Lithium Ion Cells”
  by Michael J. Lain, James Brandon and Emma Kendrick
  Batteries 2019, 5(4), 64; doi: 10.3390/batteries5040064

Chemosensors:

• “Influence of Humidity on NO₂-Sensing and Selectivity of Spray-CVD Grown ZnO Thin Film above 400 °C”
  by Roussin Lontio Fomekong and Bilge Saruhan
  Chemosensors 2019, 7(3), 42; doi: 10.3390/chemosensors7030042
• “Low Molecular Weight Fluorescent Probes (LMFPs) to Detect the Group 12 Metal Triad”
  by Ashley D. Johnson, Rose M. Curtis and Karl J. Wallace
  Chemosensors 2019, 7(2), 22; doi: 10.3390/chemosensors7020022

Journal of Marine Science and Engineering:

• “Marine Application of Fiber Reinforced Composites: A Review”
  by Felice Rubino, Antonio Nisticò, Fausto Tucci and Pierpaolo Carlone
  Mar. Sci. Eng. 2020, 8(1), 26; doi: 10.3390/jmse8010026
• “Numerical Simulation of Large Wave Heights from Super Typhoon Nepartak (2016) in the Eastern Waters of Taiwan”
  by Shih-Chun Hsiao, Hongey Chen, Han-Lun Wu, Wei-Bo Chen, Chih-Hsin Chang, Wen-Dar Guo, Yung-Ming Chen and Lee-Yaw Lin
  Mar. Sci. Eng. 2020, 8(3), 217; doi: 10.3390/jmse8030217
• “Development of Deterministic Artificial Intelligence for Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUV)”
  by Timothy Sands
  Mar. Sci. Eng. 2020, 8(8), 578; doi: 10.3390/jmse8080578

Lubricants:

• “Solid Lubrication with MoS₂: A Review”
  by Mohammad R. Vazirisereshk, Ashlie Martini, David A. Strubbe and Mehmet Z. Baykara
  Lubricants 2019, 7(7), 57; doi:10.3390/lubricants7070057
• “Investigations of the Friction Losses of Different Engine Concepts. Part 1: A Combined Approach for Applying Subassembly-Resolved Friction Loss Analysis on a Modern Passenger-Car Diesel Engine”
  by Christoph Knauder, Hannes Allmaier, David E. Sander and Theodor Sams
  Lubricants 2019, 7(5), 39; doi: 10.3390/lubricants7050039
• “A Discussion on Present Theories of Rubber Friction, with Particular Reference to Different Possible Choices of Arbitrary Roughness Cutoff Parameters”
  by Andrea Genovese, Flavio Farroni, Antonio Papangelo and Michele Ciavarella
  Lubricants 2019, 7(10), 85; doi: 10.3390/lubricants7100085

Micromachines:

• “4D Printing of Multi-Hydrogels Using Direct Ink Writing in a Supporting Viscous Liquid”
  by Takuya Uchida and Hiroaki Onoe
  Micromachines 2019, 10(7), 433; doi: 10.3390/mi10070433
• “Enhanced Photocatalytic Performance and Mechanism of Au@CaTiO₃ Composites with Au Nanoparticles Assembled on CaTiO₃ Nanocuboids”
  by Yuxiang Yan, Hua Yang, Zao Yi, Ruishan Li and Xiangxian Wang
  Micromachines 2019, 10(4), 254; doi: 10.3390/mi10040254
• “Three-Dimensionally Structured Flexible Fog Harvesting Surfaces Inspired by Namib Desert Beetles”
  by Jun Kyu Park and Seok Kim
  Micromachines 2019, 10(3), 201; doi: 10.3390/mi10030201

Processes:

• “Accelerating Biologics Manufacturing by Modeling or: Is Approval under the QbD and PAT Approaches Demanded by Authorities Acceptable without a Digital-Twin?”
  by Steffen Zobel-Roos, Axel Schmidt, Fabian Mestmäcker, Mourad Mouellef, Maximilian Huter, Lukas Uhlenbrock, Martin Kornecki, Lara Lohmann, Reinhard Ditz and Jochen Strube
  Processes 2019, 7(2), 94; doi: 10.3390/pr7020094
• “Multiscale Agent-Based and Hybrid Modeling of the Tumor Immune Microenvironment”
  by Kerri-Ann Norton, Chang Gong, Samira Jamalian and Aleksander S. Popel
  Processes 2019, 7(1), 37; doi: 10.3390/pr7010037
• “Dynamic Flowsheet Model Development and Sensitivity Analysis of a Continuous Pharmaceutical Tablet Manufacturing Process Using the Wet Granulation Route”
  by Nirupaplava Metta, Michael Ghijs, Elisabeth Schäfer, Ashish Kumar, Philippe Cappuyns, Ivo Van Assche, Ravendra Singh, Rohit Ramachandran, Thomas De Beer, Marianthi Ierapetritou and Ingmar Nopens
  Processes 2019, 7(4), 234; doi: 10.3390/pr7040234

Sensors:

• “A Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Healthcare Blockchain for IoT”
  by Ashutosh Dhar Dwivedi, Gautam Srivastava, Shalini Dhar and Rajani Singh
  Sensors 2019, 19(2), 326; doi: 10.3390/s19020326
• “The Progress of Glucose Monitoring—A Review of Invasive to Minimally and Non-Invasive Techniques, Devices and Sensors”
  by Wilbert Villena Gonzales, Ahmed Toaha Mobashsher and Amin Abbosh
  Sensors 2019, 19(4), 800; doi: 10.3390/s19040800
• “Contact-Based Methods for Measuring Respiratory Rate”
  by Carlo Massaroni, Andrea Nicolò, Daniela Lo Presti, Massimo Sacchetti, Sergio Silvestri and Emiliano Schena
  Sensors 2019, 19(4), 908; doi: 10.3390/s19040908

World Electric Vehicle Journal:

• “Dynamic Wireless Power Transfer Charging Infrastructure for Future EVs: From Experimental Track to Real Circulated Roads Demonstrations”
  by Stéphane Laporte, Gérard Coquery, Virginie Deniau, Alexandre De Bernardinis and Nicolas Hautière
  World Electr. Veh. J. 2019, 10(4), 84; doi: 10.3390/wevj10040084

MDPI’s Young Investigator Awards recognize promising junior researchers, acknowledge their contributions, and enhance communication among scientists. We are proud to present the winners for the year 2021 in the “Engineering” category. The winners were selected by the journals’ editors.

We warmly congratulate the awarded Young Investigators for their outstanding contributions. MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

Biosensors:

• Amay J. Bandodkar, North Carolina State University, USA.

ChemEngineering:

• Andrew S. Paluch, Miami University, USA.

Chemosensors:

• Mindy Levine, Ariel University, Israel.

Electronics:

• Amir H. Gandomi, University of Technology Sydney, Australia.

Journal of Marine Science and Engineering:

• Tiago Fazeres-Ferradosa, University of Porto, Portugal.

Machines:

• Chen Lv, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore;
• Ignacio Gonzalez-Prieto, University of Malaga (UMA), Spain;
• Ning Sun, Nankai University, China.

Processes:

• Anton Rassõlkin, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia.

Sensors:

• Qammer H. Abbasi, Queen Mary University of London, UK;
• Chi Hwan Lee, Purdue University, USA.

We are proud to recognize the winners of MDPI’s 2021 Travel Awards in the “Engineering” category for their outstanding presentations and to present them with the prize.

MDPI journals regularly offer travel awards to encourage talented junior scientists to present their latest research at academic conferences in specific fields, which helps to increase their influence.

The winners mentioned below were carefully selected by the journal editors based on an outline of their research and the work to be presented at an academic conference.

We would like to warmly congratulate the winners of this year’s Travel Awards and wish them the greatest success with their future research endeavors. MDPI will continue to enhance communication among scientists.

Actuators:

• Matthew Wei Ming Tan, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Applied Sciences:

• Márcia de Sousa Oliveira, University of León, Spain;
• Caroline Sarah Taylor, University of Sheffield, UK;
• Raquel Viveiros, NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal;
• Alfonso González Briones, University of Salamanca, Spain;
• Alen Horvat, University Carlos III Madrid, Spain;
• Marie Švecová, University of Chemistry and Technology, Czech Republic;
• Venanzio Giannella, University of Salerno, Italy;
• Michaël Lobet, University of Namur, Belgium;
• Lam Thi Ngoc Tran, National Research Council, Italy;
• Hanfei Mei, University of South Carolina, USA.

Applied System Innovation:

• Mert Nakip, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland.

Biosensors:

• Mengdi Bao, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA;

Yichi Su, Stanford University, USA.

Buildings:

• Karthik Panchabikesan, Concordia University, Canada;
• Xiaolei Yuan, Tongji University, China.

Chemosensors:

• Verónica Montes García, Université de Strasbourg & CNRS, France.

Electronics:

• Peng Hang, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore;
• Alfonso González Briones, University of Salamanca, Spain.

Fluids:

• Alberto Zingaro, Politecnico di Milano, Italy;
• Sarah E. Morris, Auburn University, USA.

Infrastructures:

• Angelo Aloisio, University of L’Aquila, Italy;
• André Filipe Castanheira Alves Furtado, University of Porto, Portugal.

Journal of Low Power Electronics and Applications:

• Tommaso Zanotti, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy.

Journal of Manufacturing and Materials Processing:

• Nagalingam Arun Prasanth, Rolls-Royce@NTU Corporate Lab, Singapore.

Machines:

• Muhammad Jamil, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA), China;
• Mariagrazia Tristano, Sheffield Hallam University, UK.

Processes:

• Michele Schlich, University of Cagliari, Italy;
• Álvaro Santana Mayor, University of La Laguna, Spain.

Sensors:

• Eleonora Macchia, Åbo Akademi University, Finland;
• Alfonso Gonzalez Briones, University of Salamanca, Spain;
• Saúl Vallejos Calzada, University of Burgos, Spain;
• Ana Novo, University of Vigo, Spain;
• Yalin Liu, Macau University of Science and Technology, China;
• Marilena Giglio, Politecnico of Bari, Italy;
• Yuzhi Shi, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.

In order to acknowledge our reviewers, who so generously dedicate their time to reviewing papers and demonstrate diligence, professionalism, and timeliness when reviewing manuscripts, MDPI journals regularly offer outstanding reviewer awards to scholars who participate in the peer-review process.

We are proud to recognize the winners for the year 2021 in the “Engineering” category for their outstanding contributions among extensive competition by presenting them with an Outstanding Reviewer Award.

We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all of the winners on their achievement. MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

Actuators:

• Ryszard Dindorf, Kielce University of Technology, Poland.

Applied Sciences:

• Khaled Giasin, University of Portsmouth, UK;
• Jakub Krzysztof Grabski, University of Technology, Poland;
• Marcos Tostado-Véliz, University of Jaén, Spain;
• Luigi Pugliese, University of Calabria, Italy;
• Francesco Bennardo, University of Catanzaro, Italy;
• Heriberto Perez-Acebo, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Spain.

Biosensors:

• Amir Hatamie, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Buildings:

• Francesco Fiorito, Polytechnic University of Bari, Italy;
• Paul G. O’Brien, York University, Canada.

Chemosensors:

• Verónica Montes García, University of Strasbourg, France.

Machines:

• Piotr Gierlak, Rzeszow University of Technology, Poland;
• Sebastian A. Nugroho, University of Michigan, USA;
• Viorel Paleu, Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iasi, Romania.

Processes:

• Marcin Dębowski, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland;
• Bartłomiej Zieniuk, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Poland;
• Zbigniew Nadolny, Poznan University of Technology, Poland;
• Attila Egedy, University of Pannonia, Hungary;
• Seok-Ho Rhi, Chungbuk National University, Korea.

Sensors:

• Hojong Choi, Kumoh National Institute of Technology, Korea;
• Li Fu, Hangzhou Dianzi University, China;
• Leonardo De Mello Honorio, Federal University of Juiz De Fora Juiz De Fora, Brazil;
• Mario Versaci, Mediterranea University, Italy;
• Robertas Damasevicius, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania.

The 2021 citation metrics have been released in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), and we’re pleased to announce the following results for MDPI journals:

For more information on Impact Factors and what it means to index academic journals, please visit our related blog posts.

* Journals given their first Impact Factor in 2022

Source: 2021 Journal Impact Factors, Journal Citation Reports ^TM (Clarivate, 2022)