Announcements

Oceans is an international, peer-reviewed open access journal which is aiming to provide cutting-edge research related to all aspects of oceanography. We are now seeking a founding Editor-in-Chief to develop Oceans 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

A full application for evaluation should include these items:

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

Applications are due by 9th July 2019. Please send your application or any questions to the Oceans Editorial Office (oceans@mdpi.com).

As of April 2019, Remote Sensing is affiliated to The Remote Sensing Society of Japan (RSSJ). As part of this collaboration, all members of RSSJ enjoy a discount on the article processing charges (APC) when submitting articles to Remote Sensing.

The Remote Sensing Society of Japan (RSSJ) was established in 1981 with the aim of liaising and collaborating on remote sensing research and contributing to the development and generalization of its science and technology. The activities of RSSJ include a wide range of fields, such as environmental monitoring, weather, ocean, ecology, geography, surveying, geology, disaster prevention, resource exploration, agriculture and forestry, fishery, civil engineering, construction, space development, and administration, among others. Hundreds of studies are currently underway across these disciplines. In recent years, high observation frequency weather observation by Himawari, increases in freely available satellite data such as Landsat, and the wide application of drones have made remote sensing an increasingly familiar technology and discipline.

RSSJ is a professional organization whose functions are highly relevant to the scope of Remote Sensing. We look forward to collaborating with RSSJ and publishing state-of-the-art research from its members in this field.

The XIX Brazilian Symposium on Remote Sensing (XIX SBSR) is the main scientific meeting in Latin America dedicated to the dissemination of remote sensing science and geotechnologies, organized biannually since 1978. The SBSR has been continuously improving to deliver the best scientific services to researchers, companies, and the education community in Brazil by incorporating the highest scientific standards. Today, the SBSR is perceived as a reference event to a wide spectrum of professionals from different areas, including biome monitoring, natural resources, agriculture, ocean, inland waters, and climate change, with a strong positive impact on the general well-being of our society. The SBSR are committed to stimulating the exchange of experiences among participants, disseminating the state-of-the-art of remote sensing applications, and enhancing the cooperation among institutions from Brazil and abroad.

The Brazilian Symposium on Remote Sensing has a target audience composed of Brazilian and international researchers, students, lecturers, and professionals from the public and private sectors, from a large array of interests including mineral resources, agriculture, hydrology and water resources, environment, government authorities, and a wide range of decision makers in Brazil.

A Special Issue linked with the conference is now open for submission in Remote Sensing. Despite the focus on the XIX SBSR, submissions are not limited to papers presented at the symposium. We seek original and innovative contributions that involve (but are not restricted to) sensor applications, sensing systems and principles, remote sensors, machine learning and modelling approaches, multispectral imaging, hyperspectral imaging, signal processing, data fusion and deep learning, and integrated sensor or internet-of-things technologies, among others. Papers that tackle complex Earth Observation issues by integrating traditional areas of application (e.g., agriculture, geology, oceanography) are also encouraged.

You are invited to submit your paper through the following link:
https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sensors/special_issues/RS_AMALR

We will attend the Japan Geoscience Union Meeting 2019 (JpGU 2019). It will be held at the Makuhari Messe, International Convention Complex in Chiba, Japan, on 26–30 May 2019, and will be organized by the Japan Geoscience Union (JpGU). JpGU is an academic union that encompasses all the Earth and planetary sciences disciplines and related fields, and has been organizing annual meetings since 2005. JpGU 2019 will cover a wide range of Earth and planetary sciences, including space and planetary sciences, atmospheric and hydrospheric sciences, human geosciences, solid Earth sciences, and biogeosciences. The JpGU annual meeting provides participants with a good opportunity to become familiar with cutting-edge research and unique approaches to research objects within their own special field as well as beyond. Representatives of the following open-access journals will attend:

Minerals

Geosciences

Water

Atmosphere

Remote Sensing

Resources

Education Sciences

Climate

IJERPH

MDPI will be attending the 2019 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, to be held in Yokohama, Japan, 28 July – 2 August 2019.

This conference will be the 39th annual IGARSS symposium and will continue the excellent tradition of gathering world-class scientists, engineers and educators engaged in the fields of geoscience and remote sensing. We believe that the additional scientific themes of this event, focusing on 'Disasters and Environment' will allow the formation of an inspiring technical program.

IGARSS is recognized today as a premier event in remote sensing and provides an ideal forum for obtaining up-to-date information about the latest developments, exchanging ideas, identifying future trends in your research area and making contacts with the international remote sensing community. With intensive and careful planning underway we anticipate a technically outstanding and most pleasant symposium.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

Remote Sensing
IJGI
Sensors
Water
Geosciences
Atmosphere
Land
Forests
JMSE
Sustainability

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (Booth # 30). 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://igarss2019.org/CallForSponsorsExhibitors.asp.

It is a pleasure to invite you to take part in the 2019 ISPRS Geospatial Week (GSW 2019). The ISPRS Geospatial Week (GSW) is a combination of workshops organised by about 30 ISPRS Working Groups active in areas of interest of ISPRS. It is convened by the University of Twente acting as local organiser, and led by George Vosselman as GSW Director.

The ISPRS Geospatial Week’s general goals are to: increase the possibility of communication between the different workshop communities within ISPRS and beyond; increase the continuous visibility of ISPRS on a yearly basis, together with the Congress and the Commission Symposia, thus leading to larger impact for ISPRS activities; gives Sustaining Members a more attractive opportunity to participate in ISPRS events. For more information about the conference, please visit https://www.gsw2019.org/.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

IJGI
Remote Sensing
Atmosphere
Drones
Infrastructures
Information
Journal of Imaging
Water
Urban Science

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 ioap@mdpi.com.

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 help@jisc.ac.uk. For any queries about MDPI’s institutional agreements and collaborations, you may get in touch with MDPI’s Institutional Engagement team at ioap@mdpi.com, which would be very happy to hear from further UK institutions.

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 (constanze.schelhorn@mdpi.com).