Announcements

We are pleased to inform that Sensors received an updated Journal Impact Factor of 3.031 in the recent release of the Journal Citation Reports®. The journal's 5-Year Impact Factor is 3.302. Sensors now ranks 23/84 (Q2) in the category 'Analytical Chemistry', 12/26 (Q2) in 'Electrochemistry' and 15/61 (Q1) in 'Instruments & Instrumentation.'

Evolution of Impact Factor, Citations and Publications for Sensors:

Source: data according to Journal Citation Reports®, 2018 release, a Clarivate Analytics product; and Scopus journal metrics.

We are pleased to announce that all the accepted submissions of the 5th International Electronic Conference on Sensors and Applications have been published in a dedicated volume of Proceedings, and this volume has now been released online.

Volume Editors: Stefano Mariani, Francesco Ciucci, Dirk Lehmhus, Thomas B. Messervey, Alberto Vallan, Stefan Bosse and Francisco Falcone

This issue of Proceedings gathers the papers presented at the 5th International Electronic Conference on Sensors and Applications (ECSA-5), held on 15–30 November 2018. ECSA-5 collected contributions concerning four thematic areas (Chemo and Biosensors, Physical Sensors, Sensor Networks, and Applications) and four specific sessions (Smart Cities, Smart Sensing Systems and Structures, Structural Health Monitoring Technologies and Sensor Networks, and Wearable Sensors).

We also delighted to announce that the 6th International Electronic Conference on Sensors and Applications now open for contributions. You are welcome to join us at https://ecsa-6.sciforum.net/.

To read the articles published in the volume, please visit the following website: https://www.mdpi.com/2504-3900/4/1.

People rely on optics every day. By utilizing the knowledge of how light behaves under different conditions, scientists and engineers develop remarkable technologies that improve our world. In expanding our offerings to the field of optics, MDPI will be launching a broad-interest and high-quality journal, Optics, an open access journal that seeks full research articles in all areas of optics and related interdisciplinary areas. Optics will also act as a medium for exchanging ideas and thoughts regarding the impacts of optical research.

Optics is an international, peer-reviewed open access journal which aims to present cutting edge research related to all aspects of optics. We are now seeking a founding Editor-in-Chief to develop Optics 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.

We also welcome scientists in the field of optics to join our Editorial Board.

A full application for evaluation should include these items:

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

Applications are due by 20 June 2019. Please send your application or any questions to the Optics Editorial Office (optics@mdpi.com).

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).

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.

We will be attending the Transducers 2019 - EUROSENSORS XXXIII event, to be held in Berlin, Germany from 23rd June 2019. The conference covers major areas of activity in the development of Sensor, Actuators and Transducers, including the following:

• Mechanical/Physical Sensors and Microsystems
• Materials, Fabrication, and Packaging Technologies
• Nanoscale Devices and Nanomaterials
• Transducers with Soft, Flexible or Composite Materials
• Chemical and Environmental Sensors and Microsystems
• Bio-Sensors and Bio-Microsystems
• Medical Microsystems
• Microfluidics (non-bio)
• Energy and Power MEMS
• Acoustic Microdevices and RF MEMS
• Integrated Photonics and Optical MEMS

Representatives of the following open access journals will attend:

Sensors
Chemosensors
Biosensors
Actuators

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).