Announcements

2018 was a great year for preprints, with increasing numbers of authors looking to make their papers available online before peer review. Along with other preprint servers, our platform Preprints.org  saw an increase in the uptake from authors, and more than double the number of announced papers compared to 2017. In fact, we recently passed two important milestones: 8000 preprints online and 30,000 authors. 

We believe that the whole research community has the opportunity to benefit from work being available online as early as possible. We thank and congratulate our authors for supporting us to make this goal a reality.

In 2019, we will be looking carefully at how to provide better value for authors, maintain efficiency while growing in size, and make sure we remain well-connected with the research community. 

If you want to participate, you can consider screening preprints or joining our advisory board. And, of course, posting your own work.

We are delighted to announce the establishment of our national Open Access agreement with the Austrian Academic Library Consortium (KEMÖ) and the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). Through this national agreement, the Austrian institutions listed below as well as FWF will cover the Article Processing Charges (APC) of manuscripts published by eligible corresponding or funded authors in MDPI journals as long as central funds are available.

All participating institutions have gained access to the MDPI online submission system where they can find full article metadata and pricing information as well as Funder and Grant ID details for easy identification and additional transparency. At the same time eligible authors are benefited from an APC discount which comes at no cost for the institutions.

Eligible corresponding authors affiliated with the participating institutions are prompted to choose the corresponding Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP) when they submit an article via our online submission system. The program will be selected automatically if authors submit their papers using their institutional email address. To claim their discount, FWF funded authors should choose the particular funder and add their Grant ID upon online submission of their manuscript. The institutions will then crosscheck the information and confirm the APC funding.

Eligible authors that have their APC covered by their institution or funder are advised to include the following sentence in their acknowledgments: "Open Access Funding by the [name of the institution/funder]".

The full text of the agreement is openly available online at: http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2536007

For any questions about the agreement, please contact the KEMÖ Consortium at emedien@obvsg.at, FWF at Katharina.Rieck@fwf.ac.at, or the MDPI IOAP team at ioap@mdpi.com.

The Austrian institutions participating in this agreement are:

• Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
• University for Continuing Education Krems
• University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna
• University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria
• University of Applied Sciences Technikum Wien
• Vorarlberg University of Applied Sciences
• International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
• Institute of Science and Technology Austria
• MCI Management Center Innsbruck
• University of Graz
• University of Linz
• University of Salzburg
• Graz University of Technology
• TU Wien
• University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna
• University of Vienna

This is our first collective agreement with a national library consortium, while the individual institutions around the world participating in our IOAP are now more than 500 - see details here: https://www.mdpi.com/about/ioap. We would be mostly interested in discussing about possible collaborations with other consortia, funders, and institutions in our mutual efforts to accelerate Open Access.

We are pleased to announce the new platform Encyclopedia, which is an online reference created and curated by active scholars. It aims to highlight the latest research results as well as providing benchmark information for researchers and the general public interested in accurate and advanced knowledge on specific topics.

We encourage authors of review articles to quote and adapt the content of their published papers to create Encyclopedia entries. You can create completely new entries on topics in which you have knowledge and expertise. There is no limit on the topics or research fields. All of science and the humanities are included. Each entry will be published directly after submission.

We also have prepared a DOI application function in Encyclopedia. Once a DOI application is approved, the entry website will announce the DOI number and a pdf version with DOI information will be automatically created.

We look forward to your contributions and hope you will make use of this service. Find more about the service at: https://encyclopedia.pub/

● International Cooperation & SDGs
● Future Manufacturing and Industry
● Smart Living and Health
● Smart Cities & Communities
● Artificial Intelligence and Smart Data
● IoT Market and Business Models
● IOT Emerging Technologies
● IoT Security and Data Protection
● 5G and IoT Network
● Smart Farming
● IoT Art and Society

Parallel events held at the same venue:

● Global IoT Summit 2019, which will present scientific papers on the most recent IoT research results
● Startup Competition
● Hackathon
● Art Residency
● Exhibition Area

Among the confirmed speakers are representatives of the world's largest companies developing IoT technologies. The list of already confirmed speakers is available on the conference website.
The key institutions involved in the development of IoT in the world such as Microsoft and Grundfos are supporting this gathering.

The Organizing Committee of the IoT Week 2019 comprises the IoT Forum and the It-forum.

Meet us in Aarhus next June!

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.

This Special Issue is now open for submission. 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

Date and Location: 15-18 April 2019 – Limerick, Ireland
Website: http://wfiot2019.iot.ieee.org/

The 2019 IEEE 5th World Forum on IoT (WF-IoT 2019) will be held on the spectacular parkland setting of the University of Limerick 15-18 April 2019. The historic city of Limerick is located in the heart of the beautiful Midwest region of Ireland, on the magnificent Wild Atlantic Way. We look forward to extending a very special Irish welcome and invite you to join us in 2019 for a truly memorable event.

The broad reaching program at WF-IoT attracts industry practitioners, government regulators, public sector executives, as well as researchers and academics interested in the latest developments, new standards, technical innovations, and firsthand experiences with commercial offerings. This year's theme is “IoT and the Digital Revolution.”

We will attend the 32nd International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS 2019). It will be held in Seoul, Korea, 27–31 January 2019, and it will be organized by the society of Micro and Nano Systems (SMNS). MEMS 2019 is one of the premier annual events reporting research results on every aspect of microsystems technology. This conference reflects from the rapid proliferation of the commitment and success of the microsystems research community. In recent years, the IEEE MEMS Conference has attracted more than 700 participants and 800+ abstract submissions and has created a forum to present over 200 select papers in podium and poster/oral sessions. Representatives of the following open-access journals will attend:

Micromachines

Technologies

Chemosensors

Energies

Applied Sciences

Sensors

Fluids

J – Journal of Multidisciplinary Science

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (booth #40). Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit http://mems19.org/html/main.php.

Our editors and colleagues are attending the 22nd International Conference on Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life Sciences (µTAS 2018). The conference is being held at the Kaohsiung Exhibition Center in Kaohsiung, Taiwan from 11 to 15 November 2018, organized by the Chemical and Biological Microsystems Society (CBMS).

µTAS 2018 continues a series of Conferences that are the premier forum for reporting research results in microfluidics, microfabrication, nanotechnology, integration, materials and surfaces, analysis and synthesis, and detection technologies for life science and chemistry. Representatives of the following open access journals will attend:

Micromachines

Applied Sciences

International Journal of Molecular Sciences (IJMS)

Sensors

Biosensors

Technologies

Diagnostics

Journal of Multidisciplinary Science (J)

If you're attending the conference too, please feel free to stop by our booth (Booth #350). 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://cbmsociety.org/conferences/microtas2018/

We are delighted to announce that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is now a participant of our Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP). Authors funded by the BMGF can enjoy discounts on the APC, while the funder covers the costs of eligible articles centrally. BMGF also has access to the MDPI online submission system where they can find full article metadata and pricing information as well as Grant ID details for easy identification and additional transparency.

We hope that funded authors find the programme beneficial and we are happy to offer our IOAP to other funders that need a streamlined workflow of compliance checking and APC coverage. 

To claim their discount, BMGF funded authors should choose the particular funder and add their Grant ID upon online submission of their manuscript.

For any questions about the BMGF agreement, please contact the funder at support@chronos-oa.com or the MDPI IOAP team at ioap@mdpi.com.