Date: 24 May 2023

Time: 2:00 p.m. CEST | 8:00 a.m. EDT | 8:00 p.m. CST Asia

Webinar ID: 810 5870 1473

Materials with piezoelectric effects can convert energy between mechanical and electrical domains to create novel devices for sensing, actuation, and energy-harvesting applications. Piezoelectric materials have many attractive properties, such as a high voltage-to-strain ratio and high force per unit area and they are compatible with the cryogenic vacuum environment. These properties have made piezoelectric transducers useful in many precision machines for nano-positioning, strain sensing, vibration energy collection, etc. On the other hand, care must be taken in engineering applications to deal with the inherent non-linearities of piezoelectric transducers, including hysteresis, creep, charge leakage, and varying capacitance. Significant research efforts have been devoted to creating phenomenological or lumped-parameter system models to handle undesirable behaviors. To realize the full potential of piezoelectric devices, advanced model-based or data-driven techniques can be applied throughout the process of transducer design, application-specific integration, and performance optimization. This webinar and corresponding Special Issue aim to collect novel applications of piezoelectric materials in mechatronic systems and robotics with an emphasis on practical aspects of modeling, fabrication, integration, driving, associated signal processing, and control methods for performance improvement.

In this webinar, two interesting studies using piezoelectric materials will be presented. Both studies feature advanced use of piezotransducers on the meso- or microscale to create devices with advanced functionalities. We will first learn from Dr. Daniele Caltabiano how to create a 3D camera prototype based on LASER direct Time of Flight and MEMS mirrors: from simulation to real testing. Next, Dr. Víctor Ruiz Díez will share more application examples for hybrid 3D-printed and MEMS devices based on piezoelectric resonators, followed by interactive Q&A sessions.

Please join us to learn more about piezoelectric materials and other exciting topics.

Register now for free!

This is a free webinar. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information on how to join the webinar. Registrations with academic institutional email addresses will be prioritized.

Certificates of attendance will be delivered to those who attend the live webinar.

Unable to attend? Register anyway, and we will let you know when the recording is available to watch.

Webinar Chairs:

• Dr. Fangzhou Xia, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
• Dr. Stefano Mariani, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Webinar Speakers:

• Dr. Daniele Caltabiano, STMicroelectronics, Italy
• Dr. Víctor Ruiz Díez, Microsystems, Actuators, and Sensors Group, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Spain

Program

Relevant Special Issue:

“Applications of Piezoelectric Devices and Materials”

Guest Editors: Dr. Fangzhou Xia and Dr. Stefano Mariani

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

Name: Prof. Dr. Hui Ma

Email: huima@mail.neu.edu.cn

Affiliation: School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China

Interests: rotating machinery dynamics; fault diagnosis; dynamic design of mechanical systems

Homepage: http://faculty.neu.edu.cn/mahui/en/more/138064/jsjjgd/index.htm

Prof. Dr. Hui Ma focuses on mechanical system dynamic modeling such as pipeline systems, gear transmission systems, rotor dynamics in compressor or aero engines, fault diagnosis in rotor systems such as rotor-stator rubbing faults, gear damage faults, blade cracks, etc. His main contributions are summarized as follows:

• The accurate description method of time-varying meshing stiffness of healthy and faulty gear pairs was developed, a dynamics model of the gear-rotor system was established, the relationship between typical gear faults and vibration characteristics of the system was revealed, and typical fault features were extracted;
• A new rigid-flexible coupling dynamic modeling method for a blisk combined rotor system was proposed based on the beam and plate shell theory. Based on the contact dynamics theory and analytical method, new rubbing models of the rotor-seal and blade-flexible casing were derived. The nonlinear vibration mechanism of the rotor blade and casing induced by rubbing was revealed and some typical fault features were extracted;
• Considering the effects of the fluid–structure coupling and structural coupling of parallel liquid-filled piping, an improved transfer matrix method for the dynamic modeling of complex series-parallel piping systems was proposed. Considering the influence of multi-source excitation such as fluid excitation and foundation excitation, a new method for predicting the vibration transmission characteristics of the parallel filling pipeline was proposed.

Prof. Dr. Ma has published 122 SCI-index journal papers and his works mainly appear in Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing (21), Engineering Failure Analysis (16), Journal of Sound and Vibration (9), Mechanism and Machine Theory (9), International Journal of Mechanical Sciences (8), and they have been cited over 3000 times.

With these achievements, we are confident that the “Machines Testing and Maintenance” Section of Machines will thrive under Prof. Dr. Hui Ma’s leadership.

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Hui Ma, 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 the role as its Section Editor-in-Chief?

It has a professional team and rapid publication so more readers can quickly understand the developments of this field and share the relevant scientific research results.

2. What is your vision for the journal?

I hope the journal can publish more excellent papers and provide a platform for the academic community to share knowledge.

3. What does the future of this field of research look like?

More interdisciplinary, with more emphasis on the development of artificial intelligence and digital twin technology.

4. What do you think of the development of Open Access in the publishing field?

Open Access can better promote the sharing of academic knowledge, and the acceptance rate is relatively high. Therefore, attention should be paid to improving the quality of papers.

We warmly welcome Prof. Dr. Hui Ma as our Section Editor-in-Chief.

As a leading open access publisher, MDPI provides scholars with a high-quality and rich academic exchange platform by continuously expanding into new and exciting research areas.

In December 2022, MDPI launched five new journals, covering multiple subjects such as life sciences, biology, medicine and pharmacology, social sciences and humanities. These new journals are being edited by established scholars across the world.

If you are interested in creating more open access journals with us to publish cutting-edge research, please send your journal proposal application to newjournal-committee@mdpi.com.

MDPI is pleased to announce that we now display the co-authors’ email addresses in addition to the corresponding author’s email address on the webpage of published papers, protected by Captcha. For more information about this change, please visit the journal’s instructions for authors page. 

We believe this change will facilitate academic discussions and advance our cause of open science and research. The corresponding authors are responsible for communicating with their co-authors and indicating in our system (https://susy.mdpi.com/) if co-authors would prefer for their email addresses not to be displayed.

On 9 February 2023, Clarivate, a global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics, added the Preprint Citation Index to the Web of Science platform, streamlining the research process by allowing researchers to locate and link to preprints alongside other trusted content in the database.

The Preprint Citation Index will act as a bridge to connect cutting-edge preprints with peer-reviewed journal articles published within the Web of Science Core Collection. Alerts can be easily set to monitor new research across several repositories and authors will also be able to include preprints on their Web of Science Research Profile to more accurately display their various research outputs.

As of its launch, the Preprint Citation Index will provide nearly two million preprints from various repositories, including MDPI’s own Preprints.org.

MDPI's Preprints Platform – Preprints.org

To advance Open Science and the fast dissemination of research, MDPI offers researchers a free multidisciplinary preprint platform. Preprints.org accepts submissions from all research areas and offers authors high visibility, permanent archiving, article-level Metrics and immediately citable content by assigning a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to all preprints.

During submission to any MDPI journal, authors have the option to share their research as a preprint. After an initial screening, the manuscript is available online in 48 hours or less. Once online, preprints can be downloaded, shared, commented on, and cited, providing authors maximum visibility.

We invite you to join the ranks of the over 100k researchers using Preprints.org and share your research.

For more information, please visit Preprints.org.

Machines (ISSN: 2571-8789) is now recruiting scientists to join the Editorial Board.

As an Editorial Board Member, you would have the following responsibilities:

• Promoting Machines on your social media or among your acquaintances;
• Supervising the quality of the papers of Machines (when we have new submissions that fit well with your expertise);
• Acting as/recommending a Guest Editor for a Special Issue on a topic related to your research interests;
• Providing conference/society cooperation recommendations;
• Providing suggestions or comments on journal development.

As an Editorial Board Member, you would have the following benefits:

• Publishing one paper free of charge in Machines per year, and also publishing extra papers with special discounts;
• Publishing one paper free of charge in your own Special Issue per year;
• Organizing or promoting your own conferences by using our platform SciForum (https://sciforum.net/conferences);
• A CHF 500–1000 travel grant will be offered to Editorial Board Members that make significant contributions to the journal;
• Recommending/inviting your colleagues to submit full research articles or review papers with special discounts.
  

Machines is an open access international journal on machinery, manufacturing and engineering. It was launched in 2013 and has been indexed in several main databases such as the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE)-Web of Science, Scopus, and Inspec. Machines received a new IF of 2.899 from JCR in 2022, which equals a rank of 61/137 (Q2) in the “Engineering, Mechanical” category, as well as 127/276 (Q2) in the “Engineering, Electrical & Electronic” category.

If you are interested in joining the Editorial Board of Machines, please send your full academic CV and a short cover letter that details your interest and enthusiasm for the position to machines@mdpi.com.

Conference: IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2023)

Date: 29 May–2 June 2023
Place: London, UK

Machines (ISSN: 2075-1702) will be attending ICRA 2023 as an exhibitor. This meeting will take place from 29 May to 2 June 2023 in London, UK.

The largest and most prestigious event of the year in the robotics and automation calendar, the 2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) will bring together the world's top academics, researchers, and industry representatives. With the conference taking place in the UK for the first time, London will provide the perfect backdrop to this world-class event.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Machines;
• Sensors;
• Actuators;
• Applied Sciences;
• Electronics;
• Robotics;
• Systems;
• JSAN;
• Technologies;
• Inventions;
• Designs;
• Drones;
• JMMP;
• Telecom;
• AI;
• Automation.

If you are planning to attend this conference, please do not hesitate to start an online conversation with us. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions that you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit the following website: https://www.icra2023.org/.

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new initiative—the MDPI Special Issue Mentor Program.

This program will enable early career researchers (who must hold a Ph.D. in a related field) to experience editing a Special Issue in MDPI journals, under the mentorship of our experienced Editorial Board Members or other experienced scientists. The mentor program will provide an excellent opportunity for early career scientists to gain editorial experience, and to cultivate their ability to edit scientific research.

The mentee’s responsibilities include:

• Proposing a Special Issue title and assisting the mentor in preparing a summary (around 200–400 words) and 3–10 keywords describing the background, importance, and goal of the Issue;
• Writing a brief promotion plan for the Special Issue;
• Preparing a list of scholars who may be interested in the Issue and personally e-mailing invitations on behalf of Guest Editors;
• Writing an editorial for the online Special Issue together with the mentor.

The mentor’s responsibilities include:

• Conducting a final check before the Special Issue is published online;
• Performing editorial control of the Special Issue and quality control of the publications, both of which must be carried out in a timely manner;
• Providing suggestions to younger scholars if they have any doubts or concerns regarding submissions;
• Organizing video calls with young scholars and the Editorial Office regularly to discuss problems and improvement suggestions for the Special Issue;
• Making and submitting decisions regarding submissions with the assistance of mentees.

Certificates and awards:
After the Special Issue closes, the Editorial Office will provide official certificates for all the mentors and early career researchers.

If you are interested in this opportunity, please send your Special Issue proposal to the Editorial Office of a journal you choose, and we will discuss the process (i.e., mentor collaboration, Special Issue topic feasibility analysis, etc.) in further detail. The full list of MDPI journals is as follows: https://www.mdpi.com/about/journals.

In addition to the new Special Issue Mentor Program, we will continue to welcome all Special Issue proposals focusing on hot research topics.

MDPI has just become the first open access (OA) publisher to reach the milestone of one million articles published. That is one million articles freely available to all, to circulate and build upon! We are proud to share this special moment with the global scientific community.

This landmark has been reached thanks to the immeasurable support of more than 600,000 expert reviewers, 66,000 editorial board members and 6700 hard-working colleagues across MDPI’s global offices.

Within more than 25 years of publishing, our journals received 2.1 million manuscripts and generated 4.6 million peer review reports to get to one million papers published.

Reaching the milestone of one million articles published reinforces our mission to remove any existing barriers and to make scientific research accessible to all. Since its inception, MDPI’s goal has been to create reliable processes to make science open. This is a path towards facilitating the dissemination of novel insights in scientific communities.

Regular feedback from authors and reviewers shows that our service is greatly appreciated and needed. At the same time, the feedback helps us identify areas for further improvement.

As it stands, a significant share of published research findings remain closed access. More than half of the content published with the most well-known legacy publishers stays behind a paywall, and that is not including articles published in hybrid OA journals, or made available months or years after publication.

A new policy announced by the US administration in August 2022 requires that, as of January 2026, all US federally funded research be made freely and immediately available after publication. While the new policy does not mandate articles be published under an open access license, it is aligned with the open access movement in removing all barriers to research. Similarly, some of the most advanced research institutions in the world intend to have all funded research articles published in open access by 2025.

MDPI is proud to be the leading agent of the transition to open access.

"Thanks a Million" to all the contributors!

Recently, Clarivate^TM revealed its 2022 list of Highly Cited Researchers^TM—individuals at universities, research institutes and commercial organizations.

The scientists who were selected into this year’s list of Highly Cited Researchers have published highly cited papers in the 11-year period from January 2011 to December 2021, with citation frequency in the top 1% of academic subjects and the same year of publication in the Web of Science^TM database. Based on Web of Science Citation data, 6,938 researchers from across the globe who have demonstrated a disproportionate level of significant and broad influence in their chosen field or fields over the last decade have been awarded Highly Cited Researcher 2022 designations. The list is truly global, spanning 69 countries or regions and spread across a diverse range of research sciences and social sciences.

According to statistics, 5 members of the Editorial Board of Machines (ISSN: 2075-1702) have been selected into the list of Highly Cited Researchers of Clarivate in 2022. They are being recognized for their high-quality scientific research achievements and outstanding contributions to professional fields. The Machines journal office sincerely congratulates all elected Editorial Board Members and hopes that they continue to have an academically productive relationship with the journal.

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)

Conference: The 2022 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2022)
Date: 23–27 October 2022
Place: Kyoto, Japan

Machines (ISSN: 2075-1702) will be attending IROS 2022 as an exhibitor. This meeting will take place from 23 to 27 October in Kyoto, Japan.

IROS is one of the largest and most impactful robotics research conferences worldwide. It provides an international forum for the international robotics research community to explore the frontiers of science and technology in intelligent robots and smart machines. The theme of IROS 2022 is “Embodied AI for a Symbiotic Society”. In addition to technical sessions and multimedia presentations, IROS conferences also hold panel discussions, forums, workshops, tutorials, exhibits, and technical tours to encourage fruitful discussions among conference attendees.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Machines;
• Robotics;
• Sensors;
• Computers;
• Applied Sciences;
• Systems;
• Technologies;
• Inventions;
• JMMP;
• Fractal Fract;
• ASI;
• Smart Cities;
• AI;
• Automation.

If you are planning to attend this conference, please do not hesitate to start an online conversation with us. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions that you may have. For more information about the conference and virtual booth, please visit the following website: https://iros2022.org/.

The 2021 citation metrics have been officially released in Scopus!

We are pleased to announce that 182 MDPI journals are included, of which:

● 21 journals received their first CiteScore.
● 85% of journals increased their CiteScore from 2020.
● 155 journals (85%) ranked above average, in at least one category.

The following 65 MDPI journals (36%) ranked among the top 25% of journals, in at least one category:

Source: 2021 CiteScores™ (Elsevier)

Machines (ISSN 2075-1702; IF 2.428) is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal published semimonthly online by MDPI. It publishes articles, reviews, short communications, and letters that are relevant to any field of study in machinery and engineering. The journal is indexed within Scopus, SCIE (Web of Science), Inspec, and many other databases.

The Machines editorial team is pleased to announce this open call for Special Issue proposals, which offers a group of authors the opportunity to work on an interconnected set of papers on an innovative topic. We are soliciting high-quality proposals that will be evaluated in a continuous selection process throughout the year.

Proposals within the scope of the journal are welcome. For more details, please see: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/machines/about.

If you would like to propose a Special Issue topic for this journal, please contact the Machines Editorial Office (machines@mdpi.com) or complete and submit the form at the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journalproposal/sendproposalspecialissue/machines. Our editors will respond to you swiftly.

As Guest Editor, you would be responsible for:

• Inviting papers from your peers to be published in this Special Issue and take advantage of our high publicity of open access publishing, our rapid and high-quality peer review process, and immediate publication after acceptance;
• Checking the suitability of abstracts/manuscripts submitted to the Special Issue;
• Making precheck decisions regarding whether to send a new submission to peer review;
• Making final decisions regarding whether to accept a paper based on peer review outcomes.

As Guest Editor, you would have the following privileges:

• A recognition certificate as a Guest Editor of Machines;
• The ability to publish papers with special discounts;
• The opportunity to invite high-quality papers to be published in your Special Issue free of charge or with certain discounts;
• Subject to the Special Issue’s success, with a minimum of 10 accepted manuscripts after full peer review, a printed book version of your Special Issue, with a copy sent to you free of charge.

The Editorial Office will set up the Special Issue’s website, arrange the promotional materials, assist with the invitations for paper contributions, and take care of the administrative tasks associated with peer review, including inviting reviewers, collating reports, contacting authors, and arranging professional production before publication.

Please do not hesitate to contact the Editorial Office (machines@mdpi.com) for further details and clarification.

We look forward to receiving your proposals.

Machines Editorial Office

We are pleased to announce that the winners of the Machines 2021 Young Investigator Award are Dr. Chen Lv, Dr. Ignacio Gonzalez-Prieto and Dr. Ning Sun.

As awardees, each of them will receive an honorarium of CHF 1000, an offer to publish a paper free of charge before the end of August 2022 in Machines (ISSN: 2075-1702) after the completion of the peer-review process, and an engraved plaque.

Dr. Chen Lv is an Associate Professor at the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and the Cluster Director in Future Mobility Solutions, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. Dr. Chen Lv’s research focuses on human-centric design, optimization and control for advanced mechatronics with particular applications in vehicle intelligence and electrification. He has published 2 books, over 120 papers (6 ESI highly cited papers, 2 hot papers, citation>3700, h-index: 33, i10-index: 70), obtained 12 granted patents, received numerous awards, and developed several real-world applications. He thanks the journal Machines for the recognition, and the support from his advisors, collaborators, and the students in his team. He also adds: “In the future, I look forward to collaborating with the journal Machines and other researchers in the community more closely, to create more innovative solutions to intelligent machines.”.

Dr. Ignacio Gonzalez-Prieto is currently a Juan de la Cierva Incorporacion researcher at the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Malaga (UMA), Spain. Dr. Ignacio Gonzalez-Prieto’s research interests include multiphase machines, wind energy systems, and electrical vehicles. He has been a research member with active participation in the research group ACE-TI (recognized by Junta de Andalucía with the denomination TIC 201) since September 2013. During his collaboration with ACE-TI, he published 38 JCR journal papers, with 27 of them located in the first quartile (Q1) according to the JCR index. Regarding the quality of his publications, a significant number of them (20) have been published in the first decile journals. A high impact on the area of multiphase electric drives has been generated as a consequence of his research activity (1387 citations, h-index=18 Google Scholar, h-index=16 WoS). He expressed his thanks to the Machines Evaluation Committee, his team and his family. He also adds, regarding scientific work: “Science is magic and we need to enjoy it!”.

Dr. Ning Sun is currently a Full Professor at the Institute of Robotics and Automatic Information Systems, College of Artificial Intelligence, Nankai University, China. His research interests include dynamics analysis and the advanced control of mechatronic/robotic/mechanical systems with applications in industrial systems. He has published more than 50 papers in prestigious journals and has had 18 Chinese invention patents granted. Moreover, he has been granted more than 10 research projects, including the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC)-Key Program and the National Key Research and Development Program of China. He has received several important awards, including the 2021 IEEE Outstanding Paper Award for the IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics. He says: “I am very grateful for the great efforts of the Award Evaluation Committee and the journal Editorial Office. In the future, I will continue efforts to develop the field of machines. I also wish the journal Machines every success.”.

We would like to thank all the nominees from various fields of study for their participation and all the Award Evaluation Committee Members for their evaluation of the many excellent nominations.

Machines 2022 Young Investigator Award is now open for nominations. Please apply online before 31 October 2022 at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/machines/awards/submit/1779.

Machines Young Investigator Award Evaluation Committee

Conference: The 30th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation (MED 2022)

Date: 28 June–1 July 2022

Venue: Divani Apollon Palace & Thalasso, Athens, Greece

Machines (ISSN: 2075-1702) will be attending the 30th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation (MED 2022) as an exhibitor and will be sponsoring a Best Paper Award. This meeting will take place from 28 June to 1 July 2022, at the Divani Apollon Palace & Thalasso seaside resort in Vougliameni, Greece.

MED 2022 is co-sponsored by the IEEE Control Systems Society (CSS), the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS), and the ICUAS Association, Inc.

The theme of MED 2022 centers on control and automation challenges and opportunities in the 21^st century and focuses on system design for autonomy and resilience in high-confidence cyber physical systems. The international conference committee is soliciting technical papers as well as inviting sessions, workshops, and tutorial proposals.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Machines;
• Systems;
• Robotics;
• Automation;
• Smart Cities;
• Applied sciences;
• Applied System Innovation (ASI);
• AI;
• Standards;
• Technologies;
• Big Data and Cognitive Computing (BDCC);
• Modelling.

If you are planning to attend this conference, please do not hesitate to start an online conversation with us. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions you may have. For more information about the conference and virtual booth, please visit the following website: https://www.med-control.org/med2022/.

We are pleased to announce the winner of the “Machines 2021 Best Cover Paper Award”. In total, 12 cover stories published in 2021 in Machines (ISSN: 2075-1702) were considered for this award.

The winning cover paper is:

“Functional Design of a Hybrid Leg–Wheel–Track Ground Mobile Robot”

by Luca Bruzzone, Mario Baggetta, Shahab E. Nodehi, Pietro Bilancia and Pietro Fanghella
(doi: 10.3390/machines9010010)

Vol. 9, Issue 1 (January 2021)

The winners of the “Machines 2021 Best Cover Paper Award” will receive CHF 100.

Congratulations to the winners for their excellent research!

Machines Editorial Office

Machines (ISSN: 2075-1702) will be attending the 5th IEEE—RAS International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft 2022) as an exhibitor and sponsoring a Best Poster Award. This meeting will be held virtually from 4 to 8 April 2022.

The 5th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Soft Robotics deals with the theme of “Soft Robots for the Planet”, presenting the most recent progress in the various fields of soft robotics and discussing new science, new technologies, and new opportunities for the design, development, and application of “green” soft robots for the Earth’s safeguarding, human healthcare, and the improvement of quality of life.

Recent environmental and medical emergencies have highlighted the key role of science and technology in helping humanity and the planet. Soft robotics, with its highly multidisciplinary scientific and technological character, has the potential to be a game-changer for these current global challenges and future ones.

If you are attending this conference, please do not hesitate to start an online conversation with us. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions you may have.

For more information about the conference and our virtual booth, please visit the following website: https://softroboticsconference.org/.

Conference: The 1st International Electronic Conference on Machines and Applications
Date: 15–30 September 2022
Website: https://iecma2022.sciforum.net/

We are pleased to announce that the 1st International Electronic Conference on Machines and Applications (IECMA 2022), chaired by Prof. Dr. Antonio J. Marques Cardoso, Prof. Dr. Dan Zhang and Prof. Dr. Giuseppe Carbone, will be held on Sciforum (https://iecma2022.sciforum.net/) from 15 to 30 September 2022.

The scope of this online conference is to get together renowned experts from around the world who are currently working on machinery and engineering and to provide an online forum for presenting and discussing new results.

Throughout this event, we aim to cover, among others, the following topics:

• Machines testing and maintenance;
• Automation systems;
• Mechatronic and intelligent machines;
• Turbomachinery;
• Electrical machines and drives;
• Advanced manufacturing.

There will be two special sessions:

• Vehicle dynamics and control;
• Friction and tribology.

There will also be a Poster session. Posters can be presented without an accompanying proceedings paper and will be available online on the conference website during and after the e-conference. However, they will not be added to the proceedings of the conference.

Participants will have the opportunity to examine, explore, and critically engage with issues and advances in these areas. We hope to facilitate discussions and exchanges within the community.

This event will solely be an online proceeding, which allows participation from all over the world with no concerns around travel and related expenditures. Participation as well as attendance of this online conference are free of charge.

The 1st International Electronic Conference on Machines and Applications (IECMA) will be held at https://iecma2022.sciforum.net/, on a platform developed by MDPI to organize electronic conferences.

The 1st International Electronic Conference on Machines and Applications (IECMA) is sponsored by MDPI and the scientific journal Machines (ISSN: 2075-1702), an Open Access publication journal of MDPI on machinery and engineering. Accepted papers will be published in the proceedings of this e-conference, and selected papers will be published in Machines with a 20% discount of the APC.

Conference name: 9th International Symposium on Sensor Science (I3S 2022)

Conference website: https://i3s2022warsaw.sciforum.net/

Date: 20–22 June 2022

Place: Warsaw, Poland

It is with great pleasure that we announce the 9th International Symposium on Sensor Science, to be held in Warsaw, Poland, from 20 to 22 June 2022.

Sensor technology has been shown to be suitable for applications in many important fields, including industrial applications, security medical diagnostics, and environmental monitoring. This international conference, supported by the Photonics Society of Poland, Warsaw University of Technology, as well as MDPI’s Sensors (ISSN: 1424-8220), will bring together scientists from different areas to discuss important recent developments in sensor technology. It will represent a great opportunity for an in-person meeting of an interdisciplinary community aiming to discuss important breakthroughs in sensor technology and its related fields.

The main topics of the conference include:

• Chemical sensors;
• Biosensors;
• Physical sensors;
• Optical/photonic sensors;
• Sensor applications;
• Specialty optical fibers for sensing;
• Materials, microfluidics, configurations and strategies for sensing;
• Distributed sensing in optical fibers;
• Amorphous materials for sensor applications.

We look forward to your participation in this exciting event.

Dr. Piotr Lesiak, Prof. Tomasz Woliński and Prof. Leszek Jaroszewicz
I3S 2022 Conference Chairs

Follow the conversation on Twitter with #I3S2022

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Matthias Meinke has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the newly established Section “Turbomachinery” in Machines (ISSN: 2075-1702).

Name: Dr. Matthias Meinke
Email: m.meinke@aia.rwth-aachen.de
Affiliation: Institute of Aerodynamics, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
Homepage: http://www.aia.rwth-aachen.de/en/der-lehrstuhl/abteilungsleitung/dr-ing-matthias-meinke/
Research Keywords: computational fluid dynamics; numerical methods for multiphysics; aeroacoustics; aerodynamics

Dr. Matthias Meinke received his M.Sc. (Dipl.-Ing.) and Ph.D. (Dr.-Ing.) degrees in mechanical engineering with honors from RWTH Aachen University in 1986 and 1993, respectively. After obtaining his Ph.D. degree, he became the head of the CFD group of the Institute of Aerodynamics of RWTH Aachen University. Since 1993, he has been teaching a Bachelor and Master course in computational fluid dynamics at RWTH Aachen University and has given lectures in various international universities, in Japan, Thailand, Kazakhstan, and Korea, to name a few. He is a reviewer for many international conferences and journals. Under his supervision, the CFD group is actively developing multiphysics simulation software, which will be published as an open-source project in 2022. He is the author of more than 150 journal articles, and at present, his Google Scholar h-index is 37.

The following is a short Q&A with Dr. Matthias Meinke, who shared with us his vision for the journal and 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 of its Section Editor-in-Chief?
The role of Editor-in-Chief is a responsible one, as it helps to guarantee a meaningful selection of topics for a journal and to ensure a high quality of publications. After having published many papers in the past myself, I hope that I can contribute with my experience as an editor.

2. What is your vision for the Section?
Turbomachinery contains many different fields of intertwined, complex physics. I would like to promote the publication of papers leading to an enhanced understanding of phenomena that are not yet understood, to support papers introducing new experimental or simulation techniques, which could be useful for other researchers, and finally to support new emerging topics in the field of turbomachinery.

3. What does the future of this field of research look like?
We are facing challenges such as global warming, which requires a reduction in the burning of fossil fuels. Therefore, I expect increased research in the field of operating turbines with alternative fuels, energy storage systems, and flexible operation of powerplants. Besides this, I expect topics such as digital twins, failure prediction, uncertainty quantification, and multiphysics modeling to become more important.

4. What do you think of the development of Open Access in the publishing field?
I am a big fan of publishing articles with open access, since this makes it much easier for all researchers to share their knowledge. I personally believe that more and more publishers will opt for Open Access publishing in the future.  

We warmly welcome Dr. Matthias Meinke in taking up his role as Section Editor-in-Chief, and we look forward to him leading Machines to many more milestones.

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Kai Cheng has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Section “Advanced Manufacturing” in Machines (ISSN 2218-273X). 

Prof. Dr. Kai Cheng holds the chair professorship in Manufacturing Systems at Brunel University London. His current research interests focus on ultraprecision and micro-manufacturing, design of high-precision machines, smart tooling, diamond tools, and sustainable manufacturing systems. Prof. Dr. Cheng has published over 200 papers in learned international journals and referred conferences, authored/edited 6 books, and contributed 6 book chapters.

Prof. Dr. Cheng is a fellow of the IET and IMechE. He is the Theme Leader of the Micro/Nano Manufacturing Theme at Brunel University London, which consists of 15 academics and over 50 Ph.D. students and research assistants/fellows. Prof. Dr. Cheng and his team are currently working on a number of research projects funded by the EPSRC, EU Programs, Innovate UK, KTP Programs and the industry. Prof. Dr. Cheng is the European editor of the International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology.

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Kai Cheng, who shared his vision for the journal with us, as well as his views on the research area and open access publishing:

1. What appealed to you about the journal that made you want to take on the role of Editor-in-Chief?

The journal is very dynamic and quite unique in the field of machines, which is increasingly important and iconic for advanced manufacturing. I am also keen to serve this field community better by taking this role.

2. What is your vision for the journal? What perspective do you think the Section “Advanced Manufacturing” will bring to the related fields?

My vision is that it should become a top leading international journal in precision machines and advanced manufacturing as well. The Section “Advanced Manufacturing” should play a key part in the journal, particularly related to machines applications, and provide continuous new drives for the R&D of next-generation machines.

3. As a researcher in advanced manufacturing, what valuable suggestions would you like to share with young scholars in terms of research topic selection?

The research topics and selection likely include high-precision machines, hybrid process machines, micro/nano application machines, robotic machines, smart machines, virtual machines, and digital twins.

4. What do you think of the development of Open Access in the publishing field?

I am very supportive of the development of Open Access in the publishing field, which is timely and in a fast-moving publishing area. It also reflects the publishing operations in a new business model and likely generates new opportunities as well.

We are pleased to announce the winners of the Best Student Paper Awards, sponsored by Machines (ISSN: 2075-1702, Impact Factor: 2.428 (2020)), for the International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition (IMECE), that was held online, from 1 to 5 November, 2021.

“Development of a Robust and Real-Time Thermal Deformation Prediction System for Machine Tool by Multi-Point Temperature”
by Shun Tanaka, Yuya Marukawa, Toru Kizaki, Kenichi Tomita, Shinji Tsujimura, Daisuke Noda, Hisashi Kobayashi and Naohiko Sugita.

The first-place awards are USD 500 and a 100% article processing charge (APC) waiver.

Second Place: USD 300 and a voucher for CHF 800

Third Place: USD 200 and a voucher for CHF 800

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Jose A Antonino-Daviu has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the newly established Section “Electrical Machines and Drives” in Machines  (ISSN: 2075-1702).

Name: Prof. Dr. Jose A Antonino-Daviu
Affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de València, 46022 Valencia, Spain
Email: joanda@die.upv.es
Website: https://www.upv.es/pls/oalu/sic_person.Info?p_alias=JOANDA&P_IDIOMA=i
Interests: electric motors; fault diagnosis; transient analysis; signal processing; wavelet analysis; infrared thermography; time–frequency transforms

Prof. Dr. Jose A Antonino-Daviu holds M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering, both received from the Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia, Spain, in 2000 and 2006, respectively. He has worked for IBM, where he was involved in several international projects. He is currently a Full Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de València. He was an Invited Professor at Helsinki University of Technology, Finland, in 2005 and 2007, Michigan State University, USA, in 2010, Korea University, South Korea, in 2014, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, France, and Coventry University, U.K., in 2016. He is a co-author of more than 200 papers published in technical journals and conference proceedings. He is also the co-author of one international patent.

Dr. Antonino-Daviu is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Journals Transactions on Industrial Informatics, Industrial Electronics Magazine and Emerging and Selected Topics in Industrial Electronics. He was granted the IEEE Second Prize Paper Award by the Electric Machines Committee of the IEEE Industry Applications Society (2013). He also received the Best Paper Award in the conferences IEEE ICEM 2012, IEEE SDEMPED 2011 and IEEE SDEMPED 2019, and the “Highly Commended Recognition” at the IET Innovation Awards in 2014 and in 2016. He was the General Co-Chair of SDEMPED 2013, and is a member of the Steering Committee of IEEE SDEMPED. He is also General Co-Chair of ICEM’2022 and a member of the ICEM Administrative Committee. In 2016, he received the Medal of the Spanish Royal Academy of Engineering (Madrid, Spain) for his contributions towards new techniques for predictive maintenance of electric motors. In 2018, he was awarded the prestigious “Nagamori Award” from the Nagamori Foundation (Kyoto, Japan). In 2019, he received the SDEMPED Diagnostic Achievement Award (Toulouse, France), for his contributions to the advanced diagnosis of electric motors.

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Jose A Antonino-Daviu, who shared his vision for the Section with us, as well as his views of the research area:

1. What attracted you to join the academic editorial team of Machines?

Machines is a journal that has gained an important relevance over recent years. One of the things that attracted me the most was the reputed researchers that act both as Editors-in-Chief and Associate Editors. Their excellent profile and serious work guarantee the quality of accepted papers. Moreover, the topics covered by the journal are certainly attractive, including a diversity of emerging areas that are drawing an increasing attention and that could be of special interest for young researchers.

2. What is your vision for the Section?

The Section is aiming to attract recent research on electrical machines and drives, focusing on methods that have a direct applicability in practice but not excluding other works with a more theoretical content that may have a practical application in the medium term. Most importantly, the crucial factor is to publish works with a high quality that bring novel contributions to the area and may be useful for other researchers in the field.

3. As an expert on electric machines, what valuable suggestions would you like to share with young scholars in terms of research topic selection?

There is not always the possibility of selecting the research topic but, if this is possible, I would suggest selecting areas in which researchers are able to develop solutions to real-world problems of today’s societies. Today, there is a need to give reliable responses to the necessities of different sectors of society. In my case, we have oriented our research to provide solutions to real problems in the industrial area, more specifically, those focused on reliable techniques and methods to determine electric motor and generator health.

We warmly welcome Prof. Dr. Jose A Antonino-Daviu to his new role as Section Editor-in-Chief, and we look forward to him leading Machines to many more milestones.

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.

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.

Machines (ISSN 2075-1702) is recruiting volunteer reviewers. The main responsibility of the reviewers is to regularly provide timely, high-quality reports on the submitted manuscripts. The responsibilities of the reviewers are available at https://www.mdpi.com/reviewers.

Peer review is an essential part in the publication process, ensuring that Machines maintains high quality standards for its published papers. We are striving to recognize the efforts of reviewers.

When reviewing for Machines you will:

• Receive a discount voucher code entitling you to a reduction in the article processing charge (APC) of a future submission to any MDPI journal. Vouchers are linked to your email address and can be applied online at submission or any time before acceptance. Note that vouchers cannot be used after an invoice has been issued. If your article is rejected, the voucher can be reused for your next submission;
• Receive a personalized reviewer certificate;
• Be included in the journal’s annual acknowledgment of reviewers;
• Be considered for the journal’s outstanding reviewer award;
• Build your profile on Publons and have your reviewing activity automatically added for participating journals. Publons profiles can also be integrated with ORCID.

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.

Machines (ISSN 2075-1702) will support and be attending the IMECE 2021 as a bronze sponsor. The conference will be held in virtual form and will take place from 1 to 5 November, 2021.

Meanwhile, Machines will be awarding three Best Student Paper Awards for the contributions on advanced manufacturing (submitted under topics 2-(1-17), 3-3, 4-16, 13-10 and 17-2) in ASME IMECE 2021. The top three winners will receive the following prizes:

• First Place: USD 500 and a 100% Article Processing Charge (APC) waiver;
• Second Place: USD 300 and a voucher for CHF 800;
• Third Place: USD 200 and a voucher for CHF 800.

All winners will receive an acknowledgment certificate and their achievements will be announced at IMECE (the time is to be confirmed in the final program). In addition, a voucher for CHF 300 will be granted for selected excellent papers. Please note that all the vouchers are only valid for the winner’s next submission in Machines. Detailed information can be found at https://event.asme.org/IMECE/Student-Programs/Best-Student-Paper-Competitions.

The International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE) is ASME's largest research and development conference. It is focused primarily on mechanical engineering, but encompasses perspectives from many engineering disciplines.

If you are attending this conference, please feel free to start an online conversation with us. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions you may have. For more information, please visit: https://event.asme.org/IMECE/Sponsor-Exhibit/Bronze-Sponsors/MDPI.

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.

The Annual Conference for the Society of Chinese Mechanical Engineering Biomanufacturing Division and the International Symposium on Bio-Manufacturing (ACBD-ISBM2023) will be held from 17 to 19 March 2023, in Beijing, China. The conference is organized by the Society of Chinese Mechanical Engineering Biomanufacturing Division, Beihang University, and co-organized by Tsinghua University, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, and Southeast University.

Symposia：

• Biomanufacturing and Regenerative Medicine;
• Bio-Bionic Manufacturing and Planting/Interventional Devices;
• Biosensor and Flexible Electronics Manufacturing;
• Multi-Scale Biomimetic Manufacturing;
• Micromanipulation and Minimally Invasive Instruments.
• Biological Modeling and Bio-3D Printing;
• Tissue and Organ Chip;
• Innovative Medical Devices and Biomaterials.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Bioengineering;
• Life
• Actuators;
• Applied Sciences;
• Biomimetics;
• Inventions;
• ASI;
• Machines.

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

This serves to announce to our valued authors based in Japan that value-added tax, or consumption tax will now be imposed on article processing fees and other service fees for all papers submitted, or resubmitted (assigned new paper IDs), effective from 15 August 2021. The change is in accordance with the Japanese "Act for Partial Revision of the Income Tax Act and Other Acts" (Act No. 9 of 2015), which includes a revision of consumption taxation on cross-border supplies of services such as digital content distribution.

For additional information from the National Tax Agency please see here ("Cross-border supplies of electronic services").

Contact: Setsuko Nishihara, MDPI Tokyo

The 2020 citation metrics have been officially released in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR)!

We are pleased to announce that 85 MDPI journals are included, of which:

• 10 journals received their first impact factor
• 96% of journals increased their impact factor from 2019
• 32 journals (38%) ranked among the top 25% of journals, in at least one category

* Journals given their first Impact Factor in 2021

Source: 2020 Journal Impact Factors, Journal Citation Reports ® (Clarivate, 2021)

Machines is recruiting Editorial Board Members for the following three new Sections:

- Electrical Machines and Drives;

- Micro/Nano Electromechanical Systems (MEMS/NEMS);

- Turbomachinery.

The main responsibilities of the Section Editorial Board Members are as follows:

1) Promoting this new Section on your social media or among your acquaintances;

2) Supervising the quality of the papers in this Section (when we have new submissions in the Section);

3) Acting as a/recommending a Guest Editor for a Special Issue on a topic related to your research interests;

4) Providing conference/society cooperation recommendations.

Machines (ISSN 2571-8789) is an open access, international journal on machinery, manufacturing, and engineering. It was launched in 2013 and has been indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE)—Web of Science, Scopus, and Inspec and will receive its first Impact Factor in June 2021. Its CiteScore is 4.5 (Scopus), which equals rank 136/596 (Q1) in the Mechanical Engineering, 78/336 (Q1) Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, 20/111 (Q1) Control and Optimization, and 12/69 (Q1) Computer Science (miscellaneous).

As we provide a low-cost publishing service in open access format, we, unfortunately, cannot pay our Editor Members an honorarium. The term of the membership is two years and after that period it can be renewed.

To apply for this position, please send your full academic CV and a short cover letter that details your interest and enthusiasm for the position to machines@mdpi.com.

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Dan Zhang has been appointed the Section Editor-in-Chief of the “Automation Systems” Section of Machines (ISSN 2075-1702).

Prof. Dr. Dan Zhang received his Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from Laval University in June 2000. He is a Kaneff Professor and the Tier 1 York Research Chair in advanced robotics and mechatronics with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Lassonde School of Engineering, York University. His research interests include robotics and mechatronics, high-performance parallel robotic machine development, micro/nanomanipulation, and MEMS devices, and rehabilitation robots and rescue robots. He has served as a member of Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Grant Selection Committee. He is a registered Professional Engineer of Canada; a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE), the Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering (CSME); a Senior Member of the SME and IEEE.

We warmly welcome Prof. Dr. Dan Zhang in his role as our Section Editor-in-Chief, and we look forward to him leading Machines to achieve more milestones.

Prof. Dr. Dan Zhang
Email: dzhang99@yorku.ca
Affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Lassonde School of Engineering, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada
Homepage: mech.lassonde.yorku.ca/dan-zhang/
Interests: robotics and mechatronics; high-performance parallel robotic machine development; sustainable/green manufacturing systems; micro/nanomanipulation and MEMS devices (sensors); micro mobile robots and control of multi-robot cooperation; intelligent servo control system for the MEMS-based high-performance micro-robot; web-based remote manipulation; rehabilitation robot and rescue robot

MDPI will be attending the China Instrument and Control Society Annual Meeting, which is to be held in Shanghai, China, on 27–29 August 2021. The conference invites experts and students who are engaged in the study of instrumentation to participate in an in-depth discussion on the basic research direction, technological innovation, and industrial path of the instrumentation discipline.

The following MDPI journals will be represented at the meeting:

• Sensors;
• Machines;
• ASI;
• Electronics;
• Photonics.

If you are attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth: C-01. Our delegates are looking forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit: http://meeting.cis.org.cn/.

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Antonio J. Marques Cardoso has been appointed as the Editor-in-Chief of Machines (ISSN ISSN 2075-1702).

Prof. Dr. Antonio J. Marques Cardoso received his Dipl. Eng., Dr. Eng., and Habilitation degrees from the University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal, in 1985, 1995 and 2008, respectively, all in Electrical Engineering. From 1985 until 2011, he was with the University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal, where he was Director of the Electrical Machines Laboratory. Since 2011, he has been with the University of Beira Interior (UBI), Covilhã, Portugal, where he is Full Professor at the Department of Electromechanical Engineering and Director of CISE—Electromechatronic Systems Research Centre (http://cise.ubi.pt). He was Vice-Rector of UBI (2013–2014). His teaching interests cover electrical machines, power electronics and drives, maintenance management, and fault diagnosis of electromechatronic systems, and his research interests are focused on diagnosis and fault tolerance of electrical machines, power electronics and drives.

He is the author of a book entitled Fault Diagnosis in Three-Phase Induction Motors (Coimbra, Portugal: Coimbra Editora, 1991), (in Portuguese), editor of a book entitled Diagnosis and Fault Tolerance of Electrical Machines, Power Electronics and Drives (IET/SciTech, UK, 2018), and also author of around 500 papers published in technical journals and conference proceedings.

Prof. Dr. Cardoso has spent two sabbatical years (2009/2010 and 2016/2017) at the Sapienza University of Rome (Italy), and he has also been an Invited Visiting Professor at several universities abroad: Vaxjo University, Sweden (2003, 2004, 2008), University of Vigo, Spain (2003, 2004 and 2005), University of Minas Gerais, Brazil (2006), University of Sciences and Technology of Oran, Algeria (2007), University of Tunis El Manar, Tunisia (2009, 2014 and 2016), Sapienza University of Rome, Italy (2007, 2008, 2009 and 2011), Universidad Autónoma de Occidente, Cali, Colombia (2011 and 2014), University Mohamed Khider, Biskra, Algeria (2012 and 2018), Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia (2015), Aalto University, Espoo, Finland (2015), Coventry University, Coventry, UK (2016, 2020), Technische Universitat Wien, Vienna, Austria (2017), INP-ENSEEIHT, Toulouse, France (2017) and Aalborg University, Denmark (2018).

He has been acting as European Union Expert Evaluator; Independent Scientific Expert of the Italian Ministry for Education, University and Research (MIUR); Independent Scientific Expert of the Polish Centre for Research and Development; Independent Scientific Expert of the University of Sharjah (United Arab Emirates); Independent Scientific Expert of the University of Agder (Norway); Independent Scientific Expert of the National Science Centre (Poland); External Consultant of the Universidad Autónoma de Occidente (Colombia); Independent Scientific Expert of the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portuguese Bational funding agency for science, research and technology).

We warmly welcome Prof. Dr. Antonio J. Marques Cardoso as our Editor-in-Chief and are confident that his experience and expertise will help Machines continue to grow.

Prof. Dr. Antonio J. Marques Cardoso
Affiliation: CISE—Electromechatronic Systems Research Centre, Department of Electromechanical Engineering, University of Beira Interior, Calçada Fonte do Lameiro, P - 6201-001 Covilhã, Portugal
Email: ajmcardoso@ieee.org
Interests: diagnosis and fault tolerance of electrical machines; power electronics and drives
Web: http://www.cise.ubi.pt/index.php?op=details&user=5

MDPI Books recently released Book Builder, a new online tool to conveniently arrange, design and produce an eBook from any content published in MDPI journals. Book Builder offers two functions: on the one hand (1) Selections, available to every registered user of MDPI; on the other hand (2) Special Issue Reprints, which can be used exclusively by Guest Editors of Special Issues.

Selections

In just a matter of a few clicks, all users are now able to assemble books from MDPI articles and receive instantaneous feedback in the form of a fully produced and compiled book (PDF), which can be downloaded or ordered as print copy. Selections can include any paper published with MDPI, picking and combining content from different journals and special issues.

This way, the user may for example choose to compile an ebook focusing around a particular topic, or assemble articles from a group of others.

We invite you to make yourself familiar with the new tool! The Book Builder can be found here: https://www.mdpi.com/books/book_builder.

Special Issue Reprints

The Book Builder allows Guest Editors of MDPI journals to create a reprint from a successfully completed Special Issue or Topical Collection in book format. If you are a Guest Editor for an MDPI journal, you can use the new tool  to create an PDF document which includes all articles published in the Special Issue as well as a book cover and table of contents.

For Special Issues containing a minimum of 5 articles, the Guest Editor can request its publication on the MDPI Book platform. Published reprints are assigned an ISBN and DOI.

In addition to the PDF copy of the Reprint Book, as a token of our gratitude, MDPI offers every Guest Editor one (1) complimentary print copy (via print-on-demand). All contributors benefit from a discount on orders of any additional print copies, to share with colleagues or libraries or others.

Why choose MDPI Books?

In line with our organization's values, MDPI Books publishes all content in open access, promoting the exchange of ideas and knowledge in a globalized world. MDPI Books encompasses all the benefits of open access—high availability and visibility, as well as wide and rapid dissemination. MDPI Books are distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution License, meaning as an author you retain the copyright for your work. In addition, with MDPI Books you can complement the digital version of your work with a high-quality printed counterpart.

If you are interested in editing a book volume or series, or have a monograph manuscript to be considered for publication, please submit your proposal online and look at our Information for Authors.

Contact: Laura Wagner, MDPI Books Manager (email)

In June of this year, MDPI will celebrate the 25th anniversary of its foundation. To mark this significant milestone, we have created a 25th Anniversary page on our website that evokes the development of our company over the past quarter-century.

MDPI has been a pioneer of Open Access publishing ever since the concept was first created.

In a wide-ranging interview, our CEO Delia Mihaila reflects on the company’s 25th anniversary and its contribution to the world of scientific publishing.

Delia considers how MDPI has evolved since starting life in 1996 as a visionary ‘project’ run out of an apartment in Basel, Switzerland, by Dr. Shu-Kun Lin. A chemist who was passionate about the long-term preservation of rare chemical sample, Dr. Lin was determined to help scholars publish their findings as quickly as possible and make their research results available to as wide a readership as possible worldwide. That determination remains unchanged 25 years later.

Today, MDPI is an international organization with over 4,000 employees based on three continents and in ten countries, and ranks among the world's top four academic publishers.

MDPI's mission is to accelerate access to new scientific research, delivering insight faster for researchers worldwide. Read more here about the company's remarkable success story and what the Open Access publishing model can offer the global scientific community.

To expand our contribution to the Mechanical Engineering community, Machines is recruiting scientists to join the Journal Board: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/machines.

Should you decide to serve on the Journal Board, you will be responsible for one or some of the following tasks:

• Reviewing a couple of manuscripts per year;
• Editing a Special Issue on a topic related to your research, plus making final decisions for submitted papers;
• Recommending timely topics and suggesting potential Guest Editors;
• Identifying appropriate conferences for Editors to attend;
• Promoting the journal.

Machines (ISSN 2571-8789) is an open access international journal on machinery, manufacturing and engineering. It was launched in 2013 and has been indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE)-Web of Science, Scopus, Inspec and will receive its first Impact Factor in June 2021. Its CiteScore is 3.2 (Scopus). Machines ranks 92/340(Q2) in the category “Engineering: Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering” and 184/585 (Q2) in the category “Engineering: Mechanical Engineering”.

As we provide a low-cost publishing service in open access format, we, unfortunately, cannot pay our Editor Members an honorarium. The term of the membership is two years and after that period it can be renewed.

We believe that your expertise, together with our rigorous editorial policies, can build a high-standard journal specifically dedicated to mechanical research. If you are interested in becoming a Journal Editor for Machines, please send your full academic CV and a short cover letter that details your interest and enthusiasm for the position to machines@mdpi.com before 31 August 2021.

At MDPI, we strive to make your online publication process seamless and efficient. To achieve this, our team is continuously developing tools and features to make the user experience useful and convenient.

As the number of academic papers continues to grow, so does the need to analyze and work with them on a large scale. This prompted us to design a new feature aimed at helping researchers find journals that are relevant to their publication by matching their abstract topic. In this regard, we designed a similarity model that automatically identifies the most suitable academic journals for your paper.

We are pleased to introduce Journal Selector, a new feature that measures similarity in academic contexts. By simply entering the title and/or abstract into our Journal Selector, the author will see a list of the most related scientific journals published by MDPI. This method helps authors select the correct journals for their papers, highlighting the time of publication and citability.

The methodology is known as representation learning, where words are represented as vectors in hyperspace. Representation helps us differentiate between different concepts within articles, and in turn, helps us identify similarities between them.

We used an advanced machine learning model to better capture the semantic meanings of words. This helps the algorithm make better predictions by leveraging scientific text representation. In turn, this ensures high precision, helping authors decide which journal they should submit their paper to.

The goal is to support authors to publish their work in the most suitable journal for their research, as fast as possible, accelerating their career progress.

Contact: Andrea Perlato, Head of Data Analytics, MDPI (email)

We are pleased to announce the establishment of ten new sections of Machines to cover the innovative technologies and applications in the following fields of mechanical engineering:

• Machines Testing and Maintenance;
• Automation Systems;
• Mechatronic and Intelligent Machines;
• Advanced Manufacturing;
• Machine Design and Theory;
• Industrial Design and Chemical Machinery;
• Vehicle Engineering;
• Energy and Power Engineering;
• Engineering Materials;
• Bioengineering Technology.

Machines (ISSN 2075-1702; CODEN: MACHCV) is an international peer-reviewed open access journal on machinery and engineering published quarterly online by MDPI. The IFToMM are affiliated with Machines and its members receive a discount on the article processing charges.

Machines is covered in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE)—Web of Science and will receive its first impact factor in 2021.

If you are interested in submitting a manuscript to the new sections mentioned above, please click here. To propose or request further information, please contact the Machines Editorial Office (machines@mdpi.com). We look forward to hearing from you.

To expand our contribution to the Mechanical Engineering community, we are recruiting scientists to join our Editorial Board.

We encourage applications from researchers with a background in a wide range of subject areas (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/machines/sections). Should you decide to serve on the Editorial Board, you would be responsible for some of the following tasks depending on your availability:

- Reviewing a couple of manuscripts per year;
- Editing a Special Issue on a topic related to your research, and making final decisions for submitted papers;
- Recommending timely topics and suggesting potential guest editors;
- Publishing one paper per year, free of charge, in open access format;
- Identifying appropriate conferences for editors to attend;
- Promoting the journal.

Machines (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/machines) is an international open access journal, led by the Editor-in-Chief Prof. Dr. Hamid Reza Karimi from the Politecnico di Milano, Italy. Machines is covered in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) – Web of Science and will receive its first impact factor in 2021.

As we provide a low-cost publishing service in open access format, we, unfortunately, cannot pay our Editorial Board Members an honorarium. The term of the Editorial Board membership is two years and after that period it can be renewed.

We believe that your expertise together with our rigorous editorial policies can build a high-standard journal specifically dedicated to mechanical research. If you are interested in becoming an Editorial Board Member for Machines, please send your full academic CV and a short cover letter that details your interest and enthusiasm for the position to machines@mdpi.com, before 10 March 2021.

MDPI is proud to adopt the principles of the Coalition for Diversity & Inclusion in Scholarly Communications (C4DISC) to support building equity, inclusion, diversity, and accessibility in scholarly communications.

The C4DISC represents organizations and individuals working in scholarly communications and is focused on addressing issues of diversity and inclusion within the publishing industry.

MDPI’s Managing Editors encourage the Editors-in-Chief and Associate Editors to appoint diverse expert Editorial Boards. This is also reflective in our multi-national and inclusive workplace. We are proud to create equal opportunities without regard to gender, ethnicity, geographic location, sexual orientation, age, disability, political beliefs, religion, or socio-economic status. There is no place for discrimination in our workplace and editors of MDPI journals are to uphold these principles in high regard.

Representatives from C4DISC meet monthly, and have started to implement initiatives to shed light and improve on the lack of diversity in scholarly communications. Some of the initiatives include developing a joint statement of principles; conducting market research; providing training resources, best practices, toolkits, and documentation for our collective memberships; and establishing outreach programs, curricula, events, and publications.

The Coalition is committed to:

• eliminating barriers to participation, extending equitable opportunities across all stakeholders, and ensuring that our practices and policies promote equitable treatment and do not allow, condone, or result in discrimination;
• creating and maintaining an environment that respects diverse traditions, heritages, and experiences;
• promoting diversity in all staff, volunteers, and audiences, including full participation in programs, policy formulation, and decision-making;
• raising awareness about career opportunities in our industries to groups who are currently underrepresented in the workforce;
• supporting our members in achieving diversity and inclusion within their organizations.

We are pleased to announce that Machines has switched to monthly publication. A monthly publication allows papers to be indexed in Web of Science and other indexing databases on a monthly basis rather than every 3 months, and they become searchable and are cited earlier.

At MDPI we have slightly revised the layout for articles to be published in the 2021 Volume, starting at the end of December 2020. As of today, the article templates available for download on ‘Instructions for Authors’ pages have been updated.

The most noticeable change can be found on the first page of the article, where a left-hand column has been created to include the following front matter elements: (i) the recommended citation style for the article, (ii) the publishing history, (iii) as well as the Creative Commons Attribution license used (iv) a standard note regarding affiliations. At the same time, the extra spacing on the left means the authors’ affiliations are now more clearly set apart than before. Other front matter key elements such as journal logo, article type, article title, authors, abstract and keywords remain unchanged.

The blank column on the left runs through all pages in an article; as a result, the main text is slightly more condensed, which improve reader friendliness for smaller screens. Small figures/tables are aligned on the left with standard indenture, while large figures/tables are centered and covering the full width of the page. The revised layout was applied in the article pictured below, to serve as an example:

1) Information is displayed in the left information bar.

2) In the main text, there is a blank column on the left.

3) Small tables/figures are aligned on the left, large tables/figures are centered.

We are pleased to acknowledge that many academic editors who have made an impact on MDPI journals as editorial board members, editors-in-chief, or section editors, are recognized as 2020 Highly Cited Researchers by Clarivate.

Highly Cited Researchers highlights the top 1% of researchers, by citations, in one or more of the 22 fields used in Clarivate Analytics Essential Science Indicators. We offer our congratulations to 279 academic editors of MDPI journals who were recognized as the most influential scholars in their fields in 2020.