Editorial Acknowledgement to Reviewers of Applied Sciences and Announcement of the 2017 Outstanding Reviewer Awards Winners Applied Sciences Editorial Office MDPI AG, St. Alban-Anlage 66, 4052 Basel, Switzerland Published: 18 January 2018 Peer review is an essential part in the publication process, ensuring that Applied Sciences maintains high quality standards for its published papers. In 2017, a total of 1314 papers were published in the journal. Thanks to the cooperation of our reviewers, the median time to first decision was 19 days and the median time to publication was 48 days. The following referees have been selected by the Editor-in-Chief of Applied Sciences, Prof. Dr. Takayoshi Kobayashi, to receive “Applied Sciences 2017 Outstanding Reviewer Awards” for the quantity, timeliness and quality of their reviews in 2017. Each of them will receive 500 CHF and a certificate for their outstainding work. (in alphabetical order by surname): Augusto Cannone Falchetto Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany Daniele Codetta-Raiteri Università del Piemonte Orientale, Italy Appl. Sci. 2018, 8, 133; doi:10.3390/app8010133 www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci Appl. Sci. 2018, 8, 133 2 of 52 Francesco Aletta University of Sheffield, UK Giuseppe Lazzara University of Palermo, Italy Xavier Chiementin Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne, France The editors would also like to express their sincere gratitude to the following reviewers for their time and dedication in 2017: Aa, Geruo Abdelkefi, Abdessattar Aarts, Ronald Abdel-Rahman, Mohammad J. Abaza, Osama A. Abdel-Salam, Mohamed Abbasi, Qammer Abdollahzadeh Jamalabadi, Mohammad Abbaszadeh, S. Yaghoub Appl. Sci. 2018, 8, 133 3 of 52 Abdolvand, Hamid Alam, Md. Mehboob Abdul-Aziz, Ali Alam, S.M. Shafiul Abe, Toshiyuki Alamaniotis, Miltiadis Abendroth, Bettina Alamdari, Nasrin Abeßer, Jakob Al-Amri, Mohammad Abhayapala, Thushara D. Alander, Jarmo Abouhossein, Alireza Albajez, Jose Antonio Abramovich, Haim Albergante, Luca Abreu, Antonio Albinet, Clément Abuzneid, Abdel-Shakour Albino, Fabien Acharya, U. Rajendra Albu, Mihaela Acho, Leonardo Alcarria, Ramon Ackermann, Sebastiano Alconero, Patricia Luis Adelmann, Benedikt Al-Dirini, Rami Aesoy, Vilmar Alehossein, Habib Afshinnia, Kaveh Aleixos, Nuria Agarwala, Shweta Alejo, David Aggelis, Dimitrios Aleluia Da Silva Reis, Lara Agrela, Francisco Alem, Mehdi Aguado, S. Alemberti, Alessandro Agudo, Antonio Alesanco, Alvaro Ahmad, Zeeshan Aletta, Francesco Ahmadi, Ali Alexandridis, Antonio Ahmadi, Mehdi Alexeev, Ilya Ahmadivand, Arash Alexis, Frank Ahmed, Farid Al-Fatimi, Mohamed Ahn, Changbum Ryan Alfieri, Vittorio Ahn, Hyeong-joon Alfonso, Pagani Ahniyaz, Anwar Ali Abbas Kazmi, Syed Ahrens, Jens Ali Tavallaei, Mohammad Aidong, Yang Ali, Aamer Aires, Alfredo Ali, Majid Ait-Ameur, Yamine Al-Jumeily, Dhiya Ajmone Marsan, Marco Allais, Florent Akanji, Lateef Alles, Erwin Jozef Akbarzadeh, Hamid Alluri, Nagamalleswara Rao Akhmediev, Nail Almajano, María Pilar Akhtar, Zahid Almansa, Francisco Akimov, Andrey Almeida, Aitor Akitsu, Tetsuya Almeida, Jose Aktakka, Ethem Alsina-Pagès, Rosa Ma Aktan, A. Emin Alt, Wolfgang Al-Abadi, Ali Altemimi, Ammar Appl. Sci. 2018, 8, 133 4 of 52 Altomare, Marco Appiah, Kofi Altstädt, Volker Aprea, Ciro Álvarez, J.D. Arafin, Shamsul Álvarez, José Ignacio Arani, Arvin Alves de Sousa, Ricardo J. Araoz, Joseph A. Alves, Thais Araujo, Filipe Alves, Tiago Archbold, Paul Alvioli, Massimiliano Arcifa, Andrea Aly, Aly Mousaad Ardid, Miguel Ambro, Lubos Ardigò, Luca Ameli, Alireza Argia, Katsuhiko Amemiya, Kenta Argitis, Panagiotis Amirkhani, Masoume Argüello, Francisco Amiruzzaman, Md Arie, Ady Ampatzidis, Yiannis Aristodemo, Francesco Amritkar, Amit Aritsugi, Masayoshi Amundarain, Aiert Ariyur, Kartik An, Alicia K.J. Armada, Manuel An, Jinwoo Armaroli, Andrea Anagnostopoulos, Costas A. Armenta, Sergio Anastasiou, Eleftherios Arnold, Bob Andersen, Jens Christian Arnold, Walter Andersen, Rasmus Elbæk Arribas, Javier Anderson, Travis M. Arriola, Aitor Ando, Bruno Arroyo, David Andreaus, Ugo Arroyo, Javier Andreoli, Enrico Arrue, Begoña C. Andrés-Valeri, Valerio C Arshadi, Amir Andriolli, Nicola Artese, Giuseppe Angani, Chandra Sekhar Arvanitis, Konstantinos Angelastro, Andrea Arvapally, Ravi Kumar Ankarali, Mustafa Mert Aryan, Pouria Ankiewicz, Adrian Arzt, Andreas Annamdas, Venu GM Asadi, Ehsan Anseán, D. Asghari Oskoei, Mohammadreza Antonarakis, Alexander Asghari, Hossein Antoni, Jerome Askari, Mohsen Antoniou, Angeliki Asorey-Cacheda, Rafael Antonopoulos, Angelos Assad, Syed Aoude, Hassan Assante, Dario Aparicio, Joaquín Ataman, Çağlar Aphale, Sumeet S. Atencia, Jesús Appell, Michael Athanasiadou, Georgia Appl. Sci. 2018, 8, 133 5 of 52 Athanasiou, Christos Bakker, Tim Athanasiou, Lampros Bakopoulos, Paraskevas Athanassiadou, Maria Balandraud, Xavier Atluri, Pavan Balart, Maria Attik, Nina Balasingam, Balakumar Attoh-Okine, Nii O. Baldo, Nicola Au, Chi Kit Baldomir, Aitor Au, Man Ho Bali, Shilpa Audette, Gerald F. Baltazar, João Aurangzeb, Qazi Bamiedakis, Nikos Auvray, Xavier Bamonte, Patrick Avakian, Artjom Banchero, Mauro Avallone, Francesco Bandi, Chaithanya avarro Lorente, Pedro Javier Bandyopadhyay, Sulalit Avdelidis, Nicolas P Baradad, Vicenç Parisi Averbukh, Moshe Baraldi, Piero Axelsson, Östen Baranov, Denis Ayers, Paul Barazzetti, Luigi Azar, Amin S. Barbancho, Ana M. Azarbayejani, Mohammad Barbarino, Mattia Azevedo, N. Monteiro Barbero, Monica Azimi, Mohsen Barbot, Jean Francois Aziz, Muhammad Bardella, Paolo Azoug, Aurelie Barez, Fred Babaee, Mohammadreza Bari, Vlasta Babu, Ramesh Barichello, Tatiana Bacco, Davide Barnes, Frank S. Bacenetti, Jacopo Baronio, Fabio Bach, Christian Barreiro García, Joaquín Bacsa, Wolfgang Barretta, Raffaele Bader, Markus Barry, Carol Bae, Euiwon Barry, Oumar Bae, Youngchul Barshtein, Gregory Baer, Thomas Barthelemy, A. Baghaie, Ahmadreza Bartolini, Ilaria Bahramipanah, Maryam Barua, Bipul Bain, Greg Baruwa, Olatunde T. Baino, Francesco Başağaoğlu, Hakan Bairán, Jesús Miguel Basanta Val, Pablo Baker, Ian Basaran, Cemal Baker, James Bashirzadeh Tabrizi, Amir Baker, Thar Basit, Munshi Mahbubul Baker, Tim Basso, Gianluigi Lo Appl. Sci. 2018, 8, 133 6 of 52 Bastani, Hamed Benim, Ali Cemal Bastos, Alexandre Bento, Rita Nogueira Leite Basu, Anirban Bérardan, David Bathrellos, George D. Berardi, Luigi Battez, A. Hernández Berardi, Valentino Paolo Batzelis, Efstratios Berardino, Santino Baumann, Felix W. Béreaux, Y. Bauwens, Pieter Bergada, J.M. Baxter, Gareth Berge, Franz Bayat, Mehdi Bergmann, Neil Beckert, Steffen Berisha, Sebastian Beckwith, Andrew Walcott Bermudez, Maria Bedini, Stefano Bernardi, Sara Bedon, Chiara Bernardino, Jorge Beer, Martin Bernasconi, Marco Beganovic, Nejra Bernier, Monique Behera, Ardhendu Berretti, Stefano Behnia, Arash Berselli, Giovanni Behnood, Ali Berta, Graziella Belardini, Elisabetta Bertanza, Giorgio Bełdowski, Piotr Bertocci, Francesco Belfiore, Nicola P. Bertrand, Martine Belic, Domagoj Beskhyroun, Sherif Bell, Carl-Martin Beszteri, Bank Bella, Federico Bevilacqua, Maurizio Bella, Guido Di Bhagwat, Swanand M. Bellessa, Joel Bhowmik, Arnab Belletti, Beatrice Bhuyian, Md Nasir Uddin Bellido, Francisco J. Bian, Dayi Bellini, Costanzo Bianchi, Francesco Belloch, Jose Antonio Bigall, Nadja Bellos, Evangelos Billaud, Juliette Beltrán, José Ramón Bilotta, Giuliana Beltrán, Sagrario Binder, Wolfgang Benato, Alberto Birch, John Benatti, Simone Birkett, Martin Bencardino, Francesco Biserni, Cesare Bencivenga, Filippo Bishay, Peter Bendahmane, A. Bitou, Yoichi Benedetti, Ivano Biwa, Tetsushi Benenson, Itzhak Blanche, Pierre-alexandre Benetos, Emmanouil Blayo, Anne Benetti, Massimiliano Blázquez, Dr. Miriam Mba Appl. Sci. 2018, 8, 133 7 of 52 Bleeck, Stefan Bovenga, Fabio Bo Stuart, Matthias Bowen, James Boada, Maria Jesus Lopez Bowen, Patrick K. Bocci, Edoardo Boyacı, Burak Boddy, Christopher N. Bradford, Russell Boetti, Nadia Giovanna Bradley, Evan D. Bogdan, Paul Braham, Andrew Bohlin, Alexis Branchini, Lisa Bohutskyi, Pavlo Branco, Ricardo Boland, Frank Brandt, Milan Bolz, Sebastian Brant, Jonathan A. Bonali, Fabio Luca Breitkopf, Cornelia Bonfiglio, Andrea Bremer, Jörg Bonì, Roberta Brenna, Marco Bonin-Font, Francisco Brenner, Joseph E. Boquete, Luciano Brevik, Eric C. Borboni, Alberto Brigham, Katharine Bordoni, Massimiliano Bright, Benjamin C. Borge-Diez, David Brischetto, Salvatore Borges, João P.M.R. Broatch, Alberto Borghetti, Brett Brockman, Robert A. Borla, Oscar Brodie, Joseph Borlaug, David Brójo, Francisco Boscariol, Paolo Bronzino, Francesco Boschker, Jos Brosseau, Christian Bose, Sumanta Brouwers, Jos Boselli, Marco Brown, Steve Bosia, Federico Brown-Steiner, Benjamin Bosse, Sascha Bruckner, Gudrun Bossi, Giulia Bruna, Arcangelo Botre, Francesco Brunesi, Emanuele Botsis, John Brunner, Andreas Botta, Federico Brusaporci, Stefano Botta, Marco Brutti, Alessio Böttger, Diana Buccella, Concettina Boubchir, Larbi Bucchi, Francesco Boudjemai, Abdelmadjid Buch, Anders Glent Bouhouras, Aggelos S. Bugajski, Maciej Bouk, Safdar Hussain Bumgardner, Joel D. Boumerzoug, Zakaria Bunge, Christian-alexander Bouquillon, Sandrine Burger, Birgitta Bouras, Christos Burlakovs, Juris Bouwmans, Thierry Burns, John Appl. Sci. 2018, 8, 133 8 of 52 Burrascano, Pietro Cannistraro, Giuseppe Busquets, Maria Antònia Cannone Falchetto, Augusto Butcher, Thomas Canulescu, Stela Butt, Javaid Cao, Hung Byl, Nancy N Cao, Siyang Bystrov, Aleksandr Cao, Yue Cabeza, Luisa F. Cao-Paz, Ana María Cabral, João M.G. Capata, Roberto Cabrales, Luis Capello, Elisa Cabrera, D Capra, Alessandro