texts: My former prof switched university and now I can't ask him in person for a LOR - should I try to see him?

texts:
My former prof switched university and now I can't ask him in person for a letter of recommendation - should I try to see him in person? I've read on here that asking him via email might not be the best approach.

I could travel to that city - I have a friend living there - but it's not close and I am not sure how important it is I see him in person. I also don't want to annoy my professor with this, so I'm not sure.

The problem is only that it's been 2 years since I studied with him, and I did not do research with him, just submitted an excellent essay. So I think it would probably be good to remind him a bit of who I am. What would you advise me to do?

edit: It's not a duplicate of Should I ask my professor by email or in person, I'm asking whether travelling to that professor in order to see him in person is overkill.


texts: Should a mid-career faculty application include a letter from the former PhD advisor?

texts: I have been in a tenure-track position in 5-6 years and I am applying to positions in other universities, including tenured positions. For the list of references, should I include my former PhD advisor? I have some other good names to include and also I have a good relationship with the former advisor. I was wondering the pros and cons of including/excluding the former advisor in the list of reference.


texts: Independent Research and institutional review boards?

texts: If I am conducting independent research (ie no university affiliation), do I need to worry about institutional review board (IRB) approval, if I am working in a field where it is normally required?


texts: GRE exams for those seeking a Masters in Computer Science

texts:
Since the Computer Science GRE exam was dropped, I have to take the normal GRE exam (sighs).  I've looked at a few sample questions, and it's something I'm just not good at.  I have a Bachelors in Computer Science with a 3.1 GPA (out of 4.0)  I have two core questions:

How well do I have to do to get accepted into most decent universities for a Masters in Computer Science?
What is the best way to study and practice for GRE exams for a C.S. major?

UPDATE (02/18/2015):

I got my scores in for GRE. Verbal: 153, Quantitative: 160, Essays: 4.0. I'm not sure how good this is or not yet.

I studied for about 4 months. First 2 months it was little studying every week. The third month was studying every other everyday. The first 2 weeks of the 4th month studying everyday. The last 2 weeks were heavy studying.


texts: Is it ethical to have two (undergraduate) researchers in the same group "compete" against one another for leadership/credit of a research study?

texts:
When I was previously an undergraduate research assistant in a small lab group (seven members), there was a situation where the PI had pitched a research study idea to multiple students independently, with none of us knowing that the others had been told about the idea. The PI encouraged each one of us to go off on our own and pursue the idea, try to make some progress, and eventually come back to them with a better idea of how to approach the project (perhaps even some preliminary results).

I only found out a few weeks later that the PI had pitched the idea to multiple students when a discussion with the other students shifted towards current projects and ideas. As we talked, one student mentioned that the PI had told them about "a new idea for a research study" and that they "had devoted quite a bit of time making progress on the study." That research study happened to be the same one that I was pitched by the PI, and one that I had also spent considerable time working on recently.

The PI had told me that good work on this project could lead to a potential conference presentation and/or journal publication, and I was keen on making good progress. However, finding out that I wasn't the only person in the research group working independently on the idea made me feel like I was unfairly placed into a competition I wasn't even aware of. I could have invested plenty of time into the research project, only to discover that a colleague had already finish more than I had and, therefore, made my progress effectively worthless.

I'm curious what members of the academic community think about the ethics of this. Is it ethical to pit people in the same group against one another on a project, with the credit going to the one that finishes better and/or faster? Do the ethics of this change when the students aren't told that there are others working on this?

In this case, I happened to be an undergraduate research assistant while the other was a master’s student, but I'm wondering if this matters. At the time, we were both paid members of the lab, but I've heard about similar situations where one/both people were volunteer undergraduates working for free.

One part of me says that I was entitled the fair opportunity to work on the project knowing that I would receive due credit for any findings I made. But another part of me says that this is the nature of academia, and I should learn to thrive in situations like these.


texts: Are there enough academic jobs for geometric measure theorists?

texts:
I am considering focusing on Geometric Measure Theory, and I want to stay in academia.

Some of my colleagues told me that there are fewer and fewer people doing GMT in the US, which would result in fewer and fewer jobs for GM theorists.

Questions:

Do math departments still hire GM theorists?
Is it true that the number of positions is declining?


texts: Fired from TA position without cause/notice, what to do next?

texts:
I am a post-doc in the USA and was a teaching assistant in the same university. During my TA appointment, I attended a one-week course outside the city. Prior to leaving, I got permission from the head TA, e-mailed the course instructors, and got one of my colleagues to cover my class and office hours.

One day before my return, I got an email from the instructors asking why I was absent from the classes. I apologized and explained everything, but they were furious. A week later, I got an email that I was terminated. No reason was given, and I got no reply to my e-mails. I even called HR and got nowhere, but was told that I would be financially compensated.

I feel that this was unfair, particularly since another TA had done exactly the same thing and nothing happened to her. I do not think they should get away with this. My research PI wants to get involved since he thinks I was not treated fairly. What should I do next?

UPDATE: I took permission from the head of TA.. instructors told us in the orientation that she is the one in charge. I had one of my colleague who did the same and was not fired! I got one of my fellow TAs to cover my discussion section in exchange to cover her grading which I did! They treated me unfairly as I told them even to take the salary from me for that week. When I mentioned that another colleague did the same and I feel I am biased against, they did not reply. I asked her and she also took the permission from the head of TAs. I do not want money from them but this might show up on my record in the future and I never had any red flags in my resume and I feel I am discriminated against!


texts: How do you make sure you don't plagiarize unintentionally?

texts:
Forgive my complete newbieness, but I truly don't to know the answer to this question.
If you decide to write a scientific paper for possible publication in a conference/journal (in engineering, for instance), you'd obviously need to choose a subject that adds something new to the status quo, but then, in doing so, you very certainly will have to tap into the existing research too. And as I understand, most publishing organization have access to special search engines that helps them identify plagiarism.
So where does the line between plagiarism and authentic work lie exactly? Stated otherwise, how do you avoid "unintentional plagiarism" so that the paper you submit doesn't look like you essentially copied existing work? What is considered new and authentic work? Because I have seen many many articles published by IEEE, for example, (especially conference papers) where the original/new contribution was very slight (like a 'new' model/technique that modifies ever so slightly a previous one), isn't this considered plagiarism?


texts: What's the ethics of (paid) proof-reading college admission essays?

texts:
A friend of mine is looking for undergraduate or graduate students in the US to proof-read college admissions essays from high school students back in my home country. There will be pay, but the proof-reader can also do it pro bono. Given that the students are not native English writers, "proof-reading" means more than spell-checking, and more like writing coach.

I have always felt torn about this. If I help a student, doesn't it make it unfair to others? This is especially serious because in college admissions essays, the story and the voice of the essay matter a great deal. In contrast, paid proof-reading of graduate dissertation is much more justified, because the make-or-break factor is the scientific substance, not the prose.

On the other hand, perhaps this a trivial matter compared to all the other unfairness that the admission process entails e.g. test prep, going to a good high school, or even being born to a better parents.

Thus, I want to ask how admission officials think about this? And does the argument change in any way if pay enters the equation?


texts: Do most Mathematics Phd programs accept class credit from a masters program to transfer?

texts: I'm considering entering into a terminal masters in mathematics program. I was wondering if after completing the masters, if most US PhD programs will accept the masters graduate classes I took as valid credits or make me re-take the courses at my new PhD institution.


texts: Using an English or French presentation to a French talk?

texts:
I'll be defending my Ph.D. this October. I submitted my dissertation in English and prepared an English presentation, but my supervisor along with the jury members surprised me by saying the defense speech cannot be in English and must be in French (“since we are from a country that has the second language is French”). Actually, they don’t mind an English report. In fact, they are very proud of the report.

So my question is, what would be suitable in this situation, keep the presentation in English and talk in French, or, I will change the presentation to French since I talk in French?


texts: When should cited author names be included in the substantive, rather than parenthetical, part of a citing sentence?

texts:
To give credit where credit is due I strive to make it clear where ideas of others, which I use/refer to in my papers/work, are from. For this I cite and quote and this question is about the correct form to do so. Unfortunately I lack the words to describe the problem and like to give two examples.

  There is this idea (Person(s) 1984).

  It has been this idea of Person(s) (1994).

While I know that it is possible to use (1.) form I often also encounter the cases in which I would rather prefer to phrase it in the style of (2.) in which the Person(s) cited appear as an actual word of the sentence. Now this is where I am lost what to do with the year of the actual cited paper/book/etc of this Person(s).

The question therefore:

Is it possible/legitimate/"okay" to refer to previous works/others by telling about those people directly inside of a sentence (meaning appearing as a part of the sentence)?

additionally:

if yes, how?

if no, reason why not possible/"okay"?


texts:
As far as I know, international students can't  work off-campus in the USA (according to the law). What about Google AdSense?

I have been working on my personal websites and I have activated AdSense on these websites. I have been getting paid in my native country and Google sends the payment to my local bank account.

Could I link my US bank account after I reach there? Will it be considered as off-campus job?


texts: What is a social strategy I can use to respond to "How's your PhD going?"

texts:
I was surprised when starting my PhD as to how much I get asked this question and how much I fail at answering it. Whenever I attempt an answer, I fumble around and the subject immediately changes after. If I state exactly how it's going, the stress of publishing and intensity of the program comes off overly negative. If I state what I'm working on, I either lose them or bore them.

What's a good social strategy to respond to this question?


texts:
I submitted a research paper to a journal on 30th July 2015 and its status went 'under review' on 19th August 2015. I did not receive any communication from the journal, so I sent a gentle reminder on 11th Dec. 2015. Unfortunately I did not receive any response again. I then waited until 29th Jan 2016 and sent a reminder email again. Fortunately, the editor replied with "Your paper has been partially reviewed and we are waiting for remaining reviewers' response." The editor assured me that they will encourage the reviewer to submit the response.

Now, the status of the paper has changed from "Under review, date 19th Aug. 2015" to "Under review, date 2nd Feb. 2016".

I do not know what should I comprehend from this change in date?


texts: Expounding implementation details of a paper and provide a full computational analysis

texts:
Recently I've implemented a pipeline given from a paper, there are three main steps two of these are offline and the third one is real time. The real time part was particularly difficult to implement, and mainly because of lack of details. More specifically the problem was the authors provided a function and they said "we minimize this function". The problem with that is that is wasn't explained how they actually solved the problem and I had in the first place work out all the mathematical details by myself. I've done a detailed analysis that wasn't provided by the original paper, like predicting solution in some cases, computational complexity. Given that this algorithm was real time then this analysis can be useful for whoever would like to implement it.

The question is, given a paper that tells you "we solved our problem using this and we have obtained these numbers" can be worth publishing all the analysis that can theoretically justify those numbers?

In my mind this could also be useful for validation purpose of whoever wants to implement it.

Also, it would be nice to have some example of this if it happens.


texts: Is it acceptable to use MS Equation 3.0 for a journal paper?

texts:
The title sums it up pretty well. I'm using MS Word to write a paper I intend to publish in a SCI journal. It will contain ~15 equations (non-trivial ones: integrals, sums, fractions, special characters, etc.). I'm fairly efficient in Word, but have absolutely no experience using LaTeX.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm under the impression that once a paper is accepted, it is edited to conform with the journals publishing style, as opposed to some conferences, I attended, which provide a pre-formatted Word document in which I have to place my work before applying to the conference. As the journal provides no such template (but accepts .doc format), I was wondering if there could emerge any issues regarding the equations.

PS: the field is computer science


texts:
I'm going to graduate with a physics degree at the end of next year (around December). I want to do my PhD in Europe, but I know that the academic year starts in September, and I don't think I can finish before that.

Is it uncommon to begin work at the start of the year (February, March) rather than the usual date? Does that lower my chances of getting in to most universities? I mean, I'd have to tell them that I won't be able to go until the next year, and that seems pretty unorthodox. Maybe there's some people that won't have a problem with that, but I imagine they'll be in the minority. I'd probably lose the spot to someone that can start in August/September, wouldn't I?

What should I do? I don't think taking 6 months off is a good idea, and I definitely won't have any more courses or finals by that time.


texts: Is it unethical to take a photograph of my question sheets from a sit-down exam I've just finished if I am not allowed to take them home?

texts:
Last semester I've retaken a course and went through the exam. It was a sit-down exam and all students were present. All students are required put their possessions (phones, cameras, etc.) in their bags and put their bags in front of the room.

The students were not allowed to take the question sheets home.

As I was retaking the course, I feel the need to take a documentation to review my answers and to understand the problems better. So AFTER the exam was finished, I take my bag, grab my camera, and then I asked the supervisor (as the lecturer was not present at the site) whether I was allowed to take a photograph or not while gesturing to show my camera (which I had just taken out of my bag). It was denied and I complied without complaining.

Then I told my friend about that incident. He was quite surprised that I complied with that. He told me that he would take the photograph anyway for his advancement in learning, which he said it would be for the greater good but I can't actually spread / redistribute them as it would break the concept of exam itself.

The usual practice in my campus is that if the question sheets are allowed to be taken home, some students would scan and put them into a compilation and share them to the younger students to study and ponder upon as they will get different sets of questions.

Other than that, students that absent at the exam can take it at a different appointed time with a different set of questions.

So I'm stumped whether I should have taken the photograph or not. I thought it was unethical to take it if taking the sheet home is prohibited, but then my friends thought made me reconsider. If I took the photograph I would not create an unfair advantage for those who took the exam at a different date (if there are any) anyway.

PS: I'm sorry if I attracted heated discussions. And I think there is a misconception here. I don't intend to question the rule itself or trying to deceive myself. I only want to know how ethics and etiquette work as I was quite an anti-social from my childhood and I want to start learning about social life. I also didn't intend to redistribute the photograph at that moment.

PS2: My campus was located in Indonesia. I hope this will help to consider the problem at hand

PS3:
The rule was actually enforced by the Department. It would also be enforced to graduate students (and to postgraduate students IF they have any sit-down exams) . My friend which I mentioned above was in fact a graduate student.

The guidelines mentioned not to ask "Undergraduate-specific issues that could not apply to graduate or post-graduate academicians". As this question is also applicable to (at least) graduate students, I think this question is quite appropriate for Academia SE. But if it's still deemed as an inappropriate question by many and was closed because of it, then I'll just accept the closure.


texts: Disadvantages to publishing outside field of projected study?

texts:
As a recent B.S. recipient interested in pursuing a PhD in molecular biology in the future, are there any disadvantages to publishing outside of that field? I have a strong background in computer science and have been approached separately by a public health professor and a linguistics professor who are interested in collaborating on their respective projects and perhaps working towards a paper over the summer.

While I enjoy solving computational problems, I'm not sure whether this is a good idea professionally. Does publishing papers in other fields take away from the research I've already done?  I've so far only contributed to two papers in my "field of expertise".

What are the downsides to collaborating on a paper outside of one's field? Is this frowned upon by the academic community/graduate admission programs?

Related question -- advantages to publishing outside of primary research field


texts: Latest time to reverse a declined PhD offer

texts:
Got two PhD offers from universities A and B (in US) and chose B. Because I'm working towards my master's at B, I soon got involved in some research work here. However, the experience turned to be disappointing. I'm now regretting my choice and thinking of contacting school A to see if there's still chance to get that offer back. But:

1) The normal deadline to make the decision (on student's end) is April 15. Now it's already summer, how much chance is still there? I assume that A has most likely finished everything about admission.

2) My current professors at B are well-known in the field and have been very nice to me. After I decided they've also gotten me involved in a number of future plans. Moreover, I've informed a bunch of relevant professors (even including those at A) who asked of my final decision. Would changing my mind this late heavily ruin my credit and academic career?

I feel like at this late stage, simply asking would mean I'm determined for a change, so I would not simply send an inquiry email without figuring out the potential risks...


texts: Asking the Managing Editor for Manuscript Update

texts: I submitted the 3rd and final revision of my manuscript last 3 weeks ago, however, it is not yet sent for review. I know that sometimes manuscripts take time to be reviewed but this one is quite strange for me. For the past 2 revisions, the paper was immediately sent for review. The last submission (R2) was only reviewed by the Associate Editor and has a very minor comment. I am hesitant to ask the Managing Editor about the progress of my manuscript. How long should I wait before I could email and ask the Managing Editor? Any advice.


texts: Are the conferences organized by WASET legit or some type of scam?

texts:
Searching through websites dedicated to collect upcoming scientific conferences, I have stumbled upon a lot of similar-sounding conferences around the world (e.g., see here), all organized through the "World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology", WASET. There is plenty of information about them on their respective websites, as the organizing committee, speakers already confirmed, etc.
This high quantity of similarly-titled conferences smells fishy. Is this some sort of scam, be it hard (they steal your money) or soft (lectures are actually given, without any real effort to look for relevant speakers, do peer-review, etc.)? Can anyone shed some light on this? Has someone here actually participated in, or even organized one of those?


texts: How to ask to review for a specific conference or journal?

texts: I have been invited to review technical content in the past. However, if I want to be part of review process for specific conference/journal – how do I go about and suggest my availability?


texts: Does it matter how many Nth authors there are on a literature review?

texts:
I am a student hoping to kick start my research career (biochemistry). I hope to start a PhD in the coming months and in the meantime have drafted a review which I hope to submit in the next few weeks.
I was wondering if it is important how many second/third/etc authors there are on the paper? At the moment I would have had 3 other people contribute/proof-read my review (including our PI), and potentially a 4th. When it comes to job hunting later on, or becoming a reputable researcher, would they check to see how many other authors worked on this review, or would it only matter that I am first author and the quality of the paper itself? In other words, is the lower the number of authors on a review the better, or does it not matter?


texts: How to encourage students to work more carefully and independently?

texts: One of the challenges of advising students is working with students whose "quality control" expectations do not agree with that of the advisor. When such mismatches occur, how do we encourage them to provide "better" quality work. Note that it's not the number of hours being worked the concern, but rather issues like returning a marked-up manuscript with half of the important suggestions left unaddressed, or leaning too much on the advisor or more senior members of the group for help.


texts:
Context: Graduate has a third in their undergraduate degree from a world leading university on a notoriously difficult course (Cambridge mathematics BA) and wants to apply for postgraduate study elsewhere on a slightly tangential course (taught theoretical physics MSc). Assume that the student has the capacity to cope with postgraduate study and is able to fund themselves (i.e. had some non-academic circumstances that led to the third).

Are there any such MSc courses out there in the UK that would consider an applicant with a third? Would such an application be competitive? Does the fact that it's Cambridge maths help, or worsen the issue? What could be done to improve the chances of finding a place?

And feel free to add anything else that may be relevant but isn't covered by the questions above.

Thanks in advance!


texts: How to get specific guidance from busy advisor?

texts:
I need to graduate this semester, my master's project is far behind schedule, and I'm not getting the guidance I want from my advisor. How can I work with him to handle this productively?

I have to defend my thesis in two months because my funding will be gone after this semester. I have zero data because my project is computer-based and involves an initial stage of bringing a simulation into equilibrium, after which we can get usable results. I've been working on this preliminary phase since June and it's still far from our "usable" threshold. In the meantime, I've been working on everything I can do without final data (practicing trial analyses, writing a literature review and methods section).

I'm getting only vague guidance from my advisor, who is admittedly very busy. He has a large research group, administrative responsibilities and outside collaborations, so I certainly understand that my project can't be his first priority. He told me that I have to graduate this semester. I've kept him updated about the project status and my current steps, and he says that is all "fine" and I'm doing the right things, but that it's impossible to predict when the simulation might work, and "that's just how research is." I've expressed my concerns more than once, and he's typically responded by telling me not to "over-think things" and not to "freak out." At our most recent meeting, I said that I doubt the simulation will be working in the next few weeks and asked what I should do in that case--he said "you still have two months, we'll just have to see what happens."

My advisor is well-established and respected in his field. He has a strong track record of graduating students, and he's certainly more experienced and knows much more about research than I do. I should trust him when he says everything is fine, but it doesn't seem fine to me. I can't realistically expect everything to start working in the next few weeks when I've made insufficient progress for eight months so far. I have no backup plan for what to do without the data.

How can I express my concerns so that my advisor will listen? How can I do better at getting specific guidance?

Edit to update:
I did reach out to other students and postdocs for help on the technical issues, and I've been doing that since June as well.

Edit for how it all turned out:
I talked again with some other students, and came up with a new strategy. My advisor was a little skeptical but agreed we could try it. Luckily the new approach turned out much better. He is still too busy to give the project much attention, but as long as I can finish the entire project and write up everything in a month (no stress, right??) I should be fine!


texts: Two papers from different authors with identical content – which to reference?

texts:
I am currently undertaking a project as a part of a grad course I am taking. While making some research on the use of medical parallel manipulators, I found two research papers written by different authors. The majority of the content (visuals, equations etc.) presented are identical.

The paper that was written later has not given any reference to the one written earlier. Is this not considered a commitment of plagiarism?

Which paper shall I reference in my project paper?


texts: Should I mark every glossary term, or only the first one?

texts: There are some terms in my Bachelor's thesis which I would rather add to a glossary list. Say that the term appears on page 23, 25 and 31. Should I only mark the first occurrence, or should I mark them all?


texts: IRB-questionable research from places that does not require IRB process: How publishable/contributing?

texts:
Some entities, when carrying out research, do not strictly require Institutional review board (IRB) approval (or may be doing the whole thing in a place where IRB does not exist).
If we believe that a piece of contribution has ethical concerns that may fail an IRB inspection but see no IRB requirements on both where they are from (where they work) and where they are going to (where they publish),

Is it OK

to endorse this work?
to use this work in another research (without ethical concerns)?
to use this work in another research that requires IRB approval?

What should we do?


texts: Learning efficiency of sitting in first rows of the lecture hall

texts: I have often heard and read the advice of sitting in the first rows of the lecture hall to learn more efficiently. Is there any research/study that looked at the effect of sitting in first rows of the lecture hall on the learning efficiency?


texts: Top CS PhD programs, do I stand a chance?

texts:
I'm an American EE/CompE undergrad at a mid tier(top 200) smaller state school with a 3.96 GPA. I am the first person in my family to attend college, so you can imagine that getting advice on grad schools would be pretty difficult.

My university is not very big on research, so I have looked elsewhere for research opportunities and completed an EE REU at a top 20 university and a CompE Summer Research Program at a top 10 university. I'm looking to work on the Robotics/Perception/AI side of CS. I have posters and have given presentations on my summer research, but I don't have any publications. Realistically, what is my chance of getting into places like MIT EECS, Stanford CS, or UIUC CS? Is it even possible? Would they consider someone with my background, or is just a waste of money to apply?

I also plan on applying for fellowships such as NSF GRFP and will mention that on my application. I'm gonna be graduating in December, so I am currently applying for a prestigious CS research internship at a national lab for the spring(Jan - June). Assuming that I get accepted, would you list it on your Resume/CV in your application as a "future accepted position"? Or would that look unprofessional since you didn't start yet?

Am I at a disadvantage in terms of being a domestic student since most applicants are international? What kind of GRE scores should I be aiming for(I know some universities don't require the GRE)?

Thank you so much! I would really appreciate any feedback or advice that you may have. Sorry if my post is too long.


texts: My current LOR is "good but not great". Should I switch to a LOR whose doesn't know me well, but certainly thinks I'm a top student?

texts:
I'm applying for graduate school in a hard science this year, and most things on my application are pretty good so far. Two of my letters should be strong, but regarding the third one, the professor told me in the interest of full disclosure, that his letter will be a positive one, but certainly not the best he's written. This particular researcher is well known in his subfield, which isn't the field I'm applying to, but it's not very far away either. I've taken many of his graduate courses, and also did an independent reading course with him. The graduate courses went pretty well, but the reading course didn't unfortunately, (mostly due to a difference in style) and as a result of all this interaction, he knows me well, and he thinks I'm a good but not great student. Now I'm really hoping I can get into at least one of the better schools on my list, and it's insanely competitive, particularly in my subfield.

Another option of mine is asking another professor who doesn't know me that well and is in mathematics instead than the hard science I'm applying to, but he certainly thinks I'm a top student, since he was responsible for many of the math awards I got and I did really well in the one class that I did take with him.

Q: Would having two great and one good letter hurt me at the top places? My impression is that students who get admitted to top places have their professors say that they're the best student they've seen in many years, and not having such a letter could result in rejection. Which recommendation should I go for? Is it advisable that I even do both and send in four letters?


texts: Citation problems, in supporting general information, what kind of paper should I cite?

texts:
A country implements the most stringent environmental regulations in a
  region.

For a general statement/common knowledge like this, I cited a peer-reviewed journal paper, which has a similar claim in their introduction. However, the problem is neither this claim is the main findings of the journal paper, nor the paper provides any secondary citation. So it is a general claim made by the authors.

Can I cite the paper? or must I cite all the related environmental standards of all the countries from the region? I really think it is unnecessary, however, there is no such review in this region and in this subject.


texts: How do I go about publishing my late father’s legacy papers?

texts:
My father wrote some papers on cosmology that remained unpublished at the time of his death.

I have been looking for a publisher for them. I contacted IOP publishing but they said that, while Dad’s writings were interesting, they were not ready for publishing in any of their journals.
For example, they need a reference list citing other current published research on the same topic.

I am not a scientist and have no idea how to do this. Where can I get help with this? Would something like American Journal Experts be a good idea?


texts: How many PhD programs does the average STEM applicant apply to in Europe (Germany, Austria, Switzerland)?

texts: I was wondering if there are data on the number of applications that people make to PhD programs in Europe (Ger, At, CH). My guess is that it depends on the area/field, in particular I am looking for data from engineering/chemistry.


texts: Is applying to 20 graduate schools too much?

texts:
I am applying to math graduate programs, have a list of schools of different range, but I am so worried about being accepted to a grad school, that am considering to apply to 20 schools.

My undergraduate institution is one of the top schools in math, #1 or #2 in several math fields.

My worry is that I messed up grades of some important classes, also totally messed up my gre sub, since I didn't prepare for it at all. But I do have lots of research experience in fields related to applied math (I want to do applied math, now I am pure math major).

Should I apply to 20 or there is no point in applying to so many, maybe just 15? I also don't want to disturb my rec letter writers so much.
I am not thinking about the money I have to spend on the application process

Thank you :)


texts: Applying to an Econ PhD program as a software engineer?

texts:
I'm in a similar situation as this poster: https://economics.stackexchange.com/questions/16428/career-change-to-economics-from-software-engineering , but it doesn't look like anyone answered about grad school admissions there. I have math and CS degrees from a top school, and if I could go back I would have taken classes and research in economics, but since I've already graduated and been working for 2 years, I feel like I've missed that opportunity. I'm self-studying economics right now, but what are some ways I could get experience that would be good for a grad school application?

I'm very interested in development economics, public policy, health economics, and behavioral economics and I know what my dream research groups and research directions are, if I can get the right skills/credentials.


texts: How do people claim precedence with their unpublished scientific theories?

texts:
Say for example a physicist (person A) came up with a theory and sent it to a journal. But it was rejected. (As an example, maybe person A came up with the idea for the Higgs particle).

Then 10 years later the same theory was published by someone else (person B). And this time it was published. And maybe they even went on to win the Nobel prize.

Can person A then claim precedence? And then what will happen to the Nobel prize will it go to person A instead?

This must happen quite a lot that papers get rejected but later someone else has the same idea and gets published. What happens in those cases. How do they claim precedence? Or is the polite thing not to make a fuss?


texts: If a reviewer comments that the overall writing needs to be improved will they reject if some errors remain?

texts:
I submitted the major revision and one reviewer's comment was to improve the overall writing. I'm trying to improve the flow and writing, but some grammatical errors and typos are still left.
Will they reject it directly or give me another chance?


texts: Can I send an IEEE paper that I downloaded using my institutional access to a person? Is it personal use or copyright infringement?

texts:
Suppose that, I want to send the PDF file of my published IEEE paper to someone in E-mail. So, I use my institutional access and download the PDF file. Now my question is
Is it fine to send this file to a person?
Is it a sort personal use and consequently fine, or it is indeed an act of copyright infringement?


texts: Student supervision when student loses motivation to work

texts:
I am a professor at an academic institution in applied mathematics. Last year around summer, a Masters student in my research group wanted to switch from his supervisor towards my research interests as he became more interested in my line of work. He displayed enthusiasm during my classes with advanced, interesting questions and by coming to my office hours before mentioning that he would like to switch.

After having an extensive discussion with his supervisor, I decided to take on the student's supervision responsibilities. My student worked well on his research for the first two to three months. Given his level of enthusiasm, I expected him to continue on for a PhD with me. So, I was quite surprised when he mentioned that he wanted to end with just a Masters and not continue on to a PhD. He mentioned that he did not know what he would like to do after his Masters, and that he would just like to focus on writing a good Masters thesis for now.

Since then, I had the impression that he has not been putting in enough work every week. His work has been alright and okay and sometimes mediocre. I had the impression that he might have been working on somethings totally different which is not related to my line of work.

Wondering about his interests to guide him in the right direction, I plan to ask him about his future plans and to ask him to just write an okay thesis and put time in to work toward his future goals, be it a job or further studies. Is this the right thing to do as a supervisor? Is the student being ethical here?


texts: Why do research faculty pursue administrative positions, such as dean, provost, president, etc. ? Do such positions spell the end of one's research?

texts:
At a recent seminar talk, I was amazed to note that one of the two coauthors (not the presenter) was the president of a large and well-known university, since I had always assumed that taking on such a position would necessarily mean the end of a research career.

Are there m/any examples of people that continue to do substantial amounts of research when in a senior administrative position, such as dean, provost, president, etc.?
Do research faculty often become deans, presidents, etc.? Why do faculty usually do this? (I understand that there might be a pay increase, but does it usually indicate that they no longer want to do research as intensely?)


texts: What is the exact meaning of a "Prof. Dr. med. Dr. med. dent. Dr. med. habil."?

texts:
He is a well-going dentist and plastic surgeon in Germany.

As I can decode it, I can see:

Prof, meaning that he is a full-time permanent teacher on a University
"Dr. med" means he has a Phd in medicine
"Dr. med dent" means he has another Phd in dentistry
"Dr. med habil" means he has also a habilitation (as I know, it means he is an old prof with high prestige, but I what is its accurate meaning?)

Am I correct? Currently there were here some changes in the academical title system regarding the EU, his title may in the new or in the old (non-EU) system.

What does it mean?


texts: I am now learning about the submitting process of PNAS. The instruction says that the authors are encouraged to submit the article in a single PDF file. However, I am wondering how could I create this PDF file. Do I have to transform a word into a PDF, or I should get this PDF file created by the Article Sizing Tool, which is a tool provided by PNAS to estimate the total length of the article. Moreover,could I just submit the article by using a word?


texts: My PI publicly humiliated my colleague. I want to report the incident but don't have a recording. What should I do?

texts:
Background: I am a PhD student in my final year, and I'm writing my thesis now. My PI (not a professor) is in his late 40's and is generally kind in public. However, he is often moody, and I feel he stresses his students out by repeatedly making judgemental statements about them in the lab. We usually try to keep our cool and let him take his bad mood out on us. One colleague is a major target of his bad mood. This is probably because she is not always in a good health and asks for sick leave occasionally. My PI only allows us to take in total 4 weeks of leave every year (despite our university grants 8 weeks of leave in total). However, in my opinion see she works hard on her experiments day and night.
Situation: Last year, at a lab meeting, this colleague said that two of her cousins had COVID. My PI smiled and said 'Oh now I see the problem in your family gene.' There were 4 PhD students (including me) and a technician present. I was shocked and the others also seemed to be at least surprised. After the lab meeting, I asked the colleague if she was OK, and she smiled embarrassedly.
I would like to report this to the department. However, I wonder if this may be more of my colleague's choice. In my opinion, my PI has created a toxic environment for all of us, and I don't want to let this go. He makes micro-bullying or threatening statements occasionally, but this public humiliation seemed very serious and crossed a red line. We've been treated similarly but not as bad as this, so people seemed to accept my PI for who he is. However, recently my colleague is treated especially badly by my PI and she looks very frustrated. I feel bad for her and feel I need to do something.
Question: As this public humiliation happened about one year ago, how can I report this if I don't have recorded proof? Are there other choices to make our research environment healthier? What can I do?
Thanks ahead for any help and suggestions.


texts:
I have authored some publications that are already present in Google Scholar and have citations listed for them, but I see no way to add them to my profile. I see how to add an article with all of the same information manually, but this creates what appears to be an independent (duplicate?) entry for the article, with no citations or links associated. I also see how to get a list of suggested additions, but the articles I'm looking for are not among them.

How do I add an article that is already in Google Scholar to my profile?


texts: Realised afterwards that I committed mild plagiarism in a paper I wrote as an undergraduate, what should I do?

texts:
A few years back, while still an undergraduate student, I wrote and submitted a paper to a (low-tier) journal. It was accepted and published. None of the professors in my college were familiar with the subfield in question, so I did it all on my own, without their supervision or assistance.

It was only later on that I realised that I was guilty of plagiarism. I did write the paper all on my own, and always provide appropriate citations, but sometimes I would quote single sentences or parts of them directly from my sources without indicating that they were direct quotes (even if these unmarked quotes were always followed by a citation to the original source).

It has now been several years but I keep feeling guilty about it, and worry that one day someone will notice it and call me out on it. Or at least notice it while reading the paper and think worse of me. But since it has been several years since the paper was published, I also don’t know what I could do about it. I have thought of putting something like a public admission and apology on my website (from which the paper can also be downloaded), but maybe I’m overthinking it and nobody would actually care. In that case it would feel like a bad idea to needlessly draw attention to something that nobody would have noticed otherwise. But the paper has been cited some times, and I have reason to expect that there will be people reading it in the future.

Should I do something about it or just let it be?


texts: what to do for one who starts a faculty job before semester starts

texts:
What will be expected to do on a newly hired faculty member to start before a semester starts? No course to teach. Of course one can do their own research.

1.But is there any departmental need for the new hire to do during summer for example?

2.Will the school be willing to have new hires start 2 months before a semester starts?


texts: Advisor doesn't let me graduate and prevents me from working

texts:
Posting for my friend
Brief background:
I am in the middle of my 4th year PhD at a US university. I opened up a new direction for the lab, which led me to 2 impactful publications and 1 manuscript ready for submission.
My lab has 2 lab locations (L1 & L2), and the tools required for my research is only available in L2. Since stay-at-home order started back in March, I was not able to get my full access back to work in the lab. My advisor did not grant my access to L2. He reasoned that L2 is at a max capacity and only people with prelim. data will get priority access. I repeatedly asked for the access (4 times in 6 months) as I have on-going projects and my collaborators have been asking for my devices. Over the past 6 months, he granted access (L1 & L2) to everyone else in the lab, including current members, one new PhD and a new postdoc. Without a choice, I worked only in L1 with very very limited tool and asked one member for help for further process in L2. However, one process takes ~ a month to finish instead of 3-4 days due to this.
In the meantime, he refused to hold meetings with me. Until I repeatedly requested, he would meet me once a while. He met with all other members twice a week. He did not agree/want me work on any of the projects I was working on or proposed at that time. When I asked what kind of projects he would be interested in, he did not know. It seems that he just did not want to give me full lab access and did not want me to work on my projects, basically wasting my time.
Due to all of these, I decided to graduate at the end of 4th year. So I asked him about my graduation plan. He then required me to complete a 4th impactful project and have it published in order to graduate. (This was not even fulfilled by many of his past PhD students.) He provided project suggestions with unrealistic goals (which he agreed). Then he "proposed" to me the projects I proposed to him earlier in my PhD. He said he would consider granting me access to L2 if I can provide preliminary data for these projects. His motive seems very vague and actions are very contradicting.
I would say that I have done enough (opening up a direction, publishing in high impact journal) to meet the average PhD quality here at the least. Do you think it is appropriate to tell him that I want to graduate? He did not give me same opportunities as the rest while hindering my PhD career. If he doesn't let me graduate, is it okay for me to take the case to the chair and higher-ups?
NOTE: My advisor has been abusive to me (and also other members) since I joined. He has been sued by his students in the past. This is also part of the reasons make me not wanting to continue my PhD longer in this environment.


texts:
Last week I received the pleasant message that my very first journal paper got accepted. More precisely, the journal "accepts the manuscript in its current form". The reviewers did have some remarks, however. I know that I do not have to correct some bigger discussion points that they have, but there were also a couple of typos that they pointed out

Do I need to correct those typos myself or will the reviewer/editor fix those, given that the mistakes are recognized?

Note. The manuscript submission website does not allow me to make any more changes, since its acceptance. I would probably have to e-mail the editor to correct the minor mistakes.


texts: Does publishing a monograph with Springer in computer science have any academic value?

texts:
I was recently invited by Springer to publish a book: I proposed a table of contents, it was internally (in Springer) reviewed and accepted to be published as a monograph. I am at the stage of finalizing a first draft.

The content is mostly based on previous peer-reviewed publications (around 15 journal and conference papers in the computer science domain) along with more introductory material, state-of-the-art survey, and use-cases.

Is there any academic value in publishing a book that is based (approx. three quarters of it) on existing (peer-reviewed) material?

Also, as I am considering applying for assistant professor positions (I am currently working on contract basis), I would like to ask how is this book monograph viewed at by hiring committees? Is it considered vanity or a plus?


texts: ORCID and its QR-code on business card back cover as a researcher?

texts:
I am thinking to include my ORCID on my business card back cover as a researcher.

I wanna know if this is necessary or too much.


texts: What should you do when your supervisor is ill?

texts:
While somewhat related to this recent question but this situation is different in that my supervisor has over the recent months had unspecified health issues. It has not overly effected our relationship other than a bit of a delay in some of our emails. Without knowing exactly what is wrong it was conveyed at one of our meeting that it was not overly serious. In the last email I received it was noted by my advisor that their health was poorly over the summer.

As someone who has previously had a prolonged serious bout of Crohn's, I can understand how poor health can impact on someone's life and would like to be able to make our professional relationship work in a mutually beneficial way.

So in a way my question is two-fold.

Is it appropriate for me to sympathize/empathize with my supervisor about their health issue?
Should I ask them how they best wish to proceed when they may be ill in relation to submitting work etc.?


texts: How to get through with an unsupporting supervisor?

texts:
My supervisor does not have time to neither read my report nor give me feedback. The topic I am working on is totally new and my supervisor does not know about that.

There is another guy in my group who works on the same topic. I got the correct result and the other guy did not get the correct result but my supervisor believes the other guy and made me feel very bad by implying that I made up the data. Even if I show her my solution, she will not be able to understand or simply does not want to admit that I am right. It is not an easy feeling for me when I am in group meetings, I have to shut my mouth when the guy says wrong things.

I like the topic and I want to continue work on that but I really need to get over all the bad feelings. All other professors in my university working on that topic have some kind of collaborations with my supervisor so it is not ideal for me to change supervisor.

Has anyone been in the similar situation? How would you get over that and become successful?


texts:
I am currently a student in a European university in the fourth year (first year of which is called "master").

On the Internet, it is said undergraduate students to refer to students in a bachelor.

But, what is the exact terminology?
Do we say that a student involved in a master is a graduate student? Then how do we call someone who does have a master's degree (and involved or not in a Ph.D)?

My question may seem unclear but I try to understand the correct use of undergraduate, graduate,... in order to be able to introduce myself correctly and to understand at which level are my interlocutors.


texts:
How do I as a solitary student with no guide and no research lab and limited access to research material and books perform research that is of good quality? The field I am interested in is AI, NLP, Generative Art and Artificial Life.

I know the single, simple answer is "Just Do It!", but my undergraduate college had absolutely no focus on research and sadly, even my current post graduate course is turning out to be the same. Hence, I have zero experience of what it is to do research. Moreover, I'm from India, where Meet Ups, Research Groups, etc etc are virtually non-existent. Point is, assume that I'm really all alone.

I plan on applying for another Masters / Ph.D. after I am done with this one, but most admissions need "Research Experience". So, I decided to do it on my own, with no mentor in sight. Any recommendations / work cycles / words of encouragement that you guys and gals can offer me?

PS: Is there any way I can find a mentor online?


texts: What does this number represent in the information about an article?

texts:
Phys. Rev. B 61, 14095 – Published 15 May 2000

I am reading something from this publisher for the first time. What do they want to tell us with the number 14095? Is it the number of the page where this article is? How is it possible to have so many pages?


texts:
Suppose one writes a scientific paper from Math or a related field. Should mathematical symbols be followed by nouns describing them? Should f, x, Ω, P(A) and ß be preceded by function, variable, set, probability and angle?

A rule, which I know, says that a symbol shouldn't start a sentence. Is it also wrong if it is inside a sentence? Does the same apply to the labels like Equation (2)? Is it correct to say After solving (2) we get that x=2? Or should I use Equation (2)?

I guess it's fine to omit a descriptional noun before a variable inside a logical relation like an equation, but is the same true for free variables?

Example 2: For every event in Ω or For every event in the set Ω?
Example 3: The same is true for y and z or The same is true for variables y and z?

Is there a rule of thumb about grammar? Like function f instead of a function f?


texts: Graduate Recruitment weekend: faculty interview - research area mismatch

texts:
I have been invited to graduate recruitment weekend at a school (PhD applicant in biomedical imaging). I have been told about an interview scheduled with one of the faculty members.
But my background does not match at all with the faculty's work. What to  expect in the interview? How can I use the opportunity to my benefit/admit? This faculty is doing some amazing work, I am totally impressed by it, but I just have zero background in it. Any suggestions/advice?


texts:
I had a colleague who inquired if I would be willing to do some data analysis on a project of his. I thought, sure, why not and had the disclaimer that if the project is viable I'm on.

He's a sweet fellow when the conversation is about the weather, sports, or the work schedule at a cocktail. As a person he can be kind of caustic and says stuff off the record that makes me cringe and want to wash my hands. He wants me to do a quantitative analyses of research output over a specific topic and categorize authors. He is trying to look for factors that he thinks contributes to "high quality research output and citations". He wants to group authors by race and the way he is assessing race is conjecture off of name, which I find honestly kind of stupid and a little horrific for this to be in academia. For example, we have a colleague of African descent, and on paper you could not tell him apart based on name alone from someone of European descent due to his combination of first and last name. He also specifically wants to compare the United States against countries from a specific region of the world he has had an off the record vendetta against, which he has made insensitive jokes about in the past. This is an individual that has been reprimanded once by the way by our institution but it was more of a slap on the wrist for name calling in an e-mail.

I don't want to put my hands on this project, because hypothesis and everything aside, I don't believe in it. I also am not interested in this kind of work anyway as I thought he was going to have data about an experiment in our field, not about researchers in our field. How do I tell him no after I opened the door at the beginning to be willing to collaborate? He e-mailed me data files, etc. CC'd on e-mails.


texts: When and why should you write numbers less than 10 in words?

texts: My current strategy in my thesis and in papers is to write numbers less than 10 in words. For example, if I need to write the number 6, I write 'six'. Recently though, I've been thinking this strategy adds unnecessary complications. Is there any particular reason why numbers less than 10 should be written in words?


texts: Ethical grounds of letting supervisor hear recorded interviews with research subjects

texts:
I have collected a lot of data in the form of audio recorded interviews. My supervisor is asking if they can listen to them, however, I feel this goes against the consent stipulated to the participants under the data protection section. As such, I feel uncomfortable letting other people listen to it under ethical grounds.

Can a university or its staff demand to listen to private data collected which the participants understood would only be heard by myself for transcription purposes?


texts: Which license should be chosen in arXiv for reports and preprints to be published in Elsevier?

texts:
First, imagine the following scenario: A "report" is first archived in arXiv as version one (v1). From that report, a "preprint" manuscript (with the same title as the report, but probably shorter than the report, in order to comply with the number of pages required by the journal) is prepared, archived in arXiv as v2 and later sent to Elsevier. After acceptance, the "postprint" (version improved with the comments suggested by the reviewers) is archived in arXiv as v3.

Here we consider only the case of green open-access (the copyrights are transfered from the authors to Elsevier), and not the case of gold open-access (the copyright still belongs to the authors), since in the later case it is clear that any license that the authors wish can be applied to the report, preprint and postprint.

Said that, the more detailed questions are the following:

Is the "preprint" considered a derivative work of the "report"? Is the "postprint" considered a derivative work of the "preprint"?
Do the authors of the "report" and "preprint" still hold copyright on each of them (despite the copyrights of the postprint have been transfered to Elsevier)? See a sample of the publishing agreement and Elsevier's sharing policy FAQ (where the issue is not completely clear, at least to me)

  Are you asserting copyright over preprints?

  No, preprints can be used anytime anywhere by authors. We encourage authors seeking to publish in Cell Press, The Lancet, and some society owned titles to check the author section on the journal homepage for additional information.

In case of yes, does it mean that ANY creative commons (CC) license (CC:BY/4.0, CC:BY-SA/4.0 or CC:BY-NC-SA/4.0) can be applied to the "report" and the "preprint"? See Elsevier's sharing policy (the issue is again not clear to me)

  Preprint

  Authors can share their preprint anywhere at any time.
  If accepted for publication, we encourage authors to link from the preprint to their formal publication via its Digital Object Identifier (DOI). Millions of researchers have access to the formal publications on ScienceDirect, and so links will help your users to find, access, cite, and use the best available version.
  Authors can update their preprints on arXiv or RePEc with their accepted manuscript .

In case of no, what open-access license could have been applied to both the "report" and the "preprint"?

It is clear from a previous post that the "postprint" should have a CC:BY-NC-ND license in the .pdf file and uploaded to arXiv under "arXiv's non-exclusive license" since both are compatible and satisfy the requirements of both Elsevier and arXiv.

Also SHERPA/RoMEO doesn't mention what kind of license can be applied to the "preprint".

Thank you for your help


texts:
I'm currently looking at higher studies options, taking a degree in Computer Science. So far, I have two options:

Get a degree locally, from a campus that partners with a foreign University and you get the same degree as the partner University students.
Go abroad and get a degree directly.

What would be better? Would the first option be OK?


texts: Do Indian journals represent the quality of Indian universities?

texts:
Since I published my first paper in a well-respected journal I receive approx. one time per month an invitation to journals such as Global Journal of Engineering Science and Research Management and International Journal of Engineering Sciences and Management Research.

Interestingly, all those "journals" are from India. Furthermore it is obvious that they are only interested in charging you money for publishing your paper: for instance, the "peer-review" process lasts just 2 days, so in fact they publish all the stuff they receive for money.

Nevertheless, since the Editorial Boards of these Journals also consist of Prof. and Dr. from India and most articles are also from people from India (sometimes also Dr.) I am interested if these journals represent the quality of the Indian education system?


texts: Is it ethical to accept small gifts from students? And how small is small?

texts:
Is it ethical to accept small gifts from students? In past years I have one or two students have given me small gifts, generally a box of chocolates. I judge the size of gifts on my international beer scale, where things that cost less than 4 beers, (maybe 10 USD) are small token gifts. These have always fallen into the small token gift category. I have typically either left these in my office and shared with people or in bountiful years brought them into the lab or school office. This year I have received over a dozen boxes of chocolates from undergraduate students. Individually each box is still small, but in total the gifts are no longer small. All but two of the gifts were from graduating students. I realised I don't have a well defined personal policy about accepting gifts and I am not sure the university has a policy either.

What should you do when students offer you gifts?


texts:
I am going to graduate this spring with a BSEE, but I have realized only now that going into the engineering industry is not the direction I want to take my life. After doing some deep introspection I realized that what I really want to do is go into academia, specifically in mathematics. Luckily, I had at least some foresight early on and picked up a minor in math. Ideally, I would like to finish the degree path that I an on and move straight into a masters program and then hopefully, eventually a doctoral degree program. However, after reviewing the requirements for acceptance into and curricula of several major math graduate programs and even the graduate program of the state school I currently attend, I am wary that, despite the amount of mathematical knowledge I have gained from my minor and what I have gotten from engineering, I am not well enough prepared for graduate school or to even get into a program.

So my question is should I still apply to graduate school despite these misgivings or would it be a good idea to switch majors/pursue a second bachelor's before I think about applying for graduate school. I am not unwilling to spend the extra time and money to do so but at the same time I am wary of doing something this drastic so late into my undergraduate career. Although one thing I am certain of is that this is indeed the path I want to take.


texts: In the UK, who owns the intellectual property of a thesis?

texts:
Assume the following problem:

A person decides to create software for his thesis. His application turns out to be very profitable.

If he continues creating it, will the University own the intellectual property over the thesis or the application itself?

Will the revenue go to the university instead?

Is there any way the two parties can come up with a contract or agreement?
If the person leaves university and doesn't finish his thesis and instead releases his application, will there be any repercussions?


texts: Can I somehow leverage my willingness to work for a lower salary in job applications?

texts:
In the future, I will be on the market for a temporary academic position (postdoc or visitor) in the US, in math. Because of my lifestyle and financial situation, I do not need a large salary. Ballpark, let's say I would be willing to work an academic job for about half the typical salary.

Is there any way I can use this to my advantage? I mean: is it possible to use the fact that I am willing to work for cheap to get a job that is better (with respect to some criteria like quantity and caliber of research at the university, strength of students at the university, desirability of teaching duties,...) than I would have been able to get otherwise?


texts: Is there anywhere I can find reliable reviews of popular textbooks?

texts:
My mathematics department is adopting a new calculus textbook. The publisher has refused to continue printing the same edition that we have been using, and their new edition is one of several options which we are considering.

Several of these books are extremely well-known and widely used, and we have to judge which is the best. The most important step is to look at the books myself, which indeed I did. Beyond that, I am curious how the various choices have played out in actual teaching situations. Indeed, in our deliberations I feel that I am reinventing the wheel.

Are there any trustworthy sources of reviews of popular textbooks, written with an eye towards the experience of the student reading them?


texts: My PhD research has a negative outcome -- how can I still graduate with it?

texts:
A former PhD student at our lab had this idea for an algorithm for solving an engineering problem that has many well known solutions. The student developed preliminary results but ended up applying the algorithm to some other simpler engineering problems instead and graduating. I 'inherited' the project and it has always been a project my advisor has had high ambitions for. My advisor actually ended up changing my research project to this one after 6 month even though I heavily objected. The project is not funded. I TA to pay the bills.

At this point I have already advanced to candidacy and I'm in what I was planning to be my final 6 month. My research has basically consisted of building other algorithms based on the one the other student came up with. All are for an application in a measurement system. I have derived all of the mathematical solutions that will be at the heart of my algorithm and I am in the process of validating them with new experimental data. The previous data I worked with was all provided by the first student to work on the project.

I have recently discovered there are some issues with the original algorithm that create errors in the solution. The errors are larger than those  of the previous (well-established) methods. This does not happen in all conditions, however, the experimental data I was left with all happened to be cases where this error does not show up (I'm not entirely sure this was by coincidence).

How can I salvage this project and graduate without delaying my graduation much. I have family obligations that require me to graduate soon and I'm devastated that I've discovered this so late. This is partly my fault for trusting the research from the previous student too much (it was easy to do since my advisor can't stop praising him).

I personally have always been of the opinion that research projects do not need to have positive outcomes and PhD students should be assured that things will be fine for them even if there research has bad outcomes. I feel that doing research to show that something has a bad outcome is still equally valuable. I also feel that because of pressure to have good outcomes a lot of researchers exaggerate their results out of fear of possible consequences and it ends up doing more bad than good when people try to use their publications.

Do you think I have a good case of being able to graduate given my situation? And how would you approach convincing my advisor?


texts: Should a cover letter always be included in faculty job applications?

texts:
Should one always write a cover letter when applying for faculty positions, even when not explicitly asked for in the job post?

If it depends on the field and/or type of university, please specify. If it matters, I'm applying to Physics departments in universities which primarily emphasize research, which already require (at least) a CV, research statement, teaching statement, and letters of recommendation.


texts: I recently came across a call for papers by NASA, asking for submissions of possible further missions using the Kepler spacecraft, given the mission-crippling loss of two reaction wheels. The call describes itself as a "Call for White Papers", and I am slightly confused by the term. What is a white paper, exactly? What other 'sorts of paper' can you call for, and how are they different?


texts: Is it disadvantageous to have recommendation letters from postdoctoral fellows rather than professors?

texts:
I am a math PhD student in a US university and also a teaching assistant. This fall I’m expecting to apply for jobs. I’m looking for math lecturer/instructor jobs.

However, when I worked as a teaching assistant I did not actually teach a course. Instead, I did recitations, grading and assisting. So I cannot get teaching letters from the department. Hence, I’m thinking to get letters from the instructors that I did recitations, who are postdoctoral fellows.

Would it be disadvantageous to have recommendation letters from postdoctoral fellows rather than professors?

EDIT: I don’t consider my post to be a duplicate because that post doesn’t solve my issue. It has inconsistent answers. One answer says Professor is better, other says postdoctoral fellow is better.
Thank you.


texts: What is the impact of software development experience in a research lab on graduate admissions?

texts:
A little background

I graduated with a bachelor's degree in computer science not too long ago. Unfortunately, I didn't understand the importance of formal research for grad admissions as an undergrad. I got a software development job in industry, but it has little relevance to my career path (not just my academic career path either).

As I looked around for opportunities to remedy this situation, I found a few jobs in academia as a software developer working in a lab. These seem to fall in some gray area in terms of research vs. software development. While these jobs aren't "research" jobs (in that you aren't the one making breakthroughs or responsible for writing papers, for example), they involve developing/integrating code relevant to research (e.g., creating programs for the researchers and/or assemble their code into a larger program). Obviously, the ship has sailed for me to do formal research as an undergrad.

Also

Before someone links to this, I read this post already and many other relevant posts on this site: Usefulness of prior industry experience before entering grad school?

My question is more specific. I can possibly be more specific as well, but I'm not sure how general I should/can make this question. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Formal Question

What impact could a software development job in a research lab have on grad school admissions (research masters and PhD in computer science) compared to a software development job in industry?


texts: accepted, rejected, or requests for changes in special issue

texts:
Recently, I have gone through a special issue of a journal and in the special issue, in notification to the author section, it's mentioned that

  Reviews returned to authors. Papers will be either accepted, rejected,
  or returned to the authors with requests for changes

There is only mentioned about the revised manuscript due date and special issue published date. Does that mean "returned to the authors with requests for changes" is another form of acceptance? or after submitting the revised document there may become a chance of the rejection?

Thanks in advance.


texts: What is the name for the copies of a paper that you receive once it's been published?

texts:
After an article has been accepted, all edits finished and finally published, some (many?) journals mail 10 or so printed copies of the completed article to the author. Not full copies of the entire journal issue but just the single article. I believe traditionally this was done so an author could prove to their institution that the article was indeed accepted and published. This is still standard practice for journals in South Korea where I live. I'm aware of the Korean word used for them but colleagues have been asking me what to refer to them in English and I couldn't offer an answer.
Is there a special name in English for these copies?
The best I could think of was just "excerpt".
Other terms I've found that don't seem to fit: "advance copy", "proof copy", "galley proof", "final proof"


texts: Assessing students in exams with negative points?

texts:
I've seen that some math teachers design tests which punish errors with negative points.

Why do they assign negative points?  What are some pedagogical reasons why teachers might do this?


texts: Is it worth going to a conference [IEEE UEMCON] to get my undergraduate thesis published?

texts:
I'm weighing the costs/benefits of going to a conference in New York despite living in Seattle.

My main motivation is that I want the undergraduate thesis I finished earlier this year to be published. In the future I may decide to apply to graduate school and search out opportunities to do research in a different topic.

If I just showed Universities/future job prospects that I was accepted at a conference would it carry as much weight as being a published conference paper?

My reasons for not going basically boil down to:
-Its a big hassle and investment time/money
-The conference could be rather dry
-I want to go but how do I know that I won't just change my mind about it later after already committing?


texts:
I published a paper two years ago, and recently I realized two sub-figures (Fig.3c and Fig.3d) in my publication are wrong. When drawing those two figures, I forgot to put one parameter in the equation so resulted in the wrong figures. Nobody has spotted this mistake yet. Now this publication has around 12 citations, but none of them really discussed anything about two wrong figures.
These two figures don't affect key conclusions at all, nor does it affect other figures at all. If I really need to publish a correction, I need to change the figure and change two sentences related to these figures. But I want to correct it anyway, for being a science guy with integrity.
So I wonder in my case, I should contact the editor and request a correction, right? I hope these mistakes wouldn't result in a retraction, and that would be really bad.


texts: How to reply to a potential PhD supervisor who asks if I have my own funding?

texts:
I have a Master in Computer Science and I am applying to some Canadian Universities for a PhD...
After contacting to a supervisor, I got a positive reply, however he asked me:
"Do you have your own funding to support your PhD study?

What and how should I reply? On one hand having some financial support is quite vital to me, but on the other hand I don't want to lose this opportunity (I may work in order to support some of the costs!)


texts:
I have few questions related to the owner and independent of PhD students research. In my case for instance my committee members including my advisor are too busy to read deeply or know the details of my work. One of them however showed some interest in one portion of it 20% or less. I drafted a manuscript and send it to them and non of them responded. I spoke with my supervisor in person to remind him and send it again and the same no response.

As this might be a narrative story, below are some general questions:

Do advisory committee given a different treatment when it comes to the contribution? Are students expected to list them as authors?
How are contribution and authorship communicated, what is the norm and when draft is sent or circulated through email (between members) should the student add their names as authors, leave it blank, so whoever want to contribute will add his own name?
Should the PI providing the data or equipment be listed on the students work even if he doesn't light or contribute to the drafting them a script?


texts: Should we trust a journal article that does not cite any previous work?

texts:
My area of interest is not so well-researched in the US, but it attracts more interest in some developing countries where the topic is more relevant, but also where academic standards tend to be different, and I must proceed with much more caution.

In EBSCO, recently my searches have turned up a number of articles published in journals abroad that either: (1) contain no in-text citations, but present entries in the reference list related to material discussed earlier in the paper or (2) contain no citations at all and no reference list at the end.

Is the lack of citations in an article sufficient criteria for casting aside a paper, even if I think some of the ideas relate to a paper I am writing?


texts:
What is the difference between termination and suspension?
Are there "neutral" ways for a graduate student leaving his graduate
school without completing a degree? Is a student voluntarily leaving his graduate school called termination?
When applying to another graduate school, will the student be asked
if he has ever received a probation and termination? How will that affect the student's chance to be admitted to the new school? For example, he
received a probation because he didn't manage to find a research
direction and research advisor in 2.5 years, followed by a termination a few months later because he didn't
pass his PhD qualification exam without "protection" from an advisor?


texts: What does the term "camera-ready" mean and why is it used?

texts:
I know that the term "camera-ready manuscript" is usually used to indicate a final version of the manuscript that will go to press. But what does the term actually mean and why is it used instead of some other more descriptive term?

Specifically, the term seems strange because in my opinion publishing has no connection to photography, at least in the modern age of digital publishing. Where does the term "camera-ready" come from?


texts: Can a poor work history reduce your chances of acceptance into graduate school and/or later securing a tenure-track position?

texts:
In my last post (re: financial feasibility of grad. school), I mentioned having a poor work history (I'm 38 and haven't worked except for a few years of self-employment years ago), and some said that I would have difficulty competing with applicants with stronger employment histories. I don't believe employment history is relative to academic performance, however.
The reason for my lack of prior work history is because I was bored at most jobs and found that my personality isn't suited for traditional employment. Would a graduate school admissions committee (this would be for a master's program) hold this against me despite good academic performance? Additionally, assuming one completes a master's degree and PhD, would tenure-track jobs (or even post-docs etc.) be suspicious of an applicant's lack of prior employment history?


texts: Sourcing lecture notes instead of publications

texts:
I am writing an undergraduate dissertation and I have found some very good information from lecture handouts from other universities.
Will using these lecture notes compared to official publications or other dissertations reflect my dissertation in a bad light?
Of course I will source everything.


texts: How does Google Search know which paper you have cited?

texts:
Pick a random paper using Google Search, for instance

Click on the Cited By link, and you will see:

a list of writings, ranging from thesis, conference paper, arXiv paper, etc. etc....
published on a wide range of platforms such as academia.edu, arXiv, semanticscholar.org, ieee, nowpublishers...
using a variety of citation styles

It seems to me that if this was an automated process, then Google would have to keep track of every single new paper which has been published, and find the list of citation section in each paper, find a particular paper which has been cited, update the citation page for that particular paper and repeat for all citations for that paper.

But then it would have to gain access to those papers in the first place and some of them have subscriptions such as IEEE ones. It would have to ignore citation styles but keep track of correct version of whichever paper it has been cited (preprint, etc.).

Is this really how Google keeps track of citations in the Cited By link?
Can someone who has insider knowledge into publish enlighten me as to how Google Search seems to be able to know citations between papers?


texts:
My PI AT A UNIVERSITY has decided that words like "confirmation" are "incremental". Thus, they are banished from all our NIH proposals, which we write and submit 100% WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF RESEARCH DONE IN A UNIVERSITY. Instead, he wants "forward-looking words".

What is a "forward-looking word" IN A UNIVERSITY and what "forward-looking word" means "confirmation"?


texts: Where should I host a (simple) personal academic webpage?

texts:
I've finally decided to stop putting off creating an academic webpage for myself... both for the purposes of a job search and more generally to communicate what I'm about research-wise. But - where shall I put it?

The options seem to be:

My institution's personal webpages facility
My own web server at home
Some for-pay general-purpose webpage/website hosting service
Some gratis general-purpose webpage/website hosting service
Using one of the specialty academic-webpage platforms (which apparently exist)

What are noteworthy pros and cons of these options, in your view, that are worth considering might not be immediately obvious?

Notes:

I'm a post-doc with a contract ending in several months, which may affect the choices, but feel free to answer this question for other stages in one's academic career as well.
I'm not interested in "Why I think provider XYZ is best"-type answers, although if you describe your experience and what you opted for, and provide a link I think that should be fine.
The page is not intended to store any content such as copies of my papers, zipped source code etc - but it will have links to those. We're talking about a vanilla "about me and what I do and some links" kind of a thing.
Relevant question covering one aspect of my concerns: Institution domain or domain of my own for two of the possible options. Related but not-so-relevant question: Self-hosting vs Wordpress hosting for your collection of articles and blog.


texts:
I am currently applying to MSc pure maths/maths courses.
One the universities gave me the option to fill out a second choice program. My first choice was pure maths but I put my second choice as applied maths.
I was wondering, could putting applied maths as my second choice hurt my application because they might think I am not committed enough or 100% sure of doing pure maths?

The university says on the application form that if you are unsuccessful they give you the opportunity to submit a new personal statement for the second choice.

I am considering ringing up the university and telling them to remove my second choice.

What shall I do, does it matter?


texts: How can I efficiently update a literature review (that got outdated due to being rejected three times)?

texts:
Two years ago a colleague and I conducted a full-text analysis-based systematic literature review regarding a specific topic in information systems. We’ve done it in the time span of three months. After that, we wrote a paper and submitted it to an information systems conference. Unfortunately, it was rejected. The blind review was comprehensive and we get really good advice for improving the paper. However, sequentially, at two other conferences, the blind reviews were positive, but due to the high competitiveness (<30% acceptance rate) the paper has also been rejected. We’ve included the responses from the reviewers into a new version of the paper.

Now, two years later, the literature review is out of date. A large set of relevant papers (>50) have been published since we conducted the review. However, we do not have enough time resources to update our full-text analysis. We have collected the new papers in our own literature review database. But to read each paper and to do a full-text coding is impossible, due to other projects that take place at our chair.

Now, I’m thinking about putting the review results into the wastebin, because I do not see any opportunity to get my results published. Needless to say, that this is very unsatisfying to me. I think, a justification that the literature review has been done in 2015 in the paper, will not be accepted by future reviewers.

So my question is:

Are there strategies to update the results of a full-text analysis without conducting a completely new analysis? For example, is there some kind of methodology which combines full-text analysis of older sources with a delta analysis or something else? Are there methods the reduce the time efforts?


texts: How much would it cost to remove pay-walls?

texts:
Is there any research/study/survey/... that tried to estimate how much it would cost to remove paper pay-walls so that all existing research papers are made publicly available free of charge?

E.g. France paid Elsevier 172 million EUR (mirror) so that 476 universities and medical center can have legal access to 2000 journals for five years. I wonder how much it would cost to buy the access to all papers so that anyone can access then.


texts: Do I need research experience to be admitted to a highly ranked mathematical physics master's?

texts:
I am a third year student doing my bachelors in both physics and mathematics at a German university. Since I am really interested in theoretical physics and mathematics I am thinking about doing a masters degree in mathematical physics. I am very interested in Mathematical Quantum Mechanics and, even though I haven't had courses in it yet, in QFT and General Relativity.

I'm thinking about applying for Part III of the Mathematical Tripos in Cambridge. It's probably quite hard for a German student to get accepted in Cambridge, isn't it? So my question is:

Do I need research experience, papers or something like that? At German universities we don't really do research or write papers in the bachelor studies of theoretical physics or mathematics (apart from the bachelor thesis itself).


texts: What is the minimum one should expect from the day-to-day supervisor?

texts:
What minimal responsibilities can a student expect from their day-to-day supervisor?

In my institute, we usually have the head of the institute as the formal supervisor, followed by another day-to-day supervisor.  In fact, the head of the institute does nothing, and the day-to-day supervisor is the one who is supposed to do the PhD supervision.

A few institutions do codify the responsibilities of advisors and supervisors.  See, for example, the "Code of Practice for Supervisors, Advisors and Research Degree Candidates" from the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, and the "Policies and Guidelines on Graduate Student Advising and Supervision" from McGill University in Canada.  Are these guidelines universal?


texts: Book recommendations for a PhD supervisor

texts:
I will start mentoring my first PhD student this fall, and I would like to read some books to have it start the best way possible.

I have already supervised some Master and undergrad students, but I was not always happy with the way it went. I would thus like to improve my "managing" skills to help my student become a good researcher. I looked online for book recommendations, but couldn't find anything useful (tailored for mentors, and not students).


texts: Being accepted then rejected to an academic conference

texts:
I submitted an abstract and received notification of acceptance to present at a conference.  The notification of acceptance asked for a short bio.  I provided the bio and was asked to provide more info in my bio relating to my academic and professional background. I provided the requested info touching on my experience in multiple disciplines in academia and industry.  I received notification today (10 days after receiving acceptance) that my submission has now been rejected.  They cited concern over the depth and breadth of the topic.

This hasn't happened with the many conferences I have submitted to.  I am not sure what to do handle this situation?  I have already devoted time and efforts to securing funding and completing the necessary studies to present.  Should I make attempts to rectify the situation and figure out why this was retroactively rejected?  Is this normal behavior for an academic conference?  Should I attempt to find out what happened in their review process?  What I can do to rectify the situation of having this submission retroactively rejected?


texts: Can posting to arXiv ruin your reputation?

texts:
Arxiv is permanent.  So if I publish something now, that I feel is not quite high enough quality for traditional publication, and people leave a bunch of feedback showing issues with my assumptions or methods, am I hurt for life?  As I understand it, you can't remove something from arxiv, and people can comment on your work.  So, when someone 20 years from now googles my name or domain, they will find the paper and the comments and other undesirables?

At least with traditional publication you have peer review as a filter, which can in part shield you.  Is arxiv really this dangerous?


texts: How to decline an invitation to work on a funding proposal?

texts:
Prof. A and I were working on a proposal which we intended to submit to a current call. Upon learning from my ex-supervisor Prof. B that she was also preparing a similar proposal to submit to the same call, I told Prof. A about it, and he suggested that we submit to another call, whose deadline is about two months later. Recently, however, Prof. B invited me to join her team for the current call.

I am considering the following scenarios:

I decline Prof. B's invitation. What should I do in this case? I think I should let her know that I have been working with Prof. A on a similar proposal but planning to submit to a future call. Is this the right thing to do? How do I decline Prof. B's invitation without disappointing her?
I accept Prof. B's invitation and do not continue my plan with Prof. A. Under what circumstances can this be justified?
I join both teams. Under what circumstances can this be justified?


texts: My department is not concerned with publishing, is this a valid reason to move to a different one?

texts:
I received a scholarship from a funding organization to do my PhD. I chose a department within a reputable research center to do my PhD at, and I did start working there 2 months ago.

My career ambitions are to proceed in the academic career path, eventually becoming a professor in my field.

As far as I know, your experience as an academic (or as a researcher) is defined based on your h-index, citations count and publications count. The more strong papers I publish during and after my PhD, the better position I can get in the future. Please correct me if I am wrong about this.

Now in the place I started working at, turned out to be more of an engineering department. They are not concerned with publishing as much as they are concerned with applications to show off to the industry. Most of the PhD students working here intend to work in the industry (factories or companies). Absolutely no PhD student here is intending to work in Academia.

I am very concerned that I might be at the wrong place. I was hoping the place where I do my PhD at would encourage publishing, and involve me in their publications. I still need to learn how to do proper evaluations in our field, I thought that's how I learn it, by getting involved in papers they submit at top venues (not necessarily being a co-author, but just to learn by observing). They are not concerned with submitting papers to top venues because they think their work is more of applications than the research such venues would expect. Moreover, from their perspective it is not worth the effort, because it won't give them better chances in the industry.

Nevertheless, they understand my situation and they will support me financially and by providing resources if I decide to publish at top conferences. But I just feel now there's no hope I can learn to write a high quality paper given these conditions.

As I mentioned at the beginning, my funding comes from a third-party organization. Technically I can switch to a different department, and there is a department I have in mind that belongs to another branch of that same research center, located in a nearby city, they are more research-oriented and they work in the same field. It will not be easy to do that and I will have wasted a lot of time by the time I move out, but it is still doable.

So.. is it worth the hassle?

P.S. These events are taking place in Europe, where in most of the cases you spend your entire period as a PhD student working on your thesis, unlike the courses-then-thesis style in USA.


texts: How good is phrase in letter of recommendation describing my smart but unorthodox solutions?

texts:
I have a LOR from my previous employer and I want to use it for the MSc application I'm preparing. However, there is a certain sentence in this LOR that even though I understand its meaning (based on facts I know of course), I don't know if it will be good for my application.

"Major characteristics of his job were the clean, well commented code and the smart, yet often unorthodox solutions."

How bad can it be for my application?


texts: Conventions regarding listing grant applications/funded grants on a scientific CV

texts:
I am a young academic in a scientific field and, in the process of updating my CV, I've realized I'm unsure exactly what is appropriate to list with regard to grant applications/funded grants. Specifically, a few types of ambiguities have arisen:

1) If you receive funding from a grant but were not part of the project until after the application was funded (say your role is "Consultant" or "Statistician"), can you list this on your CV?

2) If you are listing non-funded grants that you had at least some hand in writing (say, an NIH grant that received an impact score but was not funded), but you were not the PI (say you're a co-Investigator), can you list it? Is the answer different if you had a non-investigator role such as "Statistician"?

3) Closely related to #2-- if you help with a grant that ultimately does get funded but you are not the PI or a co-I (again, suppose you're a consultant or statistician), can this be listed on your CV? Does it depend on how great of a hand you had in writing the grant?

Thanks for any input.


texts: Should I complete a master's thesis if I intend to move to a different graduate school?

texts:
I'm currently a first year graduate student in mathematics in the United States. After having completed my requirements for a master's degree, I'm considering moving to a different program, based on reasons I outlined in a previous question.

My question should one necessarily work on a master's report/thesis to boost one's application to enter a different PhD program?

I can probably get a master's degree without having to write a report/thesis as I have already passed some of the qualifying exams at my school.

So, to what extent would having completed a master's thesis help me in switching programs? My interests are a bit broad, and interdisciplinary, so I'm, as of yet, broadly interested in a couple of areas, and not a single, specific area of research. So, I would like to apply to schools that have research groups in at least 1-2 fields of my interest.

Any suggestions on how graduate committees in math or STEM fields view the issue of masters thesis or reports.


texts: Should I talk about service in my job application?

texts:
I am a mathematician on the job market this year and am wondering if I should talk at all about service and other aspects of who I am other than my teaching and research. So for example, committees I've been on, leadership roles, professional development, etc. And if so, where would I put this information? My teaching statement? Cover letter?

Let's assume that I'm applying to jobs that are more focused on teaching than research. Thanks!