texts: How to find / understand research in other languages when you don't know that language?

texts:
I'm starting to do some research in Asia, however, I don't know the local language. I do have some contacts, all of whom speak English, but I'm worried about finding earlier research which was published in the local language. For example, if I don't speak Thai and I am doing research in Thailand, how can I find existing research which was published in Thai (with the intent of contacting the researcher or finding a translator to translate it into English)?

This might be a futile exercise, and I might need to remove the question but in case anyone out there has a creative idea, I would love to hear it.


texts: Is it insulting to call a full professor Dr. Firstname Lastname in a non-academic event program?

texts:
I'm in charge of putting together an event program, for a non-academic (business) event. We have several academics presenting, from mainland Europe and the UK.

In the agenda is it appropriate to write, for example,

Topic Title - Dr. Firstname Lastname, Professor of xyz at XYZ
University
Topic Title - Prof. Firstname Lastname, Professor of xyz
at XYZ University
Topic Title - Prof. Dr. Firstname Lastname, Professor of xyz at XYZ University
Topic Title - Whatever is in their linkedin profile...

(as seems to be typical on the continent)

I ask because I would like to use appropriate titles without sounding too academic and without insulting anyone. All are full professors, one emeritus. I'd like to use the same for all if possible, for consistency.

And, I am assuming that I should use at minimum a Dr. before the name even though the job title will be listed after the name, even though speakers with MBAs etc. will not have their titles listed, and will just be Firstname Lastname... not Ms. Firstname Lastname, MBA.


texts: Should I be citing wrong papers and preprints whose correctness I am unable to judge?

texts:
I am currently writing a paper with a rather extensive literature trail. There is a question (see bold) that I came across in multiple instances and I can't seem to find an answer to it on this site. Here are two examples.

Firstly, I am unsure whether I should cite papers that are wrong. For example there is a paper which discusses an issue relevant to a part of my paper. However, important parts of the paper have been shown to be wrong, and there is a published comment addressing these issues. A retraction was not found to be necessary.

Secondly, I am citing a couple of preprints, which I studied carefully and found to be relevant for completeness of the discussion. However, while I am able to judge the scope and relevance of the claims, I am unable to judge their correctness, since the methods lie outside my field of expertise.

In both cases above, my main question is whether by citing an article, do I obtain a responsibility for its correctness? I understand that this probably depends on how exactly the work is cited. For definiteness, let us take

  A related model was discussed in [preprint citation].

as an example.

In such a context, the paper is tangentially relevant and should in my opinion be cited, even though it is only for completeness reasons. It is however not peer-reviewed and I am unable to judge its correctness. At the same time I am not stating this anywhere, which would sound weird and obscure the point. So the question here is if I can cite it without being partially responsible if the cited paper turns out to be wrong in the end.

I am aware of this post: Is it right to cite a retracted research article?, however I believe that it discusses a different issue. In this question I am specifically asking about the responsibility of assuring the correctness of cited work, also having in mind that it probably is practically impossible to check all the references in a paper for full correctness.


texts: How much does the reputation of the undergrad institution matter in top 10 graduate schools in Mathematics?

texts:
I will be starting as a freshman in August 2018 in an undergrad institution. My school does not have the best reputation for mathematics in my country. Although it has a tie-up with another nearby graduate institution, which is the well known to top 10 US graduate program in Mathematics. Some Faculties from it teach courses at my institution. As from there, I do have hopes of getting good LOR's. Because of fewer facilities, many students in my undergrad pursue their honors thesis at a different location. Few of them pursued outside of my country under AMS fellows.

Ph.D. placements at my school include Dartmouth ,Northwestern, Paris, UIUC etc.

I do have the option of taking a gap year and target two other schools A & B.

School A has recently started its undergrad program. Although it is fairly reputed in my country and abroad.
Their placements include Chicago, Ohio State, Wisconsin etc.

School B has the best math undergrad program in my country. It has a stellar reputation in top 10 grad schools in the US and many students are pursuing PhDs in those schools.

I know Harvard or Princeton is beyond my reach, but do schools like Chicago or Berkeley care more about elite undergrad status. Should I take a gap year? Can stellar letters of recommendation and good honor's thesis outweigh undergrad reputation?


texts: Including my institution in a research paper

texts:
Consider this scenario:

I am a student. I ask my professor about possible research grants. He suggests applying for a research grant with 3D printing. He helps me brainstorm and incubate in idea.
I start doing research, get a proof-of-concept, submit the proposal. While waiting for the decision, he suggests I present at my university's research conference.
I register for the conference, include my professor as the advisor and give the presentation.
Get a good amount of my research done. My proposal was rejected unfortunately. I still did a tremendous amount of work, so I am going to write up a formal paper on my findings.

So the question: Is it appropriate to include my university as my affiliation in the paper? This is my first research paper, so I don't quite know the best practices on this. I should credit my professor. He really helped me to shape my idea and gave me a lot of advice. However, he did not have a formal role in the research.

I did do my work in the school's hardware lab. My professor did help me a lot in giving me advice. However, the tools, materials and 3D printer were all mine and it was all done on my own time.

So I'm writing this paper up, and wondering whether I should include my title using something like the following template:

3D Printing Stuff Title
John Smith
Advisor: Hubert Farnsworth
Department of Quantum Neutrino Fields
Mars University
fry@mars.edu


texts: I am wondering if anybody knows of a datasource that makes available tuition cost over time (annually) for US institutions.  I am particularly interested in the cost of graduate school expense.


texts:
I am wondering how graduate schools like Stanford, Berkeley, Caltech, and MIT evaluate the GPA?

Because you can boost your GPA by taking easy classes and in the application it only says enter your GPA. Do they consider classes students have taken?
Do they consider whether course are challenging or not?


texts:
I am writing an academic paper with some co-authors and we are thinking of including a word in parentheses in the title. So the title would look something like

  XXXX (YYYY?) XXXX

I have two questions:

Is there any style issue/argument against this? The fact that I need to ask this question in the first place leads me to believe that there is. But I thought I would ask since this may just be a rare occurrence and may not violate any writing/style rules.
In case it is okay, would it be okay for the title to start with the parentheses?


texts: Attribution of diagrams made with Creative Commons software

texts:
If I want to use diagrams I created using GeoGebra in a dissertation or paper, how do I properly credit/give attribution? The terms of service say:

  We grant you permission to use the Website Content under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-ShareAlike licence (version 3.0 or later), the current text of which can be found via this link. Attribution (as required by that Creative Commons license) should take the form of (at least) a mention of our name, an appropriate copyright notice and a link to our website located at https://www.geogebra.org.

  Use of existing "authored" materials published on our website are similarly subject to attribution, to include the name of the author(s) and link or hyperlink to the material itself. For example, "Created with GeoGebra, by [name of author of material]".

It would seem tedious and distracting to write "Created using GeoGebra (www.geogebra.org) under CC-BY-NC-SA-3.0" in every figure caption. Would it be acceptable to include a note on the List of Figures page, either mentioning the specific figures or just "some figures were created using..."? Or the Acknowledgements page?


texts:
I wrote a master thesis which went quite bad, due to communication problems with advisor, and my advisor said he is not willing to continue guiding me for PhD studies.

Specifically, I was asked to prove that the elementary theory of finite field is decidable, and I had no background on model theory. I had difficulty understanding, for example, the proofs of Riemann hypothesis for curves and Chebotarev's theorem. As such, I made mistakes when I wrote the thesis. It felt like the subject is too large for one thesis so I was unable to fill some details in some proofs. When I asked for guidance for some of the proofs, he did provide assistance, but only after six months time.

However, I have studied math on my own and I know that I am able to understand math by working on my own. Is there any hope for my math career if my thesis advisor said so? I have done couple of small new proofs for some old results, but they are so small that I guess I won't get a publication to any journal.


texts: How can co-authors check the status of a submitted manuscript in Elsevier Editorial System?

texts: I know that after submitting a paper through Elsevier Editorial System, the corresponding author can check the status of the submitted paper online. But how about co-authors? Can the corresponding author give a permission to the co-authors to enable them to check the status of the paper as well? If yes, how that can be done?


texts:
this teacher has done the following in a required, non-elective class:

forced students to provide personal reflections in their health, including those with trauma for whom that is triggering
responded critically to said personal reflections, sometimes in mocking tone, sometimes in all caps
provided contradictory and confusing instructions
refused to respond to requests for clarification for said instructions
failed assignments submitted by students who picked the wrong interpretation of said confusing instructions
failed assignments for picking the wrong subset of a list of ten options when instructions indicated they could pick any of the above options.
refuses to meet with students to discuss any of the above issues

the students in this class have already sought assistance from their advisors, who directed them to the vice dean, from the vice dean, who revealed their identities and complaints to the abusive professor, and to the dean, who instructed them to contact the disability office about trauma, or to tough it out. The disability office has not returned complainants phone calls.

The affected students have begun building up a paper trail, and are discussing contacting the accrediting institution for the university.

Has anyone experienced anything of this magnitude? Did you contact the accreditors? What did they do? What other recourse do this teacher’s victims have?


texts:
I'm an American professor in a branch of theoretical science at a US institution. There is a Japanese postdoc in our group who has nearly finished writing a paper with one of the American postdocs. We're having a bit of a conflict over authorship: the Japanese postdoc wants my name to be on the publication, and I don't think it's appropriate. I chatted about the project with them while it was in progress and made a few suggestions, but fundamentally all the ideas and computations originated with the two postdocs. I think that they should take full credit for the work and I that I should take none, and this seems consistent with US authorship norms to me. However, the postdoc from Japan seems very unhappy that I don't want to sign my name on the paper. He said that if I don't, then he won't feel like he can discuss his future work-in-progress with me because he will think I am disavowing the work or that I have no time for him. I've insisted that I'm happy to discuss his work, I just think that he deserves his share of credit for it and that if my name is attached it might be perceived by others as more my work than his.

I've never encountered this situation before. At times I've been in the opposite situation, when I was a postdoc, feeling that professors were claiming undue credit for my work, so actively wanting a professor who did none of the actual work to claim authorship is difficult for me to understand. But I assume this is a difference in cultural norms; I know professors from certain countries in our field who have such a large number of publications that it's clear they're claiming authorship over this sort of project that they had very little involvement in. (I don't necessarily mean that as a criticism of them; I think that within their local academic culture, this is expected and ethical behavior.)

How should I negotiate this cultural clash?

(Also, to forestall one possible set of comments, I'm in a field where alphabetical author order is conventional, so that isn't an issue here.)


texts: What is considered as unethical omission of information on an application

texts: If someone were to have an opportunity to attend a school, and registered in courses, but was unable to attend due to personal issues, withdrew before the start of semester, never paid tuition, never attended courses, and is now reapplying to other schools, is this information relevant on an application? There would be no transcript to submit, as it would be blank, but should it be mentioned somehow anyway?


texts: If a student acquires a good score in GRE, does it guarantees that he has a good merit to earn a good grade in a taught graduate program?


texts: Submit Similar Content to Two Conferences

texts: Assuming that I have some methodology for monitoring ecological behavior that I wish to publish on, how much overlap is acceptable between an ecological paper and a computational algorithm paper, published at different times?


texts: In May, my professor agreed to write me letter of recommendation, but now I just graduated

texts: I just graduated recently in May, and right before graduation, I asked if my professors could write me LOR for grad school. And they all agreed. Now I'm in the process of applying to grad schools, but it's almost October, and how should I write the email to remind my professors of LOR? Should I start by asking if their offers still stand, and if they need anything else (like supporting materials) from me?


texts: What kind of papers do economics and finance students write?

texts: I teach a writing course that has many students who plan to study economics or finance in graduate school. I am not so familiar with these disciplines, but want to make sure these students finish the semester with the skills they need to succeed in graduate school. What kind of writing assignments can they expect to see?


texts: Access to journals for individuals outside of an institution?

texts:
For all that is said about the wealth of information that is freely available on the internet, the fact is that most of it is incomplete, dumbed down, lacking in context or downright wrong.

Individuals spend the best part of 20 years completely oblivious to the existence of journals and the process of peer review and even then we'd be lucky if 10% of those with access to journals (usually through an institution) actually bother to invest in them.

Granted that some journals will be totally inaccessible to those without a solid background in some particular field but by and large exposure is a good thing and there are many areas of research where individuals will benefit directly from having read these.

Where does this come from?

I decided I wanted to read Popular Politics in the Late Medieval City: York and Bruge in The English Historical Review today, mainly because it looks interesting and I'm hoping to invest more time into learning about British and European History. Incidentally I also wouldn't mind tucking into Super Stable Clocks, Nature 500, 505 (29 August 2013) and a number of data analysis and big data journals in order to advance my career.

Now, not being affiliated with an institution that subscribes to these journals means that I would typically have to pay between £5 ($10) and £15 ($25) per article that I read... I could probably spend £100 just to pass an hour by.

Question

What's being done to address the lockdown on 'higher' education material? I've noticed that the Directory of Open Access Journals publishes open articles and other firms are doing similar, mainly with journals in new fields?
How could I, as an individual outside of an institution, gain journal access without it costing so much money?


texts: Checking the content of research statement

texts: I finished Ph.D several months ago and planning to apply for postdoc positions. I am preparing my research statement. I would like to ask some experts to review it before uploading that. Is it ethical to ask my Ph.D advisor to study and review it? I do not know how and to whom can I send my research statement to check and review that before uploading for postdoc position.


texts: Is it rude to ask an unaffiliated student to leave the PhD student office?

texts:
I work in an office space shared by 3 professors. We have bullpen style desks and around 75% of them are full. The lab is somewhat spacious.

One of the first-year PhD students (not my advisor's student) brings in her friend with her to the lab everyday. They hang out mostly, often taking naps and such. The friend uses the lab microwave and has lunch in the lab everyday. They are generally very quiet and not disruptive. The friend is not a PhD student and as such not a member of the lab.

Would it be rude to ask this person to not come to the lab? I've spoken to the rest of the people in the office and they don't care at all, but it bothers me that they are treating the lab as their living room (given that they are here from 10 AM to 8 PM, most of it involves sleeping or using their mobile phone). What would be the right thing to do here? Do I just ignore them or do I ask the person to leave given that they are not doing, nor will ever do research for any of the 3 professors.

Has anyone faced a similar situation before?


texts: I am a community college student in Computer Science field who likes to have good resume when I want to transfer to university, I found out this is very useful if I start to work in particular area in my field like Machine Learning, Security, Algorithm, ...and start to work with other professors in this field area like they who publish paper and conference, I couldn't find any professor in community college who works and researches in a serious field, I found out research and research assistant is not part of community college and you have to look for that in university then I started to send emails to other professors in different universities like UC and CSU and ask for volunteer research assistant but I didn't receive any useful response, some of them told me they will let me know if something shows up and other didn't answer me. Now I am getting disappointment because they don't want to give a chance to a college student because I am studying in community college but I want to know is this a common way I am doing if yes how is the correct way to do this?


texts: How to suggest merging papers with a more senior author?

texts:
Here is my situation: A well-known senior researcher - let's call him Prof. Bigshot - wrote a paper. His paper is based on a good idea, but the implementation of that idea is (in my humble opinion) messy. After much thought, I, a lowly PhD student, cleaned up and extended the implementation and wrote a follow-up paper.

Both of our papers are publicly available on arxiv. I know (via gossip) that Bigshot's paper has been rejected twice already. I have not submitted my paper anywhere yet.

I believe his paper is being rejected because it is a conceptual paper without any meat. And I worry that my paper will also be rejected because it is incremental. However, if we merged our papers, I think it would be a strong paper as it would have both conceptual and technical contributions.
Thus I think it would be mutually beneficial if we merged our papers. (My advisor concurs with this assessment. Merging papers is reasonably common in my field.)

How do I go about suggesting to Prof. Bigshot that we merge our papers? I don't know what the etiquette for this situation is. I worry that he will think I am trying to take credit for his idea. Should I just wait for him to bring it up? or should I actively suggest it?

I have interacted with Prof. Bigshot before and I also sent him a draft of my paper, to which he responded positively. So this is not coming out of the blue for him, but I need to be diplomatic nonetheless. In particular, I want him to feel comfortable saying no without anyone's feelings being hurt.


texts: How do academics reconcile simultaneously collaborating and competing with colleagues?

texts:
In many fields of academia, a professor must get grants to fund his research (e.g., medicine, biology).

Early in academic career, a scientist can have naive expectations about how things work in academia and later may be surprised by the reality. One such surprise is the compete and collaborate paradox.

Later in career, it may be not so simple to collaborate and share fully your ideas, since twice a year (or so) we all submit grants and we suddenly are less friendly colleagues who share ideas, but we compete with each other or between "groups". For example, we don't let anyone see our full grant submissions. (e.g., NIH medical grants - full text must be requested by freedom of information act and only abstracts are on the web).

How do you handle in every day life, at conferences, in hallway conversations this paradox of collaborating and competing at the same time in academia?
How do you determine what to share?
Do you avoid colleagues who are known to 'tell only the minimum' at congresses and then surprise later with an accepted grant?

Philosophically, it is impossible to collaborate and compete at the same time and one has to have some ethical structure but everyone's boundaries seem to be different!


texts: How much seen material/questions should an exam paper contain?

texts:
At University,say the lecturers hand out past papers with solutions for the students to revise from for an upcoming exam.

Is it common practise for the exam to contain a couple of the exact same questions
which are in the previous past exams?

Is it common for the exam to contain questions which the lecturer has put in the assessed worksheets throughout the semester but has already handed out the solutions to?


texts: What prevents someone from turning the same idea into multiple papers?

texts:
I think the question is fairly clear. Someone could have idea A, and write paper A, but then instead of submitting paper A to multiple journals, he or she might re-write the thing into a paper B, but the basic idea is still idea A.

Say the idea is amazing. He or she could then submit paper A to top journal A & paper B to top journal B, and have two top publications from one idea.

This is obviously wrong, and what I describe is extreme, but what would prevent someone from doing this, what would the consequences be? A bad reputation?

There might also be less obvious cases, where parts of a previously published paper are re-used extensively. Is something like this ever o.k. to do? Why don't more people do it? Or am I just wrong in the assumption that people don't do this?

PS: I am coming from a Humanities background, I think in some subjects things like these might be more difficult, e.g. in maths or a paper which describes a certain study / experiment.


texts:
I was applying for an academic research program and They wanted to know about my first language.
But I am confused about my first language because from my childhood I used to speak Egnlish because English is the medium of teaching in my school but My parents speak French at home so I used to speak french at home.
Now, which language should I mention as my 1st Language in my application?


texts: Use plural or singular first person in abstract of a talk on collaborative work?

texts:
When writing an abstract for a talk on a topic that I have collaborated on with others, should I be using the plural form, such as

  "We have shown this and that ..."

or is it better to write it as:

  "I will discuss this and that ..."


texts: Is copying an image from a previous paper of mine and citing its source considered self-plagiarism or unprofessional?

texts:
Last year, I wrote a paper and it got accepted and was presented at a conference.

This year, I am writing a more in-depth paper about a similar subject; but since one of the figures in my first paper is adequate for my purpose, I want to reuse that one (of course citing it adequately).

Am I OK in doing that, or is that seen as self-plagiarism or unprofessional?


texts: Do case reports require ethical approvals?

texts:
Do case reports involving people with medical ailments require ethical approvals? If they do not, then why?

I am located in Sweden, but am (almost) equally interested in conditions elsewhere.


texts: Protecting my project from theft by panel I am submitting it to

texts:
I'm doing an (external) bachelor's degree in the field of computing and am in the second of my three years. The final requirement of this degree is a project, complete with development and a dissertation that has to be submitted to the institute and defended at a Viva. I've taken the liberty of researching well into a lot of parts of my potential project, and have given a lot of thought into it.

My long research has prompted my few family/friends in the industry to ridicule me (which I don't mind), and have warned me that creating a "good" project would run the risk of "questionable" practices enacted.

In short, I've been told that the panel might fail my project and transfer all it's content to a favoured student of their own if they find mine interesting enough. I do not know if this is a fact or just a rumor. But, I don't want this to happen (with me or anyone else).

What measures can I take to make sure that they can't do things like this to both the dissertation I submit and the code I develop? I've already thought of private repositories on online version control systems to keep the code, but what about the dissertation?

Note:

we are required to include a declaration signed by my advisor and myself that allows the dissertation to be used by the institute for loans and publishing, as well as to outside organizations.
I'm intending to release the software as open-source after I graduate, so this may be a problem.
If it is stolen, I doubt that complaining to the institute will help, and may result on the ganging up on me.

P.S.: I hope I don't sound like a whiner or moron.


texts: Why don't papers have their titles as a filename?

texts: Often(basically always but I'm not 100% sure) when I download papers from any journal they have random letters and numbers as their title, this is quite annoying and I have to rename the document to have a descriptive name. Why do this files have these random filenames instead of the titles of the papers?


texts: Towards a Stackexchange-like comment/reputation system for research papers

texts:
We have had quite a few discussions on how to gauge the quality of research papers and academic journals. The consensus is that it is tough to identify a single metric which could reveal this quality factor.

I had an idea in this context. In the past newspapers used to have a single "Letters to Editor" section to which comments on all articles were sent. With the advent of the Net, we have a comments section under every article.

Similarly, why don't reputable journals introduce a comment space for their published papers, where fellow researchers could appreciate/criticise/query the works?
What hinders us from having a reputation system for published papers - something where registered users could vote based on their perceived utility?


texts: What does top-tier mean when referring to journals/conferences?

texts: I see people here often use the term 'top-tier' when referring to journals/conferences. Is it used to refer to the top publications in terms of metrics like the impact factor? Or is it used to refer to venues which are traditionally highly-regarded but not necessarily having high impact factors?


texts:
I m rounding the corner of my PhD and wanted to have the semblance of a plan for next steps as I close out my degree.
I came from industry so I have a grasp of the pros and cons on that front. I also have exposure to the darkside of academia as I had a front row seat to lab startup trials and tribulations. My issue lies with the fact that my curiosity itch has the best chance to be satisfied on the academic side. In a post Covid world university budgets will be extraordinarly tight making an already dire market for tenure track positions worse. Also I can imagine non R1 institutions having less opportunities as well.
I was wondering if anyone ever witnessed someone cobble together a patchwork of job roles to make a career out of research blending industry and academia together. Like a part time soft money independent researcher in combination with something else to have a long term career. I know there are industrial post docs but I am looking for a career bit a temp position.
Looking forward to hearing responses.
UPDATE
I am relaxing the condition of working for both industry and academia at the same time as it seems to be a key roadblock in achieving the ultimate goal.


texts:
I was evaluating Jabref and found it has a bibliography web search tool.
You can choose among:

ACM Portal
Arxiv
Crossref
DBLP
DOAJ
GVK
Google Scholar
IEEEXplore
Inspire
MathSciNet
Springer

Which one offers more or better results when looking for a given scientific or technologic article?


texts:
I am doing my MS thesis on wireless networking, I give the codes from the author of the paper, for some month, after reading his paper and also working on the some aspects of his codes (the implementation of his paper). Now it is the time to create the idea, Can I send him "Do you have any idea which improve some aspects of your paper ?  "

would you please give me some advises ? can I ask him or not? how to ask that ? what I should say to him ?

NOTE: my reason for asking him is this: I am sure he knows his codes better than every body, also I am afraid in implementing any idea which do not lead to good result at the end. By the way I do not have lot of time to try and test another ways I mean try and implement one idea with bad result and after that switch to another idea.

UPDATE: If I ask him, "... , that is  my idea, what do think about my idea?" what will happen? what is his possible respond?

UPDATE2: The meaning of idea in my question is "HOW TO EXTEND HIS WORK"


texts:
I need to download the following PhD Thesis:

"LH Jensen - Large deviations of the asymmetric simple exclusion process in one dimension"

However this website forces me to pay for it. I think it is possible to download the thesis from the Columbia Library (link), but as I am a PhD student based in the UK, I don't have access to it.

So how can I access an American PhD thesis?


texts: How should I approach a Tokyo University professor to join their lab?

texts:
What are the guidelines that I should follow when contacting a foreign University professor to ask for joining their lab?
I need to find a professor for my already accepted semester abroad as an exchange student. I will be doing my Final Year Project as an undergraduate student and I am having a hard time getting a response from the professors at the Tokyo University. I have contacted with the current student abroad and he told me that it also took him a while to find a professor.
So now I'm wondering about my methods. Is this letter okay?

Hello _____,
I'm an exchange student from the Polytechnic University of Valencia. I am contacting you to see if you might be interested in accepting me for doing my Final Year Project.
The project I would like to do is an artificial skin capable of registering different pressure points on a soft material layer. It would consist mainly on a foam that has resistivity variable with the pressure and an Arduino circuit to read and process these values. In this way we can read many points of pressure in a precise way.
The main challenge is joining several fields of Engineering, which is also one of the strongest motivations for me. I have broad experience in programming, I am confident of my capabilities in electronics and I have already verified that this material is the right one.
There are mainly two fields where this technology could be very useful:

Medicine: For the people who are missing a limb, this could bring back a part of the sensibility, even if it's in a different format.

Robotics: relying on precise pressure sensors could improve greatly the accuracy of many of their functions.

Would you accept me as a student to develop this project? Seeing your background I think that you might be interested.
Thank you so much for your time,
Francisco Presencia Fandos

The main feedback I've already gotten is that if I write the letter open to suggestions but not proposing a project it would be easier for the professors to accept me. Also, I'm thinking of writing my achievements so far, but I think they could look like bragging.
Is this letter okay? Is this the right method for finding a professor in an university abroad?


texts: How not to come off as boasting or arrogant, if you are one of the few active students in a class?

texts:
tl;dr: How not to come off as boasting, arrogant, attention seeking, etc. if you are one of the few students participating in class?

Some background:

I am currently attending a Master's level course where in-class participation of students is quite low. Typically, very few questions get asked by the students. When the lecturer asks a question to check if the class is following (or rather: at least not sleeping), the same 2-3 students provide the answers.

I try to participate actively: I'm not afraid of giving a wrong answer or of "looking stupid" by asking a question that can easily be answered. This however sometimes leads to me answering most of the lecturer's questions, which - I think - discourages other students to ask questions in the lecture (after all, who wants to announce that they didn't understand something when there is somebody else in the class who apparently did?) This in turn might lead the lecturer to falsely believe that everyone is following (not really my problem), but it might also lead to me being perceived as boasting, arrogant, attention seeking, disruptive (without ill intentions), etc., which I want to avoid.

I realized a while ago that I do like the attention and since then I try to evaluate whether a question/comment is really helpful before actually asking it. I also avoid answering the lecturer's questions immediately so that other students have a change to answer (or feel pressured to do so because of enduring silence ;)). On the other hand, I do not want to sell myself short and I do not want to be perceived as being arrogant because of not bothering to answer.


texts: Are university salaries public information in Sweden?

texts:
I am currently in the process of negotiating position both on the academic side and industry. I was told certain numbers on the spread of salaries for a specific position at a specific place, however I cannot locate the source of this information.

So I am wondering whether or not salaries at a university are public information, specifically in Sweden. My understanding is that they are/should be, especially considering that even emails sent/received via university mail servers are covered as public information.

On the other hand, labor unions like (such Sveriges Ingenjörer) typically give salary statistics is one of the major reasons why you should be a paying member. Why would I want to pay for information that is publicly available?

Follow-up: If salary information is indeed publicly available, then where can I find it; do I contact the institute of interest directly or do I get in-touch with the national tax agency (i.e. Skatteverket)?


texts: How much should reviewers care about other things than an article's content?

texts:
This is a follow-up question to a previous one asking for the potential impact of the typesetting tool (at the review level) on the chances of acceptance for a given paper.

I'm interested in the general case where reviewers will get a "feeling" of the way the article is presented, be it the writing style, British vs. American English, English from non-native speakers, choice of font, or like in the linked question, typesetting and any other criterion that is not related to the content of the work presented.

To be clear, I'm not asking about the more obvious or well-documented sources of bias, like the sex, name or geographic location of the authors. This can possibly be addressed by double-blind review.

As an example, I'm used to journal submissions in the form of a PDF with the least possible amount of formatting: plain text, typically not justified on both sides, lines numbered, usually double-spaced, figure captions at the end, figures concatenated at the end by the electronic submission system. Where I publish, typesetting is a journal's thing and as an author I'm happy to delegate that hurdle.

I once reviewed conference proceedings where the submission was very informal and couldn't help but having a "feeling" from the looks of the submissions. Authors who used LaTeX, which is unusual in my field, didn't look like they had a lot of experience publishing in this field.

I think that ideally this feeling should be silenced and I tried to do so as much as I could. However, reading comments and answers on this other thread made me wonder if that was a sentiment that others shared. My question then boils down to:

Do reviewers have a duty to try to ignore their biases or is the "gut feeling" an important part of the review?

As a final note, I'm not looking for arguments in favor or against the use of LaTeX in general, or in the specific case I mentioned. I find LaTeX to be very well suited for the applications it's intended for and I simply used that example to illustrate something that is not content but could (and apparently does) induce a bias.


texts: Why do universities/research agencies allow their employees to do free peer reviewing which financially benefits a third party?

texts:
Following up with this question Has there ever been a strike of peer reviewers? and this Why don't researchers request payment for refereeing?

I understand that peer reviewing probably started when there were relatively fewer article submissions than today and when the academic system was going at a slower pace and was less cluttered with people.

But given how the system has evolved, I am wondering why do employers let their employee work for free for the monetary benefit of a third party?
As far I as know no employer pays its employees to make someone else rich. It seems against any economics principle. Wouldn't it be more efficient to pay reviewers so they would be more motivated, quicker to review, and universities/grants/governments would not pay someone to work for free for the economic benefit of someone else? This might also offset the cost of salary of professors. Any economic return to the employer seems very low considering the working hours devoted to reviewing.


texts: CS Conference paper reviews, decision and supervisor issue

texts:
I have submitted one research paper in a famous Top rank conference, my main supervisor was not happy to submit because he thought it will be rejected and still needs to be improved but my co-supervisor encouraged me to submit.

So, finally I submitted the paper and my main supervisor asked me not to write his name on the paper, I requested him again but he refused. now I got positive feedback from two reviewers first one accept, and 2nd reviews was weak accept. when I told my main supervisor about it but it seems he was not happy and after 3-4 day which is very unusual , I got the third review which is weak reject and it had same comments which my main supervisor used to tell me before submitting. I doubt that he used his influence and caused the problem for my paper.

The final decision is still due but I don't have many hopes because he told me that the program chair is his very close friend.

I wanted to change the supervisor but everyone is scared of him and nobody wants any issues with him so everyone refused, even one agreed but after this incident of 3rd review he also excused and said sorry he cant supervise.

now my question is this, how and what i should do with my current supervisor? should I continue with him? or what? also do you guys advise to discuss things openly with him>


texts: Would a PhD from a foreign country hurt you in U.S. academia in terms of job offers?

texts:
I'm about to graduate from a terminal masters program in the United States.  The most prominent PhD program I've gotten into has been at Trinity College Dublin.  I want to go into U.S. academia rather than Irish academia, but the PhD programs I've gotten into the U.S. have been second-tier.

Is there a disadvantage in terms of hiring prospects?  My main concern is that I might not be taken as seriously in the U.S. since European graduate schools have very short (by U.S. standards) periods of study.  I've heard 3 years of graduate work is typical for Irish universities in my field, while U.S. schools you might study twice as long.

tl;dr First-tier Irish university or second-tier U.S. university for my PhD?


texts: How to justify an application for research funding if the only cost is my own academic or intellectual labour (without any equipments) etc?

texts:
I am applying for a small research grant.
However, I would not need to spend the funds for anything project-related (e.g. equipments, access to databases, travel costs etc). I only need to spend time reading related works, code a bit, and write a paper.
In other words, I would take take the fund as a salary for my academic labour.
Now, the application form asks me to explain how I plan to use the funding. What would be the best way to respond to this question when I only incur the personal costs covering the time for my intellectual work?


texts: What is the common dates to apply and then start a PhD in western Europe?

texts:
I am currently looking for a PhD in computer science for the fall in France, Germany and Switzerland. Although I still find some offers, I think applying in June is quite late.

What are the common periods to apply for a PhD in those countries and in which month do people usually start their PhD? Is it common to start it at the beginning of the summer semester?


texts: How critical is TA experience in grad school if I want to pursue a career in academia?

texts:
I got accepted into my dream program at one of the best universities in the US, and I'll be working under an excellent, very well known advisor whose interests align very well with mine. However, since I will likely be getting a multi-year fellowship, and due to how this specific program is structured, it seems that I won't be getting much TA experience, if any at all.

I love teaching and enjoy it very much, and I already have 2 years of TA experience as an undergrad. How much would it affect my future TT applications if I have a (hopefully) solid research record but not that much TA experience? I don't want to turn down this opportunity but might have to if it turns out I won't get the TA experience I want/need.

EDIT: My field is applied physics/electrical engineering/materials science (very interdisciplinary research area so in theory I could be hired by any of these departments). I hope to work at an R1 school.


texts: Should peer review of conference proceedings be listed in a CV with journal peer reviewing, or should it be separate?

texts: In my field, conferences are rarely peer reviewed.  The usual categories of peer review are journals and grants.  If I peer review for conference proceedings, should I list that in my CV under journal peer reviewing, or should I create a new category?


texts: Offline (!) similarity/plagiarism detection tool

texts:
Can anyone please suggest an offline similarity check software which could work with a custom database of PDF or text files? Motivation: I have lots of previous reports from students (these are not available online and therefore online plagiarism checkers will not detect a thing) and I need to use them as a database against which to check the reports that are submitted by the current students. Of course, I could check every report against each of the previous ones using some diff tool, but that would be hugely inefficient and a lot of pain on top of that.

Thanks.

nvx


texts: Can we mention "most likely" employer as current employer for PhD applciation?

texts: I recently graduated with a Masters late this year, so I've been looking for jobs for some time. My eventual plan is to enter a PhD program and I'm already working on my applications. Currently I'm in talks with a company, and I'm kind of assured (through networking) that I will get the job there. However, I haven't received a formal confirmation yet. I'm submitting one PhD application this week. So I was wondering if it would be acceptable to mention this company as a current employer in my application. The problem is that it's a consultancy job that's not even remotely related to my grad school research, so for once I feel like not mentioning it at all. But then I was worried that portraying myself as unemployed  by leaving current employer section blank might not be that great for my application either. So I'm extremely tempted to put down this company in the application. It's just the ethical issue that's stopping me. I'm looking for suggestions on how to deal with this situation.


texts: Advice for writing Lab Manuals for undergraduate students

texts:
I was wondering how lab manuals for freshmen or junior year engineering students are created. I am currently working on documenting a lab manual for a project. Although, I am fairly well-versed with the subject matter and have written the code for the project myself during my undergraduation, I am required to write it from the point-of-view of a student.

It would be helpful if I can divide the project into session-based labs and provide step-by-step remote mentoring of students.

The manual should emphasize creative learning but also not encourage spoon feeding. I need some templates/examples to get started with.


texts: How common is use of word "PhDs" to describe PhD holders in formal documents?

texts:
The context is that this usage can be useful to describe people with PhD degrees while saving on extra characters in a formal document.

Example: "The position is typically reserved for PhDs" (instead of saying "PhD holders").

The question is relevant here to know how common is it for professors/academics to use this term in formal contexts without being frowned upon.


texts: How hard is it to re-enter academia as a postdoc in mathematics?

texts:
I'm currently in my first postdoctoral research position at a European university, in pure maths. I'm considering changing to software development. In case I would rather like to return to academia, how hard is it, as compared to trying to stay in academia right away?

The two scenarios I'd like to compare are:

Finishing my current postdoc and apply for new postdocs (let's assume that all relevant application deadlines are still in the future).
Finishing my current postdoc, working n years in software development and then apply for new postdocs.

How big does n have to become such that the chances of application success in the second scenario are significantly lower?


texts: If an undergrad maths student publishes a paper in renowned journals, then will he be able to get chance in top universities?

texts: My grades are average and I want to study mathematics in top institutions like cambridge, princeton etc. If I am able to publish a paper in mathematics in high impact journals, then will it be possible to pursue a research career from best universities?


texts: How to ask a postdoc professor for experimental work when my PhD experience is computational?

texts:
My PhD was in computational modeling 3D printing process using Abaqus finite element analysis. It took me 5.5 years to get the PhD and I published 4 first author papers from it. The issue is, I had put forward my desire to do experimental work during my PhD. But that did not materialize. Looking back, I do regret not choosing an experential topic. The true fact is I was not getting any good PhD positions. I liked this topic and started it. I do have an experimental background in my masters and undergrad research. But that's like 6 years ago.
After 3 years of starting, I had realized that I might get into issues securing job after PhD. But I did not want to leave my PhD halfway.
Now, I am trying to get a experimental+simulations postdoc position but I am unable to get one (thanks to both my CV and covid). I know that I have screwed up chances for an experimental+simulations position.
But, do you have any suggestions on how I can approach a professor for a postdoc position with such a proposition in mind?
Another negative point on my resume. I am 31 years old.


texts:
Recently I am offered a Ph.D. position ( Industry Project) in Australia and they want me to join ASAP. (It will be fully funded , fees will be waived off and even I will get monthly stipend)

but my question and confusion is that currently, I am doing Master by Research (2nd year in Australia) and should be ending it by the end of 2019 (or even a bit earlier If I can complete and submit my thesis but It will take at least 3-4 months). My Master research is also fully funded. (fees is waived off and getting a monthly scholarship)

I am confused and do not know what to do? Either complete my Master(but I may lose this Ph.D. opportunity) or leave Master and start a new Ph.D. or some other option?

Note: Research Areas are totally different in both cases.

Please advise??

updating:

i) The future plan was to do a PhD and join Academia
ii) Joined Master by Research instead of Ph.D. earlier to fill the gap which I feel is filled now after working for 10years in an Industry.
iii) The current area is hot but I feel my programming skills are not up to that level. for Ph.D. I know I will need programming skills but I feel I can manage that


texts: PhD - Well known professor or well known school?

texts:
What is more valuable broadly speaking (assuming all else equal):

A PhD from a decent school (top ~100) with a very well respected (but not famous) professor; say for example the head of department
A PhD from a top school (top ~5) with a young academic or substantially less reputable professor compared to the other school

In my case both are funded, both projects are good, and I can see myself working with either academic. Is there a broad brush-stroke "rule" as to which degree is more valuable for my career?


texts: How real is it to become a "formal" researcher (that is someone holding some research position) after earning a PhD at the age of 40? Sometimes it so happens that people discover their true interest only later in life. But because society is used to follow certain established patterns, it may be difficult for such people to readjust their lives. I believe there exist certain biases or prejudices about what people are supposed to do at a certain age, which may hinder one's path socially, emotionally, as well as professionally.


texts: Are there known cases of leaks in academia?

texts:
There are many situations in academia where an entity is entrusted with confidential data belonging to a researcher. A very obvious one is the publication process: the journals are required to keep submitted papers confidential until they are published. But there are also other situations. For example, biologists can submit newly discovered nucleotide sequences to the EMBL database, and they have the option to request the new sequences to be kept confidential until publication. I guess that other disciplines can have similar arrangements.

In these cases, the entity has the responsibility of keeping the data confidential, and a leak can have highly negative consequences for the scientist who entrusted them with their not-yet-published results.

My question is: are there known cases of such leaks? I don't mean just a reviewer mentioning to his colleagues "I have a very interesting paper by X, if the results are confirmed, we may be looking at a cure for [type of cancer]" without further details. I mean high-profile cases where an institution or its employee is more or less "officially" accused of either willful wrongdoing, or of insufficient protection of the information so that e.g. a database was hacked and the information read out.

If there are such cases, what happened? How were they discovered, and what were the consequences for the scientist whose data was made public, and for the institution which should have kept it secret?


texts:
I am an academic at a large university. I have been asked to produce some videos to be used in an online component of a departmental service course. This is a course I am currently teaching, and the videos are meant to be used in future iterations of the course (which I will probably not be teaching) to reduce the number of weekly lecture hours.

I don't have a strong opinion either way about whether this plan is good for the course, but I do not want to appear in the videos for reasons of personal privacy. I am a very private person, and I have always tried to keep a light online footprint with minimal social media activity. The idea of hundreds or thousands of students whom I don't know watching videos of me for years to come makes me very uncomfortable.

It has been pointed out to me that the university already records lectures, and that the videos that I'm now being asked to make are if anything better since they will help me produce them in a recording studio and I can do multiple takes. This is a fair point, though I am also not so happy with the current lecture recordings (it may be technically possible to opt out but is not practically possible since students would complain). But I still think the videos I'm now being asked to record are more invasive of my privacy. The lecture recordings only capture audio and the projector/document camera, and are only accessible by the students in the course I teach. The videos I'm being asked to produce will show my face and be uploaded to the university youtube channel, and remain as a central component of a large course for years.

I realize that it's always been the case that certain careers require being recorded (politician, actor, professional athlete, news anchor, journalist), but I didn't think of academia as being one of them. To what extent are academics public figures / performers that should be required to make recordings of themselves?

Am I being unreasonable by refusing to appear in these videos?


texts: Finding some errors in my "IEEE conference paper" after presentation but before publication

texts:
Two days ago, I presented my accepted paper in an IEEE conference. While I am presenting, I noticed that I really made 3 mistakes in the notations! I don't really know why I didn't make attention for that before! For example, in the first place, I wrote lambda instead of alpha. In other place, I forgot to put an absolute value to the variable used. In the third place, I forgot a parenthesis for a group of variables. The problem is that in this part (very mathematical part), I have a lot of mathematical notations, and so I made these errors.

My errors do not affect neither the results nor the conclusion since while I am citing another paper and writing some of its equations in my paper, I made these errors. So I think the reader will detect these errors when he reads the cited paper (it is very embarrassing for me when the author of the paper I cited sees that I made errors in his equations! very embarrassing). I think an interesting reader to my paper will only consider that these errors are due to the lack of enough revisions before the camera-ready deadline, I hope! (what do you think?). I am really very sad because in this case some researchers will consider me as a "careless writer".

The paper is not yet published online, but I have already presented it (two days ago) in the conference. So I am wondering if it is still possible to contact the committee and tell them about the errors? do you think they can provide me a chance to send them a correct version? is it still possible?

BTW I have submitted the corrected version on ArXiv and researchgate. But I don't know if the researchers will make attention that the errors are corrected on ArXiv for example? do you think the reasearchers mostly read papers on ArXiv rather than reading the official versions present in IEEE Xplore?


texts: Is it weird to visit a scientific conference as an undergraduate student?

texts:
I'm an undergraduate (Bachelor's) student and I'm thinking about attending a conference which exactly matches the topic of a research project that I'm working on at the moment. I have never attended a real conference.

I wouldn't go to present anything, but just because I have a great personal interest in the topic and because I would like to know about the recent developments. Would it be weird if I attend this conference alone? It is a small conference but there is a special student's price, which makes me think that I might be welcome.


texts: Successful survival strategies for academic departments threatened with closure

texts:
Every now and again, academic departments are threatened with closure by university administrations.
One current example: Pure Mathematics in Leicester is under threat of closure (making academic staff redundant).
What successful strategies have departments been able to use to see off threats like this?


texts:
I am a computer science Ph.D. student. I have written a couple of research papers and some of them are under review. I have started becoming fearless from some time as my past experience has told me that with time and with hard work every research problem is solvable to some extent (make something publishable out of it). I have tried to now pick the research which is less related to my previous research works. I am doing this thing on purposefully as I don't want to narrow my research domain. My belief so far is that pick something read few papers for some months and purpose a question take more months and then write it.

Question: I am wondering what are the other things which I can try to be more fearless or what are the things students should practice in order to become more and more fearless? I used to a person with lots of fear but now I have become confident. I know fear some time push me but after failing some projects I have become a fearless person.

Some meaning of the fear is to take the courage to pick a research problem and solve it and make it publishable.


texts: Are there academic institution-specific equivalents to attorneys (a professional who assists in navigating conduct and justice systems)?

texts:
There's an interesting question over at Law.SE on the possibility of suing a university over what the OP saw as unfair disciplinary practices. I have often wondered...
Is there a type of professional or professional practice related to advising or representing students and/or faculty within the context of internal disciplinary procedures?
As a concrete example, let us assume that Mary was expelled for allegedly falsifying data for her thesis. Mary contests this.

If she sues in civil court, she should consult an appropriately-qualified, local attorney.
But if she instead takes her argument directly to the university's disciplinary committee, she will need someone with an in-depth knowledge of the policies, procedures, rules of evidence, witness disqualification criteria, time limits, etc. that are internal to the university. This person could scrutinize the investigation in-depth and "beat them at their own game" by pointing out how the evidence, according to university policy, should be seen in her favor or does not meet the internal requirements for expulsion.

Another example might be a purely advisory context: perhaps one is considering a romantic liaison with a student, and is wondering whether this could affect their employment.
Does such a professional or service exist? Is this a domain of highly specialized "regular" lawyers? Is there a separate professional practice for academic advisors?
Clarifications:

This is a general question; I'm not currently facing a situation on which I need advice.
If necessary, we can limit the scope of the question to academic misconduct (plagiarism, falsifying data, cheating on exams, etc.) rather than personal misconduct.
I will tag this as US to further limit the scope, but I'm certainly interested in any answers, regardless of the location.


texts: Asking admission committee to confirm if they received my application and letters

texts: I'm applying to a PhD program and the application isn't centralized or anything. I don't upload the required documents to a server, I just send them as emails attachments. Is it kosher to ask them to confirm if they have correctly received my documents as well as the recommendation letters my references have sent them?


texts: Academic Writing: Numbered points in text etiquette

texts:
I am writing a computing conference paper, it's for a high quality conference, and my friend and I have a mini dispute. The loser pays for drinks, so no pressure!

Which of the following is better/appropriate/there is no difference?

  The loser will: 1. get laughed at, 2. pay for drinks and 3. have to run outside naked.

vs

  The loser will: 1) get laughed at, 2) pay for drinks and 3) have to run outside naked.

In all seriousness though, is one more formal/acceptable than the other?

Also, I think I remember that maybe a ";" should be used instead of the ",".

Thanks for reading!


texts:
In addition to the main sessions, the workshops, and the special sessions, many conferences provide also some tutorials, usually the day before the beginning of the event or the day after the end of the event.

Computer science NIPS conference, for example, is one of these.

I've attended some of them, and I know what they are. But, if I talked with colleagues about tutorials, each of them would give a different definition of this conference aspects.

What actually are tutorials in conferences?

Are they specific lectures for young attendees of the conference?

Are they specific talks to give the guests the opportunity to explain and advertize a particular aspect of their research?

Or are they just a way to add one day to the conference schedule?


texts: To what extent do academic promotions share similarities with promotions in industry?

texts:
My question is quite simple. In Industry, you get your job, be productive, get an MBA (in many cases), get into management, etc., etc.,

In academia, you are productive, get your research published, etc, etc.

To what extent are the promotional and "climbing the ladder" procedures similar? How can academics learn from this to get promoted faster?


texts: Tenure Track application: Time for committee to respond after interviewing references

texts:
I have a case where I applied for a tenure-track position in a R1 research institution. A month after the application, all my references were contacted and were asked for a telephone interview, which I got to know from all my references. This was a good sign and I expected the committee to contact me soon (in about a month after the interviews). Now it's been two and a half months since they interviewed my references but no contact yet. I am not sure what is going on and how should I deal with this. Should I email them asking about the status of the application?

Update

It's more than 8 months after my first application for this position. Significant changes happened to my CV to bolster my application. I had no hopes, but I dropped an email saying that this is my updated CV, please update in your records in case they are still reviewing.

The programme manager updated my CV in the application replied that the review is still undergoing and they have yet to finalize applicants.

Any idea what might be going on?


texts: Should I include self-studied courses/topics in undergraduate resume?

texts:
I'm preparing my resume for internship application.

I have already included courses that I emphasized more on (reading extra advanced material outside of the course's material scope).

I read lots of books. Should I include topics that I self-studied to my resume as extracurricular knowledge?


texts: In what situations would "self-plagiarism" be authorized by a professor?

texts:
A lot of universities say "Cannot submit this work in whole or in part to another class without prior written consent by the instructor."

What is an example of a situation where a student would get consent for this?


texts: Are course evaluation forms REALLY confidential?

texts: Someone I know has recently submitted a course evaluation form in which he complained about how poorly the unit was organized and that the lecturer didn't seem to be well prepared for the class. Following the day this course evaluation form was submitted, the lecturer decided to revise the mark he has received for his final project and marked him down. Is this an odd coincidence or are course evaluations not really confidential?


texts: Best path for a PhD in CS from a top school?

texts:
In short, I recently got admitted to a computer science and engineering programme at the KTH royal institute of technology which basically is a Bsc. in CS + Msc. in one of a dozen choosable related subjects. My main interests are machine learning, math and finance and would like to eventually work as a research scientist in ML (deepmind if I am allowed to dream) or in algorithmic trading. Naturally, I'd like to do a PhD in CS and although this can definitely change in the future I want to prepare myself for it.

What is the best possible path for me to take academically when regarding employability and admissions to a top PhD program (Oxbridge, MIT, berkley etc.)?

I have 4 options:

Take computer science and engineering degree from KTH and just focus on getting as competent as I possibly can for CS/ML research.
Take computer science and engineering degree from KTH with good grades and take a Bsc. Business&Economics from the Stockholm school of economics in PARALLEL.
Take computer science and engineering degree from KTH with good grades and take a Bsc. Mathematics from Stockholm University in PARALLEL.
Suggestion please

Note that I am referring to two seperate bachelor's degrees in 2. and 3. with a twice the credits/ECTS. I am not referring to a double major.

option 2. has been done before by highly motivated and intelligent students so I know it can be done. This option dramatically increases employability in Sweden especially in consulting but I have no idea how much this helps CS PhD admissions. Furthermore, although enjoyable it seems like a total waste of time as I doubt I will learn anything useful.

Option 3. seems like a balance of option 1 and 3 but I have no idea how difficult this is to execute as I have never heard of anyone doing this. By balance I'm not implying it is the best option, I simply don't know how much weight I should put into employability and competence.

Does anyone of you have any suggestions for what would be a better academic path with my goals in mind?

I realize in advance that this post may come of as naive and that might very well be true. If that is the case please enlighten me on my false perception of reality.

Thanks in advance!


texts: Resources for writing a good master's proposal?

texts:
I would like to write and submit a master's thesis proposal next year and do not know where to start.

Does there exist a template or a step-by-step guide to help me get started?

For instance:

  Script how

    Introduction
    Objectives

      2.1 Motivation

    Methodologies

      3.1 References

    Research
    Results
    Conclusion

I am new to the world of research and am a little lost. Can anybody shed some light on this?

I Already have one subject that would like of write, it would be about
computer network - bandwidth oriented monitoring


texts: Can the tutor test for plagiarism under these circumstances?

texts:
I have been trying to get into college, but there has been a lot to catch up on. I told the tutor that my friend, who is already doing the course, would be able to help me with my work if I was stuck.

  I am often at Anon's house or he is at mine, so we could always work together and I could catch up at home.

However, he replied with this:

  I also have grave concerns that you believe you could get information
  from another current student, this is clearly an issue of plagiarism.
  Anon's work will now be fully scrutinised due to your noted comments

I have trust in my friend and know he will not ever plagiarise.

I am in the UK, and I am not in the college (I am in a Level 3 apprenticeship for Software Development, he is doing Engineering). Is the tutor still allowed to scrutinise my friends work under these circumstances? And what is there I could do to prevent this?

I accept full responsibility for my actions, but I want to set things right and I just don't know if I can.

Update:
This has now been solved with thanks to Maarten Buis.


texts: Paper Withdrawal before Publication - Can I send the paper elsewhere

texts:
I submitted a paper for publication in a journal indexed by Scopus. Before acceptance, I sent an e-mail requesting withdrawal of the paper because the review process took longer than expected. I did not receive any reply. Later, I received an acceptance notice with two major problems.

They requested publication fees much higher than the advertised one.
They did not provide any reviewer comments.

For those reasons, I insisted on withdrawing the paper. I neither paid any fees nor signed the copyright transfer form. I sent a second e-mail stating that I would like to withdraw the paper because of those reasons, but again received no reply. Finally, I sent an e-mail with a notice that I assume the paper is withdrawn.

Can I go ahead and send the paper somewhere else?


texts: How to deal with incommunicable co-author

texts:
The background: In the grand area of Mathematics in which I do research, there is a famous Professor, let us call him 'A', who started a joint project with another younger colleague, let
us call him 'B'. 'A' gave the main ideas and they produced an initial draft. However, after a while 'A' perhaps lost interest or was busy with other things and stopped communicating with 'B'.
'B' could not manage to move the project forward by himself, and it stayed put. After many years,
on the initiative of a third colleague, let us call him say 'C', and with both the approval
of 'A' and 'B', I joined them on this project and started working with 'B'. After, say, two years, 'B' and I  managed to have a paper, which we think is quite good.
We have sent it to 'A' to hear his opinion. However, he never
returns our email messages. We have also contacted his secretary, and she has been very helpful, but we don't seem to get any reply from 'A'. Because of the pandemic, travelling and meeting 'A'
in person is not an option.
'B' and I would like to distribute and eventually publish this work. We have spent quite some
time and energy on it. Moreover, the results are interesting and could be used by ourselves in other projects, as well as by other researchers. If we wait too much, there is even the risk
of our paper becoming old and superseded by other people's work.
Of course we cannot post this work publically without 'A's name, as he was who gave the key ideas. On the other hand, posting this work with his name could also upset 'A', say, he
could think there are mistakes in the paper and he would not want to have his name associated with it.
What is the ethical way to solve this?
Edit: Thanks for all answers! They really add to the discussion. In view of your comments, I feel like adding some more details to the story and making more clear our position.
It is not that A just gave some vague ideas. He really contributed technical stuff during the first year or so of his collaboration with B.
What I did with B, in the past two years, was cleaning up the Mathematics
and adding some interesting applications. I think we have really turned the draft into a (quasi?) paper. I believe our manuscript is polished.
A is well known for his irresponsiveness in the community of researchers in the field. Indeed this is the reason why there has been the hiatus in the work on the paper, until I joined forces with B.
B and I met A in conferences in the past two years. He was nice and seemed interested in finishing the work. However, on those occasions there was
little time to collaborate with him, as he is a busy person.
B and I are fine with whatever course of action A thinks it is appropriate. We do not require him to check our calculations. We are fine to include him as an author, indeed we would like very much to have him as  a co-author. We are fine to leave his name out, if he prefers so. But I have the impression he wants to be included.
Oh, yes, we certainly want to keep a collegial relation with A!
Anyway, we cannot proceed without his response!


texts: How much teaching in Sweden is done in an intensive block mode?

texts: According to somebody at my university, the entire higher education system in Sweden is taught using an intensive "block mode": instead of students enrolled in multiple courses/subjects over a semester, they enrol in just one subject at a time for three or four weeks, then move on to the next subject.  I'm trying to find out whether this is in fact true.  Does anybody here know about university teaching in Sweden?  Thanks.


texts: What should I do with a workshop paper which is peer reviewed, but only available on the workshop website?

texts:
I presented a paper in a workshop in CS. The workshop was related to a good conference, and they had a peer review system for evaluating the papers. But they do not have a proceeding and only made the pdf files available on their website.

Does it mean that my work is now considered published? or i should still try to send it to a conference venue for proper publication?


texts: Plagiarism / citation standards in non-/less-scientific works

texts:
Yesterday night, a renowned Dutch newspaper published a long article on a former rector of one of the largest universities in the Netherlands. Research conducted by the paper shows she didn't take regular academic plagirism / citation standards into account in various important speeches, such as the ones for the university anniversary. Although it differs per speech, the paper has in some cases traced almost 60% of her literal text back to the work of others.
Citing the newspaper directly (well, translated):

Based on research of NRC it shows that, XXX, former rector of the University of Amsterdam, has used texts in speeches and in her dissertations without clearly indicating these were the work of others.
The plagiarism is remarkable, as the rector herself took various measures fighting plagiarism.
According to XXX, her speeches are unjustly compared to academic standards.
The university will start an investigation whether former rector XXX has violated standards of academic integrity.

Focusing on the accounts of plagiarism in speeches got me wondering what the citation standards are in non- or less-scientific work, and how that might differ per type of work. Specifically, I'm interested how this might differ in:

technical reports, written in a company context
policy documents
official speeches
blogs, columns, and other more personal writings

I'd personally say that attribution is required in all cases, but when is "as John Doe has put it: research is interesting" good enough, and when would you a proper academic citation, including a full reference (either in a bibliography, or in a footnote)?
In addition to the explicit standards prescribed by professional organisations or codes of conduct, I'm wondering to what extent reality indeed matches these standards -- or whether pragmatism at some point takes over. (That might be a little opinionated, but I'm hoping the community will allow it.)
Regardless of whether she was right or wrong, I think everybody will agree these actions are clumsy at best - as they in any case raise questions nobody would like to be raised. That's not what I'm hoping to discuss or establish here. Similarly (although I think this goes without saying here), I'm not interested in opinions on whether she is or was wrong, as we don't have all the facts to determine that.


texts: Is it a good idea to join SIGGRAPH without a degree?

texts:
I needed to cancel my studies in the last semester due to finances. I mod computer games, love 3D-modelling, did a little bit in graphics-programming. I absolutely love the field. I am currently in a retraining as an IT specialist for application development, but is that enough to join SIGGRAPH?
I want to know, if I am just being too enthusiastic. I found SIGGRAPH in 2013 and have followed it since and watched basically every video from them on YouTube. Some of the content I have no problem following. The advanced level goes over my head. I want to get my foot in the industry, I want to connect with others. I want to visit the conference ... but maybe I should keep my head down.
Could somebody please give me an advice or an opinion?


texts: Peer review: Is this "citation tower" a bad practice?

texts:
I am peer-reviewing an article "A" and I found something interesting. The authors use a mathematical lemma (which is just an inequality) for which they cite article "B". I have used this inequality before for many years, but noticed that "B" is an article from 2019, so evidently this inequality wasn't discovered/derived for the first time in "B".  I was curious so I managed to obtain this article "B" and noticed that they use the same inequality by citing article "C". A similar thing happens in "C" by citing "D", and so on until we get to "F". Notice that in this whole "citation tower" no new information is added: the mathematical lemma remained essentially the same.
Moreover, some of the same authors appear in some of the works A,B,...,F but not in all and not consecutively. However, an author of "A" is also an author of "F". Finally, in "F" (which is an article from 2011) the authors provide the mathematical lemma, and provide a proof for it. However, I have seen other works in the literature which uses this result even before 2011, and actually I can track it all the way until I reach a famous (but OLD) book "Z" which provides the same inequality but not necessarily using the same notation.
Do you think this "citation tower" (is there another name for this practice?) is a bad enough practice to point it out in my review? Up to now I am considering the following things to do with my review (regarding this issue only):

Do nothing. The authors are using a result from the literature by appropriately citing it.

Just suggest them to cite "F" instead of "B".

Suggest them to cite "Z" instead of "B".

However, since an author of "A" is also an author of "F", under the assumption that this citation tower is indeed a bad practice, and that the result was given in "F" as if it was discovered there even when this result was known many years before, there is a fourth option:

Point them out this issue describing it as a bad practice in order to help preventing it in the future. Moreover, I was thinking in asking the reviewers to cite "F" and adding a note in the final manuscript saying that the result was shown in "F" using modern notation, but it was known to be true since "Z".

EDIT AFTER SUBMITTING MY REVIEW: It is very hard to chose a correct answer, since I don't believe there is a single one. There are very nice answers here, but I will mark as correct the one that mostly resembles what I did at the end.


texts: Research ethics and Google Forms/Survey Monkey

texts:
I am currently an MBA student in a college in Western Europe. As part of our thesis, we need to do a piece of original research (fairly standard, I would assume). I had planned on using either Google Forms or Survey Monkey to collect the data from respondents. Apparently, the college is not happy that I use these tools, and would prefer for me to use in person interviews. This is problematical as I had hoped for a few hundred responses, which is obviously not possible to do in person.

As part of a compromise with the college, they have asked for additional ethics data on security of data, as well as ethics guidelines from other 3rd level educational institutions. A Google search does not bring up any ethical guidelines on using either tool for educational research.

My two questions are:

1) Is this a standard request, or should both of these tools be standard use for this process?
2) Are there any 3rd level educational instutions that have published ethical guidelines on the use of either Google Forms or Survey Monkey?


texts: My supervisor plagiarised my bachelor thesis: what can I do about it?

texts:
In July 2012 I submitted a bachelor's thesis on a machine learning topic. I designed an algorithm that I developed in Java.

Now I have found a publication (September 2012) by my supervisor with all the results of my thesis, including images, with only a thanks at the end for the "Java implementations", but all of the results and the designed algorithm were taken from my thesis. The supervisor has not added anything to what I had already written in my thesis.

For me she had to add my name as a co-author of publications. Of course the supervisor helped me in the writing of the thesis but having only revived my job in publishing, then I was expecting my name as a co-author because she has not added anything new.

What recourse do I have?

Edit1:
One problem is that my thesis, about 140 page,  was written in Italian and the pubblication was in English. For this reason I suppose it's hard to write to the Journal to show him my thesis.  In addition, my thesis is not published online on any official channel.

The project and the thesis was made by me and one other student with the constant help of her (supervisor). But on the publication the name is of Supervisor, Co-supervisor and one more people (i suppose this people have translated 140 italian page in 5-6 english page) but why not me?

In add now I'm in other city, in other university and now i have no bridge between my supervisor.

If i have no more contact (only an email) with supervisor is there any way to write to the person who published that? and how can I prove that content is that of my thesis?


texts: Git repo in shared folder or multiple cloned repos in each researcher individual folder for collaborative data analysis?

texts:
We are four social scientists working on a dataset that is in a secure server accessible via remote desktop. We have a shared folder where we put our code and datasets:

root
-functions
-data
-documentation
-output

Right now all we have done is to:

git init
git add --a
git commit

At the root of our shared folder. We have also edited a .gitignore file to keep git from tracking images and non-plain text files.

This way, whenever one of us edits a file we go:

git add editedFile.r
git commit

Which can erase the changes if the previous person who edited the same file didn't stage and commit it. Not all of us are fully conversant in git and it is likely that the more skilled will have to periodically check the status of files, stage, and commit them for the ones who don't git yet.

Each of us also has our own private folder on the same servers. We potentially could have each our own local repository in our private folders, and treat the shared folder as a remote. Then we would:

git pull
git add editedFile.r
git commit
git push

As we go by our workday.

Which one would work better for the situation described: fork and pull (each one with our own repository and the shared as a remote) or all work on the same repo in the shared folder?


texts: How do project supervisors address the "freeloading" problem in group projects?

texts:
I am currently leading a three person team to tackle an undergrad engineering project that involves several parts. I am responsible for data analysis using sophisticated computer algorithms, another is responsible for creating a software graphical display and another is involved in the programming of a piece of hardware.

The problem is that both of those other students are freeloading on my efforts and neither has contributed much since the project started in May of this year (that's 6 months of doing next to nothing).

In the lasts couple of months, every two weeks we would have a team meeting with our project supervisor. The team meeting involves a submission of progress since last meeting. Here's what would happen: one or two days before the meeting, a person will do something that is tangential to what he is assigned to do. For example, it could be setting up a piece of software, or trying someone else's code. Nothing is ever successful and in every single progress report I would see them putting down "investigating alternatives" or "still under research". What? You have been researching for more than half a year.

The most irritating issue for me is that they are both freeloading on my efforts. Because data analysis requires a huge amount of experiments and organization of the data, every once a while I would get them to spend less than 30 minutes with me (amidst whining and complaining and playing with cellphone) on organizing about 4 TB worth of data, while I spend the next week incessantly work on the data analysis, organization of the data, and preparing for presentation at project meetings. You've guessed it, this is exactly what they would put down on the progress report - "helped team member X to perform data organization". In addition, when they are stuck on their parts, I am often forced to take over just to meet the deadline. To be honest, I have single handedly spear-headed every single aspect of project (even though I have never done GUI or hardware programming!) because things are never delivered and there are no immediate, effective checks to keep them from not delivering their work.

MOST irritating aspect: they have put my work onto their LinkedIn profile!

The top excuse that they give is that they are busy with other courses. Since this project is over a long period of time and graded based on overall success, they do not think it is as important as their other half semester courses. They keep on telling me how they are so busy with their courses and everything is due on the next day and midterms is next week they never think that I have the exact same workload (if not more). I also don't have any financial power or control over their grades as we do not have any official reporting system put in place to get them working. Also it is impossible to kick them off of the team without shutting the project down.

I want to signal to my project supervisor that they are not performing AT ALL. This will definitely come as a surprise to him since every meeting there are enormous progress (all from my end) and the project has been an overall success. I am also kind of upset that my team members are going to chip in on a potentially big prize at the end of this year.

From your experience, what is commonly done for a supervisor to spot freeloaders in a group project and how are penalties handed down? How can I work with my supervisor now (who maybe completely unaware of the situation) to effectively put these people back to work?


texts: List of peer review platforms and social networks

texts: I recently stumbled upon Publons, a social network of peer reviewers, with a database of potential reviewers, along with their areas of expertise, stats, and contact details. I wonder if there are more platforms like this? Can we make a list of serious websites dedicated to reviewers or peer review? If there are some specialized in Mathematics, I'd like to hear about them.


texts: Looking for a free article citation web/graphical viewer and explorer?

texts:
I am attempting to find a tool which will produce and hopefully populate a graph of a collection of articles based on their citations. For example, I have approximately 200 references in a Mendeley folder. I want to generate a plot that I can explore that presents articles as nodes and citations as edges, and potentially performs some clustering based on keywords within abstracts.

I would assume such a tool exists, though the more I attempt to locate one and think about how it might work I am beginning to believe the task may be too complex to make a useful tool from. Is there such a free tool? Potentially a "cheap" paid for one?


texts: Someone cited my paper in an irrelevant manner

texts:
I checking my google scholar page, when I noticed that one of my papers, of which I am a co-author, had been cited by an unknown academic. I read the article, which was on gene regulatory networks, and my paper is in computational neuroscience. The reference wording doesn't make any sense though. The only connection is the concept of an attractor network.

If I met this person at a conference, and he went about relating my paper to his work, I would call nonsense. This must happen to more well known academics all the time, so is it best just to let these things slide? I suppose if I was really famous and getting 200 citations a week it would be too hard to track every bad reference down, but I only have a few.


texts: Doing a second doctorate to get back on a research track?

texts:
I graduated with a Ph.D. in Physics (specialized in studying protein dynamics via laser light and coherent X-rays) from a U.S. university in May 2014. However, could not continue with research/post-doc due to a medical condition with my infant child. We had to move to a different state for  his medical treatment. Over there I did not have any contacts to secure even a post-doc position and ended up as a part-time community college instructor for more than two years.

Now my child is okay, and I want to continue my research, but when I submit my CV to research positions, no one seems to care about it. My Ph.D. supervisor has no funding, so no hope there. As a result, I was thinking of doing a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering specializing in biophotonics and/or optical radiology. Is this possible ? Will graduate schools in U.S. accept my application since I already have a Ph.D. in Physics ?

Hopefully, someone can shed some light on my concern.

Thank you in advance!


texts: Does being a lab tech count as research?

texts:
I'm currently a sophomore studying chemical engineering. I completed a summer internship as a chemist and subsequently took a job with the same people as a lab tech. While there, a civil engineering professor asked me to assist in running a research project in the same lab. I now keep the reactors running, perform maintenance as needed, and collect some data from different points in the reactors. I keep the project alive but I don't do much with analysis.

My question is: does this count as research? Can I say "yes" to yes/no "do you have research experience" questions (and then explain in my resume)? Or?


texts: Does it make sense to make exam grading very transparent?

texts: Is it advisable (in terms of the benefit for the students and the work it causes) to make the grading completely transparent to students? I think for instance of publishing the sample solutions for the exam or the distribution of the grades given. Would those measures be suitable to convince the students that the grading is fair or would it rather make worse students feel treated in an unfair way and trigger many complaints? As far as I understand the University now normally lets the students only see their individual grades. Of course they will always compare themselves in smaller groups.


texts: How to answer question about publication plans in a grant proposal?

texts:
How do you answer a question in your application for research grant, where it asks you 'Plans for publication'?

I plan to publish the results of my research in one of three optional scientific journals, and maybe present the results on a conference at the end of the year. But how should I answer this, without sounding too unspecific or 'casual' in the application?


texts: My advisor talks about me to his colleagues in their native language

texts:
I am in a country where English is not the native language. I have some proficiency in that language but none of the team members know this since I have always communicated with them in English.

Recently, I have been struggling with certain tasks. During a lunch, my advisor was talking about my progress to his colleagues in their native language, and how I was unable to get some basic facts correct. What he said is technically true but I feel insecure to be exposed like that and humiliated that he is willing to talk about me behind my back.

The idea of responding in their native language came across my mind, but confrontation is too scary to me.


texts: Why some faculty have teaching reduction in the last semester or two before being tenured?

texts: It is understandable that new faculty members have reduced teaching load, but why some others have reduced teaching load just before filling for tenure? Isn't that late to do any progress?


texts:
I read that Georgia Tech recently created a MOOC for CSCI, and I am interested in this program.

Has anyone done this program?  there is not much information regarding the online degrees.

0bviously these degrees benefit working class professionals.  Are they well regarded to employers or academics?


texts: Will a 3.8 GPA and 1 F with an explanation on transcript allow me to get into graduate school?

texts:
I am currently in my junior year, studying abroad in another country. The advisor at this school told me that I was enrolled in 5 businesses classes. I had asked her to drop one of them because I didn't need it and she said okay I will drop this course for you and you have 12 credits. I left her office and went on with my day and I came to find out later that she had not dropped my course and that I am still enrolled in 5 classes. The way the school works here is that you are unable to add/drop once that period is over.

Upset and frustrated, I went to her office and she said she can't remember what had happened because she has too many students. She had told me that I can either take the course or fail it and it won't affect my GPA. But on my transcripts it will say grade not available aka "F." I normally take 4 classes at home and I do want to enjoy my time here, so I don't know if I should take the "F" and explain what had happened to graduate school admissions office or just suffer and take the class that I don't need toward my major. It will not affect my GPA whatsoever if I were to take the F it will just be on my transcripts.

I trusted my advisor that she dropped my course, had I known that she wouldn't do it I would've done it myself. I do understand that I am at fault to for not checking it right after she'd done it, but by the time I found out it was too late. Thoughts?


texts: How do I put industry research in an academic context?

texts:
I am an industry based researcher. I research and write policies mostly relating to workplace issues such as codes and manuals. I have just completed my PhD in a related field.

On my CV, I can include about 10 years of industry research (plus my qualification as above). As far as I know, industry research is not considered in the same light as peer-reviewed articles.

Question: How do I make industry research a selling point in my CV (in the academic world)?

Note: I have no peer-reviewed articles to my credit and there is no possibility of publishing my industry based research outcomes in the wider sense.


texts:
I'm 27 years old, currently doing a Master's course in eletrical engineering in Germany.
I have a problem with my mindset having to do with my past. When I was 16 I was strongly addicted and smoked weed every day. After finishing school I got involved with new friends and more drugs while doing an apprenticeship (training for a practical job in Germany). I struggled but ended somehow managed to complete it.
After that (at age 19) I started undergrad studies and things went downhill. Obviously partying and using drugs while studying is not the best combination. After 2 years I realized that something has to change. I changed my field of study and left all of my friends.
It took me about 2 years to regain focus and start learning.
I somehow started being highly motivated and performed very well. I also started an industry job while studying and did well there, too.
But now it hurts to see how much time I wasted. My colleagues are almost 5 years younger than me. I know that I can be proud of myself for achieving what I did, but I can't let go of these regrets.
My questions are:

How can I deal with these feelings?

Also, how should I discuss the wasted time in a job interview?


texts: NSF S-STEM timeline of results during pandemic?

texts: How long does it typically take to hear an answer from NSF S-STEM grant application? I have heard that a positive answer will usually be received after 3 months. However, 4-6 months after, then it's likely a rejection? I am also curious to know if the pandemic has affected this?