texts: What is the best way to collaborate with a professor whose current work one is extending?

texts:
I am currently doing a research project and I have found some mistakes in the paper of the professor whose work I am extending. I feel that it would be best if the professor is willing to co-author my paper. There are several reasons for it. First of all the professor is a PC member of the conference in which I am willing to publish. So, the error which I am referring to can hurt his ego and I am afraid of negative review because of bias. Second of all, if he is willing to co-author, my ongoing work can definitely improve and I will have a higher chance of acceptance. In that case, he wont be reviewing my paper as he is a co-author.

But the professor is from a different university and previously there was no collaboration between their university and ours. I am not a professor but merely a graduate student. What should my best course of action to collaborate with him? (He is a very high profile professor)


texts: Math Research after undergraduate degree and before graduate school

texts:
I graduated with a bachelor's in math a few years ago and this year I've applied to several graduate programs and have been rejected. One of the graduate coordinators gave me some very helpful feedback and one of the things suggested was to try to get some research published.

I've found many places for undergraduates to publish, but I am technically not an undergraduate anymore, nor am I a graduate student.

Is it feasible for me to get something published given my circumstances?
Are there any places that would accept research at my level from someone who has their undergraduate degree?


texts: Is having done research a must when applying to a graduate program in CS?

texts:
I live in Mexico and I go to a private University where doing a thesis isn't a requirement for graduating (many universities in Mexico follow this). I only take classes and do small projects for exams. But I want to do a graduate program in Canada or USA or Europe. I don't have any experience in the field. What are my chances in getting into a graduate program without any relevant work?
What should I do if it is very important?

I'm studying actuarial Science so I don't have any sort of Github account or online work. And I'm not aiming at a very top university.


texts: How should a mathematics major choose between doing a Masters or PhD?

texts:
I would really appreciate any advice or suggestions anyone might have. I am currently a senior mathematics major, about to graduate in May. For two years, I have planned on going for my PhD in pure mathematics (my highest interests have been in algebra, number theory, and discrete math). I applied to 8 PhD programs and 1 masters program, the masters program just for the heck of it. I was accepted into the masters program, but I was rejected from 6 PhD programs and wait-listed on the other two. Neither of these last two would I really want to go to, but I would be happy at either of them nonetheless.

Now, the masters program is at Ohio State and gives full tuition waiver plus a minimum monthly stipend of $1950, plus a significantly reduced health insurance bill. The program specifically is the Master of Mathematical Sciences with concentration in Computational Sciences. The department is super lenient as to which courses I can take outside of their main core courses, as long as my course plan fits the computational theme and as long as my advisor signs off.

So, my question is, should I go to the masters program or should I go to one of the PhD programs (if I'm even accepted; again, I'm still wait-listed)? Will finishing this MMS program at Ohio State help my chances of getting in to a top-notch PhD program in the future? How common is it (in mathematics) for mathematicians to earn a (non-"incidental") masters degree before pursuing their PhD?

Thanks! Let me know if you want any clarification or further information.


texts: How to write the literature review part of a paper when 'the perfect one' has already been written?

texts:
Let's say I'm writing an original research paper about the design process in the helicopter industry.

In the literature review (or context/related work) section, I want to talk about:

the various design processes that exists;
specific features of design processes in aviations;
specific features of design processes in helicopter industry;
how to study a design process;
etc.

I have found a major paper that deals with the design process in the airplane industry. This paper is recent (= references are up-to-date), frequently cited and published in a major journal (= acknowledged for its scientific quality). Its literature review is top-notch: clear, concise, well written, etc. It tackled the topics #1, 2 and 4 of the review I want to write.

Question: How to write my review, since this papers does almost all the job in a perfect manner?


texts: An example of a researcher being 'scooped' as a result of working openly?

texts:
A reason that researchers sometimes give for not working in the open is the fear of having a publication 'scooped' by a competing researcher. Is there a clear, verifiable example where scooping has happened as a result of work being shared informally on the web prior to formal publication?

By being scooped, I am thinking of a situation where Researcher 1 has made progress on a project openly, but has not yet formally published her or his findings. Researcher 2 subsequently takes the informally shared work as a basis for a publication, to the detriment of Researcher 1.


texts: What's are some of the strangest ackowledgements you've ever seen in a masters/PhD thesis?

texts:
Typical "ackowledgements" section in a thesis thank supervisors, collegues, friends, family and/or deity.
There was a recent article on atypical acknowledgements, such as this one below:
<img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/BGZ5q.jpg" alt="enter image description here
" />

This got me curious, Hence the question— What are some funny, witty or strange ackowledgements you've ever seen in a thesis?
Have you ever seen something hateful or negative in the ackowledgements section of a thesis?


texts: Is there a Ronin alternative in Europe? How to be an independent scientist in the EU?

texts:
I am a senior postdoc in a theoretical/computational field and for various reasons I am quite tired of jumping from one postdoc to another (have to switch cities/continents every few years, and many post-doc funders contractually require a maximum academic age). I am not eager to work in industry either though. I found out that some people become "independent researchers". Sometimes it means essentially doing freelance R&D for various for-profit companies, but sometimes they actually perform normal academic research, but their funding is channeled not through universities with their unwieldy bureaucracies.
In particular in the US there is an organization called Ronin institute, which helps independent researchers to apply for funding and receive it. My question is: is there anything comparable in (continental) Europe?


texts: What is the best way to retain learned materials

texts:
No matter who you talk to, students or professors, they all say that the materials they once learned can be quickly forgotten without further experiences that utilizes or enhances on that prior experience.

I fondly remember a professor once telling me that his final year in undergrad was the happiest year in his life, at time when he felt he could do anything, from nuclear physics to parallel programming to electromicroscopy to constructing an audio amplifier...then one year later he has forgotten almost everything.

This is more noticeable in students, where it is often exaggerated to the cliched phrase "you never actually use anything you learn in school".

This is problematic for students who aspire for higher learning because much of the material or understanding is accumulative. It amazes me how people manage to get all the way to the top of the academic ladder (PhD, Post-Doc) without losing previously gained knowledge along the way. I'm sure there were important theorems, relations or techniques that I once learnt, maybe was even an expert in, the question is how do I unlock these memories so I can be more effective in tackling the problems I have today?

How do people deal with the inevitable loss of knowledge from years of disuse? Do you start from scratch? Can someone offer good ways for retention of class room materials?


texts: Is there a max number of authors for a paper of math?

texts:
I never saw a paper published in a journal of (pure) math with more than six authors. Is it a rule?
(see this one)


texts: How to make efficient PhD research in absence of the supervisor?

texts:
I am a PhD student, in my situation I work totally alone and freely , the good thing here is that I have learned to be autonomic and I can guide my research by my own, however, In comparison with the other Phd student , I don’t have a guide or even a corrector that I can discuss my work with; so that; as a solution I feel more comfortable when I write,  still less experienced, but when I write I read and I learn more and more, for the moment, writing replaces the absence of my supervisor!!!
Working alone is not so dramatic; I try to extract the maximum of positivity facing the challenge of doing a PhD almost alone, I shared my experience because I’m curious; what can we learn from that? are there student in the same situation? If not; what would you do in such a case?


texts:
The journal Science has two sections for submission, Research articles and Commentary.
http://www.sciencemag.org/site/feature/contribinfo/prep/gen_info.xhtml

Under commentary, there is a section for 'Policy Forum'.  Unlike 'Education Forum' there is nothing explicit about research related to Policy.  If one submits (not invited) a manuscript to Policy Forum, is this considered peer reviewed publication? Is there a difference in citation both in format of a citation and if it is common to cite a manuscript published in Commentary?


texts: Etiquette on sending a thank you e-mail to respondents who gave me helpful information

texts:
Sometimes there are cases in a e-mail correspondence with academia staff (professors and bureaucrats) in which I don't know which is the best practice. I wonder if there is any best practice for the following cases:

Reply to a reply: when I ask for information via e-mail, and the reply gives me all the information I want, should I send an email just to thank them, or is this considered a bad, time-consuming practice?

How does a professor react to this kind of reply? And what about a bureaucrat (who maybe receives more e-mail)?

If I asked for an internship and he gave me a negative response, is not replying to him considered rude or normal?


texts: What metrics are used to judge a mathematical journal's quality?

texts: The metric I see most on the internet and on journals' home pages is the 'Impact Factor'. Are there any other metrics that are considered as important as (or more important than) the Impact Factor?


texts:
I am planning to drop a course in my master's program as it has been really difficult for me to score well in it while looking for internships this semester.
If I don't drop it I will end up with a C in that course. I already have a B- and I don't want my GPA to drop.
How badly will it my hurt my future prospects when I am looking for jobs and internships?

I am a CS major and the course is related to my field.


texts: How long before PhD graduation should I start applying for academic jobs

texts:
I hope this is not a duplicate, I saw this question:
How long before PhD graduation should I start applying for post-doc positions?

However, I didn't find any analogous question for applying for jobs (academic). Is there a certain timeline to look for jobs?

In particular, do I need to have completed the PhD or fulfill any requirement (e.g. submitted thesis) before I can look for jobs?

I am considering any kind of academic job, tenured, or non-tenured jobs like lecturer and adjunct posts.

I am looking at mid-tier universities in Asia, in applied mathematics and related fields.


texts: Is there value in posting a video of my paper presentation online?

texts: I am a PhD student in computer science and I have a paper accepted in a conference. One of my friends will record me presenting the paper during the conference and I was wondering if there are any benefits of uploading that video recording online for example on YouTube?


texts: For a numerical simulation paper, is it necessary to include boundary conditions and initial conditions in the paper?

texts:
I am writing a paper on an engineering topic. We have an experimentally validated simpler model.

Questions:

The current paper extends the previous model for a more complex problem and explores the area numerically. Is it necessary to always include experimental validation for a numerical model, especially since we have already validated it for a simpler case? Is this enough for publication?
Since the primary domain equation, boundary condition and initial condition is the same (what varies between the simpler model and the more complex model is the parameters in the domain equation are more complex), is it necessary to include the boundary condition and initial condition in the paper as well, or can I just refer to the previous paper/include in the appendix? I am trying to reduce the size of the paper, and make it more readable.
The simulation methodology is more complex, because of the increased complexity of the domain equation. Does it help if I include the simulation methodology in the paper? Or should I just put it in the appendix?


texts: Is there a way to tell Academia.edu "My downloading a paper is not an opt-in to be spammed with ongoing related papers"?

texts:
I started exploring for sources for a paper I am working on on Academia.edu, downloaded a few papers, and got an annoying stream of (from my perspective) unsolicited related papers in my inbox. I tried to unsubscribe.
I looked at another paper, and found a fresh stream of new papers in my inbox, and unsubscribed with the most forceful option available, and in this or a previous attempt stated I had not opted in to a stream of emails and further emails on the topic would be reported as spam. I was told I had been unsubscribed from all emails.
I looked at another article and the spam continued again.
I can easily enough set up a Gmail filter to block such emails, but as a matter of principle, is there a way to tell Academia.edu "I am downloading this paper because I just want to download this paper. I am not opting in to an open-ended stream of papers connected to the one I read."?


texts: Difference between "2-year community or junior colleges" and "4 year undergraduate program" in USA

texts:
I am confused about the USA education system.
I looked up the Wikipedia page about K-12. In particular, the figure on the right of that page.
Let's supposed I have just finished high school and I want a MSc in Computer Science.

It's pretty clear from the figure that I can apply to a MSc after a "4-year undergraduate program". My question here is: would this program award me a BSc?

It is unclear to me how the other path, the "2-year community or junior college" would work out. My questions here are:
a. What kind of title would a "2-year community or junior college" would award me? A BSc?
b. Can I apply for a MSc after a "2-year community or junior college"?
c. As I interpret the figure, I think that, after a "2-year community or junior college", I would still have to obtain a "4-year undergraduate program" before applying for a "Master's degree study". Here is my big question here: if that is the case, why I should apply to a "2-year community or junior college", and having to pursue a "4-year undergraduate program" nonetheless, instead of applying directly to a "4-year undergraduate program" after high school? Stated otherwise, why should a person enroll in a "2-year community or junior college" and then pursue a "4-year undergraduate program", instead of pursuing the "4-year undergraduate program" directly?


texts: How to stay in touch with professor after graduating?

texts:
Disclaimer: I asked this question on academia since it is very much so a student/professor relationship despite both him and me being significantly more industry oriented.

About Me: I recently graduated from a degree (4-5 months ago) and am working in industry. I'm 20 years old.

Dilemma: I recently found out from a friend of mine that my lecturer at EIT and my supervisor/mentor throughout my degree was planning to develop a new paper. I sent him an email telling him how the paper sounds like it would be very useful because as a graduate I found X, Y, Z to be very critical in industry. I also mentioned my new job in the email and some other stuff about the paper.

He replied saying

  Good to hear from you. Great that Company X has offered you a job that
  appreciates your skills; at least, that's what I understand.

  blaablaaPaperRelatedStuff

  I hope you like your current job, and that you keep challenging
  yourself. We should stay in touch. Cheers,

So my problem is, what does "staying in touch" mean? How do I properly stay in touch with him?

Other Questions:

The first answer to this question had the best answer I could find, however It did not help me.

  The easiest way is to keep working on projects with them. If that ship
  has sailed, then the next best way is to be friends with them on
  social media, which is to say, be friends with them in real life.
  Barring that, you have to work to communicate with them on a regular
  basis about topics relevant to your shared interests: go to
  conferences and strike up conversations with them, share interesting
  papers with them via email (i.e., "Did you see this new paper from
  prof X? What'd you think?"), propose joint projects and write joint
  grant proposals, etc. It's not hard, but it does take active work

I'm 20 and he is around 40+ and leads a very busy life (kids, own business on the side and etc), so I'm not sure the whole "friend" thing would work overly that well.
I'm in industry, he is in academia  so projects/proposals are not really viable. (however he is more teaching/interfaceWithIndustry sort of thing as I do not believe he does any research any more). Also, "side-projects" are a viable option as we are software developers, however I have my plateful with them already and he has his own company as a side project, so there is no time for them really.

Another Related Question: How does one maintain academic contacts?


texts: Which publication information should be mentioned in CV : Online first, or volume(issue)?

texts:
One of my research work was published in the year 2015 as Online First article and has also received a few citations.

Just recently, it got published in the formal Volume (Issue), pp. 1234 -- 1250, 2017.

I had listed this publication as 2015, (In press) till now. But, I am now confused, whether should I remove the year 2015 completely from my CV, or should I keep both like (Online first, 2015), Volume (Issue), pp. 1234 -- 1250, 2017 ?


texts: Should I resubmit a rejected paper to the same journal?

texts:
Suppose you submit a paper and it is rejected with no suggestion of resubmission, but there is substantial feedback. Do you fix up the paper, based on the feedback and resubmit? Or fix it up and submit to another journal? What heuristic do people use, if any? Or is every case different?
I had a bad experience a few years ago. Briefly: Paper rejected after 1 yr. Fixed it up, resubmitted. Major revision decision after 6 months. Fixed up, resubmitted. Rejected again after another 6 months. This literally went on for years, and was quite, quite horrible. The original draft was in pretty bad shape, in hindsight, which partly explains it, and I'm more experienced now. I guess it was one of those character-building experiences.
However, I'm wondering if on balance, if the journal doesn't want it, whether it is better to cut your losses and move on?
For the record, I'm leaning in the direction of submission to another journal if initially rejected without the suggestion of resubmission. If the journal suggests resubmission, I suppose it is a more ambiguous situation.


texts: Getting a degree quickly while already having years of experience

texts:
I am a software developer with 5 years of professional experience and 5 years of freelance experience. Prior to that, I taught myself programming since I was a kid. I have no degree.

I was able to get my foot in the door using that alone, but recently a Reddit thread was posted showing that someone with no degree had applied to over 400 jobs and only got 10 or so responses. That has been my experience, as well.

I was fortunate to get the jobs that I have with the use of recruiters. Due to circumstance, I really need to maintain employment to the best of my ability and have more stability, and would like to be able to pass the automated filters for degrees.

So while I'm working, I'd like to take classes in the evening online and just knock out some degree.

Does it matter if it's an associate's degree or not, in your knowledge? And are there accelerated programs that I could pursue in the evening, online? I've looked and looked and I just cannot find what I'm looking for, without submitting my personal information to sketchy website forms.

Clarification in case it matters: I'm in the United States.


texts: Academic integrity question on self-referencing and changing a paper after acceptance

texts:
The day before yesterday I got an acceptance letter for a conference paper, with the ability to make some minor revisions over the next week.

This will be my first conference for my PhD so it's a fairly important milestone.

The thing is, I submitted some work in progress to a small workshop half a year ago, got accepted, and presented that WIP there. There were no proceedings, so apart from the presentation (powerpoint slides) that I gave, no materials were ever publicly released to this day.

The conference paper was written very last minute and hastily, based on some results, and I asked my supervisor what I had to do with the workshop abstract. Typically for him, he replied "whatever". So I didn't do anything with the abstract while writing on the conference paper, and just left it to gather dust on my laptop.

Right now, I feel like I could use the extra "publicity" that 2 extra entries on my scholar profile would give me, but I'm not sure what to do with the workshop abstract. It's not exactly building on the same method, but does use the same data, and has an interesting conclusion, that wouldn't hurt to mention in the conference paper. However, that would change the narrative a bit (the improvements over previous state of the art would be less significant, even though that's not entirely the point).

I probably made a mistake by not archiving and referencing this work in progress in the conference paper in the first place (do you think so?)? That being said, what's done is done, and I want to proceed in the most ethical way possible.

If I archive the workshop abstract, I feel like I ethically have to cite the abstract in my conference paper, because otherwise I pretend that the improvement is bigger than it is. But then, I would suddenly add new references to the paper citing my own work, that was never seen by the reviewers. And that feels very unethical to me.

If I don't archive the workshop abstract, I might still use the results in later follow up work. I think this is the proper solution, since it was never published.

What should I do? Should I ignore the existence of the workshop abstract and take the hit in visibility in the scientific community? Or should I cite it in the conference paper? Is the latter ethical?
I would talk to my supervisor, but he is totally not approachable about these things. He usually says "don't bother me with this trivial stuff" rather than helping, if it's not a question directly related to my research. So I have no clue what is right to do.


texts: Can you share some screenshots of editor's control panels?

texts:
Most journals use similar manuscript handling systems such as ScholarOne. I have seen both author and reviewer accounts (which are similar). I wonder how an editor account looks like. I mean how you search for reviewers, how they are assigned, notifications, etc.

Can you share some screenshots of your editor control panels (of course, sanitizing the sensitive information)? I am sure that many young researchers like me are curious to have a picture of the other side when we submit our manuscripts.


texts: How do successful undergraduate and PhD students differ?

texts:
I was recently speaking to a university lecturer about studying at undergraduate and PhD level. He spoke about how many successful undergraduate students ended up doing poorly at research level, as the skills needed to succeed at undergraduate and research level differ. Is this true? I'm just curious, how do the skills required to succeed at research level differ from those to succeed at undergraduate level?

I've always considered myself a book smart person (I'm good at understanding difficult concepts from textbooks and I'm good at solving problems when I  know what steps I need to undertake), but I don't consider myself to be creative, so I'm curious as to whether he was implying that those types of people won't succeed at PhD level.


texts: What is difference between letter and articles?

texts:
I have just completed work on certain problem that was ignored in applied mathematics but is well developed in pure mathematics for almost 40 years. I mean there are certain formulations that were developed 40 years ago but nobody seriously used them in applied mathematics, I have used those formulations and derived very decent results. To me this is not original work as I have just shown application of certain formulations those were ignored by many.

My papers is of 9 page length and I am confused that in which category should I use it to publish, article or letter ?


texts: Is there any way to stop the one-way brain drain from academia to industry?

texts:
About 5 years ago, Jake VanderPlas wrote an interesting and in my opinion, crucial, piece on why many academic cultures are unsustainable in the long run, and will eventually be outcompeted industry if not totally collapse due to excessive brain drain.

His key argument is that desirable academic skills are increasing indistinguishable from desirable industry skills, the difference is that industry pays more, and produces vastly more interesting results with higher impact. Thus raising the natural question: why stay in academia? For instance, why would any post-doc earn 40k when they can earn 200k using the same skillset working at IBM, Apple, Google, Uber, Ebay, Amazon, Yahoo, Etsy, Ali Baba....this list is endless.

This brain drain  has been documented in recent articles such as:

"Big tech firms' AI hiring frenzy leads to brain drain at UK universities
High demand at companies such as Google could leave fewer talented scientists to teach next generation, academics fear"
"'We can't compete': why universities are losing their best AI scientists A handful of companies are luring away top researchers, but academics say they are killing the geese that lay the golden eggs"
"AI academic warns on brain drain to tech groups"

It seems the author's prediction has by and large came to fruition.

Key excerpt from the first article:

  With virtually the entire world utilizing the tools of data-intensive discovery, the same skills academia now ignores and devalues are precisely the skills which are most valued and rewarded within industry.

  The result of this perfect storm is that skilled researchers feel an insidious gradient out of research and into industry jobs. While software-focused jobs do exist within academia, they tend to be lower-paid positions without the prestige and opportunity for advancement found in the tenure track. Industry is highly attractive: it is addressing interesting and pressing problems; it offers good pay and benefits; it offers a path out of the migratory rat-wheel of temporary postdoctoral positions, and often even encourages research and publication in fundamental topics. Most importantly, perhaps, industry offers positions with a real possibility for prestige and career advancement. It's really a wonder that any of us stay in the academy at all.

Couple years ago I have read similar question being asked (perhaps precisely on this StackExchange), and at the time the common consensus was one of denial. A few prominent professors predicted that no such brain drain would occur due to historical tendencies they have seen in the students, in other words, a non-issue. But now it seems that the brain drain cannot be stopped, a quick survey of my fellow graduate students quickly revealed that none of them wanted to remain in academia after graduation.

Out of this denial and leadership vacuum in academia, a very insidious academic culture has developed: students would start a PhD degree just to take enough industry-oriented courses and then quickly leave for industry. I have personally witnessed this in many fellow graduate students.

So, once again, is there anyway for academia to stop or halt the one way brain flowing from academia to industry? What can academic culture change in order to attract bright and talent students to carry on with fundamental research?


texts: How to evaluate (my) faculty application?

texts: I just got my PhD recently and have a postdoctoral position now. I started applying to faculty jobs (tenure track/US/engineering/R1) for this cycle. I know that the whole hiring process is complicated, can/may involve politics, luck etc. and since most applicants don't hear back from search committees, how can I evaluate/compare my application to others (especially those who got interviewed/hired)? I would like to hear opinions from those who have served in search committees or are involved in the hiring process. Any tips or information will be much appreciated.


texts:
University requirements might be different but most of them ask for recommendation letters. Leaving everything else (Degree, GPA, publications) they rely heavily on the recommendation letters. Not one but three recommendation letters. At least in my field (Life sciences) it's a well known fact that you have to be recommended as if you were the next "whatever genius you like".
Since the PhD positions are limited because of many reasons (from "money" to the fact that "some top universities are proud of having a 5% acceptance") students must apply to at least (say) 10 different universities/institutes to have a minimum chance. Of course, they can be realistic about their chances and apply for the less crowded opportunities. That would mean making a list of your top 20 places and applying for the 10-20. After all, if they were "the next genius" they wouldn’t have any problem with recommendation letters. So far, so good, but they still need those letters.
As far as I know, a "normal" pre-PhD person might have at most 2 different research experiences so if they are able to get one professor to write something good about them they're OK.
However, this means that these 3 persons have to be willing to write 10 letters for you (and logging in the online system which asks them a lot of questions about them and about the student). Basically, they can:

1) Do copy-paste and change the name with a generic great letter. This means your recommendation letter won't be about you (or will be as yours as anybody else's)

2) Write a great unique letter

Usually a PI would have tons of students asking for recommendation letters so it's a natural part of their work to do some writing but it's still a big favor. If a PI writes too many outstanding letters the system will suspect He's a fool or even worse a liar. So my guess is that they just write "great" letters.

But, how is a great letter composed? Are the writers really aware of what they have to write? is the same letter suitable for two PhD programs? What if they're in different countries (I've been reading that south American and European PIs write "too realistic" letters for US PhDs and US PIs write "too good to be true" letters for European standards)? Then, should a pre-PhD student work in both continents first and then apply? How to deal with the fact that the PIs may be unknown? How to deal with the fact that you need many different PIs writing you many different letters? How to ask your PI a recommendation letter to "leave" him/her?

I know that it's not ONE question but for me it's part of the same problem.


texts: What is the legal status of an open access academic publication?

texts:
I'm interested in the legal status of a published academic open access product. Is it considered a commercial product or not, even if published by a company that usually earns money (in one way or another) with academic publications?

I'm asking regarding the use of images that are free to use in a noncommercial context but would not be available for commercial products.

I'm aware that it would be appropiate to contact the creators of the images and get relevant permissions but specifically I would like to know what the legal status of an open access academic publication is. Is it still considered to be a commercial product?


texts: B- in a Major Class Last 60 Credits (Mathematics)

texts:
I'm a mathematics undergraduate at a research university, and recently got a B- in Advanced Calculus I this semester as a junior. I would like to know how much this could affect my chances for getting into graduate school for a PhD in applied mathematics.

The reason is simple: time management. I received a research scholarship in Biology and spent too much time on this commitment (it was my first major project). However, my mentor is confident this project will get me a first authored publication within a decent journal.

My other classes that semester were straight A's. As a result my overall GPA is now 3.79 and my major GPA 3.72. I completed an AA in high school, so all of my electives have been in statistics, maths, computer science and graduate level genetics.

However, this is not my first bad grade: I also go a B- in physics and withdrew from a chemistry course my freshman year but was quickly diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome and given reduced course load + double test time. These are the conditions under which I got my B- in Advanced Calculus I.

I would greatly appreciate an expert opinion (I'll also talk to my math adviser next semester). My research interests lie within gene expression/regulation, so I really want to enter a PhD program in applied mathematics that is also associated with a NIH funded center for System's Biology (such as UC Berkeley, Stanford or MIT).

Next semester I'm taking Advanced Calculus II under the same professor, a course in C++ and a 6000 level PhD track course in Genomics/Proteomics/Transcriptomics with 3 exams and 4 semester projects (I have a 4.0 in all the prerequisites). Any advice?


texts:
I recently submitted a paper to a conference together with some colleagues. The paper was accepted with some helpful review comments. Specifically, one reviewer suggested to make the underlying data available to the public. In my case the data is comprised of a network derived from openstreetmap data.

My questions are the following:

Where can I persistently store the data (totaling ~60 MB)?
Can I get a DOI for the data itself?
What about copyright notices (attribution seems necessary)?


texts: PhD thesis layouts from around the world

texts: About to do this PhD thesis here - but am not really satisfied with my layout. Could somebody point me to some interesting layouts, templates or whatever?


texts: Should I reject a request if I've already reviewed many papers from the same author recently?

texts:
I have received requests to referee three different papers by a certain author in the past year (one of them twice, after it was rejected from the first journal). I work in applied mathematics, and in my field three to four papers per year is the typical output of a reasonably prolific author (excluding those who manage a large research group).

I am starting to think it would be fair to decline the last review, because I don’t want to have too large an impact over the career of this author. Moreover, I believe that having a variety of opinions would improve the general outcome of the reviewing process. Is my reasoning sound? Is “I’ve already reviewed many papers from the same author recently” a valid reason to refuse? Is there any good way to decide how many is too many?


texts: What does the "final published version" refer to in copyright?

texts:
I'm trying to figure out if I can put a PDF that I give Springer on arXiv.
Note that this PDF has had further changes made to it after it has been already accepted by a conference; it's not the same as the conference submission.

Springer's copyright transfer form says:

  Prior versions of the Contribution published on non-commercial pre-print servers like ArXiv/CoRR and HAL can remain on these servers and/or can be updated with Author’s accepted version.
  The final published version (in pdf or html/xml format) cannot be used for this purpose.
  Acknowledgment needs to be given to the final publication and a link must be inserted to the published Contribution on Springer’s website, by inserting the DOI number of the article in the following sentence:
  "The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/[insert DOI]".

...but I can't tell what "the final published version" refers to.

Does it include the final PDF that I submit to them for publishing?
Or is it only the official PDF that they actually publish on their site?

(I presume the two could be different, since they could make their own edits?)

My guess is that it's only the latter, since they seem to imply the final version is the one with the DOI, but I'm not sure.


texts:
Good morning all,
I have recently embarked on an MSc programme in CompSci, on which the first module is Critical Reading/Writing. So far, I have written two "introductory" paper assessments. As I was writing them, I found that my text read somewhat "monotonous", and I felt that not only every claim should be backed-up by a citation, but literally every instance of an assertion. For example:

"Smith writes that all Electrofuzzies are vulnerable to extreme
cold[1]. Jones contests Smith's recent study on thermal vulnerability
of Electrofuzzies in [2] and finds they can tolerate up to absolute zero just fine. This paper argues that it's not enough to simply test for
cold-resistance; one should also test for extreme heat to obtain a
more general picture"

In the above purely-fictitious text (well, perhaps Electrofuzzies actually exist - I don't really know), the first two sentences try to illustrate what I meant by "monotonous" - just fact after fact with no eloquent linkage. The last sentence "It's not enough ...", tries to illustrate that I fear that every time I wax assertive in a paper, I need to back it up.
Questions

Would this then not just turn my paper into one large symbolic link to others' work?
How much freedom of expression should I give myself, assuming that I'm not an authoritative source on Electrofuzzies or literally anything in CompSci at the academic level?
Should I literally cite/reference at every opportunity, if not?

Thank you for any advice!


texts: In canada, my 3-year degree is a bachelor or an associated?

texts:
I'm taking a 3-year college in software development, and, where i live (Brazil) it's not considered a Bachelor (4 years, at least), but i dont know where my course fits in canada's classification, its not an associated (2 years) neither a Bachelor (4 years), what's the most equivalent to my degree in Canada? (I cant apply for equivalence programs, i didnt finish my college yet).
Am I able to apply for a master in canada with my 3-year college?


texts: What would be a more academically acceptable name for a cluster of four courses?

texts: In higher education, we know what is a major or a minor.  What do we call it when there are only a cluster of courses, say 9-12 credit hours in the same discipline that is not part of a major like concentration or emphasis?  The intent is to make them available to non-majors to broaden their credentials. In some professional disciplines like education or social work, the name 'endorsement' may make sense.  In other areas, is there a name that is both intuitive and academically sound?


texts: Open Access for journals : extent of the content remix (CC-BY) license?

texts:
I'm a co-editor for an open-access journal (in geography), which is listed on the DOAJ. The scientific committee is somewhat doubtful about the recent change of prerequisites of the DOAJ, especially the mandatory use of a license permitting "content remix"(CC-BY).

I'd like to know if this type of license is frequent or common in your scientific and geographic areas ?


texts: How could I convince my PhD adviser that the method, which is provided by him to me, does not work?

texts:
I'm a PhD student in the US in the middle of my third year. We use a method for some simulations that is initially provided to me by my PhD adviser, despite the fact that all other research groups, that do the same simulation as us, use different method, which is a way more powerful than ours. Our method has really known limitation which makes it really difficult to get correct results comparable to other research groups that use other method. In fact, I should say nobody really used our method for these kind of simulations before.

I did a complete literature review and it turns out except a few research groups, that my adviser believes their works are bogus, nobody really used our method for this problem to get the correct results. In fact, those papers, which are bogus in my PhD adviser's opinion, are done behind the limitation of our method and that's the origin of his belief. But the problem is: professional research groups use other method, which does not have this limitation at all and as a result their works look more different in terms of final results.

In fact, my PhD adviser wants the results of other research groups but with our method, which looks impossible to me due to my three years experience on both of these methods and my comprehensive literature review. But still my PhD adviser believes it should be doable by our method. By the way my PhD adviser does not have any paper in the field of my PhD thesis and also did not know anything about this topic before I started my PhD.

In my opinion, if nobody use our method to do this research, it does not mean people are fool or idiot that does not know how to use our method. In fact, if there is not much literature about the application of our method in this particular problem, it means our method is awful for these kind of simulations (it's already known more or less in the literature but some people like my PhD adviser does not want to believe...). The problem is even by knowing that this method does not work and if even wants to work, takes 10 times more time and computational resource in comparison to other research groups, my PhD adviser still insists on to use this method and not to switch to the conventional method that other known researchers use to address our research questions.

I tried in several ways by bringing up the literature review and the work of other people and my works during these three years, but my PhD adviser keeps telling that: "I don't believe in those papers!".

I mean how someone could believe that we are the smartest people in the world that are trying to solve a problem with a wrong tool but so many other people who worked in this field more than two decades are fool that used other method to address this problem?! My question is: How can I convince my PhD adviser that we are just using a wrong tool and that's it. If we want to get correct results similar to the literature we should use their method? I really appreciate any suggestion or recommendation.


texts: Mentioning Products of Companies in Technical Paper?

texts:
I am writing a technical paper for my college project. This is my first time so I don't have much experience in this arena.
I am writing about a philosophy used by Mechanical Engineers while designing a product. Now there is a situation where I have to mention a product and the company whose product it is.
I am saying this by:

... so popular that it has been incorporated by ABC Company in their XYZ Product suite ...

Now I want to ask whether I should mention that:

ABC & XYZ are registered trademark of ABC Inc.

If yes then where and in what format?


texts:
i wrote a message to the Editor to inquire about my
revision sent about 4 months ago.  He informed me yesterday(March 20th, 2014)
that my manuscript has already completed 1 review.
However, we are still awaiting the last report.
from the remaining referee. My question is How long
should I wait for the response of the referee? and what do you advise me to do?
n.b. the journal belongs to Springer
Best regards


texts: Is offering to work for free a bad idea for an undergrad researcher?

texts:
I’ve read that PhDs are almost always funded, and being accepted into a PhD program without funding is equivalent to a polite rejection.

Is this also true for undergraduate research? For example, many universities have a fund for undergrads to do one or two semesters of paid research, but students must look for other funding sources after that.

Is it wise for undergrads to offer to do research work for free, or does it devalue the undergrad’s work in the eyes of a PI?

This question assumes the setting as an R1 university in the United States, for a student in a STEM field like computer science, mathematics, or electrical engineering.


texts: Does it matter that your dissertation has been submitted when you apply to a postdoc position?

texts:
I'm finishing my fourth year of a Ph.D. in mathematics. I have enough for a dissertation, and by the end of the summer, I will probably have enough for a very nice dissertation. And I plan to finish next year.

I also a couple of published papers not directly related to my thesis, and a few projects that might bear fruits maybe even this summer. So by October, when "application season" begins, I should be ready to apply to schools.

My advisor wants me to submit my work around the time I apply, so I can write in the applications that the thesis has been submitted. However, if I do that, I am likely to find myself without funding and without money for a significant portion of the year, as my university halts your stipend and employment as soon as your work is approved.

His argument is that a lot of universities might outright reject, or at least consider it less favorable, if I haven't submitted my work. As it might signal that I'm not ready to move on. This seems a bit odd to me. But I never sat in the chairs of those who make these decisions.

I also don't know how these things vary between departments, so I'm asking specifically for mathematics.


texts: Am I allowed to make changes in the accepted paper before sending it to publication

texts: I have a paper accepted in an Applied Mathematics journal. My question is that should I submit the accepted version to editors for publication or I can make some minor corrections (for example, some remarks to a Theorem in the paper. )


texts: Re: Terminated from D. Health Science program E.B.D.. Possible to apply to different program?

texts:
I concede this is similar to a few other questions, but any help would be appreciated.

My husband completed the twenty coursework requirement for his D.H.Sc. with a 4.0 G.P.A. from the online program of an established accredited U.S. University.

When admitted, the program claimed no one could finish the course work E.B.D.  Then after two years, eight courses including two dissertation semesters and  approval from the committee on his thesis project which was closely related his statement of professional interest in his application and the professional work of both of us since 1996, the University changed the policy to the traditional two years after coursework completion to complete the thesis.

Ironically, but irrelevant to us, when he was two courses from finishing the courses, the University changed it back so in theory no one can finish E.B.D., so I am speculating there were already issues, but we can't change the past.

During the seven years, he has at four faculty thesis advisors from the University although his Thesis committee, who are all Ph.D's in his professional field have otherwise has remained intact.  His project was again approved by the committee after completion of the coursework with Thesis advisor number three, also from his profession.

Where this came off the rails was when the third faculty advisor was promoted and the fourth faculty advisor, who is from a different health care profession, took over about a year and a half ago when he was well into data collection of the approved study.  I have little doubt without this change he would have finished his Thesis over a year ago.

Faculty advisor number four, never liked his study, kept requesting changes in method and data verification including a completely re-do of the study including a legally impossible data verification requirement from a third party governmental agency that refused to release raw data, even with subjects signing a release.

They spent most of the past year and a half at an impasse and the advisor kept asking for changes, my husband, hired a dissertation coach to help, made most of the changes, but then after reviewing each change, the advisor refused to take the project back to committee because of the data verification issue.  Frustrating to us is our data collection method was approved in the two previously approved studies, but this advisor felt this point made the study flawed.

My husband requested a new advisor several times, ideally going back to thesis advisor number three who was still employed by the University, always denied, which of course did nothing to help the relationship with faculty advisor number four.

He has now received the anticipated termination letter.  In my opinion, this last faculty advisor decided early on that this Dissertation was going no where but because it was his job, he just kept leading him one with one more change, one more change and because he was six years into this, my husband kept trying to make it happen.

Now what?  He is distraught and after seven years and knowing that he has spent the past year and a half fighting this advisor, I am trying to find a way to salvage all of this time, money and quite frankly a decent study with meaningful data since we have been running the study in our business (another problem for the advisor, we are for-profit and the subjects are paying customers, not non-for profit) for two and a half years.

Can he approach another University that might accept some or all of the coursework and do a Dissertation through them?  He already has a Masters Degree and a Professional Degree.  But are there any options to make something of all this work?

Any ideas would be helpful and appreciated since the University is not returning any of our calls or e-mails.


texts: How do you decide whether or not to collaborate with an acquaintance?

texts:
Some time ago I met someone at a conference who was doing research in an area that I was just beginning to delve into. We've had a few (minimal) e-exchanges since, and recently they suggested we "work together on something" - the "something" being the project I'm developing, I think.

I like the idea of working with this person and even sharing authorship on the project I'm starting, but I'm still somewhat new to the research side of academics and - based on the mixed experiences I've had collaborating with people I don't know well - I feel very cautious about jumping into a collaboration with someone whose work I don't know well (they're still a student and don't have much out there yet) - and more importantly, whose work ethic I don't know at all.

Does anyone have an approach to potential collaborations - particularly with people you don't know well - which may help to minimize the possibility of things going awry?


texts: Mentioning accepted conference papers that were not presented

texts:
If I have a paper accepted in a known conference of my field but am not able to present it at the the conference due to certain factors, should this be mentioned on my Master's application?

Also, where/how should this be mentioned?


texts: Research internships at universities and funding

texts:
I'm going to graduate next summer from my bachelors. Before pursuing a masters program, I'd like to get to know research groups at different universities. Some universities seem to offer some kind of internship programs but I couldn't find any clear information.

How does it generally work? Can one do 6 months or a year of research at another university between bachelors and masters? Does it cost money and where can one find funding?


texts: PhD without previous academic degree: truth or myth?

texts:
Is it possible at all to do a PhD without a Master or a Bachelor's degree?

Every now and then I meet someone who claims he knows someone who knows someone who was able to do a PhD without previous degrees (maybe only with high-school).

Is that true, was it true in some specific cases?


texts: Etiquette: Interrupting your supervisor having a meeting

texts:
I'm doing an internship as a high school student in a lab and am wondering about etiquette in research/life. The problem is that I interrupted my supervisor while he was having a meeting to tell him someone from another country was on the phone (I know he regularly collaborates with researchers in foreign countries). I'm wondering whether this would be perceived by him as rude. He is still in his meeting so I want to know what to say to him when he ends it.

The details are as follows:

Due to some complications (unnecessary details) my supervisor and I have switched offices.

At some point while I was sitting in his office, the phone started ringing. Thinking that it could be urgent and knowing he was in a different office and so may not get to checking this voicemail, I picked up the phone. It ended up being one of his collaborators from another country who asked to speak with him. I went and found my supervisor talking to someone in person, likely another of his collaborators. I assumed that because this person on the phone was calling from another country, it was important; so I tapped lightly on the door and informed him that someone from country X wants to speak with him. He told me he'd call back the person later, telling me the phone call wasn't important enough.

In hindsight, I think I did two things wrong: (1) I picked up his phone, and (2) and I interrupted his meeting.

My questions are:

Is what I did wrong?
How should I approach him afterwards?


texts: Transitioning from bioinformatics to wet lab?

texts:
I had a very bad PhD experience in developmental biology. My project was supposed to be wet lab and it was, but I didn't learn a lot of techniques. At the end I got into bioinformatics and, because my wet lab data was not good enough, my PhD ended up being 70% bioinf, 30% rubbish wet lab.
Now I'm applying to postdocs and I get interviews, but every time I get rejected because of my lack of wetlab experience. I got offered a postdoc but it is a 3 year position working fully on bioinformatics (I didn't apply, someone in the department told my PI that they were planning on getting a postdoc, and they liked my CV).
I don't enjoy bioinformatics as much as I enjoy wet lab, but I need a job and I need it now. I was wondering if anyone has experience transitioning back to wet lab after such a long time? Is it possible? I won't gain any more wet lab skills so I'm a bit worried.


texts: Should I report an instance of nepotism - misconduct in favour of sexual partner?

texts:
It came to my awareness a case of nepotism in my academic network.
It concerns a professor and a former female student of him. The professor and the student had relationship while she was conducting her Master thesis under his supervision. For the year she was writing her thesis, the professor intervened through an academic network he is heavily involved, to give her a scholarship although she didn't have prior outstanding performance.
For her Master thesis he proposed her for some industry prize that she obviously won.
After finishing the thesis she changed city and moved to a nearby city for her PhD (also the Prof. was married with 3 children).
Within the first 2.5 years of her Phd she hasn't produced any scientific output. The student and the professor visit several conferences abroad together in order to have time for their affair.
Now it came into my awareness that he is planning to involve her in a prestigious exchange program so that she will be able to work in his city. The plan involves a newly founded start-up and some of his collaborators/friends abroad. She will "collaborate" with the collaborators abroad, but from distance since the start-up claims to be flexible with location.
So in essence, she will appear to be working with some other Prof. abroad to get accepted into the exchange program, but she will work remotely from the city of her boyfriend professor. Also the Professor recently broke up with his wife.
Since all this is very shady, I am thinking whether someone should inform the directors/board of the exchange program.
What do you think?


texts: How to find out if an author is practicing pseudoscience or is fraudulent?

texts:
I have had the need to dig deep into the theory of architecture and in doing so I have encountered various authors who make extremely grandiose claims about themselves and their work.

This of course is not a measure for the actual value of their achievements, but sometimes it is hard to find out if an author is just very bad at expressing themselves, want to mask their ideas with jargon in order to make them seem even deeper, or if they really are just fabricating incoherent theories.

I by no mean want to denigrate anyone, but I don't want to learn from authors who are practicing junk science. The problem with architecture are authors who talk not just about architectural theory - but connect various disciplines to it, for example psychology, computer science, mathematics, etc... I have no required knowledge of any of those disciplines - so it is impossible for me to know if they are just using complex constructs from another discipline in a way that is just "sugar coating" for their claims.

A bigger problem is that there are very few people who have studied both architecture and some other discipline in detail and are able to comment both.

In this case I am baffled by two authors: Nikos A. Salingaros and Michael Leyton. Their book make incredible sounding claims, and their homepages and Amazon reviews are full of praise that rings all kinds of alarm bells, but at the same time they have permanent positions in universities which to my knowledge are quite reputable, and they have published a lot...

Regarding Michael Leytons theory of perception and cognition, there is a detailed criticism by Hendrickx and Wageman, but as I said, I am no mathematician... Apparently there is something wrong with the mathematical side of his theory though.

Is there any way to find if I can trust these authors? They seem to gather citations from their students and other people who use their work without any kind of criticism. Do I need to go through the magazines they publish into and find out if they are peer reviewed and of good reputation? How would I go about doing that?

I don't want to pollute my work with bad science, and I am very hesitant to make any claims myself if I don't have good grounds for them. With complex interdisciplinary claims like the ones these two authors do, should I just not use them at all since it seems so hard to find out if they can be taken academically seriously?


texts: Professor for a performance class is scheduling class time different than the class time listed in the catalog

texts: I have a professor who is allotted 8 hours of time, 2 hours Monday/Friday and 4 hours Wednesday nights to rehearse the yearly opera. However, when we received the syllabus (halfway through the semester when the rehearsals began) we found that rehearsals were scheduled M-F nights and conflicted with numerous other things in the department as well as blindsiding our work schedules and etc. Is this allowed? I can't find any language in any handbook obligating the professor to teach in the times that they are scheduled by the registrar.


texts: Transition from PhD to project-manager position

texts:
I’m approaching the end of my PhD adventure and I’ve started looking around for job opportunities. Recently, I found a job posting that fits my career goals quite nicely, but it has more managerial ingredients in it than pure research. It is concerned with managing/coordinating multiple research teams – something I’d like to do eventually but maybe at a later stage after gaining some more research/management experience as a postdoc.

Yet, I found the job description really encouraging:

  Requirements: experience in project management or a strong desire to learn it.

That’s why I decided to try my chances anyway. Lucky enough, I'll be interviewed for this position.

In the past, I have had students (BS, MS) who did their theses and semester projects under my supervision. Additionally, I’ve had a graduate-level course on general management and took the lead role in a small research project. Even though these experiences were valuable, this job would arguably require managerial skills at a higher level.

So, my question is as follows: What type of difficulties/changes should I expect from this transition that I may undergo: from a technical PhD to a research manager/coordinator?


texts: How handicapped am I in graduate admissions if I graduated from a lower tier university?

texts:
Due to a combination of factors, I ended up going for my undergraduate studies to a relatively unknown university that was close to me geographically.

Let's say that I have a relatively standard background for someone trying to apply to top tier schools for graduate studies (some research experience, some low to medium quality publications, very strong grades, good recommendation letters). Then how much does the alma mater have an impact for someone like me? I obviously know that it is still possible to be accepted, but how much of a disadvantage am I looking at exactly?


texts: In this time of crisis, would the journals Nature and Science prioritize papers about COVID-19?

texts: Would Nature, Science or other leading academic journals prioritize publishing work on COVID-19, the novel coronavirus that has caused more than 3k deaths so far?  If so, has this happened before in the past, during another crisis?


texts: Should a peer review for an academic journal include a recommendation for acceptance?

texts:
I have been asked to review an article for an academic journal for the first time. The accepted answer to Scope for the role of peer reviewer as well as this post have given me a good idea of what to include and how to structure my review already.

What I find not mentioned in either post (but somehow seem to have it in the back of my head) is, whether I should include a recommendation to the editor about accepting the paper or not? I.e. a short line such as I deem the paper [not] suitable for publication in [journal name].

Or is this more complicated and I should include such a statement only if I have a strong opinion for or against the paper I review and otherwise leave it up to the editor?

In my case there is no template or instructions for the review given by the editor/journal. The field, if it matters, could be mathematics or economics.


texts: Single application for several postdoctoral positions

texts:
I just finished crafting an application's cover letter for a particular lab (if it matters, area of research can be broadly classified as computational social sciences). The situation is that they have several postdoctoral positions and I feel that I am a pretty good fit for either one of them (how modest ;-).

However, I think that it makes absolutely no sense to send three separate cover letters for each of the positions, as 1) they are affiliated with the same lab (and, even, one of co-PIs is the same for all of them); 2) the positions share a lot of subject domain areas (I, actually, expressed this point directly in my cover letter - I hope it will not be considered offensive or otherwise inappropriate).

Therefore, my two related questions are:

Would it be appropriate to submit a single application with a single cover letter to those positions, based on my points above, even though they are advertised separately?
Is it acceptable that my cover letter (that single one) is almost two pages long (including all appropriate vertical spacing and 12pt font size - trying to be gentle with the readers' vision)?


texts: Prof disagrees with assigned textbook regarding an exam question

texts:
This actually happened to my wife, but for the sake of simplicity I'll talk about it as if it happened to me.

I wrote a final exam for a university course last week, and a couple days ago I got my marks and the correct answers back. I disagreed with one of the questions I answered wrong, so I pulled out the textbook that was assigned to this course and found that it supports my answer. I sent an email to my prof with the page number and the exact quote from the textbook that supports my answer. His reply was (with slightly changed wording):

  In class I said that correct exam answer... This is an issue with any text and shows why class is so vital: Texts rapidly go out of date or (such as the broad text used for this course)  demonstrate a lack of depth. Lectures are usually much more up to date.

Keep in mind that this is an Archaeology class, which in my unprofessional opinion really doesn't "go out of date" all that quickly. The textbook is the assigned textbook for this course by the university. The online lecture notes posted by the prof make no mention of the disagreement. I was not present at the lecture.

Do professors have an obligation to recognize the assigned textbook as an authority in the context of the course? In my experience, when confronted with such a problem they typically go "Ok, fair enough, I'll give you the mark", but are they just being nice or are they supposed to do this? He's not a senior prof (not even PhD yet), so do you think going to his superior would help?

If I get this one extra mark it will bump me up 0.4 GPA for the course because I'm right at the cut-off.

Edit:
Since several people asked, the question was something like "Which Aztec god is the god of war and is associated with water". The book said one god, Huitzilopochtli, was the god of war, while Tlaloc was the god of fertility and rain. When studying for the exam, Huitzilopochtli stuck in my head as the god of war, so I picked him. The prof said that in class he mentioned that Tlaloc also had militaristic aspects.
Note that I'm not saying the prof is wrong objectively, only that our book makes no mention of Tlaloc being war-like and instead makes emphasis on fertility and life, being a beneficial god, which seemed totally opposite to war. When I sent my email I explained that I picked Huitzilopochtli because the book lists only him as the war god, but that I recognize my answer is only half-right due to the water reference, and that I feel that Tlaloc is also only half-right since he's not a war god.  Also, the prof agreed with me that the book was misleading, but said that I should've come to the lecture. Hence my question here focusing on whether the book should have any authority without getting into the details of the question itself.


texts: How to find tools that are presented in the papers?

texts:
I just searched a couple of papers related to the subject that I'm trying to work on. And the thing is that they all presented a tool that helped them do the job.

Here some of them:
mapo,
mica,
any many more.

I am trying to get to know these tools to see what is it that they are good at or bad at, but I searched and I couldn't find them!

Is it all the tools that I can't find? Is it about all the papers that the tools that they make are not on the Internet?
If they are how am I suppose to find them?


texts: How do Universities deal with applicants from high schools that don't offer other languages

texts:
After reading my local paper - there was an article stating more funding cuts for some local public high schools in the district that I live in. There have been budget cuts almost every year for the past decade (ish).

At first they got rid of a lot of art and music related courses as well as Latin. The schools only currently offer 2 languages (Spanish and French, not that it matters) but now the budget cuts are likely going to force the schools to eliminate the extra languages too so that they don't removed required courses like science and English.

This got me thinking, not only for the area in which I live, but all over the US. How do Universities go about evaluating students that don't have any formal second language courses from their high school not because of choice but because of not having an opportunity?

I know that second language learning in the US has been declining, but my local Universities either require 1 year of a second language or strongly recommend 2 years of a second language.

Do Universities look into the high schools of applicants to conclude "Both these students have similar grades but student A went to a high school that offered languages and didn't take one, whereas student B went to a high school that didn't offer languages".

Is there any hope for students with their opportunities being defunded to compete with other applicants from better-funded high schools? Are students from underfunded schools SOL?


texts: Submission of two papers in one conference?

texts: I wanted to know whether it is allowed and also plausible to submit two papers at the same conference? Does the acceptance or rejection of one affect the acceptance or rejection of the other paper?


texts: Are personality clashes with other faculty a valid reason to deny tenure

texts:
Assume the tenure track faculty members has produced worthwhile and well published research, has shown potential to attract outside funding and has above average reviews for classroom instruction.

Is the mere fact that this person treats other faculty members (not students) with varying levels of hostility, is generally uncooperative and largely disliked by department faculty enough to deny tenure?

The positives are pretty strong and I would normally assume they would be sufficient but I am concerned that other department faculty could strongly disagree and some may even choose to seek employment elsewhere if he is granted tenure.


texts:
I submitted my Master's thesis last December (2020), and it just been accepted (so in 2021), and the university will probably take many (maybe even 6) months before they actually give me the diploma (bureaucracy).
On CVs and scholarship applications, what date should I be writing? I am somewhat wary of writing 2018-2021 as it makes it look like I took 3 years, yet I want to be rigourous. What is the accepted norm for what constitutes the "end" of the degree. This is especially true if I need to write months, as putting the final diploma date would add many months.
Also, in the meanwhile until the university formally gives me the diploma, can I still say I finished the Master's as all my courses are complete and thesis accepted?


texts: How can I tell my advisor that I'm not going to work for free?

texts:
I am an undergraduate student of Physics in Spain. This year I have to prepare my bachelor thesis and I also applied for a fellowship with the same advisor to do further research on the same topic.

I wasn't awarded the fellowship and I told my advisor about it but he wrote me an email a few days back telling me to try to finish the thesis early to be able to start with the collaboration.

Given that I wasn't awarded the fellowship I just want to finish my thesis and I don't want to do further work (which was discussed under the hypothesis of me getting the fellowship) for free. I thought that this was clear to my advisor when I told him that I didn't get the fellowship but it seems that it is not the case

I don't want to sound rude when telling him this because I still have to finish my thesis with him and I wouldn't like any kind of problem between us. How could I tell him that I'm not willing to work for free?


texts: How to use MeSH Qualifiers in a PubMed search string?

texts:
I want to know how I combine a MeSH term with a qualifier. How do I create a search string on PubMed with it. The exact human readable question would be: All publications with MeshTerm "Locomotion" specified by qualifier "Physiology" and all publications with "Locomtion" not specified by any qualifier.

I am interested in the MeSH term Locomotion. As a search string I would write locomotion[mh]. The MeSH Browser tell me that one of it the qualifiers is physiology.

I can not find the word Qualifier somewhere in the PubMed help or in the available search fields.
I thought it is a synonym for MeSH Subheadings. But it doesn't look like.

Please see this two search queries which in my understanding should return the same number of results.

Even Wikipedia is on my side and say that Qualifier and Subheading should be the same.


texts: How do I approach my group about dividing up the work?

texts:
I am an International Civil Engineering student. I was assigned with a project that consists of three stages for my steel design class. Although we are a group of five people, it seems that no one wants to take the lead and divide the tasks. I don’t mind doing that but at the same time I don’t know how to approach the situation. I thought it might be a good idea to email them about this. Please see what I have written below and let me know whether I need to approach it differently. Also, feel free to fix the grammar.  Thank you.

  Hello everyone,

  I think it’s a good idea to plan ahead our steel project. Do you want to divide the phases between us so that each one or two people would work on one phase together? Or would you prefer that each person contributes to each phase? Let’s vote on your guys’s preference, so that we can start dividing up the work.

  Looking forward to your responses!


texts: Is it ok to cite someone who provided a bad citation for correct information?

texts:
In a master's thesis the author provided a seemingly incorrect citation. ( Link to paper citation 4)

The information is obviously correct but in the cited paper I couldn't find any reference to the information he cited. Is it ok to cite him?


texts:
I noticed that a PDF link from a university course I used as a URL to cite doesn't open, unless it's opened from the course portal itself. Within my referencing of the source, I note which link to click to find the correct PDF, and the URL I use is the course portal where the link is.

However, I've never given instructions on how to open a PDF from the right website before within a citation itself, let alone make any kind of offhand note in a citation before. Is it bad prose to do this, and instead just link the course portal URL? If not, how am I meant to properly cite this?


texts: Pros and cons of doing PhD research in an applied math topic at a non-math dept,

texts: What are the pros and cons of doing a PhD in an applied math topic from a non-math dept? Let's say I found PhD programs in a research area that are in  aerospace / mechanical engineering departments at some schools and in math departments at other schools.


texts: Page limit for IEEE JBHI (including reference or not)

texts:
On the page of IEEE JBHI (https://www.embs.org/jbhi/prepare-and-submit-your-manuscript/), it says:

PAGE CHARGES. Review papers that exceed ten (10) pages incur mandatory page charges. Regular papers that exceed eight (8) pages will incur mandatory overlength page charges. For papers that are 8 pages or fewer: only voluntary page charges ($110/page); 9–10 pages: mandatory page charges ($250/page for pages 9 and 10); 11 pages and beyond: $350/page.
PAGE LIMIT. The page limit is 12 pages for regular paper and 14 pages for review papers including supplementary material. The page limit must be implemented in both original submissions and revised papers.
MANDATORY PAGE CHARGES. The author(s) or his/her/their company or institution will be billed for all pages according to the Page Charge policy. For regular papers, the rate for pages 9 and 10 is $250 per page, and the rate for page 11 and beyond is $350 per page. Payment of these charges is not negotiable or voluntary. Further, submission by the author of his/her manuscript to this publication signifies acceptance of the requirement to pay mandatory pages charges. The Publisher holds the right to withhold publication of the current submission or any future submissions from the author(s) if this charge is not honored. To avoid incurring mandatory page charges, the author(s) are strongly advised to practice economy in the original manuscript submission and restraint in preparation of the final manuscript following peer review.

So, what is the page limit for a paper without any additional fee? I presume it's 8 pages, but is it with or without the reference or supplementary material section?


texts: Is there a non-scientific related activity for students in a conference?

texts:
The research group that I am associated with organizes a conference that will take place next month.

One of the students asked if there is something that he can volunteer and help in the organization of the conference. He has not any scientific work to present, but rather offers some logistic and technical help.

Can you think of any "volunteering position" and tasks that can be given to a young student? Is this of any benefit to him, or is that just a timeloss?


texts: A short research conference paper benefits

texts:
My paper has been accepted as a short research paper to be published as a conference paper. My question is, what is the best benefit for such a publication?
Edit:
It will be published at the IEEE conference.


texts: Can I include the completion of Udacity and Coursera classes I have attended in an academic CV?

texts: Can I include in my academic CV that I have attended and completed the Coursera and Udacity classes I have been taking? I understand that these are not anything major, but the courses definitely gives a good overview and starting formal study on the subject becomes less cryptic. If I can include them without any negative impacts, then under what section should I include them?


texts: Is having a "too good to be true" recommendation bad?

texts:
I am applying to grad school and I asked one of my professors to write a letter of recommendation on my behalf. He happily agreed. He submitted a recommendation and forwarded the confirmation email to me so that I can have look.

On the recommendation form there are some questions that asks the professor to select things like top 1%, 5%, 10% in terms of writing, organization, maturity ..etc.

He chose top 1% in all of them. In another question "What is the group you are comparing thq applicant with ?" He wrote "He was at least in the top 1% compared to all students in the last 5 years".

I told this to a friend and he was surprised and suggested that the admission committee might not take his recommendation seriously. Another one of my referees showed me his recommendation and it was very similar.

My concern is how admission committees look at recommendations that seem too good to be true? The two professors really know me very well and they are the best options I got.


texts: Graduated but still working on bachelor's project, how to write in CV

texts:
I graduated my bachelor's recently (have not received the final degree yet, but all the requirements are done and I have a provisional degree). As part of the degree, we are required to do a bachelor's project during the last two semesters. We also have to do courses in parallel, so nobody really expects this bachelor's project to contain work equivalent to a full-blown thesis.
Now, since I still had a few months till I start with my master's, I thought of continuing with the work that I did for my bachelor's project (also partly because I had not been able to fully achieve what I had planned; various reasons but mostly due to lack of time and guidance required for an area in which very less prior work has been done).
I have done a significant amount of work in these few months and want to mention it in my CV. I had written something like this earlier:
Bachelor's Thesis                                    August 2019 - present
<my institution>                                     <my supervisor>

But this will clearly not work now/ will create confusions.
How should I modify it to convey that I am still working on it and a part of what I did was for my bachelor's project?


texts: Medical doctor who tried science now wants to quit Phd and science altogether. How to explain to supervisor?

texts:
I am a medical doctor, but decided to go into a graduate program because I wanted to contribute to progress of humanity with new knowledge ( I know, very romantic).  I got accepted into a graduate program in Germany (I am not German).

Now that I am in science, I have realized it is not what I expected. Getting a job in academia is very VERY hard ( particularly in Germany I think), the life of a professor is not what better suits the lifestyle I want to lead in the future,  and a job in the industry is not really what I want, particularly having the possibility of doing a medical residency and having my own practice one day.

I have already finished my masters and thought I could do my PhD and use the 3 years to learn the medical german language and later apply for a medical residency here.  But as time goes by I am forgetting everything I learned in med school and I cannot focus on learning German while doing a PhD because of all the work that comes with it, of course.

Don´t get me wrong, I like my PhD project, the lab and doing research per se. It is just that I feel these would be years dedicated to something that I do not want to do for a living.

So...

I have not share any of these thought with my PI, so, how do I tell him that now all of a sudden and without previous notice, I don´t want to do the PhD AT ALL, especially after having shown enthusiasm for the PhD in the past ( just a couple of weeks ago!)?  That is, without looking like I was faking enthusiasm/ was just „using“ them.

Additionally, I am in the 4th month of a one year contract. I would actually like to work the remaining 8 months to get all of my work in order to hand it over. However, is it possible by law that he "fires" me and does not allow me to finish the one year contract?


texts: Should someone be an author if they helped understanding a concept?

texts:
I am writing a paper. I have performed the experiments and I also have the results. However, there is a section in my paper where I have to explain my observation upon which the whole idea is based. To ensure that I explain my observation correctly, I want help from a professor. I will be basically asking him questions along the line of: ‘why does this happen?’.

Before asking such questions, shall I inform him that I’m writing a paper and need help in explaining something?
I’ll definitely thank him in the acknowledgement section but is it required to add him as an author?


texts: Do students in taught programs need to go to their professors before publishing?

texts:
I am a student in various graduate taught programs, but not a research student and I am not receiving any scholarships or grants from my institutions. I have prepared a paper which I wish to publish. The subject is within my field, but far outside of the expertise of any of my instructors, mostly because it deals with a language and other technical details which they are entirely unfamiliar with. As such, I highly doubt they could assist me in writing the paper.

I know that graduate research students should not publish works without their professor's permission. Is this rule relevant to students in taught programs? Can I submit my paper for credit in a course, without giving up ownership of the paper?


texts: How many arXiv papers are uploaded in their final (refereed) versions?

texts:
In a recent meta.physics.se discussion on the use of permanent links form physics.stackexchange, I proposed as policy that

  when linking to the arXiv, link to the abstract page (arxiv.org/abs/...) and not directly to the pdf, as a courtesy to users on lower bandwidths. If the paper has been published (which will be noted on the arXiv abstract), include a link to the journal version, even if it's paywalled, if only as a courtesy to the referees' hard work.

One comment on the italicized part was

  Doesn't pretty much everybody post the final version on arxiv?

and I would like to know (if that is even possible) to what extent this is true. My gut feeling is that this is field-dependent, but I do not know what evidence may be available to explore this, other than anecdotal evidence.

Thus: Is there a clear trend for authors to upload post-referee-process versions after publication? Does this depend on the specific field? What evidence is available for this?


texts: Are these good reasons for starting a new PhD project?

texts:
If have just finished the first year of my PhD studies in mathematics at a German university. After my master's, which I have done in representation theory, I had started a PhD in a more applied field, partly because my current supervisor pointed to the necessity for knowledge in representation theory in his field. However, I have been feeling disappointed since almost the beginning. The reasons are as follows:

For the problems I work on, my supervisor can barely act as an advisor. He has almost no expertise in what he asks me to do. If I talk to him about a point where I have no clue how to proceed, I have to explain basic material to him instead of obtaining useful hints.
He is unwilling or unable to provide me with suggestions on what to try, whom to ask, what to read etc. Probably, I should be able to do all these things on my own. In the case that the expectation is that I should state my research questions, find helpful material, and solve them completely without any advise, I am suspecting that I am not apt for pursuing a PhD.
There is also no vivid exchange between me and the other PhD students. This is mostly due to the fact that my supervisor has hired students from completely different backgrounds to work on very unrelated problems, which only have in common that he is no expert in any of the fields he has hired students from. However, when talking to my colleagues, it seems that I am the only one suffering from this isolation.
It is hard for me to spot and solve problems completely on my own. When starting my PhD, I had hoped for an opportunity to learn new things. Until now, I haven't learned anything. That I have my background in a different field does not make things easier, but I think that I would also struggle in my original field if I constantly have no one to talk to.
The social climate in the group is quite cold, also apart from talking about mathematics. Again, my colleagues seem to be fine with this solitude. This is fine, and, to be honest, I actually envy them for not needing exchange, company or just some chatting about what they do. I have the impression that I cannot live that way, which more and more seems like a deficiency to me.

These are the reasons why I have applied for two opened PhD positions I have found in January, both in representation theory. Contrary to my expectations, both have offered me the position. However, I hesitate to accept one of these positions because:

How can I be certain that I am good enough for these positions? Yes, they have judged my application, based on a talk I gave there and based on what I wrote in my master's thesis, they are experienced professors, but how can I be certain that I am good, creative, persevering etc. enough?
How can I be certain that the reason for my distress is not my working group, professor etc., but my lack of aptitude for doing a PhD? Shouldn't I be able to work independently, without the need for talking to others about what I do? Shouldn't I know of my own which questions I want and can work on?
How can I be certain that I will feel better if I start a new project?

Apart from these work-related questions, other aspects that make me hesitate are:

If I quit, I will be 31 or 32 when I finish the new project.
Exchanging a PhD on applied questions from a well-known university for a purely abstract PhD at some less-known university does not sound like a good thing to do with your CV.
For a PhD, the salary and other benefits I obtain know are perfect. This could not be any better and would certainly degrade if I quit.
Arriving in a new town, getting to know new people etc. has always put a lot of pressure on me. It has always taken me monthsto get to make new friends  after having moved to somewhere else.

I am aware that I should try not to take these aspects into account, but I have mentioned them for completeness.

Question: How can I take a good decision?


texts: Is it okay to record audio for a lecture?

texts: Sometimes the Professor will say things quickly, or say things before I can write them down. It would be of great benefit if I could record audio for the course, but I am not sure the legal guidelines around doing so.


texts:
In this answer to a quora question, the answerer mentions how the 'entropy' of a set of exam results can be used to measure how well the exam differentiates between students.

Should I be computing the entropy of my students' exam results? How do I do it? How should I interpret the entropy information?

Edit: How is entropy related to standard deviation?


texts:
I wrote a tool to perform X. It was rejected by a journal as not novel. I wrote to the editor saying there is currently no tool to do X. They acknowledged this.

When the issue I was rejected from came out, it contained another tool which did X. I have not tried to republish my paper, but it is on the internet and has been posted to forums.

A) Should the editor have mentioned in my rejection that they were just about to publish a similar paper? This may have changed what I did (ie publish elsewhere)

The other paper said "there is currently no tool to do X". The author almost certainly didn't know about my tool/site.

B) Should the editor have suggested the paper cite my tool/website? Or at least not allowed the authors to say "there is no tool to do X"?

C) What should I do? Just give up on my paper?


texts: How to cite from a paper using a different citation style?

texts:
When writing a paper where you are citing from another paper which uses a different citation style, how should one cite portions of text that contain in-text citations? For example

    “Malnutrition has often been referred to as “the skeleton in the hospital closet”, as it is often overlooked, under-diagnosed, and untreated [69,70].Despite this, the negative consequences of malnutrition have been widely reported..." (Barker, Grout & Crowe, 2011).

An alternative format would be

    "Malnutrition has often been referred to as "the skeleton in the hospital closet" , as it is often overlooked, under-diagnosed, and untreated (McKee, 2011; Busby, 2008; in Barker, Grout, & Crowe, 2011). Despite this...."( Barker, Grout, & Crowe, 2011).

This seems an awkward and redundant solution. Would this be considered correct for APA style? What about other citation styles; MLA,etc.?


texts: Is there a clear etiquette on providing full text paper when you are a coauthor?

texts:
As a coauthor, I occasionally receive requests for full-text pdfs of research I have worked on in the past (vis Researchgate for instance). Thus far I have generally ignored those requests - leaving it up to the first or corresponding author to reply.

However, when these requests lay dormant for a while I would like to know what the etiquette would be for providing the full text as a middle author?

Advantages:

Share my work more widely, also increases visibility for the first author/senior author.
Coauthors may have drifted away from academia, or not be on the platform.

Disadvantages:

Not sure of the interface on Researchgate - but if they have explicitly ignored the request and then I accept it I have acted against their interest.


texts: Common for department guidelines/traditions to require tenure track academics rotate courses?

texts:
In the context of academics in research universities on their tenure track; how common is it for their promotion and tenure to be conditioned upon how many courses they have taught?

Is it more or less likely that they are given an initial set of courses to teach and that this remains as the class set continuously? Would it be normal to find that a department explicitly requires academics to rotate courses throughout their tenure track experience?


texts: Is it important to list the merits of a research paper?

texts:
When we write a research paper, most of the times we need to describe in the introduction what is the merit of the present work (unless is a survey of sorts).

Many professors, tell me that is enough to write it within the sentences with some context. And is the way I see it in most papers.

Other professors, however, I've seen they especifically list the merits and innovations of the papers in the introduction, for example:

The present work presents cherries using A, which has never been done before.
We implemented the mix of berries and bananas, which has never been tried.

While I find the approach intuitive and way more explicit than the usual approach, It seems a bit condescending.

What is your suggestion, should I write a list of merits or not?


texts: Perhaps it is too early to ask this, but I will go ahead anyway, to satisfy my curiosity. I am currently studying Arts in a University, aiming to get a BA Honours in English and German. If I went ahead to get a Masters, would I have to choose one of them, or could I continue with both? And similarly for a Doctoral, if I get that far, does it have to be one subject at a time?


texts: IRB guidelines for secure online data storage, backup, and syncing?

texts:
I am asking to get people's success stories in presenting a data management case for secure data backup using remote online services, rather than the antiquated "server in a locked room" model of security.

In general, I have gotten the impression that most IRB's think that a server on-campus in a locked room is safer than a cloud server in a mysterious data center.  It's an argument that doesn't hold much water to me.  In the business world, vital data is stored in cloud data centers all the time. However, given that IRB boards tend to not have many data-security specialists (if any), I am not sure what kinds of guarantees are typically requested.

For those who have gone down this road, what kinds of services and guarantees were required to meet the requirements of an IRB panel (and for what level of vulnerability of subjects and disclosure risks)?  For example, for medical data, I would assume that a HIPAA-compliant data service (e.g., Carbonite's Pro version) would usually be sufficient (but possibly not always).  I am most interested in slightly lower-risk data (e.g., sociological or cognitive), but would be interested in any reports on reasonable and IRB-approved service requirements for storing, syncing, and sharing data on a project.  Is a HIPAA-compliant storage usually sufficient?  Is it sometimes sufficient to have a non-HIPAA-compliant one, but with some other types of certification or privacy guarantees?  How important are guarantees that data will be fully-stored in a same-country (e.g., US) data center or on a discrete server?  In short, I'm hoping to figure out the guidelines that are generally used for matching a remote data service to an IRB data management plan.


texts: How do I prepare for another application?

texts:
I applied to a Master degree in Computer Science, however my application was not accepted. The university that I applied to is one of the top ranked my field and I do intend to apply the following year.

In bachelor I completed my degree as an average student with a 14 grade (out of 20) within 5 years, when the course duration is just 3. This is obviously a thing that I can no longer cope for, nor one that I feel guilty of. I will also take less priority than the students that take the bachelor in that same country.

Those are the reasons I believe there should be a lot of candidates that take preference over me, however I can still try by improving my TOEFL test. Last I time I tried I took 76 out of 120, while I stated the score I took on this exam I thought it would be best to not include the certificate of the exam, so it wouldn't be taken into account.

The application to this university was taken into two phases and I preferred to get my application earlier on the 1st phase so I could get a small advantage on the time (Although I am not sure if they give preference to applicants from the 1st phase).

I can also appeal about the decision taken, I would like to know why exactly I didn't get chosen over the last 10 applicants, so I could improve my application and increase the chances of being chosen.

How can I prepare for my next application? (How) Should I appeal to the decision  taken?


texts: What is the difference between Article File and Related Manuscript File in Nature?

texts:
They ask to submit those both files.
What is the difference between the two?


texts: Do IEEE transactions allow for any "co-first authors"?

texts:
I, personally, have never see any authors in IEEE transactions listed as "co-first" authors, as such

John Smith†, Bill Lee†, and Boss James
...
† These two authors contribute equally to the work.

Is this allowed in IEEE transactions?