texts: Supervisor not allowing to submit Thesis

texts:
I am in very tense situation. My supervisor is not allowing me to submit my Master by Research thesis.
I have already told him that I have some potential fully funded PhD opportunity and he initially agreed but now he is creating problems. Earlier he wanted me to do PhD with him which I refused now I feel he took his personal and creating hurdles for me.

On the other hand, potential supervisor who offered me PhD wants me to join ASAP and I can lose this opportunity if I will not join in 2months.

I am thinking to withdraw Masters and join PhD? Is it a good decision? I have spent 2yrs and worked hard for this but now he is offended and creating issues.

I tried to change supervisor but 2-3 supervisors refused after knowing name of my current supervisor..he doesn't have good relationship with other faculty members.

Please advise what I should do?


texts: What affiliation should I use for a paper that I partly wrote in a previous institution?

texts: I am writing a research paper to be submitted to an IEEE conference. Part of the work was performed as a part of my University. I have graduated from there and am no longer a part of the university. My work has evolved and I would like to publish these results. What should my affiliation be for this paper? Should I use my old university as my affiliation or using something like IEEE-RAS member is fine?


texts: Is it normal to ask to see the entire manuscript (not just the abstract) before accepting a peer-review invitation?

texts:
I apologize if this question has been asked before. I received a peer-review invitation from a journal to review a paper. In the email there is just the author's name and the title of the article and an abstract. I should just tell them if I accept to review the paper or not by clicking on corresponding links.

Is it normal to ask the journal to send the entire paper before accepting to review it? Isn't this request odd? I am potentially interested to review the paper (from the abstract, I guess I am familiar with the methods), but I would like to see the content to be sure if the methods used in the paper aren't beyond my knowledge and to check if I have enough time to review the paper (e.g., to avoid a surprise manuscript of > 150 pages!) If that matters, the subject is mathematics.


texts: Is a Master Degree in Data Science helpful for an application for a CS Ph.D. in the future?

texts:
My previous educational background is mainly about mathematical/computational finance, however, I would like to apply for a CS Ph.D. in the future. I decided to first apply for a master degree related to computer science and then prepare for the Ph.D. during this master program.

One option is a master degree in CS, however, I found my relevant experience is more about data science (like applications of data science in finance) instead of pure computer science research. Will a data science master program make more sense?

My major concern is most master programs in data science seem to prepare students for a "professional path" instead of an  "academic path" (it's like a terminal program), will this fact be disadvantageous when I apply for the Ph.D. in CS in the future?

FYI: There are very few Ph.D. programs in data science, CS Ph.D. is the only choice I guess for me. Also, for some reason, I cannot look for a job right after the master program and have to get a Ph.D. degree.


texts: Research exposition configuration of multiple topics/profiles

texts:
My friend has discovered many groundbreaking results on a specific topic in mathematics, which he finds really hard to configure them up at a single place, that is his first research paper, and also he has introduced a range of new tools with powerful skillsets, after struggling from many restrictions like those of symbols being already widely utilized, he managed to make them alright and unique as possible.

The important concerns which I wish to put here from his side is that where should he mention the Advisory & Caution note and Mathematics subject classification, moreover as above said it's really hard to configure them all up, means the Index of content is completely in chaos accordingly, so please provide some healthy suggestions on how to do that,  and is it okay if he wants to say something specific on his exposition? Like Author's note in the end of paper and like before the References section? Please let me know where is the right place to do that.

Important note - I can't declare his educational qualification or name or any details except what mentioned above.


texts: I've already accepted an offer from my dream school for a phD program and already set up rotations with professors. I was accepted on a conditional offer though and am now 0.4% below the average they stated I must maintain in my final year (or offer may be rescinded). Is there a high chance that they'll take back the offer? I know they can, but has anyone ever heard of this happening? I'm reluctant to contact the program directly (although I know I must) because the person in charge of making admissions decisions just so happens to be the person I want to be my future advisor...and I would hate to start the relationship in such a negative way.


texts: Why are some highly-cited papers shown by Google Scholar arXiv preprints?

texts: I found some papers somewhat related to my work, and, on Google Scholar, the citations are for the arXiv preprint, not a journal version of the paper.  Why is this? The citations are in the thousands, and the professors are pretty well-known.


texts: Does a PhD give you global mobility in the job market?

texts:
I am thinking of doing a PhD in Condensed Matter Physics at the Indian Institute of Science, which is not a bad place to graduate from as far as I've heard.

The downside is I'll be a little on the older side by the time I graduate, and in India, there seems to be a starting faculty preference of 35 years. I would like to know if I'd be able to practice physics somewhere else in the world after getting a PhD in the area.

I've heard the US is pretty open in terms of hiring foreign candidates, but Europe is not. What about other English speaking countries like Australia, New Zealand, Canada, etc? Does a Phd open up career opportunities world-wide?


texts: Checking the uniqueness of a new journal's name

texts:
I am part of a group that wants to publish a new journal in the field of economic sciences. I am coming up with the journal name and will then register a domain in that name. But I have to be sure about distinctiveness of the name.
How can I check that the journal name has not been used by others earlier? Is there another method except googling?


texts: Is an undergraduate thesis a requirement to get into grad school?

texts:
I'm about to start my last term as engineering student, and my goal after I graduate is to get into grad school and pursue a master's degree in Computer Science or software development. However, my university is offering me two choices in order to opt for my degree: undergraduate thesis, or just internships (+ internship project). I already received some suggestions from colleagues that due quarantine and confinement is preferable to just go for internships, which I'm almost finishing working from home.

Nonetheless, I'd like to keep asking for second opinions about this. Can I freely choose only my internships without worrying if that could harm my application into grad school? I'd deeply appreciate any suggestion. Thanks in advance.


texts: Rankings of the historic universities in Europe

texts: I am surprised that some of the most historic universities in continental Europe are ranked above 100 on an average. I specifically have in mind University of Gottingen and University of Vienna. I am assuming that at the peak of their fame, they were rubbing shoulders with the best in the anglo-sphere. What caused the slide in reputation? I have heard that in Germany, Nazism caused the emigration of a lot of talented people. Or is it just that the ranking methodology is biased towards universities in the UK and the US? As someone interested in the history of scientists and scientific institutions, it seems somewhat odd.


texts: In writing, do I need to define an abbreviation when it is already an industry standard term?

texts:
When writing academic and scientific literature, are there any good guidelines to when you can omit defining an industry standard abbreviation? Are there any guidelines to where you can draw the line? When looking the this up I found a few sources like this blogpost that suggested using dictionaries - if it is in the dictionary as a word, you don't need to explain it.

However, in my field (electrical engineering) there are many industry standard abbreviations that are not in any dictionaries. Examples would be terms like opamp (operational amplifier), ADC (analog-to-digital converter), CPU (central processing unit), MOSFET (Metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor). Applying their rule would mean I have to define every term, but this would seem somewhat excessive to me.

How do I deal with industry standard terms that are still abbreviations? The safe bet would be to always define them in their first use, but are there any general rules to use when dealing with these?


texts: Math subject GRE to fill gaps in undergraduate education for PhD application

texts:
BACKGROUND: I'm beginning a computer science MS program this summer.  My undergrad background is a 2.9 in non-related sociology sub-category.  The last time I took an actual math class was AP Calculus in my junior year of high school cough 8 years ago because I did well enough on the AP exam to get credit for everything my major required.

GOAL: Ultimately I plan to pursue a PhD in the Computer Science/Computer Engineering/Electrical Engineering with strong leanings toward AI/Machine Learning/Robotics.  "Dream School" is Caltech but any well-respected school with connections to the aerospace industry would be stellar (couldn't resist the pun, sorry.)

Assuming I have solid grades in my MS program, 90th percentile general GRE scores, and a few publications do you think it is worth it for me to take the Math subject GRE in order to show that I have taken it upon myself to fill the gaps in my undergraduate math education?

EDIT: The program I am going to has a provisional entry option where you take 2 accelerated courses at the beginning which catch you up to speed on programming, data structures and foundational computer science.  The min GPA is 2.75 in any BS/BA program and as long as you get at least a B in both classes they let you continue.  I've worked as a developer/IT person for the last 3 years, my general GRE score was 27 points above their suggested minimum and I took a few random graduate computing courses at SPSU a few years ago and got As in all of them so I think those were contributing factors to my admission.


texts:
Our paper is rejected, but we are invited to submit a poster. We are given two options:

Poster with 2 pages proceeding.
Poster without a proceeding.

Another option is, of course, not submitting at all.

We still want to submit the full paper. What is potential risk of submitting a poster, with or without proceeding? All the conferences we want to target adopts double-blinded review.

I'm in software engineering.


texts: What are all the types of scientific articles?

texts:
While doing some research I found some context where scientist A publishes a research article about newly generated progress they made in a field. Another researcher B, skeptical of this paper, publishes a "Review paper", and analyses what A has written. To which then A responds by writing an article titled as "Research commentary" to retort on the latter.

Throughout this development is where I had the question hit me, how many kinds of scientific articles are there? I am personally still on my first year of PhD research, so I have not yet published a paper or had to confront a journal, but I was still surprised to not see an exhaustive answer to this question here or anywhere else, to which I believe would be really beneficial to sorting and understanding articles and giving more context to state of the art research in any specific field.


texts: How long should I wait for an IEEE conference proceeding?

texts: I have an accepted paper in TrustCom 2014. The conference was held several months ago. However I could not find any information regarding the proceedings. They do not answer email. Is it normal? In general, how long after a conference are proceedings published?


texts: Is it advisable to put your CV, research statement, teaching statement on your website?

texts:
I'm a postdoc in computer science applying for tenure-track faculty positions.
I look at the websites of people who are in similar positions to mine  and about half of them include a link to the person's CV, research statement, and teaching statement.
I'm wondering whether I should put these documents on my website.

What are the pros and cons of publicly posting your CV and research/teaching statements on your website?

I see little upside or downside to this. Would this help me on the job market at all? Would there be a potential downside? It feels a little like sharing too much information with the world.


texts: Funded PhD position chances for international students in Austria

texts:
In the midst of my quest for potential countries to find a funded Ph.D position in computer science, I came across Austria. However, my initial impression was there is no big chances for international student there for the following reasons:

Most of the universities websites are not fully available in English (In contrast to German universities websites, Austrian's one have many brochures and sub-links related to postgraduate studies in German only)
I have sent few emails inquiring the admission and I received responses apologizing for not accepting international students
Every time I google (Ph.D computer science Austria) I get results about Australia instead. (I know the way I used to search here is trivial but isn't this an indicator?)

So my question here, do you agree with my impression or not? If yes, do you have more information that Austria has no many chances for international students? If no, would you explain why. Generally, do you advise to go ahead with my search in Austria or it is waste of time. All answers and comments are appreciated.


texts: US v/s European SOP (Motivation Letter) for Ph.D

texts:
Is there a difference in the kind of SOP you write for European Ph.D. vacancies/structured programs v/s US grad school? -- in terms of length, type of content to be covered (completely technical v/s story-like), or any peculiar difference?

I am writing Motivation Letter for European Ph.D. admits and I don't know what they are looking for in a Motivation Letter.

(I have already applied 15 vacancies, but, no success. I didn't even get interview calls.)


texts: Should I withdraw my paper from a journal which even didn't give me the manuscript number after one week?

texts:
I submitted an article to Elsevier which even after one week its status is still "submitted to journal" and they didn't give me even the manuscript number. I have several past experiences with this publisher, where they gave me the manuscript number promptly, but this time after one week without even manuscript number seems a little bit odd.

Should I withdraw my article and submit it somewhere else, which probably their process may be faster? The reason why I'm asking this question is that I don't want to waste my time but on the other hand I don't want to make a bad reputation for potential future submissions by withdrawing my article because their journal is pretty famous in my field (computational physics).


texts: is being at a highly reputable university the only way to progress in academia

texts:
I'm in my 4th year of my phd at a fairly small and less known university (in Europe) where I also did my bachelors and masters. I submitted 6 more papers to the top conference in the field and every one of them got in immediately. Besides this, a lot of my papers had lots of press attention. Many people in our group are more focused on quantity so they also collaborate with a people from other universities who have the same mind set. For some reason, I'm not so interested in this approach and I'm a real quality freak and therefore do almost everything myself. But my advisors are quite happy with me since having this many papers at that conference was unseen before. They just let me do my own thing and trust that my desire for quality will result in great work.

So I'm near the end of my phd. I still really enjoy research but I'm doubting if the whole research community is giving everyone an equal chance. It seems as if it is governed by a group of great researchers from top universities who don't want to get involved with other smaller universities and it almost seems as if they blame me for being at a university that is less known. Let me try to give some examples. Since I attended and presented at some conferences (where I presented my papers), I start to know people and they start to know me and we briefly talk but it seems as if it stops there. They congratulate me with the great presentation and work and next year they publish something very similar but do not refer to my work. Somehow they get away with it (probably because their papers are indeed very good and a paper will not be rejected because of 1 missing reference of a research group, the reviewers are maybe not even aware). So as a result, my papers do not get a lot of citations. I do get some requests to review papers for decent conferences but I still get all the crappy papers that are "easy rejects".

In contrast, I see phd students from top universities working with well-known researchers who are on exactly the same track as me (similar number of papers at same conference) and their papers get a huge amount of citations, they are invited to visit other research labs, are already involved as organizers in these conferences,... This is probably just because more people know there well known advisor, visit their website more often and spot the new work with their phd students.

Since many of these people have the same age and are interested in the same stuff as me, we talk fairly often and they are almost friends. When I talk to more senior people at conferences, oftentimes, they start to ask which university I'm from and who I work with. Then they react quite strange when I answer, it gets awkward and we stop talking.

So now I'm near the end of my phd and despite the papers that I have my h-index is quite low, my network not so big and my recommendation letters probably do not have same value as the once from other universities. I feel that I didn't get as many opportunities as other researchers with the same qualifications. Too me it seems as if I pay a big price for not being at a top university whereas I always thought that in science only the quality of your results mattered. I really enjoy doing research and I will probably find some position somewhere.  But I feel quite depressed about this.

Anyone who has similar experiences or advice? Do you have to be at a highly reputable university to make true progress in academia? I dont think this is in line with what science ought to be.


texts: How to write in the SOP that I need funding?

texts:
I am applying into a taught postgraduate program in UK. The professor suits me very well and he also says that he is interested in me. The problem is my research area is theoretical and he has no funding to provide me. He also provides some other alternative professors, but they have no funding too.

Since I really want to work in this area, I want to emphasize how much I need a funding in my SOP. Below is my draft, and I'm not sure if this is the optimal way to write this.

  [Briefly summary who is the professor and his work] My desire is to be able to work with him, and it is my main motivation to apply to University X. I have contacted him and he is very interesting to work with me. However, since only applied science gets funding these days, he cannot get funding for my PhD. Therefore, having a full scholarship is essential for me to study in X.

Some details: my field of research is theoretical ecology. I'm an Asian, and I intend to apply to Queen's University Belfast and Queen Mary University of London.


texts:
I'm currently finishing a B.Sc. Honours in Canada, and I'm applying to Edinburgh (among other places) to do a Masters. They have two research-based degrees, and I was wondering if people with experience in academics and CS could help me distinguish between the two. I'm not overly familiar with the British Education system.

The M.Sc. is a one-year degree of independent research, with very little to no classes. The MPhil is a two-year degree, where classes are taken in addition to independent research.

In particular, I'm wondering:

Which is considered "more academic" or "more prestigious?"
Which would be better for getting into a PhD program?
Since there aren't classes in the MSc, are you expected to have a higher level of knowledge coming in?


texts: When PhD advisor (in an interview) says "Tell me about your research interests", should you also say how it relates to their interests?

texts:
Just curious about this.
On the one hand, I feel like it's a bit heavy-handed to say "And these interests relate to your research interests because of XYZ." It sounds like you are trying to sell them on something.
On the other hand, it is important that advisors feel your interests align.
Note: These are advisors whose interests do pretty obviously overlap with mine -- it's not a stretch.
What is the consensus on this?
UPDATE: So I had two advisor interviews today (back to back, same dept). The first thing both possible advisors asked me was something like "What are your research interests and why did you apply to X department at Y school to study with my group in particular?" (emphasis mine).  So that made it a little easier because they explicitly asked for the link.


texts: How to increase participation in tutorials, as a teaching assistant?

texts: I will be a teaching assistant for a couple of "tutorials" this semester. Basically, I just have a list of problems that we have to go over in the tutorial. Last semester, the Calculus for Engineering students were happy to participate, but the Calculus for Finance students were not. The only factor I can think of is that the Engineering students were more prepared. How can I get the students to participate? Should I just stall and not continue until someone raises their hand, and then they'll eventually get the message? Somehow I'm not sure that really works...


texts: How to deal with mistakenly reporting old GRE percentile scores

texts:
While filling my applications for PhD in computer science I used the percentile scores that I have on the paper score report I received from ETS by mail 3 years ago. However I just logged in to my GRE account to order a copy of the scores to be sent to a university, and I was surprised to see that the percentages have changed:

Verbal increased by 1%
Quantitative decreased by 2%
Analytical writing increased by 4%

Will my application get flagged for reporting wrong percentiles? Should I contact all the universities that I have applied to and inform them about the change in percentiles?


texts: How should I address my mediocre (at best) GPA in my Statement of Purpose [applying for MS in Engineering]?

texts:
I have a 3.18 undergraduate GPA, which isn't great for the schools I want to get into (I'll be applying to top 20 engineering schools for computer engineering). I was pretty blind to this at the time, but I was consumed by a bad relationship during my junior year and beginning of senior year that had a really bad impact on my balance of life and health at the time. It's especially evident in my grades, which are good Freshman and Sophomore year (A's/B's), droop to C's/B's junior year, then rise back up to B's/A's towards the end of senior year. I'd really appreciate some advice on how to extenuate my GPA using my Statement of Purpose!

Some other info:

My GRE score is strong (167 M / 162 V / 4.5 Writing), I still managed to get two letters of rec from professors and a strong one from a VP in my company, and my design work experience in my company is extremely valuable for what I am applying to (computer engineering). The glaring black mark is the 3.18 GPA, which if I don't address it, I don't think I am doing myself any justice with how hard I've worked on the other parts of my application.

What's the best way to exonerate myself while sounding professional and not seeming like I'm whining/making excuses? How directly should I talk about my overall mental health/balance at the time? Has anyone been in a similar situation?

Kind of related question: given my situation, does anyone have any advice on what the balance should be between talking about what I have accomplished (design work) at my company vs. why I am interested in the school's program/what I plan to do with my degree?

Thanks for the help!!


texts: Difference between Visiting Lecturer and Lecturer?

texts:
May you please tell me what is the difference between

  Visiting Lecturer

and

  Lecturer

Can Visiting Lecturer be considered an affiliation or academic staff, for Ph.D holders?


texts: In which countries is cheating in university exams considered a crime?

texts:
In the comments to the question
Methods to track behind cheating on exams using on-line sites?
, Federico Poloni states that cheating is considered a felony in Italy (see
https://www.normattiva.it/uri-res/N2Ls?urn:nir:stato:legge:1925-04-19;475).
This seems interesting to me as I had never heard of this. So I am asking: In which (other) countries is cheating in university exams considered a felony (and thus punishable by law)?

Note that I only asking about the existence of such a law, not if it has any implications in practise.

Also note: I am really asking about "classical university exams" and not about plagiarism when writing a thesis.


texts: What to do about questions that are designed to embarrass the speaker?

texts:
I've attended a lot of seminars and lectures by now, and it's typical for the chair of the seminar to offer audience members a chance to ask questions of the speaker about their work after the presentation.

Most of the time, the questions seek clarification of some aspect of the presentation or focus on a more comprehensive understanding of the research involved.

However, occasionally, I've noticed that questions are purposefully designed to embarrass the speaker.  Things along the lines of "That method won't work at all for what you're trying to do.  Your results are completely invalid" or "So-and-so's group already did that work years ago.  Did you not read their paper?"

Perhaps more disturbingly (I just got back from a really large conference if you can't tell), is that women seem to be more harshly criticized than men, and over trivial issues.  For instance, in a few sessions I went to, female graduate students were given really hard times over their presentations while the male grad students were not.  All presentations were about the same quality.  I guess I'm a little shocked; I'd heard of sexism in academia but hadn't actually seen it (or noticed it) until this conference.

Oddly enough, I've observed that it's typically prestigious professors or researchers that are asking these ostentatious questions.  I suppose they figure they have enough "fame" or whatever that their job isn't in jeopardy, and there's no easy way to really prove they're being rude or sexist.

I don't know what's going on here, but it seems to me that these questions, even if they do have technical merit, should be held until after the seminar, where they can be discussed privately with the researcher.

My question here, specifically, is what can be done to minimize these (uncomfortable for everyone) instances?  My thoughts are that a session chair should remind the audience to refrain from questions that are accusatory in nature.  As a presenter, I'm not sure what can be done in advance to preempt and avoid these questions.  Any ideas?


texts: Doing a math PhD with a great deal of student debt

texts: If you have undergrad / master's degree student loans, but are fortunate enough to get into good PhD programs (with funding), how do you practically manage your debt situation?


texts: Can a published well-received research paper contain misprints?

texts:
I have been reading a research paper for my university course. The paper is the PhD thesis of a student of Berkeley mentored by a reputed engineer. I strongly feel that an expression mentioned in the thesis is wrong, although it has been mentioned only once in paper and his analytical and simulation results agree everywhere, I doubt my speculation

My doubt is whether there is a chance that the equation may contain a typing error and what I think is correct and my expression has been used in calculations or since this is a highly cited paper , there cannot be any typing error and my doubt is futile. I mean have such typos ever crept earlier in such reputed publications ?


texts: Submit an extended version of a computer science conference paper to a non-CS journal

texts: I know that CS journals usually accept extended version of a conference paper with some, say 10%, new contents. But is it still true for non-CS journals?


texts:
TL;DR

Is it okay to list a university and an expected degree in my CV (under the education section), if the semester starts a month from now?

Longer verion:

I have finished bachelor studies and got accepted in a master program which starts in a month. I feel that if I leave out the master program because the semester and the classes have not actually started yet, the CV might look a bit empty.

Is it appropriate to list the imminent master studies as well?

Should I avoid having a specific starting month and simply put the year I enrolled, even if the semester is very close and it is highly unlikely that I will not attend?

Would the answer differ in industry?

If the semester was further away, more than a month, but I got the acceptance letter, is it still okay to list it?


texts: Can human subjects be paid using a researcher's personal funds?

texts:
I want to conduct some research and will apply for IRB approval. But, finding money to offer incentives for respondents may be difficult. I do not mind using personal funds as the total amount is very low.

Is there any ethical issue with using personal funds for research?
Do you know of any IRB related regulations that address the above issue?

If it matters I am at a US educational institution.


texts: Requiring student to participate in online challenges to complete coursework

texts:
I'm teaching a programming course with ~20 students, guiding them through coding assignments and helping them understand what they are doing, and why it works or doesn't. Tasks expected of them range from trivial to medium-complexity in the range of a 40-hours curriculum.

Now, toward the end of the course, they know enough to solve moderate programming problems. In order to get them to work on a few things more "exciting" than what we offer them, I am considering asking them to join an online coding (or problem-solving-through-coding) competition, such as Project Euler. I wouldn't expect them to be able to solve all problems, of course, but I could select a list of problems for them to pick from. For example:

  For this session, you are expected to solve between 5 and 10 problems from the following selection of Project Euler numbers: 1-10, 13, 15, 20-24, 26-29, 33, 35-38.

Sure, I could just copy these problems and make them "assignments" for them, but I think it could bring some fun for them to see it as part of a competition. Also, why I don't understand why, it seems that to their generation, doing anything online is vastly more exciting than doing the same thing otherwise. Finally, I have some hope that a few students might actually get into it, and continue doing it for fun after the course.

Now, comes the question: what downsides do you see to requiring them to participate in one of these online challenges? (I'm most interested in the specific case I detail above, but generic advice/answers for other types of online participation might be interesting too!)


texts: How did Milton Babitt teach math at Princeton and research math, without an undergraduate degree in math?

texts:
Even if Babbitt taught merely elementary calculus, don't universities hire someone with at least an undergraduate degree in math to teach it?
I quote Schoenblog.com:

  Babbitt came to teach at Princeton in 1938—before there was even a music department. We did not have offices. We lived under very Spartan conditions.” When the U.S. entered World War II in 1941, Babbitt was working toward one of the first graduate degrees offered in music at Princeton. During the second semester of that year, he taught music and math (mostly elementary calculus [I bolded.]). “Everybody suddenly began taking math courses that semester after Pearl Harbor. I was teaching on Saturdays.” The music section disappeared as everyone was either drafted or preparing for technical jobs in the army. Babbitt was sent by the Army to Washington, but soon was sent back to teach, because mathematicians were considered top priority. Babbitt stayed with the math department until the end of the war, when he made the not-so-difficult decision to return to music.

In avouching his 'mathematical research in Washington, D.C', Wikipedia hints that Babbitt was skilled at more than elementary calculus.

  Babbitt's father was a mathematician, and it was mathematics that Babbitt intended to study when he entered the University of Pennsylvania in 1931. However, he soon left and went to New York University instead, where he studied music with Philip James and Marion Bauer. There he became interested in the music of the composers of the Second Viennese School and went on to write a number of articles on twelve tone music, including the first description of combinatoriality and a serial "time-point" technique. After receiving his bachelor of arts degree from New York University College of Arts & Science in 1935 with Phi Beta Kappa honors, he studied under Roger Sessions, first privately and then later at Princeton University. At the university, he joined the music faculty in 1938 and received one of Princeton's first Master of Fine Arts degrees in 1942 (Barkin & Brody 2001). During the Second World War, Babbitt divided his time between mathematical research in Washington, D.C., and Princeton, where he became a member of the mathematics faculty from 1943 to 1945 (Barkin & Brody 2001).


texts: Is it self-plagiarism if I am up-front about similarities?

texts:
I am writing a paper which expounds on a portion of a previous paper that I got published.

If I did not even mention the previous paper in my new one, I'm fairly certain this would be seen as trying to pass off old work as new (unethical).

However, in the introduction of the new paper, the beginning of the relevant section, and throughout the relevant section, I am very up-front about the similarities to the old paper, with many citations. Also, there is no copy/paste from the old paper.  Some phrasing may be similar in places, but only because I happened to write both papers.

Am I safe submitting the new paper to a journal?


texts: Is it typical for a medical researcher to attend an industry conference?

texts:
An industry conference in my field of research (medical) is being held soon. I am wondering is it typical for academics to attend non-academic conferences?

Several academics have been invited as keynote speakers but it is predominantly aimed at industry professionals. The talks sound interesting and relevant to my work and it would be a useful networking event.

There are no similar academic conferences being held that I am aware of. This is an area of research that is more active in industry.

However, the fees are very high compared to an academic conference. Is it normal for travel funds etc. to be spent on non-academic conferences? If I cannot attend are they other ways to make connections to industry? I am a postdoc currently.


texts: Forward-citation chasing: Is there a formal study for what I'm doing?

texts:
I'm currently writing a Master's dissertation in health economics which is looking at economic evaluations of certain interventions.

I've got a database of about 400 papers, and would like to spend some time analysing how these papers have actually been utilised and if it relates to certain characteristics of the evaluations. I was thinking of doing a forward-citation search and tracking where these studies have been referenced (many studies will be utilised by reports from health care systems e.g. NHS).

I wanted to ask if this has a formal name to it (e.g. forward citation analysis, flow of information analysis). I would much prefer to it systematically if there was information previously available.


texts: Is it OK to reuse part of the related work section published in a previous paper?

texts: We published paper A before. Now, we are writing the camera-ready version of paper B, which is closely related to paper A. Therefore, we currently reused around 50% of the related work section from paper A. Would this be acceptable? Thanks!


texts: Ethics approval for an independent project akin to a survey

texts:
The self-funded project being planned involves participants doing a variant of a Random Number Generation task, involving just typing "randomly" for a couple minutes on a computer program to study/cluster the bias in what was thought to be "random". Since currently the authors are not affiliated to any university, how would they (if needed) get an ethics approval for such a project?

The project involves no intervention, no risks to the participants, the informed consent form includes a fully disclosed data handling policy and the materials are "open", i.e. open source program, open source analysis scripts (after the completion) and the like.

Would an ethics approval still be necessary for such a project? If so, how would independent researchers go about getting one?

I am also curious behind the logic of an ethical approval in such scenarios; all the "best-practices" guidelines available from many good sources are already being followed, and would an ethical approval add any extra layer of surety of adherence to these guidelines?


texts: Is it okay to expect advisors to offer a word of condolence?

texts:
I'm a third-year Ph.D. student. A few months ago, I lost my maternal grandfather and grandmother in quick succession. More recently, I lost my close friend in a bus accident and my paternal grandmother was wheeled into the emergency room. These incidents have affected me personally and I haven't been able to focus on my work as much. I emailed my advisors everytime an incident happened (to take a 2-3 days off) but both of them didn't bother to reply. Even after I met them face to face, they did not ask me how I'm doing or if I need any help?

This has led me to feel that my emotions are not valued and I'm being used just as a tool to get experiments done. Am I wrong to expect a word of condolence from my advisors or do they think that they might cross personal boundaries?


texts: Nature Communications and Nature subject journal differences from Nature

texts:
The recent branching of Nature in Nature Communications and all the Nature subject journals is confusing.

What is the difference between Nature, Nature Communications, etc. The only clear difference I see is that the subject journals are specific while the other two are not and they all have their specific IF and metrics.

Does submission to one of them preclude the submission to the others? And is Nature still seen as the most prestigious of this group or has it lost some of its appeal/importance after the creation of all these new journals. It seems that this branching would lead to 'watering down' what Nature was like.


texts:
I am non-EU citizen working as postdoc at a university in Denmark. Not so long ago I won two postdoc fellowships, of which I accepted one, and that's where I am currently getting my salary from. I can still accept the other (at least try), but I am struggling to understand whether it is a good idea.

Arguments in favor of accepting:

my PI tells me it may be possible to use this new fellowship to promote me to Assistant Professor
new fellowship means a longer period with guaranteed income and residence rights
the project for which I won that fellowship is more interesting (though also more challenging) than what I am currently working on

Arguments against:

I don't know if switching to a different fellowship and leaving a research project unfinished won't be a spot on my CV; it's unlikely I will be able to finish the "old" project while working on the "new" one, and also not possible to finish the "old" project before it's time to switch
I don't know what will happen if my PI's smart plan to promote me fails to work for some reason; it won't be nice if it turns out I cannot be promoted but also can't continue working as a postdoc because I have used up my allowed number of prolongations of my postdoc position

Would be interested in hearing any feedback.


texts: Is declining an undergraduate award which causes me discomfort appropriate?

texts:
I have been offered an award to be presented to me at my graduation this summer at an English university. The award is not for academic achievement per se. It's for gaining my science degree despite having suffered significant illness at a crucial point in my degree. The award is for a student who has overcome a significant obstacle (which could be anything) and successfully completed.

Specifically because the cause of my problem was illness, this nomination has made me feel acutely self-conscious (even before I've received it). I've spoken to student friends and family about it. They all give predictable advice - "we understand, but accept the award, it's good for your CV!". Any possible benefit to my "CV" doesn't begin to enter the calculus for me.

This was a significant illness, and I struggled hard to be "normal" again. This award would make it hard to feel that way. I would find an allusion to this episode, particularly on a day such as graduation, rather difficult to handle. I doubt very much that the specific motivation for the award would be stated at the ceremony, but even so...

I realise my academic department are trying to be generous towards me and recognise my efforts with this award. It is a good university and they care about their students. I am going on to postgraduate study at the same university. The award is sponsored by an alumnus who themselves had a significant problem during their studies. Can I decline politely or is this a no-no? Could it be seen as self-indulgent to decline?

Update: I wanted to thank all of the posters here for empathic, thoughtful and surprisingly non-judgemental answers. This is clearly a well-regulated and insightful community.

Many of these answers conflict, and some posters have admonished others, but I wanted you to know that I have read everything carefully, that I am open to seeing this from all perspectives, and that I have found almost all answers and replies helpful.


texts: Having a No Pass in major class for a reason

texts:
As a freshman, I NP a physics for engineers class on purpose because I wanted to switch to the physics major, and if I finished that class I would have been unable to take the first two classes in the physics for physicists series(I attempted to late drop after realizing that I want to pursue physics, but that petition was rejected, so I had to NP the class).

I technically could have substituted the physics for engineers series with the physics for physicists series, but the physics for engineers series was quite bad in that it incorporated a flipped classroom technique(which I find unhelpful), and it was also less in depth and moved at a quicker pace. As a result, I wanted to start the physics for physicists series from scratch. In this case, would my NP in a physics class hinder my grad school application if I did well in the physics for physicist series after changing majors?


texts: Is it acceptable to give out information about an unpublished paper in an application?

texts:
I worked on a research project earlier this year. It has recently been submitted for publication and is currently under review. I am working on my resume and cover letter at the moment as well as applying to graduate schools. This is one of the biggest projects I have worked on in my undergrad and thus I will definitely be including it in my applications.

We were told not to circulate this paper, but I was allowed to present a very small part of the data at a conference. There are many diseases/conditions being studied in the project and I presented two of them at a conference.

Although I know that it is definitely not acceptable to circulate an unpublished paper, I am wondering if it would be okay to state a brief synopsis of what the project was about? For example:

  This project was a meta-analysis that looked to see if there was a relationship between X and Y.

In addition, would it be acceptable to mention the journal that it was submitted to?


texts: What is the proper etiquette for requesting speakers from industry for an academic seminar?

texts: I am in a program that has a seminar class where the students are strongly encouraged to get people to come and present. I was wondering if anyone else ever had to find speakers and if so had a sample form letter. I ask because I can offer nothing in terms of compensations so I am not sure how to go about doing this.


texts: Is there any unwritten rule in the academia regarding the rate of paper publication during the PhD?

texts:
Is there any unwritten rule in the academia regarding the rate of paper publication by a PhD student?

I.e. how many paper publication per year is considered as a good performance for a PhD student?

How does that vary from 1st to last year?


texts: How do I start an initial conversation with a professor to ask them to let me work in their group as a graduated student

texts:
I got my master's in Computer Science 3 years ago. I had a poor GPA of 3.3/4. I wanted to get a job back then and I was not that interested in the coursework. I am currently working as a software developer at a well-known company. And of late, I have been seriously thinking about becoming a researcher.
I live about an hour away from the college where I got my master's. There were two to three professors whose work I found to be interesting. I read a few papers that their groups produced, I know what problems they are solving. Now, how do I actually approach a professor and ask him if I could work in his lab parttime or work on some project with him? My goal is to ultimately get a Ph.D. admission. To that end, none of my professors would remember me well enough to write me a LOR. My only hope right now to work on a research project with a professor and hope he would get me a Ph.D. admit. How do I start the initial conversation? Should I email him and ask him if I could meet him for half an hour to get some career advice?


texts: My advisor cited her colleague's papers in her own methodology even though she did not use those methods. Does this qualify as scientific misconduct?

texts:
I'm currently working on my MSc thesis under a PhD candidate's supervision. She has very recently published a paper as first author in a well-known journal where she claims to have followed methodology used by her colleagues and co-authors (in their other papers). However, I know that this is not true and that the PhD candidate is fully aware that she's lying too. I know that she has lied because the thesis of MSc students who worked under her previously state something entirely different from what the PhD candidate has cited as source in her paper.
Question: What I don't know is if this act qualifies as scientific misconduct and/or how severe this is. If yes, then what is an act like this called?
Some of the differences between the methodology she has actually used, and the one she claims to have used are minor. The issue is that there are so many of these "minor differences" that they might end up having major influence on the results. e.g for how long samples were centrifuged, rpm of centrifuge, temperature settings of gas chromatography machine, etc.
The major (?) difference pertains to composition of nutrient broth (microbiology) which I'm confident she has never even prepared throughout the course of her PhD.
Unfortunately, it's clear to me that the PhD candidate's supervisors don't care about this since they seem to be working in tandem to increase each other's h-index. So, reporting to them won't make much of a difference. But for my own sanity, I would like to know just how big of a deal is this kind of act?


texts: What does it mean when submission system says "under review" after submitting minor revisions?

texts:
Is it possible that after sending minor revisions my paper has gone for a fresh review again. I had received the following recommendation: accept subject to optional revision. The status has been showing " under review " for a month now.

Is it still with the associate editor or with the old reviewers. I got two referred comments and one guest editor comments
Sent my paper to ieee transaction


texts: Disclosing Asperger's Syndrome in cover letter for scholarship

texts:
If I want to apply for a PhD scholarship that requires a cover letter, should I disclose that I have Asperger's Syndrome? If so, how detailed should I describe my condition? It's not something that I enjoy talking about, sort of like InquilineKea. Since I was only diagnosed recently, I'm thinking of writing a few sentences that mainly highlight the positive aspects, and how it could really benefit the research group. (I have worked as a teaching assistant, and have never gone through situations like this so it should be OK.)

I have already told my professor about the AS, but was hoping to get further advice from folks in this forum.

Edit: This is what my careers advisor thinks. I want to show that I can add value to the research group -- these attributes are directly and indirectly related to AS.

  I certainly think if it is something that you can manage well you don't need to disclose it at the beginning of the application process. If it's something that affects your working then you should disclose it. Either option I would present it in a positive manner. Ultimately you want to sell yourself for what you can do for them and how you can add value. Whether you disclose it in your letter or at a later stage of the process is up to you. Just keep it positive.


texts: I was published in a journal on Beall's list - how bad is my mistake?

texts:
Please pardon my somewhat peculiar case, I hope this is still a question useful to others.

After school I became an undergrad but paused studying after a few semesters of university to work full time. During the several years I was employed, I also became co-author of three papers, two of which were were with a "potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publisher".

At the time I was not aware journals like that even existed, and as a professor and two doctors were also authors, I would never have imagined this could be an issue. As I am now a university student again and learned about this, I obviously regret my decision to participate. I am not sure how my mistake will be judged by others, and how far-reaching the consequences are, this is why I am asking here.

To be honest, I think it, while bad, was no terrible blunder, as I was "only" an employee at the time (though an undergrad before that). Also, I suspect most future employers would probably not even recognize my mistake.

Clearly it is different if I were to pursue an academic career. Are past flaws of this kind forgivable - and if so, should I (actively) point out that I made a mistake and will avoid it in the future?

Annotation: Many people claimed (elsewhere) that the journal in question did no peer-review. This was not the case for me, as we always had a list of (content) issues to address, usually by 4 to 6 reviewers.


texts: Should I chase up confidential feedback not being "sanitised"

texts:
I'm not sure how to phrase the question exactly in the title, but the issue is essentially this. I gave some feedback for a subject I did, which I was told was confidential. The lecturer found out I gave the feedback and approached me about it. From what she said, they were able to piece together who I was from the examples I gave of my concerns.

I realised from their statements that the feedback was given directly to them, but with no names attached (I assume). I don't feel that this was adequately stated in the survey. Now while I no doubt they will be a professional moving forward in this situation, I cannot know for certain that they now hold a vendetta against me. Conversely, they could also inflate my marks to appease me as well. Either circumstance I think we can agree is not favourable.

I have already emailed the university about this some time ago, but never received a reply. The thing I am most concerned about is the lack of clarity about the feedback, I would not have included "incriminating" evidence had I known this was given to the lecturer's directly - though I am unsure if that was an incorrect assumption on my part.

Anyways, my question is: should I chase this up or should I let it go?


texts: is it OK to include own questions on CV?

texts:
I was re-writing my CV and I thought that it could be a good idea to include the general/ultimate questions that "drive me to do science" or in particular "the kind of science I want to work in".

I don't want to make this personal. I would like to know if this kind of questions are acceptable/desirable or not a good idea.

I am a little bit prone to Biology questions because that's my area but I would love to have this question edited with other areas questions (example for physics: How do particles X and Y interact when condition=Z?)

Independent Examples I can think of:

How do we learn?
What drives animal instinct?
How does an ecosystem work and fluctuates?
How do plants deal with stress factors?
Which is the origin of the cell?

I know that this might be quite naive/text book questions. However, I also believe that the eagerness to answer them is what really drives science forward.

UPDATE

I believe that the best/most used place to put these questions is the Statement of Purpose, or any other type of "motivation letter". I've found that many CV templates free available have an area dedicated for "Career Goal" or something equivalent. My understanding is that this is a brief place where you must include the most important part of what you would develop in a longer text. Also, when you send your CV (to a PI for example) you don't send a motivation letter with it. They are most used for application to universities and grant proposals.


texts: Tone to use in describing your "research project"

texts:
This is an extension question for this What exactly is "briefly explain your master research project" in a PhD application? (CS field)
Suppose I am writing a brief description for my research project (for my phD application), should I be using some "higher level" vocabulary or easy understanding words? This is because I don't know whether the admission committee will understand ...
Will there be different between a master and a phD when describing the research experience?


texts: Naming inconsistencies in booktitle fields of BibTeX entries provided by IEEEXplore

texts:
Why are the booktitle fields of BibTeX entries provided by IEEEXplore inconsistent in the following way:

@InProceedings{
...
booktitle={2009 International Conference on Reconfigurable Computing and FPGAs},
...
}

and

@InProceedings{
...
booktitle={Image Processing, 2004. ICIP '04. 2004 International Conference on},
...
}

Is there a specific reason for that? I've come across both styles in references. I think (if I understand https://www.ieee.org/documents/ieeecitationref.pdf correctly) the IEEE itself prefers the first variant. I do as well. What are the reasons others use variant two and why does IEEEXplore emit styles the IEEE does not encourage?

Update:

It seems like IEEEXplore is in fact simply emitting the names of the conferences. So the question becomes why the conference name is slightly changed almost every year (except for the year, obviously). See also http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/conhome.jsp?punumber=1000349 for an overview (click on "more history").


texts: Co-supervisor comes to the office to help her students, which distracts me

texts:
My co-supervisor (2nd supervisor) comes to the office where I work to help her (main) Ph.D. students. The noise distracts my work. I find it unprecedented. Why not help her students in her own private office, instead of coming to the shared office space!?

I am not sure how to resolve this issue. Shall I message her, mention the issue to her students or to a superior academic, or change office?

Like it or not, there is a lot of hierarchy in academia and she has helped me in the past. I don't want to break relationships. In addition, I know I am not the only in the office who has noise issues.

What would be the diplomatic way to have a quiet office space?

Edit & Update:

1) Noise canceling earbudsor headphones are good and I have tried they do help, but to be honest if you want to concetrate to carry a task it's hard to maintain focus with loud volume.

2) I believe I have a common understanding with most of you guys. If there is a small chat in the office is fine but if it's a meeting more than 30 mins they should find a room. In my case, the co-supervisor helped her student for almost the whole day... And as I mentioned in the comment section from what I am aware she has an available office and there are plenty of meeting rooms in the Uni. If it's the computer thing they have laptops...

3) Thank you everyone for your support and suggestions, hope you are getting well with your offices. As mentioned from you, there cannot be a perfect office but at least have some common understanding I guess.


texts: Does translating an academic work in the humanities or social sciences improve your CV?

texts: I've been asked to collaborate in an edited book that will collect important contributions to the field X, in the humanities/Social Sciences. The volume will be published in French, so I was asked to translate the work (an article) of an authority in the field from English to French. Given that this takes time, I wonder whether there is any value in doing this? Will this look good on a CV? Or is it just a "service"?


texts: Are there any resumé revision services available for PhD applicants?

texts: I am preparing a resumé for a PhD application. I'd like to know if there any good, and not necessarily free, services that evaluate and comment on a resumé.


texts: I'm planning on doing some reading projects that lie a little above the undergraduate curriculum. To be more specific, I'm a physics major and I plan on doing reading projects in a few advanced physics topics (eg. Feynman path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics and nonlinear dynamics) and math (eg. group theory, knot theory and complex analysis). I plan on majoring in theoretical physics for my masters where these concepts are very much relevant. Will an admissions committee view this in a positive light? Will this be a good addition to my CV?


texts: Frustration in getting admission into PhD Computer Science, with background MSc Geospatial Science & BTech Computer Science

texts: Am presently really frustrated in getting a supervisor and admission into PhD Computer Science in any University in Europe or US. I recently graduated with MSc Geospatial Science with distinction (cgpa 4.8/5) and I have Bachelors in Computer Science. Ever since I finished my masters have been seeking a PhD admission in computer science in any average schools in europe or US, but all to no avail. I have 3 research papers in top international journal, I even had a research proposal of likely topic relating to Mobile Computing & Mobile GIS, and i seriously think the frustration is weighing me down, please is there something am not doing right or there is any other method of getting a supervisor apart from contacting them through email.


texts: What are unique job titles in academia called?

texts:
Occasionally a university gives a famous professor a job title individually designed for that one person only.  Thus:

Donald Knuth is "Professor Emeritus of the Art of Computer Programming" at Stanford.
Gian-Carlo Rota was "Professor of Applied Mathematics and Philosophy" at M.I.T., although he had an appointment only in the mathematics department.

Is there a common noun referring to such custom-designed job titles for rare famous professors?

PS inspired by things written below: This is not the same as an endowed chair or a distinguished professorship.  Some universities use the titled of "Distinguished Professor" and have rules saying only a limited number of professors can have that title; some universitites call the appointees "University Professors"; M.I.T. calls them "Institute Professors" (Isadore Singer in the math department is an Institute Professor). But with Distinguished Professors there is some codified rule saying these can exist and setting forth certain criteria for granting such a title.  Similarly for endowed chairs.  Knuth's title was based on the name of an influential and famous three-volume work on computer programming that Knuth had written; it would be absurd to promulgate a rule saying who might be appointed to this position in the future and according to which criteria, since it's a title that can fit only one person.  Nor could it have been contemplated in Rota's case that others might some day have that title; it was awarded only because of the unique circumstances of Rota's life.


texts: Should the glossary in my dissertation be minimalist or comprehensive?

texts:
Context: I'm in an interdisciplinary field -- Computational Social Science -- and therefore my dissertation will be drawing on theory, empirical findings, and methods from at least four different disciplines. My dissertation topic is "Institutional Innovation Based on New Knowledge".  Many terms have no settled meaning even within a single discipline, and many terms have definitions of my choosing, to suit the scope and purposes of my dissertation.

I'm using LaTex packages for glossary and hyperlinks so that all glossary terms get highlighted hyperlinks when they first appear in each chapter.

My question: should I aim for a minimalist glossary where only the most technical, obscure, central, or controversial terms get defined, or a comprehensive glossary that aims to define all important terms.

My aim is to make it easy for readers (mostly my committee), especially so that they won't waste time either trying to find my definitions or spend too much time reading/checking my definitions.  Most of all I don't want them assuming that I'm misusing terms or that I haven't adequately defined them.

I'm not concerned about the extra workload of completing a comprehensive glossary.  I'm good at this sort of task and it helps me as I write the body of each chapter -- I don't have to keep defining terms or reminding readers of my definition.

The downside of a comprehensive glossary is page count.  I'll guess that it will add 20 or 25 pages.  I don't want to "bloat" the dissertation any more than necessary.


texts: Talking about accepted offer in job interview

texts:
I accepted an offer and after that got an iterview opportunity from my dream company. In the interview they had asked me if I have deadlines coming up. I informed them that I had to accept another offer since the deadline was before they invited me to the interview.
Will this create a negative opinion with interviewer or HR? Will the decision of considering me for next rounds be affected?

Thanks in advance


texts: Leaving out unhelpful advisor from acknowledgements?

texts:
I’m getting towards the end of a long project and am required to write a dissertation (Bachelor of Engineering) and we have been advised that it’s a good idea to include an acknowledgements page¹. What I’m wondering is: Is it considered a requirement to thank your academic supervisor, regardless of whether they actually helped? My supervisor was not particularly helpful and I ended up not bothering to ask them questions about half way through the project. Is it considered poor form to leave them out of the acknowledgements?

My original question was similar to a previous question asking about whether they should publish a PhD Thesis without acknowledgements due to difficulties with supervisors. My question is slightly different in that I would like to include an acknowledgements page to thank family and friends etc. This would make it more obvious that the supervisor has been left off the list of people who have been acknowledged.

¹ The guidance provided says:

  It is common courtesy that you acknowledge assistance received whilst undertaking the project and preparing the dissertation. You should consider carefully all forms of assistance received and these may encompass academic, technical, secretarial, administrative and personal assistance (e.g. family and friends). A set of simple statements is usually appropriate and adequate acknowledgement should not normally exceed one page.


texts: How old can references or sources in a thesis be?

texts:
I have read that references in scientific papers should be no more than 2-3 years old, since such fields move fast, and no more than 10 years for arts or related fields:

  A good rule of thumb is to use sources published in the past 10 years
  for research in the arts, humanities, literature, history, etc.

  For faster-paced fields, sources published in the past 2-3 years is a
  good benchmark since these sources are more current and reflect the
  newest discoveries, theories, processes, or best practices.

However, I believe that's subjective, so how old is it for a reference to be "too old" to cite?


texts: Are salaries for academic jobs in New Zealand negotiable?

texts: The academic salaries and compensations in new zealand universities seem tobe fairly low compared to most other countries such as US, UK, Australia, etc. Is it however possible to negotiate the starting point in the prescribed academic levels (read: salary levels)? Are the salary levels also related to the No of years post phd?


texts: Presenting the idea of a PhD research project before publishing it

texts:
I have an idea for my PhD research project but my supervisor wants me to have that idea/model published or endorsed before I can start working on and she suggested that idea/model to be presented in a conference and have comments about that.

I know about normal papers being presented at conference but what is idea/model presented in the form of paper. Can anyone help me in understanding the format.


texts: What belongs in the "Work Experience" section of graduate applications - is undergraduate research experience included?

texts: Nearly every graduate school application has this section for Work Experience. Are things such as REUs (Research Experience for Undergraduates) considered work? Or is this meant for work that isn't directly research experience?


texts: Bad GRE scores, but otherwise decent application to PhD program. Still worth it?

texts:
I just finished my MA in Global Affairs, and I am applying to several International Relations PhD programs, one of which is very competitive.
I have a 3.9 GPA, 1 1/2 years of experience in research including an internship at a very respected research center, and very strong LORs. My writing sample was recently accepted to a conference, and I have received great feedback on it otherwise.
However, my GRE scores suck. I took them before I applied to my MA program, and despite studying like crazy for close to 3 months, I bombed. My combined score, converted to the older system is 1020, and I somehow got a 3.5 on the analytical writing section. This last part really shocked me, since writing is one of my strongest skills, and any professor I've had can attest to that. I wanted to retake the test before applying, but my last semester was very hectic and I could not carve out the time to study. Admittedly, I have had very little guidance on the application process, so I told myself that the rest of my application would make up for it. Recently I have begun to worry that this assumption was wrong.

Since I have made it this far in the application process, I am still going to apply. However, I want to have realistic expectations. Am I doomed, or do GRE scores not necessarily make or break a holistic review?


texts: Is it ethical to put a surveillance camera inside a lab

texts:
The Lab leader is putting a surveillance camera inside the lab to protect some precious devices bought recently. The viewpoint of the camera covers most of the lab and shows clearly the lab members 24h per day and 7 days a week. The camera is only accessed by the lab leader.

is it ethical to put such a camera inside the lab?


texts: Legal responsibility of a university for international students (Europe)

texts:
I am a non-EU student in a European university that has international master and doctoral programs for foreign students.
I have found the university does not offer important forms in English that would also benefit international students (e.g., tuition fee reimbursement application form that describes various contexts sufficing such application). I wonder if there is any legal document describing responsibilities or duties of universities having international students.


texts: Should I mention studying during high school in academic CV?

texts:
I am a postdoc, applying for tenure track jobs in mathematics.
I did my bachelor degree as a kid (was 14 when started).
I wonder if I should/could mention this in my academic CV?


texts: How to communicate with the co-authors regarding the work (paper)

texts:
I am working on a project, where I am the author of the idea. Also, I found the data (open-source) that can work well with the idea of the paper.

I invited one of my colleagues to work with me on this project. We have agreed that I will be the first author.

As this is the first time for me to work on a paper, I really do not understand the role of communication with the co-author. So, can I share with the co-author the analysis of the data (before writing the paper? In other words, can I show the co-author my works and software codes? or I must write the paper (my role) and then they can look at it. I ask this question for two reasons:

To understand my roles and duties.
To avoid bothering my colleague with my work.

Can someone help me with this point, please?


texts: Switching Topics Once in Graduate School

texts: I plan to pursue a graduate school "career" in theoretical condensed matter physics in the US; however, getting into a grad program as a theory student is quite difficult due to limited spacing, little funding, and high competition. Should I instead apply as an experimentalist and then switch over to theory in grad school? Or should I not say "experimentalist' or "theorist" in my statement of purpose and instead focus on the topic(s) in condensed matter physics that interest me and include names of professors in theory and experiment? In the former case, is the action ethical? In the latter case, will it seem that I am not focused? Please advise, since I do not want to narrow my options.


texts: I proved a theorem I heard from another researcher. Can I publish my results?

texts:
Some time ago I heard a talk in which the speaker mentioned some theorem. I needed this theorem for another paper I wrote. I looked for this theorem in the relevant literature (which I know quite well), but did not find it. I emailed a question to the speaker, he confirmed that the theorem is correct, but did not supply a proof. I also looked at the speaker's working papers, but it was not there. So, I proved the theorem myself.

Now, I think this theorem is interesting and would like to publish it as a stand-alone short paper (maybe in a 'letters' journal). The problem is, I believe the speaker has some proof of this theorem unpublished, so I might be "stealing" his result.

Obviously, the optimal solution is to contact the speaker, but he does not seem to reply. What can I do?


texts: Making figure legends for papers in the biological sciences

texts: I'm in the process of writing figure legends but realized I don't actually know what to include or what to exclude. I wrote them based on intuition and tried to copy what I've already seen but I was wondering if anyone had good suggestions or references for making figure legends for papers and reports in the biological sciences.


texts: Is it appropriate to bring coffee and cookies to a PhD defense?

texts:
First of all, I've already asked my adviser about this, but I just want to see what is the overall idea of the community on this.

In Mexico it is usually required for the student to do this, but that is about the only place I have references of people doing defenses.

I was thinking of bringing bottled water, but since is the middle of the winter I thought coffee might be a better choice.


texts: How to use more than 8 boolean connectors in ScienceDirect advanced search?

texts:
I am writing a systematic literature review for which I have developed the following search string which looks like this:
("Virtual Reality" OR "Virtual Environment" OR "Virtual Programming" OR "VR" OR "Virtual Scene") AND
("Path" OR "Terrain" OR "Environment" OR "Topography" OR "Topology" OR "landscape" OR "Trail" OR "Track" OR "Pathway") AND ("Generation" OR "Creation")

How can I use this search string on ScienceDirect, because it's not allowing more than 8 boolean connectors?
Please help me, I am very new to this.
Thank you!


texts: Are postdocs students or staff when calculating staff/student ratios?

texts:
The ratio of staff/students is an important factor for university rankings. How are postdocs and non-faculty researchers considered in calculating this ratio?

I am referring to researchers who have an official contract with the university such as postdoc fellowships (which are competition based), higher level researchers like Senior Scientists (some universities give such titles) and even Research Professors?

To rephrase my question: Are research staff considered part of "staff" in staff/student ratio? They are not academic staff but they can do teaching jobs too!


texts: Is it OK to submit a paper without asking your former supervisor?

texts:
It has been nearly four months since I finished my Master's degree and I do not yet have any publications.

Around this time last year, I and my two thesis advisors submitted a paper to a conference and it was rejected with a score of "borderline paper" (unlucky me, that year there were so many quality studies).

Now, I look back and see that that paper was poorly written and did not have a clear message.

I am not claiming that I am the paper-writing-guru, but I believe that I have improved.

What I think is, without asking to my advisor, keeping him busy too much, should I write a paper and submit it to a conference? (of course, not a bogus conference).
Or should I be more patient and wait for him to approve a manuscript to submit it somewhere?

If I write a paper based on my thesis and submit it to a conference, is that accepted as doing something behind someone's back?

Edit: I see that I should not submit a paper based on my thesis without co-authorship of my supervisor. What about submitting a paper based on a different topic within the same area of research?


texts: What fraction of STEM PhD graduates end up in jobs that require a PhD?

texts:
Only a small fraction of PhD graduates in STEM end up as (tenured) professors.  For example, see this question and plenty of other material on the internet.

Many PhD graduates end up wokring in government or industry.  Some of those are research positions where a PhD is valued if not required (perhaps the specialisation is less important), but I also know STEM PhD graduates who work as programmers (quite common), as a miner, in the military, or as a reindeer herder (yes).

Within STEM, what fraction of PhD graduates end up in jobs for which a PhD is a requirement?  And what fraction in jobs for which it is considered valuable, even if not required?

In order not to muddy the waters with graduates doing postdocs still hoping for an academic career before giving up, let's consider the first long-term (5 years+) position or whatever they're doing 10 years after completing the PhD.


texts: Are there still teaching professor positions in Western Europe in Biology/Env Sciences?

texts:
It seems that I can't find any evidence of just teaching positions in universities across Europe, aside from the temporary position for a semester or two. I am mainly interested in Italy, France, Switzterland but let's make this a bit more broad so it applies to more people.

Every job ad I have seen requests publications and then asks to have a strong research agenda, raise funding, etc.

Do those positions still exists in Biology/Environmental Sciences and related fields? Or perhaps positions with minimal research pressure?


texts:
How common are arXiv delays? (putting a paper on hold status?). I have recently (yesterday) submitted my first paper on arXiv, it was supposed to show up a while ago, however the status of the paper was changed to on hold. How common is this? Also is it because I'm submitting my first paper on arXiv?
Also how many days does it generally takes for the paper's announcement after on hold?


texts: Consequences of submitting a job application close to the deadline

texts:
Do search committee members ever see or take into account the time that candidates submit an application as a postdoc or faculty member. Does submitting close to the deadline (same day or few hours before) carry a risk of predudicing your application due to being considered unorganised for submitting so late.

Since most applications are now submitted through convoluted electronic systems it seems likely that submission are timestamped so this information could in principle be accessed. Any thoughts? I know one could just stumble across an application late in the day but can anyone speak from experience about whether such meta data has an effect (even if legally forbidden, we all know that unofficial or subconscious effects can take place...).


texts: Did I mess up my chance to get into grad school?

texts:
Throughout my undergrad, I was solely focused on grades, university life, and getting a job. While I did talk to professors outside of class, whether related to class work or my own 'math research' (a hobby), I don't feel I have enough of a connection with any of them to ask for a good letter of accommodation for my grad school application. I'm honestly unsure what everyone else did. Maybe I was suppose to have worked with a professor in their research/teaching? I didn't even take those courses like "Topics in __" that have a small amount of independent study in my first three years. I guess I sort of thought I was suppose really get to know the professors and perhaps dip my feet into the research world in 4th year.
Well, it's 4th year now, and it was really hard to get close to any professors with covid19 in the shadows. I have only communicated with them through email and faceless zoom chats. Is it really that bad to get recommendations from professors that don't know you that well? I do have good grades, but perhaps not good enough to scream them to the heavens in some professor's one sentence recommendation...
Edit: This is for a university in Canada


texts: Acknowledge receipt of email or answer it?

texts:
My professor sent me an email. At the end of the email he asked for receipt acknowledgement.

Please should I send the receipt acknowledgement separately and then answer the email or just answer the email, giving that I will do it instantly?


texts: In teaching evaluation, does the number of students a faculty teaches matter?

texts: Does it matter if a faculty member teaches a small class or large class? Does anyone cares about the size of the class or only the number of classes the faculty teach each semester?


texts:
For a bit of background, I'm a non-academic, so I'm not familiar with the process of submitting a paper for peer-review or anything technical (I have learned that non-academics can submit papers but have a higher hurdle to overcome).

I've often been told by various people that when presenting informal arguments or research, that what I write seems to be 'well researched'. For me, citations are often a mixture of either appropriate news articles or references to abstracts from studies for appropriate claims within a given body of text, however I feel that a research paper for submission to a peer reviewed journal is likely expecting a higher quality, EG citations to studies only.

What are acceptable citations within a research paper for a peer-review journal? If it's variable, how can I determine if a citation is suitable enough quality for use in a research paper?


texts: Is it normal in Europe for graduate courses to be all in the evening?

texts:
I have been looking into master's programs in Spain. 95% of the Spanish programs I've been seeing tend to meet in the evening, with times like 3-6 PM or 6-9 PM. It's not clear to me whether this is particular to the courses I'm looking at, or a national, or international phenomenon. I only have educational experience in the Americas -- in the U.S. and Chile, in which places class meetings were nearly always in the morning or early afternoon -- and had never heard of this before. I hazard a guess that it's a European norm, but this is the vaguest of suppositions.

In which fields or areas are late afternoon graduate courses normal? I can guess that this makes education more accessible to the employed, but the disadvantage to parents is significant.


texts: Do I have to adapt my reviews according to the quality of a journal?

texts: Recently, I received to review two manuscripts dealing with similar topics. According to the JCR quality measures, the first one was from top tier journal and the second one from the last quartile (Q4). Do I have to take into account the quality of the journal when reviewing the articles?


texts: Depressed PhD student in USA, wanting to quit

texts:
I am an international PhD student in Industrial Engineering at one of the average university. I have completed one year of my study. I already have an MBA from India. So it made sense to do PhD as I was very enthusiastic about this. I have good GRE scores, good academic history. I got TA position and funding for my first year. So I eagerly joined. But the moment I came here, I see new things each day: favoritism, racism. All the PhD students are made to complete 9 courses (just like MS students except the core courses), which doesn't make sense as I already had my masters. I got scholarships for 4 courses each semester but was forced to take only 3 courses each semester citing work pressure. Now I have got an RA position, but this doesn't have anything to do with actual research. I am made to sit in a local company with the workload of a full-time employee. This position is not in anyway related to my research proposal or dissertation topic. For my research, I will have to work concurrently with this RA position.

This is not I wanted. I wanted to work on my PhD in a lab, on the real problems. And not work for a company on shitty stipend and made to work as a regular employee. Moreover, my adviser is short-tempered, humiliates his students, yells, and bully. I have made up my mind to not be trapped in this environment for 4 more years.

What can I do now? I want to at least get a masters as I have a loan back in my country so, can't go back. I have three more courses left. Whom should I talk to? Can they force me to do PhD? or if I quit with MS, can they ask me for full payment of fees? Can they not allow me to quit with MS?

I can’t go and ask dept. secretary because my advisor will get to know my intentions from her. For MS we need to complete 9 courses plus thesis. I have so far done 6 courses. I plan to take 3 courses this semester. All the PhD students are required to do this coursework even if they already have MS degree from USA. The MS students have to do 9 courses (2 doctoral level) from a certain list. The phd students have to do 9 courses(4 doctoral level). These doctoral level courses have the core subjects as prerequisites. The department head is very shrewd favoring a certain section of students. Even for such MS students, he waived off GRE scores and core courses. I know when he will get to know my intentions, he will try to block my graduation and scare me. I am just worried that after completing all courses, they don’t block my MS.

Thanks in advance!


texts: How can I best edit a paper to help get it published?

texts:
My friend wrote a fantastic paper in their scientific field. I believe it is truly ground-breaking but it calls a lot of existing theory into question. If he's correct it will force many accepted articles to have to be rewritten.

Perhaps because this paper is controversial, then, my friend has faced a very uphill battle to get it published. It deals with quite some difficult-to-grasp mathematical models and concepts. It's in a field of science and an area of that field where experiments to prove things are simply not feasible, and instead, hypotheses rely on models to explain observations of large-scale real-world processes.

I'm deliberately avoiding mentioning what area of science this paper is in because I do not want them to know it's about them, in case they see this. Because while I feel that while their paper is great, on the other hand the writing needs some love. If the writing is improved, this paper could make this person's career. I'm a published writer and I have been paid to edit many things, but not scientific writing. I want to help them.

I would like to know what the best approach is for preparing myself to be able to edit papers for submission to any given scientific journal in any given field. I would think one great approach would be to read lots of articles in such journals. Do you know of any good guides? Are there any online sites where people can publish papers prior to submitting them to journals in order to get public comments and feedback to hone their work? What are some novel steps that could be taken? I just want to help.


texts: How much details one should learn when studying mathematics on his own?

texts: I'm unemployed but I like to learn graduate studies in mathematics just for fun and to get a non-academic work. Thus far I have managed to fill details of the lecture notes and learn theorems completely from axioms. But now, when I read advanced books or articles, I feel like I can't do every step of proofs. Are there some advice how deeply one should learn things? I think it is fine to skip hard theorems like the classification of finite simple groups but if there is for example some hard exercises on books, should I spend weeks or months to works the details?


texts: Do you need permission to use readability formulas in research?

texts: I am considering using the Gunning Fog Index and the Flesch Reading Ease to calculate variable information for my dissertation. Do I need to obtain permission from someone to use these formulas? In other words are they considered to be copyrighted data collection instruments?


texts: I graduated with 1st class honours - do I add it to the letters after my name?

texts:
I'm in the UK and graduated with 1st class honours. Should I write my name as:

FirstName Surname Bsc(Hons) (1st class)
FirstName Surname Bsc(Hons)

or something else when writing a CV and on business cards?


texts: Is it common to feel anxious when reading papers?

texts:
I am a graduate student, and I often feel strangely anxious when reading papers. I was wondering whether the same is true for other people.

There are basically two scenarios where I feel that way:

a) I start reading up on a topic and I find that people make outrageous claims, are methodologically unclear, seem to be warping data to make it fit to their premises or their conclusions, or (which mainly happened when I had to read philosophy for my BA) make highly disputible claims backed up by verbal shows of authority more than good arguments; or even if they have good arguments, they start by making their claims which makes me very anxious about having been wrong about something all my life. To sum it up, I get physically anxious by reading papers which defend ideas contradicting my own. What makes me clam up is a mixture of the discomfort of having something you think is wrong be boldly proclaimed in writing, possibly without ever having been contradicted, and the discomfort of engaging the possibility of being provably wrong.

b) Once I've done a lot of reading and I believe that I have spotted an error that has been made in the past and that is being passed on from paper to paper, I usually try to tackle that error and prove it to be wrong. Now when I read new papers, there's a feeling of dread because either they might again argue for the position I believe is wrong, but might be so convincing that they prove me wrong, in which case all work I've done on my idea so far is wasted, or because they might have spotted the error too and laid it bare, in which case all work I've done so far is wasted too.

My question is: Is this feeling of dread, anxiety, or clamming up inside usual when reading papers on contentious points, and if so, are there any good techniques for avoiding it?


texts: The reputation of a researcher: number of Citations vs Quality of publication

texts: From my social circle and from google scholar I learn that sometimes a trendy work with very less scientific depth gets more citations compare to  a less trendy work with high scientific depth. So the question is how to determine the quality and reputation of a researcher?


texts: interviewing for postdocs with two groups collaborating in the same grant, should I mention it?

texts:
I have a skype interview for a post-doc at a big research group with PI-A, who is the leader in his field and would be a great opportunity if I got the position.

At the same time, I have been in conversations with PI-B and PI-C about a co-mentored post-doc to work on a recently awarded grant. The work for the grant will be done in collaboration with PI-A. The grant describes a post-doctoral position for the laboratory of PI-A to do the work for the collaborative project under PI-A,B, and C.

My questions are:

Should I mention my conversations about the project in my interview with PI-A's group?

Should I mention to PI-B and C that I am interviewing for PI-A?


texts: How to keep up with new publications and conferences. RSS feed?

texts:
I'm curious to know how you keep up with new publications in your field and various conferences that are happening. I seem to miss really great conferences and find articles a year or more after they have been published.

How do you keep track? Have you tried an RSS feed?


texts: Is my PhD programme a scam? Does my department only want to get PhD students as TAs for their recitation section?

texts:
Next month (August) I am supposed to go back to the US to continue my math PhD programme in a Public State University. I hold a TA position as everybody does in my department. Nobody, I say again, nobody holds an RA position. My duties, as equal to almost everyone, are two recitation sections of 60 students each. Every section meets 3 hours a week, that is 6 hours a week for both, plus preparing material, grading a weekly quiz (120 for both) plus grading homework weekly (120) plus grading classwork weekly (120) plus holding office hours plus organizing and keeping grade records plus going 4 hours a week to a center called "math help room".

I saw many US students leave the programme. They get fed up. The vast majority of the students are Chinese and they seem happy with it but I do not. The workload is too heavy and there isn't much time for learning or research. I have seen most people get their PhD at my department with only one publication that even says "to appear" on the resume of the PhD graduates. All advanced PhD students at my department spend even more of their time on TA duties than doing their research, as opposed to my country (Mexico) where advanced PhD students do not have TA duties.

Is that normal? Is my math department a scam?

I was surprised and happy at first that I was accepted to a US university to do a math PhD. But I could not get admission to a PhD in my country nor Spain nor Brazil, which are not supposed to be as good as a US university. Is my reasoning ok? Why did my department accept me when lower schools rejected me? Do they only want to get staff for their recitation sections?

Is my reasoning correct? Or is the main objective of a PhD here in the US just teaching?


texts: How to make a paper anonymous for reviewers when it heavily extends on your own previous work?

texts:
I am writing a paper that continues and extends my previous paper (the usual situation), and I plan to submit it to a journal that conducts a double-blind review. It is a research that started recently, so I have only one paper published.

The published paper represents a strong foundation of the research, which means that I would have to refer to it in the new paper at least a few times (basically the new paper extends it). While the peer-review is double-blind, the reviewers would then easily realize who is the author.

Therefore, I can't just cite it as it's someone else's research because it's obvious that I am talking about a paper of mine.

  How can I refer to my previous paper completely anonymously so that
  the reviewers cannot realize who is the author of the new paper?

I am insisting on this because I don't believe that there is such a thing as a completely unbiased peer-review process, even when double-blind. I am new in the field, and I can imagine that this is where a reviewer could have prejudices. Stupid reason, but I already have an unpleasant experience with this.

I cannot cite the paper by removing the author and retaining the title, as it would take 5 seconds for a computer-literate person to find the full record.

On the bright side, while the previous paper is easily accessible, the reviewers probably would not be aware of it because it is from a conference that is not really in that field. But still, they would manage to find it with some effort.

Would it be acceptable that I mention that this paper extends my previous research that cannot be cited in order to accomplish the anonymity of a double-blind peer-review, and that the citation will be added later?


texts: Co-authors are not responding due to their very very busy schedule, How should I handle it?

texts:
I prepared a manuscript along with two co-authors and submitted the manuscript to a journal in January 2016. However, the manuscript was rejected in April 2016 and given another chance to resubmit after addressing the reviewers' comments.

I did all the revisions and submitted to my co-authors since August 2016 to check the revision. But none of the co-authors have responded to my emails, even after seven or eight gentle reminders at regular intervals. As both of them are top-level professors at very reputable institutes and heads of their department, so I understand their very busy schedule.

How should I handle this situation?

I found another question similar to mine: How to handle Co-author who is not listening the suggestions to improve the paper quality, but I did not find my answer there.


texts: Answering "How many months of work experience do you have?" on grad school applications

texts:
I am applying to a MS in a STEM degree (Business Analytics or Data Science) at some pretty competitive US universities (domestic applicant).

I have done a lot of different types of work during and after my bachelors program (coursework completed in 3/17), in a large variety of projects and teams on many different time tables and employment statuses. I'll have a separate question I'll be asking in relation to my freelance work after the period in the image below, but I wanted to see what from my usually listed items on my resume I should consider factoring these into the question "How many months of work experience do you have?"

There are mainly 3 questions here,

How should I tabulate months of experience based on the man-hours I've through put on these projects?
Which of these projects would be considered something I should not count towards a question like that on my graduate applications?
Is there an implication that I should be focusing on post-graduate work experience for a question like this or any other conventions I should be cognizant of?


texts: What are the efficient ways of keeping track of research literature?

texts: I am about to start a research career in physics. I am trying to read plenty of research papers. Is/are there a smart way/ways (a software or something else) to keep track of the papers I have already read, partially read, wish to read, my favourites and so on? I am sorry to ask such a dumb question. I am being thoroughly overwhelmed by the unmanagable research literature that exists in my field of interest. Do researchers maintain a 'research diary' like stuff?


texts: Do publications in machine learning help for admissions into a statistics PhD program?

texts:
I am an undergraduate mathematics student who is looking to apply to a Statistics Phd program. I am published, however, my publication is in applied machine learning. While the paper does not contain any theoretical developments, the foundations of machine learning are very statistical in nature. I posed this question to a two professors the responses were the following:

  The fact you are published is excellent, this shows ability to do research. This is an important factor when applying to a program.

and

  They won't care at all. If someone is applying to a stat program, would I care if they have publication in say, History? or Literature? The publication will not hurt, but they likely won't even care. If it were in a statistics journal, they would.

To clarify both professors knew that the publication was in machine learning and that I am applying to a stat program.

Which answer seems more accurate? Would the publication be a big plus or just ignored?