texts: Is open-plan office for academia at all?

texts:
Where I did my PhD, typically two PhD students shared an office room. In constrast, where I am working as a postdoc now, about 50 PhDs and postdocs share an open-plan office.

I find it difficult to concentrate in the latter kind of arrangement because of the noise. Some people use head/earphones, but I guess not everyone likes to listen to music while working. I am wondering if this is a common arrangement in academia. My guess is that while it might work elsewhere, the nature of academic research precludes an open-plan type of office.

In any case, is it appropriate to ask my supervisor for a room or a smaller/quieter space to work in? I don't think I would ask, though, because everybody else seems to be fairly content, but I'm just wondering.


texts: Does being the first author really matter in manuscript publication?

texts: I was applying for a research position in a very well known institute in the world yesterday (infectious disease). I have currently published 4 papers in journals and 1 more has already been accepted. However only 2 papers are actually with my name listed as first author while the rest of the papers are with my name listed somewhere along the author list. The institute requires me to only list papers with my name listed as first author. Does being the first author really matter? To think that they don't even want to look at the papers published with myself as third or fourth author really says something


texts: Which one is more valuable in a postdoc application? a full paper in a B* conference or a short paper in a A* one?

texts:
Assume the hiring committee (Computer science) are reviewing the CVs of two Ph.D. graduate's with almost equal skills/expertise.

Regarding their best publications, one has 1-2 short papers (e.g. 6 pages) in A* conferences (top-tier) whereas the other one has 1-2 full papers in B* conferences (second-tier) in comparison, and both of them have an equal amount of other publications in lower ranked venues and journals.

Then which one can have better chances in getting hired as a post-doc researcher?
Consider


texts: Professor ignoring emails and not attending office hours

texts:
I recently received back an exam, and noticed after reviewing it a few days later a serious grading discrepancy. I sent my professor an email to confirm that he would be available in his next office hour, but received no reply. I then stopped by his office at the beginning of office hours but found that he was not in his office and remained absent for the entirety of the office hour.

After several days of no reply, I sent another email, which has also received no reply after several more days. I am unsure how to proceed, as the semester is nearly over and grades will be finalized within about a week. I am wondering if I need to escalate this in order to have my score corrected as the error could seriously impact my final grade in the course. Is there someone that I should contact to discuss this? If so, who should I contact? Otherwise, what is the best course of action to take? Thank you for any advice.


texts: What if a conference is not ranked but IEEE sponsored

texts: I am trying to find conference rank of International Conference on Information and Communication Systems (ICICS) but was not successful. On core, International Conference on Information and Communication Security is listed.Could not locate it on Google scholar. Does it mean this conference is not ranked and publication from this conference will not hold any importance !?


texts: Expected size of startup package for a tenure-track position in Finland

texts:
I have an assistant-professor position in the US, but for personal reasons, I am moving to Europe. I was offered a tenure-track position in Finland. I don't know why but I missed to discuss about the startup package during the interview. I asked about it after receiving the job offer, and the dean asked me how much I need.

In the US, I received near $800K for launching my lab and group, but I read that such startup packages are not common in Europe. I do not want to sound unreasonable.

Can you tell me how is the common practice for starting a tenure-track position in Finnish universities?


texts: How do I find research topics that yield profitable patents?

texts:
How can I find (and execute) profitable, patent-producing research? Specifically, I want to produce financially rewarding patents. Are there any steps to success?

There always seems to be an element of luck, but how do I maximize chances?


texts: Tips and good practices for creating a personal web-page

texts:
First, apologies if this question has been asked before. I could not find any reference.

I am a math PhD student, about to finish my studies and start searching for a post-doc position. In preparation, I have started to design a personal web-page.

However, I have found myself facing several considerations (see below for examples), which leave me a bit confused.
I am probably not the first person to find himself in such a situation I was wondering whether there is some list containing good advice and practices for creating a website.
Certainly, it all boils down to personal preferences at the end.
But, I'm hoping for some rule of thumbs to follow, which will help the page be more accessible/inviting.
Any references or tips will be most helpful.

Some concrete examples of questions:

Is it better to put a more casual or more formal image?
What are the merits of having everything on a
single page as opposed to multi-page divisions (i.e. contact, publications etc.)
What information is a 'must'? For example, I can't see a reason to upload my CV.


texts: Can I ask a prof (alumni of my college) to recommend me to another prof for a TA position?

texts: I was looking for a TA position and mailed prof A, who is an alumni of my college, for a TA. He replied saying that he would not be taking any courses this year so will not require a TA. Can I ask him to recommend me to any other prof, who will need a TA?


texts: I am curious to know whether PhD is the highest degree one can earn? Is there any other degree beyond that, if so what is it and what are the universities offering the same?


texts: I want to review my old college applications via FERPA - is this possible?

texts:
Several years ago I applied to a bunch of universities, many of which rejected or waitlisted me. Since then, there has been a lot of discussion about transparency in the college admissions process, including this lawsuit against Harvard and this video about Yale. In the latter case, the student also later wrote an article asserting that people can look at old application materials under FERPA - though typically only for schools they attended. (*I am not attesting to the quality of or agreement with the resources; I'm merely citing their existence.)
I recently remembered this and wanted to see if I could do the same out of curiosity. However, I have two questions regarding this.

Can people do this for schools to which they were not accepted? I read that they might only honor your request if you were admitted. (If this is the case, then is this stipulated in FERPA? And how can they “choose” not to honor the law unless this is the case?)

What is the retention period? I would think that if I applied over four years ago, they might not have my record on file...?

Edit: For clarity, I DO have closure and am extremely content with the outcome. I cleaned up the original question and corrected my wording to provide more context. Thank you to everyone who answered.


texts: What do you call an academic who puts their name on an article they didn't write?

texts:
In the medical domain, it frequently happens that papers are written by a pharma company or it's contractors and then given to an academic to publish.

The word "ghostwriter" seems to be appropriate for the person who actually wrote the paper. What's the best word to describe the person who is officially the first author of such a paper but who had little input in it's writing? I'm searching for a specific word to categories the behavior.


texts:
Sometimes when doing course work for university, I'd like to write about it on my website, or publish it in its entirety, because I think that other people might be interested in it.

My goal is not to reach other students, but depending on the work, I think it's likely that they would easily find it when searching for it, and most courses reuse homework questions and paper topics over multiple years.

So my question is if it would be ethical for me to do so, and under which circumstances.

Does it depend on the task? Eg I would assume that it's not ok if it's a very specific task that only other students would be interested in, but ok if it's a general problem?
Does it depend on length? What about simple homework questions vs page-long papers vs presentation slides vs thesis paper vs code?
Should I do something to conceal it? Eg change the paper title, remove any mention of the course and university name, not publish the homework question itself?

I'm mainly asking about the ethics of it, but if you know if it is generally legal or forbidden by universities, I would be interested in that as well.

In case it affects your answer: I'm studying computer science in Germany.


texts: Why do we put so much weight on final exams?

texts:
As we know from cognitive psychology that humans are most creative and learn things better when they are relaxed. I can also relate to this. I do much better in complex problem solving at home rather than in a test. Therefore, I have a hard time understanding why semester final exams are always given such importance and a student's knowledge is judged on the basis of these test results.
I think that what I have learned in 3-4 months can not be properly tested in only 2.5 to 3 hours. Why are exams in general are given this much importance when we know that test results do not fully reflect a person's potential?


texts: How do graduate admissions committees view published undergraduate research papers?

texts:
When an undergraduate student choses to publish a research paper(as well as submit it to conferences) out of doing research with a professor, the research paper may be viewed differently for admissions into academia as well as employment fields(like Computer Science).

How do both views differ & is it more valued in academia than for employment?


texts: I have a question about references.   I was reading a paper and I emailed the author asked him about something if it is already known or not. Let make it as example, I asked about basic property say $P$ and he stated the property $P$ in general case he said that he did not know a reference for this property. What's more, he did not believe if anyone write the property in this general case. My question, in case I need to use his idea in my project, what should I do ? since there is no reference for that just his email.


texts: Should I prefer PhD programs with "higher quality" students?

texts: In choosing between PhD programs A and B (for pure math in the US), some professors have remarked to me that A is favorable because it is more selective and consequently has stronger students than B. Is this a factor I should consider? Both institutions have several of the top researchers in my subfield so quality of advisors is not an issue.


texts: Is it ethical to merge a set of relative publications in a single journal without additional content?

texts:
I have been working on a particular topic for some years and I have 6-7 publications on different aspects of the same topic.

My supervisor wants me to write a summary journal paper that would incorporate the work of all these publications. Indeed, such a publication would highlight the contributions of the work and make it easier for an interested reader to be guided through my work. Yet, I am wondering that if such a publication would be ethical, considering that would be no extra unpublished content.


texts: Where are academic jobs (starting from postdoctoral contracts) advertised in France?

texts: I the United Kingdom there is a very useful website (jobs.ac.uk) which allows researchers to search academic jobs, including postdoctoral positions, lecturer's posts, and so forth. I have been looking for similar search engines for other countries, in particular France, without much luck. If anybody with some experience of looking for academic research positions, fellowships and contracts in France could share their experience it would be great.


texts: Publicly available extended summary of PhD thesis and manuscript submission

texts:
In my country, if a PhD thesis is written in national language, the candidate must also submit an extended summary of the thesis in English, which will be deposited in a national repository and will be uploaded to the appropriate section of the university's website. This English-language document is approximately between eight and ten thousand words long, its structure is pretty similar to that of a scholarly article and can be downloaded by third parties without cost or restrictions.

I have the following two questions:

Can a candidate submit an English-language manuscript based on the extended summary to an international scholarly journal? Should the extended summary fall in a different category with regard to prior publication than theses "published" in ProQuest ?
A few journals publish extended abstracts and extended summaries of PhD theses as they are - these items are not peer-reviewed and the published version is essentially the same as the item submitted by the PhD candidate to the Doctoral School. This is only for increasing visibility of the original thesis and serves purely research dissemination purposes. If the candidate's extended summary is published in a journal, would it be considered a prior publication?


texts:
I published 3 papers as first author. Now, my supervisor requested me to place him as first author in my 4th paper. Should I agree to my supervisor's request to place him as first author of my paper? Is this ethically fair and legitimate? Is this only in my country?

He has the contribution of proofreading the paper, advising me how to organize the paper and results, suggesting co-authors for the paper. He does not know the paper technically, however.


texts: Are Visiting Assistant Professor salaries negotiable?

texts: I have two offers for a Visiting Assistant Professor position. Can I negotiate for a higher salary for a VAP position?


texts: Where to submit a pedegogic physics paper

texts:
My co-author and I have a pedagogic paper about a fairly advanced physics topic (we contrast relativistic and non relativistic models of atoms).

The paper doesn't contain any new research per se, but is a novel and clarifying expression of existing material.

Where can we submit such a paper?


texts: I finished my PhD in 2012. In 2013 in presented my work at a research conference (conference paper). Since then I have worked on and off to write up the paper to submit to a journal. My paper in on Researchgate where it is still getting a lot of reads - over 2000 reads. I was wondering, if it is still possible for me to get the editing done and submit to a journal, of course with updated references showing recent work. Or its too late after 4 years. The work is in Project Management and there are have been no new studies in this area since my work because of the geography I work in.


texts: Resubmission of paper has been "under consideration" for 30 days. Request update?

texts:
I (re)submitted my paper to a Nature related journal (after revisions) and it has been "under consideration" for about 30 days. Should I ask for an update? If yes, is this too rude?  :

Dear editor,

I hope you are doing well. I have noticed that the status of our paper titled “ “ has not changed for about 30 days. I am not sure what the time frame is for resubmissions. Is it possible I have missed an update? If there is anything I need to do at this stage, please let me know.


texts: How significantly does the salary amount for tenured faculty impact the quality of a deparment?

texts:
I mean both the salary a department offers to new hires and to already hired faculty members. I would prefer answers specifically about math departments, but I would also be interested in answers about departments in other STEM fields as well as other fields such as the humanities or the social sciences.

My motivation for this question came from another question I asked recently on another website. I had asked specifically how math departments improve and received the answer that with enough money, a math department could hire and keep the best researchers in some specific field. Now I'm asking here to confirm that that is indeed the case for math departments, but I am now also interested in seeing if this applies to all departments in academia in general.

EDIT:
I cannot give a specific criteria for "quality" as I assume this may vary from field to field. What I can say somewhat concretely, though, is that research productivity should be weighted above attention to teaching. Of course, if a department happens to have one or two extremely productive researchers in some specific field but does not offer a PhD program, then I would not considered that department a top department.


texts: How hard is to get a post-doc in the area of HEP-Theory?

texts:
At the moment I'm a high school student, who is passionate about the High Energy Physics areas, especially Phenomenology, String Theory, QFT and so on. I would like to pursue a B.Sc. degree in Mathematical Physics in the future in my country (central European country with a lot of famous string theorists ;) ). After that I would like to move to the USA to get a PhD in the one of the areas show above, but I heard that getting a post-doc and then a permanent job is quite hard.

Is it true? Would I have better success if I wouldn't limit myself only to the US, but include here, Europe, Asia, and Australia.


texts: How much time Google Scholar take (generally) to index an arXiv document?

texts:
recently I have arXived a manuscript of mine but it is not indexed by google scholar and around 64 hrs have passed. Is there anything else I have to do in order to get indexed by google scholar or will google scholar index the manuscript automatically?
P.S. arXived was done successfully.


texts: What percentage of PhD candidates drop out in computer science?

texts:
I'd like to know what percentage of PhD candidates in Computer Science does not graduate with a PhD and thus drops out of their PhD program.

This number probably varies quite a bit for different countries (e.g., in Continental Europe one usually has to have a Master's degree before being eligible to start with a PhD, while in the US one can "drop out" with a Master's degree) and possibly also for different sub-fields; I'm mostly interested about German speaking countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) and PhD candidates with a focus in Algorithms and/or Theory, but any answer "x% in this subfield in that country/at that university" are also welcome.

Background story:
Currently thinking hard whether I should go for a PhD in Algorithms at a German speaking university and not a 100% sure if it is the right thing for me. A professor (not the one I'd do the PhD with) urged me to at least give it a try and said that there is always the possibility to drop out if it isn't working out.


texts: State-of-the-art writing in machine learning

texts:
According to Wikipedia, State-of-the-art is as follows

  State-of-the-art (sometimes cutting edge or leading edge) refers to
  the highest level of general development, as of a device, technique,
  or scientific field achieved at a particular time. However, in some
  contexts it can also refer to a level of development reached at any
  particular time as a result of the common methodologies employed at
  the time.

So there are two interpretations for state-of-art: one is general development across time and another one is the  best method available today.

Which interpretation is apt for state-of-the-art writing in machine learning?

For example consider a task Semantic Segmentation on PASCAL VOC 2012 test. There are 34 methods to perform that. Among them DeepLabv3+ (Xception-JFT)
has only the SOTA status. Remember that remaining 33 methods might also have SOTA status at their times.

If I need to write and present State-of-the-art on Semantic Segmentation on PASCAL VOC 2012 test, then is it enough to present DeepLabv3+  and ignore remaining (assume no dependencies) or there is a need to understand remaining also for state-of-the -art?

Context: My University generally follows the interpretation I for state-of-the-art, but popular machine learning website paperswithcode is following interpretation II. So I got confuse and hence asking which one is more apt for state-of-the-art writing. If interpretation II is the actual one,  then there may be possibility for me to convince my guide and act accordingly.


texts: Should I simplify my writing in a foreign country?

texts:
As a native English speaker studying in the Netherlands, I often find myself writing (not published) English papers for a Dutch audience, and I worry I'm alienating my superiors with my writing.

I put a sample of text from a letter I wrote for an admissions committee through an array of readability tests, with Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, SMOG Index, Automated Readability Index, Gunning Fog, and Linsear Write all  assigning it "college graduate" level. For comparison, the King James Bible averages around a fifth grade reading level, and New York Times articles typically produce a reading level around the tenth grade on the same tests.

At first glance, this is exactly how it should be. A university student submitting university documents should be writing at a university level. And yet, despite the truly incredible level of skill widely demonstrated by the Dutch people in the English language, I can't help feeling that I'm disadvantaging myself through use of constructions and vocabulary that no reasonable non-native English speaker could ever be expected to know.

Is there some merit to this? Rather than optimizing my writing for descriptiveness and articulacy, should I instead aim to be more readable by a foreign audience, at the cost of expressiveness?


texts: I'm working on a masters in mathematical finance. I am going to make at least one B this semester at a program which is not highly regarded after having made very good grades in undergraduate school at a decent university. I was wondering how significant this is if I wanted to apply for doctoral programs in math or physics in the future.


texts: Should I delete my question on Stack Exchange to reduce my own plagiarism?

texts:
I created a new account and posted a question on Math Stack Exchange asking help for a specific part in an exercise from class. It was duly answered.

That question went on to gain a lot of hits and I received an email notification which I had set, of a comment left by a person who said I was stuck too. I didn’t know him as the class strength is around a hundred, but on checking on social media, he turned out to be my classmate. Now with nearly eighty hits on it, presumably from my classmates looking at this problem, should I delete it because I feel that Turnitin would end up holding me guilty for plagiarism from my own content if other students post it before me?

I did attach my files and everything including the idea which should easily enable anybody else from my very class to use it in the assignment.

So is it wise for me to delete the question now or is it too late? Is it ethical for the community at Math Stack Exchange to lose a question that garnered so much attention and I did gain my share of points. Will I lose my points as well?


texts: In a mathematics article, how much of the argument can be given outside of "proof" environments?

texts:
I'm writing an article containing one main theorem, with the other results essentially corollaries of that theorem. The largest part of the article is thus spend proving this main theorem.

It feels natural to me to write the prove as one long "story", most of which is told outside of "proof environments". So something like this

  bla bla, consider this and that construction. Notice that bla bla. But we saw before that such and such, and conclude:

  Proposition 5: (concisely write down the conclusion from the arguments laid out above)

  (there is no proof environment here, the "proof" was essentially given in the block of text above the proposition) Keeping this mind, we now observe that bla bla...............

So this style results in a section without any actual proof environments, and propositions/lemma's in the section are essential "milestones" in the argument.

Is this style frowned upon, or considered annoying/difficult to read? To me it feels more natural than the more common style of mostly just a string of lemma's leading to a theorem.


texts: Is it ethical to submit a paper with the name of a co-author who cannot be contacted?

texts:
The paper in question is based on research my collaborator X and I did together some months ago. Our respective contributions to the research were around 2/3 for X and 1/3 for me. In terms of the actual text of the paper, X wrote about 1/3 and I wrote about 2/3.

During the writing of the actual paper, X decided to leave academia. I can no longer contact X: emails to the old address go undelivered and there is no forwarding address for physical mail. Attempts to find X through web searches and contact X through mutual acquaintances have been unsuccessful. X has thus not seen a complete draft of the paper, only the sections that were actually written by X.

In these circumstances, is it ethical for me to submit a paper with X's name on it, without a complete version having been checked by X and without X's approval?

If I do submit it, should it contain a note of the fact that X was unable to check the completed paper? I am considering the hypothetical possibility that I could have inadvertently introduced an error while writing the complete paper (and such an error might survive through peer-review and into publication); responsibility for such an error should be mine alone.

There is no possibility of separating out my contribution into a separate paper. Either the work has to be published as a whole or not at all.

I am in a field where alphabetical listing of authors is standard, so there is no question of the order of authors.


texts:
I'm looking for solutions to help modernizing the publication of a scientific journal on the web. Since 2004 we are using a simple but cumbersome method of publication, by crafting html/css files from templates, with a bit of php/mysql to maintain the authors' database. We now have the opportunity (time and server access) to upgrade the hosting software system.

We (extensively) tried OpenJournalSystems, but it's too comprehensive and cumbersome for us, we have a simpler paper review and publication process. I haven't found any other solution like OJS that's also free and open source (the journal is open access).

As of today, I'm envisaging two types of solutions :

a classic CMS (like wordpress) with a "journal" theme (like Annotum ?)
a handmade PHP/MySQL system using a PHP Framework (CakePHP, CodeIgniter, ...).

Anyone has some experience to share ?


texts: Can I include a Table/Figure which is mentioned on the "discussion" section, after the Conclusion section? I have a large figure, which is causing a big blank gap as I have to put it in a whole page.


texts: Why a certain period of time is needed for promotion of qualified applicants?

texts:
The main criteria for academic promotion to associate/full professor includes, research projects, publications, grants, administrative services, and such things. These are achievements that one can obtain regardless of timeframe. Logically, one with required achievements must be able to be promoted. However, most of universities need a certain period of time before promotion application (usually 5 years).

Why one must wait for promotion, when he is already qualified?

One who is associate professor for two years but qualified for full professorship must wait another 3 years to send application for promotion. Strangely, if that person apply for a full professor position in other university, he will be appointed as a full professor (if qualified) without waiting for another 3 years.

NOTE: the only criterion which seems to need time is teaching, but I think a strong/outstanding teaching records for different courses over 2 years is comparable with teaching the exact same courses over 5 years.


texts: Should I mention in statement of purpose that my undergrad degree is in a different field because my parents wanted me to do it?

texts:
Is it okay to mention in my statement of purpose for admission to grad school in math, that my undergraduate major is engineering because my parents wanted me to do it?

I was initially wrote my statement without including my motivation for undergraduate degree, however people said it seemed too abrupt. However, without it, I'm not sure how to tell why despite being interested in math, I still chose engineering as a major.

EDIT: Thank you for your responses, I should mention that, after my undergrad degree, I have managed to enrol in one of the top masters program in math in my country and I'm doing well there, and also that there was not really any scope to learn pure math in my undergrad university.


texts: Possible to put online a PhD dissertation under a Creative Commons license, as some text is (c) by publishers?

texts:
It is inevitable that several parts of a PhD dissertation come from published papers. The publishers who claim copyright (or exclusive right to publish) of articles are aware of this, and they allow authors to include their papers in dissertations.

As an example, the following is an excerpt from a typical Springer copyright transfer agreement:

  Author retains the right to use his/her Contribution for his/her further scientific career by including the final published paper in his/her dissertation or doctoral thesis provided acknowledgment is given to the original source of publication.

Furthermore, in the case of monographs the paper contents are often split up to become part of the new text. You do not even use the publisher's PDF, just your produced articles. You sort of include pre-and post-prints.

Now, provided that all the publishers' demands (e.g., acknowledging the source of publication) are met, can one put online a PhD dissertation, which contains both original text and text from copyrighted material, under a Creative Commons license? In particular, the CC-BY license.


texts:
My professor has not and will not hand out a syllabus (I have asked as well as others). I have a very vague idea about how grades will be calculated and no idea what the class schedule looks like (I don't believe the prof knows until the day before, either). He has also said that he has no office hours and will not answer email. I have no idea how to handle this because I have to have this course this semester and cannot drop it, but I also cannot that I will make a bad grade because of lack of preparedness on the prof's part.

Any suggestions?


texts: Is there any term that describes the main example that goes through the entire research paper?

texts:
One of the comments I received on my journal paper was that it lacks a "running example":

  the paper would benefit much from a running example that could be used in the introduction to motivate the idea and referred to in later sections to illustrate algorithms

I understand the idea of an example that works like a backbone throughout the paper and connects all the ideas and sections in order to make them easier to understand.

Now my question is, do we call it "running example" or does it have any other term? I would like to add a brief on the example at the end of the introduction, but I'm baffled with what should I call it.

Note: my field is computer science, but I believe this applies to some other areas too.


texts: Can I do an internship during my first semester of college in a state other than the one where my university is located?


texts: Do I need to explain my reasoning when choosing between two offers

texts:
I have been lucky enough to have been offered different professor positions in different universities. Both departments have made a lot of efforts to try and convince me to choose theirs (who gets offered what job is public here).

It was not easy, but I have finally chosen one. Should I try to explain why to the people from the other department, the one I am not going to? This is not obvious, because while there are arguments I could make, my decision relies in large part on extra-academic concerns, and some gut feeling. However, such an explanation may be expected, and I do not want to burn any bridges.


texts: For what reasons (if any) would a journal refuse to inform the reviewers about the final accept/reject decision?

texts:
I have reviewed several papers for a particular journal in the field of computer science. This journal has the practice of not informing reviewers about the final decision. As an example, I previously suggested a major revision and after a couple of weeks I received the revised paper, then I suggested a minor revision and had radio silence since then (6-7 months ago), so I have no idea whether the paper was accepted, rejected or withdrawn.
To me, it seems like both the decision and the non-blinded, non-private parts of the correspondence should be shared. This seems reasonable given the effort I expended; further, it would be helpful for my future reviews to know whether my review was on par with the others (in terms of both the decision, and the comments). It seems like there is already software that would automate this process (this journal uses Open Journal System as its editorial management system).
Are there disadvantages I am overlooking? What are the arguments for not sharing this information with the reviewers?


texts:
In job ads in the UK, a range is often mentioned as a salary, e.g. from 30k to 35k pounds per year. What exactly does this mean?

Is the salary negotiable?
Does the salary remain the same throughout the contract/employment?
Is it increasing progressively?
When and how does one reach the upper bound? In permanent positions, what happens after the upper bound has been reached?

Also, is there a difference in the calculations between fixed-term and permanent positions?


texts:
Approximately a year ago, I finished a graduate degree under an abusive and bullying advisor.  I successfully defended my thesis, and agreed to stay around for a while longer to finish a publication based on that same work, which would have consisted of rewriting a section of the thesis into a form more suited for a journal.

Due to my degrading mental health, and the continuing abusive behavior of my advisor, I strongly informed him that I was no longer willing to work with him, and provided him with my writing so far and all the data needed to finish the paper.  My advisor continued to harass me after leaving, and I eventually reported him to the relevant people for his behavior, but I was met with blatant disbelieve and nothing seems to have been done about my complaint.

The paper I started was never published.  Now, I discover that my advisor and another graduate student have published a paper which depends heavily on my work, but I am not included in the author list, nor is my thesis cited.  Rather, I'm given mention in the acknowledgments section for "helpful discussions and collection of preliminary data."

This was the primary subject of my thesis!  It was not "collection of preliminary data."  They did gather additional data and do additional modeling, but my thesis laid the basis for this new paper, and they use my experimental designs.

As for my question, is it ethical that I was not included in the list of authors, nor was my thesis cited?  If unethical, is there anything I can do about this?  I didn't expect to be listed as first author on the paper, but I would like more acknowledgment for my work than a brief mention at the end of the publication.

EDIT:

To clarify some matters in response to answers/comments given below, my thesis was published and has been available online for a bit over a year, whereas this new paper was published about two weeks ago.

I understand that I don't have a monopoly on my academic work; anyone can build on the results of anyone else.  I'm also aware that both my advisor and the university have rights to my thesis and any other work performed with university resources.  I've been involved in the process of academic publications, ranging from being listed as first author, to being included further down the list as a collaborator, so I have some understanding of how this works.

My complaint is that I'm not given what I think is appropriate credit, e.g., my thesis is not listed in the references despite the fact that they used large amounts of content from it.


texts: Should you tell everything in a poster session if you have not published it yet in a journal?

texts: I have a poster session tomorrow about an idea I didn't publish yet but planning very soon. If people stop by and asked me in detail about my idea, should I openly discuss or not?


texts:
I'm in the final stage of my PhD, and want to make my datasets publicly available. This is so that my examiners can re-run my regressions, if they wish; but moreover, I want other scholars to be able to use the datasets I compiled for their own purposes. I spent years putting these together, and see no purpose in keeping it to myself "just because". The information is not sensitive, and is already in the public domain (e.g, government statistical sites), albeit mostly in unprocessed form.

Is there a best practice in this regard - a "GitHub" equivalent for datasets?


texts: Would it be appropriate to send your CV to a researcher who gave you their business card a few years ago?

texts:
When I was presenting a paper at a conference ~3years ago, a researcher (who also happens to be a professor) gave me her business card after discussing with her after my presentation.

Now that I’m almost done with my PhD, I’d like to approach her to see if there could be a possible job opportunity at the research institute mentioned in her business card.

I was wondering if it would be appropriate to send her my CV along the email? Or if it would be seen as if I am “forcing” her to read it, especially that it has been almost 3 years since we met?

Would it be better to start with an introductory email first, and then send her the CV only if she asks me to?

I also thought about including a link to my LinkedIn account in my email signature, so that she can check my profile (if she wants to), without me explicitly sending my CV in the email.


texts: Starting postdoc before getting PhD. Is that possible?

texts: I have already submitted the PhD thesis for examination. I have started to email potential supervisors yesterday to get information regarding postdoctoral positions in their departments. I am wondering whether it is possible to start postdoctorate while waiting for PhD viva.


texts:
I am in the final stages of my PhD and have been applying for postdocs for the last six months. Recently, I heard back from the job I applied for, we had a phone interview and he was very happy with my experience and skills. In fact he was looking for a new postdoc with the same experience what I did in my PhD. We communicated through emails in a very friendly way and he invited me to visit his lab. We scheduled the visit but he wanted to talk to my references before that. He sent an email to my present PhD supervisor and asked him what would be a good time to talk over the phone. My supervisor didn't reply to him for at least a couple of weeks. I know this because every week, I used to get an email from him to remind my PhD supervisor to reply to his email. Finally, my PhD supervisor replied and they talked over the phone. The potential postdoc mentor suddenly took a U-turn after that. He said i may not be a good fit and he will stop this right here.

I am really freaking out in this situation. I initially had problems with my PhD advisor because he is very aggressive and loves to make racist jokes. But I managed to handle his sense of humor and aggression. But I feel like he is racially prejudiced to me and will spoil my whole career.


texts: Teaching a blind student MATLAB programming

texts:
I teach a first year undergrad class in MATLAB programming, and one of my students is completely blind. Quite amazingly, the student memorises the whole chapter before class and regurgitates with the help of someone saying what the output is.

I wonder if anyone has some advice to help the student? I have heard of Emacspeak. There's also the issue of interpreting graphics - is there any software available that may help with this?


texts:
I'm in the process of writing my first paper as a PhD student and was wondering if I could get some general advice regarding the following:

How many Journals to consider submitting a manuscript to and how much impact factor plays a role here. Some say aim high as possible.
How much time should I spend actually writing the paper? Do I continue working on other projects at the same time as writing the paper?
What other considerations should I keep in mind after submitting the manuscript? e.g. should I be writing up another manuscript for another journal-just in case?

I would be very grateful to hear about other people's experiences, etc with their first publication.
Of course,I've read a lot of things on the internet and I've spoken to my supervisors too but I believe you can never learn too much.
My project in the mathematical sciences with applications in biology/medicine.

Thanks.

EDIT: I found the following links very useful: one, two


texts: Is the curse of knowledge a real effect?

texts:
This post is inspired by this question discussing what is known as the curse of knowledge - the ostensible effect where having knowledge about something makes it hard to put yourself in the mental shoes of someone who doesn’t have it, and the corollary effect (which is of clear relevance to the academia setting) that teachers tend to become less good at explaining a subject the more their expertise on the subject grows.
Question: is this effect real? Please cite actual research that supports your claims.


texts: What do you need to know about potential supervisor's publications when attending an interview for a PhD?

texts:
I have been advised that it is a good idea to read papers written by a potential supervisor before having an interview with them for a PhD position.

I can make sense of the summaries and introductions, but that is all.

Do supervisors ask applicants about whether they have read their papers?
Do I attempt to summarise vaguely what the paper is about?
What sort of questions may be asked about papers?
Can you just say something along the lines of  ' I find it very interesting that you did a recent article in ????' for flattery?


texts: Should I include a course in which I was strikingly successful in a statement of purpose?

texts:
I'm writing a statement of purpose nowadays for my intended linguistics MA program. The first draft is about to end, which I will edit harshly later.
What I'm curious about is this. When I was a sophomore student, there was a must course that I was much more successful than the the rest of the class. When the results of the first midterm were announced, a good number of people in the class withdrew from this course, while I got the highest grade. Mine was 27 out of 30 and the class average was around 15. Moreover, many people who didn't withdraw failed afterwards. In this way, I was the only student the course instructor calls by name during lectures. This professor now happens to be one of my recommendation letter writers and I reminded him about that when requesting the letter.
Should I mention this "achievement" in my statement of purpose or would it be irrelevant as the admissions expects us more than grades and being successful?


texts: Fellow student doesn't share progress in joint paper for coursework - how should I react?

texts:
I'm currently enrolled in a course (Masters-level) where we are supposed to write a paper together with another fellow student. The paper will not be published publicly.
It has been difficult since the start to communicate with my partner. He often won't answer mails for over a week and then ignoring my suggestions and questions while forcing his own ideas on me without consulting with me. The course also requires mutual peer-review of our work, which I have done, but I received nothing from him.
He didn't acknowledge any of my comments in the document except spelling errors and didn't share his progress before turning in the paper for the first milestone. It turns out that there are still multiple formatting and style issues that I informed him about, and he broke some of my cross references. This is absolutely below my standards for submissions and I'm afraid it will reflect negatively on me.
How should I react to this? Should I involve the professor? I already made it clear to him that I prefer a more cooperative working style instead of waiting for his drops of content. The only thing I care about this point is a good grade and a good standing with the professor, since I consider my thesis in his department.


texts: Getting a funded PhD vs starting up my own research idea

texts:
What's your opinion on this question? I have MSc in Computer Science (spec. in Natural Language Processing) so I don't need any materials to work with that I can not get by myself. My fears of going into funded PhD is that I would be forced to publish papers that does not scientifically matter or have any impact. I've asked several scientists and they claim that it is called the "salami" effect where instead of publishing one good paper you publish multiple small ones (hence cutting the salami) mainly because the funding body puts pressure on you.

Personally, I would not like to spend 3-4 years doing this but at the same time I am not sure how serious the academic community will take my work. Also, funding my self would probably mean that I have to apply some of my research ideas in bussiness context. I am aware that there is possibility of me submitting research proposal but still I am afraid that some of my ideas will be rejected or stolen.

I've also heard that PhD is not about ideas and it's more about learning to become independent researcher. For some reason, this seems like a very discouraging statement since it lowers the bar about one having higher success with research during his/her PhD studies. I don't think I need this since I've already worked independently for my MSc, albeit I was not 100% satisfied with my results.

By my own research idea, I mean that I have an idea where my research field could be improved and I am curious about whether it will work or not. I have also done some research during my MSc in that particular field. Currently the idea is bit broad and lacks scientific rigour and is not formally defined. To do this, probably it would take me a bit more time to dive deep into the mathematics and figure it out. The idea can also have practical importance which means the method can be used in a Natural Language Processing app like a chat bot (to improve experience for example)

I would really appreciate your opinion on this matter since signing up for PhD seems like big life investment. Thank you.


texts: Would adding paragraph about the motivation provided by someone who doubted me to my final year project acknowledgment be unprofessional?

texts:
In my final year project, and since it will be my last postgraduate year, I want to add a taste of truth in my Acknowledgment, where I think it's the personal part of the project, where you are allowed to express yourself.

After thanking my professors, supervisors, parents in a very formal and professional way, I am eager to add this paragraph at the end.

I had a period where I was the underdog in the high school, I was treated badly, and I lost motivation to study because I wasn't encouraged, all my work and even good results in exams were not even appreciated. I was called the stupid dude, the person who thinks he knows but knows nothing, and ... and all of the this was by my math teacher, not my colleagues.

After that I was accepted in one of the top universities in Lebanon, in one of the hardest entrance exams, with an acceptance rate of not more than 15%. And after entering the university I was a top student.

For that I have written in the last paragraph of my acknowledgment:

  Since it’s the end of the years I spent in the Lebanese
  University-Faculty of Engineering, I’m glad to thank the math teacher
  who once told me: "you will never pass the entrance exam of the
  Lebanese University-Faculty of engineering, my nephew failed surely
  you will fail ". Thank you dude, you were my motive, and proving you
  wrong was one of my goals.

Would this be unprofessional?


texts: My advisor's new student copied parts of my PhD thesis; advisor doesn't care. What to do?

texts:
I wrote my PhD thesis a few years back. After I finished, my supervisor found another researcher and continued research with the apparatus I built, but along a different line of study. I met this student a few times and gave them advice and help when I could. They always had a hard copy of my thesis in the lab for reference; I also provided a PDF copy at the student's request.

The student recently finished their PhD and I looked at their thesis. The lit review, results, and findings are the student's own work. But, particularly in the middle section (describing the apparatus I built):

Many paragraphs of their text is copied and pasted from mine, some without checking so that it makes false references;
In other instances, the student has substantially copied paragraphs, but changed a few words here and there;
One that particularly annoyed me was the copying and awkward re-hashing of my acknowledgements to my supervisor, very personal words;

I informed my former supervisor (with whom I have a good relationship) and he seemed not to want to know. He said that as long as it wasn't the results then it wasn't too important. He reckoned as the student was a good guy, he may not have known what plagiarism was, and perhaps did it by accident. He did offer to acknowledge or include me in subsequent journal papers.

Given that only some of the background text (rather than the results section) was copied, is it reasonable to pursue this further? What is normally done in such cases?

In particular, I was thinking to quantify the level of copying involved and ask my supervisor to withdraw the thesis until copied material is removed. However, I risk jeopardizing a fairly good relationship with my supervisor and possibly also with the small network of colleagues.


texts: Mailing list for internships and full time jobs for computer science PhD students

texts: I have found many mailing lists for conferences. I just want to know: is there any mailing list that updates internship and full-time positions (computer science industry jobs and academic jobs) for Ph.D. students? Would you please tell me what are those? Any location would work for me.


texts: Given the traditional ACM copyright license, is it legal to publish the paper on ResearchGate?

texts:
The ACM license states

  (iii) Post the Accepted Version of the Work on (1) the Author's home
  page, (2) the Owner's institutional repository, (3) any repository
  legally mandated by an agency funding the research on which the Work
  is based, and (4) any non-commercial repository or aggregation that
  does not duplicate ACM tables of contents, i.e., whose patterns of
  links do not substantially duplicate an ACM-copyrighted volume or
  issue. Non-commercial repositories are here understood as repositories
  owned by non-profit organizations that do not charge a fee for
  accessing deposited articles and that do not sell advertising or
  otherwise profit from serving articles.

Does this (somehow) include ResearchGate?


texts: How should references in non-Latin script language be treated in English paper?

texts:
Let's say I want to cite a Russian text in my own paper which is written in English. Should I:

reference it as is, in the original Cyrillic alphabet, although the readers won't be able even to pronounce it?
transliterate the authors' names, while keeping the rest as is?
transliterate the names and translate the title of the work, journal name, etc. into English?


texts:
Originality with timeliness is among the most important criteria for a paper to get published.

Many a times when we are reviewing a paper, we are faced with dilemma as to how much of it is original, how much of it is based on another paper, and how much of it is just repetition in a slightly different context. Also, at times papers cater to interdisciplinary and cross-area and it may seem that the idea is original.

What preparation does the reviewer need to have in order to review a paper justly?
How do you judge the originality of a paper?


texts: Can I enroll in a 2nd University after deferring admission from 1st University?

texts:
I have been accepted to my dream MS program in a top ranked US university. But I could not get the visa. From where I am, there is a problem getting visa if you do not have University funding.

Since, I couldn't get the visa, I am deferring this admission to the Fall 2019 (they do not accept Spring deferrals). Since it is such a long time away, and I have already waited a year, I want to apply to a funded program for the Spring 2019 semester and continue there till next Fall and then transfer to the first University from Fall 2019. But will enrolling in another program during my deferral make my deferral void?


texts: Do I need to request permission to cite a "personal communication" in a publication?

texts:
The title says it all I believe.

Do I need to request permission from a colleague to cite their information as a "personal communication"?

"Do I need to" may be a little restrictive, so I'll also ask, would you feel wronged or offended if your personal comm. were cited without your express permission?


texts:
I will use this proof in manuscript. It is clearly plagiarism if I just write down the proof and do not cite the original content.

However, how do I cite an answer in StackExchange? It is neither a blog post, nor a text in a personal website. It is an answer to a question. Should I go with traditional style such as

  [1] Gjergji Zaimi (stackexchange username) “Answer to Question
  'Unique ways to keep N balls into K Boxes?' ”
  https://math.stackexchange.com/a/58756/130361. Aug 2011. Last accessed:
  2017-02-12

or is there any formal method to do this?


texts: Is supporting Sci-Hub illegal/unacademic?

texts:
In the classroom, one of the students asked me about Sci-Hub. I answered that I like the idea as I am against the tyranny of publishers. As a fun fact, I added that I have even donated to Sci-Hub.

Then, I received a notice from our department head referring the case to the disciplinary committee since Sci-Hub is illegal and any direct and indirect support of an illegal activity is against the university policy.

Is supporting Sci-Hub illegal / unacademic?


texts: What rules guide whether to put qualifications on an academic business card?

texts:
I'm just wondering what rules of etiquette guide whether an academic puts qualifications on a business card. I'm assuming that either "Dr" at the start or "PhD" at the end is important to include where applicable, perhaps with the exception that higher titles such as "Prof" would take precedence over "Dr".

However, what about beyond that?


texts: What are some examples of "service activities" for the inexperienced/up-and-coming academic?

texts: I am looking for an assistant professor job in engineering. While working on my Ph.D., I had the chance to mentor graduate students in my research group (suggesting experiments, helping them analyze results, etc.), and I also mentored an independent studies student for a summer. Would these types of activities even loosely be considered as "service activities" by a search committee, or, if the question comes up during an interview, just say that I don't have any such activities to mention? If the latter, what are some good ways to respond?


texts: Does an economics degree qualify for the 17 month OPT extension?

texts:
(This question is about US work authorization for foreign students.)

The list of STEM fields which will permit one to get a 17 month OPT extension include only two fields that containing the word "economics".

45.0603 Econometrics and Quantitative Economics
51.2007 Pharmacoeconomics/Pharmaceutical Economics

The latter is definitely not applicable to me, so I am interested only in the former.

According to this page, "45.0603 Econometrics and Quantitative Economics" is defined to be

  A program that focuses on the systematic study of mathematical and statistical analysis of economic phenomena and problems. Includes instruction in economic statistics, optimization theory, cost/benefit analysis, price theory, economic modeling, and economic forecasting and evaluation.

My question is: If my diploma says simply that I have a degree in economics (as is often the case with degrees in economics), would I automatically qualify for the 17 month OPT extension? If not, is there any way I could go about proving that I satisfy the above definition? (It seems to me that any decent degree in economics would arguably satisfy the above definition.)


texts: Changing University in First year of Phd

texts:
I just completed my senior year. I have been accepted to a grad school (say University X).

CASE A: I am quite familiar with the fact that one shouldn't change grad schools during a PhD. It is highly frowned upon and regarded skeptically. However my case is somewhat different.

I want to reapply for some PhD programs next year (fall). But, at the same time, I don't want to lose the only PhD seat I've got. So, I was thinking about whether I can go to University X this fall and apply for next fall (applications start this year's August).

If I get accepted, I would simply move to the other university. I obviously won't need any recommendation from professors of University X. It would be as though I had simply applied as an undergrad who waited one more year.

But my worry is, will this be considered as Case A? I am worried because if it is, then I may end up screwing up my relationship with the entire academia. When applying, I would be in the 1st semester of a PhD, which is not really a big deal. I wouldn't have any advisor at that point and would simply be taking a few classes.

Any suggestions?


texts: Is it best to avoid all interactions with disreputable or predatory conferences?

texts:
Potentially predatory publishers and journals (as listed on Beall’s list here) are springing up more and more often, but they do not always stick to journals and publishing articles. Some host conferences, workshops, or other events with reputable chairs and directors.

If the publishing agency behind a conference is fishy or believed to be predatory, but the conference it hosts is chaired by reputable names, is it still best to avoid the conference?

Has anyone had experience going to a conference or workshop like this?


texts: Are PhD students allowed to extend their graduate studies to have a better chance at an academic job?

texts: How long is this allowed for even after the student has completed graduation requirements?


texts: Test an already existing hypothesis but in a different setting/country?

texts:
What if I conduct a study and suggest a hypothesis to test but later find out that this hypothesis was already tested before in a different industry/country. Can I still continue? In other words, is there such a thing as plagiarism in stating the same hypotheses?

I find it a burden to go and check the web for every hypothesis I write to see if someone else tested it before. Even though I am sure there are some common hypotheses and studies (like: customer loyalty leads to customer retention, albeit in different industries and/or countries) but I still have doubts.


texts: "and" in section title: "Apple and Pear" or "Apple & Pear"?

texts:
In the main text of scientific papers, one should use and and avoid using &.

I wonder if it still holds true in section titles.

Is

  Apple and Pear

or

  Apple & Pear

more appropriate as a title?


texts: Is it rude to take all the time allowed to make an offer decision?

texts:
I've been made an offer for a position that I will likely accept. I've been given a week more time than planned (at my request) to make a decision, which makes it possible to attend a campus interview (already scheduled) for another position, although it probably won't be as good as the already-offered one.

Knowing this, should I just accept offer A? I feel bad taking the full extended time to make a decision that I've pretty much already made privately, although I feel that I can't cancel the campus interview since they already booked the travel accommodations (on the same day I received offer A no less). (And I suppose it could actually be a better offer).

Will it hurt me to take all the time they've given me? I would literally be letting them know maybe 1 or 2 days ahead of the full bracket. I don't want to look like I'm dragging my feet and they've made it clear that they're trying to close it out quickly. My assumption is that they've given me time, so I should use it- but I just don't want to hurt my chances.

The alternative however would be, I suppose, to accept offer A and then attend the campus interview, which sounds worse. Thoughts? Thanks.


texts:
I'm working on a my first paper right now which has quite a few diagrams. So far I've been able to get by using tikz, but my last two digrams are quite a bit more complicated than the first two and I'm afraid I wont be able to get the look I want from tikz. I came across this blog post where they were able to achieve the look I want, but I cannot find any references to how they made their diagrams. Could anyone point me in the right direction? It seems to be less about machine learning and more about academia so I figured here is the best place to ask.

Here is the blog post: http://jalammar.github.io/illustrated-bert/


texts: What can I do one day before admissions deadline, if I believe my recommendation letter writer will not submit in time?

texts:
One of my professors this term promised to write me a recommendation letter for grad school. However, tomorrow is the deadline and her letter is not on the application website. She really liked me, so it's probably a case of her forgetting about/misremembering the deadline.

However, I can't reach her via e-mail, and she's the kind of person who puts absolutely no information online (phone, travel plans, etc). Perhaps she's on some sort of trip to a conference or something.

What can I do (with respect to the graduate programs I have applied to) to resolve this? Is there usually some sort of university policy regarding this situation? I really don't want to be unable to apply for grad school because a professor forgot to check her e-mail.

This situation is different from What can I do if a professor agreed to write a recommendation letter, but never sent it?, because in my situation the deadline has not yet passed.


texts: How do I respond to an email from a potential PhD supervisor who was positive but short?

texts: I recently contacted a potential PhD supervisor expressing my interest in working with him. I attached all application materials (personal statement, CV, etc), as he requested on his website. I received a prompt reply that he is accepting graduate students for the upcoming semester and to let him know if I have any questions. How should I follow up with him, and what sort of questions are appropriate to ask at this stage? I submitted my formal application to the program soon after receiving his reply.


texts: Reviewing a paper with suspiciously good results

texts:
I'm currently reviewing a paper which deals with iris recognition, submitted to a top conference in the field of biometrics. The paper's main contribution is a recognition model that, while presented as novel, is in fact essentially a very simple convolutional neural network.
However, in the experimental section the method is compared to several state-of-the-art approaches (including deep CNNs) and while the state-of-the-art achieves 70-80% accuracy, the method from the paper gets close to 100% accuracy. In addition, the methods were tested in 2 scenarios, first with 50 identities, then with 100 to recognise from. All the state-of-the-art methods performed worse in the 100-identity case (as expected), however the paper's method actually saw a slight increase in the performance accuracy.
This to me smells fishy, to put it mildly. However, there are 2 considerations:

Technically it is possible (however improbable my experience in the field says this is), that the simple approach just handles this specific problem that much better than the deeper convolutional networks.
Even if the experimental work was devised improperly, this may not have been done with ill intent. Simple mistakes in the training/testing procedures (such as training the model on the testing data) could conceivably cause such a discrepancy, without malicious intent on the authors' part.

To put it bluntly, I intend to reject the paper, however I would like to do so without making either direct or implied (possibly unwarranted) accusations of misconduct on the part of the authors.
How I have currently addressed this particular issue in my review (listed next to other shortcomings of the paper):

In the experimental section it is unclear how the models were trained. How was the data split into training, validation, testing data? Did all the trained models (including the [redacted] model) use this same data split in their training? In my experience a (near-)100% accuracy is unlikely to be achieved, regardless of the chosen recognition method, when the dataset is difficult enough that state-of-the-art methods (like [redacted]) only get 70-80% accuracy. Oftentimes such unnaturally high accuracy points to a mistake in the training/testing process (such as testing on previously-seen data). The fact that the performance improves from the 50-category case to the 100-category case, rather than dropping off as it (understandably) does for the other approaches, makes this even stranger. I would suggest the authors either publicly release the training/testing data and the code used, or provide enough detail in the experimental section to make these results directly reproducible.

Is this an appropriate way to address such results? Should I confer with the conference editor on this and voice my concerns to them directly?


texts: What should a candidate with no publications mention to professor for PhD admission or research position?

texts:
I want to apply for PhD admission, but I have no research experience; never published any research paper or had any research assistantship during my Master's (although I did have a course assistantship for a semester and finished it 1 semester earlier). The professor I am intending to ask for supervision and research is involved around coding and I can make a good portfolio of projects about it (i.e. industry experience after Master's, GitHub profile, etc.).

Questions:

What should I mention in my email to professor to convince them that I would be a good fit for their research and fellowship?
Should I contact a professor first and then apply to the program, or should I apply first and then contact professor about it?

The university I am intending is a private university in central US with very high reputation (one in top 30 in Forbes US list).


texts: Should I worry about a referee who recommended rejection being offended if my paper is accepted?

texts:
After submitting a paper for review, I received a letter from the editors containing a negative report and informing me that their (editors') decision was to reject the paper. Although the paper was about six months with the referee, it was clear from the report that she did not read it, just had a quick look and wrote a report, full of typos, mistakes and speculations about what the referee thought was in the paper (as she didn't read it).

I wrote a letter to the editor saying that I agree with their decision to reject the paper and would not dispute it. But I also expressed my opinion of the report, because I think it might help to increase quality of the review process. I had no intention to get the paper reconsidered, and even started to prepare a slightly revised version to submit it to another journal. However, they have responded that they would give it to another reviewer.

Now this situation is quite uncomfortable for me: I imagine how the referee will feel if the paper gets accepted and appears in this journal. On the other hand, the referee should be well aware of the (poor) quality of her work, so maybe she will not care.

The question is: should I care?


texts: Did they do some of the project without telling me?

texts:
So I am doing this bachelor thesis for a research institute and they wanted me to do different kinds of development.
Like conversions of files and implementing a system (I call it system A for mentioning later) and right now I am developing the main system which need to be connected to system A. Or at least I thought that was the plan.
So recently I found out they developed a similar system to system A, (it wasn't a big part of the project but it took me a lot of productive time to research and develop it) and this new version has to be integrated with the bigger system that I am building for them.
I asked them whether they used or will be using my implementation (system A) anywhere; They said no and it was more of a proof of concept, They said in my thesis I can write that it was 'initial implementation of the new one". How is it initial implementation if nothing is the same and they did not tell anything about it to me.
Does this situation make any sense? I am still developing a system for them which is quite bigger than system A and I still need to use some part of system A to integrate it with the new version that they totally developed themselves.
The reason of course is that their new system has a better outlook and design but they could have maybe told me from the start that they won't be using my version as I had told them from the start that I won't be using time on design and it was something we talked about on day 1.
I am not worried of what I should put in my thesis but is this really normal? If not, What did I do wrong?
Thank you in advance.


texts: Mathematics Stack Exchange as an indicator for academic career

texts:
I'm due to start my PhD in Pure Mathematics next month, fully funded by a scholarship, at an average university, I'll be specialising in combinatorial group theory, and I have a strong First in Mathematics from a Russell group university. My goal is to become an academic.

This is my Mathematics Stack Exchange (MSE) profile. I've been an active user since 2013, visiting pretty much daily, but my reputation is currently just 5,760 and I haven't used MathOverflow at all (as the questions there every time I visit, which isn't that often, are beyond me). This seems quite low. Should this worry me?

To what extent is MSE reputation an indication of potential in academia?


texts: Should I include having taken free online courses without credit or certificate in an application for a master's programme?

texts:
I just finished my Bachelor in Psychology and the master's programmes I am interested in pursuing require some experience with at least one programming language. Of course, at no point in my studies was there a course related to programming and I am considering taking free online courses. Since there have been some questions on MOOCs with certificates, I want to make a question about MOOCs without enrollment, credit and certificate of completion.

Does one gain anything by mentioning attendance at such courses or will a reviewer of an application dismiss it as an unverifiable claim (since there is no proof that one has actually attended the course)?


texts: I regret declining a really good PhD offer. Can I ask if I can accept the offer after all?

texts:
I recently declined a really good PhD offer in the US for another offer from an American university and I'm terribly regretting it now.

I made my decision on the 15th of April and it's past deadline now. I really want to go to the other school and since the 15th of April was the last working day, I'm hoping that they haven't offered my position to any other aspirant yet. I know this is ethically wrong but I feel miserable about my decision and want to contact the university and ask them if they can still accommodate me.

As far as the other university is concerned I have only accepted their offer through an email and haven't formally been given the final offer letter yet. Should I go ahead with this?


texts: How do you find out if academia is the right path for you?

texts:
Apologies if this question is not entirely fitting for this Exchange, but I didn't know where else to ask.

I am currently working through my Masters, and while talking with one of my professors the question "Would you be interested in continuing with a PhD" came up. I have thought about this frequently over the last few months, but I can't seem to come to a proper answer. I believe the problem here lies in the fact that with a Bachelor or Masters you kind of know what you're getting into and what will be expected of you, while for a PhD it is kinda hard to find information (at least for me / in my country).

I have already gained some industry experience before coming back to University, and thus I know for certain that I would not like spending my life doing boring, repetitive office tasks; I plan on taking on as many extra-curricular activities during my Masters that can expose me to the 'department life', or at least give me a glimpse of what working in Academia is like.

However, despite all this, I keep coming back to the original question and not knowing what to think: Would a PhD hold my interest for however long it takes me to complete it? Would I enjoy working in Academia afterwards? What should I expect from a PhD in my field? Would I get one just to (possibly) be hired by a top-tier company doing cutting-edge/research work?

I don't know if I'm conveying my thought clearly here, but what I am trying to say is that there is virtually no information on what is expected of a PhD student, what Academia life is like and all this kind of stuff. How does one know if doing research would be a good fit for him/her if there's no prior exposure to this kind of work? Would I be good at teaching in case I decide to stay in Academia? How do I assess this?

I feel like there must be a way to clear my thoughts and get some answers before I decide to enroll in a multi-year PhD program and possibly waste years of my life leading up to nothing, having to fall back to an everyday industry job with less experience than someone of my age.

Again, I realise how general and convoluted this post is, and I won't mind deleting it if it is deemed unfit for this Exchange, but I'm honestly at a loss on where to go next and would like to hear opinions coming from people that are/have been in the field.

Thanks in advance for taking the time to read all of this!

As pointed out in guest's answer, I'm specifying that my field is STEM (Bachelors in CS, Masters in Data Science). You can read more details and my reply to his answer in the comment section, which might give a little bit of insight into what I initially wrote here.


texts: How to confront advisor about the expectation that I will support another student's project for extended period of time?

texts:
I work in a collaborative scientific research group at a public university in the US.  Specifically, my lab has two graduate students: myself and another who is expected to graduate shortly.

I'm told that once the "senior" graduate student stops working in the lab (to start writing dissertation) the remaining graduate student (myself, in this case) is expected to finish off the more senior graduate students' data-taking (whether it be for a month or a semester, has not been made clear).  The more senior graduate student would be the first author on the paper resulting from this data.

I have been assured that the current senior graduate student did his fair share of data taking for the graduate student who preceded him.  I would like to talk to my advisor about this, but I have serious doubts about whether she would care about my opinion on this matter.  In  fact, I feel like by bringing it up I could only make things worse.

Although this is the "lab culture", it seems unfair to me.  Has anyone had success confronting their advisor about this sort of thing without being too hostile?

UPDATE:
I should mention that I spent the first 2.5 years of my research time supporting his (the previous grad students) project full time.  It is not until after he is gone (and 1-5 months more of me supporting his project) until I can even begin my project.  This is the primary concern: I will have spent over half of my graduate career supporting his project full time, meanwhile my advisor says she thinks I can graduate in five years--- that leaves between 2 to 2.5 years to complete my own project.  I will have spent more time on his proj than my own


texts: Writing a book expanding on a previous review paper?

texts:
After writing a review paper on a specific topic, is it common to write a book to expand the review paper in a more pedagogical way, and to include more subtopics/content? Also, since published papers cannot be "updated", would it be useful to have a book which takes into account new research directions and new results which have been published after the original review paper? Would be writing such a book being a problem for copyright or other reasons?
I am interested about the situation in the physics literature and hard sciences, but of course any thoughts are welcome.


texts: I'm a starting graduate student in math. Without a doubt I'm not a genius or even that smart, and that creates a serious problem: I often lose my nerve while doing research or studying other people's paper. I feel that some of those people (if not most) are just too good and I crack under the pressure to produce works of similar quality. I know the right thing to do is to be "brave" and power through and see where I end up. But this issue of "cowardice" has severely hurt my productivity. Do successful researchers have same problem or are they just totally engrossed with their work and do not care about anything else? How can I somehow be more disciplined with my emotions?


texts: Affiliation in conflict-of-interest situations

texts:
This is a follow-up question to What affiliation to put on an academic paper for alumni authors? Some time ago, I read a paper published in a journal owned by my employer which was very far-fetched. It espoused a very non-mainstream theory. It looked so far-fetched that I couldn't believe the journal would accept it, but I confirmed with the desk editor of that journal that it wasn't a mistake. I also saw the review - the reviewer agreed it was very speculative, but couldn't outright call it wrong, and so recommended acceptance.

I could think of reasons why the theory was wrong, so I wrote up a letter to the editor and submitted it to the journal.

Question: what's my affiliation? From aeismail's answer to the above question, my affiliation is where I did the research work. That makes my affiliation the publisher (however I was not contracted to do research work, and I did this on my own time). However there's potential conflict-of-interest here since I'm submitting to my employer's journal. If I listed my employer as my affiliation, it might seem that I've circumvented the normal peer review process. In practice the peer review process happened as normal, and I was not involved in it at all, but this would not be apparent to anyone not an employee of the publisher.

I got out of this dilemma by listing the university that granted my most recent degree. They maintain a university email address for life, so I used that. Nobody has complained, but I'd like to know if this was the right affiliation.


texts: How to deal with a busy research partner?

texts:
I'm working on a research, and I have a partner. We both should be working on the same tasks, but he's very busy, as he has teaching load and I don't, so I end up doing most of the work myself.
This is not a big problem to me, but my advisor sometimes blames us for delayed results or little achievements, and I find it not fair to be blamed because he expects an outcome of two when there's actually only one working, and I get embarrassed to tell him that it was only me, because my partner is actually also my friend.

How does one deal with this situation? I know my partner is very capable, this is not an incompetence claim, it's just he has little time compared to me.


texts: What are the differences (if any) of the tenure-track job hunt if you're a professor compared to a PhD student

texts:
I'm asking mainly for the field of computer science.

It is expected and often encouraged for PhD students to market and advertise themselves during several months it takes to apply and interview for academic positions. However, it seems that when non-tenured/tenured faculty switch institutions, it's normally done silently and even the faculty's own students might now know about the search until it is a fait accompli.

I'm wondering how the process of switching universities might be (or is) different for someone who is already a professor. What is the procedure for professors planning to switch universities?


texts: How to get list of journals in a discipline within a specified range of impact factors?

texts: I am looking for journals about A with impact factor between X and Y. Is there any way to find that on IEEE web site?


texts: How do industrial researchers get access to online journals?

texts:
When one is hired by industry to research (or something of innovative nature), he or she may want (or need) to access online journal articles.
But I suppose normal industrial jobs (e.g. software engineer in Amazon) don't grant online subscriptions to journals (like, access to a network IP with a subscription, just like many university accounts).
So, do industrial researchers purchase subscriptions themselves (this seems to be close to impossible)? Or do they apply for subscriptions through their company?
I have not worked in the industry, but I am curious.


texts:
The arXiv license is the "default" license under which most preprints are being submitted to the arXiv at least in my subject. Out of dark curiosity, I am wondering how safe it is at doing what it is meant to do, namely ensure that these preprints are widely and freely available through the reasonable future. Let me quote the license in full:

The URI http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/ is used to record the fact that the submitter granted the following license to arXiv.org on submission of an article:
I grant arXiv.org a perpetual, non-exclusive license to distribute this article.
I certify that I have the right to grant this license.
I understand that submissions cannot be completely removed once accepted.
I understand that arXiv.org reserves the right to reclassify or reject any submission.

I am wondering what this entails in any of the following hypothetical scenarios:

Cornell University decides to sell arXiv.org off for whatever reasons (which may be far lesser reasons than bankruptcy -- e.g., someone might catch wind of the fact that a great many PDF files are not ADA-compliant; or publishers might unleash a barrage of lawsuits on Cornell for hosting what they believe are not quite preprints; or it is simply decided that continued hosting of the arXiv is too much of a cost center), and the new proprietors don't see public access as a priority. Someone with a full dump uploads it on a server in the Ukraine.
(Comparable cases: SSRN bought by Elsevier, although the full-dump analogy is broken here -- I don't know if anyone ended up re-hosting the papers taken down.)

The HTTP protocol and the WWW are superseded by something new and shiny, and the ".org" domain and the notion of a "server" lose their meaning; arXiv involves into a service which may have a hard time arguing that it is the same arXiv.org ("a highly-automated electronic archive and distribution server") that the license was granted to. (Comparable cases: The precursor of arXiv.org was a mailing list; it is far from obvious that mailing out a preprint on an ephemeral medium like a mailing list grants any rights for future perpetual hosting on the internet. Now imagine the next step after the mailing list and the internet, whatever that may be; ignore the current social media hype, which is not a relevant development for hosting documents.)

Various countries block the official arXiv domains (or force arXiv to geo-fence them out), causing the creation of multiple not-quite-official mirrors, some even on the dark web (.onion) or otherwise hidden-from-view. How can these mirrors argue that the arXiv license was granted to them?

The arXiv team splits along a political fault-line, resulting in two different groups/servers/teams with claims to the arXiv name. Are they both allowed to host the papers?

The TeX and PDF formats lose their universal support, and new formats come up (or new versions, breaking backwards compatibility); the arXiv team can no longer keep up writing compatibility scripts, and volunteers end up fixing the papers and posting them on github. (The compatibility nightmare is already happening to some extent -- the arXiv has its share of broken PDFs, and I recall even seeing a TeX that did not compile until I made a tweak. So far, most of the damage has been repaired, probably with a lot of manual drudgery, but the arXiv is getting more and more papers, and the next generation of formats to be deprecated will have a much higher amount of papers posted in it.)

What these scenarios all have in common is that, in a sense, the arXiv does not disappear -- it just evolves, changes its skin, reincarnates, as times change. My question is: Does the license follow it, or will the "new arXiv" be in troubles trying to prove that it still has a right to host preprints uploaded under the (standard) arXiv license back in the early 2000s?


texts: Online vs hard copy, which texts are students more likely to read?

texts:
I am wondering if anyone knows of any studies that indicate whether students read online texts more or less than hard copy texts.

I am in the midst of trying to "reboot" the intro stats class I teach and a big question in my mind is how effective the text is. Active learning (like the flipped classroom) requires the students read the material beforehand, and I'm not convinced (from the results I saw this year using a Pearson Learning Management System (LMS)) that the students are reading the online text very much.

I have a suspicion that students read the online texts less (and I plan to give my students a survey to check) but I'd like to know if there is any research supporting my limited observations.


texts: What are cautions to take with second hand data in an interview?

texts:
When analyzing second hand information in a data set (participant is recounting someone else's experience), if you cannot access that person to confirm their experience, what are some cautions to take in interpretation? Can you use the data at all?

Also, if you do use the data, wouldn't there be potential ethics issues considering the other person has not signed a consent form?


texts: Should I mention that I have a Bipolar disorder in my statement of purpose?

texts:
Should I mention that I have Bipolar disorder in my statement of purpose and ask my lecturers to mention it in their letters of recommendation(I am doubtful that they will) ?

Bipolar disorder was a critical roadblock in my academic life man. When I was having maniac episode I was like "I am God, I don't need to study, I can clear this test without studying" or it just felt like I am overdosing on caffeine, I couldn't focus. When I was feeling depressed, I was just too withdrawn to study, I was almost suicidal. Either way, I was too emotional to do anything !

The aggregate GPA of my undergrad courses is 3.216 and the simple average of my last 4 semesters GPA is 3.106. It was in the last two years that I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I tell you its not easy managing meds and life. Most psychiatrists in India are idiots. Some of these psychiatrists even diagnosed me with adult ADD :| Its because of these drugs and incompetency of my shrinks that I feel my GPA dropped. Should I mention that too, cause in US I would even have access to better shrinks than here ..

My GRE score is 322/340. I honestly feel I could have got a much better GPA and GRE score without this disorder man. I even got highest grades in all my practical exams too.


texts: Should I include a patent in my cumulative PhD thesis?

texts:
I am writing my thesis as a cumulative PhD, meaning that instead of describing the outcome of my project in a standard book format I write a short introduction to the compilation of publications. My thesis consists of five articles (two of which are first-author) and a manuscript in press. During my PhD studies I also co-authored a patent application that is now internationally published.

Should I incorporate the patent as a core part of my thesis, similarly to other publications? Other options include putting it in the appendix, alongside with the supplementary information to publications, or leaving it out completely.


texts: How many papers should I be reviewing as a referee?

texts:
Like many academics with an active research program, I am asked to review many papers. Borrowing an idea from peer-to-peer file sharing companies, I try to keep a rough sense of my recent "ratio" of reviews I have done on other's papers over reviews my papers have received. I try to make sure I have a ratio that is consistently above 1:1. Since many of my papers (and presumably the papers I review) are co-authored, this seems very generous to me.

How many reviews should I be doing? How many is normal? Is a ratio an effective way to keep track of one's reviews? Is a minimum 1:1 ratio appropriate and defensible?


texts: Should I pursue physics or computer science?

texts:
I am currently a student at a German high school in my senior year. (In case you don't know the German education system: Students get to choose two subjects which they focus on. In my case those two subjects are math and computer science.)
I've always been fairly certain that I wanted to study physics. This was/is due to my deep love and admiration for the subject. To see whether I would actually like to pursue a degree in the subject, I decided to watch two lecture series which mostly covered classical physics (They were from TU Wien, by professor Wagner). I was immediately hooked and especially enjoyed the mathematical rigour.
However, during the last 2 1/2 years, I started to take computer science. This led to me developing a great interest in the subject. And as I did with physics, I started to watch some lecture series on the subject. (MIT 6.034 Artificial Intelligence, Fall 2010; MIT 6.S191: Introduction to Deep Learning) The thing which stood out to me was that unlike physics, computer science appeared to be a lot more applied and a lot less mathematical. None the less, I still appreciate computer science for its power as a tool and merit as a research subject.
As to my general aspirations, I eventually want to pursue a PhD in either CS or Physics and hope to end up working in R&D/academia.
So my question is which of the two degrees I should pursue. (As far as I know, it's quite hard to get a masters in a subject which you didn't get your bachelors in. This at least seems to be the case here in Germany.) On the one hand, I want to learn all about physics and enjoy the rigorous formal education that comes with it. On the other hand, CS seems to be a far more interesting field research-wise, developing far quicker than physics and showing more promise for emerging technologies.
All in all, I don't dislike physics research (topics), but it often seems either super high level or extremely narrow and inconsequential, to me. Contrary to this CS seems like a far more manageable field, which progresses quite quickly and also seems to offer quite a lot more open positions.
Lastly, I also don't know about my career opportunities. But it seems to me, that a degree/education in CS is more economically sensible.
(I hope I don't give you the impression, that I love physics and hate CS, it's really not that black and white to me, I just seem to have a slight preference for the physics curriculum. Nevertheless, I still greatly enjoy learning and doing pretty much every area of CS, which I have encountered so far.)
I greatly appreciate any of your input and am looking forward to it. However, I do recognize the vagueness of my question and know that there isn't a clear-cut answer to it, still, I'm eager to hear your perspective/tips on the matter and hope that you will inform me about any possible misconceptions I might have.
(I've also considered a degree in math, but seem to lack the enthusiasm for the subject.
In case some further elaboration is necessary: I'm afraid that I might be missing out on my chance to acquire a thorough understanding of physics. But also worry that, by choosing physics, I might hinder myself from getting into tech/CS-research later on and worsen my future career/job prospects.
P.s. The university I'm looking to study at is the TUM)
Best regards,
Justus
:)


texts: Revoked access to data within same institute after moving section

texts:
Recently I moved sections within the same institute. All access to data owned by the university has been revoked from me, with an explanation that it contains personal information. Yet, none of this data is tagged personally, due to new data regulations. The closest thing there is to something of the sort is occupancy counts for rooms.

I understand this is a legal issue, but I don't even know where to start with it. Shouldn't the data be usable by another section at the same institute?

Any advice is useful, thanks.


texts: What determines how many master/PhD students a given professor can take (STEM)?

texts:
It never really crossed my mind if there was an upper limit as to the number of students a given professor can take on. This is because some professor have dozens of students, while other have only a handful. I know a professor who has 2 PhD students and that's it. This seems to be a department dependent variable.

However, a rumor got out that one of the professor in my department (not my own) was attempting to take on a student but since the student did not have external scholarship, therefore the professor was not able to take him on.

It is unusual because students do not need external funding to get into the graduate program at my school. I hypothesized that the professor's funding cap was all used up by his current students, therefore he could not take on anymore students without additional funding. However, I am not sure how this funding cap mechanism work.

Is there an upper limit to the number of students a professor can take on? If so, what determines it? An insider's perspective on this would be greatly appreciated.

(My question is mainly with respect to engineering and STEM major within North American context)


texts: How to cite a company that gave the data and formulated a problem to be solved in a competition?

texts:
So recently there was a data science competition and we learned and made a good algorithm which can be published as a case study. So how can I cite the Data source and the really good score metric that was also given by the company which organiszed the competition? Yes the data has been made public and free to use but the scoring metric that was given was in a document given during the competition has no public document is available for it. Yes the link for the competition also exist.
Thanks this is my first paper and im super confused.