texts: How can I transition from industry to academia without having a college degree?

texts:
I've been working in the "private sector" since my late teens. I've gathered good web-development experience to be able to find work quite easily thankfully. I was never really interested in getting a degree, I only have a high-school diploma. I was passionate enough to study for myself and learn new things from colleagues and friends.

Web-development is still my passion, however recently I've been thinking about the actual work that I've been producing over the years for the companies I've worked for. It seems as though that even if the work is fun and challenging, I still get very little recognition for it: once the work is produced, my name is barely ever mentioned. I've been asking myself if all these things I'm building are really going to change someone's life.

Then I look at academia and research. Here people are doing things they actually love and study those subjects deeply with passion and generate new knowledge to help others within a specific field.

Has anybody ever switched from an industry job to an academic job? I'm wondering if it's possible to do research without a degree. What suggestions might you have for someone in my situation that wants to get a glimpse of the life of an academic where you can build and study something you actually love and not always do what "the company" wants.


texts: Deadline for resubmission in Physical Review E

texts: As the title suggests, does anyone what is a typical deadline for the resubmission in the mentioned journal? As it was not specified anywhere.


texts: Repeatedly citing same item of personal communication

texts:
The APA style indicates that personal communication should be cited in the format "J. Doe (personal communication, M dd, yyyy)" in-text, without a bibliographic entry. I was wondering what the best solution to citing such an item repeatedly is?

Example:

  J. Doe (personal communication, August 21, 2017) proposes that concept
  X is inherently meaningless without mechanism Y.

  [...]

  Doe (2012, 2015, 2016) presents mechanism Y in terms a, b, c. We could therefore
  assume that this predicts concept X to exist independently of Y,
  nothwithstanding J. Doe's (personal communication, August 21, 2017)
  objection that doing so would lead to undesired behaviour Z---it is
  what strictly follows from the system proposed in Doe (2012, 2015,
  2016).

Is there a better way to refer to the same personal communication the second time? Options like J. Doe (op. cit.), J. Doe (ibid.) etc. seem to not really work semantically (given what kind of object op. cit. and ibid. refer to) and be potentially ambiguous with Doe (2012, 2015, 2016), although I suppose the initial of the first name here may disambiguate.

Are there any established ways of dealing with this elegantly?

[Edit:] I should add that I have to refer to a different instance of personal communication with Doe elsewhere, so simply citing "Doe (p.c.)" later on would be potentially ambiguous, unless it somehow only referred to the most recently cited instance of personal communication.

[Edit 2:] To provide some context, we're talking here about a situation where the papers by Doe (2012, 2015, 2016) outline a particular theory but leave some aspect of it poorly defined or ambiguous. The private communication entails asking Doe for clarification as to how he intended that ambiguous aspect of the theory to be understood/implemented. So this is not really about relying on data or sources that are unavailable, it is about giving fair shrift to Doe's theory, and making clear as a starting point both for my own work and others how the original point was intended. If this is not taken into account there's a real danger of just attacking a self-made straw man here, and neither Doe nor I nor others in the field would probably be happy with that. It seems inevitable to me that full disclosure here entails citing the personal communication on more than one occasion, namely whenever Doe's disambiguating communication comes into play.


texts:
I am a second year PhD student at a technical / interdisciplinary lab in Europe wondering when to quit and leave a seemingly unbearable situation behind.

My supervisor (a young-ish professor) mostly works alongside an older professor (his own PhD supervisor back in the day). I am one of his first "own" PhD students. The project that pays my salary is a joint project with another group with a focus lying outside my supervisor's main interests (so he also doesn't care too much about it).

I have mostly spent my time working on ideas suggested by the old professor. Every time he makes a suggestion for something I should work on, I look into it until my supervisor says the results are good. Then we meet with the old professor who basically says the work is ridiculous. At this point in the meeting my supervisor agrees with the old professor and they tell me to do something else. This has happened maybe 6-8 times in the last 1.5 years and all my work has been scrapped.

My supervisor, on the other hand, spends most of his time providing supervision to the old professor's PhD students, pushing them to make the most out of their research (ideas given by the old professor). The result is that they publish really nice papers (and he is of course a co-author). I on the other hand don't really have something going on, and my colleagues really let me know that my PhD is going nowhere (instead of providing encouragement or responding to offers of collaboration from my side).

I know that getting a PhD means being able to conduct research independently and I am trying to get there. I have had a number of ideas for research but when I suggest something to my supervisor he doesn't really care about the topics. All the old professor's students work together on everything but I am pretty much isolated. This makes it really hard to learn what I need to learn and to achieve something I would consider publishable. Most ideas that I try out for a few days / weeks or longer lead nowhere. I think one reason for this is the lack of feedback or helpful ideas etc. that I would expect from my supervisor and/or colleagues which I simply do not get.

One good example for how things are going is the paper that grew out of my MSc thesis. It has been more than 1.5 years and we are still in the process of "making it ready for publication". We meet every few weeks and the old professor (who is a coauthor) demands substantial changes (often reversing decisions that he himself made some meetings ago). My supervisor doesn't really seem to mind that this paper doesn't get published (in the meantime they have put in lots of effort to publish a number of papers with the old professor's students at top conferences and journals).

Overall this situation is obviously very frustrating, up to the point where I have set myself multiple deadlines until which things need to have improved or otherwise I start looking for another position. But I haven't.

I do some teaching which I really enjoy. This is my main (actually only) source of positive feedback (from the students) and as such really motivating. As I have taken up these and other duties at the lab I am under the impression that I am to some extent indispensable for my supervisor as I do lots of valuable work for him (work that he doesn't have to worry about). Therefore I think that no matter what happens he will at some point make sure I get my degree. As the situation currently seems, though, I will have a sub-average research record at best which will make any academic career impossible.

Sorry for the long text. My question is: how bad must the situation look before it is advisable to quit and move on? I am not a quitter and would hate doing so but my personal life and mental health have been suffering to the point where I find the situation unbearable.

Note that there is no such thing as a thesis committee at my university. Everything depends exclusively on the PhD supervisor.


texts: Can PhDs legitimately claim to be doctors?

texts:
I’ve frequently heard people claim that individuals who hold PhDs are not “real” doctors. These people assert that only physicians can rightfully claim this title, and that it’s inappropriate for PhD-holders to use this term.
For some reason, many also think that the MD is much more difficult to attain than a PhD for example in computer science.

So - should Ph.D.s Be Referred To As ‘Doctor?

Ps: currently i am a PhD student and don't know why the question is being devoted!


texts: Does a research professor burn his bridges (intentionally or unintentionally) when he leaves for another university?

texts: Say there is an influential and popular research professor who is moving up fast in his research areas - and that he heads a big research group at his school.  Then he gets an offer that he can't refuse - from a big time university.  He leaves six months or so later, bringing some of his doctoral students with him, too.  In general, has this professor burned his bridges with his former university?  I imagine he is bringing a lot of talented grad students and grant money in to the new school - and a lot of grant money is leaving the old school.


texts: What types of administrative jobs can a faculty member get?

texts:
I am a professor of physics and just moved to the UK with my wife, who is British. I anticipate that it will take a year or so to find a faculty position matching my field of expertise. To avoid being idle during this period, I would like to apply for any possible job to be in academia.

As I checked, many administrative jobs are available in the UK universities, and the process seems quick (the interviews are normally scheduled for 2 weeks after the deadline).

Since I have worked as a department head for years with many industry collaborations, I thought I might have a chance at administrative jobs like director of small units such as enterprise, partnership, academic excellence, etc.

I understand that people with the same line of experience are rationally preferred, but I wonder if there are specific administrative jobs for which faculty experience is an advantage and the committee will be happy to consider such applications.


texts: Government Shutdown - application deadlines for fellowships and grants

texts: Will application deadlines for federally-funded fellowships and grants be extended, due to the ongoing government shutdown here in the States?  Is there even anyone to contact (and get a response from) at this time, regarding application deadlines?


texts: Is there data or research on the tradeoffs associated with allowing anonymous posting on forums like Piazza?

texts:
A large amount of research from the EdTech world finds that forums that encourage social learning, if used right, can significantly improve learning outcomes. Of course, there are downsides.

One of the main platforms that I've seen across universities here in the US, is Piazza.

Piazza can be configured to allow students to post questions, answers and comments completely anonymously. There are classes where this works very well, participation rates are high and spam is rare. However, many faculty members, some because of unpleasant interactions in the past, often disallow anonymous posting.

Is there any research/anecdotal evidence that suggests anonymity hinders / helps learning? In the latter case, are there specific steps used on anonymous fora that are required to maintain quality? We're planning on building a large QA-system within our EdTech platform, and on the fence about investing thousands of dollars to build "anonymous posting" within our system.


texts: Is it normal to interview for faculty positions in December-February and not hear back yet by the end of March?

texts:
I had several interviews in December-February in R1 universities for tenure-track assistant professor positions in a life sciences field.

I was told that they would get back to me in March, so I emailed them and some have not replied back and some said to wait some more.

So, I was wondering if this is normal to wait for that long or "the ship has sailed" and I'm not getting any offers :(


texts: Are universities strongly associated with ethnic minority groups a thing outside the USA?

texts:
This question asks about the history of why Howard University in Washington, DC, USA has remained a school whose student and faculty bodies are predominantly African-American.

Do "historically [minority ethnic group]" universities exist in a meaningful sense outside the USA? For example, are there universities in Spain which are historically known for targeting or serving the ethnic Basque community? Are there "Historically Italian" universities in Argentina? Do the Ainu of Japan tend to predominate at a specific Japanese university?

This question is not about whether specialized minority-serving academic institutions should exist, or what their social, political, or economic ramifications are, if any.

This question involves something other than a request to churn and process statistical data - it is a question about social realities and social perceptions in academia. For example, if a census of a particular university in the UK happens to reveal that 65% of the faculty and students are Scottish Highlanders, but there is no significant social perception of the school as a "Highlander School" and no particular adherence to Highlander culture, then it would not count under this question. If, however, there is a UK university whose charter specifically says that it was established "for the education of Highlanders", or which inspires mentions of "oh, that Highlander school!" when mentioned casually in pubs, it counts, even if the actual number of Highlanders on campus as of 2018 is 15%.


texts: Is it ethical to reference a work accused of plagarism?

texts:
I have been using a book as reading for the background of my dissertation, but have just found out that it has been accused of being an unauthorised translation of someone else's work: http://www.mathematik.uni-marburg.de/~gumm/Plagiarism/index.htm

Can I still reference it in my dissertation, or should I reference the original author's work but using the material in the translation, or use a completely different reference instead?


texts: Value of placement services for non-members

texts: I am curious about what people think about value of limited period (typically, a year) placement services, provided by academic professional organizations, such as Academy of Management. For example, see this page. In particular, I am interested about the subject in the context of first-time academic job seekers, like me, targeting junior faculty or, more likely, postdoctoral opportunities. The reason I am asking this question is to determine the value and feasibility of those time-limited placement services, considering the availability of nice and free resources, such as HigherEdJobs.


texts: Is my advisor being unreasonable by not approving classes in a different field than his?

texts: I started my PhD in CS last fall in a lab doing one particular field (neurological-based deep learning) since that's what I was interested in when I was in undergrad applying and for about the first year of grad school. Since then, I stumbled into NLP and I find it fascinating I've been reading a lot of papers and  I think I'd like to pursue it for my academic career – I've even started attending lab meetings with another lab in my department doing NLP. I'd really like to take a formal course in NLP, especially one taught by the PI of this other lab, but my advisor needs to approve any course I take, and he won't sign off on any course that isn't in his field. He says there's no point in me taking a course that won't benefit my work in his lab. Is he being reasonable here, or should I be able to take courses in tangential fields?


texts:
When a person is awarded PhD there is a date the Phd is awarded. This date is later used as an eligibility criteria for fellowship applications (i.e., time passed since the Phd was awarded). In France, there is a PhD defense. Assuming that the defense was successful, is the date of PhD defense becomes a date of PhD award? Or there are additional procedures and the date of PhD award is usually later?

Thanks.


texts:
As part of my master thesis in bioinformatics I built a tool A, which is similar to tool B which uses other data. Tool's B original paper is a description of the software and methods implemented, because the methods where already described and tested in other articles.

The method on which A relays hasn't been used before in this area. I was considering describing the tool first in a manuscript and then describing how it solves a problem in the area of interest of the group in another article. Dividing the article of the tool in two I expect to get the attention of the people using and developing tools and methods and make aware of such a tool to people who might want to use it.

The applications of tool A may be as broad (or even broader) as the applications of tool B, which has 6 different applications (as listed in its web page), and I don't have the resources to test in all the applications

Would be this considered scientific salami slicing?

Rereading my question perhaps I am overestimating the usefulness of the tool.


texts: Where should you mention the name of potential mentor in research statement when applying for a post doc?

texts: I am going to apply for a postdoc position. I exchanged emails with one of the  professors as potential mentor and he told me to mention his name in my research statement. In which part of the research statement his name must be written? Is it enough to write it in the first paragraph?


texts: Precarious employment in academia: Why is there no labor union in academia?

texts:
Many positions in academia are precarious, when it comes to employment common behavior in academia would never be acceptable in industry. This applies equally to PhD students as well as to junior academics:

PhD students are not guaranteed employment at university
after working there for 5 years.
PhD students are paid little considering their degree: In
Germany e.g. it is common practice for professors to only pay
    half-time posts.
It's common practice for young academics to work well beyond 40 hours even for PhD students that are
only paid half-time posts. Work regulations regarding maximum worked hours and weekends are often ignored.
Junior academics are unlikely to land an unlimited full-time job at a
university. Directly after graduation this is impossible and even after years of more precarious work as a postdoc only a fraction get unlimited employment.
With exception of CS and engineering very little universities care about providing an exit strategy for junior academics and PhD students after academia. (While change in industry is possible in quite a few fields, proper (additional!) training would be much needed.)

These issues are well known. Fundamentally academia is producing too many PhD students and too little full-time positions (not just professorships) for their respective fields which causes much of the mentioned problems.

I feel like the passion almost all young academics and PhD students have for their subject brings a lot of naivety when it comes to employment conditions, which is exploited.

Why is there no movement inside academia trying to change these working conditions or a push to establish labor unions?


texts: Should I include funny pictures in my slides?

texts:
I am preparing slides for a short (10min) talk at the group meeting. The talk is about a fairly serious piece of (pure) mathematics, and it so happens that there is a very relevant one-panel webcomic. A thought appeared to me, and got some support from my fellow PhD students, that it would be cool to include this comic, perhaps at the final thank-you-for-your-attention slide.

I am probably not going to do it, so I'm asking mostly out of curiousity: Would this be a bad idea to go ahead and include a comic on the final slide?

Note: The comic is genuinely funny (based on a sample of 6 non-randomly selected students). It is not - as far as I can tell - offensive in any way. It could come across as somewhat silly.


texts: Enhancing the plots from another person's research paper

texts:
I get some plots for comparision of different network simulation software. I need to include them in my thesis to provide details about the tool. The problem is that these plots are not of very good resolution and I want to enhance them. Although I must provide the reference of the paper and I downloaded these plots from IEEE library, I am not satisfied with the resolution.

Can anybody please tell me the method to enhance plots. I am including one plot as image here:-


texts: Should I apply for a research Internship if I'm not in touch with the subject matter?

texts:
So, I'm doing my undergrad in physics in India. I want to apply for research internships, but when I read professors' CV's and stuff they are doing reasearch on currently, I don't understand anything, it's way too complicated, I see things like " X-ray Binaries, Neutron Stars, X-ray Polarimetry , quantification of non-linear quantum correlations at very low light intensities. etc. ".
It seems way beyond what I can comprehend !

So, if I have no idea about what they are working on then should I apply for the reasearch internship ?


texts: Can I accept two offers from universities and decide later on

texts: I've received offers from two UK universities (Masters degree), first conditional and second unconditional. There's always a possibility that I won't meet conditions so I'd like to keep the second university as a back-up. Is it possible to do it like this, that I accept both offers and after I meet conditions, I will let the second university know, that I decided not to start studying?


texts: What advantages do libraries offer over the internet for doing a literature survey in Mathematics or CS

texts:
Currently my literature surveys do not involve trips to the library and I am wondering if I am missing out on something important. What sort of material/knowledge can the library provide that I would miss on google scholar.
Thanks


texts: Is there data or research on the tradeoffs associated with revealing how a student's grade on an assessment compares to the rest of the class?

texts:
We're building a teaching platform for projects, and one of the goals is to provide rich feedback to students concerning their performance.

I'm fairly data-driven as a student and always appreciate seeing a lot of data about each project submission (min/mean/median/max/histogram/percentile/rank...)

My advisor argues that this drives competitiveness unnecessarily, and while it may help the best students in the class, it would discourage those who are struggling. He would prefer to optimize the learning experience for each student in the class.

Is there published data or science of learning research regarding the tradeoffs between driving competition by revealing grades and ranks after every homework/project submission?


texts: Online recommendation for an applicant who is not the recommender's student

texts:
My recommender and I know each other through scientific discussions and collaborations. I have never been his student.

He told me that in the online recommendation form they asked him some questions like "Which courses has he/she taken with you?" or "How do you rank the applicant among all your students?" and he does not know what to say.

How should he answer these questions? Should he leave them blank and just write the recommendation letter? Would this not be perceived negatively?


texts:
I am preparing PhD porposal
the proposal itself is a project design plan.

Is that possible for a Project to be a PhD research?

My Project is about web portal from data science.


texts: Worthwhile to put subreviewing on CV as a grad student?

texts:
It is common for PhD students in Computer Science to assist their advisors with reviewing conference papers, known as subreviewing. The students' reviews may or may not get turned in with the actual reviews but it is a great form of practice for the students.

I have seen some students list the conferences they have subreviewed for in the Service section of their CV. I thought this was a little strange since it isn't official.

Should a grad student list this on their CV? It would help add some content to a short CV and show that they have at least some experience reviewing. It may also help a student associate with a conference that they haven't had the opportunity to publish at, yet.


texts: Paper rejected due to short reference list

texts:
Recently I submitted a paper to a journal and I got the following feedback from the Editorial Office:

  The reference lists of manuscripts submitted to our journal should include a variety of English-language journals that reflect the diversity of resources in the scholarly field of the manuscript.

  I regret to inform you that it was found to be unsuitable for publication because the reference list did not contain sufficiently diverse, English-language sources.

Now, my question is, if some research is novel and does not have much information about it on the internet (for eg, a newly developed algorithm), then how will such papers get published, if the editors reject it on the basis of the size of the reference list rather than focussing on the quality of the manuscript?


texts: Job market after PhD in Human Computer Interaction (HCI)

texts: Do people in the industry consider HCI a non-technical field? Do they expect an HCI researcher to have more design and social science skills than technical ones?


texts: Professor creating math Youtube channel?

texts:
I am wondering if anyone can offer any advice: I currently am an adjunct and teach a bunch of undergrad math classes, like Calc, ODE, etc.
What I want to do is to create a YouTube channel and show people how to do Calc, ODE, and other undergrad math topics. I want this channel to be for personal gain and not affiliated with my university. I would create the channel completely separate from my university, using a personal account only.
My question: is there anything potentially unethical about this? Can I create (public) math content on YouTube that is similar to the content that I am teaching? Any advice is helpful.


texts: Should a research proposal contain a discussion of my past experience and achievements?

texts:
I'm used to "research proposals" being purely focused on future plans and specific research aims, and not a place to talk about myself. However, now I'm making an application for a postdoctoral fellowship which asks me to submit only three documents: my CV, a cover letter, and a 4-page research proposal. In my previous applications of this kind, there were additional documents that explicitly asked me to justify why I want to work there, what my previous accomplishments are, etc. but this one doesn't have any guideline.
Is the research proposal an appropriate place to try to sell myself and talk about my experience? Or should all of this be contained to the cover letter? I would appreciate any insight about what the typical expectations are regarding this.


texts: Double major in Physics and engineering for career safety

texts:
I am an Indian undergraduate student completing my BTech in Industrial Engineering in one of top three universities in India. I am planning to move on to physics for graduate school and I have a proper profile for it with research projects and internships in physics. I am confident I would get accepted to a good graduate program for physics, probably in the United States.

After browsing through the forums I found, it appears that a masters or PhD in physics is not a very lucrative option in terms of career. I in fact read that people are still in search of jobs after their PhD for three or four years. I also heard engineers have significantly greater career security after their graduation. So I am considering a double major in Physics as well as in Engineering to increase my future job prospects. I am determined focus on Physics in my masters program so it seems I should either to major in Physics and minor in Engineering or major in both. My primary job preference would be in the field of Physics academia, but wouldn't mind shifting to other areas.

What is the best choice of undergraduate major/minors to provide me the best career prospects?


texts: I have 3 months to submit my PhD thesis. What should be my strategy be like?

texts:
I am going to write a manuscript based thesis. It will be having 4 manuscripts as chapters 3,4,5,6.
Chapters 1 and 2 will be introduction and literature review. While 7 will be on conclusions. Now, I still have 50% work left for chapter 6, which I will complete withinn two weeks max. And will write the chapter as I go about doing the simulations to get the results.

My question is, I have to submit my thesis by June end. Extension is not an option. I am freaking out about deadline approaching so fast.

So, what should be my strategy be to complete the thesis on time? I know this is a vague question. But any advice would be most helpful!!


texts: Asking for details of an algorithm developed in an article in review

texts:
Recently, I have reviewed an article for the IEEE (a very good article too).  Within the article, the authors place great emphasis on a particular algorithm they developed and used, without disclosing any actual code - but explained very well that it could be replicated (which I won't do)..

Now, after I have provided an anonymous review, it occurred to me that I could further test their algorithm in my similar field of research (giving due credit of course).

How would one go about asking for details of an algorithm developed in an article in review?


texts: Emailing professor about PhD application

texts:
I am applying to a European university for Ph.D. Candidates are encouraged to contact their potential advisor before submitting the application. I did that and had a discussion too. I have submitted my application now.
Now I am confused if I should email the professor that I have submitted my application? Can that somehow be seen as negative? Too eager/aggressive?


texts: MBA with a BS in Comp Sci, pros and cons?

texts:
I will soon be graduating, and I have been working mostly remote with a company as an application developer for about 4 years since my freshman year of college, doing enterprise-level development while pursuing my degree.

I have always been interested in business management/administration since my freshman year in college but never got the chance to pursue anything, and I would also like to eventually take my side projects to the next level and begin my own company.

I am wondering if it would be worth my time and money to pursue an MBA once I graduate while I work full time at my current job? The money will not be an issue, granted spending $90,000 will be no easy feat. Are my chances going to be good to get into an MBA program even though I do not have that much post-undergrad work experience?

The SMU, Cox School of Business (my ideal choice) offers a Professional MBA program for working professionals but it says the average work experience is 6 years, and I will only have 4 years by the time I graduate, so I am unsure if this will make it hard for me to get in.

EDIT:

I would hopefully be applying almost as soon as I graduate.


texts: Is it possible to get a list of everyone who graduated from a college in a given year/field?

texts:
I am interested in doing a project on graduate life-paths and need to be able to see the cohort a student graduated in in a given subject?

i.e. can I say I want a list of all the people who graduated from College College in 19XX with a BSc in Television Television?

So I have been googling and just started writing to schools, but I've been unable to find this or find out if it is even possible to gain access to such a database.

I appreciate your help and look forward to your thoughts!


texts: Should I explain about low undergraduate grades in my graduation application if I subsequently have had research and professional experience?

texts:
I am currently applying for a Master Degree in Mathematical Physics. In my bachelor degree in Mathematics, my grades were low. Since then, I have worked with a professor on a research paper as a first author (for about one year now) and I have worked in a company in my field for two years now.
My question is: should I explain in my motivational letter why my grades are low during my bachelor degree? Is it considered an excuse if I do so? Or, should I focus on my research and professional experience without mentioning my grades?


texts: How to greet the audience at the beginning of a PhD defense talk/presentation?

texts:
I'll be giving a 30-min public talk as a part of my PhD defense next month. It would be attended by the examination committee (consisting of my advisor and two examiners). I reckon that some professors/lecturers from the university might also join it apart from my colleagues and friends.

What would be a suitable - neither too short or seemingly-snappy nor too long and boring - way to address the audience at the very beginning of my talk? For instance, starting with

  Hello everyone

sounds a bit too informal to me. Personally, I am inclined to starting with

  Respected members of the examination committee...

but I am not sure if that, because of the "Respected ", may be considered too traditional (unfortunately, I don't recall how my colleagues who graduated in the last years did it - you never focus on such aspects until it is your turn :-$).

Should I refer to the examination committee using names, as in:

  Respected members of the examination committee, Prof. X, Prof. Y, and Prof. Z

or better not?

For peers and friends, addressing could simply continue as

  ... and dear colleagues and friends.

Should I also try to sandwich another category specifically for the other professors and lecturers? If so, what could be a suitable way to address them?


texts: Publishing a paper on research with a previous employer, funded by my current employer

texts:
I will be an author or co-author on a few papers at an upcoming conference. The papers are on work that I did as a government contractor. As of a few months ago, I accepted a position with the government, working on the same things with the same people, continuing my previous research. The abstracts were submitted when I was a contractor, and I stated my affiliation as being with that company. My question is: when submitting and publishing the final paper, should my affiliation be with my previous employer or the government?

Some relevant info:

At the time of publication, the government contracting company will no longer exist.
The government will be funding my travel to this conference.
Although the contractor was paying my bills when I was conducting this research, we were under a cost-plus contract and the government was funding everything.


texts: Thesis reviewer requests update to literature review to incorporate last four years of research. Do I need to do this?

texts:
I'm about to defend my Phd thesis in November 2016 in software engineering. I  started my Phd in February 2010. One of my thesis reviewers stated in his review comments that my bibliography references are too old: the most recent work I have quoted in my bibliography is from 2012; that was when I was elaborating my thesis' state of the art. He stated that I have to check main works done in the field of research since 2012.

I am not excited about completing a new literature review two weeks before my defense. Thus, I was planning to say at the defense that the bibliography is old because my thesis began several years earlier. Is this an acceptable response? What would you do in this situation?


texts: How do graduate schools in Mathematics view advanced graduate courses taken at a less prestigious undergraduate institution?

texts: I am a junior undergraduate at a less prestigious school. I have the option of taking graduate courses. I am sure I won't run out of them. However I am skeptical of how committee especially top graduate schools in Mathematics view the courses taken at an unknown school. In my view these courses are as rigorous as a good school. I do hope to get few letters from instructors of these courses. Are graduate classes viewed equally irrespective of the institution or they won't do any good for my application as I am coming from a unknown school.?


texts: Alternative ways to use lecture time when only one quarter of the students can attend?

texts:
In the upcoming semester, we are going to organise and hold a beginner’s lecture with some peculiar restrictions (due to the COVID-19 crisis):

We can use a lecture hall at two 90-minute slots per week (on consecutive days), which is the time normally allotted to lectures in this course.

We can only admit fifty of roughly two-hundred students to the lecture hall at the same time. We expect that by the middle of the semester, half of those students will be gone (as they will have realised that they chose the wrong field of study). Attendance will rotate biweekly and later weekly.

Whatever happens in the lecture hall can be recorded and shared as a video with the rest of the students afterwards. Live streaming and taking live questions from remote viewers will not be possible.

Exercise sessions will happen in regular small groups.

We can use an existing video lecture on the topic.

The lecture features a considerable amount of experiments, many of which are more instructive live than on video. However, these experiments take up less than one quarter of the total time.

We are currently considering three options on how to hold this lecture:

Perform a regular lecture in the lecture hall, record it, and distribute it.

Use the existing (or a new) online lecture. Use the attendance session to perform a Q&A session for those who attend (similar to a flipped classroom).

Use an online lecture. Use the attendance sessions in the lecture hall to show and discuss selected experiments. Use the remaining time to hold a Q&A session (as above). Repeat each attendance session four times.

My question is: Is there any other reasonable option that we are missing?
This question is not about which option (listed or new) is better in our situation. This is also not about the pros and cons of the listed options. We are aware that this depends on a lot of further factors, which we have to consider these and make a decision ourselves. The point of asking is that we really consider all the options.
I am aware of the question: Efficient use of the class time when all lectures are already on Youtube.
However, the situation is somewhat different since the attendance time is longer and there appear to be no separate exercise sessions.


texts: Is it always necessary to write an abstract on top of your research work?

texts: Is it always necessary to write an abstract on top of your research work or can I immediately go over to my introduction?


texts: What should a good theoretical Physics project for an MSc. Physics student look like?

texts:
I am currently pursuing my post-graduation in Physics. I would like to do my project work on chaos theory and non-linear dynamics. The problem is that I am not entirely sure how to go about it and what area I should choose within that subject due to its complexity.

Moreover, I am utterly confused as to what my project must require and above all what it should look like?

Unfortunately, my guide has been held up with a few personal commitments.


texts: Is it appropriate to cite editorial articles in a thesis?

texts:
An established academic wrote an editorial opening for a journal and it hit some very profound concepts in the field that I want to raise in my thesis.

Obviously I want to extend credit to them. However, no new studies or precedents were revealed in the article. It was a roundup and discussion of the field as it stands, much like a mini-review.

Is it appropriate to use and cite these type of articles in a thesis, or would I be expected to make the same general conclusions by citing the original studies.


texts: When to start contacting potential supervisors?

texts:
I'm a computer science master student, and I'm planning to graduate in spring 2022.  In  Finland, doctoral programs specifically state that applicants need to find a supervisor before applying. The supervisor has be be willing to mentor the applicant, and the research proposal, which is submitted with the application, also has be approved by the supervisor. I know that writing a decent research proposal takes a significant amount of time, which is why I have to get in touch with prospective supervisors well in advance. The question is when? My studies are approximately 30% completed, by the end of this academic year I will be done with everything except for my thesis. I don't have any solid idea about my future thesis yet. However, I have certain academic interests in machine learning and robotics.
Should I wait until I know the topic of my master's thesis next fall? Or should I start contacting doctoral programs next spring? The messy thing is that some universities have rolling admissions, while others have application periods once or twice a year. I have also been hopeful that by contacting professors at home university I could get to write a master's thesis connected to their research, would it be appropriate to ask them about such opportunities? I have taken several courses with some of them but I'm unsure they remember me since we normally have anywhere from 50 to 100 students in each course.


texts:
This week I was accused of cheating on two online exams in two separate classes.
Both professors are claiming the lockdown browser recordings show "evidence" of me cheating. When I asked them what the evidence was and why I was being accused they stated that it is in the video and has been sent to the honor council for review. I did not have any extra papers, cell phone, iPads, etc. There was also a baby monitor in front of me because I have a baby at home and no one else was there to watch. We were allowed scratch paper and I used it heavily to the side of my desk but that is it.
I'm assuming my writing/reading what I wrote caused me to be out of frame for too long or I was looking down for too long. Is this enough to convict me of cheating? I am facing failed courses and expulsion.
UPDATE
Regardless of my innocence. I now believe that my university is not giving me a fair due process.
This excerpts below are from the university handbook regarding academic dishonesty and a FL law that applies to all public universities.

The student shall be provided with written notice of the violations against him/her in sufficient detail and in sufficient time to prepare for a hearing or meeting before an appropriate committee, hearing body, or designated University official;
The University shall establish a minimum number of days in advance of the hearing or meeting to present the written notice of violations, but in no case will this notice be less than five (5) business days, except in cases of emergency hearings as specified below;
The student and his/her advisor may inspect all of the information that will be presented against the student at least three (3) business days before the student disciplinary hearing or meeting, except in cases of emergency hearings where the student may inspect the information at least one (1) business day prior to the hearing.

I did not receive a letter outlining my offenses, I instead received an email stating that my hearing is on Thursday. That is 1 business day from my professors accusing me and 3 business days from notice of my hearing. I still have not been told what I did wrong and I am expected to defend myself.


texts: What is the duration between a conference and its online proceedings?

texts:
I recently attended an IEEE conference and presented some work. Empirically, how long does it take for my paper to appear online?

On both: live chat and the FAQs, I got the response that it may take several weeks. That is less than useful. What is the average duration in general?

  How long does it take for conference proceedings to be loaded in IEEE
  Xplore?

  IEEE publishes more than 1,300 leading-edge conference proceedings in
  electrical engineering, computer science, and related fields each
  year. Conference proceedings appear in IEEE Xplore approximately 30 to
  60 days following receipt of the content by IEEE. Please note that
  conference proceedings often arrive at IEEE several weeks after the
  conference date. To view the status of a conference, download the IEEE
  Xplore conference proceedings title list (options at bottom of the
  page).


texts: Is this plagiarism? - Copy paste with reference

texts:
I asked a similar question the other day about plagiarism, but I have a slightly different case. Would you consider this plagiarism?

A source paper (Y) has text which refers to A and B and C.  Another author, X, copies a few sentences almost verbatim (a sentence of 20 or so words) and refers to it as (A, B, and Y).

So in Y, we have: Sentence 1 (A and B). Sentence 2 (C).

This is reproduced by X as: Sentence 1 (A, B, and Y). Sentence 2 (C and Y).

Is this plagiarism?


texts:
This has been a plague upon my performance for what seems like all my life (or all my graded life).

No, it's not an 100, it's a 98 because of calling bromine a gas carelessly.
No, it's not a 6/6, it's a 5 out of 6 because you didn't realize that such a simple question had a minor twist
No, it's not a 100, it's a 98 because you had all the right work but you mispunched the calculation.

I'm sick of making careless errors that can truly mean the difference between obtaining one grade and the other. I need to make sure that from now on, I don't, because it is killing me inside.

If it is of consequence, I don't have much time for sleep due to 6 hours minimum of work per night. I get around 6-7 hours a night as opposed to the recommended 9 for a teenager.

Any and all tips would be greatly appreciated.


texts: Is writing a R package equivalent to a journal paper or PhD thesis chapter?

texts:
I am a PhD student in Management, at Autonomous University of Barcelona.

While working on my thesis, I found that there is no piece of code or software related to a specific but important topic of efficiency analysis and benchmarking. I am really eager to invest part of my time and write a package in R in order to help other researchers as well as deeply learning the topic through coding. Moreover, when I publish my paper I can motivate interested researchers to use that piece of code and re-evaluate my work or extend it.

Now my question is whether writing such package equivalent to a chapter of thesis /a scientific paper. Based on the answer, I will decide whether to work on it right now or to defer doing so.

I will be grateful for any help you can provide.


texts: Can I get a tenure track Applied Math assistant professor position in a top US college if my PhD was in a similar ranked private U.S. college?

texts:
I have almost completed my Ph.D. in applied mathematics at a highly ranked private U.S. college. I am an older student with almost a decade of industrial work experience between undergrad and grad school, and so I would prefer not to go through a postdoc before I can get my teaching career into motion. As for publications, I have two (maybe three by the time I graduate) first-author papers. I have some teaching experience as a TA in the first couple of years, and I also taught my own course here last semester. My career interests mostly lie in the form of teaching, but I would also like to conduct some good research.

I have observed hiring trends and it appears as though it is impossible nowadays (without a postdoc) to get a tenure-track position at any college of higher rank than the place you got your Ph.D. (The rank doesn’t matter that much to me, but I understand the correlation between such rankings and the quality of research (and research funding) that will be available to the assistant professor). The alumni from my program, who are in tenure-track positions, are all in lower-ranked colleges – except for one holding a postdoc position in a college of similar rank.

Would you say I probably have to choose between doing a postdoc at a higher-ranked school (then apply for TT jobs at such higher-ranked schools) or simply return to industry?


texts: When did it become commonplace for data set providers to ask users to cite their paper(s)?

texts:
Nowadays data set providers typically ask data set users to cite their paper(s) introducing the data set.  When did this practice become commonplace?

(Given what I read on this page, I feel the need to emphasize that I do not intend to open a debate around the usefulness of such citations.)


texts: Stress and anxiety related to competition

texts:
Regarding stress in mathematical research, I saw posts like

Is Mathematical Research Stressful?

But it seems that most answers there don't stress what I mainly feel, that much of my stress (even as tenure track professor at a relatively good place) is related not to some absolute evaluation of my work, but rather to comparing with others. Most terrifyingly, that they are much smarter, group to brainstorm together (I am more solitary by nature), progress, and all I can personally do will always be not fast enough, and subsumed in their work.

This makes me a lot of times reluctant to look at stuff they write, or interact with them, or try to think about things which I feel they can do in a few days if wanting to (so kind of "staying out of their property"). So this self limitation is regulating me into mediocrity, I guess, and of course leading to procrastination and other unpleasant effects, which overflow to the non-academical life (so sometimes it feels like living in constant fear).

Do you have similar feelings, and how do you deal with that?


texts: The most prestigious journal in economics is publishing a plagiarized paper. What can be done about this?

texts:
The plagiarism was noted in an online forum frequented by economists. The editor of said journal is now accusing the site of sexism and flat out refuses to address the plagiarism accusation. What can be done?

Here's a summary of the situation

http://retractionwatch.com/2016/05/26/economists-go-wild-over-overlooked-citations-in-preprint-on-prenatal-stress/


texts: About assistant professor job postings with no set deadline

texts: Every once in a while I see assistant professor job postings that don't have set deadlines. Sometimes they would add that applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, or that "until the positions are filled". Usually how long are these review periods? Does it mean that the job is still open as long as they have not taken down the notice? I am aware that one possibility is that someone simply forgot to remove it from their web site.


texts: What to do if accused of cheating/misconduct at university?

texts:
This question is written to serve as a canonical question that is asked repeatedly on Academia.SE (see e.g., here, here, here, here, here, here and here.)  The purpose of this question is to act as a repository for general advice that applies in all cases where a student is accused (wrongly or correctly) of cheating, or some other form of misconduct.

What should a student do (and not do) if they are accused (wrongly or correctly) of some kind of wrong-doing or misconduct at a university?


texts: I ran my data analysis and created my graphs in RStudio, but RStudio is just a platform for R. In my paper should I cite R or RStudio?


texts: Getting notified when an article I cited in one of my papers gets retracted

texts: Is there any way to get notified (e.g., by email) when an article I cited in one of my papers gets retracted?


texts:
There are different ways of writing uncertainty.  The siunitx manual says "In some fields, it is common to give the uncertainty in a number in brackets after the main part of the number...  Alternatively, the uncertainty may be given as a separate part following a sign."

Examples:

1.234(5)
1.234 ± 0.005

Which academic fields use which style in their journal articles?  Does it depend on the region?  Is there any agreed upon standard?


texts: What is the role of a University Archivist

texts:
I am wanting to know roughly what it is a university archivist does,
and what sorts of documents are in the collections they manage.

An acceptable answer would be "It varies wildly from institution to institution",
if indeed that is the case.
On the other hand, perhaps it is a very consistent position, with well understood tasks and duties.


texts: Is it common to ask professors for an editable copy of their lecture notes (so I can improve them)?

texts:
I'm a grad student in Italy, for context. My professor wrote some lecture notes about a course I just finished. They are not well written, not because the professor isn't good but because he wrote them in a rush since he wanted to give us some material for the period of Coronavirus, so he wrote them lesson-by-lesson. I think future students could benefit from well-written notes, and I would like to ask the professor the LaTeX source of the notes to add some lectures that he skipped and fix some grammar/paragraphing issues (and obviously give them back to him afterward, without sharing it with anyone if he doesn't tell me to). Is it common to do this? I don't want to seem over-flattering.
Update: the professor was super kind and he replied that he thought it was a good idea, but only if this didn't interfere with my ordinary classes. I'll write a few more chapters and then send them to him.


texts: Mimic lecturing on blackboard, facing audience

texts:
I teach mathematics at MSc and PhD levels. My preferred method of teaching is old-fashioned: talking and writing on the blackboard at the same time.

Why? Because it has many advantages:

Handwriting: imposes few restrictions on notation and illustration. (Complicated figures I could project from my laptop, but I have no need for this in my courses.)
Flexibility: whenever this is useful, it is easy to 'deviate from the script'.
Natural speed: it imposes a natural speed on the speaker. Preparing slides using LaTeX or PowerPoint and just clicking through them, I find myself proceeding way too fast.
Parallel displays: having several boards available for writing makes it easy to keep some text/examples on display on one board, while writing on another.
Dynamics: referring to information on the different boards allows me to move through the room, adding a more dynamic aspect to the lecture.
Ease: it is a low-tech way of achieving all these things simultaneously with easily available means.

The main disadvantage of this method is that I spend a significant amount of time of each lecture with my back to the audience.

Question: What would you recommend as a means of communication that combines the six features above (most importantly, the handwriting and parallel displays), but facing the audience?

Obviously, a low-budget solution would be appreciated, but my institute is usually pretty generous in investing in technology that improves teaching, so don't let that restrict you!

What I tried: Many things, including writing by hand on tablets (iPads, Digital Paper, reMarkable, etc.) and projecting this in the classroom. Perhaps I haven't found the optimal device for this yet, but it often comes out pixellated, delayed, and less readable than my usual handwriting on paper or the blackboard. Using a document camera to project my handwriting on paper works well, but can project only about half an A4 paper at a time to keep it readable for people in the back of the room and, like other approaches, has the disadvantage of not having parallel displays: it's hugely important to be able to keep definitions, examples, theorems from earlier on for easy reference.


texts: Is it appropriate to buy a "thank you" gift for a PhD supervisor?

texts:
I am nearing the end of my PhD and I would quite like to buy a "thank you" gift for my supervisor (although, she's the socially awkward type who I'm sure will be greatly embarrassed to receive one).

I'm just wondering whether a gift is the done thing? And if so, what sort of gift seems appropriate? I suppose a bottle of wine would be a safe choice?


texts: Post-Bologna process, is my sociology degree an undergraduate degree or a graduate degree?

texts:
I obtained my Sociology degree after 5 years (stipulated) university studies in Spain (Licenciatura) in 2004. Now with Bologna, sociology is only a four-year graduate program.

I am not sure whether to put on my CV that I have a Master (3+2) or Bachelor Degree and how to abbreviate it: MA, BA, or else way.


texts: Should I secretly record a meeting to prove I'm being discriminated against?

texts:
I'm a PhD student at a university in the UK. The head and director of graduate studies at my department are trying to get me removed from the department.

Almost all of this is going on over my head, but my supervisor has told me about a number of meetings and emails that have gone on about this topic.

On the basis of what my supervisor tells me, along with my own previous interactions with the head of department, I feel quite sure that what they are doing is discriminatory against me due to a disability that I have.

However, since I am not included in any of the emails etc. about this, I have almost no evidence. This makes it very difficult to defend myself against what they are doing and saying.

While my supervisor is on my side and doesn't want me to be kicked out, he has a very poor understanding of disability issues and discrimination. His number one priority, of course, is protecting himself - ultimately it looks really bad for him to have a student that the head of department warned him would be trouble and ends up getting kicked out.

So he will tell me about these things in person, but not by email - if I ask him anything by email, he asks me to come to his office to discuss it.

Should I secretly record a meeting with him where I bring this up so that if it comes down to it, I have some evidence that the action is discriminatory?


texts: Why do some articles recite/repeat known concepts?

texts:
I am currently reading a paper which devotes a section to reciting key valuation basics in finance, such as the time value of money and DCF analysis.

The paper goes so far as to explain the methodologies and historical significance of the valuation techniques. What is the point of a paper reviewing well known and understood literature? Isn't it entirely redundant?

To be clear, the paper was not an actual literature review.


texts: Is it unethical/unscientific to omit outlier data in a publication when they are in FAVOR of your argument?

texts:
I have a scatter(log-)plot with some 10,000 data points that plots the running time of some algorithm against the input on random instances of some problem.

I have a lot of these plots, and due to space constraints I can't exactly dedicate a large amount of space to them. The plots are 1-2 inches tall. The trouble is that a handful (maybe 5 or so) of these samples have taken a ridiculously short amount of time to complete (say, a few milliseconds), whereas pretty much all of the other data points have taken 2-3 orders of magnitude longer.

I'm trying to show that my algorithm is fast, so I figure it shouldn't hurt to just omit these handful of data points and generate more samples, right?

I feel like mentioning anything would unnecessarily confuse the reader, and keeping them would annoy the reader since the plot would have a large amount of blank space. And obviously it's not like I'm trying to suppress evidence against my research or something---the discarded data is only in favor of my algorithm.

Would I be violating some ethical code here if I just discard those samples without mentioning anything so that my plots look nicer? Is it unscientific? And if so would anyone actually care?


texts: Should I review the journal extended version of the same paper I reviewed for a conference?

texts:
I acted as a referee for conference XXX where I reviewed a paper. It was decent and suitable for the conference, but I recall I thought it was too preliminary and lacking future projection for being selected for the special issue of journal YYY (which I was aware is prepared every year).

Now, I have been invited by journal YYY to review the extended version of the paper from conference XXX (at first, the title sounded familiar, but then the authors themselves declared it was an extended version).

So am I somehow biased against the paper?, or maybe am I the best suited to review the paper since the topic is already familiar?

As a practical answer, should I accept the review?, should I disclose the circumstance to the editor? (who I think would not even care)

Finally, as an hypothetical case, if my review at the conference had been deeply negative, is it still reasonable that I accept the journal review? (in this case being truly aware that I am strongly biased against the work).


texts: Is it necessary to obtain permissions for copying figures from published articles in your proposal/dissertation?

texts:
I am currently writing a proposal for my research topic and I want to copy figures from published articles into my proposal document. To put it in perspective, almost all the copied figures are to go in the “Literature review” section of the document.

Is it necessary to send an email to each and every author requesting permissions to copy the figures, even though complete citations and references are included? I referred to the following link:
MITLibraries: Reuse of content in thesis.
From what it says, copying images in thesis (with correct citations) seems to be valid under US copyright law.


texts: How important is the prestige of recommendation letter writers?

texts:
If it makes a difference, I am an undergrad.

I am wondering how important prestige in the following situation:

I can choose between two advisors, A and B, to work with. I think that both would be great advisors, but A has more publications and seems to be more well known than B. However, B's work is much more closely related to what I am interested in, though A is somewhat familiar with this area as well. All else equal, I would like to work with B because their research interests match mine more closely. However, I will need a letter of recommendation, so I would like to get the best letter possible and I think that A would be able to provide a better letter because they have more publications and are more well known.

How should I choose between A and B?


texts:
Someone told me that there is a search engine that gets you most of research papers I may need for free.
He told me that this search engine is working based on using other members access to researches and make it available for all.
I tried searching for this search engine, but I could not find it.
Which search engine is it?


texts: Posting a (non-original research) Masters thesis on arXiv?

texts:
Based on the following posts:
Posting master's thesis on arxiv?
Should one put their Master's thesis online?
although my question differs in that my "Master's thesis" was not part of a formal Masters program. Rather it is more of an extensive reading project that I did over the last 10 months under a very well-known advisor in my field through the Fulbright Scholarship. I've a 150+ page review on a topic I think would be of interested to others in my field at my level of knowledge. However it does not contain anything new, and I think this means it has no place on the arXiv. It solely summarizes the inception of a topic from the 1960s, and summarizes a new take on the topic that my adviser uncovered in some seminal work around 2010.
Can I get some input on the pros and cons of posting it on the arxiv/ inspireHEP profile?
Pros:

easy to send to friends, peers, potential collaborators, and most importantly, potential PhD advisors at my uni

Cons:

it might look petty/immature


texts: What should be included in a disclaimer about the omission of gender-neutral language in a bachelor's thesis?

texts:
I'm working on my bachelor's thesis to get my bachelor's degree at a German university. I am not sure about the situation in other countries, but German universities are very sensitive when it comes to gender-neutral language. Some professors mark it as a mistake if you use gender-specific terms instead of gender-neutral ones. For example, instead of Studenten (students) you are expected to write Studentinnen und Studenten (i.e. naming both female and male students specifically) or Studierende (the participle form of studieren (studying)).

While I don't want to be sexist, most variants of gender-neutral language in German are (in my opinion) verbose, disturb the text flow and make the text harder to read. This is why I want to put a disclaimer in the introduction of my thesis stating that I will not use gender-neutral language for the reasons mentioned above.

Here's what I want to put in that disclaimer:

Throughout the thesis, gender-specific terms may be used in order to ease the text flow.
Whenever a gender-specific term is used, it should be understood as referring to both genders, unless explicitly stated.
This is done solely for the purpose of making the text easier to read, and no offense or sexism is intended.

Is such a disclaimer generally acceptable in a bachelor's thesis (or any scientific text)? If so, are the three points stated above both adequate and thorough to state my intention, or what should I add/remove? If not, how can I go about not using gender-neutral language without having it possibly be regarded as sexism or influence my grade?

If you can give any examples of a disclaimer like that (either in German or in English), it would be helpful as well (but not required for a satisfactory answer). Thanks!


texts: Is it fine to exclude an email salutation for short messages?

texts: I've had a habit of always starting with "Dear Prof. X" but have noticed professors sometimes drop the header past the first reply. For shorter emails, is it polite to omit these formalities from my end? Like "Dear Prof. X, Thanks for the information, I'll make sure to do that. Best, Me" seems a bit cumbersome.


texts: What happens if someone publishes a paper on your current PhD thesis topic

texts: This is not in any way relevant to me, I'm just interested. What would happen if you chose a PhD thesis to work on, and halfway through someone somewhere in the world who was also doing a PhD in the same field published their thesis, which just happened to be the same research that you were doing. Would your research still be considered since it was done independently? Does this happen often? Are there safeguards to prevent this from happening, like would you normally search the academic field to see if anyone else is working on the same topic? Surely that would be almost impossible to do?


texts: How to evaluate a software implementation for master thesis

texts:
I have developed a software to meet a specific requirement in a research field. There is only one such software developed so far, mine is second.

In the thesis, I explain the implementation of the software. However, I feel like I also need a "Results" chapter. Most of the master theseses I have gone through from various disciplines have such a chapter. Looks like it is a must.

My software generates tangible models, storing a specific information, to be manufactured with various methods, such as CNC or 3D printing.

Output of the software should be considered as results. However, I don't want to conduct a cheesy case study with a bunch of people and publish it as a scientific result. An extensive, thorough study is takes more than 6 months and neither I have that much time nor the the knowledge/experience to conduct such a case study.

For example a friend of my implemented a software for twitter clustering and analyzing. The results are quite straightforward with his software. Run the tool, get the results and interpret them. Done.

I am not sure how to evaluate the results. Models are manufactured successfully, whereas that does not look like a result to me.

How would you approach this question for a possible solution? What my alternatives can be?


texts: Double blinded review but the appendix contains author's name

texts:
Before submitting a review for a manuscript, I noticed the appendix possibly contains an author name, but I don't know him/her. My file explorer automatically shows files' metadata, including author name.

The review should be double blinded. Should I inform the editor?


texts: Meeting like-minded people for forming collaborative research relationships

texts:
I'm quite new at doing full-time research as a career. It seems that everyone in my department whom I talk with is focused not only on "their" research but also on various side projects with other researchers — Including people who are newer than I am. What am I not doing which they are? — I don't want to simply go to everyone I meet and ask "what exactly are you doing, and do you need help with it?" (it sounds rather artificial/forced/desperate/etc.).

This is related to an already-existing question about approaching researchers about (potential) collaboration, but if I don't even know whom to approach, then the answers to that question are not very useful.


texts: A second bachelor degree or a master in US?

texts:
I graduated from a Canadian university 5 years ago in Electrical Engineering. My dream is to pursue a phD in Computer Science. However, the courses of my study is quite different from that in CS. I'm thinking about two paths in the following:

Apply for a second degree in CS in Canada. Comparing to graduate-level courses which requires strong foundations in CS, this will make me easier to attain a decent GPA. There will be longer time for me to intern in research institute and get papers published.
A master program will definitely save time. However, I will need to hand in my application for a phd just 1 year after entering the master program. I don't think I will make myself enough qualified just within 1 year, let alone that I lack the foundations in both Math and CS. A master in US is also always course-based in comparison to those thesis-based masters in Canada, which I am totally ineligible to apply due to different undergraduate discipline.

How about your advice? I appreciate any comment. Thank you.


texts: How to assess the chance to get accepted to a master's program in the United States?

texts:
Currently I am a student in the Netherlands following a bachelor program in computer science. I am currently considering applying for a master's program in the United States. It is hard to asses my chances, because of the large difference between the systems in the Netherlands and the United States.

There are a few factors which probably affect my chances.

I cannot directly compare my grades with grades used in the United States. In the Netherlands we use a 1-10 absolute grading system. I currently have a grade average of 8.0, only had 7s, 8s and 9s.
One thing I noticed is that in the United States a bachelor program is not naturally followed by a master's program, unlike in the Netherlands where this is the default.
The duration of a bachelor program in the Netherlands is three instead of four years.
Currently I do not plan on applying for a Ph.D position.

Do these factors significantly effect chances to be admitted to a master's program in the United States and how do I asses my chance to get accepted?


texts: How can a full professor from a developing country get a job in the United States?

texts:
I am a full professor of chemistry from Iran. I want to move to the United States. I have a good record of publications, teaching, executive positions, conference participation, etc.

However, as I applied for full professor position, I was not successful. Apparently, my credentials are equal to successful candidates or even better (I checked with the names announced), but their works were in the same country.

I do not care to apply for an assistant/associate professor position, but the requirements are different. They expect young people to start.

What can be a promising pathway for me to enter the US higher education?

Is it actually possible? Can a professor from a developing country find a place in the US higher education?


texts: How do I talk about methodology mistakes In a scientific project report?

texts:
I'm writing up my 3rd year engineering project (The equivalent of a dissertation in other subjects), and I'm struggling to write the chapter in which my method failed I couldn't get any results.

My project is on Neural Networks, and when I started my project I tried to program my own Neural Network from scratch, however this did not work properly (The feed forward part worked, but because of the convoluted way I had programmed it I couldn't implement the back propagation part). After I realized this I used an off-the-shelf program to create my neural network, which worked much better.

The problem is that I must have spent about a quarter of the year programming my own Neural Network from scratch, so I want to include it as a chapter in my report to show the marker that I have put over the recommended 300 hours work into my project, and that I understand the inner working of Neural Networks.

How should I write this chapter? So far I have started the chapter as if it is going to work, then I wrote about exactly what I have done and how it works, and then at the end where the results should be I want to explain that the custom implementation of the neural network meant that I couldn't implement back propagation, and therefore couldn't get results. But I can't do this without it looking like I have lazily given up on that chapter, and abruptly given an excuse to move on to the next chapter (The working version of the neural network).


texts: Why did I receive a negative response from a professor when emailing about course content and prerequisites of a course I am considering taking?

texts:
I wrote the following email to a professor (I've removed any personal or specific details):

Dear Prof. Last name,
Hope this email finds you well.
I am Name, an undergraduate in the mathematics department.
I write to enquire about Course code - Course name being offered in fall semester. What can I expect from the course content and what are the prerequisites? Would it be along the lines of Name of a Book?
One sentence describing previous courses I've taken
Looking forward to hearing from you soon. Thanks for your time!
Best,
Name
Department
Institution

The subject line was:

About Course Name next Fall Semester

I thought this email is perfectly fine, and it's how I generally write to professors. To my shock and surprise, I got the following response:

I am sure very soon you will be writing many more official emails, so you must know how to address them appropriately. You may see course content on the department webpage.Initials

Could someone help me figure out (i) how to respond to this, and (ii) what went wrong so I can avoid it in future emails (to any professor in general)? Thus far, no professor has pointed out so explicitly that something is wrong with the language of my email - so I'm in a state of great confusion right now.

Additional details:

I haven't interacted with this professor before, so this was my first email to them.
It seems I was at fault for not checking the course content on the department webpage before writing this email. However, that page has not been updated in years and I just wanted to make sure the content is still the same. Lastly, I think this wouldn't have made them feel that I addressed them inappropriately - since that has more to do with email etiquette than the content of the email.

Follow-up question:
I'm thinking of apologizing and explicitly asking how I can improve my email's language: "Thank you for your reply, and sorry for the seemingly inappropriate language of my email. I would be grateful if you could kindly pinpoint what part of the email was inappropriately written, so I can be more careful in all future communication."
Would this be a good idea? I read somewhere on this very site that it's never impolite to ask how to be polite.


texts: Using a publicly available code and modifying it to my PhD thesis. Should it be cited in the paper if I have modified the core equation?

texts:
I have proposed a new equation and will be implementing it into a publicly available code in the thesis. I have modified the core equation of the program (the main constitutive equation, "Johnson Cook Model"), while the numerical method (newton-raphson solver) is as implemented by the original author.
I would cite the original authors in my PhD thesis where I will explicitly talk about the functioning of the code. However, my journal paper would be only about the equation (as it is the highlight of the work) and the implementation is not the main focus. I will not talk about the implementation and just mention that the "equation was implemented using a VUMAT."
In that case, do I have to cite the original source in the paper when I would eventually submit to a journal?


texts: Should I ask to be moved up in the authorship list?

texts:
This past summer, I started my undergraduate thesis project under two advisors. One of my advisors had done research on a similar topic to what my thesis project is covering and she had the data collected from their experiments. (For context, we are synthesizing anticancer molecules and testing them on cancer cell lines. In her research, they made different derivatives than me but with the same starting materials).
Since the two works require similar background knowledge, I was asked to write the paper for their research since I would be looking through articles anyways for my project. I wrote the entire paper and provided all analyses of the data (abstract, intro, results, discussion, experimental section) and my advisor provided comments for edits.
I am listed as the sixth author out of seven. Since I'm just an undergrad, I'm not sure how authorship works but I know that the people who contribute more to the project are earlier in the author list.
Based on your experiences, should I be earlier in the list or is this position common when someone writes the paper when they didn't contribute to the actual research? Obviously I know I shouldn't be first author but I feel like 6th/7 is pretty low for someone who wrote the whole paper. I'm not sure how to go about discussing this with my advisor.


texts:
Is there any difference between accepting date and First Online date? For example in the journal Acta Mathematicae Applicatae Sinica, English Series , I see this

Received, Revised, First Online

03 April 2014, 17 February 2015, 04 October 2018

from

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10255-018-0786-2

and there is no information about accepting date. I would like to know what is the difference between them and when papers are accepted in this journal.

the journal Applications of Mathematics only shows the  Received, First Online date and not the revised date.

thanks


texts: How to get good recommendations in online courses?

texts: I'm going to be starting a master's program soon that is all online. I have taken some online courses before at a community college, and the interaction with professors was rather limited. I'll be starting at a university soon, and I'm hoping that aspect will improve. But my question is, how can I create good relationships with professors online that will allow me to get meaningful recommendation letters?


texts: My revised paper was accepted surprisingly quickly; should I worry?

texts:
In February I submitted a paper that was sent back asking for minor revisions. I revised and re-submitted the paper (with rather significant changes) much later, in October, and it was accepted for publication three days later.

Given the extent of my modifications I'm surprised that the process went that fast the second time around; should I be worried? Can I safely assume that someone from the journal's editorial office has re-read my paper?


texts: Someone asks me to cite their paper. Should I cite?

texts:
I submitted the preprint to arXiv and the manuscript to a Physical Review journal, and someone asked me to cite their article after seeing it from arXiv.
Their paper is a review. After reading that paper, I find that it has only a weak connection with our work.
My supervisor asks me to cite it. Should I refuse to cite?


texts: Do German universities have "ethics boards"?

texts:
In many questions on this site, I see the suggestion to contact one's university's "ethics board" (or "ethics committee" or similar) to decide in the case of disputes related to research or general ethics. A few examples of many:

"Of course, before deciding any course of action, consider consulting the ethics board at your institution."
"You would be well within your rights to object to the professor about the content of the assignment (...), or failing that, to the university's ethics board."
"When in doubt, consult with your ethics board and the journal you plan to publish with."

It seems that the authors of the respective answers usually take it for granted that the university has such an "ethics board".

I have studied computer science for six years at a German university, and then kept working at another German university for a bit more than five years while getting my doctorate. Especially while working there, I have been heavily involved in teaching, and I was regularly in touch with groups from various other German and also international universities while doing my research. Yet, in my real-life university experience, in no situation have I ever heard of anything remotely reminiscent of an "ethics board".

Therefore, I am interested in the following set of interrelated questions:

Do German (or maybe European, in general) universities have anything resembling an "ethics board"?
Is there a body that regularly resolves ethical disputes (or is the ethics angle maybe not that focused because German universities also have nothing called "honor code" or an "ethics policy" (which I see mentioned on this site, too) that could be used as an objective basis for deciding in the case of disputes)?
Or is all of this nonsense, and it is just that the nomenclature is so radically different that I do not see the analogy to certain boards and offices that I am well acquainted with in the German universities I have been to?


texts: An invitation from a not-so-famous journal called "world biomedical frontiers" to feature my paper on their website

texts:
I received an email from world biomedical frontiers journal:

  Your recent paper “XXXXXX” (published in “YYYYYY”) has been selected to be featured in our next issue of World Biomedical Frontiers, because of its innovation and potential for significant impact.
  Research results with significant potential to improve health – or to treat or prevent disease – often deserve an immediate leap onto the “front page”. However, scientific breakthroughs don't always make the front page – and some don't make any page! We are the platform for you to stand out from among ~100,000 papers published each month, in order to attract more attention from the public and potential investors.
  World Biomedical Frontiers [ISSN: 2328-0166] focuses on cutting-edge biomedical research from around the globe. Our website receives more than 8,000 visits per month from an international audience of academic and industrial researchers and developers, providing greater opportunity for your results to be recognized and appreciated.
  If you accept our invitation to feature your paper on our website, a $38 processing fee will be charged. We will then post the abstract/summary of your paper in the latest section of Stem cells , with additional information from you highly recommended to further explain your novel findings and concepts in plain language; photos and/or figures are welcomed. Here are two examples (1 and 2 ).
  In order to report breaking publications in a timely fashion, please contact us within two weeks if you wish your paper to be featured in our next issue.
  Sincerely,

  Editor

  World Biomedical Frontiers,

  New York, USA

  Phone: 1-(917) 426-1571

  E-mails: editors@biomedfrontiers.org

  Website: http://biomedfrontiers.org/

Should I trust them?

I read this question and also this one, but I wanted to know about this specific case and what to do about it.


texts: Can my advisor ask me to drop a project?

texts:
I am a 5th year neurobiology phd student at a US institution. The data I have collected for my main project is not very exciting. Although it looks like I will be able to cobble together a paper, it won't be as shiny as it first appeared. A side project (tangentially related) has actually yielded much more interesting data, though I have been told by my PI to focus on my main project and to not further pursue the other project. I have pushed back without success. Since I am using my PI's resources, I feel obliged to discontinue that work, though I am curious if I do have any rights in that regard.

Some background information: My PI is one of the leading researchers in the field. There are rumors that my PI is planning to retire soon, and I have mentioned that I am trying to graduate this year. I have a good relationship with my PI and we check in on a regular basis. The average time to graduate in my program is between 5 and 7 years.


texts: Doubts when looking for possible PhD supervisors

texts:
I'm currently in my last year of my master in environmental engineering and I'm strongly thinking about doing a PhD afterwards.

I'm looking around for possible supervisors working with research topics that I'm interested in (especially micropollutants removal from water), but I don't know how to assess their and their research group reputation. What would be the best method to assess that?

Also how early is it acceptable to send an email to inquire about a possibility to conduct a PhD project with them, especially if they work in a different university and thus know nothing about you?


texts: Who holds the copyright if I did research at one university and write a thesis at another?

texts:
I worked for a research project on the migration of a prototype to a low-level consumable solution. I am also co-author of a paper that describes the math used for that project (my contribution was not the math, but the tests used to evaluate the performance of the algorithm). According to the work agreement I signed, the copyright of the paper and the code belongs to university A (although it acknowledges the author's attribution).

I am also writing a thesis for an academic program at university B (paying the tuition by myself). The main researcher of university A gave me permission to use the algorithm as the basis of my individual research. I also have some ideas that can improve the overall performance.

If I base my work on the algorithm of university A (which was already published) and write a different implementation (even in a different language), could I still lose ownership of my thesis? (I am trying to avoid any infringement)

PS: the abstract of the paper of university A was accepted and exposed in a conference, but the final document has not been sent yet (as usually done in these kinds of events).


texts: I am going to apply for a postdoc position. Applicants are asked to send their CV,research statement, name of referees etc as a single PDF file directly mailing to the "principle investigator" of that project. I was wondering whether I need to add my cover letter into that PDF file or just write it in my email itself.


texts: How to write a strong introduction into a research paper?

texts: How does one write a strong (good) introduction into a research paper? Some introductions make me really curious about the rest of the paper while others do not. Although it is relatively easy to say which introductions are good and which are not, I find it difficult to distill what makes the difference. There is a previous question about writing introductions (How to write a Ph.D. thesis Introduction chapter?) but it is about Ph.D theses.


texts: Why do math/physics professors publish textbooks?

texts:
Does it help their tenure case to write an expository textbook? I'd be surprised if it does, seeing as writing a textbook on, say, quantum mechanics, is not original scholarly work.

So why would a professor, say an aspiring full professor, write a textbook? Money?


texts: Shall I explain to grad school admissions that 'the first year didn't count' (UK)?

texts: I am considering applying for US PhD Program. In the UK, at many unis the first year does not count towards degree classification. Is this known in the US? Will they be wondering why I stated I have X %, but they calculate Y % ? Shall I explain to grad school admissions that 'the first year didn't count' towards my degree classification?


texts:
A while back I reached the stage where my ideas for research topics/papers exceeded my capacity to personally work on them. As a PostDoc, I tried to head-hunt students or more junior researchers in my area (or at conferences, etc.) to talk with them about the ideas and see if they would be interested in collaborating or co-authoring a paper. This worked well for a while.

But now (more recently) I find that I again have a back-log of promising topics that have exceeded my capacity to even advise/delegate. I have no students to work on them. The ideas are mixed in quality, concreteness, promise, etc. and I'm saving some of the ones I am most interested in for myself or for students. But I know that there are others I will have to neglect (and I often choose the "safer" topics since being in tenure-track, I have a constant hunger for publications).

Now I have a text file on my hard-drive with a list of sketches of ideas so that I remember them. But a lot of the details are left unexpressed in my head; most of the ideas in the text file would be pretty meaningless in their current form without some explanation, further development, context and/or motivation from me. At the same time, I have sufficient experience to know that there are interesting paper/thesis topics in there that I could help develop and/or advise if I had the time/money.

For some of the topics, I have been saying "some day" for too long.

In any case, I cannot imagine I am alone in this. I am sure that various researchers see many potentially promising research topics fall "by the wayside" due to more urgent, day-to-day matters. I sometimes wonder if other professors similarly have lists of research topics that just rot away in a text file somewhere. It would seem like such a waste if this were the case: think about the union of all these text files sitting on local hard-drives! It would seem to be a major flaw in the academic research system if this were prevalent: that the sharing of raw (or perhaps lightly pasteurised) ideas is not properly incentivised by "the system".

The question ...

Assuming I have a surplus of (good) ideas for research topics in my area – that I cannot work on myself and cannot delegate or even find time to actively advise – what should I do with them?

To avoid a loss of generality, a good answer should assume that I'm not  nice: what personal incentive would I have for sharing my ideas in this manner? I don't want to give away my ideas for free. These ideas require development and expression before they can be shared (which is difficult to do "up front"). If I am not incentivised to develop the ideas into a shareable form, the reality is that I will use my precious time to do something else I am incentivised to do.


texts: I will be graduating a semester early, what schools have spring & summer intake?

texts: I have enough credits to graduate a semester early, and will be soon. I know of the perquisites such as the GMAT, but when researching the school I wanted to go to (Fordham) I am worried now that most schools only have a fall intake. I noticed UMaryland has spring intake and Villanova has a summer intake. Will my pool of schools be limited if I want to start in the spring?


texts: What is the correct way to cite the theorems which grew out of your personal discussions with someone else?

texts:
Sometimes it happens to me that I have a discussion with someone and he presents part of his unpublished works to me that help improving parts of my research.

Sometimes I use them in a paper in the way that after informing the person, I cite the results in my papers often by attaching that person’s name to his theorems and bringing them as unpublished notes or personal communication at the references. But I’m not sure whether the way that I cite such results is really correct or not.


texts: How to discourage irrelevant self-citation?

texts:
I once reviewed a manuscript whose authors cited many of their own published papers, which were not relevant to the subject of the manuscript. This kind of practice is evidently frowned upon by the academic community. In my comments, I advised the authors to remove those references, which they did afterwards to some extent. The manuscript eventually got published, after two rounds of review.

With hindsight, did I do the right thing to discourage this practice of irrelevant self-citation, or is there anything else that I should have done?


texts:
I work at a university and want to get some FPGA development boards sponsored by Xilinx for labs. They have a donation program, so I filled a request. But after the final submission I've been presented with the following license agreement, which I find quite reasonable, except the two following points.

I couldn't find this agreement publicly accessible on their website, so see my gist for full text. Also, "XUP" stands for "Xilinx University Program".

  7) Recipient institution grants a worldwide, royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, perpetual license to Xilinx, Inc. on any intellectual property rights, including but not limited to rights under patents, copyrights, mask works, and trade secrets, derived from, or related to, Xilinx products, technology, or confidential information to which the recipient institution obtains access in to under the XUP (the “Derivatives”); provided however, that institution shall have no obligation to disclose or provide such Derivatives to Xilinx.

After removing all visual noise, I got that Xilinx wants to have a license to everything I'm going to develop using their boards. I especially fear here words "perpetual" and "trade secrets". Which implications may this point have? And how wide they can be? May they involve someone besides me, my students or someone actually working with the donated FPGAs?

For example, if my students are designing a microprocessor for their coursework, does Xilinx get the right to use the design to manufacture and sell the chips? Or what if I develop some device using their FPGA, use it to obtain some result, and then write a paper; which rights Xilinx gets then?

  8) If requested, the School Representative agrees to share relevant teaching materials with XUP. If deemed appropriate, XUP may disseminate materials to other XUP member institutes.

Does it mean that if I have written a textbook for my FPGA course, I must share it to Xilinx if they wants so? What if I used third-party materials for my book, or wrote it in co-authorship?

Are these terms okay to accept at all? I would appreciate if someone clarify this points for me. And, by the way, I'm in Russia while Xilinx resides in the US.


texts: Have I embarassed my supervisors by solving a problem that a PhD student in my group was working on without success?

texts:
I'm a bachelor student in mathematics writing my thesis at a small university in the US. A PhD student that has the same supervisor has spent a very significant amount of time working exclusively on a theorem which he hasn't been able to prove, so the supervisor offered me a thesis on the topic. No one was really expecting me to make any real progress, but everyone was very nice and enthusiastic.

It turned out that I was able to prove the theorem essentially straight away using a different approach to what they've tried. After this happened I've felt a distinct change in attitude towards me. There is no excitement, there is no discussion on how to strengthen or generalize the result and I generally get the feeling that they are pretty embarrassed about the whole situation.

The PhD student has a severe lack of publications and is probably feeling quite stressed because further progress on this problem seems unlikely. So what is my best plan of action here? Keep in mind that stepping on toes is the last thing I want to do given that I was hoping to pursue a PhD in this very department. How do I act diplomatically while at the same time making sure I get due credit for my achievements? Is it possible they will try to bully me out of first-authorship to protect the reputation of the PhD student?


texts: How does the proof process in Elsevier work?

texts:
I have an article 'in press' with a journal in Elsevier. Having done some searching, it seems there are a few very similar instances/complaints that ran into the issues I am having with them.  What I can't find out is: why is it so problematic (I have asked the journal manager and copyeditor, but they ignore that question).
What is the actual process used by Elsevier to take a .zip of a LaTeX project and convert it to a proof? I would think they use LaTeX, but somehow my figures get mixed up, algorithms end up with figure captions, references get removed, equations are changed, etc.
Is it someone copy-pasting and ctrl-r? There are these 'Q's that say "you didn't reference this figure", but it was referenced, with a hyperlink, the same as the other figures. So I started wondering if there really is no system, and its someone manually typing things again (which seems so unrealistic for a huge publisher).
Some of the similar questions are many years old, and it seems there is a new SkyLatex platform Elsevier mentions. I thought I would be able to make edits there, but I guess the specific journal doesn't have this option. This is also motivating my question, how or why do these multiple journals end up with different LaTeX templates than the final version and then use different backend systems?