texts: Can someone explain what is being said here in color publishing in the American Mathematical Monthly?

texts:
Under "Information for Authors" at the American Mathematical Monthly, there is this statement for color charges in publishing:

  Color art will be reproduced in color in the online publication at no additional cost to the author. Color illustrations will also be considered for print publication; however, the author will be required to bear the full cost involved in color art reproduction. Please note that color reprints can only be ordered if print reproduction costs are paid. Print Rates: $900 for the first page of color; $450 per page for the next three pages of color. A custom quote will be provided for articles with more than four pages of color. Art not supplied at a minimum of 300 dpi will not be considered for print. Please ensure that color figures and images submitted for publication will render clearly in a black and white conversion for print.

What does this mean? Am I understanding correctly that if they decide to publish your article, then they will charge you, the author for color figures in the article?

I also don't understand the distinction between online and print - does the author have a choice which to submit to? I don't see this information on their website.


texts: Naming a library or program partially after a school

texts:
I have seen several programs and libraries partially named after a school, e.g.:

Berkeley Entity Resolution System
MIT Information Extraction
Stanford CoreNLP

To name a library or program partially after a school, what authorization(s) does one need, if any?

I am mostly interested in the United States but curious about other countries as well.


texts: Is it acceptable to ask a "temporary" lecturer for a reference?

texts: I desesperately need a reference. One of the modules I took in my masters was partly done (lab part) by a "non academic" professional. Is it acceptable to ask him for a reference even though he barely remember me ?


texts:
In the writing of a research paper, I've collected a large quantity of public blog posts and ingested them into a LDA and a word2vec data model. When I'm using terms from within these models, how can I reference the data source both to make it clear that this is analysis of my corpus but also to avoid plagiarism ambiguity?

As I don't know the specific location of these terms within the blogs (because the terms I'm dealing with are coming OUT of the data models) I cant cite the specific article.

What's the general consensus on citing a self-created corpus, particularly if the terms and language has been disconnected from their original articles.


texts: When citing a thesis, do I list supervisors as coauthors?

texts: I am citing someone's bachelors thesis, and someone else's PhD thesis. Do I include the supervisors for each of these works as a coauthor of the thesis?


texts: Use 1st or 3rd person for university webpage description?

texts: I am in the process of updating my teaching and research descriptions the main website of my university. It seems many of the best descriptions are written in the 3rd person, but as far as I am aware, they were all written by the individual being described. Presumably those willing to talk about themselves in the 3rd person also put in the effort to have a good web presence. It seems disingenuous to write about myself in the 3rd person. My university has no guidance or policy on this issue (it must be an oversight given how much they love to manage everything). Is there a preferred style for official descriptions on the web? The webpage is dynamically from a CMS system so it is possible that some pages (either now or in the future) would present the content in a way that it is not obviously linked to an individual.


texts: Will these "errors" in my advisor's letter raise red flags when I apply for academic faculty positions?

texts:
I am currently on the job market. One of the positions uses the online application system where I am able to open the letters of recommendation and read them. I found out that there are "errors" in my advisor's letter.

First, she put the name of University A in the letter that goes out to University B.
Second, she wrote that I have successfully defended this month when her letter was dated June, which I worry is going to give the search committees the impression that I defended my dissertation in June when in fact I had defended in May.

I conveyed this to her; she offered to fix the name of the university. But what if the same error is repeated in her second letter, or worse, she adds more errors in her second letter?

So my questions are:

Will these errors raise any red flags in the eyes of the search committees?
Will these errors give me enough reason to not to use my advisor's letter?

I am contemplating not to list my advisor as one of my references. I have read the responses to a question similar to mine in this forum, so I understand that I am taking a risk and I will have to explain it if I choose not to list my advisor as one of my references.


texts: Popular science magazine for a scientist

texts:
Background:
A month ago I successfully defended my PhD in computational fluid mechanics (yay!). As a present, my parents want to give me a subscription to a science magazine of my choice. I'm an avid reader, so I very much appreciate the gift, but I am not sure about what magazine I should choose. I used to subscribe to a local pop-sci magazine in the past, but as I progressed from high-school student to PhD student I found it to be very lacking (no proper references to the "recent science", generally poor/clickbaity reporting, History Channel-like focus).

Question:
What general-coverage science magazines  are appropriate for the working scientist?

From some googling around, Scientific American is currently at the top of my list. What I would like is:

Something printed on dead trees, monthly (or even less frequent) issues.
Balanced reporting, not breathless praise for the latest hype that will solve all problems, not simple reprints of university PR office stuff.
Broad coverage, at least all of STEM, a bit of medicine and social science stuff is also interesting.
Reporting that doesn't shy away from technical/advanced topics, and which assumes the reader is intelligent enough to learn something.
Proper references to the actual studies mentioned, and preferrably also conflicting viewpoints highlighted.

A few examples of science reporting that I like include APS's "Physics" magazine (online only, narrow coverage), Derek Lowe's blog "In the pipeline" over at Science Translational Medicine (same "cons" as above), Scott Aaronson's blog, the "Fuck Yeah Fluid Dynamics" blog (if you'll pardon my French). I also subscribe to Foreign Policy, and generally like their reporting.


texts: struggling with the discussion chapter of PhD thesis (by publication)

texts:
Thank you very much for your insightful suggestions earlier and I am back with another question and would love to hear your thoughts about this. My PhD thesis consists of three stand-alone papers (aka PhD by publication) which are interrelated and aim to address an overarching research question (RQ). Each of the paper answers its own research question(s) (e.g.rq1, rq2, rq3) and has everything that a journal article would have. Now I am at this stage where I need to integrate everything into the final discussion chapter of the PhD thesis, for example, discussing findings of each paper, describing strengths and limitations and implications etc. I have done this for each of the stand-alone paper and now I am just confused:

how should I avoid repeating myself in this final chapter? I've compared my findings with previous research and everything within each stand-alone paper and now I just don't know how I could make it less repetitive;
My current structure is that I have the chapter listed in the order of paper. For example, 1.1 findings from paper 1,2,3; 1.2 limitations of paper 1,2,3 ...my supervisor suggested that I reorganized the findings into different themes and discuss them using the themes (which I interpret as "overarching findings"). I've been struggling with grouping these findings from all three papers into "themes" ("overarching findings"?) because while all three papers aim to answer a broad RQ, each of the paper has its own research question(s) and it's just so difficult to bridge them up.. I would appreciate any suggestions that you may have and please feel free to recommend any books/articles that you found helpful! I found that a lot of the resources focus on discussing monograph type thesis so I wasn't able to get much help from there. Thank you!


texts: I have different last names on passport and local official identity, which one should I use for publication?

texts:
I'll soon publish my first scientific journal but I encountered a problem.

I have two different last names in which both are official. For example: in my national identity card (as well as my birth certificate, school certificate up to university) my name is John Adam. However in my passport, I put an additional word so my name became John Adam Levine. I took a double degree program and when I'm abroad doing research this is the name I used (also for school certificate) and the research is about to be published.

Which name should I use for publication? I heard that it's okay as long as it is consistent, but I wonder if I will get into trouble for it someday. Preferably I'd like to use the first one because the only reason I put the third word is because I need it to go to a certain country, however I'm concerned because this is the name I used for my abroad school certificate.

I'm now really desperate because I have to decide soon. Any advise or similar experience will be helpful

Thank You!


texts: Co-Author is asking me to remove abstract submission of paper

texts:
Background:

I am a master's student working with a professor and PhD student. They provided me with an initial research direction, to solve problem A. To achieve that research goal, I identified a problem B that would prevent me to do problem A efficiently. I hence solved problem B independently first instead because it only makes sense. And that is what I wanted to publish first.

So for most of the work (ideas, writing and coding/results) I have been the main contributor (80% me and 20% a 4th co-author not part of any of this drama). PhD student and Professor have only been meeting and discussing with me on average 2 times a month. Those meetings were mostly about presenting the progress. Professor also did a significant amount of revising as compared to everyone else. Most of the writing and results were done independently by me, and as part of a collaboration scheme. I don't get paid, I don't get course credit or anything material in return.

Problem

PhD student has been unresponsive weeks leading up to the abstract deadline over multiple attempts to clarify logistics of a submission. Since it's only abstract I submit (I know horrible mistake) to not lose the chance for a full paper submission and PhD student goes livid and starts threatening me, to kick me out of the school, kick me out of the lab, sue me etc.

From further conversation what I understand he had in his mind that he wanted to be the first author and claimed he would "Think about giving us co-authorship". Which to me co-authorship order was obvious since everyone's contribution was obvious, let alone acknowledgement. And doesn't make sense because he doesn't even fully understand the paper or work.

Professor wants me to continue working on everything and doesn't seem involved or to be part of any of this (even if PhD student tries to incorrectly claim professor said things that Professor hasn't). Final paper submission deadline is in few days.

PhD student "doesn't have time to go back and forth with me", "doesn't have time to explain everything to me" about why he wants the paper removed or what he wants me to do. Thinks the quality of the paper is subpar and doesn't want to be associated with it. But he wants me to remove the submission and continue working on the paper and sending him my revisions and "push" for the deadline????.

All of these point to something nefarious but I still want to give the PhD student the benefit of the doubt.

Question

What are my options? I am not sure if this will hurt my reputation or his but probably both of ours. I really wanted to apply for PhD but not sure if this is what I thought academia was and reconsidering :/
How can I resolve this without losing my dignity? I am not willing to let someone else take credit for my work. I would rather not publish
How can I remove PhD student's contribution? Is the paper a dead-end? I obviously can't submit a full paper without his approval.
What can I do and have to do to address the request of the PhD student? What do I do in case of conflicts between PhD student and Professor?


texts: How should feedback be given for "silly mistakes" on an exam

texts:
I am a TA currently grading a set of 80 midterms for an engineering math course for fourth-year engineer undergrads. The test had four questions, each question had around four parts.

Of course, typically a student can make a wide variety of different types of errors on the exam. But what I have noticed in this exam is that some of these errors are not necessarily conceptual, yet we are basically taking all the points away for these "minor errors" (per instructor's grading scheme).

For instance,

For a question with several parts. A student copied one of his own
(correct) answers from the previous part incorrectly.
A student wrote down all the steps correctly, until the last step
where he had to evaluate the expression at a number and the mistake
was forgetting a negative sign.
After a long derivation, a student substitute formula incorrectly (forgot a square root in the formula, ahem, Gaussian). Everything else completely correct.

There was a litter of other minor errors. Now, these students are in their final year of engineering school, so I think I can give them the benefit of the doubt that they wouldn't make silly mistakes such as writing "0 - 1 = 1" or copy things down wrong in a non-time-constrained setting, which is the situation they will most likely face when they graduate and work in industry.

Is there a way to provide feedback for a student if he or she makes silly mistakes on the exam? I do not think that giving them a zero for writing a minus sign incorrectly is a good way of either providing feedback or preventing the same mistake from happening again in their (long) lives.


texts:
I'm in the third year of my physics PhD, and although I have done very well in courses and passed the written candidacy exam, I have already switched research advisors twice and all three times I couldn't make myself productive in research. I'm planning on doing a Masters now but even that is taking some effort, and at this point I just want to leave.

I truly enjoy learning about physics, taking courses, solving problems, reading (good) papers, and the initial stages of learning the jargon and ideas of a sub-field, but after that when it comes down to business and I have to focus on the real research I'm supposed to be doing, I feel like all joy and curiosity I have towards the subject is sucked out of me.

To me physics is a very personal subject. It's an intellectual detour from work. It's like therapy to me. Give me paper, a pencil, and one good textbook introducing some ideas to play with and I'm like a kid on a playground.

Trying to make it into a career, however, means I'm not free to truly explore and examine topics. Any organic thought process or line of questioning I have is immediately crushed under the weight of the research I'm supposed to be doing and the judgement of my peers/advisor as to whether or not I'm just wasting time.

I went into a PhD solely because I really loved the physics courses I took in engineering, not because I had a career plan. Meanwhile most of my peers and professors treat courses like a nuisance that must be overcome to get credit and focus on the work that they really want to do.

I'm at a bit of a loss of what do for work now. My goal for an ideal living situation would be a modest but livable income at a relatively simple minded job that doesn't follow you home so I could spend some leisure hours studying and playing with ideas. However, it seems like most jobs that use my only assets of engineering and physics knowledge demand too much active attention to allow one put serious effort towards other pursuits simultaneously. Can anyone advise a good career path for this situation?


texts:
I started my PhD about a year and a half ago in an area that I will call A, which is quite applied. I've been doing a lot of programming and coding, and although I've learnt a lot and we've been doing some progress recently, I strongly feel that I haven't got any important result worth of appearing in a doctoral thesis. Even when we complete our current project (something that, I hope, is going to happen already in the near future), I won't feel like I've done any truly significant/original work. It is a nice work, but we've spent way too much time in a problem and we just don't have many results or important conclusions. I've been working on developing methodologies and improving little things, but I haven't got any concrete scientific result yet.

However, in the last 4/5 months we started thinking about a different problem (in collaboration with another professor) in a different area, B. B is a more theoretical area, and although A and B are loosely related (and ideally our work in B would be at some point applied to our work in A), they are very different topics. The thing is that I'm very happy with our progress with B, where recently I finally managed to do some hard computations and reach some interesting results with which I'm quite satisfied. Now, I feel that continuing our work in B could be really fruitful and -since we already have several ideas and plans- could soon yield some very interesting stuff. In combination with what I have already achieved, I definitely deem this work worthy of a doctoral thesis.

The problem is that B was, at least initially, a side topic, and my grant and my initial doctoral project was clearly associated to A, but not B. Working in A I feel like I'm stuck: yes, I write code and I do stuff which is sort of important, but I am spending a lot of time in something that it is not yielding very relevant results and that I don't think is going to give enough material for a thesis. However, A is like my main topic and I can only spend bits of time working on B once in a while.

That's why I've been thinking about the idea of discussing with my thesis advisor the possibility of changing my main research topic and start focusing on B, while keeping A as a side topic. He is a very nice person and has always been helpful and supporting, but I fear he is not going to take it well, since he clearly has more interest in A and has always thought of B as something nice but that "shouldn't distract me too much".

Maybe I should just accept things they way they are, or does it make sense for you to talk freely about my concerns?  I don't intend to fight or anything, but having at least a conversation about the whole thing would be nice.

Any similar experiences to be shared?  Ideas?


texts: Confusion over choosing title/role while applying for a position

texts: I am working as a project assistant in a lab in India. My role is similar to that of what a research assistant does in academia. But I'm not familiar with the use of the title 'project assistant' in the U.S or Europe. Should I specify my job role as a research assistant while applying for a PhD position in Europe or in the U.S? Or is there a perceivable difference between the two titles and if so, which one has more weightage during applications?


texts: When should ideas be shared on stackexchange?

texts: I get exciting ideas about math a lot, and I was wondering if it is a bad idea to share them in question form to vet them, expand them, or show their lack of novelty. I know free exchange of ideas is good, but is it wise to exchange so broadly so early? If someone uses my idea from SE I know they are supposed to cite me, but could they take the career credit despite my having "The Idea"? Would I be a coauthor to the first paper from the idea?


texts:
I have a tenure track position at a European university. Owing to some serious health issues in my family I will move to be closer to them.

I will resign before the term is over (but will try to keep on 1 day/mo to contribute to a small project and hopefully keep my title, I’m about to be promoted to Full Professor but I’m not sure how the faculty will react once they learn this).

No one knows this.

What’s the best way to move forward to preserve my relationship with the faculty?


texts: What is considered appropriate men's attire for a PhD interview at a Max Planck institute?

texts: During this winter, will it be alright to wear a shirt-jeans and a jacket for the PhD interview at Max Plack Institute?


texts: I feel burned out after finishing my master. Should I take year off before the PhD?

texts:
I'm in the second year of a master's program and I'm considering taking a year off before doing a PhD. I am excited to do a PhD and have some idea of what I want to research, but I am not sure if jumping right into it would be beneficial. The main reason is, simply, I've been in school my whole life and have felt pretty burnt out at times in the master's. I'm not sure I could start the coursework/proposal/thesis process all over again right after finishing my master's. The second reason is I'm switching to a new discipline (but still in the social sciences) and feel that a year of independent reading to acclimatize myself to the discipline would be beneficial, without the pressure of constant deadlines and assignments.

Are these justifiable reasons for taking the year off, or should I just jump into the PhD? I'd hopefully be working full time, working on applications for universities and scholarships, and reading lots. I'm also a bit concerned with funding - would scholarship committees be more skeptical of applicants who take a year off before the PhD?


texts: Can I adapt to learning Artificial intelligence in MS easily

texts:
I have to ask you this. I am applying for my Masters in CS in US universities. I am very much interested in Artificial Intelligence, but some of my friends said that it would be very difficult for me to learn AI as I have no overview about the course in my undergraduate degree.

Can anyone tell me if I can easily learn by putting some effort on learning AI. I am very much interested in that course.


texts:
I can see several published research papers in SCI journals, even written by undergraduates, that perform a comparative study.
Many of the research papers published under this category evaluate several metrics on the alternative methods that exist in that domain and probably analyze those.
It seems to be just an experimental study followed by comparison. What is the novelty in such papers?
If no novelty exists, then why do good (SCI) journals accept those?


texts: Should I breach peer-review confidentiality if I suspect misconduct and the editor is not willing to pursue it?

texts:
I was a peer reviewer for a paper that I did not find credible. The data were archived after the paper was published and show many curious or impossible (non-integer counts for example) patterns. I believe the data to be falsified and/or fabricated. I have been publishing my finding on my blog.

One figure, an ordination, is impossible to replicate. Most of the points are correctly located, but some, mostly outliers, are omitted or moved. Different points are omitted or moved in the two versions in the manuscripts I reviewed and the published version of this figure.

This apparent tampering make the relationships in the data appear much stronger than is justified.

I want to publish my findings, including the two manuscript versions of the figure as the inconsistencies between them and the published strengthens my suspicions of malpractice.

Does my duty to expose malpractice supersede my duty to maintain peer review confidentiality?

I have taken my concerns to the Editor, who is not interested.


texts: Is it normal that an advisor does not read the final version of the PhD proposal of his student before submission?

texts:
Recently, I submitted my PhD proposal. In my opinion, something really strange happened to me and that was: my adviser did not read the final version of proposal at all before submission!

I started to write my PhD proposal approximately 3 months ago and the written document went back and forth between me and my advisor for four times but despite I spent a whole day to correct his final suggestions before submission he did not read it at all.

I could certainly say he did not read it because we use a system to upload or store files which could track users, who view the the files or even download it, and this system shows that he did not view or download the last version at all and this last version is not available anywhere so the possibility of accessing it somewhere else is zero!

It looks really strange to me because I'm supposedly his first PhD student ever because he is a new faculty in our department which came to our university just 1 year before I got admission and I think if more experienced professors don't care really about their student's proposals that could be justified probably that they're old or they don't care at all (Don't be picky on me I'm not saying all experienced professors behave this way, I'm just saying some of them!) but I'm his (my advisor!) first PhD student and I thought it would be handled better than this way.

Is it a sign that maybe he is angry with me or something is wrong? Because, the day after I sent him the last version he responded back to me that I will read it tomorrow but he didn't read it even until now that I'm writing this. I'm just feeling really strange because doing a PhD is kinda like the most important event in my life but... I don't know... any idea or suggestion?


texts: Are there application fees for PhD positions in Europe?

texts: I'm new to the applying process and I'd like to ask a simple question. Does a PhD position in European universities require an application fee?


texts:
My Google Scholar profile is public but it does not appear in Google's search result. How can I fix this problem?
Here is the link to my Google Scholar profile:
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=U81fBHYAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao


texts: Missed April 15th deadline to accept grad school offer. What can I do?

texts: I missed the April 15th deadline to accept my grad school offer and wanted to accept it. It is now April 16th and I got an email saying they have withdrawn my consideration, is there anything I can do, anyone I can contact to accept the offer they extended to me even though it is now after April 15th?


texts: Can different departments offer similar courses?

texts: Some courses at different departments are very related in content. Is it fine or a university should offer 1 specific course across all departments?


texts: Publication database backend for academic web sites

texts:
My institution currently tracks its members' publications by sending them an email every six months and then manually compiling publication lists from the replies. I am looking into updating the organisation's web site, and I would like to implement a system where users can maintain their own publication list on their academic web page. This data should go into a central database, so that we can (for example) easily pull up the last six months' worth of new publications for reporting purposes.

My question is whether there is a standard solution to this problem: is there any free or commercially available software that will allow us to set up a user-editable publication list system with a database backend?

If it's relevant, we're looking at using Wordpress as the backend for the whole site, with one of the many "user profile" plugins being used to create the individual personal pages. (This is all being done on a shoe string budget.)


texts: Is it Customary Under Certain Circumstances to Provide Personal Information on one's Academic Website?

texts:
This question is inspired by the question My class teacher was not happy with my mistake of using a wrong title, in particular by the statement

  But the contact information on the school's web does not tell whether she is married or unmarried

I have seen lots of academic websites, and I noticed only a few times that academic people would divulge what to me seems like very personal/private information via their website. More concretely, the only times I saw any hint of that were statements in the style of (hypothetical example) X is an assistant professor, passionate programmer, husband, father, hobbyist painter, and loyal fan of The Black Adder to express how multi-faceted a person the academic in question is. Of course, not everyone writes that on their website, as that would make the statement seem trite/overused. (Granted, it may already be on the verge of becoming so.)

In other words: Expressing whether one is married or not does not seem to be a standard thing that is done on academic websites, unlike, for example, the university and year of getting awarded one's PhD degree.

Or is it? Maybe my own impression is biased in that I have seen disproportionally many academic websites from people who work in a German-speaking area, and incidentally, any distinction in addressing married and unmarried people has fallen out of fashion in that language, so knowledge about the marital status would not be of any use.

Therefore, my question is:

Is there any explicit or implicit part of self-presentation etiquette that suggests to somehow provide information about one's marital status on one's academic website in language environments where that information may have to be considered by other people?
or, in other words: Is the expectation to find any information on an academic's marital status on their academic website with any desirable degree of likelihood reasonable within any context?

I see this somewhat differently from a possible analogous question in Workplace SE, as academic websites tend to be quite a bit more "individual". If it's unclear how to address a particular person in the industry, one can still write to the department as a whole (slight repercussions for not spending enough effort to actually find a way to directly address the intended recipient notwithstanding) and be reasonably sure that it will be processed. In academia, on the other hand, addressing something to a department as a whole rather than to a single person will often lead to the message being placed on the "Not sure what this is or who should even try to find out what it is." batch (that only ever gets touched again when all personalized batches have run empty) for an indefinite amount of time.


texts:
I am a final year PhD in UK in a scientific discipline and I am writing my thesis. I have already published 2 journal papers and I have submitted 2 more papers for publications. My department does not allow a "publications-based" thesis so I need to write a thesis in the context of a book etc.

As I write my thesis in a couple of places, especially in the literature review, I tend to reuse sentences from my publications. I try to restate them a bit, maybe change some words for their synonyms etc. but it is practically me writing about what I wrote before. It goes without saying that I cite/quote me at the end of a passage if I say something non-obvious (I found that slightly funny. :) ). The problem is that occasionally I am just explaining for instance how a certain estimation technique works; in that case I cite the original authors and not myself. The syntax in those occasions though is practically the same as the original passage I used in my publication; as I have explained it once and was consider good, I find no reason to reinvent myself (I do a mild rewording as I mentioned but that is quite insignificant). Same things goes for listings. I do cite my paper in the beginning of a big list as the list's source but the list itself is almost identical as the one in "my" paper; in those cases I don't use quotations, just attribution "[]".

Is there an obvious guideline? The basic definition of plagiarism "reproducing the work of another person's as your own" is not (directly) applicable to me because I am the other person (almost *); if I am using other people's work I do cite them but I don't cite myself, citing them, in quotation marks!

I am a bit "fuzzy" about how not to plagiarize myself in my thesis (I have had no problem regarding my journal publications).

(* In all publications mentioned I am the first -but not sole- author.)


texts: Asked editor for review prolongation to do further experiments, can't meet deadline. What do?

texts:
My paper received a good review, but we've been implicitly asked (interpretation of my supervisor, not mine) to do two experiments to verify a method I use. We then asked the editor for some time to perform these experiments, which the editor accepted. Then two things happened:

The experiments were messed up due to some unfortunate technical error and now I can't meet the deadline.
After some deep digging in preliminary experiments and literature, I found data that could replace these experiments just good enough in my opinion.

The question is now: Should I ask for more time to retry the experiments, or should I just send the literature/preliminary data to the reviewers? Which choice would be wiser?


texts: Commission an animation to explain a scientific concept?

texts:
I have a particularly difficult scientific concept, which, with the use of an animation, I think I could make very clear. I have some experience making little movies from piecing together figure snapshots, but in this case I lack the skills (and time) to assemble a quality animation. Is anyone aware of a website, resource, or company that will assemble movies for academic purposes? I've looked around but haven't found anything reasonable (in price, or with experience producing scientific-quality movies).

An example: an animation showing an EKG trace, and a diagram of a beating heart. Each beat moves the heart and shows up on the EKG, so you can see how the two are related.


texts: To senior researchers, how would you view a student you wanted to work with, but who could not?

texts:
I am a Ph.D. student and met this senior scientist in a local conference, let's call him Dr. XX. (He is working in a research institute like Bell Lab, not exactly in academia.) We took some interest in each other's work and my supervisor allowed me to work with him. We (me, Dr. XX and my supervisor) just got our paper accepted in a journal as well. I liked working with him and learnt from him.

He also raised some excellent idea about how to extend the work to another novel domain and has been pushing me to come up with some literature study and run some experiment etc. Unfortunately, my Ph.D. supervisor (who is the boss I answer to) is not exactly enthusiastic in that and pushing me in a different direction.

I have conveyed it to Dr. XX in somewhat evasive terms, telling I need some time to decide etc. but just realised it has been a few months. I am not sure how to deal with this. I love both of the topics for the later stage of my Ph.D. but how do I prioritise?

Also, I know it is a question of interpersonal dynamics, but if you were Dr. XX, how would you think of me for being evasive? For example, while applying for postdoc position, will you write a recommendation for me, with this somewhat awkward situation?


texts: Sending an official transcript for a M.Sc program that I will not be able to complete to a PhD program in the US

texts:
I have been admitted recently to a Ph.D. program in the US. I am currently completing a Masters degree. I am required to submit an official transcript for my Masters and my Bachelor's degree. The problem is that I can not find a suitable advisor for my Masters thesis. I did have a thesis advisor but I left him some months ago for several reasons. I am considering the possibility of not continuing with my Masters given that I have been admitted to a Ph.D. program (this is not my fault; I really can not find anyone who is actively working in my field at my university). I registered for Masters thesis course for Fall 2019 and then, for various reasons, I left my advisor. I am worried however about the fact that I will be submitting a Masters transcript that does not show any Masters thesis work. I have to register a thesis course for Spring 2020 but I can not because I do not have any advisor. The official transcript that I will be sending to the PhD program contains courses up to Spring 2019 (the Fall 2019 Masters thesis course does not have any grade next to it).

Will  this affect my admissions to the PhD program? The offer of admissions is not conditional upon me completing my Masters. However, I am worried that it might affect my admission.


texts: What would be the proper way to ask for reference letters

texts:
So, during my bachelor years I was a bit of a hermit. I studied on my own, made little contact with my professors outside of the necessary academic/ social situations, and mostly passed on as that rather good student professors don't think much about.

Stupid, I know, but people skills is the worst of my worst developed skills. Also I was stubbornly independent and asking questions during office hours made me feel as if I was failing at being a decent student, so I never asked questions or help.

4 years after graduating, I am thinking of applying for a master degree. I have picked the professors to whom I will ask for reference letters .... and the first deadline is 31 jan. I have received BA and BB with one of the professors (professor X) and BA and AA with the other (professor Y).

I was thinking of emailing professor Y and asking if I could meet him (it is easier for me to ask for the letter face to face, and I think I can make a better case this way). He is a positive, decent person and I think he considered me a good student despite our minimal interactions due to the cold and introverted disposition we both have as people. Also, knowing how busy he usually is, I don't intend to take much of his time and I intend to clarify this in the email.

As for professor X, I will just email him. He is very indifferent towards all students, me included, so nothing I can say face to face will make a difference. The problem with him is that, he probably doesn't even remember me.

So I am not sure if I am going about it the right way. The reason I left this for the last moment is that whenever I opened my email, I felt there was no right way to do it. What would be the most appropriate way to ask for the two reference letters?


texts:
Before I decide to post this question I did google it, and there are at least two similar questions on Academia with very good and informative suggestions. Since the situation and my concerns are slightly different than the existing ones, I hope it's ok to ask a similar question.

I was writing a paper in pure math (while the situation of the existing questions is that the author already submitted his paper and was asked to split the paper into two). Initially the things in my mind is to prove two theorems using the same method, so it does make sense to put the results in one paper. However, when I was working on the paper I found that I need to modify/extend/generalize the existing background setting which requires some work. Let's say the two theorems I have in mind are in field A and the background setting is in field B. Field A and B are different but closely related. I have papers in these two fields, but I would say I work on field A more often than in field B.

I am not sure if I should put all the results in one paper or in two separate papers. The reasons are

according to the answers to the similar questions posted on Academia, if I put it in one paper it could be difficult to find referee(s). I would say there are less than 20 people specializing in both of these two fields.
however, if I put it into two papers, I anticipate the motivation of the paper about modifying/extending/generalizing the existing background setting, although requires some work, may be underestimated (no matter how hard I try to promote it).
based on the questions posted on Academia, if I put it into one paper then there is a good chance that I would be asked to separate the paper or even a rejection.

One interesting thing is no matter I write one or two papers, the number of suitable journals does not increase nor decrease drastically. But if I put it into two papers, I would possibly submit these papers to different journals.

I would not fully disagree if you think I worry too much, and tell me I should just go ahead in either way and see what will happen. Anyway, any suggestion is welcome.


texts: How to get priority acknowledged, when a paper in mathematics is a special case of your own paper, but it does not cite your work?

texts:
I am a researcher in Mathematics and I have recently found that it has been published a paper X whose main result is a (very) special case of a result of mine, which has been published more than an year ago. From the journal log, I can also see that paper X has been submitted after my paper has been published.

However, the author of the paper X was not aware of my previous result, indeed she did not cite my paper.

I am wondering if it would be possible to make the journal of paper X acknowledging my priority on the result, and in such a case how to do so.

I have often seen journals publishing short notes with the title "Acknowledgement of priority", in which it is explained that a published result was already proved by someone else, but I have no idea of how it works.

Thanks for help.

UPDATE: I wrote to the author of the paper and I have got no response.


texts: Does a conference talk in an invited session count as an invited talk?

texts:
Here is the situation: Prof. X organizes an "invited session" at a conference (in the broader realm of statistics and economics), and asks my supervisor, Prof. Y, to give a talk there. Y does not have time and refers X to me (I am a PhD student). Therefore, X asks me whether I would be interested to give a presentation in the session, to which I of course say yes.

Now, my question is the following: Can I list the talk as an invited talk (or more precisely: as an invited conference presentation) in my CV?


texts: Choosing between 2 MSc programs in pure mathematics

texts:
I'm an Indian student and I hold offers from 2 universities, one in Denmark (call A) and another in the UK (call B). I plan to pursue a PhD in the US as my next step, but also would like to have job opportunities as a back up after completing the master's program. So, I have collected a few points to help me decide between the two, but I cannot conclude which factor weights more:

Ranking: B is rank 19 and A is 81.
Research areas: Both have research groups in the area of my interest (Algebra and Geometry)
Course: A being 2y long will result in better learning outcome and research experience than doing all that in one year at B. But also looking at it in a different way, it can be an advantage of saving a year as I plan to do PhD anyway.
Living experience and costs: In total A will cost 20K euro more for one extra year. However, living is described as much more exciting in Denmark. But England has better job opportunities after I graduate.

To summarize: Can it happen well-known UK uni students are easily preferred over others in the rest of the world? Considering the above factors, I don't know how to weight them to conclude where the gain is maximum in terms of both learning and post-completion opportunities.
It would be immensely helpful to hear any input on the matter that should influence my decision.


texts: Widening the Search-ability of a Journal's Articles

texts:
I manage a peer-reviewed and open-access publishing journal for academic research. At the moment, the articles are not viewable in google searches. If someone wants to access the articles, they must go to the journal website and download the article from there. This means that someone must know of the article and our journal to access the piece of research.

I am interested in making the articles that are in our journal appear in google search results and generally more accessible to a wider interested audience. What is a good way to do this?

I have looked into Google Scholar, but it seems you can only upload your own research articles (i.e., that it's only for individual researchers, and not for organisations like an open-access publishing company).

I would appreciate any advice on how to widen the visibility of a publishing company's research articles.


texts: Why do US universities have strict formatting requirements for dissertations?

texts:
Recently, I got a mildly panicked email from a friend/collaborator who was preparing the final manuscript of his thesis. He had just noticed that page numbers were a fraction of an inch closer to the page edge than the regulations of his university specify, and he was concerned that the lady in charge of filing dissertations would notice and reject the manuscript. This concern wasn't unjustified: I personally know a couple of people who had to reprint their dissertations at the last minute because they had the type of formatting errors that you need a ruler to notice.

In the end, I was able to tell my friend how to modify his TeX markup to avoid disaster, but I was left wondering: why are (some) US universities so obsessed about aspects of a dissertation that nobody will ever care about, or even notice? I did my PhD in Europe (Netherlands), and nobody there cares much about the formatting of your dissertation, so long as it doesn't look silly.


texts: should I go for a Ph.D.in electronic/electromagnetism engineering?

texts:
Hello Academicians and everyone,

As you noticed from my question. I am willing to do a Ph.D. in electronic/electromagnetism engineering. I am very interested in the topic of electromagnetism and its application. I love everything that has to do with Maxwell equations.

Nevertheless, I have a big concern, My Health(burn out, gastritis, stress, migraine). as I am at the beginning of my thirties and had a lot of health issues during my master degree. I had to take many short breaks to get back to the track in the meantime.

I had some professors (who think I am healthy as Batman and don't know what I am facing) who suggested me to do a Ph.D. with them but I am scared to death because of my situation and I don't want to end up in Hospital because I  usually push until I get sick.

I need your advice and suggestion from your sides. How do you manage your stress? how did you manage to successfully finish your Ph.D. without ending in Hospital? or it would be better not going for this Ph.D. in my case?

Thanks


texts: Can you obtain detailed date information on publications when using Google Scholar?

texts: My question is related to Google Scholar. I know that I can search articles by specified year or year range, but is it possible to obtain detailed dates of publication/indexing in Google Scholar? If so, how could I do it?


texts: Finding/giving an appropriate thank you gift to university faculty

texts:
I'm a student at a large university, and recently had an especially hard semester due to a family emergency. I withdrew from two classes, and the only reason I didn't have to withdraw altogether was because of some very understanding faculty members in my department.

My department adviser, after realizing that I probably wouldn't be able to go to all of my professors explaining this issue and begging for extended deadlines without breaking down, emailed all of them herself and basically bought me a couple of weeks to pull myself together. One of my professors went above and beyond and gave me "indefinite deadlines" (i.e. whenever I feel like turning it in) for all of his class assignments. My grade for his class is made up of three essays, and, even though there's only a month left in the semester, I've turned in none of them; every attempt I've made to approach him and apologize for all of the trouble I've caused him has been casually waved away.

So, my question is: what's an appropriate thank you for everything they've done for me? I've tried to end every meeting I've had each of with them by thanking them, but they always seem a bit embarrassed and wave me off (they're both pretty reserved people). Knowing that they're embarrassed by even my little attempts to thank them, I'm not sure if they'd like me getting them a thank you card or a gift card. Also, scheduling an appointment with my adviser (that's the only way I'm able to see her) just to give her a thank you gift feels a bit weird. Any tips? Are my in-person "thank you's" enough, or should I try to get them something more? And, if a gift would be appropriate, is there any etiquette regarding how I get the gift to them?


texts: Should PhD students mention small grants on their CV?

texts: I'm wondering if as a phd student, typically people should mention the grants in their CV. For example, even some small grants that you get when you attend a conference.


texts: tips for mathematics student giving interview for physics (quantum information)

texts:
As suggested by @PiotrMigdal I am putting a separate question regarding the title mentioned above.

I am  a Mathematics PhD student doing work in functional analysis / operator theory aspects of quantum information. My basic training (up to masters) is in so called 'Pure Mathematics' ($C^*$ algebra, representation theory, elliptic curve etc.).  I am about to complete my PhD and applying for post doctoral positions. It seems most of the jobs in this area are for experimentalists and a few for theorists. I do not have much knowledge about experiment. Moreover, my understanding about quantum measurements as very basic. These  can be considered as negative points. Positive sides: I have a few published papers in some reputed physics journal, a few (in discrete mathematics) preprints, and a few works in the draft stage. However the published papers are not reviewed by math. review.

My question is, what a mathematics student, like me, should focus/emphasise  if he/she go for a job (for me post doctoral) interview in front of physics faculties.

Also more general question can be regarding the job perspective    of mathematics students in quantum information. Advanced thanks for any suggestion, answer etc.  Feel free to edit and/or retag it, if you think it is necessary.


texts: Should I ask a recommendation letter from a supervisor with whom I had sometimes difficult time working with?

texts:
I will be applying for PhD positions in the UK. I have three years of previous research experience, and I worked with four professors who could write me recommendation letters.

I will be applying to many schools, so I would like to ask a recommendation letter from all of the professors.

My other primary advisor came from a different culture, and it was occasionally very difficult to work with him. He was sometimes very upset, and so was I, but things never escalated into anything horrible. He moved away about 1.5 years ago; we departed in good spirit. I have been contact with him after that. It is difficult to guess how he sees things at the moment. I appreciate him in many ways but I don't know if he knows that. I think he is a good person.

Should I ask a recommendation letter from him? Most schools ask for 2-3 recommendation letters, so I would not send it to every place I apply to.

(Academically, my performance is very good. I have received big prizes, have a good publication record, etc.)


texts: How much value do papers without new scientific information have, i.e. seminar papers such as overviews of or examples for current methods in CS?

texts:
So I wrote a seminar paper in grad school (MSc) with examples on how companies use method x to improve their security. It includes zero original research, no new methods and it would never ever be published in a journal, because the substance is really not there.

It gives a theoretical background of the problems itself and then different current examples from 2 companies that I researched over the internet and a conclusion. Thus, not only academic sources but also other sources (companies) are used and it basically shows the application of academic concepts.

Other researchers could use this paper to potentially find ways on how to dig deeper and how to address some problems specifically, but I did not point something like that out myself.

My question:

Does this count as research and does it make sense to hand those kind of papers to PhD admission departments?


texts: Should exploratory and incomplete work be part of a thesis?

texts:
I just finished the first draft of my thesis in computational neuroscience. It contains all the published work and some other material that is relevant to the main theme of the thesis. I deliberately kept some very recent work out of it because I thought it won't add any value to the reader.

Now I am tempted to include this exploratory work into the thesis as well since I've put quite a lot of time on it. This work is an attempt to extend the main results of the thesis. The problem statement is well defined with a good literature survey but no concrete result.

I can probably add to the appendix? Or epilogue (doesn't sound great for a technical document)? Or is it a bad idea altogether?


texts: As a postdoc, should I expect my PhD adviser to fund my conference travel to present my PhD work?

texts:
I am scheduled to present part of my PhD research
at a conference in a few months.
This will be my first conference after graduating from my PhD.
I am now a postdoc at another university,
but my current adviser's policy is to fund conference travel
only for postdocs presenting research done by with him,
i.e. he would not fund my travel to this conference
to present research I had done during my PhD
which did not involve him.

Is it normal for a PhD adviser
to fund conference travel for graduated students,
if the students are presenting work they have done during their PhD?
If the graduated student had tenure-track jobs
and their own source of funding for conference travel,
then clearly the graduated student
would be expected to use his/her own funding.

However, in my case,
when I do not have funding for conference travel,
is it normal to expect my PhD adviser to provide funding?
I will ask my adviser about this directly,
but I was wondering if there is a standard expected behavior
for PhD advisers that generally applies in my situation.

If my PhD adviser is unable/unwilling to fund my travel,
is it unreasonable for me to say that I cannot attend the conference?
(I estimate the total cost of attending the conference to be ~$1K.)

Update:
I asked my PhD adviser whether he could fund my conference travel,
and he said yes immediately.


texts: Asking a professor to be on my committee (not advisor) before admission

texts:
I am applying to a PhD program at my alma mater this fall, and I am trying to make my application as strong as possible. A friend who went through the program suggested that having people lined up to be on my dissertation committee before I applied would help my application.

I have a professor who has agreed to be my advisor if I am admitted, and another professor who has agreed to be on my committee if I am admitted.

I have a meeting with a third professor next week that I have never met before, but was introduced to by another professor. Aspects of his work are very similar to my interests, and I would love if he would be the third person on my committee, but I don't know how to go about asking if he would be willing when we meet.

  Do you have any advice on how to approach this meeting and this professor? How much will having all three professors necessary for my thesis committee on board when I apply help my application?


texts: What is the difference between a research statement and a research interest?

texts: is there any difference between the two?


texts: Can students use Turnitin to view papers submitted by other students in the class?

texts:
Does the Turnitin Similarity Report show students snippets from papers submitted by other students in the same class?
For example, say John submits his paper a few days before the due date. Then Tim uploads his own paper and reviews his Similarity Report. Say Tim's paper shows a high similarity with something John wrote. Can Tim then click on the match and read parts of John's paper?


texts: Research institute reluctant to provide recommendation letters. Should I persist asking them?

texts:
I am applying for a very competitive grant call for PhDs and I need as minimun 3 letter out of a maximun of 4.

I have already 3 from different professors but a 4th would come very handy so I decided to ask for it to my master's thesis supervisor.

He had not replied yet. For 2 weeks approximately.

This kind of questions has been answered here but with a difference, this mail was a first approximation so I don't have any previous agreement with him.

Recently I asked to other professor at the same institution and he has not answered yet either.

I finished the master in a friendly way, is it possible that the institution has decided not to support me?. When I was doing the master thesis I moved onto a different internship because I didn't see much of future prospects at what I was doing neither any salary. Even though I got a grant from that institution to study their master.

I'm applying for these grants with a project deeply involved with what I am working now, but absolutely nothing to do to my previous "research".

Is it a good idea to send a last email or to look for another professor at such entity/another? Deadline is within next week.


texts: Why are most scientific articles locked behind a paywall?

texts: Can someone give me a legitimate, convincing argument as to why scientific papers should be locked behind subscriptions and paywalls? That unless you happen to be on a campus, you can't get view a manuscript without paying an often extortionate amount?


texts: Citing work with a publication year in the future

texts:
I am citing this publication in my thesis using the author-date citation format. The article is fully accessible, however the Journal apparently placed it into an issue that will appear next year. Therefore, the citation information (BibTex) says that the year of publication is 2017. I find it a bit strange to cite future work.

When citing research articles to which year should the citation refer to? The year it appears in the Journal or the year it appeared (online)?


texts: How to spot a weak postdoc offer before you accept the position

texts:
I would like to ask, how can you rule out some "weak" postdocs. I mean weak from a long term point of view - impact on your life, or career. For example, you can apply to positions where you will continue with the same methods you used in your current positions or you can apply to positions where you will learn entirely new skills. Or you can be the only one with your skills in the group etc.

What are the red flags to look out for in postdoc offers?


texts: Bringing advisor into summer internship project

texts:
I have a summer internship in the research side of a big tech company. I already know the project I will be working on, and it has some relation to my advisor's research. In fact I believe he might be more knowledgeable than some of the researchers I will be working with over the summer.
I've already shared what I know of the project with him, and he gave me some general thoughts about it. I'd like to continue getting his input, but signed a form for the company saying I forfeit any results to the company. (I think this just means that they get credit for any resulting papers).
Is it possible/typical for an advisor to get involved in a student's summer internship project?


texts: Review claims reference was omitted, but it was not

texts: In a review to a manuscript I wrote one of the reviewers claimed in strong words that two important references were omitted. In fact, both references were cited in the text. I suspect the reviewer is among the authors of these references, since I recommended one of them as a reviewer during submission. The manuscript was rejected and I do not plan to resubmit, still I am contemplating if I should respond to this presumptive mistake by the reviewer. The reason is that the perceived omission likely affects the reviewers opinion of me as an author in a negative way. I think that there is a non-negligible chance that the same reviewer may also review future work. Should I accept this and move on or should I ask the editor to forward to the reviewer a statement that the references were not omitted?


texts: Should I send a "cease-and-desist" letter to ResearchGate?

texts:
ResearchGate is pretty well placed on Google. But it does not have a lot of contents or active users, despite their constant invitation spam.
So they spidered a lot of publications, and provide some metadata on publications and authors on their web page, even when you do not join.

Given the amount of spam I receive from them, I'm considering to file a cease-and-desist letter, disallowing them to use my name or work for advertising their service and for encouraging users to join their site, and instead display a clear statement that I am not a member and disable search indexing for these pages.

Currently, ResearchGate has a pretty bad reputation, see e.g.
ResearchGate: an asset or a waste of time?
as well as the Wikipedia article.

I'm really annoyed by them:

They have a fake profile page with my name, affiliation, co-authors, publications, and a big "sign up" button; that does not state that I am not a member, as if they could contact me this way.
They publish incomplete numbers of citations and impact, which one may consider to give me a bad reputation on their site. (I don't care, but this may be a legal point to make?)
They have information pages of many of my articles, with a big "request full-text" button, which will not work, as I am not a member and do not get contact information.
They use a proxy redirector to have their website show up first in Google search results, even when the actual contents are only available on a different website,

Do you think that it is detrimental for my career to have such contents removed (by sending a C&D letter to them), or do you think they will ultimately manage to become a useful platform, and then it would be better to not have my data removed? Even with a C&D, I could probably retract it at some point and join. After all, the real contents are available on my homepage and Google Scholar; and these are the locations I want to show up first (fortunately, most of the time, they do).


texts: Vague paper submission guidelines - can I use double column if not specified?

texts:
I'm writing a paper for an upcoming congress and there are no author guidelines except for:

"... Articles must be single-spaced, with figures and tables included... References should be double-spaced and in alphabetical order..."

Since guidelines are so vague with respect to all other aspects, should I use any LaTeX template I wish so long as the text is single-spaced and references double-spaced?

My personal preference would be to use a double column template, but since the guidelines are so vague I'm wondering if I should just submit a single column simple manuscript...


texts: Which domain should I choose for my personal website?

texts:
I have decided to create an academic personal website, but I am unsure whether I should choose a .com or a .org domain.
I have read that .com is mainly used by commercial organizations, whereas .org is intended for nonprofit use. Hence from this viewpoint I should go for .org, as my website will be nonprofit. On the other hand, many suggest to opt for .com anyway (see e.g. here),
To complicate things further, I have verified that the domain namesurname.org is available, whereas namesurname.com is not.


texts: Collection of examples of course designs with the flaws pointed out and explained?

texts: We have a course on didactics in the curriculum, accomplishing which we should be able to evaluate courses and design our ones. I wonder if there is a collection of good course examples or examples of reviewing/evaluating a course with flaws exposed. Can I look at courses as a math/physics student looks at solved problems from the end of the book?


texts: What should I do if a professor says she doesn't understand my questions in office hours?

texts: I am having difficulties in math, and every time I try to go to my math professor's office hours she always seems annoyed. When I ask her a question she always says something to the effect "I don't understand what you are asking," I understand being precise with math but it's as if she purposely feigns confusion. I can ask a professor a math question in another one of my classes who barely speaks English and he seems to understand what I mean just fine. In short, this prof always talks down to me and is rude, I am struggling with the math, and am just trying my best to understand it. What should I do in this situation?


texts: What is the minimum score for the GRE subject exam in mathematics?

texts:
Unfortunately, the admission website of a university I am interested in applying to does not list the minimum score required on the GRE math subject exam.

Does anyone know the minimum score requirement for this exam when applying to graduate schools to study mathematics?


texts: Can I use a professor's letter of reference as a recommendation?

texts:
About 3 years ago, when I was finishing my Master's, I applied for a PhD position in a Canadian university. Everything went well and the professor provided a letter of reference to the members of admission committee indicating his acceptance to be my supervisor and fully fund my research (he sent me the letter to submit along my documents).

But unfortunately due to some personal circumstances I couldn't continue my studies and attend the PhD position.

Now, I am again considering applying for PhD (in some other universities) and was wondering: Can I use this letter of reference as a kind-of letter of recommendation? If so, should I ask his permission?


texts: What's the difference between Machine Learning classifications in Computer Science and Statistics on arXiv?

texts: I notice that there are minor classifications called Machine Learning in both classifications of Computer Science and Statistics respective named cs.LG and stat.ML on arXiv, what is the difference between these 2? What's different about the papers posted to them? if I want to submit an article on machine learning to one of them, how should I choose the appropriate classification based on the content of the article?


texts: Are there examples of more efficient funding systems than grant applications?

texts:
Applying for research grants costs a lot of time and energy. Which would still be acceptable, if the success rates wouldn't be so depressingly low. Currently, it appears to be an incredible waste of time and energy of some of the most gifted people in our society.

So are there examples of systems, either currently in use, or in the past, that are more efficient (any country)? And how do/did they work?

Related question, but not the same:
How economically efficient is the grant system?


texts: Summer plans for first year computer science grad student?

texts:
I've worked at the same place for the past two summers doing software development, and very much enjoyed the work and practical experience.  I was recently asked if I would consider a 1-2 year contract position. If they would have asked a year ago, I probably would have said yes... but I began graduate school this year.  So instead they are offering me a summer position.

I'm waiting to hear back from an internship and my advisor, but neither seemed particularly hopeful last I checked.  I am currently doing research part-time in AI, so this job would not really be relevant to that at all.  But, it's a job, and I like the place.  So my question is, should I accept (conditionally, if the internship does not work out), or continue looking for something more relevant?  Is it "okay" to work in an unrelated area your first summer as a graduate student?


texts: Fundementals of Engineering exam with Math degree (not ABET-engineering?)

texts: Is it possible to take the Fundamentals of Engineering to become a licensed engineer with only a math degree? I don't think a math degree is an ABET accredited "engineering program".


texts: What sources of information are there to find suitable congress, reunions, convention and other scientific gathering events?

texts:
I started a PhD in bioinformatics last year, changing my previous (undergrad) research topic from genetic engineering / virology  to chemoinformatics / neglected diseases. I've already went to a few congresses related to my field, but I'm not sure I'm aware of everything that is out there.

Back in my previous lab, various senior scientists would suggest me different conferences, but I'm the only one here working in chemoinformatics and my professor is rather new to the area too.

Is there any source of information to rapidly find scientific conferences? I'm having a hard time to find good ones about chemoinformatics

Suggestions?


texts: I want to improve my learning skills. Is there any advice or a good method for that? For example, I want to read an article or book and retain as much information possible. But sometimes I read and lose focus, or when I read I can't remember everything as well as I'd like to.


texts: My transcript has the wrong course names. How to fix this in PhD applications?

texts:
I took courses named A, B, and C during my master. They are all strongly related to the field I want to apply in, and I got top grades in them.
Due to administrative reasons, my transcript shows course names D, E, and F instead. They are all either slightly or not at all related to my field.
Names D, E, F are the names of courses that were replaced by A, B, C that year. I don't really understand why they were not changed in the official transcript, and I may not be able to get a transcript with the correct names.
How can I make sure that this does not hurt my chances when I apply to PhD programs in the field of A, B, C?
I am thinking of sending a version with the correct names, and attaching the official one, with a note that explains the issue. But I don't know how that will be seen by admission committees (they may wonder why I didn't just get a fixed version from my school).
Edit: I want to apply to machine learning programs. The A, B, C courses are about machine learning, deep learning and artificial intelligence. D, E, F are “3D engineering”, “image processing” and “image analysis”, which seem irrelevant in comparison. This seems to me like a blow to my applications.


texts: Should I switch from an M.A. to an M.S. program if my department allows me to choose?

texts:
I work in industry and am also attending a major U.S. university to get another master's degree, this one in Applied Math.

When I entered the program, the department offered a Master of Arts (M.A.) degree for Applied Math. This year, the department made a change to Master of Science (M.S.); any new students coming in Fall 2014 will be M.S. students, and any current students will be given the option of switching their degree from M.A. to M.S.

Should I make the switch from M.A. to M.S.? I already have a M.S. degree in engineering. In my opinion, all other things equal, M.S. is considered more rigorous from an employer's perspective.


texts: Asking to reattempt research after having a hard time initially

texts:
Last summer I asked a professor if I can try my hand at doing research under him in his field of interest. As I was an undergrad student (I still am) taking taking summer courses and working (I wasn't getting paid for the research) at the time and lacked a lot of skills/creativity to help in with what he was doing, I feel like I was not very successful in being very helpful with putting together a proper research report.

This being said, nearly whole year has passed since then, with no plans this summer for courses, I have an idea I want to do original research that could be helpful to his field (I didn't find anything written on the matter, so I'm not 100% sure if it's a good one, but I sincerely think it should be tried if it hasn't to verify its validity for his field) and I in turn gain from his guidance, and possibly get a paid position with him.

Is it possible for me to get back to doing research with him after having a rough time last year? If so, how should I ask for it? Should I simply write an email asking if its possible for me to try doing research with him again or compose a formal research proposal and give email it to him to demonstrate interest in the field? The risk in turn of that would be that I would waste my time writing a proposal that would never be read or  rejected where my efforts should be elsewhere.


texts: infinite/sustainable hosting of a web-interface to a research database

texts:
I am a postdoc in the humanities and I am drafting a funding application for a project envisaging the development of a research database. The project will last no more than 2-3 years and as a postdoc I am not supposed to stay at the host institution for longer.
The question is how to preserve the results of this work for posterity.
Luckily these days there are institutional and independent repositories, which allow me to store my complete dataset as a set of CSV files and in RDF/XML format with a well-documented ontology. This sounds sustainable.
But I also would like to offer a web-interface to the researchers so that the database could be consulted online. (The structure of my data is quite unique, which does not allow me to simply submit all my data to the online database of any large project working in my field.) I see it as a standard MySQL/PHP application, which I am planning to develop.
The question is what is the most sustainable strategy for hosting it. I have seen a number online research databases in my field, some costing a great deal of money to the funding authorities, which went offline after some years and are no-longer available. This includes both commercially hosted database (the worst option in my view, for someone has to pay eternally for hosting and domain name) and university-hosted databases. I understand that after I leave the host university (and I am just a postdoc), no one can guarantee that they will host the project website forever.
Besides the technologies for web development are changing fast and the web interface designed with current tools will become obsolete after some years.
What are the best practices for securing a lasting time-span for a small online research database, which does not have a strong lasting project behind it?


texts: Pros and cons of publishing in a mega journal?

texts: The open access journal Scientific Reports publishes original research in all areas of the natural and clinical sciences.  That's broad; it's a mega journal.  With such a broad scope, I initially thought it a predatory journal, but it's published by Nature, so it isn't.  What are the (dis)advantages of publishing original research in such a "mega journal"?


texts: How long should I wait for the response of the possible postdoc advisor?

texts:
Some days ago, I write a message to a PI to confirm if a postdoctoral offer, posted on a webpage, was still open. He reply me that those positions were already filled. But, he ask me for my C.V. just in case he can arrange for other postdoctoral positions in his group. Of course, I sent my C.V. with two re prints of my most representative papers. He wrote me back again for sending him those documents.

The questions that I would like to address are:

Should I write him back asking him if he liked or not my C.V.?
Just in case, How long should I wait to write him back?
Would be better if I write to his actual postdoctoral students in order to know if he has made some comment about my application?


texts: Having a co-author as an external examiner for doctoral thesis defense

texts:
I'm a PhD student in Computer Science in the UK. I had co-authored a paper with a Lecturer from another university (not any of my supervisors, just someone's work I'm building upon) in my first year. I have kept him up-to-date with my work and he's very familiar with what I'm doing. Would I be allowed to have him as an examiner for my thesis?

Edit: Just to clarify, I'm referring to an external examiner.


texts: What happens if the speaker dies on the way to the conference?

texts:
Suppose that two collaborators sent a paper to a conference which was very far away (say, from US to Australia). After the paper was accepted, one of the authors took the flight to the venue, and died on the way.

Conferences generally require someone to present their work for their paper to appear in proceedings. However, in this situation, it is nobody's fault.

Is there a rule or a specific implementation for such cases?


texts:
I am a PhD student designing algorithms for mathematical problems. I have the very bad habit of loosing my track on research problems. Suppose I am working on problem X, then, in the next week, I will start looking at Y,Z and other problems. Due to this, I feel tired at the end of the day with very less productivity with respect to X. I have always fear in my mind of failing, and that's why I try to look at other problems simultaneously. I don't know if it is okay for a PhD student (after mid-stage) to do this kind of things.

Question: How to focus only on the problem at hand?


texts: Are there writing style guidelines as to the use of "some of us" in a journal paper?

texts:
I wonder if there are any arguments for or against the use of "some of us" in a research paper. In a paper by "(myself), S. E. Cond, and A. U. Thor" about an "Update on previous research", I wonder if it would be OK to write

Some of us have previously shown that ... [1].

[1] (myself), S. Other, and A. U. Thor. Previous Research. Fancy J.

I usually write "we" to speak about the set of authors of the current manuscript, so I don't see any problem myself. But there may be, so: are there any rules I should follow?


texts: Scholarship effects on later applications

texts:
I have the choice to either apply for a sholarship or get a regular salary. Economically, the position is slightly favorable (mainly due to pension prospects), but I also want to consider secondary effects such as prestige in the CV w.r.t. lateron applications.

I know it's hard to put a value on such a thing, so I'm interested in your opinions.


texts: Names in my language used in publications are inconsistant. Should I worry about it?

texts:
In my language, name structure are different to Western names, and they have a lot of diacritics. To make it less confusing and easier to use for international work, we usually "transliterate" it to a non-diacritics version and reorder the position of components. The problem is, for different people, they will choose different way to change. For example, in my language, the name Nguyễn Ví Dụ will have these kinds of transliterate (I'm not going to list all "combinations"):

Du Nguyen
Nguyen VD
NV Du
Du NV
or keep using Nguyễn Ví Dụ

Since the complexity of how a name is formed in the language is large, I can't really say which kind of "transliteration" is better than the others (it may even depend on the policy of the journals). And honestly, I don't think this is a problem to the authors if they decide to use a particular "transliteration". I know that I should keep those names as they are when citing the authors because that's how they get the credits.

Question: However, when I list some authors (say in my CV), one will easily notice the differences between how the names represented. If the reader doesn't really care about that, that's fine, but if they do, I don't know if they will have bad impression? For worse, three professors who wrote LORs for me referred my name in three different ways, same as how they write their names. And I myself have decided to just write my name as it is, which will make my application has four representations of my name. Should I worry about this?


texts: Why wouldn't a professor allow a student to record audio of his lecture?

texts:
I am a master’s student in a public university in the state of New York. I do not consider myself to be disabled in any form but I do find it difficult to concentrate in class. I lose focus too often and have difficulty recalling concepts taught during class. So I find resources such as recorded lectures to be very quite beneficial as whenever I lose focus while watching them, I can simply rewind back.

I am currently enrolled in a course where lectures are not recorded. I like this subject and I want to do well. So I want to ask the Professor permission to audio-record his lecture (by just keeping my phone on my desk and not using any distracting piece of equipment). I don't know the professor well but he definitely isn't one of those overtly friendly ones who (you'd think) will surely give you permission.

What I want to know is if he were to deny me, what could be his reasons?

I think I have just one shot at this. So I want to go there prepared.

A vaguely similar (but not the same) question has been asked before.

Update: I asked the Professor if I could record and he simply smiled and said yes.


texts: At the end of each semester, usually a month before final exams, my school (in the US) distributes teaching evaluations. What people will read these? Do people only see these after the final grades are posted?


texts: Is it normal for math grad students to be required to take summer classes to work?

texts:
My mathematics department apparently gets pressured by the university to have more people take courses during the summer.  We are also encouraged to take on TA responsibilities to make extra cash during the summer which is great.... except that they have this rule that if we want to teach/grade (or do any paid work during the summer) we have to enroll  in courses.  The options are slim and so is the stipend; I'm a grad student currently trying to prepare for my final prelim exam and do some research during the summer; I'd like to make a little extra cash.... but I crunched the numbers and it looks like I'll net about $600 for an entire summer, not exactly a living wage.

I should also add that our department (mathematics) brings more funds (in course work and its associated tuition) than any other department (I'm sure biology/chemistry pulls more in research grants), .... so it seems very tawdry of them to "get money back" by forcing us to enroll in classes.

So my question is: Is this normal?  I've spoken with some of my professors and they said it is not; but just curious what this community has to say and if this is ethical or are there any statistics on this sort of thing.


texts: "Educational review articles": How find these

texts:
Every once in a while I come across some really well-written review articles. They do not review a field of study and provide insane amounts of references to previous work; rather, they review a narrow topic, an experimental method, or a concept, in a way such that simple-minded MSc students - like myself - can understand the topic. Basically, they have written a sub-section in a textbook, but on a topic where the theory has yet to make it to a textbook.

One of these articles, Berera et al. (2009), categorized their paper as an "educational review". This is a genre I would pay to read more of, but I just stumble upon these every once in a while. It seems the term "educational review" is not a very common term for such reviews, and I always end up in journals reviewing methods in lower/higher educational.

So I ask here whether anyone know how to locate these educational reviews that I look for, or whether there is another term I can use more efficiently. I would really appreciate some assistance. My field of interest is anything chemistry-related.

Berera, van Grondelle, and Kennis (2009). Ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy: principles and application to photosynthetic systems. Photosynthesis Research 101(2-3): 105-118.


texts: Should I approach my boss from my previous company for a LOR for my Master’s in Computer Science (From USA)?

texts:
I graduated in 2018 (in computer science) and worked in an education startup (Sept'18-Feb'19), as a co-founder of sorts, and later joined a well-known company in Mar'19 and have been working there ever since. My main role at the startup was as an educational instructor (a fact which I feel can help my candidature) and doing sales in the part-time. Will obtaining a Letter of Recommendation (LoR) from the main founder help my candidature? While I can obtain two LORs from my current workplace, I felt that my experience at that startup would help demonstrate my commitment towards making education accessible.
I have obtained an academic LOR. This is specifically focusing on whether I need to obtain another Academic LOR or no.


texts:
I am about to start my graduate studies in an American university, moving from my native Peru. Over the course of my under-graduation, I have developed this strange habit of watching porn at odd times, say afternoon, or morning. Sometimes I watch in classroom too, of course, reducing the volume to zero. I ensure I do not disturb others while watching, by not giggling, or engaging in other clumsy activities.

I am nervous about moving to America. Will I be caught by the IT admin of the university and suspended or barred? Does this policy change with universities? Do some universities not mind this? Many of my friends spend their entire nights in their labs and I find it difficult to believe they do not visit any porn sites.


texts: Do universities notify failed candidates?

texts: After interviewing for faculty positions, would universities (in the US, or in general) notify me if they chose to proceed with other candidates or to close the search?


texts: How to reply to an unofficial offer from my second choice when I also have an unofficial offer from my first choice?

texts:
Here is my situation. I am looking for a post-doc position. I have two choices, A and B.

My first choice is A. And I already got an un-official offer from A. I was told that A is working on a official offer. But I haven't got the official offer yet.

Now, my second choice, B, also send me an email. B tells me that he would like to give me an offer if I am interested in joining his lab. How should I reply? Is it appropriate to tell him that I am interested?


texts:
In a postdoc interview, I was asked about something that I didn't know, and I said I don't have a professional experience into that however I am willing to know more about it. Although, this was not something I needed to know and not mentioned in my CV. So I am not sure I reacted well enough. How should I deal with such kind of questions in the future?

Thanks


texts: Is there any published research on pedagogy of the semester vs trimester systems at the high school or university levels?

texts:
I have found some anecdotal evidence, but I only found one systematic study by Bair and Bair

I'm specifically interested in the answers for Mathematics, Physics, and Engineering disciplines.


texts:
What would be the best option for an EU citizen to study for a bachelor's degree (in any developed country: UK, EU, USA, AU, NZ, Japan, China etc.), without having the money to pay for fees, bills, accomodation etc.? Is there a study program, university or institution that provides funding through scholarships, financial aid or other means, and/or some kind of job position so that I can earn the money needed while studying?

After contacting many institutions I still haven't got a positive answer regarding such possibility. I have also read about need blind admissions, but these are very few USA colleges, with extremely low admission rates and other requirements.

Is it the only option available to just try enroll in one of these universities that have low fees, and then do your best to get a job in the city where the university is, and if you can't find any drop out and go back?

Update

@xLeitix said that:

  "[...] funded study places basically only exist for the PhD level."

While learning about the early life of Jane Goodall, I have read from this paragraph that:

  [Louis] Leakey arranged funding, and in 1962 he sent Goodall, who had no
  degree, to the University of Cambridge. She went to Newnham College,
  Cambridge, and obtained a PhD in ethology. She became the eighth
  person to be allowed to study for a PhD there without first having
  obtained a BA or BSc. Her thesis was completed in 1965 [...]

Therefore she was able to get a PhD in 3 years, at Cambridge, without prior degree and on top of that without having to worry about money. Is this possible only if you manage to get in contact with someone at the level of Louis Leakey? How can I skip all other degrees and just go for a PhD like Dr. Goodall, so that I can get funding like @xLeitix said?


texts: Can one have two different sources for postdoc fundings together in Europe?

texts:
Let's consider the hypothetical situation of a postdoctoral candidate C, who get funded simultaneously as follows, starting at the same or different times, with overlap:

Funding agencies F_1, F_2 (for example, Marie Curie, FWO, Danish Research Council...), where for each F_i, he wrote a proposal with a research team or host H_i, who did not have any funding on their own, but agreed to supervise C.
Department D (for example, University of Pennsylvania), who offered candidate C a postdoc from their own funding directly.

Can C earn from both the fundings in case of 1. and 2.? or; it depends on the funding agencies rules?

I went though the rules of some Marie Curie postdoc fellowships, I don't think I noticed any rules that states anything against having two fundings together?


texts: Waiting for approval from professor to write letter of recommendation

texts:
I am applying to a university teaching position, and I would like one of my committee members to write a letter of recommendation for me. During my initial interview with the head of the department at this university, I was told that the application may be taken down swiftly depending on several factors. Hence, I'm in a bit of a time crunch.
I have an excellent relationship with the professor I am hoping to get a letter of recommendation from. But they have not responded to my email, and I'm concerned that the delay may make me miss this opportunity.
Since I have a good relationship with this professor, is it safe to assume they will be willing to write me a letter of recommendation, or should I contact the department I am applying to and let them know of my predicament? I have no concern that this professor would write a negative review, but I'm hesitant to assume they'd be willing or available to do it.


texts: Loss of an exam day in a four-week class

texts:
A friend of mine is a mathematics professor at a college in the southeast United States (where they're currently expecting significant snowfall) and just asked an interesting question that I'm reposting here:

I'm currently teaching a four-week class, and next week is the final week.  There is a good chance that the college will be closed Friday due to the weather, but Friday is also scheduled to be an exam day.
How should I handle this?  I cannot afford to use the last Monday as the new exam day.  My initial thought is that I could post it as take-home exam with strict warnings about using resources, but we can probably guess how well that will go.

I'm sure that she would appreciate any suggestions you might have, and I am also curious to see what they might be.


texts: Google Scholar: Where/How to send Emails to make corrections to them?

texts:
It looks to me that various articles of mine have huge parts of missing citations from various published papers from other people. For example, by checking adsabs.harvard.edu, I find many more citations to my papers, but they are not included properly thus missing in Google Scholar.

  Where/How do I send emails to Google Scholar to reach out for this issue?


texts: How common is it for universities to cover tuition and offer stipend for Master's students for RA/TA positions (USA)?

texts:
From my googling I found that only about 30% of the universities I looked at (in Computer Science) offer Research Assistant (RA)/Teaching Assistant (TA) positions to Master's students that cover tuition (i.e. USC, UMich). Is this normal, or did I miss something? I thought it was standard but a lot of universities like UChicago, Northwestern do not cover tuition for TA/RAs.
Side question: is the answer to this different across areas of study and departments or is tuition coverage for Masters RAs/TAs determined across the whole university?


texts: Does an associate professor work in the laboratory on a daily basis?

texts: I got a position as an associate professor at new university. I observe my colleagues that they do not work in the lab normally which is quite strange for me. In my previous job as assistant professor I needed to work hard myself in the lab to produce the results, then describe them and publish. Here I am generally ''forced'' to sit in front of computer but without going to the lab and work physically I do not produce any results and no publications... How it looks at your university? Life science field.


texts: How to read a textbook for distance learning coursework - do I need to work on fact recall, or is understanding enough?

texts:
There's perhaps a better title for this question, but I can't immediate think of one - suggestions for amendment welcome.

I'd like to clarify the purpose of reading textbooks. It sounds obvious at first, but what I mean is opaque to me.

I'm currently reading a textbook describing ~35 problem-solving and improvement methods, as part of this course. It is densely packed with definitions, ideas, procedures etc. I'm highlighting as I go through and occasionally making notes in the margins.

When I finish reading, I barely remember what I've just read, let alone what I've learned. If I was asked to describe the characteristics of a technique I've just read about, I would struggle to put forward a coherent and strong answer.

Even if I condense my notes and read through them, the problem remains - there are too many 'facts' to learn, remember and regurgitate.

This leads me to ask what the purpose of reading textbooks is. Is it to learn and understand 'facts' and be able to remember them? Or is it to learn and understand? That is, it doesn't necessarily matter if you can't remember, so long as you can understand ideas when you revisit them and can argue them in your work.

For clarity, I'm a distance-learning student with The Open University, so the textbook I'm referring to isn't a traditional textbook, but one that is perhaps closely identified by F'x as a coursework book. These books are used in place of lectures, and so are meant to be read in a linear fashion on a week-by-week basis.


texts: What simple events can a graduate student club organise to network with former students, companies, etc.?

texts:
I'm a graduate student in Engineering. This semester we're going to form a graduate student club. We're thinking about creating some networking events with former students, companies, etc.

Do you  have any related ideas that are not hard to implement and not too expensive?


texts: Can my supervisor prevent me from publishing by affecting reviewers opinion?

texts:
Lately, and after long time of work in my PhD, I was able to get a result that is brand new, very strong and important. My supervisor though seems jealous and wants me not to publish before finishing my PhD. But I sense he wants to scoop me once I leave. The time is short and I haven't enough time to work in lab that will guarantee a paper. I insist on publishing though, can he contact any of the journal editors and affect their opinion?
I can't take the risk, so what should I do to avoid this?


texts: I recently submitted a preprint to arXiv. This is my first time submitting to arXiv. According to https://arxiv.org/help/submit#availability, based on my submission time, the paper should have been announced on Wednesday 20:00 EST (which just passed). At that time, my submission disappeared from my arXiv portal. Is this common? Was it removed due to an error of mine? Up until the announce time, the status showed Submitted. It wasn't put on hold, so I assumed there wasn't any errors.


texts: Stay in academia or become professor without overworking, is it possible?

texts:
I am referring more to young scientists after the PhD than professors, although I am also wondering about people with a stable position.

I see many people overworking themselves, burning-out, being overworked and with pressure to work well, fast, and produce a lot (publications). I am discussing an average person who has completed a PhD that has all the skills for the job. Let's leave the top professors 5-10% of the field that are super-productive for whatever reason, those are exceptions. I also assume that there is passion for research, but that work balance is also important.

Is it possible to survive/remain in academia by working normal hours (8-9 hours per day) without working evenings, weekends, holidays, without feeling guilty about taking a 2-3 weeks vacation? I imagine to become professor would include many of the above sacrifices. Some professors (tenured) have told me they work 50-60-70 hours per week.

Is overworking basically the rule/working culture in academia?
Is it unusual to reach/maintain a stable position in academia without regularly overworking?

Consider mentioning the cultural, country, institution type of your answer, as there are variations in different contexts.