texts: Is it a good idea to protest for a paper rejection?

texts:
Say that you submitted a journal paper and after some time you received a rejection. The comments of the reviewers were not that bad. Some of them are demanding minor revisions, some are demanding major revisions. The Editor however rejected the paper saying that the proposed model is unrealistic.

Is it a good idea to send an email and protest for such decision?


texts: Applying to Professional Masters Program after Working with Low Undergrad GPA

texts:
I am looking to apply for a professional masters program in computer science (M.E. in Computer Science) that is designed to for the working software engineer. It is not advised for those interested in doing computer science research in academia. I have been looking at universities that offer this professional masters degree, and limiting it to ones that have a fully online degree. I plan on applying to most of them.

I have been working full time as a software engineer since I graduated with my B.S. in Computer Science (Graduated in May 2015). I now have 3.5 years of work experience and I am highly regarded by management and coworkers. I have been critical in ensuring the success of multiple projects. I have also excelled at learning all sorts of new things as part of my profession.

Unfortunately, I graduated with a pretty low undergraduate GPA (Mine was 2.62). There are a variety or reasons for this: dealing with a life threatening illness that impacted me for multiple semesters, a curriculum that was more challenging than nearby universities, a second B.S. degree (Mechanical Engineering) in a subject I am nowhere near as good in compared to software engineering.

My hope is that by working as a very successful software engineer, I can counteract my low undergraduate GPA. Is 3.5 years long enough to reduce the importance of my undergrad GPA when applying for a professional masters? Should I wait longer (like 5, 7, 10 years)? Is there anything else I can do to help address this negative? Thanks!


texts:
What can we do with the technical documentation we develop during our career?
Is it worth to publish? If so, where?

I am considering those lines of code that we took time to write and that we usually only use in the first steps of our own publications, that we never actually added to the publication .. but saves all our colleagues (everyone one asks you to adjust your code to their needs...).

Is this a good way to guarantee that our colleagues give credit to the work previously developed by us?


texts: Any good source of information on EU based postdoctoral/researcher funding opportunities

texts:
I have read several posts on the forum but there seems no good information hub for EU based postdoctoral/researcher funding opportunities. I will be grateful if someone can give me a start.

By the way, I have found this list myself.


texts: Are papers corrected by the publisher after acceptance?

texts:
I am submitting the camera ready version of a paper for a conference in machine learning. The proceedings will be published by a well known publisher of the area. I have a question:

after the upload of the camera ready version, is the paper edited in some way by the publisher? Assume that I add typos or strange/not existing english words: is the paper going to be published with these errors, or there is someone-not-scientist who corrects the paper?


texts: How to search for journals that accept shared first authorship?

texts:
My group member and I have equally contributed on a paper that's ready to submit to a materials science and/or surface engineering journal. However, I don't know how to search for a journal that supports co-first authorship.
I contacted surface and coatings technology journal, they said that the corresponding author is the co-first author, which is unusual. As I have seen papers in other fields where there are two co-first authors and a separate corresponding author.
My supervisor will be the corresponding author in this work. Any suggestions?


texts: Need help and advice concerning how to apply and look for grad schools

texts:
I am very new to this grad school process and currently overwhelmed to the point of tears.

I graduated from Stony Brook with a degree in Sociology in 2010. I was also admitted to Alpha Kappa Delta that year. I was a teaching assistant for 2 classes and had a 3.28 gpa overall but a higher gpa in just sociology.

I took time off to earn money and just give myself a break. I work as a babysitter, make pretty decent money, and I enjoy what I do but I want to go back to grad school now. I have no research experience, I am currently studying for the GRE, reading up on some information and I honestly don't know where to start or if I have a snowball's chance in a furnace of getting in anywhere.

I would like to go back Fall 2014 (giving myself time) and I am looking at programs like Cornell, Rutgers, and Syracuse (probably more as time goes on) and thinking the only way I am getting into any of those is if the faculty has pity on me. I feel I am intelligent and could do grad work, I just don't know how I can prove to admissions I can so they will let me in. I'd really like a Ph.D but if I have to start off with a masters to get into the school, I will. Although my fear of asking this question is currently taking over since I fear someone will squish my dream of grad school like a slow moving spider, if I don't ask, I won't be able to go forward since I don't know where to begin...

Honest advice or information would be much appreciated. I want to go to grad school and I am willing to find ways to make that happen, just no idea where to begin.

Thank you so very much ahead of time...^^


texts: Is it acceptable to use an acronym for a set of adjectives?

texts:
In science, it is very common to shorten nouns with acronyms (e.g. deoxyribonucleic acid -> DNA). However, I am struggling to think of any examples of sets of adjectives that are written as an acronym.
I am writing a scientific document, in which I must describe my data in a specific way. For the sake of this question, let's say it's "high time resolution data". It is important to distinguish the data as high time resolution data, as it is a unique type of data in the field, and the document requires justification of the significance of analysis of this data. I do not think it is appropriate to drop the adjectives and simply describe it as "the data" due to the context of the document. Is it fine/acceptable to refer to it as "HTR data", in order to improve the brevity and readability of the text?
I should note that I would prefer to use "HTR data" instead of "HTRD" to allow for interchanging the word "data" for something else, like "measurements", where appropriate.


texts: What are some way to give praise to a professor without resorting to flattery?

texts:
In elementary school we are taught to give an apple to your teacher as a sign of appreciation. Obviously it doesn't work anymore in academia.

I wish to maintain a relationship with a professor after his class, so to establish a relationship that maybe worthwhile longer down the road.

What are some of the ways to show appreciation to your university prof. without resorting to excessive (and often empty) flattery or sending him gifts which maybe in violation of university policy and land everyone in trouble.


texts: google scholar citation for github repository

texts: I am preparing the code for a paper which already published (without my name on it). The code is about to release now and I was hoping to add that to my google scholar or something to keep a record of the citation. Should I put the papar in my google scholar and somehow mention I worked on the code?


texts: Career advice for a Physics PhD Student?

texts:
I am currently in the first year of my physics Ph.D. program at The University of Notre Dame focused on condensed matter physics. While in undergrad, I specialized in optics which I also enjoyed. I just joined a research group focused on experimentally researching the nature of superconductors, specifically through skyrmions and magnetic vortices (mostly using small-angle neutron scattering).
I want to transition into the industry sector after graduating and know I want to apply my condensed matter physics knowledge even if it isn't directly related to my group's research emphasis. However, I am not opposed to using the math, physics, and experimental research skills I have been developing in a less directly related career path. I was wondering if anyone had suggestions for potential career paths, career path resources, or just any general advice on future careers?


texts: Pros and cons of supervising master's students as a postdoc

texts:
I'm an American postdoc working at a university in the UK, working in a mathematics department. I am planning on applying to jobs in both the US and UK, including smaller places, and SLACs.

I have the opportunity to supervise a master's thesis. In the grand scheme of things, is it worth it? My suspicion is that nobody gets a job for having supervised an MSc thesis, but on the other hand, permanent job applications do seem to ask about such experience.

What are the pros and cons of supervising students? Would the time be better spent on doing my own research?


texts: How does having a PhD affect your chance of getting into a second PhD UK university in a different field UK university?

texts:
My friend has taken a unusual route in academia. She first did a bachelor and PhD in electrical engineering, fully funded by her scholarship. However, she told me that she has little interest in engineering, and only did it to please her parents. Her real interest is in art history. Hence, two months after completing her PhD in engineering, she took up a masters in art history in the UK, which is her dream. She did very well in her masters, and started applying for a PhD in the UK earlier this year. As of now, she has received multiple offers to study for a PhD in these universities. But, she has little success in obtaining scholarship for her PhD in art history.
I cannot help but feel a bit 'unfair'? I know many students who have spent a lot more time taking art history classes, such as those who did a bachelor and then a masters, but cannot manage to get into PhD programs. Hence, I have a few questions on the process that the UK universities have in selecting PhD students. Are the UK universities quite relax in choosing PhD students who have their own means of funding (assuming that they can get a supervisor there who is willing to supervise them)? Does the pandemic causes the UK universities to relax their section of incoming PhD students? Does having a PhD in a separate field made my friend easier to be accepted into a PhD in the UK university?


texts: How long is reasonable to wait for reply from an editor?

texts: About 5 months ago I submitted a paper to a journal. The editors assigned a reviewer. In the meantime I sent a couple of revised versions, which did not help matters, but the editor ultimately wrote back and asked me to complete my revisions and re-submit the document. I did that within a couple of weeks. The editors did not acknowledge receipt of this submission, but I did not want to ask for one since I felt I had already been pestering them too much. A couple of weeks later, I notified the editors that I wanted to post a couple of graphs from the submitted paper on a blog, although I hoped to make it clear that only a very small component of the whole paper was being posted on the blog. The editors did not respond to this notification. More than two months went by after the re-submission, and I sent a message to the editor asking for a status update, just to be sure that the paper was still being considered and under review. It seemed to me that a very simple "yes, it is still being reviewed", or "no, we have considered your paper withdrawn and it is not being reviewed" or something like that, would suffice. About 10 more days passed with no response, and I thought I would telephone the editor with my question, on the off-chance that my emails were not getting through.  I left a message for him, and another week has gone by with no response. At what point do I take the non-response from the editor as a message that my paper is no longer under review and that I should re-submit it elsewhere? The journal is otherwise a reputable journal, and I would like my paper published there, but there are many others that interest me too.  I feel like I made a mess of the whole process, and am to be blamed for over-communication and confusion, but am I not owed the courtesy of a response from the editor?


texts: Does anyone know of an international postdoctoral association?

texts:
The number of postdocs is increasing worldwide. Because of their technical expertise and dedication, postdocs are rapidly becoming the backbone of most large science laboratories.

I am aware of institutional associations for postdocs, which are venues for networking, exchange of ideas, solving problems. At the local scale.
Examples:

http://www.nationalpostdoc.org

http://jhpda2.jhu.edu

https://uwpa.wisc.edu

However many postdocs move from their original departments, and became international. And it is my impression that similar challenges are faced by postdocs around the world, and it is quite hard finding out how things are going with colleagues abroad. Especially on delicate matters, via cold emails.

Please, would anyone be aware of some international association where postdoctoral fellows worldwide could meet, and discuss their difficulties and experience?


texts: Using legal mononym only for publications

texts:
I don't use a surname, implying I just have my first name in all my legal documents, and I intend to keep it this way. I got my first accepted submission in a conference lately where I added my name in this format: (eg.) "Meredith - ". Now my name is appearing as "-" in the list of contributors on the submission website.
I don't wish to add a surname, how do I deal with this?
This work will be added to ACM Digital Library where they do add full names as far as I know.
(PS: I want to be cited with my first name only in my future work as well.)


texts: Erratum or corrigendum on arXiv too? Should the authors lists match?

texts:
We have a mistake in a published paper and we will send a Corrigendum to the journal. Concerning arXiv we have two options:

Replace v1 by v2, where v2 has no longer the mistake, and state what we did in the arXiv meta data, adding a footnote in the arXiv-version, telling that v1 was wrong.
Or: Also keep the mistake of v1 on arXiv visible and upload the corrigendum to arXiv too. (But then, what to do with the original v1-arXiv-preprint? Add there, that the result is corrected in a further publication?)

and a question:

Should the very same authors appear (even though one has not worked for the correction but also did not participated in the mistake)?

Is there a canonical way to proceed?


texts: Why are CS researchers reluctant to share code and what techniques can I use to encourage sharing?

texts:
While researching a topic area I have come across a number of papers that claim to improve on the state of the art and have been published at respected outlets (e.g. CVPR, ICIP). These papers are often written in a way that obscures some of the details and their methods can be lacking in detail. Upon contacting these authors for more information and asking if they would kindly make their source code available they stop replying or decline the offer.

Why are computer science researchers reluctant to share their code?

I would have expected that disseminating your source code would have positive effects for the author, e.g., greater recognition and visibility within the community and more citations.  What am I missing?

For the future, what are some better ways to approach fellow researchers that will result in greater success at getting a copy of their source code?


texts: No specific guideline for the template of first submission

texts:
I am planning to submit my work to Pattern Recognition journal, and I am looking for its appropriate latex template.
I read the author guidline carefully, but honestly it is quite confusing to me. As to the template, all it says are

elsarticle.cls should be used for latex template
page limits to 20 to 35
double spaced and single column

Then, I am wondering if I can change the the provided template settings when there is no specific instructions for them Specifically,

May I use the template from here, and am I allowed to change its margin? (The guideline gives no specific instruction for the margin specification at all.)

My lab published several papers to this journal recently, however it was all done by docx using Word. What really confuses me is that the latex template provided here has a much bigger margin size than the docx template our lab used.
I would be very grateful if someone who published to this journal using latex could give me some template advices on the first submission.
Thanks a lot for reading my question.


texts: In a literature review, should I focus on how much my work will contribute to the discipline?

texts:
When I have previously published papers, I have written about how much my work contributes to the discipline and builds on the work of others. I am currently writing my literature review for my PhD upgrade and even though I am featuring a lot of work, I am not focusing that much on how my work builds on those of the cited authors. My research is multi-disciplinary, covering three fields.

In a literature review therefore, is my job just to review the literature? Or should I also mention how my work builds on the literature I have mentioned?


texts: Reporting a student who may be psychologically disturbed

texts:
Yesterday, a colleague from my school's history department brought me a student's final project from her history class. The assigned project was to produce a "creative" project dealing with a historical figure/event covered in the time period of the class (20th century United States). One student wrote a short play about the Great Depression. Another student designed a simple computer game that he ran on a Macintosh Classic II from the 1990s.
However, the student in question here (whose project I was shown) wrote a diary for a famous American serial killer.  The diary graphically details the killings this man performed, including hand sketches of female genitalia, clippings from some porn magazines, and (as far as we can tell) splatters of real blood. It is a horrifically disturbing piece of work.
The student did technically fulfill the parameters of the assignment. He produced a (seemingly) historically accurate project on a historical figure from the 20th century in the United States. (Neither my colleague nor I really wanted to fact check every detail of a 200 page diary written in scrawled handwriting and splattered with blood and sketches of vivisected women). The writing is decent, albeit rather repetitive and somewhat simple. My colleague is likely going to give the student a fairly high grade on the project.
However, the graphic and disturbing subject matter, alongside the frighteningly realistic psychopathy, have brought my colleague to wonder if she should show the project to department or university administration. We were not sure if this student just had a distinct (and disturbing) gift for creative writing or if he was actually writing from personal experience (or something?). Is it a cry for help? Is the student a serial killer (unlikely)? Does he enjoy fantasizing about vicious crimes?
We are not psychologists, so we are not going to try to psychoanalyze this student from a professional standpoint. We also want to tread lightly around punishing and censoring a student for "thought crimes." However we also do not want to become part of history ourselves by being "that one professor" who saw potential signs of a violent criminal and opted to just give the kid an A- and be done with it.
Should my colleague show this project to university administrators?

Addendum
There have been a few questions about the structure and reasoning behind this class.  This is a class that emphasizes history through the lens of "creativity." The thesis of the class is essentially that historical figures were highly creative and that we can learn a fair amount about history by examining "creativity." The class is usually taken by STEM majors as a general ed requirement. I took the class (years ago) and it actually was very interesting and I learned a lot about history.
There have been questions about the grading on the assignment. I do not know the specific metrics for grading the project. I said that my colleague may give an A- on the project as just a hypothetical filler grade. I do not know what she will grade the student on specifically. I guess it comes down to how creative we think writing the F-word 200+ times in a pornographic notebook splattered with a bloody substance is. Let's not act as if all violent porn is to be elevated to the pedestal of artistic acclaim just for the sake of radical liberality. I'm not the grader of the assignment and I ultimately cannot answer how it will be graded.


texts: Self-plagiarism: Copy part of thesis for blog posts?

texts:
I am currently writing my master thesis and I am also running a popular blog about my research area. Some people asked me about certain topics and if I could write about them on my blog to make them more understandable to newcomers in our field.

Now it is tempting for me to just copy parts of my yet uncompleted thesis and mash together into blog posts. This will help me to save time writing them (I usually do not have the time) and it will benefit others. However, I worry that people see that as self-plagiarism. In particular people on the thesis committee might say I copied parts of the thesis from the internet.

What would be the right way to save me from trouble here. Shall I cite my unpublished thesis, or should my thesis cite my blog posts? Should the blog posts have clear indications that I copied verbatim from my unpublished thesis? Will I get into trouble if people see that in my thesis I copied verbatim from my blog posts (if I cite my blog posts  rather than the other way around).


texts: What counts as a research experience in mathematics?

texts:
I am applying for some scholarship that requires applicants to write about previous research experience.  As the application will be reviewed by the people of my field (mathematics), I would like to understand what do people count as research experience.  I have heard some people mentioning that research experience in the undergraduate level does not require original research, it could be of the form of summer projects (reading papers/books), dissertations (with/without original materials), going to conferences, organizing learning seminars and presentations etc.

Are all of the things I mentioned research experience?

Thanks in advance.


texts: Acknowledgment to friend in research article

texts:
I have a research article that has been accepted in reputed journal and is in final stage of publication. Now I want add acknowledgment in my article, as I independently written this article so nobody has academically contributed to my research. But I strongly believe that my research could been effected very badly if my close friend had not been there for my help(not academic of-course).

Can I add his name in acknowledgment?


texts: Can Zotero collections be used as hierarchical tags?

texts: Few answers under this question have inspired me with the interesting idea of using Zotero "folders" (called collections) as hierarchical tags. Zotero does allow to create folder (=collection) tree in the left pane, and one reference can be put in more such collections. But, is Zotero able to search references present in two or more collections? That would be super cool, because then we could use those collections as tags!


texts: Is it a bad idea to buy plane tickets before the conference schedule is announced?

texts:
I will be attending a conference to give a presentation
in approximately two months.
I would like to buy plane tickets to and from the conference location,
especially because I am living outside the US
and the conference is in the US,
so travel to the conference is not an easy thing.

Unfortunately, the conference organizers
have yet to confirm and announce the conference schedule.
I do know that the last possible presentation session ends at 2 pm on Tuesday,
so if I wanted to book plane tickets now,
the earliest flight that I could catch would leave at 4 pm.
However, if my presentation is on Monday,
I might prefer to book a flight that leaves early on Tuesday morning,
skipping some of the sessions at the conference.

Question:
Should I book my flight tickets now at "safe" times?
Or should I book my flight tickets,
leaving early on the last day,
hoping that I don't get scheduled for the very last presentation slot?

Response to answers/comments:
I don't need to leave early.
I have just often observed that
at every conference which I have attended in the past,
the attendance at the last few sessions is rather low,
and it just seemed to be "normal" to leave early.
Based on the answers/comments,
it seems that just because many others leave early
doesn't mean that I need to when I can stay at the conference,
learning things and meeting people.


texts: How to motivate students you supervise to produce high-quality research when other graduate students in the program don't?

texts:
I have a good friend who is in his first year as an assistant professor right now, having earned his PhD last year.

He is frustrated because in his new department, standards for graduate student research seem to be lower than what he was used to in his PhD department. Some PhD students in his new department graduate without ever publishing anything (which is not usual in our field). The theses that students in his new department produce would be considered at the level of a good bachelor's thesis in his old department. The graduate students all work fewer hours and are less productive during their working time than what he is used to.

I suspect this is a common problem, since many people who land tenure-track academic jobs end up in a department that's ranked lower than the one where they earned their PhD.

Assuming the graduate students he supervises are actually capable of more, how can he motivate his students to work harder and produce better work when other students in the program don't? Is it realistic to even try?


texts: How to support students whom other faculty abuse?

texts:
Some of the students in my class take a class with another member of faculty.  That other, tenured, member of faculty has taken to abusing individual students in front of the whole class. This abuse takes the form of calling them "dumb" and "racist", and threatening to "report" them (whatever that means).

From my perspective, in my class the students are polite, diligent, and get on well with their peers. I'm happy to have them in my class.

Is there something I should / could be doing more than being as objective and supporting of them as possible for my own course?

The students have already started walking their complaints about the tenured faculty member up the university hierarchy. Each successive rung (department head, dean of school, provost so far) seems intent on fobbing them off.

If it makes a difference, the students involved are women of color and I am an older, white male.

Added: Apparently this behavior is not new. That's how the faculty member started out pre-tenure. The behavior modified. They were granted tenure last year, so the previous behavior has returned.


texts: Should I cite sources about a technology description?

texts:
I want to add some description of a technology (Node.js = server-side JavaScript) in my thesis. The description is about what exactly this technology is, how it works, what it can do etc.

I want to use Node.js Wikipedia page, a blog page, one of my supervisor's lectures for gathering information.

Should I cite these sources, given the fact that they say pretty much the same things and these things are just observations, not scientific contribution?


texts: What should one do if they've discovered a "breakthrough" but lack academia credentials?

texts:
Let's assume someone has a very thorough knowledge of a particular field of science but they have absolutely no formal education in this background.

This individual one day realizes a very novel approach to solving a somewhat complex problem.  After developing independent tests and coming up with rock-solid evidence that her method is groundbreaking, and consistently produces test results that would be impossible without a legitimate solution, what can she do with her research to both share the information with the world and retain some form of credit for the discovery?

In other words, how can one be both a hobbyist contributing to a field of scientific study and yet also retain the respect they deserve for their work if it is of great use and benefit?

To be clear, this isn't about having one's name appear in a Science Journal without the necessary credentials.  I think it's respectable to maintain certain sets of rules and standards for journalistic publications.  However, it also isn't fair for such a person to have to divulge this information to someone who is "qualified" and have them receive all or most of the credit for someone elses work, just because that other person hasn't earned a piece of paper.

How can hobbyist both share, and maintain, the recognition they deserve if they make a legitimate scientific breakthrough?


texts: How to find companies looking to sponsor a Master's degree for their new employee?

texts: I was told by a couple people I met that some companies sponsor a Master's degree (in the United States) for new hires. One of these was in such a program and was only required to work part time to the hiring company and would not even have to work for that company after graduation. I didn't asked either people about how did they find these opportunities, but now I'm interested to know more. How do companies recruit people for this? Is it the same as looking for a regular job?


texts: Graduate School Offer of Acceptance Due Dates in the US?

texts:
I am applying to biomedical science Ph.D. programs, and the programs have very different deadlines for applying. For instance, many applications were due at the end of Nov/start of Dec, however, I have several due mid-Dec to mid-Jan.

Already, I have received an offer to follow up with an interview at the University of Arizona for their Ph.D. program, even though I have not submitted my final 2 applications due over the next month.

Does anyone know if Ph.D. programs tend to be strict about when one can accept an admission offer from a Ph.D. program (i.e. giving an applicant 1 week to accept an offer or decline it)? My worry is that if the University of Arizona offers me admission, I will only have a few weeks max to respond (likely before I even interview for other programs, if I am to be chosen for interviews). I know when I applied as an undergraduate, I was given a lot of time to choose my school. However, when I applied to summer internships throughout college (e.g. Amgen Scholar), I was given 5-7 days to respond with my decision on whether I want to partake in the program that offered me admission.


texts: Credibility of non-journal online publications

texts:
When publishing in some popular scientific journals, it is easy to understand that it is worth referring to in your CV, job applications, or elsewhere when it is appropriate to talk about your publications.

But what if your publication is not in some scientific journal known worldwide with 50 years history, but on some online web-site, that is definitely not considered to be very scientific and professional among universities, but at the same time it is quite popular among researchers. I mean it has quite big number of people (tens of thousands daily) using it daily, contains many articles on some kinds of research written by researchers themselves, posting comments pointing out the mistakes, etc.

Is it worth mentioning or would it be considered not respectful enough place to be published?

And moreover, what if you "publish" some research on your own blog? Suppose it is popular enough to be considered published paper (i.e., few hundreds or thousands of people have actually read it).

Of course you could ask, "Why not then publish it in the respectable journal?" I would answer that publications I am talking about are not some breaking news or anything, rather just some experiments, that yielded some results, explained couple of things, but not new in any sense, i.e., it is more of educational publications saying "Hey, you can do this and this is how, check it out", probably repeating some experiment done by others, but with more explanations, research, etc. Such publications are not suitable for many journals and I would suspect many journals would not even consider printing it, so it basically can't go further than internet article, though it can get pretty scientific.


texts: How to evaluate a thesis based on papers with multiple authors

texts:
I was asked to be a referee of a PhD thesis.
The thesis is completely based on several papers published in journals.
All the papers have, besides the PhD student, other authors (different authors for different papers).
Also, the field of study is Mathematics,
so the order of authors is Alphabetical, and there is no information about the contribution of each author.
Given this situation, how should I evaluate the thesis?  Is there any general advice on how to proceed in such a situation?


texts: How could publishers, in particular disreputable ones, prove that you “signed” a copyright agreement?

texts:
With almost every question from people having dealing with predatory publishers, the question comes up whether they have already signed a copyright agreement. This always makes me ask myself this question:

When it comes to that point, how could a publisher actually prove, that you “signed” a specific copyright transfer agreement? Any copyright transfer agreement I have encountered so far (only reputable publishers) I agreed to by clicking on a button in some submission system. Now there are two cases to distinguish:

The submission system is hosted by a third party. In this case, the publisher has a source other than itself that could confirm that you¹ clicked on agree and what exactly you agreed to. I do not deny that there may be some evidence here.
The system is hosted by the publisher itself. Some reputable publishers do this (at least so it seems to me) and I also would guess that this is what most disreputable publishers do. How can the publisher produce any evidence that you¹ clicked the button and what copyright agreement was shown to you? They can show that the accepted_copyright_agreement-flag in their database is set to true for your submission, but given that it’s their database, they can manipulate it at will and this does not constitute any proof.

I have not come across any other case where such kind of unilateral agreements are made online. For example, if I buy something online, the actual contract of sale is established by me transferring money (or similar) and the other party transferring a product (and I have full return rights for some weeks, at least in my country, legal disputes on whether the buy button was actually clicked are unlikely).

Note that I am not so much asking about whether some evidence would actually convince a court but rather about anything that could be even considered as evidence by any reasonable person or court.

¹ or more precisely: the person who submitted the manuscript


texts: Do American universities generally sponsor H1B visas for staff?

texts: Do top American universities (such as NYU, etc.) sponsor H1B visa petitions for staff position? If yes, what type of jobs are sponsored in staff positions?


texts: How feasible to learn undergraduate math in one year?

texts:
I know that Scott Young tried this for computer science by utilizing resources on OCW.  I am more interested in mathematics (pure and applied).  I wondered how feasible to do the same thing for mathematics.
As for my background, I was in a much worse situation than Scott's.  I received no formal education (primarily for financial reasons) since I was 19.  English is not my native language. And I am 28 now and know very little mathematics (or at least according to my own standards).  All I have is interest and determination.  I worked as a computer programmer for the past years.  Although MOOC was declared failure as revolution since it is criticized to be preaching to the converted, but it does benefit people like me a lot.  I plan to apply to AMSS, a top mathematics graduate school in my country.  The only good thing about the system in my country is that the entrance of a school is only determined by the entrance exam and interview.  This means my lack of college education will have relatively little negative impact on me.  The only thing I worry about is my age.  I feel I am just too old to do anything great.  Look at those wunderkinds who always achieve great things at young ages.  However, five years ago, I audited for half a semester at Fudan university (a school famous for its mathematics program).  I didn't find the average math students there are impressive.  I was doing very well for that half semester and students there actually asked me for clarifying some concepts.  Therefore, I do believe I have an aptitude for math.  My goal is really humble and I just want to make a living by doing things I love.


texts: How do you go about dealing with an editor that pretends to be ALL the reviewers and reject a paper based on his/her 'made-up' reviews?  Should I complain to the editor-in-chief or simply let it slide?  The editor is a big name in my field.


texts: Why do others have these highly specialised research topics and I don't?

texts:
I have some time now to think about what I want to write for my dissertation, but I just don’t know how to find an appropriate topic. I like what I do and I could do a lot.

Some people seem to have really interesting and specialized interests and topics for their dissertations. And although I am really into what I study, I just always feel like I haven’t got this amazing topic that hasn't been researched yet or that I could contribute something to. And I feel like I don't want to specialize just yet. I want to know more. But I already have a Masters. What went wrong there?

I basically feel like I have to make something up as it were, or even choose something at random (from within my general interests, of course). This being said, I will probably like it and do well. But is this just me? Does anyone ever feel like this? What would you do if you had all the time in the world (I do at the moment) to find a good research topic?


texts: Is it appropriate to speak to the reader in scientific paper (but without using "you")?

texts:
This is similar to the question here, but my question is different because I'm not asking about ever using "you" in my writing.
I quite like using the turn of phrase "Note that...". For example, I'm discussing some feature of data that reflects a physical property. But then I want so say that my data looks a little different because of such-and-such reasons. So, I would like to write something along the lines of: "Note that all experimental data in this manuscript shows just half of the typical shape because we performed only half of the typical sweep."
When I write "Note...", I'm actually speaking to the reader directly. It's kind of like saying, "Hey you! Pay attention here!" Everywhere else in the manuscript the focus is on the experiment and not on the reader. So, would this be frowned upon?


texts: Unoriginal research in Statement of Purpose

texts: I am applying to phD programs in statistics and I wanted to include my work on a project I had completed in the school year.  Unfortunately everything I did in the project had been published almost 20 years ago.  Just wondering how I should discuss this in my statement of purpose if at all.  Please let me know.


texts:
I have searched a lot and I am surprised that this topic hasn't been discussed yet. I am an M.Sc. Student in Computer Science. Our lab is actually a dry lab in which we need to do a lot of reading of heavy maths on a daily basis.

The problem is that some people (mostly senior students such as PhD candidates) sometimes speak loudly to discuss their new papers with lab mates, etc., which is totally a must-do activity but disrupts my mind and obviously some others that are not involved in their discussion.

I have tried many ways such as music, white noise, natural sound, etc., but all of them had drawbacks that forced me to abandon them.
I even think of studying in the library sometimes, but I think it is not a good idea because it may make me isolated and also it may cause people to think that I am not working as expected. I also don't like the idea of speaking with the Prof. about this, because: first, the prof himself doesn't pay attention to speak low in the lab and I think this would be strange to him and second, I am so new and it may harm me.

What I want to know is: is this situation actually normal? And if not, how can I cope with that?


texts: How to write a math abstract for a conference in an experimentalist dominated field without "specific numerical results"

texts:
Note that in experimental fields it is not uncommon that an abstract is required to have "specific" unpublished results 9 months or so before the conference. The problem is if you are a theoretical/mathematical researcher in these lab based fields often your mathematical model and derivations are the crux of your research and a numerical exploration comes later. How do you write an abstract for these fields highlighting that you derived the model, proved a bunch of existence and uniqueness properties (that they likely don't care about) and have just started your exploration of numerical examples (likely the only thing they care about) without having anything definitive to say yet about your numerical examples.

The most definitive thing I could say about the numerical examples is, "We show that for a given set of parameter space we observe X and for another set of parameter space we observe Y. This is the consequence of X being true in contrast to Y being true in our field of application". To be clear I don't know anything about the structure of the parameter space that yield the two distinct X and Y scenarios yet, but I do know that both X and Y are possible given some preliminary simulations, and that the difference between X and Y is interesting.

One thing to note is this is not a conference that includes a proceedings. You have an abstract and a talk, but no paper comes out of it. Papers are strictly for peer reviewed journals in this field. The answers to this question How to write abstract for conference when you have no results yet? seem to be more geared towards fields where papers come out of the conference.


texts: I am a Phd student. I've been cited for plagiarism on my taught course. Will this appear on my transcript? And will this have implications for securing a teaching career after my PhD?


texts: Can I buy individual access to SpringerLINK?

texts: My institution has access to a very limited selection of ebooks published by Springer-Verlag. Is it possible to buy individual access to their whole collection myself? I'm a PhD student in case that changes anything.


texts: Proper way to format computer code included in a thesis/dissertation

texts:
I intend to include my computational model code(s) in its entirety as an appendix in my dissertation.  I've gone through my university's formatting guidelines and haven't seen anything on the proper way to format the code in terms of size of font, text-wrapping, spacing, and so forth.  What's the best way to do this?

When I read code, while I'd want it to be a typical font size (12 pt), I'd also want the text-wrapping to be minimal, but given the traditional margin requirements, it can be pretty tough to accomplish this.  Having code trail off one line and onto the next is generally distracting.

Also, although comments in code are prevented from execution by using a character sequence like %or // or (* many compilers color-code this text to make it more easily distinguishable from executable portions of the code.  Is there any way to easily make comments distinguishable when putting the code into the text of your thesis/dissertation?


texts: Am I stuck with the topic/advisor that recommended my admission?

texts:
I am doing a PhD in the USA. I already have a masters in France and a 5 year bachelor. I didn't think it was a bad idea to take courses again in the US, as I am changing of area. My acceptance was recomended by an advisor who is paying partially my  stipend (I receive 73% of my stipend from my government, who also covers muy tuition and partially the health insurance. The local University (not advisor) completes the health insurance cost). This year taking undergrad courses I haven't felt very challenged, and in a paper reading and discussion group I have found some professors with a more interesting (for me) approach to things.

Am I stuck with my advisor even if usually students pick a topic after the 1st year? How can I approach this topic with whom? The graduate advisor? My PI is also the chair of the department.

Another thing is that I know some people that do not have funding at all in this department. I wouldn't want to be stuck in this situation as the rent takes around 2/3 of my income and I have my wife living with me.


texts: Should I mention potential collaborative opportunities in my research statement?

texts:
Would it be beneficial to mention the names of potential collaborators in my research statement?

Over the last year I have been discussing future collaborative work with research groups from other Universities. We have not submitted any grants and there is nothing official yet, but it appears that both of us would definitely pursue this if/when I start a faculty position. Would it be appropriate to mention this?


texts: Can I get a masters degree if I drop my PhD?

texts: I am an undergraduate right now, looking to apply to Grad schools. I am just confused about the kinds of degrees offered by graduate schools. Some state they have a "M.S, M.S/PhD, and PhD" programs. I have read a lot that students who quit their Ph.D in between after realizing that the program is not for them can leave with a masters but is this available for (almost) any PhD program or just the M.S/Ph.D program? Does a university that simply states an offering of a "Ph.D" program also allow students who quit in between to leave with a masters?


texts:
When a professor stays in another university as a visiting professor during his sabbatical leave, his salary is partially paid by his home university. Then, he is not a regular employee of host university, but how is the official processing?

For example, he needs lots of employment stuff such as ID, parking, etc. Thus, he should have a profile with the human resource.

Is he hired by the university (HR) or directly by a department?
Does he need to provide regular documents such as academic credentials (diploma, transcript) or an employment status from the home university is enough?
Following these questions, when he teaches a course or supervises a student, what is his employment reference in official records? I mean can a guest professor teach/supervise without official records in the university HR?

EXAMPLE: A full professor goes to another university on sabbatical leave whether for teaching or research. He needs ID card, and normally HR or similar central unit issues the ID card, not individual departments. Shouldn't he have a record in the HR files as the reference for the ID card issued?

My question is: When the HR is creating a file for a visiting professor/scholar/researcher, what documents should be supplied?


texts: Can I mention brand names and their products in my research/technical paper?

texts:
I want to write a paper on Mobile Screens in HCI, as phones are getting uncomfortably big for users, I want to provide some solution to the big screen phones or how logically state that how small screen phones are suitable for the user.

Coming back to question, for the above-mentioned reason, I was going to make a survey of big phone screen users, and I was going to mention it in my paper, is it okay to mention brand names of phones and their specific products with images?


texts: No response from potential PhD supervisor after Skype meeting

texts: Four weeks ago, I had a meeting over Skype with my potential PhD supervisor for an open PhD position in his group. He initially expressed interest in my work and asked me to arrange for two recommendation letters in order to know more about me and then later, we discussed about my current/past research works, my future plans and intricacies of his work for about 45 minutes over Skype. He had also specified that both of my letters were good and will discuss with his boss (his group leader) regarding my academic background and research experience. Finally he told that he had applied for a grant and will let me know once he gets to know about the outcome. Overall, the meeting went quite well. Since then, I haven't heard back from him. He also hasn't responded to a couple of my reminder emails. Should I be optimistic about this?


texts: Is it OK to decline a review request after multiple resubmissions?

texts:
I have served as a reviewer for a few journals multiple times, and I typically take the task very seriously and aim to provide informative and constructive reviews. However, there's this one case that has me struggling for a while.

I got asked to review a paper that is only partially related to my field of expertise, probably because the paper is rather interdisciplinary and the editor ran out of reviewers with expertise in all areas tackled by the paper. I accepted happily at first, but the thing is that the paper just isn't very good. In the first round of reviews all reviewers oscillated between "major revisions" and "possible reject." Now it is the 4th resubmission, and although the authors appreciate and follow the reviewers' suggestions, they often introduce new mistakes when addressing the reviewers' comments and the overall quality of the manuscript remains poor.

Now I'm considering declining the invitation to review. I feel like I've spent more than enough time trying to understand this paper and giving (hopefully useful) feedback, but this is becoming an endless cycle and I'm losing confidence in my ability to judge whether the paper is above or below the borderline. On the other hand, I appreciate the authors' efforts and I feel like it might be impolite if I drop out of the editorial process at this point.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Note: my question is somewhat similar to this one, but there are several differences that IMHO justify asking a separate question.


texts: How is a research direction determined between a graduate student and their advisor?

texts:
My question applies to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math disciplines (STEM).

Q: By what process does a graduate student determine his or her research direction?

(Assume that the graduate student is in the first year and has no previous publications with this supervisor.)

I can imagine several scenarios:

The graduate student proposes a research topic and then their
supervisor evaluates it for originality and feasibility. In this scenario, the graduate student has the foresight to know what research directions are promising and appropriate.
The graduate student performs an extensive
literature review. In this process, the student finds a challenging and/or interesting problem. (I am not sure how much effort this requires. I also don't know how to identify a problem as "interesting" or "challenging".)
The supervisor comes up with an interesting research problem or question and then presents it to the graduate student. (This appears to be a common pattern, given the plethora of complaints that I see on-line about uninteresting research.)

I would especially like to see responses from professors who are supervisors and also from graduate students.


texts: having a high score in PGRE test is enough for me to be accepted im astrophysics' graduate programs?

texts:
I am a law student. I am studying physics on my own to attend a PGRE test because Astrophysics always fascinates me. I want to have a Masters Degree in astrophysics but I have no Bachelor's Degree in astronomy or physics or math. Instead, my Bachelor's will be in law.

My question is: will having a high score on the PGRE test be enough for me to be accepted for graduate programs in astrophysics?


texts: When a professor takes an affiliate appointment in another department, do they get an increase in salary?

texts: Let's say an associate professor of Math makes 120k per year USD in a United States university and takes an affiliate professor position in the Quantitative Biology department.  Would they get additional salary for doing so, or is it simply more responsibility for no incremental salary, kind of like service work?


texts: How do I re-plot my results against existing results?

texts:
I need to compare my results with other result, so I need to re-plot the other author's results against my results.

For example I want use this fig as a way of comparing results

so is there any way to do that or any software can do that?


texts:
I am a PhD student sponsored by a company and considering leaving after three months.
This is an opportunity offered by my supervisor because he has a good relationship with the company and the company started a meaningful project. Right after I graduated my master degree, my supervisor suggested the company to offer my a three month pre-PhD summer job that I could start the project earlier while waiting the start date of my PhD.
To be honest, I found myself under pressure during the three months summer job because I was assigned heavy workload and something I’m not familiar with. This is a tiny size company (less than 10 people), I would say it is very not organised too. The development team has only one full time employee but he’s also working like a part time on this project. Even the project manager is a part time employee. Thus, everything relied on me. I did consider not starting the PhD and just let go the “golden” opportunity.
I thought that I would be protected by the uni once I officially started my PhD. But I am afraid this is not correct. After I started, things even got worse, the company lost 2 managers in a very short period. As I am a full time PhD student working on the research part of the company’s project, I don’t think I’m supposed to be assigned operational work. I was happy to accept this kind of workload as I think the company is paying real money for sponsoring my PhD. They requested 40% of my work time, which means 2 work days to focus on the company work. They kept adding workload, sudden meetings and very tight deadlines, I was under great pressure and that ruined my schedule.
I have been keeping weekly reports and have reported issues to my academic supervisors. I am very surprised that I have raised the same issue three times within the first three months of my PhD. We have a big meeting every after I “complain”. The CEO (my industrial supervisor) of the company agreed he would change the situation, and promised that I have the right to say no to the non research related work. From my experience, he forgets what’s been agreed after two weeks and just keeps asking for 40% of my work time.
I had the third meeting regarding the same issue with them this afternoon. From my point of view, what the CEO said today was pretty much the same as the last 2 times. What I remember the most from the chat today is the CEO mentioned even the tight deadline could be changed when needed, we have to keep both internal and external communication running. However, this is a little bit different comparing to his actions. Last month, he didn’t even consider pushing back the deadline but requested me to finish the limited demo in 2 days, which put me under great pressure and ruined my schedule, I had no time to prepare the conference presentation. He told my supervisor things are flexible and not seeing me as a developer. But what I’m feeling is he treats me like a full time product developer, leave me no time for research, and nothing can be changed after he decided.
For my academic supervisor, he is 50% helpful in this case to be fair. He guides me how to exploit the company’s project to finish my PhD. He also listens to me carefully when I need help. However, it seems that he doesn’t want to touch the internal issues of the company, I feel like he has no such power to change the situation I’m facing.
Let me know what you guys think.
Cheers


texts: Is it possible to apply for Phd of international law in US or Europe without bachelor's degree of law but graduated in master of international law?


texts: Chances of getting admitted to USA universities for Fall 2021

texts:
As I see, a lot of students have already deferred their Fall 2020 applications to Fall 2021 next year due to Covid 19.
In this scenario, does this mean that, the fresh applicants for Fall 2021 will have to compete to with more number of applicants and less number of available seats?
In this case, will Canada or Europe be a better option, because there should be some guarantee to get an admit, and this guarantee is much less for USA?
With the fear of not getting admitted and a heavy application fee in US dollars is already intimidating.


texts:
I'm a PhD student in engineering. I work in a small group with two professors and 5 PhD students (no postdocs).

Both the professors "follow" my thesis as supervisor. However, they don't get along with, and they are continuously trying to pull me to their side and change my research subjects.

It's not that my project is not going well (I have 12 publications: 4 journal papers and 8 conference papers). However my two professors don't want to collaborate together and every time assign me random extra work to do for them, on various subjects, uncorrelated one with the others, and in which I'm not even expert.

All the other PhD's in my group are in the same situation. If we raise a concern about our thesis, their answer is just "now do what I ask you, we'll think to put together a thesis at the end of your PhD".
It even happened that I sent a full paper to one of them, ready to be submitted, just to be told "If you want to publish this, you have to do this other (uncorrelated, ndr) work before".

The worst part is that professors and researchers from other divisions know the situation and come to our group every time they need cheap work. So, one day, one of the supervisor comes to your office and says: from now you'll collaborate with professor A of dept. B on this topic. Another day, the other supervisor has lunch with some professor, comes and tells you: I need you to work with prof. X of division Y on this other topic.

Most of the time, these extra assignments are running tons of calculations and collect results, code debugging, or even external consulting for private companies. Needless to say, this is a major slow down to my research activity because I spend more than half of my time on other topics in which I'm not competent. Most of these random activities ends up without publications. I'm only publishing from my main research project.

My only luck is that I have contact in other universities and I have postdoc offers there, and that I've always had clear ideas on my thesis. So I still managed to publish my papers. Other students are not so lucky and they are at the second or even third year of their PhD without having publications nor having a clear direction for their research project.

I'll finish in less that one year and, as I mentioned, I have offers in other places. However, I'm starting to ask myself a question: Is this normal in academy? I wonder if this is the standard, and I'll find exactly the same situation in other universities or if it was just an unlucky combination of bad bosses.

I love my research activity, but if these are the working conditions, I'm starting wondering if it is worth to go on..


texts: How to make an MD more appealing for a PhD program in basic research (neuroscience)?

texts:
1 year and a half away from completing my integrated MS in Medicine, I have decided that, once complete, I won't be pursuing life as a clinician and want to do research in Neuroscience instead.

Now, I already have a paper published (jointly) and two more almost ready to be submitted, after having worked in both the genetics and pharmacology labs, where my tasks ranged from data gathering ("pen and paper research") to Western Blotting and micro surgery in mice.

My grades are not very good though, and I'm looking for ways of making my CV more appealing, besides asking for a summer intership in one the groups I like (all in Germany by the way).

Would having a specialization (Neurology, Psych, etc) be a plus? On which skills should I work?


texts: In the UK is it acceptable for a lecturer/professor to join student societies?

texts:
Student societies are often fantastic fun. At the university I attend there are some members of societies who don't attend the university, they just come along because they happen to like an unusual hobby (Quidditch, table top rpg, fencing...). I have never seen any lecturers or professors however.

Is it considered odd for a lecturer or professor to be part of a society of their own university? Why? Would it still be possible? I would like to work in a university (in a research orientated position) and if there was no serious disadvantage or barrier I would defiantly want to be part of societies there.


texts: As a TA, how should I address the professor's difficult curriculum?

texts:
This is my first semester being a TA for this course. However, the professor has changed since I took the course. The content seems to have grown in difficulty since I originally took the course, and I feel that the professor has been giving inadequate or unnecessarily difficult problems to get across relatively simple concepts in lectures, which I then have to explain in tutorials.

I have compared to my previous notes and although the major concepts are the same, the examples used are overly complex, and I can see some students are falling behind as a result. Is there an appropriate, professional way to get this message across to the professor without sounding like I am not familiar enough with the material for the position as an assistant for this course?


texts: What title to put in CV if you do research but unfunded?

texts: As the title suggested, if you have been doing research consistently with a professor, can you write RA as your title in CV? If not, what should be the title to put there instead to show that you have done research in that lab? Thanks a lot.


texts: Name of the explanatory chapter in a cumulative dissertation

texts:
how do you usually call the chapter of a cumulative dissertation (PhD thesis) that describes the research? A cumulative dissertation basically has two part: One part includes (published) research papers and the other part is an explanatory chapter that motivates the research and summarizes the it.

So basically I thought of the following:
'Background chapter'
'Frame chapter' (that would be the direct translation of the German term

I'd apprciate every comment. Thanks in advance.

Thanks for the current answer. Are there any other suggestions. I'd be happy to hear any comment on that.


texts: I have a strong suspicion and weak proof that the data in the paper are fake. What to do?

texts:
I reviewed a paper submitted for a smallish magazine. It presented an algorithm to perform some allocation task and compared its performance to that of several other algorithms from the literature performing the same task in several ways (the results, i.e. the allocation, can be evaluated based on the usage of several different resources, so a result could use less of resource A, but more of resource B, and so on).

My opinion was that, although the algorithm was badly presented and the paper was nigh-incomprehensible, the results presented seemed good, so the authors deserved another shot at better explaining themselves, so I did not suggest to reject it altogether.

The first review round went through with a unanimous "major revisions" verdict.

Then I was asked to review the second submitted version of the paper too. In this new version, the algorithm had been compared to a much broader range of algorithms. Problem is: even though the algorithms it was being compared to changed, the comparison charts remained exactly the same, and looking at them side-by-side revealed no difference whatsoever (no explicit numerical data was provided).

What is worse is that the change was not even one-to-one. In the first submission, the algorithm (let's call it A) was compared with the same three other algorithms in all categories (resource A usage, resource B usage etc.) while in the second submission, each resource comparison involved different algorithms, so for example, A was compared to B,C and D in resource A utilization, but it was compared to C, E and F in resource B utilization, and so on.

Nonetheless, each chart in the second submission was identical to one from the first submission.

At this point, I was fairly certain that at least the second round of comparisons had been completely faked, i.e. the authors just changed the labels on the charts.

Asking one of my senior coworkers, I was advised to just ignore the issue and to not raise a ruckus, since this issue has a high chance of backfiring: we are not an academic institution, we are the R&D department of a pretty small private firm, hence we have very little political weight and scientific reputation.

I am wondering if I really should raise this issue with the editor, with whom my firm has business relations, as we are partners in several government-funded projects, or I should heed the advice of my colleague.

While the paper has very little chance of being published as the second submission is also nigh-unreadable, a co-author of this paper has an extremely high h-index (100+), hence I feel if my suspicion is founded, it really should be brought to the light.


texts: How should a graduate student email a professor from another country in order to get feedback on their work?

texts:
I'm trying to contact with a professor from another country to ask him to see my work and send me a feedback. But I don't know what is better to say that, someone told me that I must "sell myself" and tell that Prof. how   awesome I'm and someone told me that just be abbreviated and be direct to the subject. I don't know which one of them is correct, I think about that and  I'm getting confused; for the first opinion, I think that professor meets many people who are more awesome than me, and he is done of looking for awesome people, instead he is looking on awesome work. And for the second opinion, I think I will make that professor feels in a negative way.

As  academics what do you think is the best way for a fresh graduate(Bachelor holder) to contact with a professor who I don't know personally?


texts: Current timeline for hiring a tenure-track position amid the pandemic

texts:
Even though there are already a lot of posts concerning the timeline for hiring a tenure track position in the US, I am curious to know the current timeline amid the COVID-19 pandemic starting 2020.
Currently (in March), I have seen many top-tier/teaching institutions finalizing the positions for which they started the first-round interview in December 2020. However, there are still a few smaller universities that have just started the hiring process in February 2021, although their posting was in November 2020. In particular, I have had a first-round interview so far and was asked to wait for 4 weeks for the next decision. As far as I know, top candidates are normally contacted within 1-2 weeks from the first interview. Therefore, I am supposing that I am not their top choice if the current timeline is the same as before.
Anyone please share your experience.


texts: How to cite WHO published books in Endnote

texts: I need to cite a book published by WHO preferably using endnote. How do I import book citation information like journals for journals in Endnote? This is the book I need to cite: https://www.who.int/mental_health/neurology/dementia/action_plan_2017_2025/en/


texts: In a few weeks, I have to make a presentation on my research. When conducting my research, however, I made a small mistake. Unfortunately, I do not have the ability to conduct the experiment again, and I am not sure how to go about acknowledging the mistake in my presentation. All of the tests I have been able to do suggest that this mistake did not impact the results. Furthermore, my research was in physics, and the results conform to well-established, theoretical laws. I know that it is only right for me to acknowledge, but I fear that all of my research will be judged poorly because of this one, simple mistake (that I deeply regret making). How can I go about presenting this? Are my fears warranted?


texts: Performance of the Toronto Paper Matching System (TPMS) for (conference) paper review assignment

texts:
[EDIT (2016-11-11) based on a comment]

I have been invited as a reviewer for the IEEE International Conference on Image Processing  (ICIP 2016, on image processing, in a broad domain sometimes associated to computer science). The ancient system was based on ticked keywords (by benevolent reviewers) in a list (and on the area chairs' expertise).

The novel system is called TPMS. It is based on the paper Toronto Paper Matching System: An automated paper-reviewer assignment system. It uses a machine learning ("statistical matching") technique based on a sample of the reviewer's publications. It has also been used for CVPR 2016 (Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition conference).

Has the TPMS system   been successfully deployed?
Do reviewers or editors have a quantitative evaluation  of the efficiency of such systems?


texts: How to check the postdoc opportunities in a specific lab even if there is no position-call from them?

texts:
I'm about to start the last year of my PhD and apart from filling the gaps in my work i started to check the postdoc opportunities here and there.

The thing is that i found a few Labs (university groups) which are working in a more or less same area as i'm doing my PhD. Well, their not doing exactly same thing i do but still same category (Motion Analysis), and they are good at it!

So i like to work with them as a post-doc after finishing my PhD. But i couldn't find any post-doc in their website. So how does it work? should i just sit down and pray to hear a post-doc call from them in the exact moment (ex. a couple of months before my PhD is done) :)  or is there another way to approach/contact them regarding this purpose?

If is it the latter case, then how? should send them emails now directing asking about post-doc opportunities regarding 1 year from now?


texts: I want to do a masters in Biology, but I hate lab work

texts: I have one year left of my Biology degree in the UK, and I want to do a masters. I love biology and I enjoy learning, specifically in cellular and cancer biology. However, I do not enjoy labs, I find it very mundane and boring, and also not rewarding. Most of the research I have done shows that all masters courses are project-based, and thus require labs. I do not want to a bioinformatics masters. I was wondering if anyone had any information or experience that could help, or could point me in the right direction?


texts: Switching from industry to research(informatics)

texts:
Backstory: I was working in a research institute as a research assistant during my bachelor and master phase. I received my M.Sc.(informatics) about 2 years ago and since then I am working for a company in the industry as a software engineer.

A few weeks ago, the professor I was working for in the past gave me a job offer at his institute. Basically he wrote out of nowhere and I was very glad and accepted his offer. A condition for me to accept was that I can pursue a Ph.D, he said yes.

Now I face a very troubling problem: I have never written a paper in my life.

I wrote some things during college but nothing that was actually published. I like reading papers, but reading and writing is a different story...I was also not really involved in actual research, my previous work was concentrated on programming. Now I am a bit worried that I might make a bad appearance in my first weeks or months, I guess the professor thinks highly of me(for a reason I don't know) since he gave me that offer.

I have 3 months until my new life as a full researcher, with a complex research field I almost know nothing about. I am worried that I sit in meetings and do not even understand the basic concepts of their research.

What can I do to prepare myself for this situation/job?


texts: If I cannot get sufficient recommendation letters, what can I do?

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I know you should build a good network with your professors as early as possible, not only it will help your study, but also you can get great recommendation letter from them.

But not all students aim at graduate school when they start their undergraduate, for example, I only became interest in research and decide on going to graduate school after my third year of undergraduate. At that time, I have done a research project with a professor and certainly I can ask him for one. However, most schools require 2-3 recommendation letters.

I know a good recommendation letter should speak about the candidate research potential instead of 'did well in my class', but in my case, only my undergraduate adviser can speak about that. What should I do besides asking recommendation letter from professors I get A grade in their classes?


texts: Citing/Attaching unpublished papers in a Research Statement/Profile for a faculty job

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I am a young academic and don't yet have any first author publications (several 2nd authors, though) but have several either submitted or very near being submitted. I am in a quantitative/scientific field.

My question is about whether it's OK to describe (and cite) finished research projects that are not yet published in a research statement for a faculty job. On a similar question, if the application requests copies of papers, can you attach "in process" papers?

Thanks for any opinion/experiences.


texts: The review results for my journal paper submitted to the special issue of a reputed journal is 45 days overdue. Is it normal and what should I do?

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I submitted a research paper to a special issue of a reputed computer science journal (SCI indexed) and the results were due on January 31st. However, the results have not been announced to date, and my email to the Guest Editor requesting for information on the delay has gone unanswered. I am really worried about this delay without notification, as the whole point of submitting to a special issue was to get reviews faster than regular issues. Is this big delay normal? Should I be worried that my paper is lost or worse? I can see the status "Reviewing" when I log into the journal's tracking service. Please advise on what I should do.

Thanks in advance.


texts: How can we recognize accurate scientific results when things like p-hacking are so common?

texts: Research has shown that most of the published studies in various fields are false. For example, the Reproducibility Project: Psychology only managed to confirm 36% of previous 100 psychology studies had a statistically signifiant result the second time. Also, only 6 of 53 studies considered landmark in cancer were successfully replicated. In these circumstances, when such a quantity of false studies pass the peer-review process in most scientific fields, how can we filter authentic information from fields we don't have expertise in?


texts: How can I address a student systematically boosting their grades by filing frivolous complaints?

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I was recently accused of unfair grading by a student.  The accusation is meritless, and it didn't take long to prove that I didn't do anything wrong.  No damage, but a lot of time wasted.

Later, I learned through the grapevine that I was among a long list of victims.  Indeed, in just one year, the very same student filed formal complaints against at least nine professors.  The nature of the complaints vary from case to case, but they follow the exact same script:

In every case, the student will take some small thing, e.g. a missed quiz or a late homework, and make a big argument with the instructor out of it.  The student will then escalate the issue to higher level and get the dean of college or even the president of the university involved. Of course the dean or the president have better things to do, so the student is usually ignored and the whole thing blows over quickly … or so we thought.  This part turns out to be only the lead jab in a one-two combination.  It's more of a setup.
The real strike comes at the end of the semester. When the grade is not good (which is 100% of the cases), a formal complaint will be filed stating that the student was punished for the earlier argument.  This is a very serious accusation and lead to complicated investigations in several cases.  It caused so much additional work that several professors just gave in and changed the grade to something the student liked.

This trick had a surprisingly high success rate, especially considering several victims are tenured professors.  The student is emboldened, and I have no doubt that the cycle will repeat.  If not stopped, I wouldn't be surprised if this student can earn a degree just by reusing this trick again and again.

My question is: Should we professors (as a group) react to such a behaviour and if yes, how? What could be the consequence, if any?

So far I have read the students' code of conduct carefully.  There appear to be nothing that can be directly applied here.  The closest appears to be the rule about dishonesty, but it wouldn't work by itself.

Updates:

After sharing parts of this story, I received several similar stories from friends and colleagues in other universities.  So the situation I described here is perhaps not as unique as it first appears.  It turns out, in my previous university, the department chair handled two similar cases while I was there.  But because such cases are supposed to be confidential, I was not aware of them.  I suspect this happens more often than we think.
The student does not have to prove his/her claim for this trick to work.    He/she simply has to file a complaint and a grade change appeal at the same time.  Students' have the right to do those.  That will trigger a lot of work for the instructors, the department chair, and the dean's office.  In my case, it took me 20~30 hours to respond to the complaints, provide assignment for review, and do other works.  Not everyone has this kind of time on the last day of the final week.  Given the options of doing these extra work vs. changing a letter and let it go, not everyone will make the right choice.

More update:

This student scored one more win:
The grade appeal committee's new ruling is that I should/have to change my grade (one letter grade higher) even though it was determined that I did not do anything wrong.
I now realized the student's trick work on multiple levels: It just keep on throw in serious accusations. At some point, someone, will feel it would less trouble to just give him/her what he/she was asking for. The instructor does not have give in. It could the departmental committee, or the chair, or the associate dean, or the college committee,... The only way this trick fails is that every single person along this long chain stand their ground.


texts: Should a post-doc let his boss know before applying for a short term funding involving working in another location

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There are some fundings which support early-career researcher by letting him to work/visit another institute/university for few months. Those fundings normally pay for travel and accommodation expenses (not living expenses) and require a candidate to be affliated of one organisation, e.g. to be a post-doc.

My question is that if a researcher who wants to apply for those fundings should let his boss, whose funding is paying his salary, know before applying or after knowing that his application is successful.


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I want to report a ratio in my thesis. The ratio is 16:84, but I also want tot report which number represents which class. Can I report that like this:

  The data was not evenly distributed with a ratio of 16:84 (CN:AD).

Or should I put the CN:AD in square brackets? And is it clear if I report it like this?

UPDATE:
Now reported it as:

  The data were unevenly distributed with a ratio CN:AD = 16:84.

Thanks for the suggestions!


texts: Do I have to ask a research advisor before sharing a technical report?

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After finishing my bachelor's degree, I received a fellowship via my home university to conduct independent research at a university of my choosing. All of my living expenses and stipend were taken care of by this fellowship, and the project I worked on was my proposal. I reached out to professor Z to see if he would host me and supervise the project if I were to receive the fellowship, and he said yes.

I'm now applying to PhD programs, one of which gives the option to submit a research writing sample. I would like to submit the final report I wrote up on my project, but I'm not sure if it requires my advisor's permission. This report would presumably be shared among the graduate admissions committee.

Some other possibly relevant info: there are no plans at this time to publish the results. The project wrapped up over a year ago now. There is no ongoing research on this topic in professor Z's research group (which I know because I keep in contact with a few students in his group). The report does not (to the best of my knowledge) contain any information on ongoing projects within Z's research group.

The deadline for my application is soon and I haven't received a response from my advisor yet (which is my fault for not asking him sooner, but not relevant to the actual question I'm asking). If he doesn't respond, I've told myself that I won't submit it. I have actual published work that the committee can pull up if they like, I just thought it would be a plus to show the results of a research project that didn't lead to any publication, but which highlights my research abilities anyway.

I'm curious though what the etiquette is in this case. Would it be a major faux pas for me to submit this writing sample with my application?


texts: Can I edit my name on a submitted paper if I changed my name during the review process?

texts: I am in PhD and about to change my name. I already have a number of publications.


texts: Is it accepted to cite an entire issue of a journal?

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There exist review journals that every now and then publish a thematic issue on a given topic. For example, Chemical Reviews does so: one thematic issue (see e.g. this one) includes an editorial and a number of invited review on the main topic.

When writing the introduction of a research paper, one can start by summing up the recent developments in the field, and then explain the reasoning behind the paper being written (“People have looked at application of molecules X and Y to reactions A, B and C, but so far noöne has evidenced any benefit of using them for reaction D. We here show that they lead to a spectacular 270% improvement over current yields”). When writing the broader part of the introduction, one might be tempted to include many references to recent reviews on the topic. However, when many reviews come from the same thematic issue of a journal, it becomes a bit ridiculous. So…

Is it an accepted practice to include a reference to an entire issue of a journal?

  Special issue of Chem. Rev. on “Giant molecules for catalysis”, 2010, issue 8.

Alternatively, is it adequate to cite the editorial of the thematic issue? Or do individual papers need to be cited, at the risk of making a long string of citations? Like so:

  Lots of research has focused on applications of these molecules to A[1], B[2], C[3], D[4], E[5] and F[6]

where refs. 1-6 are all to sequential papers in the same issue of the same journal.


texts: How does the pricing system of degrees in England work?

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I am considering studying a master's degree in England, however, the price system is quite unlike the system in the US, at least in wording, so I am uncertain how to estimate the costs.
The schools I looked at listed the fees in one of two ways:

Cost (2013-14)
£3,000

or

Fee
UK/EU: £1,000
Part-Time: £500
International: £4,000
Part-Time: £2,000

Most schools require that master's degree students complete four 30-credit modules, each taking 8-10 weeks, depending on the school, as well as one 60-credit dissertation.

Under the price system used in England, how can I estimate the total cost of tuition for an entire master's degree?
Do schools in England often apply additional costs, such as registration fees, technology fees, renovation fees, or special course fees, as is typical of US schools?


texts: What is "arrêté de nomination" in ATER application for the French universities?

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I'm applying for a French university for an ATER (temporary research + teaching) position, and they're asking for a document called "arrêté de nomination". I emailed the HR but no reply yet. If you're familiar with the French education system, could you please let me know what that is?
P.S. I've applied to other ATER positions recently, but have never been asked for this document before!
Thanks in advance!


texts: Status and selectivity of open access journals

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I am wondering about the following (after reading this question that discusses open access journals):

Is it easier to publish in one of the open access journals (when compared to the traditional journals)?
Does publishing in one of the open access journals affect the academic value of an article? (Unsure how to put this, but I mean does it affect your reputation etc?)

I note that some of the open access journals are peer-reviewed.

An example of open access is the Directory of Open Access Journals.


texts: Switching to host university during master’s after research internship project?

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I am currently a top master’s student at one of the Middle Eastern universities and due to lack of research facilities in my country, I am going to Japan to join a research project this summer for three months at the University of Tokyo. Deep inside, I want to continue my master’s and PhD there, directly after the project ends and I am planning to work very hard to prove my eligibility for the opportunity.

But I don't know how applicable this is and how this would happen.
I would like to ask if somebody had a similar experience and also if I should ask the professor directly at the end of the project.


texts: Leaving a PhD Program with a Masters and Going to Another School

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I am currently at a top engineering program in my specific field (top 5) and I have started my program but have come to realize that the faculty that align with my research interests at this school have very different cultural environments that I can not deal with.

I was looking for advice for the following scenario:
I was wondering how I would go about applying to other universities for PhD that I know have the team environment I am looking for (specifically where I did my undergrad). I have worked there before but I originally agreed with my PI maybe its not the best place to go. So coming to my current university, I realized that either my research interests don't align, or I am absolutely miserable in the lab environment.

Yes I have tried looking at other labs. I have my labs lined up based on research interest and unfortunately no others.

Would it be okay if I applied to another PhD program in my 2nd year and also left my current institution with a Masters? It would either be to a top 20 school or another school in the top 5 below my program.

Thank you in advance for any insight and advice.


texts: How to understand if it's the moment to become a team leader?

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I am finishing my first postdoc in computer science, and I have to make a decision about what I want to do next.
I have basically two options:

Try to get a new position as a senior postdoc or junior researcher. In this case, I will have limited scientific freedom, and there will be a principal investigator supervising my work. This means having to adapt myself to the scientific strategy of the research group, but also not having big responsibilities, and having the possibility to learn a lot (and get help) from the principal investigator.
Try to get a new position as a team leader or junior principal investigator. In this case, I will have a lot of scientific freedom, and I will be able to decide the scientific strategy of my research group. But I will also have more responsibilities (that is, I'll be fully responsible of my group mistakes), and I won't have anyone directly from which to learn new stuff, or to help me.

My long-time goal is to become a team leader for sure, but I just don't know if now is the right time for the "jump".

How to make the right decision? How to understand what I would prefer most?
How can I understand if I'm ready to become a team leader?


texts: Where to put the citation for a review article

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I'm writing an article about a topic and I found a review with a block of citations that is really interesting.

If I use the same sources in the same sequence (after paraphrasing with my own words), where should I cite the review? Do I put the citation at the acknowledgement or after the used resources?


texts: Am I pursuing a “degree in” or “of computer science”?

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On my profile, I described my career status as:

  Currently pursuing a degree in Computer Science at Temple College.

Is using in or of the correct preposition used in an academic setting?


texts: How can I quit a part time research position with minimum damage?

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The short of the situation is. I have been depressed for about a year now, the root of the issue being that I let myself be convinced that going into industry was a good idea even though I always felt more inclined towards academia, but everyone around me kept telling me I should try industry to make an informed decision.

The reality has been that the lack of intellectual challenge has made me extremely nihilistic. It may sound stupid, it may sound entitled, it may sound pathetic but it's the truth so I am just trying to be honest. The anxiety of whether or not I will be able to get back into academia lead me to try to apply to a foreign school in a whim. The issue is, I didn't have enough money to live in the host country and I didn't think I would be accepted. I got accepted, realized I couldn't afford it (there wasn't enough time for me to apply for financial aid since this was a special, late term application), declined the offer.

Desperate to get ANY form of intellectual work to try to make life bearable while I try to apply to other schools I got the brilliant idea to approach one of the professors I would have liked to study under and ask him if I could do some kind of research with him. To which he said yes and set up a part time RAship I am currently doing alongside my work.

The issue is, I don't think I conveyed things properly and I think he thought I wanted to do this for a recommendation letter, where I wanted to do this because I have been miserable for over a year due to this and I wanted any kind of stimulation to try to fight off the depression.

The professor gave me some work to do, all of which was essentially the same kind of work I have been doing over a year that has me in the floor. I talked to him and essentially he said I can't really expect any kind of true research work until I get to grad school. In which case I really have no interest in doing this. Right now I can't fight off the feeling of existential dread anymore.

Based on that I now need to approach the professor and tell him I am just mentally unable to do x months of more grunt work with him. I am sure this will burn a bridge and I can now put a giant X over the school when I am sending applications again this winter. But I would still like to be able to end things as well as possible.

It's not even that I am unwilling to do some undesirable work. It's just that without any form of stimulation I am going crazy and that's all I was looking for. Something to keep my mind occupied rather than this constant feeling of void I currently have.

I know this makes me sound like a horrible candidate and a lazy person, but it's how I am feeling right now.

EDIT:

The short version is, life sucks right now, and because of that I can't properly fulfill the work expectations of my part time RA ship. So I need to terminate it and need advice as to how to do it with the minimum damage to myself.


texts: Post-tenure move: Reference letter from institution to which I'm applying

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I'm a tenured faculty member and am applying for a lateral, mid-career move at University of X. Unlike a normal search that would be handled by a department, it is for a prestigious research position and the search is thus being handled by University X's Office of the Provost. They'll shortlist candidates and then the successful candidates will end up essentially as bonus positions for departments.
My question thus has to do with using a reference for a position at University of X from a professor at University of X.
I have been a long-time collaborator with a full professor at University of X. They often write me reference letters for fellowships, awards, nominations, etc. Normally, this colleague would write me a letter.
But, I am applying to work at his university! Given it is a lateral move, would it be weird to draw on a reference from this collaborator when applying to the University of X? On the one hand, it would be an opportunity to highlight the great fit I might bring to several faculties at this university. On the other hand, they might be seen as having a vested interest as a new line for their department would be, well, a new line.


texts: Is asking an editor for soft copy of his book acceptable?

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A colleague of mine has recently edited a book whose subject I find very interesting (I know several of the authors personally as well). Unfortunately, like most things published in academia, the copies available from the publisher are quite expensive (and I would have to pay with my own personal money). Is it OK to message him and ask for a soft copy?

I'm not sure as to what is the usual publishers' practice in that case. Would I decrease my colleague's revenue if I don't buy and thus asking for a copy would be considered rude? Or maybe by the time of publication the editor has usually already received her remuneration?


texts: Is it okay for a reviewer to share an under review manuscript with their colleagues?

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In a research meeting I mentioned I was doing some peer-review for a conference and disclosed the general topic it was about, without any further details. Immediately my colleagues demanded I disclose information about details of the paper, authors, and they even suggested I should share the paper with them immediately, and they swore "they would not share it with anyone".

I refused and said this was unethical behavior. They all got really angry and took it personally, saying that sharing a manuscript under review was completely normal and ethical, and even recommended and the problem was simply that I did not "trust them".

What is your experience with this? What are your thoughts?


texts: How common is it for tenured professors to retire?

texts: It seems like some professors choose to retire, while others love their job so much they don't stop doing it until they die (or have health issues that make them unable to work).  Which situation is more common?  How common is it for tenured professors to fall into each category?


texts: Why does a university not require me to send proof of high school degree?

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I'm applying to a online Bachelor of arts degree at a very well established university in the United States.

However, I'm almost through the application process and at no point did they require an actual print of my high school diploma. They simply asked me to sign (digitally through docusign.net) that I have completed high school. I've been corresponding with an agent of theirs and according to him they are just reviewing what I've sent them (which does not include a diploma) and after that I can enroll.

I do have a high school diploma but how come they don't require proof of this?

EDIT: Continued story:

I recently got accepted into a university and they had me attest to having a high school diploma, which I did. After being accepted without needing to provide any proof of having said diploma, I naturally asked why they didn't ask me to provide proof of graduation.

They replied: "We randomly select 1 out of every 20 students to provide further documentation. You would’ve been selected at this point so it looks like you were not chosen."

Is this normal in the United States? Where I'm from (Iceland) this just sounds plain weird...That potentially 95% of students can get in without a diploma at all?