texts: Which approach is better for publishing in good journals?

texts:
I am a second year PhD student. At the end of my first year, we (with my supervisor) have prepared a paper which he advised to submit to a leading journal. I was a little bit skeptical about the matter because I've prepared the paper for a conference and not as an article for a journal, and especially when the idea was not mature enough to be accepted in a journal.

Personally, I was planning to submit the paper to a conference, and then improve the old results and add new results and then submit to another conference, and when we develop a solid contribution, we combine all results and then try a leading journal. I knew at the same, that then downsides of my approach are:

Takes time (conferences take at least 2 to 3 months to notify, and I was planing to try 2 or 3 conferences to improve the results).
Expensive (registration fees, travel cost, etc.).
And probably I might not get the feedback that will improve our paper (it happened to me in my first/previous conference).

My supervisor's approach is different, he said that top leading journals
 give really good feedback and sometimes they give the exact problem in your contribution and recommend solutions. The idea for him is submit not mainly for acceptance, but to get feedback that we could to improve and then choose a suitable journal.

As you can see, we both want the same thing but each had a different method. Of course, I've followed his approach, and the results were this: I've dealt with 7 desk rejections with no detailed remarks. 5 of these were rejected because it's out of scope, and 2 said that the results needs to be improved. Keep in mind, that "top leading journals" take a lot of time to give the first answer, so I've wasted 8 months just looking for journals and preparing templates.

Lucky, I listened a little bit to my guts and started working on some new improvements and suggested to my supervisor to add these improvements and try one last time. He accepted and after more than 1 month of working, we finally submitted the new version to another journal and now I just received an email that says the paper is currently under review :).

But I am curios about whether his approach is right or mine, what are the mistakes that I did during this whole process? Keep in mind I have no publications (*), I really love research and always try my best, but those 7 months were stressful, especially when I know 2nd years with 2 or more publications already.

(*) I did 1 conference because I did some work in my Master and my supervisor (same person) said it's good we should try a conference. But My thesis discusses (a) slightly different problem (s), so I have no publications.


texts: Name of a fictional scientist with fictional publications invented and ‘working’ at an existing British university

texts:
At some British university a fictional professor was invented in the 20th century. He also had is own office and his own (fictional) field of research, in which he published about three papers (in a fictional journal). I read about him a few years ago. I think that he had his own Wikipedia article (English Wikipedia). His publications were cited a few times in real publications.

The persons is similar to Albert Wormstein (Stewart & Wormstein, 1992; cf. Math.SE Question) or the Poppleton University.

It is not a fictional character in a book or a movie. (Otherwise I would have asked this question on another Stack Exchange site.) But he was invented by the people working at the particular university.

I am looking for the person’s name (fictional), his field of research (fictional), and the university’s name (real).


texts: Mental Illness as a cause of academic disruptions

texts:
I'm an undergraduate mathematics major and I also struggle with PTSD and depression. A lot of the trauma is triggered by being in a close-spaced classroom environment which makes attending classes very difficult. Basically I sit in the classroom understanding nothing because my anxious I am unable to concentrate.

What this has done is cause me or forced me to drop two classes and receive a W grade. Even though two isn't bad, I was looking forward to transferring to a better school, Stony Brook but now I'm afraid that the second W is going to look bad especially because I only have 19 credits.

Also I want to go to a good mathematics school and the dream is to be able to get a Phd. one day. Academically I have been doing great in the classes I have stuck out in, all 3 A's and two A-s. I love mathematics and usually enjoy doing it in solitude. I am able to do some proofs(although the easier ones) which my peers seem to be uninterested in. Applying to a grad school or even undergrad, is it advisable to disclose a mental illness? Usually if you do this at a job interview they will look for some other excuse not to hire you. Do universities see this as a red flag that student is unreliable so shouldn't be accpeted as readily? Hopefully, going forward these will be my only two Ws.


texts: Are PhD students allowed to use funding for a custom office setup?

texts: For example, can they use grant money to have a dual monitor setup or ergonomic office appliances (chair/keyboard) to increase productivity? Or do they just have to buy these items themselves?


texts:
There are questions on here about getting married, having kids, and other major time commitments during graduate school. But one thing that I haven't seen posted -- but that I've seen come up with some frequency (at least in the US) -- is concerning people getting pets during their PhD. Yea, I know certain pets (e.g. fish and reptiles) take less time to care for than others (e.g. cats and dogs), but I'm specifically wondering about what to consider in the latter case.

Pro: Pursuing a PhD can be a very lonely process, so having some companionship can be worthwhile and perhaps even lead to increased focus and productivity.

Con: Cost and time commitment, particularly early on with a pet.

What are other things to consider in getting a pet during the PhD? Does the timing make a big difference? That is, should I wait until I'm ABD, or should I get one over a summer?

Does having a companion, like a dog, for example, often help students' productivity when they were otherwise adrift in isolation?

Also, I'd be interested to hear from a faculty perspective as to whether it's ill-advised to get a pet during the PhD. I assume most don't care as long as the student stays productive, but I'm curious if there are any anecdotes that support either the pro or con I listed above. Same goes for anyone who got a pet during grad school.

NOTE: The help center explicitly states that questions pertaining to "Life as a graduate student, postdoctoral researcher, university professor..." are on topic (emphasis added). Thus, this question appears to be fully within the stated guidelines.


texts: How to select a dissertation committee member wisely?

texts: I'm currently developing my dissertation proposal, and am in the process of choosing my committee members.  I have heard that one should carefully choose their committee members, since they ultimately judge if and when your PhD work is done.  As far as I can tell, a committee member should at least have some expertise in my research topic.  I'm sure there's more to it than that, but I want to know what other qualities should I look out for?  What qualities in a committee member should I avoid?  I imagine these other qualities are subtle and difficult to judge at first.  Nonetheless, how do I know if they are a good fit for the success of my PhD?


texts: How important are physics and other non-math courses for admission into a math PhD?

texts: I am a second year math major, and I intend to do my PhD from a top math school. Until now, I haven't taken any university level physics course. Somewhere in this site, I saw someone writing that courses related to theoretical physics (heavily loaded with mathematics) are also very important besides the regular math courses. So, my question is: How important are the physics courses? Or any other courses?


texts:
Does anyone know a tool that gives paper recommendations based on a user defined list of papers?

For example, if I've read papers A, B and C, I would like to find all papers related to A, B and C sorted by relevance. In this list a paper that cites all A, B and C or that is cited by all 3 should rank higher than a paper that is related to just one of them.

EDIT: Some people suggested to use Google Scholar. The problem with Google Scholar is that it gives you papers related to just one article. If I have a base of 5 papers for my bibliography and I want to expand it, then I have to search for papers related to each of them individually and soon the number of options will become huge. I would prefer to have a smarter tool that analyze the links between the 5 papers and recommends articles related to all of them together. This would save a lot of time.


texts: Should one list incomplete degrees on a CV?

texts:
When applying for jobs after my PhD, should my CV include an incomplete degree I read towards years ago? It's a field completely unrelated to what I'm doing now. However, before my final year when I started getting sups and failures by the dozen (my reason for quitting) things actually went swimmingly. I worked with a renowned professor as an undergrad research assistant for a spell and even published a paper (on my own) during that phase of my academic journey. I didn't get a certificate out of it, but I nevertheless feel I honed some valuabe skills then (and of course I have a transcript listing the passes and failures).

I have since moved onto a completely unrelated humanities field. Should I mention the incomplete degree on my CV? If I ignore it, prospective employers might wonder what I did for three years of my life, surely? Should I list my science publication on my CV when it is irrelevant to what I'm doing now? Does quitting and switching tracks make me look flighty?


texts: Are there journals with the same "great big debate" format at Behavioral and Brain Sciences?

texts:
I've found that articles from Cambridge University Presses long-running journal of Brain and Behavioral Science (BBS) are a great way to enter a literature: they introduce the names, reveal the faultlines, the arguments, counter-arguments, and counter-counter-arguments, and provide a huge range of perspectives on an issue.  I recommend it to students all the time. But as I interact with students outside of the behavioral sciences, I find that I'd love to be aware of venues in other disciplines/areas with similar formats.

If you aren't familiar with BBS, articles work like this: core authors make a big picture argument in 30-40 pages, BBS editors solicit 1-page responses from 20-30 strong researchers in every relevant discipline, core authors organize a 15-20 page response.  The result is a very long but quite comprehensive view into a whole research area, and articles are consistently engaging. Instead of getting one short paper by one set of authors with one background and agenda, you get tens of authors batting it out.

BBS calls the model Open Peer Commentary. Does this kind of format exist in any other journal or discipline.  Does this ring a bell?


texts: How to find suitable PhD programs in Computational Social Science?

texts:
I recently graduated from a master's program in Information Science in the U.S. and want to get into a Ph.D. program in the near future. I am pretty interested in computational social science, specifically, I love doing research about social media and understand online communities and social behaviors.
I'm wondering how to find some suitable Computational Social Science programs I can possible get into. I looked up some network science and social dynamics labs. They are pretty cool. But my concern is a lot of hubs of CSS are in CS/EE departments and the competitions are way much bigger than i-schools (where I finished my degree), and I do not very interested in getting too technical or engineering. A good blend of social focus and DS would be ideal for me.
Any suggestions on how I can make the best of the school searching in this specific filed and how to find some inner information are appreciated. Thanks in advance.


texts: Is there a name for the inverse of the impostor syndrome?

texts:
Question: The impostor syndrome seems to be common in academia and there are quite a few questions about it. I wonder if there is something like the inverse impostor syndrome.

I'm not referring to the Dunning–Kruger effect, I don't feel particularly superior to anyone. That's not it. Metaphorically: I don't feel like I have a greater slice of cake because I don't see any cake, even though everybody speaks about how big, moist and delicious their slices are and how knowledgeable they are about cakes.

To me, everybody feels like an impostor. (And everything feels like a lie)

Is there a name for this feeling? I deeply and seriously wonder about how accurate and shared it may be, if it has a name then most likely I'm not alone in this and therefore maybe I would not be completely mistaken.

End of the question.

Examples (in case you need them, I work in computer science):

Head of the department speaking about "big data" for an excel file of several megabytes.
Planning setting the deadlines looking exclusively at the calendar (and not the work).
Gantt where activity A ends before activity B starts. A requires B.
Becoming an expert on a topic overnight because it's trendy and a buzzword.
Correcting English grammar and paper structure, for the worse.
Paper reporting evaluation results before any code has been written.
Paper reporting evaluation results when the code does a different thing.
Coauthoring a paper, without even laying their eyes on it.
Directing a thesis, not checking the formulas, only the "easy" parts.
A researcher makes the GUI, gets all the credit.
Constant meetings with no agendas or minutes (or effects)
Micromanaging without actual managing
Powerpoint before actual research or Powerpoint instead any research
Re-selling old ideas with new labels and minor cosmetic changes that are for the worse
Most of the tweets with the tag #overlyhonestmethods. However that's being sloppy, I mean being an impostor, focusing solely on how things look because:

Doing some research formally (writing proofs) and empirically (developing a system and testing it with a benchmark, creating a benchmark!) and writing about it on a paper takes much longer than
Writing some fiction on a paper, which anyway takes much longer than
Subliminally collaborating on a paper and putting your name in it.

BTW: one of the problems why there are so many impostors (as I see it) is that open source code is not requested.


texts: Bench fees: typical procedure and rates for visiting students?

texts:
Over the summer I visited a research station at a different university to collect data for my PhD work. I received an invoice (nearly two months after the fact) for bench fees related to my stay in the amount of $100/day. I used a few square feet of floor space in one of the labs and some outdoor space as well, but brought all my own equipment and materials.

This is my first time visiting a different university, so this is new to me. The communication from the research station before my visit was exceptionally poor, not a single one of my emails (over the span of months) was replied to when I tried to communicate with my sponsor, but since they accepted my payment for lodging I showed up. I guess I should have assumed there would be fees on top of what I already paid associated with my stay, but as I mentioned I am new to this, and working in an interdisciplinary field so my advisor is not familiar with the customs of this other field.

My specific questions are:

1) What is a typical day rate for bench fees, considering the visiting student has provided all their own equipment and materials? (is there a typical rate?)

2) Is it normal to have no communication of any fees beforehand (or during the stay) only to be sent an invoice after the fact? Perhaps I am being unreasonable to expect that this be communicated up front.

My qualm is not with paying the fees, I understand that it costs money to run a research station, but since none of this was communicated ahead of time I did not budget it into my grant for this fieldwork. Also, $100/day seems excessive for floor space, but perhaps that is the going rate.


texts:
I'm at the stage of my PhD where I'm beginning to write my thesis.

At the beginning of my PhD, my supervisor asked me to go back and repeat some work done by the student who had the project before me. This was meant to be a 'breaking in gently' exercise, but ended up taking over 18 months because of missing data and incorrect conclusions necessitating things to essentially be redeveloped from scratch. I think in fairness there was a certain degree of naivety on the part of my supervisor not realising how long things take - he's quite hands off, especially in recent years as he got elected to become head of the school.

That said, this situation has caused a fair deal of conflict over the last 4 years. My supervisor resents the fact that I spent so much time not 'getting anywhere', and I resent wasting a large proportion of my funding not really doing anything useful (the previous work has been published, and my new contributions don't deviate so significantly to warrant an additional publication). The whole situation is compounded by the fact that the student in question was the 'golden girl' of the lab, so any criticism of her work falls on deaf ears (its something of an  in-joke within the group, as the girl in question is generally understood not to be terribly great in the lab).

I recently gave a draft of a few chapters to my supervisor, and without reading them fully he immediately asked them to be re-written to avoid any criticism of the previous work, citing me as the issue, rather than the previous work (multiple people have verified the mistakes with the previous work).

I'm unsure of what to do, and would welcome some advice. I don't really need my supervisor at this point as I already have a job and don't need his permission to submit, but at the same time would like to ameliorate the issue to reach some kind of compromise.  Equally, I don't want to yield to his will, as after wasting 18 months fixing the previous work, I want to tell the story.

To clarify, and as I can't comment - my supervisor wants me to ignore the entire 18 months of work. For obvious reasons this is undesirable.


texts: Can I wish my students all the best in the mid-term exam paper?

texts:
I am setting up mid-term exam paper for engineering students.

As a new Assistant Professor, I will like to know is it okay
to put "All the Best with your exam" or "Happy Problem Solving" at the end of the question paper?

Will it be frowned upon by my colleagues or taken sarcastically by my students?


texts:
What are the main websites teachers look to when searching a new university teaching job? If it varies by discipline, I'm talking about finance in particular but business in general would also be appropriate.

As far as location, I'm looking for teachers from the US or from the UK (but anyone with decent English skills would be considered) to come to beautiful Asia.

I saw this post but it seems focused on research jobs (PhD positions, postdocs, etc.). I'm really looking for teachers to teach financial subjects.


texts: How to approach potential case study companies?

texts:
Currently doing a PhD, got the initial literature research done and got to a point where I would want to approach companies in my domain to ask them whether they would be interested in participating (doing interviews) with me.

How do you approach firms (outside your network)?

I have made numerous attempts and get barley past the gatekeeper and having worked in the industry myself for some years, I get it. Why would I want to sacrifice my teams time to participate in research with (from their perspective) questionable outcome.

Any advice? How do you sell your research to the industry as a PhD student?


texts: "Please enter any comments you would like to send to the Journal Office"

texts:
I'm submitting a paper to an Elsevier journal. One of the submission steps says that:

  Please enter any comments you would like to send to the Journal
  Office.

What does it mean? What should I exactly enter as a comment? I thought it means the cover letter, but it seems that I was wrong...


texts: Networking in a symposium as a "non-specialist"

texts:
I am going to participate to a symposium (or workshop or conference) for the second time. I am a PhD student and I'm not going to present anything there.

I know that networking is very important but I'm so bad at it!
The first time I spent my time mostly with people of my group or directly involved in my project, and occasionally speaking with people I had met before once or twice (but almost exclusively when they were talking with the people of my group/project).
In both cases the conversation was just small talk (I like this buffet, the weather is nice, there is a seminar next week at our institute) or was led by the other people, and I would intervene if directly involved or if I knew the technical topic well (e.g., I am using the same library, I had the same problem...)

I would like to try this so much praised networking, but I fear I will do just the same as before. I've seen the poster abstracts and there is only one directly related to my project, so I am afraid I will not be able to talk anything technical about other issues. I have a master in Engineering as do most of the other PhD students there, but we have different backgrounds and we have focused on different stuff in our research, so I don't feel talking about problems I have studied five years ago to people who have practiced on them until today.
Is it expected to network as a "non-specialist"? I feel like that if I want to talk something to a fellow PhD student (not directly in a project similar to mine), it would be small talk and maybe the daily problems of a PhD student, but this seems like a poor alternative to me.


texts: Research Methodology Books for beginners in Computer Science research

texts:
I am looking for Research Methodology textbooks in the field of Computer Science. Most books I came across are useful to social science, economics etc.

In our part of the world a person who wants to do research should study a course in research methodology. But most books in research methodology are from social science, economics perspective.

Would like to know some from technology/computer science/engineering perspective. Some must read books for general reading also would be good


texts: How to make my work publishable if my supervisor isn’t any help?

texts:
I just finished a bachelor’s degree in applied maths. The thesis was designed to be a fairly formulaic implementation affair of an (obscure) NP-problem, but I happened to develop a novel heuristic algorithm for it, which had some very interesting properties, both theoretical and computational.

The problem is not a canonical NP-problem, but a rather obscure one. It could be that no one would care at all, but

it does seem to outperform all previously published heuristics;
it is based on a novel way of utilizing the problem structure that conceivably could be applied to other NP-problems.

“Talk to your supervisor” is good advice, but he didn’t show any interest in the project throughout the semester (despite it being his area of research) and he hasn’t even commented on the report, despite being asked repeatedly. At this point, I am close to certain he will be of no aid if I would want to pursue this further.

I asked the head professor at the department as well – he said he’d read it but hasn’t. I reminded him about it but that looks like a dead end as well.

So what are my options? It’s far from publishable in its current state and I obviously can’t pursue it further on my own.


texts: Is it dishonest to omit publications in one's CV?

texts:
The question in the title is motivated by recent comments on other questions on this site that were surprising to me.  Is there a precisely defined and widely accepted standard for CVs that would mean omitting one or more publications in a CV is dishonest?

Please base your answer on one or more references and not merely personal opinion.

Note that this question is about honesty, not about whether it is a good idea to omit publications.


texts: How to deal with anxiety and depression after being kicked out of PhD program?

texts:
I was kicked out of a programming-oriented PhD program at the end of last summer because I failed one of two qualifying exams; the department is keeping me on assistantship for a semester while I finish a master's thesis (which I've done).

Now over the past few months, I have developed a strong depression and even feel suicidal. I feel that I've been given many great opportunities and squandered them.  Applying to jobs in my field didn’t work out either due to lack of interest from the prospective employer or the employer getting a negative impression from my interview.

I've had many jobs throughout my life, and without exception I have struggled and usually failed due to extreme anxiety.  Honestly, I don't even know if I would want a job even if I was offered one, because I feel that I would waste the employer's time and cause myself greater suffering, and ultimately fail.

How can I deal with these issues?

EDIT:  Thank you all for your kind advice and support; for any of those interested, I'm on a more even keel now than I was when I wrote this question, and I have taken steps toward mental recuperation.

I should also say that I won't be checking in on this question anymore, so any further comments are unlikely to reach me.

Thanks.


texts: How to approach a researcher regarding his latest publication?

texts:
There is a group that I've been interested in for a while because we share some of the research interests and because of the very ingenious approach used by its PI. Lately, they published a paper in exactly the same field I work in (but with different models objects).

I feel really eager to react, and I have some considerations about their results, parallels with our work, ideas for future research etc. However, I'm not actively applying for a post-doc, nor do I have any specific (that is, supported by funding) propositions for collaboration. However, I would like to get the conversation started, ideally leading to some kind of common project. It's not a typical cold-call, since

the paper in question cites my group's work,
I've met the PI at a conference and had a brief talk, and
I studied alongside two of his postdocs at a practical course.

We are separated by the ocean, so the communication will have to be via e-mails of some such.

So, how should I approach? E-mail, commenting on ResearchGate, writing to those postdocs first (even though they weren't involved in this particular peace of research)? Specifically, how can I formulate the concluding, "so what" part of the letter?


texts: How to cite software used to produce data/images?

texts: I have made a building model in an energy simulation software tool. I have taken a screenshot from this model and I want to publish it in my thesis. I'm not sure if citing the software is necessary or not. The software is not merely used as a drawing tool, but also as the calculator of the energy requirements of the building. I would like to ask for an example of how such images need to be cited. Thanks in advance.


texts: Is it common practice to have a separate "Further Discussion" after the conclusion in an academic article?

texts:
I received reviews of my manuscript for IEEE Transactions.

One question from a reviewer, about a common misconception regarding the technology, is interesting but is not relevant anywhere else in the paper. So, my supervisor suggested that I add a new section after the conclusions titled "Further Discussion."

I was just wondering if it is common practice to have such a section.


texts: Is it acceptable to ask a potential supervisor about my suitability for a PhD with them?

texts:
Is it considered acceptable, in general, to ask the potential PhD supervisor whether one's profile is considered good/suitable for a proposed PhD (sciences) topic?

Countries: USA, Spain, Switzerland, France


texts: What is the value of a summer project on cv of someone who wants to pursue graduate studies?

texts:
I got accepted in a sumer research project in the US with a relatively famous professor in the field, however, it is so expensive for me.
I am not a US citizen but planning to pursue graduate studies there. I don't have publications yet and by the end of the project, the participants will have to write a paper.How valuable is that for graduate admission?


texts: How to contact a potential PostDoc advisor?

texts:
Reading this very interesting question ("How long before PhD graduation should I start applying for post-doc positions?") about "when", suddenly I started to reason on the "how" issue.

Imagine you were going to finish your PhD program and wanted to contact a professor to express interest for a possible PostDoctoral contract within his group, and wanted to know more information about it.

How approach him/her in the best way?

What to write in the email to send him/her?


texts:
I have been hearing different views about my likelihood of getting accepted into a math graduate program.

  Which of the following factors contribute most to the acceptance of a non-math undergraduate into a math graduate program (please order them)?

  GPA
  Recommendation letters
  Publishing math papers

Since I am an engineering student I only registered basic math courses (such as calculus, linear algebra, etc.). However, I studied a lot of other more advanced courses by myself. My GPA is about 3.5. A lot of people have told me that I need to raise my GPA in order to get accepted into a decent math graduate program and this is worrying me.

Courses that I self-studied: Undergraduate abstract algebra, real analysis (with an introduction to measure theory), first 4 chapters of Munkres' Topology, elementary number theory, graph theory

Courses that I am self studying: Hungerford's abstract algebra, algebraic topology

Courses that I plan to study: algebraic geometry, algebraic number theory, complex analysis.

I also managed to finish 2 math papers. So the question is:

Where do I stand now?


texts: Inline referencing chapters, sections, subsections, etc

texts:
I am currently in the process of writing my Master's thesis using the LaTeX class supplied by my university. This class uses a document structure similar to report: Starting with chapters, then sections, then subsections and so on. Citation style is IEEE, if that's important.
What is the correct way to reference all these text-divisions within my flow-text, especially when reaching \subsection{} level and below?
Example A

As shown in chapter "Foo" and section "Bar", [...].
[...], for further details see subsection "Baz" and subsubsubsection "Qux".

or Example B

As shown in section "Foo" and section "Bar", [...].
[...], for further details see section "Baz" and section "Qux".

or something completely different?


texts: Waiting for one more reviewer due to being unresponsive - what to expect?

texts:
I have submitted a paper to an Economics journal in September 2019. It was assigned to reviewers in October of the same year. When being assigned, I was told by the journal office, that the review process might take between three to four months. I have sent an email to the journal office to which they have replied to me today saying that, one of the reviewers has already given his/her reviews, but the journal is still waiting for the second reviewer to submit his/her reviews? They told me that the concerned reviewer has become unresponsice
and they will help to expediate the process.
Furthermore, journal office mentioned that they will keep monitoring the situation nd the editor will proceed to a decision as quickly as possible once sufficient reviews have been received.
Does the fact that one of the reviewers who has already provided his/her reviews bears any significance in terms of revision, acceptance or rejection?
And what is the significance that one of the reviewers have been unresponsive?
Thanks.


texts: How to get title and pdf (and perhaps other metadata like author) from DOI

texts:
I have a bunch of DOIs, now I would like to fetch the corresponding PDF and the title and authors, creation/publish date, keywords, abstract if possible, etc. I understand that many articles are behind a paywall so don't expect to get the PDFs for those. But I would still like to get the other metadata for those articles, even though they are behind the paywall (since I imagine that info is public).

To summarize, looking for some/all of these properties in preferably JSON or XML form (except the PDF, in PDF form, if freely available):

title
authors
journal
publicationDate
keywords
abstract/description

I tried looking here at the DOI API but it only seems to provide this:

{
  "responseCode": 1,
  "handle": "10.1000/1",
  "values": [
    {
      "index": 100,
      "type": "HS_ADMIN",
      "data": {
        "format": "admin",
        "value": {
          "handle": "0.NA/10.1000",
          "index": 200,
          "permissions": "011111111111"
        }
      },
      "ttl": 86400,
      "timestamp": "2000-04-13T15:08:57Z"
    },
    {
      "index": 1,
      "type": "URL",
      "data": { "format": "string", "value": "http://www.doi.org/index.html" },
      "ttl": 86400,
      "timestamp": "2004-09-10T19:49:59Z"
    }
  ]
}

I saw CORE, which might have the metadata, but it isn't public domain / free / open source for commercial use, which I would like. Also checked at the Elsevier APIs (Mendeley and Scopus), but they are not free for commercial use either.


texts: Did mistake of doing PhD in a dead field. How to approach postdoc applications with hope of changing fields?

texts:
I am a final year PhD in a STEM field. My PhD research field is fairly stagnant with less scope of future growth. I had chosen this topic because I was interested in the field during my masters and did not investigate seriously about the future prospects in the field.

Now I totally regret it. I managed to publish just 1 publication during my 5 years of PhD, and am planning to submit 2 more. There was no scope getting an internship in my research area and while searching for industrial positions, I have found that such positions are also nonexistent. Lot of red flags for a research topic.

I wish I could have been more serious while investigating for PhD positions. I could have done many things differently. I want to be in academia. And I am looking to switching to a different field during my postdoc to make my profile better. How should I approach a prospective professor if I have nothing to show competency in the new field? Is it even possible, if there's an overlap of just a simulation technique between my work during PhD and the field I want to work in?


texts: Data sets of academic conference budgets

texts:
I am looking for data sets of academic conference budgets. I am mostly interested in the expenditure/revenue breakdown. Ideally, other information such as as number of attendees and location would be useful as well.

I am principally interested in the field of computer science (natural language processing and machine learning), and English-speaking venues.


texts: How can I email a professor to ask if I am still being considered for an RA?

texts:
So, I have applied to a Research Assistantship based Master's at a Canadian University. I have offers pending from other universities and would like to ask the professor if I am being considered. This is the email I wrote:

  I hope you are safe and doing great.

  Currently, I have received a few offers from other institutions. Their acceptance deadlines are beyond April and expect the first round of admission results of (your University) will be announced soon. I am taking courses on Power Electronics, Sensors and Motors (offered on Coursera). I found the interactive online learning quite helpful and once again thank you for suggesting me the courses a few months ago.

  Just checking in to see how you are doing and what admissions timeline I can expect.""""

Is this an appropriate email?


texts: Can e-learning self assesment tools be incorporated in engineering education?

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Grading homeworks and continuous inventing of new homework problems is time consuming work. Based on positive homework we run pretest elimination. Eg. students who solve homework can attend semestral examination. Those tools are not enough to make students realize what level of knowledge they posses and the ratio of students writing exams in eg. mechanics classes is very high comparing to total number of those who pass tests.
Can e-learning systems be used to guide engineering students through learning process and which methods have been shown succesful, besides homework assignments? Do selfassesment tests help?


texts: As a referee, what should I do if I think the other reviewer of a paper is not objective?

texts:
I was recently asked to referee a paper for a "moderate" but perfectly acceptable Elsevier journal, with an impact factor of around 1. The article in question was very poorly written, had several significant misconceptions in the introduction, but looked potentially quite interesting: I submitted a recommendation of major revisions, and included a list of fifty points ranging from the essentially (mathematical) grammatical to several significant scientific points. Frankly, I felt I was, if anything, quite generous -- rather than submitting a 2500 word review with a large number of salient criticisms, I would probably have been justified in recommendation rejection on the grounds that it was difficult to discern what had actually been undertaken.

Recently, Elsevier made me aware that the other reviewer had submitted their comments on the paper. I was interested to see if they had agreed with my judgement -- and on which side of the accept/reject fence they had fallen. Much to my surprise, they had suggested outright acceptance, had written a very terse review which included details that were not originally in the paper, but could only be known to one of the authors [or their friends].

What should I do about this? I feel like having a badly-written one paragraph review recommending acceptance of a flawed article makes a whole mockery of the whole of peer review -- and additionally potentially means that Elsevier can't select reviewers appropriately.


texts: Should I warn a professor about his bad internet security practice?

texts:
A relatively old professor from another institute "forwarded" to me, using his work email, a work-related message he had received on his Gmail account.

However, he actually saved the entire Gmail webpage and attached it. A saved Gmail webpage may contain personal information and should not be shared with others.

He is based in a distant city and I didn't meet him in person (yet), but we work remotely on the same project.

Should I care and tell him about this bad security practice? How?


texts: I was recently expelled from doctoral program in English for plagiarism in qualifying exam. Although it was for the lack of a citation, I attended a major research university with a zero tolerance policy. What are the chances I can reapply to another doctoral program? Specifically, I am in creative writing/poetry and I was in an English PhD program...what if I apply to a PhD in creative writing program? How do I go about addressing the plagiarism of the qualifying exam in past program, but highlight I have had numerous national publications since then in poetry and won a major book award, not publication?


texts: Why do potential supervisors not reply to my emails?

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I have contacted so far 5 supervisors for my master program that I want to enroll in ( applications open late September and admission January 2017) .

I emailed various faculty in the most polite way possible. Introduced myself, showed that I am interested in pursuing a research career in their field, talked briefly about my achievements  but only one supervisor replied. I am not sure why is this happening ? I have attached my transcript ( I am not a high GPA student but I received excellent grades for my thesis and seminar courses).

I emailed them this week ( and one hardcore researcher last Friday)

what could be the reason ?
note : I am intending to apply for the biomedical engineering program (one I really want to pursue) , most students have engineering undergrad however , I have a biotechnology degree. Could that be the reason? the department said my biotechnology degree is acceptable for that admission purposes.


texts: How to contact a PI when I have been out of the system for a while?

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I want to do a biology/biotech related PhD in Germany, I have an MSc in the field and some good ideas about what I'd like to research (biofilms and/or synthetic biology, those really excite me) but in short I'm out of the academic environment from quite some time, I'm in my late 30s as matter of fact. For some reasons I couldn't follow my aspiration back in time but I want to follow it now and at my age you just leave all if you aren't motivated and don't really like what you're going to to, especially with a family.

My question is therefore: how to approach a German group/PI in my situation? Especially considering that I don't really know how the German system works and I couldn't obtain letters of recommendation as often the Graduate School there ask for.

I would like to enroll in a Graduate School(or the equivalent) mainly because I'm coming from outside but what I really need is someone who take care to bootstrap me to the thing and give me the opportunity to pursue some interdisciplinar approaches.


texts: Scheduled graduate admission interview never occured

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I have applied for admissions in a Ph.D program in Mathematics. It's a small department at a public university.

Some time ago, I inquired the graduate chair about my application status (he/she was the preferred adviser I've put down on the application) and was told a decision was not yet made. Furthermore, I was asked to attend an interview session, so I agreed.

However, the professor never made contact at the scheduled interview time, nor did he/she reply to my follow-up email (singular).

What should I do next? I found myself in a difficult position.

Thanks.


texts: How much damage could a 'C' in Abstract Algebra Course cause? and How to minimize the effect?

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I'm an undergraduate math major student in my junior year. I've taken Abstract Algebra 1 last fall. I got  a C in that class (I got 65%). In most of my previous courses I got A's, and in some courses I got B's. I know that such a grade would cause much damage to my application (I intend  for graduate programs that I intend to apply for next winter, while being in my senior year).  I want to point out some things regarding my situation:

In my college, we can not re-take a passed course no matter what, that is, I can not re-take the course (I wished if I got F in that class so that I can re-take it and get a better grade, but I passed it with 65 point from 100). So I can not re-take it and it will be in my final transcript which will be sent to the programs I'm applying for.
This semester, I'm taking Abstract Algebra II and I'm aiming to get as high grade as I could, I wonder if doing so would minimize the damage of this C.
My GPA was 3.8 of 5 (~88%) before my fall semester, now it's 3.6 (86%), in a great part due to this C.

My question is: how much damage such a grade would cause? What are the best ways to minimize those damages? Do I have any chances to get admitted to good school with this C in my transcript? What about top schools like Berekely etc? Do I even have a chance?

Regarding the possible duplicate: Although the answer in the proposed question is great, I think that my question may have more specific answer since it is directed towards a specific field namely, mathematics. So, an emphasize on reference letters, research experience  or motivation letters may be more significant and crucial in math more than in other disciplines. Hence, I believe a more specific and tailored answer can be provided to my question rather than a general answer for bad grades.

Some (Clarifying but un-important) remarks:

Some people may think that I'm not good enough and this was the reason I got C in that class but I want to point some facts regarding that:

In my university, this course is not a challenging course, so it's normally easy to pass it with a good grade because the material and the treatment is not advanced or demanding. I got A's in the most demanding courses in my department. Regarding getting a C, this was due to several factors: First of all, I faced some problems in the two days before the exam, I went to the final exam without any sleep for a period of nearly 30-35 hours and I was very tired, I was sleeping in the exam and fully exhausted mentally. I faced some psychological problems for most time in this fall semester which had bad effect on my grades in general, but specially, the situation was catastropic in the algebra course. This C is not due to my lack of knowledge: in fact, I've mastered the topics in the course since High School (It's a Group Theory course - I went through most of Dummit and Foote doing almost all of the exercises in my high school years). It was due to an urgent problems at the time.
I'm not a bad student, as an indication for that: in the same semester, I've attended two graduate courses, one in Module Theory and the second in Forcing (set theory) and both of the professors considered me as one of the best students in the class although I was the only undergraduate. Sadly, we can not take graduate courses for credit in my uni, so my attendance was not official, I was attending because I wanted to learn the stuff. Also, I've attended a graduate course in Algebraic Logic in my sophomore year, and same impressions were made by the professor. In my sophomore year, I was meeting some professors regularly to guide me to self-study Category theory and Commutative Algebra.
My GPA is currently the HIGHEST GPA among my fellows in the same program, which may indicate that such a C is not normal for me.
Some people may ask, why did you take this course if you already know the material? Answer: in my college, most courses are mandatory, so I must take them even if I've mastered the content. This course is one of those mandatorycourses.


texts: Is it appropriate to bring some kind of gift for a host professor?

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I'll be doing an Internship in USA the following week, in UCLA.

I'm studying in Japan, where you should bring some kind of gift to your host professor, if nothing, for his/her kindness for accepting you as a PhD/visitor/etc.

I've seen this practice along Asian Universities (Japan, China, Singapore, India). But only in Japan professors may get offended if you do not bring anything.

A friend's professor is actually from the US (in a Japanese Univ), and when she have her a gift, the professor flipped and asked her whether this was some kind of joke or bribe, given that both of them were foreigners. Their relationship did not go so well after that.

Now, with this background, I'm a bit wary of bringing some kind of gift or souvenir to my host professor, since I'm pointing towards a postdoc in the same lab and I do not want to cause the wrong impression, but I do want to show some form of gratitude, since the Professor payed for all my expenses (lodging and airplane).


texts:
I believe in public engagement and personally, I think all PhD students should engage in some form of public engagement. During my PhD, I’ve done activities at primary schools and participate in a few public engagement events in the UK. Now, I have another job, in another field (PhD in allergic diseases and current job is cancer-related), so to do public engagement and attend any scientific conference related to allergic diseases, I have to take days off work.

This year, I have the opportunity to present the work I’ve done during my PhD at one large conference for non-scientists. I was wondering how public engagement is seen by other scientists. The benefits of doing public engagement are not as evident for the presenter as attending a scientific conference as there are more opportunities for collaboration in a scientific conference.

I’m mostly wondering how public engagement is seen by other scientists (related or unrelated fields). Do you think it’s an advantage to have public engagement activities in the CV, presenting your work for non-scientists, or do you think it’s better to have a Twitter account, a blog or write short articles for non-scientists?


texts: Why do "Author's Rights" in "Consent to Publish" agreements allow pre-print publications?

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I have published in journal X and given them the rights to my work. In the "Author's Rights" clause, it says that I am allowed to post my work to pre-print servers (in the form immediately prior to publishing and sticking the copyright on) such as arXiv.
I am also allowed to distribute the copyrighted version for teaching and technical purposes, conference presentations, or other scholarly activities, and also allowed to post the copyrighted version to a personal website.
Here are my questions:

I can't understand the logic behind why I am given so many rights. Where does the journal make money? In what scenario does someone want to read my work and not very easily find a free way to do so?

I realize that if someone wants to cite my work, they have to cite the official version, which boosts the reputation of the journal. Is the main point that journal subscriptions negotiated with research universities have more bargaining power, based on impact factor?

I am planning on posting my work to a pre-print server while referencing the official DOI of the copyrighted version. It simply feels odd to me, even though I know it's perfectly legal.

What am I missing? I realize all journals are different, but I want to better understand why author's are given these rights. I feel like a copyright transfer is a big deal.

From my perspective, I want eyes on my paper. From the journal's perspective, they want money from my work. How are there so many subscriptions to journal X if it's so easy to get ahold of the papers for free?


texts:
How should I handle titles of sources in foreign languages in APA?

For example, the title of the source is in Arabic.


texts:
I know there's many different questions that involve having a life with a healthy work-life balance but my question is different: I'm looking for a balance between my school life(high school) and studying.

But I don't mean studying for school-related stuff. We usually have enough time to study in class and sometimes during lunch hours. I'm talking about my independent studies involving math and programming.

What's stopping me from doing so? Well, when I get home from school, I only have about 3 to 4 hours until I go to sleep so that leaves me with 3 hours at most to study when you count things like eating, bathing, etc(nothing unnecessary) which is way less than what I want. This is making me loathe school and not want me to pursue a college degree because I feel like if I had more time to do math and programming, I could accomplish much more than I am now and so school is preventing me from reaching my best self.

I have tried many things. First, I asked my math teacher to put a grade higher for math which she did(I'm in grade 9 but I do grade 10 math) but I find the classes way too easy(I dare say even easier than grade 9 math that my friends are doing) so I bring my own stuff to work on but for some reason, the teacher told me I can't be doing that even if I have done everything she's asked for and am not disturbing anyone else(I asked my teacher to put me up yet another grade but he said no because then when I reach grade 11, I won't have anything to do).

I try to do math in my other classes as well but if the teacher finds out(which, on many occasions, my teachers have), they would just get understandably mad so I need to be really careful to not get caught but that requires me to pay attention to my surroundings which decreases my focus to do math problems.

I also get tutored by a grad at my local university but we have at most two 2-hour classes per week so although it's definitely helping me, it's not that huge.

My question is, have you ever been in such a situation? If so, what did you do about it and how was the outcome?

Sorry this is so long, I tried to make it as short as possible:)

Thank you so much for your time!

P.S: I have the tag "work-life-balance" because it's the closest thing I could find to my question but if you think there's a better tag, please feel free to change it


texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  Age and Graduate school

Is it difficult to get a job as a professor if you don't go to a PhD program immediately after undergrad? For example, suppose you work for 5 years before returning to get a PhD? Is this very rare?


texts: Should research service labs accommodate client requests for reformatting their data for publication?

texts:
We had a client who submitted samples for chromatographic analysis years ago to our research service lab. The client is now an assistant professor in a state university campus. The research is now under editorial review and the editors want some "cosmetic" touch ups to the chromatograms prior to publication.

We provide data processing fees since the processing of her data requires specialized software. We already sent the raw files and the plot numeric data in text format so the cosmetic processing can be done in Excel or Origin or other generic plotting software.

Yet the client still wants our lab to do the processing of the plots which can be done in Excel. Honestly I think the client is just too busy to replot the data with customized annotations themselves for their own publication.

The data processing request includes:
1) Replot the chromatograms so the more prominent peaks are better seen overall
2) Add annotations to the peaks

Honestly this is the first time I encountered such a request where the client requested something to be done by us that could be done by anyone who is publishing academically.

I mean an assistant professor who is about to publish their research should be able to plot data from a text file and do the annotations themselves...or get a subordinate do it for you and not ask the service lab to do it in Excel for their benefit...


texts: What is the best way to address misinformation given in a lecture?

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After having reviewed a similar question while looking for an answer to my own, I felt it did not get fully at the heart of my issue that I've come across. However I still feel that it has great relevance to my own query.

The original post now a bit over 3 years old "How should students react to inaccuracies in professors' teaching without causing resentment"

My question:

What is the best manner to approach a professor about false information given during a lecture? However, this was not merely a miss recalled information or a slip of the tongue. Rather it was a focal topic for a little over an hour out of the two and a half hour lecture time. Based on a premise that has been proven to be objectively false. However It's not as if their claim has only recently been proven false, or that it was only proven false by some singular and obscure study, or that this is information you'd have to really look hard for in order to find. Instead it has been known to be false for the past 6 to 10+ years. On top of that: there has been a virtual hail storm of peer reviewed publications and criticism contributing their own findings that further disprove what my professor claims to be fact. I'm not going to suggest willful misleading for the sake of some tinfoil hat agenda, but the level of negligence on the topic from the professor here was astounding.

To make matters worse the topic is quite sensitive and the professor has made note on how uncomfortable they are when lecturing on the topic because of how sensitive it is. I fear this may lead to some clam shelling if I approach about it. I also am concerned about what kind of world view shaping is occurring because of this false information being touted as fact if left unchallenged.

I have the opportunity to present oral presentations on works of my choosing - which just so happen to cover the breadth of material that unequivocally refutes the false information given during the lecture. My gut says this is the wrong way to do this. However I am confident that the professor would be less than open to addressing the class with something like:"hey folks the thing I talked about at length yesterday was a based on a premise that has been proven to be false for quite some time now. So forget everything I said about that because it was all based on mis/inaccurate information"

I can empathize immensely with the 3 year old poster and their peers suggestion of "picking my battles" might be the best way to go here.... However I can't help but I feel like I need to say something about this. To let fellow attendees know that the information presented to them was actually false.


texts: Is university teaching better than high school teaching experience in applying for teaching-funded PhDs?

texts:
When applying for graduate assistantships or part-time teaching for grad school scholarships, is university teaching necessarily better than highschool teaching experience? if so, by how much?

Possibly relevant details:

I am graduating soon with a master's degree from a third world university.
My plan is to get a PhD but am considering getting teaching experience to boost my chance's of getting in.
I am considering teaching at my university (or another university in my country) for a year or so.
However, I have something like a dual citizenship in a first world country in the sense that I permitted to work there in addition to an established residence (my mom and sister live there while my dad and brother live with me).
Said FWC is where I would like to get my PhD.
My parents suggested I teach at my sister's highschool (or some highschool in said FWC since I will unlikely get into one of the universities there).
I am fine with either in terms of job requirements (e.g. highschool has more requirements and students tend to snooze off more), but the pay is alarmingly different by a factor of 5.

Another difference is that if I teach in my university long enough, I might be able to teach or assist in teaching advanced stuff like probability, linear algebra, calculus III or financial maths. There's also a tutorial center nearby and there are occasional students who need tutorials in probability, statistics and linear algebra.


texts: Should I send letters of recommendation for a faculty job application that doesn't require them?

texts:
I am applying to a faculty position. The application announcement says they require a cover letter, CV, research statement, and teaching statement, but does not mention letters of recommendation. Should I request that my references send letters anyways? Would the search committee ask for them later in the application process?

Thanks!


texts: Bad Relationship with Master's Supervisor: Missing Reference

texts:
I'm in the situation that I'm completing my master's research degree and I'm in the process of applying to several applied mathematics / computational science programs.

Here's me complaining:
I do research for a collaboration and most of my research work has been for the calibration field of the experiment. My relationship with my supervisor has been less than good. He originally lied about the kind of research I'd be doing and because I'm in a program where you pick you supervisor before entering into the program, my impressions of him where very preliminary and not reflective of his concern in students' interests. My current impression of him is that he's a career administrative academic, his involvement in the collaboration is merely to appear involved in research despite not being in charge or overseeing any research that comes out of the collaboration itself. In the past, I've voiced my concerns with him about needing to be more clear and direct about the work he wants from me for the collaboration, only for him to be incommunicado for several months, that is until someone in the collaboration needs something he promised he'd get for them. At that point, he comes to me telling me to get something to him in the next week, saying I haven't been doing anything meaningful; over working me. The research I do do often does involve different people from different institutions, but it's never enough to be a reference for me as my involvement with other collaborations is somewhat scattered
End of complaining.

I can't switch advisors because for one, he's the assistant chair and would and would have impact on if I should be kept in the program if I request a change.   And if I did end up switching, the department would likely delay my defense, which I cannot afford. I'm stuck with my advisor and project till my thesis. Which I can deal with, it's the lack of reference in my applications that worries me. Now, I have quite a bit of research as an undergraduate where I'm getting letters of reference (all research experience). But will the lack of a letter from my thesis research screw me over?


texts: Are there any legal issues with publishing part of an unpublished thesis in a journal?

texts:
I have recently graduated and I was wondering whether, after submitting my thesis, there are any issues (legal or otherwise) if I publish parts of my thesis as a paper in a journal.

My thesis was not published as book, as was the case in this related question.


texts: How do scientists who choose to work on big collaborative projects (e.g. LHC experiments, LIGO, etc.) differentiate themselves when time comes to apply for post doc/professor positions, considering their papers can have hundreds or more authors?


texts: Asking about the status of paper you refereed?

texts:
I refereed a paper after a skim-through and a careful examination of about (1/3) of it after a couple of weeks, and then sent it back due to expository issues, a few gripes about certain things not being correct, about a dozen notes, and suggestions on what needs cleaning so that I could rigorously go through all the arguments to check everything and give a better assessment of the paper. I gave it a gut feeling of about what level of quality the paper seemed to be, relating it to another paper in the close literature. In the report, I said I would be happy to referee the paper more fully after these preliminary edits are made.

Almost a month has gone by and the editor has not acknowledged my emailing of the referee report to him. Do I wait to see if he acknowledges my report or does this get stuck in the ether without me knowing the result of the paper? Do I email him asking if he received my referee report? Was I wrong in sending it back to the authors so quickly to ask for more clarity? Or should I be taking a back seat to this and only responding when prompted and going along my merry way?


texts: What is " companion proceedings" in a conference?

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“All Web Science track papers will be published in the companion proceedings of the WWW conference." (http://www.www2015.it/call-for-web-science-track/)
What does " companion proceedings" mean？ What are the differences of it with the main proceedings?


texts: Is it a good idea to add cross references in conclusion

texts:
Is it a good idea to add cross references in Conclusion section of a research article?
For example, can we refer to results described in previous section of paper in the conclusion section?
Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.


texts: My university requires that I take attendance. How should I treat students who arrive late to class?

texts:
I might soon teach at a university which requires that I record attendance of students, as follows:
Attendance is a requirement for the course. A person with at least 75% of attendance is eligible to take final exams. A person with an attendance between 65% and 75% is required to submit a medical certificate. A person with less than 65% of attendance is not allowed to write the exam and has to do recourse.

As the university has no explicit rules on how attendance should be recorded, I am asking about this.

I studied many courses, and the behaviour of faculty in this particular aspect varies from one another. The following are the behaviours of faculties I observed mostly:

Allowing the latecomer into the class at any time and giving attendance to the latecomer.
Allowing the latecomer into the class at any time, asking a reason for being late, and then giving attendance to the latecomer.
Allowing the latecomer into the class, but giving attendance based on the reason the latecomer gives for being late.
Disallowing the latecomer by closing doors or with strict instruction.

So, I came to the impression that it totally depends on the particular faculty. Mostly I observed 1, 2 and 4. I observed 3 very rarely.

What is the recommended and proper behaviour towards latecomers?


texts: Writing to prospective advisors who co-authored a paper

texts: I wrote an enquiry mail about graduate positions to a Professor who is working in the field I am interested in. I cited a paper authored by the professor in my e-mail. The paper is co-authored by another professor in the same department, whom I wish to write to as well. They share research interests, have co-authored many papers and often co-supervise students. Would it be wrong to cite the same paper again in my e-mail to the second professor? I am worried that the two e-mails may end up looking identical.


texts: Receiving recommendation letters after graduation

texts:
I am applying for a few different masters' programs and I need three recommendation letters total. I graduated from university last year spring, and when I send emails to the professors I had for my major courses, the majority of them do not respond (they responded when I was a student on campus).

Are professors more likely to ignore emails from students who are no
longer affiliated with the school?
Also, is it fine to accept recommendation letters from professors who taught courses that I received my minor in?


texts: Will taking a vacation hurt your academic career/recommendation letter?

texts:
I’ve been curious about this question for pretty long. I’m not in academia, but I heard from my friends who are in PhD programs talk about not wanting to take a vacation or ask for vacation approval, fearing that it will hurt their advisors’ evaluation on them. As far as I know, they’re very hardworking and dedicated people (with no problem to work overtime, on weekends, on call etc) who aim to publish as many high quality papers as possible, but it seems a little bizarre for me to understand, if taking a vacation really shows sign of tardiness in academia? And would that hurt their publishing speed (sorry I can’t think of a better word to describe what they want)?

I apologize in advance if this question is off-topic, please suggest anything to improve my question/vote for close if it’s the case.


texts: How to change path from field of IT to field of Space sciences?

texts:
I'm now at the final (4th) year of completing my bachelor's degree in IT. Four years back I haven't had any idea about what I'm choosing and in my country there were no space related degrees, therefore I enrolled in an IT degree. But I always had the passion for space and now I really need to chase that dream. I thought of applying for Masters' in space related programs but I'm afraid I'm lacking that university level engineering basis. And I don't know if I can afford to enroll another four year degree from scratch in a space related program, possibly in United States/Canada.

It's not that I don't love the field of IT, I'm having good grades and all but my passion lies in space industry. I had to make a wrong choice four years back and I want to make it right. The problem is affording to start from scratch. I'm 23 years old now.
So how can I still do this?
Thanks everyone for taking your time to read and reply :)


texts: Which scholarship is better for international students to apply to U.S. Ph.D. programs?

texts:
I am a Japanese student who will apply to U.S. Ph.D. programs this year.
I successfully acquired two external Japanese scholarships, but I should choose the one.
Which do you think is better when we consider chances to get into Ph.D. programs (biology, STEM fields) and financial matters.

Scholarship X covers two-year stipends ($2500 per month), two-year tuitions and two-year medical insurance. When I consider applying to Harvard University, the amount of payment will be 185k dollars in total.

Scholarship Y covers five-year stipends ($1835 per month), two-year tuitions (up to $55k). When I consider applying to Harvard University, the amount of payment will be 165k dollars in total.

The Ph.D. programs which I will apply to provide us complete financial support including stipend, tuition and medical insurance.
Therefore, the purpose to acquire scholarships is to increase chances to be admitted to the programs by decreasing their financial burden.
In this sense, scholarship X is better.

However, some universities provide a bonus for students who acquired external scholarships.
In this sense, scholarship Y may be better because we may get the bonus in the remaining three years as well.

Which scholarship do you think is better?

Thank you.


texts: Is it possible for MPP students to apply for an econ PhD position?

texts:
I'm an admitted master of public policy student at Harris School of Public Policy, U Chicago. I'm an international student from China and graduated from Peking University. My interested area is economic policy, and the reason I choose Harris School is the strong quantitative background and academic atmosphere.

After being admitted, I start to think about the future career plan and what I really want. Not like the majority of MPP students who wants to work in the private or public sectors after graduation, I prefer applying for a Ph.D. in the econ or econ policy area. Less than 10 students will choose to continue a PhD at Harris every year. I know it's difficult because Harris is a professional rather than an academic school. But I still want to try and make some preparation before.

So could anyone guide me or give me some advice, please? Thanks a lot.


texts: Tips for engineering students applying math in their research

texts:
I hold an engineering undergraduate degree in EC. When I went to a good school for my post-grad, I found that research in many EC/CS departments required a lot of core math expertise which my UG lacked. It took me a whole lot of time to accustom myself and complete the courses. At the end of the coursework, I was able to thoroughly appreciate the development of the theory (in my case, real analysis, measure and probability theory).

When working on an engineering problem, I was able to understand fundamental ideas in many papers, thanks to the courses. Yet when it came to using the math for solving my own problem, I found things arduously difficult. In other words, non-intuitive math was well beyond me.

I regularly find top academic researchers in engineering fluently pulling off sophisticated mathematical results in their work. What tips could you suggest for someone with an engineering (or non-math) background requiring mathematical sophistication for their research?


texts:
I am from country A and am studying in country B. A researcher from country C would like to collaborate with me.  However, my home country (country A) has poor (hostile) relations with the researcher's country (country C).  I'm concerned that if I accept this collaboration offer, which will be done in country B, I may get into serious trouble when I return home (should officials in my home country realize what I've done).

I do not want to lose this offer, as it may result in a paper which would be helpful for my career.  Is there a way that I could use a pseudonym on any paper but still be able to claim authorship in the future when applying for jobs?

Edit

I am a PhD student and I do not care if I don't get the credit of the possible paper when I get retired in coming decades! I just need it for my first post doc position. I hoped others who had similar situation would write about their experience. I am sure I am not the first person in country A who is in this situation.

I hoped that I might use a fake name but use my original ORCID ID, so that when needed I can expose the paper in my profile for a limited time.
I also thought that a recommendation letter from the coauthors would be good too even if I choose not be a coauthor of the paper.


texts: Why don't some papers with proposed prototype have any user study ?

texts:
How did some papers with proposed prototype can make it through publication without conducting user study ?

This paper for example
Reflex HMD to compensate lag and correction of derivative deformation, it came up with experimental stage, evaluation, and conclusion based on their experiment result. How did they even get the evaluation data and came up with the conclusion without conducting user study ?

Even if they did evaluation by themselves, wouldn't the result be doubtful then ? Just how important is it to include user study in your publication ?


texts: To act against rearranging authorship irresponsibly

texts:
If the first author changes the authorship arrangement of a journal paper without discussing or informing the other co-author who is being unfairly affected with this, what we can do about it?

Is there a way to stop this sort of stealing other one's work? What would you recommend to do?


texts: What tense should we use when referring to a paper or experiments from other researchers?

texts:
While writing the literature review section, I am confused about which tense should I use (past, present perfect, or present) while referring to other people's work.

I understand that established facts are presented in the present tense.
Work done is presented in past or present-perfect tense.
But in what tense should I define their (i) system model, (ii) experiments, and (iii) results so that the overall picture remains coherent and it does not seem like I am jumping from one tense to another?

What is the basis for using any of these tenses?


texts: What to do when publishing a paper about mistakes in previous literature?

texts:
Two years ago I read a paper in which the "Methods" section did not report enough information to reproduce the analysis presented by the authors.

I contacted the first author in order to have more information and he provided me the code he used to analyse the dataset presented in that paper.

I found out that in the code there was a conceptual mistake in the way some algorithms were used. However, I did not have a solution for the mistake. So, I just ignored the fact and started working on a different problem.

One year later, while working on the new problem, I found a solution that could permit to avoid the conceptual mistake that I found in the above-said paper. As in the meanwhile I stumbled across to another paper doing the same methodological mistake, I thought to write a letter to the journal in which the first paper was published to underline the problem in those two papers and propose a solution. The paper analyses a simple dataset in order to show the differences between the results obtained with the old method and with my new method. I also (of course) point to the fact that the data presented in the two papers should be re-analyzed, as a data analysis containing that mistake can produce misleading results.

The peer-review process went smooth, with constructive comments of the reviewers. At the end of this process the Editor informed me that they also requested a signed review by the first author of the paper published in his journal. So, the same person who originally provided me his code.

The recommendation that he gives on my paper is of major revision. His comments are (in principle) constructive but he requires me to cancel from the paper the reference to his paper because: i) the re-analysis of his dataset with my method (re-analysis that he did not share) does not show significant differences; and ii) the criticism of his results is not justified as the Methods section in his paper does not contain sufficient details to infer the error. Do you think that these request are justified?

During a private conversation with me he also made clear that it is his interest to make sure that his original paper "would not be destroyed" and that he does not consider to publish a re-analysis of his data. This is particularly nonsensical because the results affected by the error are just a rather small part of the results presented in his paper and could only be found out by inspecting the code.

Given this context, I think that his requests are quite unfair. It is clear that he is just trying to preserve his publication record. It also makes clear that all his positive comments in the review are just an attempt of bargaining a positive recommendation for the publication of my paper in exchange of erasing the reference to the error in his paper.

Therefore, my conundrum is if I should just give in to his requests for an easy publication (nice thing during a PhD) or do not bend, argument against his comments and get a rejection recommendation. What would you do?


texts:
While looking for information on how to perform a particular basic lab technique, I found the lab manual from another university's undergraduate lab course. This lab manual illustrates the technique very well, with concise description, useful tips on fine points of the procedure and nice, helpful pictures of how the procedure should be performed.

In my research notes, I try to cite relevant material in a format resembling usual citation styles of well-known journals, both to build a habit and because it happens to be a good way to keep track of precisely what information I based my decisions on.

However, this lab manual does not have a DOI or ISBN and the PDF itself does not provide enough information to uniquely identify it in a traditional fashion. By looking at the URL it was posted under, I can deduce a fair bit regarding exactly what course this document pertains to (in my particular case, it seems to be the 2013/2014 version of the lab manual of the Bi204 course at Boston University, hosted here). What is the best way to cite it, to ensure that future readers of my notebook will be able to follow the citation without being hopelessly confused about which document I am talking about?

In theory, I can keep searching for other, more "formal" texts such as journal publications, then cite those. However, I don't want to do this. Firstly, I would be doing extra work to find what I already have discovered. Second, the manual is exceptionally well written and it will be hard to find other sources which provide the same information just as clearly. Third, I would like to give credit to the person who was actually the most helpful to me in my own reasoning.
I could just cite the reference given by the lab manual, but many of the issues I raise for the previous point apply.
I could cite the URL, but what if a year later the web page changes drastically, and the version of the notebook I used disappears?

I would like to, to the extent that is reasonably possible, provide the means for locating this lab manual to anyone reading my notes in the far future, even if the original author removes the manual from the web page I found it at. And I would like to provide this information in a style that conforms to established citation practices of scientific writing. How can I do this?


texts: If a professor analyzed my work, does the university own my idea?

texts:
If I had completed work on a certain idea, and would like to have it analyzed from an expert in the field. And shared it with a few professors, to get their opinions on my work... would that mean the university has contributed to my work? And somewhat has rights to the idea? Knowing that I never used the university's resources or facilities during the development of this concept.

I wont publish anything, just need an opinion on my work, if it has errors and overall worth pursuing.


texts: I am in my second year of my PhD and am about to get married. I plan to take on my husband's name with my name and not keep my maiden name. But I have two publications already. What can I do so that I can associate my publications even after my surname change. Also, if I keep on publishing with my maiden name and use my husband's surname socially, and also change my surname in passport, won't there be a conflict when I apply for visa to attend conferences due to the two different surnames?


texts: My Professor changed my multiple choice answers. What should I do?

texts: My prof changed some of my multiple choice answers on a test to give me a better grade. I noticed because I remember putting different answers for the questions and the way they were circled was not like how I write. I would have passed the test anyway, so I am not sure why they would have done this. I feel guilty because I want my grades to be based on my own merits. But this test was not a case where the prof raises a student mark because they deserved it based on effort. They deliberately changed my incorrect answers to give me a better mark on a test that I already did okay on. What should I do if anything?


texts: Is it rude to use tracking softwares for the emails that you send to potential advisors?

texts: A considerable portion of emails that I send to professors abroad to see if they have any position available remains unanswered. Not receiving a response, I can not imagine if they didn't attract to my CV or they simply forgot to open my email. In this way, I am wondering if it is normal(not rude) in academia to use email tracking softwares that inform you when the receiver opened your email. Actually, It is not very hard for them to check if the sender has used such software specially if they block the images in their received emails.


texts:
How are professors able to multitask seemingly well?
I see some professors are able to work on their laptops in seminar or other presentations, sometimes talk to the person next to them, and then still come up with a suggestion or question at the end of it which bemuses me.


texts: Is "I don't have enough funding" the most popular phrase used as hint for rejection

texts:
From communicating with fellow peers, it seems that whenever a professor rejects a student for graduate entrance, he or she will say something along the line of "sorry there isn't enough funding" or "our funding cannot cover a spot for you this year...but feel free to apply again".

This phrase also work its way into graduate interview as well, where the prof would suddenly mention funding questions, and thinks out loud whether he will have enough funding this year to take you.

While all the students failed to get acceptance offer when something along the line of this phrase is uttered...I wonder if there is a pattern in academia (applying for post-doc position, or research) where rejections are treated as lack of funding issues.


texts: If you have a few meetings with a professor to discuss a paper, but they do not do any actual writing, is this sufficient to justify authorship?

texts:
Earlier this year I started writing my first article with a former professor of mine. The article is almost done, but until now he hasn't written a single sentence or provided any data. It has been all my work.  We have met about 10 times where each meeting lasted about 90 minutes to discuss the progress of the article, and I have to recognize that during these meetings his advice shaped some of my ideas , especially regarding the research question. I know he has spent his time in this work, but I don't think that qualifies as authorship on the article, and I'm not sure what to do about this. I appreciate any advice you can give me on how to act on this issue.

So in general:

If a professor meets with you a few times to assist you in writing a paper but does not do any actual writing, is this sufficient to justify him being an author?


texts: Misguided plagiarism phobia - is it a thing? (mainly related to difficulties in understanding English)

texts:
I'm an enthusiastic contributor to one or two sites that help learners of English. I've noticed a problem that crops up again and again.
Many non-native speakers of English make efforts to disguise a quotation that they haven't understood when asking for help with its meaning.
I suspect this is because they have had it drilled into them that plagiarism is a deadly sin (which it is of course).
What they don't appear to realise is that a correct quotation with a proper attribution to the original author is good practice.
Perhaps none of this would matter but for the fact that their attempt to rewrite a sentence that they already don't understand, usually ends up so mangled as to be incomprehensible. (I don't want to single anyone out but if it's vital to the discussion I could provide a link to such a question)
In my experience this practice is common amongst students of whatever discipline who haven't understood a particular phrase when reading a text-book or academic paper.
Question
I can't imagine I'm the only one to have noticed this. Is it a phenomenon that is recognised by teachers in general? If so what do you do about it? Better still, is there a way to propagate the distinction between copying and quoting so that teachers world-wide are not misleading their students?

Example
I have invented an example for the sake of clarity.

The student submits the following question to English Language Stack
Exchange:
How can I use the expression "distant type"?
I saw a friend write the sentence, "X got bigger because of distant type Y"
What does this mean? How can I use it?

On investigation it turns out that the original was

"... obtained results suggesting a totally unexpected acceleration in
the expansion of the universe by using distant type Ia supernovae as
standard candles..."
Accelerating universe From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you think this example is exaggerated, I can assure you it is not. I see this sort of thing all the time.

NOTE
I raised this issue on English Language Meta. The difference is that
there I was explicitly asking about ways to deal with the phenomenon on Stack Exchange. Here I am asking if there is a solution (or even a problem) with regard to academic students when pursuing formal courses. I see this as sufficiently different to justify both questions.


texts: Who can submit papers to peer-reviewed journals?

texts:
Financial terms, content quality, etc, is not a problem. The author has a contribution that will significantly impact the advancement of human knowledge about a particular topic.

Can anyone submit a paper? Or does it require some affiliation with a larger group such as an educational/governmental/corporate institution?

I am talking about journals of such clout as the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Physics of Fluids, etc.


texts: What are the consequences of mistakenly publishing existing research?

texts:
**I'm asking this in the context of mathematical research if that changes the answer.
I've heard stories on Quora and from my professors about instances where researchers were banned from journals and, in some cases, thrown out of their universities for plagiarizing research. It did seem that their plagiarism was blatant, but the explanations weren't too specific.
I was wondering, with the number of papers that exist today and the number of journals they can be published to, it seems almost impossible to definitively know whether research already exists.
With all the work that's been published in any one field, is it the sole responsibility of the researcher to make sure their paper does not exist in any journal? And if they're unable to find prior proof of their work, will the consequences be so severe? It seems like two people stumbling across the same idea is not an uncommon occurrence. I think the most popular instance of this is between Leibniz and Newton. So, at second glance it doesn't seem feasible to discipline every researcher who manages to mistakingly publish existing work. But I'd like to know for sure. Am I right? And what would the consequences be?


texts:
A follow up to this question.

There is an issue in science with experiments not being repeated. I asked if PhDs can be done on repeating experiments and the answer is kind of mixed. Most PhDs aren't that. I don't suspect that professors repeat experiments often.

So, who is supposed to repeat experiments in academia?


texts: how to increase the chances for a professor to participate in a conference?

texts:
In my current place of work, we are organizing a conference, and we would like it to have continuity over time. Because we are a young career in CS and this is our first congress we are having troubles to find keynote speakers and professors that would like to be in charge of the different tracks of the conference. Our university has agreed that they will pay the charges of the speakers related to plane tickets and accommodation if it applies. I would like to start sending invitations, and the question is what to put on them to increase the possibility of having a positive answer from them?
Thanks


texts: “Authors Response” or “Authors’ Response”?

texts:
Recently, I received a decission letter from an IEEE journal. When I prepared my response, I became confused. The demand from editor is as follows:

  Please start your paper file with an authors response to the review of [paper ID number] which  contains how you responded to the reviewers comments.

My confusions are:

Which of the following titles should I use for my response?

  An Authors Response to the Review of Paper XXX
  Authors Response to the Review of Paper XXX

Should I drop an or not?
Which of the following should I use?

  Authors Response to the Review of Paper XXX
  Authors' Response to the Review of Paper XXX

Should I add an apostrophe at the end of authors?


texts: Central dot as decimal point in top journal

texts: The Lancet, one of the top medical journals in the world, requires 'Type decimal points midline (ie, 23·4, not 23.4)'. Does anyone know why this is? As a mathematician, I'll always read 23·4 as 92. Seems odd to me that such a high profile paper would insist on such a strange formatting choice, which goes against the SI standard, so I'm guessing there's a good reason for it.


texts: I'm in a religious country, and my religious supervisor is praying. What should I do?

texts:
My supervisor and all his other doctoral students are practicing religious, while I am not, I am "non-religious".

We never discuss religion together, but sometimes they all leave to pray together, and leave me alone, which makes me uncomfortable.
Surely, if they knew I'm "non-religious," it would annoy them.

How do I react to a situation in which they all go to pray except me?
Do you think I have to open this debate with them, and close it once and for all?
Should I pretend to be like them, pray with them?

EDIT: I am in a predominantly Muslim country, MENA (Middle East and North Africa), and not being Muslim is not very welcomed in general. For example, eating during the month of Ramadan is not legal, and can be a source of physical or mental violence in the street. So even if my supervisor is kind enough as well as his other doctoral students, they will be disappointed if they know my situation.


texts: Do researchers of deep learning understand the existing codes in detail?

texts:
Now-a-days, literature in deep learning is increasing at a rapid rate.
One of the key difference with other domains is that almost all research papers in deep learning provide corresponding code in GitHub.
It is (relatively) easy for me to understand the (mathematical, analytical aspects of) research paper. But, I personally feel it difficult to understand existing codes.
in this context, I want to know the common practice among researchers regarding the existing codes. Do researchers in deep learning understand the existing codes in detail? Or they just use the code as a module to execute?
Is there any recommended approach towards complex existing codes?


texts: Can a person become a professor in English without having a Bachelor degree in English?

texts:
Some universities allow students to get enrolled in English studies without having a Bachelor degree in English.

If someone completes an MA and PhD without a Bachelor, can that person become a professor in English?


texts: How to tell speakers that their English is terrible?

texts:
I just had a lecture from someone who has been a senior scientist (and has completed a PhD, post-doc) at a hospital for already 15 years. So I'm assuming this person is experienced in giving talks in English. However, almost one out of three words was completely unintelligible because of a very strong Spanish accent where every word gets morphed into a Spanish-English hybrid word.

I spoke to two people after the lecture and they both said they couldn't follow along because of the strong accent. The questions after the talk were also not about the lecture but about the speaker's field. My impression is that the talk was a waste of time for the two dozen people present.

Now I wonder if the speaker is aware of this problem, my guess is no and as such I feel the need to bring this to the speaker's attention. If it was me I'd very much like to know that I have a problem communicating because I feel like a lack of communication skills can be a very serious barrier to being a good scientist but I don't know if she feels the same way.

My plan is to use an anonymous email address to send this feedback, sandwiched between two compliments to avoid coming off as a negative person.


texts: How much does an undergraduate degree matter for an academic career?

texts:
I'm a PhD student, in medical physics at a very good collegiate university in the UK. I did a four-year undergraduate masters' (in physics), and I'm just finishing a four year PhD. I'm now at the awkward stage of applying for grants, junior research fellowships and postdoctoral fellowships -- and I'm experiencing an awful lot of rejection letters, often after being shortlisted and interviewed.

My question is this: how much does my undergraduate degree actually matter at this point in my career? I wrote two articles (on computational biology) as an undergraduate  that were published in  good (impact factor ~5) journals, and by now my publications list has eight items on it (excluding conference proceedings), including a PNAAS article (albeit not first author) and several articles in the main journal in my field. I've won prizes, lectured, and got a teaching qualification. Yet I still keep being rejected for positions that are 'appropriate' for me to apply for.

When I speak to older (successful) colleagues about their experiences, they often drop things like "Of course, coming first in the year at [Cambridge/Oxford] helped me get my Junior Research Fellowship, and even the Tutorial Fellowship later" into conversation, and the vast majority have a very good degree. I didn't do fantastically in my undergrad degree -- I narrowly missed out on a first class degree (69.96%), largely due to one bad exam. I really can't help but think that the reason I'm finding it so hard to get funding is because I didn't come first in my year -- but I'm up against people who presumably have successful publication histories and did.

If there are a large group of equivalent, good, candidates for one position, do funding bodies and interviewing committees look at what's different between everyone? Is the fact that I'm objectively a second-class physicist holding me back? If so, what can I do about it? Or is it the case that these funding bodies do some sort of crazy weighted sum, whereby one-tenth-of-a-nature-paper is equivalent to being first-in-year? How much of a hinderance is it being -- as I was -- in the top 20% of your year, as opposed to the top 10%? Does the importance of your first degree erode over time?

I realise that I should feel pleased to be shortlisted where -- to give an example -- 283 people apply for one position, and I was in the final six. Yet 'feeling pleased' won't pay the rent next year, and I'm really starting to despair. Should I accept that this limitation is always going to hold me back in my chosen career path, and therefore just go and change it?

Aside: I'm also concerned that, being an interdisciplinary person -- an MRI physicist -- I'm going to come across as being "too medical" for a physics position, and "too physical" for a post in a biochemistry department. In practice, my research ranges from Schrödinger equations to talking to cardiologists, and I believe that either location would be appropriate. This, however, is a whole other kettle of fish!


texts: Keeping track of bibliography references for an entire research group

texts:
This is a related question to my previous one about keeping advisees aware of literature.

Given the relatively large number of papers that are out there, it's inadvisable to force every student to start from ground zero in building up a reference library. To me, this suggests that there should be some centralized ways of keeping track of bibliography references.

The low-cost but high-maintenance route to me would be to have an SVN repository to which people can update their own personal bibliography files. Are there other more time-efficient routes to manage this process when:

people have different computing platforms and workflows (Windows with Office, OS X with iWork, Linux with TeX, etc.)?
working with collaborators at other institutes?
it's important (according to university/workplace regulations) not to have data stored "in the cloud"?


texts: Include unrelated patent on publication list

texts:
I am a PhD candidate (Statistics) starting to apply to academic jobs. I have no publications related to my research - besides my in-process dissertation.
One of my applications requires a publication list.

I have a patent awarded 7 years ago when I worked in a completely different field.  Should I include it in the publications list? I do plan on adding my in-process dissertation just so that I dont turn in a blank page.