texts: Re-applying to Math PhD programs while in first semester of current program. How viable?

texts:
I've looked at many of the answers on this site to questions similar to mine, and I've seen a huge variety of answers. My situation is a bit more specific, so I decided to finally make a post and ask about it.
I applied to Pure Math PhD programs this year (for Fall 2021). I was accepted into two, neither of which were my top choices (they were on the safer side). My partner applied to PhD programs in a different field (not math) but we were not accepted anywhere together. We want to reapply to eachothers institutions this fall in order to be closer. In particular there is one school (call it Y) who is strong in my research area and is close to my partner.
Furthermore, the university whose offer I accepted (call it X) is not strong in my research area - there is at most 1 person who I could maybe work with, but even they are not really super in line with my research interests.
To summarize, I have accepted an offer at University X, and am entering the Phd program there this fall. I really want to reapply to school Y both in order to be close to my partner and because the research there is more in line with what I want to study. I also want to apply to some other top programs in my field, since, if I don't get accepted to Y, I would want to at least be somewhere with strong research in my field. My application for this fall will be notably stronger than my application last cycle due to more research and graduate coursework at my undergrad institution. Is re-applying this fall acceptable, or will it be viewed poorly (although I believe I have solid reasons)?
I am seeking advice on how viable this is since there are mixed responses for other questions. Any input is appreciated, but especially if you've experience this yourself or are perhaps a professor somewhere. Thank you!
EDIT: It's worth also nothing that X is "strong enough" in my area and I love the location, so I could be happy there. Just not ideal, really. In particular I came more into my professional interests a bit later in my undergrad, so at the time of applying I wasn't firmly in one area of research (hence, I'm realizing a bit late that it's a little bit of an awkward fit at X).


texts: Learn to write scientific papers in medicine

texts: I'd like to learn how to write scientific papers in medicine. I saw searching on google that there are many books regarding scientific writing but reading reviews it seems they are more oriented to editors that to writers. Is there a sort of reference which focus on grammar aspects or conventions about writing style that is suitable for a beginner? I'm a non english native speaker


texts: Is it considered cheating if you post assignment questions on a site but no one answered it

texts:
If you post an assignment question on a 3rd party site. But got no answers from it.
Is that still considered cheating?


texts:
When my co-founder and I were creating our project (with a scientific background), we always listed our universities as our affiliation, or we listed ourselves as the Co-Founders of the project with an e-mail. For the last two years or so, my co-founder has worked at a technology company in the UK, while I am still on my PhD in the US.

Now, if we author a paper, is it okay to list my university and his work affiliation (the company)? Formally, this would be correct. However, he does not work on our stuff during work hours but only in his freetime and at home.

If we do list the two affiliations (university me, company him), does it imply that the paper has a commercial touch? His employer is okay with it.

Would this setup complicate creating a startup from now on?


texts: Discovered a paper very late into my research - what now?

texts: I am currently writing my thesis and am quite far already. However, I have discovered a paper now which troubles me quite a bit, as it pretty much destroys everything I am arguing for (and very convincingly so!). I know that this would not be so bad, had the paper been published only recently. But it came out about 10 years ago - I should probably have found & read that much earlier! What am I to do now? I am worried to tell my supervisor!


texts: Can I supplement my unofficial transcripts with missing context?

texts:
So I have a 2 page unofficial transcripts I would like to send to Universities. One page describes marks, while the other provides the grading system. Now, since I have studied in an Indian University, I have secured 6.4/10 GPA. While this looks bad on paper, I graduated in the top 20% within my batch. My grading system has D as an average.Here
As you can see, due to stringent evaluation, its ridiculously impossible to score S+ in everything.
Now what do I mean by supplement? This image that you see above is from my semester marks card. However, if you have noticed the 'levels' column, this is crucial to providing context to my grading system. Problem here is that this is missing from my unofficial transcripts.
So, I am looking to attach the scale page from my marks card to my 2 page unofficial transcript because I don't think Adcom is going to extensively look up my University to understand the grading scale. Is this move recommended? Am I going to get into trouble for doping my transcripts with additional information? As far as I know, my official transcripts in a sealed envelope will only consist of the first 2 pages without the scale. How should I proceed with this?


texts:
Imagine you studied 6 semesters (fall 2017 to fall 2020) at a university and 1 semester (fall 2020 to spring 2021) at a second university in order to obtain your bachelors degree. Is it fine to list it in your CV like

2017-2020 ETH, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Bachelors Degree
2020-2021 KTH, Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm, Bachelors Degree

even though one technically only received a degree from the first university and wrote the thesis for this degree at the second university?


texts: Will self-citation be viewed as self-promotion in academia?

texts: As we know, citation counts are important to judge one's research activity. Is it good to cite one's previous works? Will it be viewed as an act of advertisement or self-promotion?


texts: Nuances: PhD F1 Visa/i20 issuance for someone who did their undergrad in the US

texts:
I am currently almost done with my undergraduate education as a physics major in the US. I'm applying to graduate schools for Fall 2018, and when applying, I noticed that many (if not all) universities require that my 'Home/Permanent' address be an address from my home country.

So, when they issue an i20, is that going to be sent to my home country's permanent address (where my parents live), even though I'm already living in the USA?

If so, I have two questions:

i) Can I re-apply for a fresh F1 Visa (as a PhD student) while still living in the USA, or would I have to go to the consulate in my home country and go through the formalities as I did the first time?

ii) If the answer to i) is that I can do so while in the USA, do I simply ask my parents to send the i20 to myself once they receive it?

Please feel free to move/suggest a more appropriate forum for this question!


texts: Can I be admitted into a grad school program at a different university if I quit my current program?

texts: I have completed the first year of my grad school program, but did very poorly during my second semester. I received low grades in two of my courses and failed the third due to health issues and an accompanying bout with depression. The problem is I no longer want to continue this MS program; I chose to enroll at this university because of the opportunity (it is #1 for my field of study), reduced tuition etc. Instead I want to apply for a five year Doctor in Psychology program elsewhere. What are my chances of getting into a competitive program if I dropped out of my masters? Should I complete my degree in order to avoid having the blemish of dropping out of grad school on my record? It seems like a waste of time and counteractive to pursuing my passions. I'm also concerned about the low GPA. What is my best course of action?


texts: Do professors benefit from undergraduate research?

texts:
And does it depend on the type of field? Undergrads in biology can do the menial work, but what about undergrads in the computational sciences?

Are they more or less likely to benefit from undergraduate research in schools/fields where the undergrads tend to be especially self-motivated? (I don't know much about the ratio of self-motivated undergrads to non-self-motivated undergrads, but the professors I talked to at Brown and UChicago said that working with the undergrads at those schools was incredibly rewarding since they tended to be very self-motivated).


texts: Research statement and dissertation abstract

texts: Based on reviewing multiple examples, a description of one's dissertation research seems to be a mandatory (or, at least, expected) part of any statement of research document. Question: is it appropriate to include my dissertation abstract (as is or lightly edited) in my research statement in lieu of the above-mentioned part (in my case, it is past research, which I plan to extend as part of my research agenda- that will be discussed in the future research section)? Any related advice?


texts: An ex-student of my future supervisor is accusing the lab of fraud. How does this affect me?

texts:
I start my master's degree in this lab in September. After accepting my offer I found out that an ex-PhD student has been spreading rumors that the supervisor is publishing fraudulent data, going back many years, basically suggesting her whole field of research is a lie. The ex-student was very insistent to let me know about this and encourage me to not go into that lab. I think he is even trying to get an official investigation into her research to get the paper(s) retracted.

I'm worried that this will affect my career in academia, especially if the research for my master's thesis is based on falsified data. The ex-student apparently got his career ruined as well by the supervisor because he refused to put his name on the paper(s) and she made some calls that resulted in him not getting a post-doc. But I am only hearing one side of the story and I'm not sure what to believe. She is pretty well-known in her field for her research and from my personal interactions seemed nice. I'm scared if I ask her or her other students about it directly it could ruin our relationship before I even begin working there.

From my understanding my acceptance into the master's program is to the department and I could request another supervisor, though this would definitely make things awkward and there's probably limited options at this point for profs that can accept me. I'm not sure how I should proceed.


texts: Will a low grade in my final year of an undergraduate program affect my chances of being accepted into graduate school?

texts:
I am currently taking a course where my final mark is determine by 2 papers worth 50% each. I really hoped to get at least a B on my first paper. Unfortunately, I got a B- (71%?). I worked for 2-3 weeks on this very short paper and got help from both my TA and the writing clinic. I am in my final semester of undergrad (have not applied to grad school yet) and now I am considering dropping this course. If I drop this course, I will not be able to graduate in June and will have to take a course in the summer. This also means that I will only have 3 courses on my transcript this semester (if I drop it). This is a philosophy course and thus there is no positive correlation between how hard one studies and their mark (professors have told my class this many times). I will need a B+ on my second essay. I want to graduate in the top 10% of my class and, in order to do that, I need at least a 75% in this class. However, I am not sure how possible this is no matter how much I study or how much help I get. My other marks on my transcript are good, especially the ones that relate to the program I am interested in doing graduate work in. I am not studying philosophy in graduate school. My cGPA is a 3.5 and my GPA for the past 2 years of study is a 3.6-3.7. Graduate schools usually require at least a 3.3 for the last 2 years and a 3.0 overall.

I am not sure whether or not to drop this course. Will a low mark (high 60s/low 70s) in my last year affect my chances for grad school?

EDIT: "Good" GRE scores will not be able to "make up" for an discrepancies in my transcript since I am not required to take the GRE (nor is it accepted by most places).


texts: How to protect the copyright of the thesis draft?

texts: I just finished the draft of my thesis and want someone else to do a proofreading on it because I am not a native speaker of English. I wonder if any things I shall do to protect the copyright of the draft before I pass it to others?


texts: How do I compare my thesis research work to commercial products that I can't obtain?

texts:
My MSc thesis work in Computer Science involves developing a software solution for a particular problem for which already exist several solutions, in particular commercial software. I know I can't ignore them in my work and have to cite them, but I have no access to them, so I can't perform any comparisons to prove that my work will actually contribute to research in this field, rather than simply being another software program trying to deal with the problem.

What's the best approach in this case?


texts: How to deal with this rejection email from the journal Mathematics of Computation?

texts:
I am an undergraduate student, and i had submitted a paper manuscript to Mathematics of Computation, I choose this journal because of my supervisor, who advised me to submit my paper to this journal, but 2 weaks after the submission I received the following email.

Dear Professor XXX,
This message concerns the manuscript
XXXX by XXX
submitted to Mathematics of Computation.
We regret that we cannot consider it, in part because at present we have a large backlog of excellent articles awaiting publication. We are thus forced to return articles that might otherwise be considered. Thank you for considering Mathematics of Computation.
Sincerely,
XXXX Managing Editor, Mathematics of Computation
--- Sent via EditFlow by XXXX mathcomp@math.lsu.edu }}

So, how to deal with this situation ?
Are there any positives/negatives that can be taken ?
Should I submit the paper to another journal?   Or just submit it to the same journal at a later time?
Note that I informed the editors and the referees that I am an undergraduate student.


texts: Did MSCA supersede MCA or do both still fund new projects?

texts:
According to the page About the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions:

  As of January 2014, with the move to Horizon 2020, the Marie Curie Actions are now called the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions (MSCA). This change better reflects the Polish roots of this extraordinary scientist who inspired and inspires the programme.

This seems to suggest that Marie Curie Actions no longer issue new funding calls.  However, also on the website of the European Commission is About the Marie Curie Actions, which makes no mention of this action being finished/superseded.

Do both the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions and the Marie Curie Actions exist concurrently and do both still issue funding calls, or has MSCE simply been superseded by MCA and is the MCA page out of date¹?

¹When accessed 2015-04-04, the MCA page states it is last updated 2015-03-12.


texts: Is there an honors system in graduate schools?

texts: Just like the Latin honors system in undergraduate programs, is there such a system for postgraduate degrees ?


texts: I know what a literature review is and was wondering what makes such a review systematic? What extra steps do people usually go through when they do a systematic literature review? how is it different from regular literature review? The field is software engineering if it matters.


texts: I have a crappy undergraduate.Does a Masters help me to get through the eligibility of the university?

texts: This is what the university reads,"Admission to the doctoral Materials Science and Engineering Program (MSEP) requires a minimum grade point average of 3.0 (on a 4.0 scale). A Master of Science degree is not a prerequisite for application to the program".Does having a 3 point in Masters help me to get through even if I have a below 3 point in undergraduate?


texts: Is the Encyclopedia for Life Support Systems (EOLSS) a legitimate source?

texts:
While looking for some biochemistry references, I stumbled across a PDF from a chapter in the Encyclopedia for Life Support Systems (EOLSS). Wikipedia claims that this literature is "crowdsourced", yet "relies on strict standards of peer review and can be referred to for academic purposes as well." However, the only citations on the Wikipedia page are to the EOLSS site itself.

The PDFs appear to be pretty high quality in terms the way the information is presented--I would say that look to be on par with textbook chapters. Yet the EOLSS website itself is sketchy as hell, and looks like it was pulled straight out of 1995 (complete with flash banners and a spectrum of colors/fonts for the bodies of text).

Does anybody have any experience with EOLSS? Or any reliable sources that give it legitimacy for academic citations?


texts: Is paying someone to fix LaTeX issues in one's thesis ethical?

texts:
For my bachelor thesis in theoretical CS I paid someone to

fix some weird LaTeX issues I had
make some figures in LaTeX for which I provided exact (!) hand-drawn pictures
adjust the document class/template (font size, margins, ...) to university standards

In particular, all the text, formulae, figure sketches and remaining, say, 70% of the remaining typesetting were done by. Let me also say that I got the best grade possible to highlight that my contents were more than substantial for a bachelor thesis.

By academic standards, is it ethical to outsource parts of typesetting one's (BSc|MSc|PhD) thesis by paying someone?

Note that I am looking for opinions about the academic culture, not about legal situations. My university regulations are especially blurry and demand that one's thesis must be solely produced (in German: angefertigt) by the author. Whether that includes typesetting and in what proportion, is probably up to interpretation.

Related post: PhD student hiring a LaTeX expert to typeset thesis? asks about pragmatic reasons, not about ethical concerns.


texts: Should I always force the use of active voice in my dissertation?

texts:
I decided to use first person ("we") and active voice as the primary style of writing my dissertation in the domain of Computer Science. I have read some discussions about this topic and the people generally agree that we have to be consistent.

Nonetheless I also noticed that are some instances in which the passive voice seems to be a better fit, like when I want to emphasize the action rather than the actor or when I don't know who is the actor (or it doesn't matter).

It seems hard to me in those situations to force the use of active voice (maybe because English is not my first language). To what degree should I force the use of active voice? Are there some guidelines regarding this topic?


texts: Shows vs. suggests: Is there a substantive difference?

texts:
Research is sometimes described as “showing” or “suggesting” a result.

Is there any substantive or objective difference between the two descriptions?

One example is here, in this answer it is said economic research “shows”, which seems intuitively less appropriate to me, but maybe that’s not true:
https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/600/38455


texts:
I need to know what it means when a paper starts with: “Revisiting [topic]”

I read enough on a topic to write a survey paper, and I want to publish it in a conference to get feedback and discuss it with the relevant community. I want to publish it as soon as possible, because if I don’t, somebody else will.

However, it might be the case that in the future, I can find more relevant information and my insights will develop (as I will continue researching the same topic in the future), which might extend the survey I propose. Is it okay to publish another ‘revisiting’ paper with an extended survey? Or does this leave a bad mark on the publication and the researcher? I do not want to delay publishing because it may be hard to reach a point where I am 100% satisfied with my knowledge of the topic. But I might be wrong and I should publish only when I reach this stage.


texts: Fair use: Instructor sharing notes from textbooks

texts:
I am a new instructor, planning a course; this post comes from good faith. Basically, I am designing a course and am trying to give my students the best learning outcomes without demanding that they spend too much on textbooks.

1) There is one main textbook that I want to assign: Textbook A. From textbook A, I want to make my own detailed notes (certainly not word for word) so that my students can mostly read the notes to learn. From the student's perspective, the textbook is mostly for occasional reference and for the homework exercises. If I list this book on the syllabus and "demand" that students buy it, am I free to write my own notes without dropping a citation every other line? Can I post these on the course web page online?

2) There is another book, Textbook B, that I like a lot. Due to the fact that I don't want my students to pay an absurdly high fee for two textbooks, I do not wish to demand that my students buy it. However, I do want to occasionally reference it for my own purposes. Is it sufficient to list it on the syllabus as a book that I am referencing, but explicitly state that it is not required for purchase? Again, the plan would not be word for word copying or anything -- just for some ideas, possibly even coming up with reworded versions of homework or exam questions, etc.

I am torn on these questions. A part of me feels like I could do something wrong, but I also know the copyright laws seem to be pretty relaxed when it comes to teaching.

The "treat others the way you want to be treated" rule makes me believe that ethically, textbook A is fine, and textbook B is fine as long as I (a) do not use it that much and (b) reference it for any notably clever ideas.

EDIT: To add to questions above: Say Book B has many real world examples (with citations within the questions). One of the main reasons why I like the book is the abundance of real world problems. But I like the flow of text A more for teaching. I would like to give many of the examples from book B, but again, I don't want my students to pay an absurd amount for a book that I am only taking questions from. How do I settle this? I certainly can't reword the problems using the original citations given in book B.

In summary: Like the flow of book A more, but like many of the real world questions in B. What would you recommend in order to reduce textbook costs?


texts: When is it a good idea to let an academic department (or a professor) know that I have Asperger's (or ADD)?

texts:
With Asperger's, the trick is always when to explain it (in a non-awkward situation). I'd like to avoid mentioning it if possible, but it has gotten to the point that I only mention it after committing a major social faux pas, in which case it might be seen as an excuse.

With ADD, this is an issue that happens when people explain things to me. I often don't parse things very well when they're communicated to me verbally since I do have attention lapses. That's the major issue, anyways.

With that said, I do (indirectly) imply that I have both diagnoses on my personal website.


texts: Reviewer changed their mind after positive earlier feedback

texts:
I find myself in a very unusual situation. After sending the paper to a top journal, we received two positive feedbacks after 12 months, asking only for minor revisions.
We promptly did the revision and 6 months later we received the reports: one reviewer recommended acceptance and the other rejection, saying simply that the paper was not suitable for such a top journal.
The editor sent out the rejection to us saying that he agrees the paper is not suitable for such a top journal.
I wonder if this is a reasonable behavior of a reviewer (and editor). Is it reasonable to simply "change your mind" about the paper (without a justification)? I feel disrespected as a researcher for receiving their honest opinion on my work only after a second round of review.
My question is: Should I reply to the editor or not? What should I say?

Edit: I replied to the editor pointing out two things: i) How should I have replied to the minor revisions to meet the journal standard? ii) Asking for a third reviewer given the unusual radical change of mind of the reviewer
Edit 2: It turns out the paper has been handled by an anonymous associate editor. The editor in chief replied agreeing that the reviewer and the associate editor made a poor job in the first review. However, at this point, there's nothing that can be done.


texts: Very few research groups: continue doing PhD in this area?

texts: For a PhD in computer science or informatics, are there good reasons not to choose an area of research in which very few (3 or 4) known (small- to middle-sized) research groups work in the world?


texts: What is the meaning of "Manuscript submitted"?

texts: I submitted a manuscript to a journal about two months ago, its status was remains "manuscript submitted" until yesterday. In fact I saw no changes from the beginning to now and every process just happened in one day. I mean in yesterday it became "with editor" and soon after that "Decision in Process". It seems to me it will be rejected. But the strange thing for me that why it was not "with editor" from the beginning?


texts: Is there an optimum time to leave between writing and self-proofreading?

texts:
Having read a number of guides on tips to do when proofreading as well as some questions on this website. They all refer to leaving some time between writing and proofreading. This time can vary from 5 minutes as per Purdue online writing lab

  Even a five-minute break is productive because it will help you get some distance from what you have written.

to

  Put the paper aside for a few hours, days, or weeks. The writing centre-UNC

My question is has there been any scientific work/papers done that gives a result on an optimum time to leave between writing and self-proofreading?


texts: Where should a glossary be placed in a book?

texts: I am writing a book for a technical industry. I'm planning on including a glossary, I wanted to know, should I place this at the beginning of the book or at the end of the book?


texts: best words to respond to a request for cv after graduation

texts:
Last summer I did an internship in an industry for 9 weeks. It was a great experience and my supervisor was a very formal and professional lady. On my last day, she asked about my graduation date and I told her it’s just 6 months away as it was my last semester. She responded: "Send me your CV when you graduate.”

I sent her a mail today and got this reply.

“Good to see your email and glad to know that you have achieved an important milestone.
Congratulations on your graduation.
Your CV has been received and shall be forwarded to HR.

All the best for your future endeavors.”

What should be my response now? I don’t wanna sound immature  or unprofessional.
I was thinking about a thank you or something but I don’t know  if that would be appropriate.


texts: My department promised graduate students a particular teaching load, but has found a loophole to increase it

texts:
I am a second year STEM PhD student at a large R1 public university in the United States. When I chose to come to this program, the department told me that I would have a teaching load of 3 classes per year. That is, I would be expected to teach two classes in one semester, and one class in the other semester per academic year. The language in our contracts is not in terms of classes taught or credits taught, but a vague statement to the effect of "teaching xx hours per week". Since a statement in terms of hours per week is obviously vague, I inquired about this when I choose to come to this program, it was explained to me that it was simply 3 classes per year and that the load is not as high as it seems on paper. Other graduate students had the same experience.

Now, they have changed their promise and are now expecting me, and some other graduate students as well, to teach four classes per year. We are upset about this because we feel as if the department intentionally misled us with the language of the contract. Since the department is not increasing our stipends, we also feel they are exploiting our cheap labor. This has also led to resentment among graduate students since some did not get chosen to teach extra classes, and it was essentially random who got stuck with a higher teaching load.

My question is: Is it reasonable to ask the department to increase our stipend or compensation for this additional work? If it isn't, what is reasonable to ask of them? Should we just get over it?


texts:
When one goes from one grant to another, there are a few papers that are in the pipeline during the process. I have one such paper that was in submission when I switched grants. Submitted on the first grant, and then revised and resubmitted on the second and with additional changes on the second. This paper was then accepted. I acknowledged both grants in the final transcript as work was done to the paper on both grants.

The second grant agency asks for updates of research outcomes and consequences during the grant in a very black and white way of listing publications that are a product of the research. Is this paper considered a research outcome to the second grant?

This is in mathematics, if that helps, and there was some math to be done to fix the referee's complaint(s).


texts: Alternatives to Mendeley or Qiqqa to manage PDF and autoextract meta-data?

texts:
Having been a long term user of both Mendeley and Qiqqa, I have to switch to another tool that offers in particular:

the ability to bulk upload PDF and autoextract meta-data / bibTex info
manage all the relevant PDF, including annotations
be available as desktop version, i.e. with a locally managed database and library

Unfortunately Zotero, Endnote and other pure reference managers don't seem to have a usable content management systems for PDF's, that allows bulk PDF processing, like Mendeley or Qiqqa have.
I also don't want to switch to a pure content / document management system, which likely would not have the meta-data extraction and bibTex management capabilities.
My preference would be something like Qiqqa, which includes a lot of features I find very useful, including auto-tagging, relationship extraction, mind-mapping etc. but have not found anything that comes even close to that. Unfortunately due to Google changing it's access methods, Qiqqa is not useable anymore for me.
Mendeley would have been an acceptable alternative, but I have to move the library occasionally from one computer to another, and since Elsevier started to encrypt its SQLite3 datastore, it's not possible to move the respective folders to a new location.
I have looked at various alternatives (also paid ones), but have not found anything suitable.
For any recommendation I would be immensely greatful.


texts: How to introduce terminology in an academic paper?

texts:
I am writing an academic paper where I give colloquial or otherwise general words a specific meaning in regards to my research. I have been introducing these terms so far by using quote marks for the first introduction, and then I don’t use quotes for later references, such as:

  We convert these subsets into “tokens”, which capture only high-level features. Tokens can have a variety of properties...

This method seems almost amateurish. Is there a better way to do this?


texts: Is it allowed to write a paper using another's framework?

texts:
I am an undergraduate, and I recently found myself interested in a topic in economics, and there is a famous article, his framework including something like "model, negotiation, uncertainty...etc."
Is it okay to use his framework with my model (improved upon his), to analyze the situations the author mentioned in his paper?

To be clear, I mentioned many times in my paper about using the author's framework, and not only my model is different, I also added quite a lot extensions of my own. Also, I did not copy his words, just the situations he analyzed, for example, the model with uncertainty, the model with negotiation, etc.

But, is it allowed or common to analyze my model using other's framework? (most sections' names in my paper are identical to the original author's paper, for example, I used "model, negotiation, uncertainty...etc." as well.


texts: Google Scholar Syntax quirks: results depend on order of search strings

texts:
I am working on a systematic literature review and noticed something quite disturbing since I want to base my work on Google Scholar results: The number and actual results returned by Google Scholar seem to depend on the order of the search terms (to some very relevant extent), at least if the OR operator is used.

This quirk poses a problem, to the extent that it sheds doubt on the reproducibility of the search results. How should I deal with this in my systematic literature review? Is there any plausible explanation for why the results depend on the order of search strings? Knowing this might help to find a workaround. The consequences of this behavior could actually be quite important to any academic user who searches for papers in their own research. Naturally we cannot definitely determine what's going within Google's algorithm as it is a blackbox but we still can come up with hypotheses that we might be able to test nevertheless (I cannot think of anything more scientific than that :))

What I found out so far:

The number of results shown on the top of the results page is known to be a rough estimate that does not necessarily reflect the actual number. Furthermore, only the first ~1000 results/100 result pages are reachable anyway. However, neither is relevant to this question since it happens for far more specific searches with below 10 results as well.

Some examples with their number of results (the results themselves differ too).

10200: ("microarchitecture" "pipeline") OR ("pipeline" "instruction set")
38100: ("pipeline" "microarchitecture") OR ("pipeline" "instruction set")
39300: ("pipeline" "instruction set") OR ("microarchitecture" "pipeline")
39800: ("pipeline" "microarchitecture") OR ("instruction set" "pipeline")


texts: Online venues that promote networking among scholars -- alternatives to Academia.edu and ResearchGate

texts:
Are there alternatives to Academia.edu and ResearchGate if one is searching for a venue that promotes "informal" (*) cooperation and networking among scholars (specifically, in mathematics and science)?

(*)  As far as I know, the aim of two sites mentioned above is mostly sharing papers rather than opinions, insights, and interesting material of various sorts related to research. I would like this alternative site to be more informal: a scholarly social network rather a mere preprints repository.


texts: Is it possible to quit a TVL13 job in probation period?

texts:
I would like to ask whether it is possible to quit a wissenschaftlicher mitarbeiter job based on a TVL13 contract in the middle of probation period? Or do I have to wait until I finish it?
I have found the law corresponding to the different notice periods after the probation period is over, but I am not sure what is allowed before it is over. If I am not wrong, the employer can fire me without notice during that period.
In this website, I found the following:

until the trial period expires    2 weeks to the end of the month

Is this information reliable? It seems to be referencing the same law, so I'd say yes. But, I would like to double-check.


texts: Editors resigning because they published a low quality paper

texts:
Very recently the chief editors of the journal
'EMS SURVEYS IN MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES'
resigned because they published a paper (whose "methodology does not contradict Cantor’s and non-standard analysis views and is based on the
Euclid’s Common Notion no. 5 “The whole is greater than the part” " - from the abstract) which turned out to be of questionable quality.

Apparently the editors were "unaware of what was happening" (statement of the editorial board). This seems very peculiar to me; of course it happens here and there that an accepted article contains a minor error, sometimes even a major error. But usually the editors do not resign simply because they accepted a paper with flaws. Does anyone know of similar cases? In this particular case the paper will apparently not be retracted, even though apparently none of the editors was aware that this will be published. Why would editors choose to publish it nevertheless?

Officially (according to the publisher, as quoted here) "it seems that there is not enough grounds for a formal retraction." And yet the statement suggests that the editorial board is thoroughly unhappy.

Remark: I am particularly interested in mathematics journals (hence the tag). However, I am also interested in other fields.


texts: Is it ethical for departments to have publication requirements for students

texts:
This question and this question suggest that it is not uncommon/unheard of for departments to require publication by students (generally masters and doctoral) either to get credit for a course or graduate.

This seems to me like a way of off loading the assessment of students to peer reviewer, and therefore it seems ethically questionable. Is there a pedagogical reason to require externally peer-reviewed publication?


texts: What are pre-print repositories for math and physics alternative to ArXiv?

texts:
Are there other widely used academic pre-print repositories other than ArXiv? My interest is especially towards mathematics and physics.

If possible, one characteristic that I'd like to find in other pre-print repositories is the possibility to update the paper without leaving the older versions online and a better organized "author page" (and, as a note, I personally don't like Research Gate or Academia.edu, which also, as far as I understand, shouldn't be considered pre-print repositories).


texts: How to Cite an IGO Document in Chicago style

texts:
I need to create citation for this document
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/countering-hybrid-warfare-project-understanding-hybrid-warfare

It appears that it is developed by an entity called Multinational Capability
Development Campaign (MCDC) which as far as I can gather, is a cooperation between NATO and individual NATO member states, but what does it mean that its a "campaign".
some more info can be found about them here
https://www.act.nato.int/mcdc
however it is not clear what exactly this entity is to be defined as. I am furthermore not clear on what to define the document as, whether its a report or something else

According to this page
https://libguides.tru.ca/c.php?g=194004&p=1277108 you can cite Reports with the format listed, however this format requires place of publication and publisher which again is not clear to me.
the website CitationMachine lists a field for University and Publisher/sponser for citing documents which I am again, not sure what to fill in as.

one of the initial pages includes the information that it is

  This document was developed and written by the contributing nations
  and international organizations of the Multinational Capability
  Development Campaign (MCDC) 2016-17.

as well as information on the two primary authors, but I am still fuzzy on how to format it to be correct according to chicago.

I need both Bibliographical note as well as foodnote for 1st and 2nd instance of citation, in chicago style.
any help on how to treat this is appreciated.


texts: Email to a potential master’s supervisor, initially responded but no reply after I sent my transcript

texts: I emailed a professor asking him to be my master's supervisor. He replied saying he is willing to meet me and asked me to send him my transcript. I have sent it and he has not replied yet after a week (he replied to my initial email a day after). I don’t have great grades so does this mean that he's not interested anymore?


texts: budget allocation in research grant applications

texts: How to find about info about proportions of different categories in budget in grant applications? For instance, how much put in travel, how much put in RA fees etc.


texts: Am I supposed to understand my training dataset for a machine learning project?

texts:
TL;DR: I am expected to work on a dataset with missing/wrong information about measurement units. Is this a common practice?

Longer version:

I am studying a Masters's program composed mostly of machine learning. This semester I need to complete a 12 credit Project Module. Project Module means that there are no lectures, just a problem formulation, consultations with a teacher, and then a final report, source code and presentation are submitted.

The problem is to identify rocks by melting them with a laser and measuring the spectrum of the resulting plasma.

The training data I have is a bunch of measured spectra (example visualization). Each file comprises of comma separated tuples (wevelength, intensity).

My teacher didn't have the time to figure out what is being measured when we say "intensity" and sent me the "example" above to figure for myself. Well, I figured it's radiance, based on information of the same source as the example I was sent(here)

Now, radiance is measured in watt divided by solid angle and surface area. This is strictly non-negative. The example graph also cuts the ordinate at 0.

Yet when I look at the provided dataset, I can identify regions such as
this one:

 188.5999999999995,15.175680381419365
 188.6999999999995,0.872615069518224
 188.7999999999995,-8.345751621890303
 188.8999999999995,-10.279252960079765
 188.9999999999995,-4.22895372957017
 189.09999999999948,3.978827692507486
 189.19999999999948,16.603400130260713
 189.29999999999947,-12.791825667786197
 189.39999999999947,-4.859145351410255
 189.49999999999946,4.452390240582065
 189.59999999999945,-14.106010857508583
 189.69999999999945,7.039306431256487
 189.79999999999944,-7.3039003395809505

Negative line intensities with values far from 0.

And here is my question. Both my teacher and a couple of more knowledgeable colleagues agree that there is nothing wrong with this:

  The data you have is real world data collected with a hand held. Your model should be able to deal with the data as it is. You can apply preprocessing steps if you want to avoid negative data values.

To me it is absurd to even consider a dataset without first sanity checking it. Just as unacceptable I would call working with a preprocessed dataset without knowing how was it preprocessed (maybe I am seeing centered values, but no one told me the mean; maybe I am seeing a logarithmic scale).

Is it customary for a task to be presented this way?


texts: Is there any significance of having received multiple "best paper awards" (in the field of theoretical computer science) when applying for faculty positions after a postdoc? Do the hiring committees watch out for such awards or do they fall into the category of "nice to have but no one cares"?


texts: It is ethical and common that a professor ask the student to write their own recommendation letter?

texts:
I am in a unique situation. My supervisor and two other professors I approached for recommendation letter have asked me to write the my own recommendation letter and they will sign it.
Is it ethical and common practice?
How can I handle this situation? I already requested three of them multiple times, but always received same response that they are busy and will sign the letter which I sent them.


texts: Should I hide certain education history on my CV/resume?

texts:
Apologize in advance if it is not suitable for this site. I consider asking this in workplace exchange, but I think people on this site are more familiar with similar situation. For obvious reasons I open a new account to keep myself anonymous.

I am a last year Ph.D. student that will almost exclusively apply for industry jobs in the near future, and I have earned a master degree during my 2nd year in the program (FYI: In US people in Ph.D. program sometime obtain a master degree in the middle of the process, after passing some requirements). In other words, if I finish Ph.D. in the current program I will have a bachelor degree, a master degree and a Ph.D. degree just from the current institution and my undergraduate institution.

Many years ago, before entering the current program, I had another master degree in a different field that is the product of Ph.D. drop out (where, at least from my point of view, is due to getting abused/bullied. I burned the bridge on my way out, due to my attempt to report & confront.).

In this situation, does it make sense to omit that master degree on my resume, given that it looks somewhat weird and in most cases unrelated to the jobs I apply for right now and in the near future? The only reason I still include it is to seal the time gap on the resume, but I am afraid there is a little risk of people asking for references from the program I dropped out from (on my transcript it is stated PhD: discontinued). I am not sure if omitting and (if necessary) explaining the time gap could be a better strategy for the purpose of industry job applications than including and (if necessary) explaining the switch field (I'm not worry about explaining why new program fit my goal better, but worry about getting bad references).

Thanks for your answers in advance.


texts: How much work experience should be included in Statement of Purpose for Master program?

texts: I'm wondering how I should put my internship experiences in my Statement of Purpose for Master program. The internship experiences (mainly building java web applications) are not quite related to my research interests like distributed systems, real-time computing, etc.


texts: Must bibliography entries match the original title's German orthography?

texts:
I am writing a book, and in its bibliography I would like to include a paper whose title has the German word "Über" printed as "Ueber". As far as I know, this is an equivalent way of writing the word, but the former way is the normal way. It is definitely spelled as "Ueber" in the (nineteenth-century) journal in which it appeared - the body text uses umlauts so I assume there was some typographic obstacle with the title font.

I can see three options for me:

Ueber
Ueber [sic]
Über

I have a soft preference for (3), because I think it looks nicer. I do not like (2) because it carries the implication that Ueber is an error, which it isn't. But (1) is the original form. I could just about imagine somebody failing to find the paper because I wrote (3) instead of (1), but it seems unlikely - search services like Google "know" about the equivalence, and readers will have the volume/page/date information regardless.

The publisher has asked me to follow Chicago Manual of Style guidelines if in doubt. Unfortunately, I cannot find a definitive ruling there.

Am I bound to use the precise conventions of the original publication, or should I adapt to a more normal modern style?


texts: Why do so few universities offer OpenCourseWare videos of their lessons?

texts: OpenCourseWare has become more and more popular over the years, and quite a good number of universities make their lessons available in the form of online videos. However, compared to the total number of universities found in the US or rest of the world, the offerings are quite small. It seems to me that OpenCourseWare is a great way for schools to draw attention to themselves, so why is the percentage of schools offering OCW courses small?


texts: My co-authors want to remove my name from manuscript because I am "not in science anymore," how to correct this?

texts:
Two years back, was working as an research associate then have to leave the lab due to some family issues. My work was significant enough to be included in the manuscript and I was told that my experimental results will be a part of the manuscript and I will be coauthor in the paper.

Time has passed, the paper was rejected, revised and submitted. Now, the paper is again in communication, and I am being told, that as I am not in science anymore, my name is being dropped from the paper. I am trying to contact them but they are not responding. I am very much in science, but have taken a break. What should I do, if my name is removed from the paper?


texts:
I hear (and use) the phrase 'getting scooped' to refer to an instance where researcher A uses the ideas of researcher B and publishes before B can publish.
Is this strictly correct, and does it necessarily connote bad faith? Alternatively, is it still 'getting scooped' if researcher A came up with the idea on their own and just happened to publish first?
Any history or etymology of this phrase would be much appreciated.


texts: First author doesn't want a co-author to read the whole paper

texts:
First author is a PhD student, as am I. All of the other co-authors are our supervisors. The first author doesn't want me to read the paper, because we are both PhD students and I might plagiarize (?!) her work. Can I report this person for unprofessional conduct to the University committee? Or how should I behave?

More details/Update: My supervisors are having huge issues with this student also because now she doesn't want them as co-authors of other chapters of her PhD. As for me, the supervisors sent me a copy of the manuscript so that I could read it, but she discovered it and overreacted. She submitted that paper to a good journal but didn't keep me in the loop so I had no idea about the reviews until our supervisors told me (again against her will). Now, she doesn't want to acknowledge my contribution for another paper. Because of this latter my supervisors and I decided to collect evidence of her unprofessional conduct in the present and in the past.


texts: How to describe a program written by the author?

texts: If we build a setup at the lab, we describe it as home-built when we write the paper. What is the correct word to describe a program written by the author? The program has not been published and there is no intention to do so.


texts: How do I negotiate an offer for Ph.D. funding?

texts:
I've received an offer for admission next year. I would very much like to accept the offer, but I'm not sure the 50% TA position will be enough to cover the costs of commuting and an apartment near the university.

During the interviews last weekend, one of my likely advisors stressed the point that when an offer was made (they didn't come out and tell me then, but were very clear that my chances were good) it would be negotiable, but he didn't elaborate and I didn't feel comfortable asking what he meant.

How should I broach the subject of receiving more funding without coming across as ungrateful, and is there any way to know what kinds of additional aid the university might have available?


texts: How does a University tackle admissions for Master's Degree from students that come from a different college?

texts:
Are the fellow Bachelor's students that graduated from the same university given any advantage over the students that apply from a foreign, possibly less accredited university? Of course we're talking about equivalent degrees.

For Example - Harvard university has fellow undergraduate students that after graduating want to pursue Master's degree at Harvard. Do they get any advantage over let's say an applicant from Cambridge that has the same results as the local harvard students?
Does it differ worldwide? Is there some universal guideline for universities to follow?


texts: Feeling unprepared for PhD because of poor educational system in my home country. Should I leave PhD to retake courses somewhere else?

texts:
I will give some background. I am from a third world country, and I am doing my math PhD in Europe.  During high school and university years I participated in many maths competitions, and even got to the pre-national team. (I mention this just to show how interested I have been over the years with the topic.)

Here is my problem: my education is not the best. I would say it is mediocre at best. By education I mean the whole system of the country. I pretty much had to learn everything on my own during those years, starting from Analysis. So, even though I took courses, they were meaningless, because the level was very low and in many cases the professors were not experts in the field. On top of that, the interaction with other students was almost null, I was very ahead of all of them.

Despite that, as I said, I studied very hard to get to where I am now. However, I have to admit that due to this personal training, there are many topics that should be basic with which I don't feel comfortable about: ODEs, PDEs, Numerical Linear Algebra, etc. This is due to time constraints because I feel capable of learn anything.

To summarize so far: I have been a lonely man in a cave with a book for the last 7 years. That being said, I managed to get some decent knowledge in the area I am currently working in.

Fast forward to the PhD program. As usual in Europe, there are no courses involved: only research. And there is were my conflict lies: I am very unsure of myself because I think that everyone has a better education than me and hence they are better prepared. Another issue is that the institute were I am is very small and hence there is no ‘big purpose’: no one seems to care about you. Also, the institute is not well known, so that I am also afraid that the ‘brand’ issue will affect me later.

I feel like I don't belong there, and that I could do much better if I go to another Program that starts the courses from the beginning. However, the way I am doing it right now has got me very demotivated and it is starting to affect my research: I have been here for a year already and so far I am only at the middle stage of a first paper. The paper is not that strong, because after I got the results I found that someone has done it before (I lost months on this).

I guess that what troubles me most is the fact that, due to lack of data, I can not compare myself (main source of motivation, in a healthy sense of course) with the rest of my peers and that is the main reason for my insecurities. The comparison is in the sense of me being sure that I am roughly at the same level of my colleagues. I know no other way to do this other than taking the same courses and tests. This comes naturally with a program in which one take courses on the first year but, as explained earlier, I didn't have this interaction with really good students. Due to this, I am thinking of quitting and starting all over again somewhere else. Also, I don't think this is a case of the Impostor Syndrome: I am sure that with proper training I could get far, I just haven't had the opportunity to take a bunch of graduate courses.

Should I proceed?


texts: How to correct the missing citation counts/citing References in the adsabs.harvard?

texts:
How could we correct the missing citation counts and the missing citing References in the adsabs.harvard?

For example, I find that other resources such as https://inspirehep.net/ that have much precise and better citation counts, while both the Google Scholar and adsabs.harvard misses some citation counts/missing citing References.

These three resources have their own advantages and disadvantages:

1) Google Scholar: Google scholar miss citations from arXiv (sometimes but not always).

2) adsabs.harvard: In principle, it counts everything in arXiv, but even if so, the bib format citations may be missing -- perhaps it is the LaTex generating issue.

3) https://inspirehep.net, it only counts articles that are relevant to particle physics, high-energy theory, quantum field and string theory. It misses other disciplines such as Atomic-Molecule Optics or Condensed Matter physics.

I am happy to receive comments from experts working in all disciplines.


texts: How early should I start asking professors for a summer position?

texts: I am a high school student and have several professors at colleges nearby who are conducting research I find very interesting. I am going to ask them to consider letting me work under them during the summer, and maybe afterward throughout the school year. When should I ask? Should I ask in the coming weeks, to give them time to respond, or should I wait a few months until the summer is closer?


texts: Can someone who makes some corrections on paper grammatically be considered as a co-author?


texts: Writing to a reviewer to inform that one is not journal shopping?

texts:
I submitted a paper to a reputed journal on behalf of my organization (research publications are not very common here). The double blind reviews were received 8 months later when I had moved on to an entirely different project. Both the reviewers indicated accepting the paper but required huge modifications along with generation of more results. The re-submission date was 10 days after I received the reviews, though the modifications would have easily taken at least two months.

Since, I didn't have access to the resources (server, bandwidth etc.) and none of my co-authors were interested in reworking along with a dismal response from the management for request to reallocate the resources, I tried to do it in my spare time but the paper was automatically withdrawn since 10 days had passed. After a few days, the senior management suddenly enquired the status of the paper and forced me to resubmit to the same journal as is.
Obviously, the paper got rejected within 2 months. Editor didn't gave any comments except that the reviewers are suggesting to reject the paper.

I have the following confusions: (Didn't think they make separate questions)

Should I ask the reviewer what were the reasons for rejection (which I doubt is re-submission without modification if it went to the same reviewer)
Should I explain him that I was not journal shopping and the situation was such that I had to resubmit the paper? (Since I am pretty young and do not want the future papers to be rejected in conferences where same editor comes up).
I have now incorporated the suggested changes and wish to resubmit. Should I now resubmit it to the same journal or to a different journal?


texts: Research Internship: Contacting Faculty or Student?

texts:
As an undergraduate student aiming for research internships is it better to E-Mail a faculty or a Postdoctoral/Ph.D. student for available research positions?
This is as professors are busy and many times tend to skip through the mail while the Ph.D. student may at least go through it.


texts: Academic policy does not let me earn credits from certain past courses. How can I challenge it?

texts:
I have read the policy below:

No undergraduate courses taken to satisfy prerequisite requirements for admission to a graduate program may be included in the minimum number of units required for that program.

I completed a course at my previous university that is considered a graduate elective that also happens to be an undergraduate class.
My personal course audit from my former university shows this course is considered an elective for graduate students.
I want to earn credit for the course taken at my current university. Since I took it as a graduate student and I am not using it to satisfy pre-requisite requirements to admission (I am three semesters in at my current university), how can I successfully challenge this policy?
(Edit: I misquoted the quotation above.)


texts: Solo publication in a low-rank journal or co-authored with a famous professor in a high/medium-rank journal?

texts:
Is it better to have a publication in a high/medium-rank journal co-authored with a very famous professor or would it be better to publish the same paper solo, in a lower-ranked journal?
I am asking this considering the fact that sometimes, writing a paper with an expert in the field opens doors to more opportunities in terms of higher-level journals. Of course it is not always the case, but assume for this question that it is. What would be the best thing to do?


texts: How to proceed with a supervisor who won't read paper manuscripts? But won't allow submission until they have read them?

texts:
I have patiently waited for over six months for my supervisor to review two 30 page manuscripts. They have yet to do so. Furthermore they will not allow me to submit them to journals unless they have had a chance to read them.

I am at the end of my PhD and am looking to submit soon. They have yet to read my thesis - though they have also had several parts since early this year. I have sent many emails and spoke to them in person explaining the stress this is causing. I have heard every excuse under the sun. What can I do about this?

I think I need to approach the department, however I'm not if that will make the situation worse. I believe its to late to find a new supervisor and if the department does talk to the current supervisor, the supervisor could just delay me even further. I'm trying to find some one else to review the work currently and hopefully that will suffice. However the supervisor still needs to OK it before I can send it off - so in that respect I'm stuck. I've pushed the supervisor as fair as I as and have explained to the the stress this is causing to no avail. Any suggestions?


texts: Is it weird to have a one-year, master's level "general studies" program?

texts:
I am a recent grad & my main goal is to do a Ph.D. in Computer Science, but I have some interest in math and physics.
I recently found this Masters in Science program offered by a very reputable university in the US. It looks nice to me because I get to do a Masters to strengthen up my PhD app and also take classes in other topics that I want to learn but didn't have the time for in undergrad (like quantum, analysis, topology, etc.). But, it seems a little weird to me:

It is only one year. Most universities have master's programs that take 2 years.
If I understand correctly, you can take a random array of classes. This seems kind of ridiculous to me (even though it's what I want).  I never knew that there existed these general-studies-like Masters programs.

Am I correct to find this weird? Is this program comparable to other 2-year degree-specific Masters? Would completing this program help me get into graduate school for computer science?


texts: How to reference organizing conference symposia / panels on CV?

texts: Presentions for papers or posters at conferences are easy to reference, but how do you reference activities such as organizing conference symposia / panels on your CV?


texts: Under which title in CV should I list a paper accepted in a conference?

texts: I had sent a paper for a conference and it was accepted recently. I am wondering under which title I should mention it in my CV? Since it will be published in April so I can't use the title "publication", so which title should I use?


texts:
When requesting the diploma/transcript for a new job, the transcript is signed by the current registrar, as transcript has issuance date. However, a diploma does not have issuance date (only the date awarded). Will the university reprint the diploma with its original signatures or generate a new diploma with signatures of current university officials?

I mean is it possible to check when a diploma has been issued from its signature or the signatures are always the same as the original print on the date awarded?


texts: recommendation letters at different stages of interviews

texts: Recommendation letters today become less and less important in affecting employers' final decision, though they are often requested at different stages or even before any interview. What to do to avoid requesting letters too often, annoying letter writers?


texts: I am going to apply to several US universities(for 2017 session),mostly ranked within top 25 places,and I will apply for PhD positions in Pure Mathematics(Representation theory,to be precise).I took GRE with a week's preparation and scored 326(verbal 161,quant 165)-top 88 percentile,although I sucked at AWA-with a meager 3(out of 6) on board.I haven't yet taken up my TOEFL and math-gre,but I am confident to score over 110 in Toefl and a high(>90) percentile in math-gre.I hope to obtain decent recommendation letters,and a GPA above 9 in my masters from a reputed research institution of India.Should I therefore retake the gre?I should add that if I reappear,then I have a good chance at increasing the score by 5 points,and not to mention definitely scoring >4 in AWA. But does this high score worth that much at all??


texts: How severe does an error have to be to warrant retraction?

texts:
I have noticed an issue in one of my previously published works, which is approximately 6 months old. The issue has resulted in some minor data extraction errors and the inclusion of three studies (of approx. 20 total included) with duplicate data. These studies were part of a secondary analysis and while the error sounds substantial, there is no significant effect on the results of that analysis and certainly no significant effect on our overall findings or primary analysis.
Despite this, I feel the record should be corrected and intend to submit a corrigendum providing details and updated analysis. Is this sufficient, or should we be suggesting a retraction?


texts: Manuscript Revision: Is it alright to include the response to reviewer comments as an attached file rather than typing in the text box provided?

texts:
I have recently received a minor revision from a journal. In the manuscript upload portal, there are two places where we could include the response to reviewer comments. One is in the form of a text box and the other in the form of document upload. I am thinking of choosing to include the response file as an attachment as it includes figures and tables that would not be possible to include in the text box. So in the text box I plan to write:

  Response to the reviewer comments is included in an attached file (response_to_reviewer comments.doc). We kindly request that you open the document to view the responses.

Is this alright? The journal here is the International Journal of Medical Informatics.


texts: Get Information about NSF grant with grant number

texts:
Papers funded by NSF grants usually contain a phrase like "This research was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants ENG-XXXXXX".

I wonder if it is possible to find some information about these grants with the grant numbers. I am interested in who applied for the grant, original proposal etc.

I tried to search on the NSF website with the specific grant number, but did not get any results.


texts: First Presentation as a postgraduate student in a new workplace, messed it up!

texts:
So I gave my first presentation as a postgrad student in a new place! So I usually like to look to my screen once in a while while I'm talking and this time the presentation was projected to the audience on a screen. I was talking and had to walk back from the screen every time to change the slides. Hence there was some sort of disconnect in me changing the slides and me talking about the content. I also admit I did not get much time to prepare for the presentation.

So by the time I changed slides, I had to walk out infront of the screen and, look at it, and then begin talking about things. At one point, I actually missed talking about what was being said in the slides due to this disconnect.

Thing is, I actually planned and wanted to do super well on this. I worked really hard and had gotten beyond what could be termed as an acceptable result. I really regret messing it up with this presentation.

Can someone give me some advice on giving good presentations? Also throw anything else you want to at me?


texts:
What is the difference between Masters in Engineering Management vs. MBA?

Also, I've been told that MEM degrees are not favored by recruiters and hiring managers relative to MBAs- what are the differences between these degrees that make one less desirable, if that's the case.


texts: Can I get into computer science grad school without a strong math background?

texts:
I took an undergraduate degree in Bachelors of Science which did not go over a lot of mathematics. I did not even take calculus. I only took up to the highest level of algebra. Is it not possible for me to get into a grad program for comp sci, or electrical engineering? How is it going to work? Will I have to go back and take calc? I'm incredibly stupid at math, and I'm almost 25 years old. Do I have any chance to even get in? The weird thing is, I actually have produced more tangible things than my friends who have taken Comp Sci. I have made websites, video games, published them, and have even been referred to gaming studios as a software engineer by people who work there at major companies such as Activision. But I don't know calculus and I feel really retarded. What should I do? I want to get into grad school but I'm scared I'm too stupid to do it.

I'm embarrassed to admit that my math skills are maxed out at the highest level algebra. I never took calculus. Am I just screwed?


texts: As a postdoc, how to harmonize increasing independence with relation with your supervisor

texts:
I am a postdoc with a double affiliation (I belong to two groups in different departments but same institution). As such, I work under main supervisor A and under secondary supervisor B, meaning that most of my funding comes from A, who also is officially appointed as my superior. I work mostly on common projects between A and B, but also on A's and B's independent projects, and some of my own stuff.

I am currently working towards further independence, which is in principle the purpose of a postdoc. This involves participating in grant writing and decision making, for example choosing which conferences to go, journals to publish, more flexibility in the approach to problem solving, etc.

Recently, I got funding to hire two people from a successful grant I wrote with A. I was responsible for designing most of the scientific part, as well as risk management, scheduling, etc. Because of my involvement in the project preparation, A wants me to also be involved in interviewing and selecting applicants. We also decided that the most convenient way to articulate these positions (in terms of accessing resources) is for them to be in a double-affiliation scheme between A's and B's group, just as me. Obviously, B agreed to this since they benefit from two new appointments at no (money) cost to them. And obviously B was also invited to participate in the interviews and selection process.

Already after the applicant selection has started, B seems to be making somewhat erratic applicant assessments which go against mine and A's judgement. We thought this was very strange because their assessments did not appear to make much sense to us, until B eventually openly added that my opinion should not be taken into account. At this point the whole story put together seems to point to the direction that B basically wants to undermine my input in the decision making process.

This is not an isolated incident. B has also been increasing the control that they exert over my work. I get the feeling that B somehow feels threatened by my increasing scientific independence and somehow wants to let me know "what is my place". Incidentally, and probably adding to the problem, B is not much more senior than me and is trying to establish their research group.

How can I defuse this situation such that I do not burn bridges with B: a bad relation with B could hurt my chances to progress in B's department. At the same time, I want to progress in my independence, and this obviously involves being part of personnel selection and project design.


texts: Is "read the syllabus" a sufficient transfer of responsibility?

texts:
In my experience, most instructors spend a large portion of the first period in a term talking about the syllabus. This seems to serve to pass responsibility onto students:

Students see the deadlines. No student can claim to not know about an assignment or deadline.
Students see the course rules. No student can claim they did not know they were breaking a rule.

In the past, some students have tried various methods, such as skipping lessons, then claiming to not know about requirements, in an attempt to get the support of the administrators to back their case of "I didn't know".

I have lots of material to cover within the term, so do not like to waste lots of time with talking about the course and would rather get started. Is "here is the syllabus, read it" sufficient for passing responsibilities onto students? If students do not read it (many won't) is the responsibility nevertheless still passed?


texts:
Is it a good idea to submit a paper when you are about to leave academia, say in the next year?

In my field (Mathematics), the review progress is typically very long (At the moment I'm waiting for the first review for almost a year). I do not want to receive a review while I'm in the middle of a new job (probably without access to other academic people, articles, books, etc.). On the other hand, I've done something which is worth to published somewhere.

Should I submit it? How can I improve the length of the review (e.g., by chosing the journal?)?

Edit: Some details: I'm about to finish my PhD and I have no co-authors for the latest paper who could handle big parts of revisions.


texts: How to write a really short letter of intent?

texts: My letter of intent for an MSc program is only 1000 characters (which is about 160 words). I was planning to begin with a short story about how I became interested in the field, how my academic background has prepared me, my current research interests, and my future goals. All of that is about 400-500 words (I already wrote it out). I will be evaluated on how well my interests align with the school’s and my supervisor’s. So should I only include my research interests? So there really wouldn’t be any introductry line... I would just get into it?


texts: After 3 Years of PhD - problems with University registration - Fight or apply for another PhD

texts:
The Main problem is university registration as the process is vital to enroll as a PhD student, so that I can submit my thesis and defend it. Administrative issues here in Germany have prevented me from completing the registration process because I am an overseas student and some issues to do with deadlines.

Some good news are have published three papers as first author in leading journals and written the thesis work as well.

Is it a good idea to dump this registration process and take another PhD or should I apply for industry jobs? Note that I am not committed to staying in academia.


texts:
I'm writing my thesis with Latex and I use Mendeley for the citation.
When I add a book and specify some attributes, like title, author and ISBN, Mendeley automatically adds some missing attributes.
One of those attributes is the URL of a book. Usually, this is a URL from amazon.com or books.google.com.

After generating the document with Latex, the URL also appears in my bibliography. It could look like:

Peter Smith. A Long Book Title. Pearson Education, 2008, p. 530.
isbn: 0-123-54431-2. doi: 10 . 1336 / 976 - 3 - 434 - 03844 - 5. arXiv:
arXiv : 1011 . 1889v3. url: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/012345678?ie=UTF8&tag=petersmith-20&linkCode=as2&camp=4321&creative=4567&creativeASIN=087239586.

So the URL is very long and, in my opinion, useless. This is not the "real" URL of the book (not the URL of the author or the publisher) and I don't think, it adds any value to the bibliography.

In Mendeley, when I click on Tools->Options->Document Details, I can specify which attributes I want to appear. Sadly, I can't uncheck URL in the document type Book. So I assume, this is important?

Can I just manually remove the URLs of all by books?


texts: How to deal with Educational Testing Service (ETS) inefficiency and awful post-exam service?

texts:
I took the TOEFL test more than three months ago (outside US). Well before my deadlines. But I haven't received the paper scores yet and I shall mail them to the admission committees as an obligatory in my application package. Now, I'm running against the clock. Although I contacted customer support at ETS, the only thing I got is copy-pasted information of mailing time (allow 4-6 weeks abroad...) with a we-can-do-nothing-else statement.

This is totally upsetting. I don't want to lose my applications (and the money I have spent to get all my document translated, legalized, etc.) because of such kafkian situation. Also, it doesn't make sense to order extra reports; probably, they will get lost again.

Has anybody else passed throughout this predicament with ETS? What did you do? What should I do?


texts: How we can look active both in class and after class in our supervisor's mind?

texts:
I have started my master's degree and I am a fully funded student.
I want to get perfect marks and do my research perfectly.
What steps should I follow to become an outstanding student in my supervisor's mind?
How can I be a perfect student?
I also have a class with him this semester. I am also doing research with him.

It really does matter to me to have a very good relationship with my supervisor.
Please, give me any advice that you think is useful.


texts:
I have recently become part of a group at my (european) university, where we are suppose to come up with suggestions for how the "the good effort" can be appreciated and/or recognized by the department managment. The idea is to find ways to recognize the good effort made by individual employees.

In the past we have celebration publications in the "best" journals, but this scheme should have a broader focus, where great teaching, helpfulness, attracting external grants and so on should be recognized. I can find many more or less good suggestions for employee recognition by performing a simple google search, however, all these ideas seem to be targeted towards private companies. My question therefore is, what do you do at your universities to recognize "the good/great effort"? And what would you like, that you did?


texts:
What is exactly the difference between a reference letter and a recommendation letter in Academia? According to Wikipedia:

  Letters of recommendation are very specific in nature and normally requested/required and are always addressed to an individual, whereas letters of reference are more general in nature and are usually addressed "To Whom It May Concern".

However, I've often seen applications where it was asked to provide letters, without being explicit about whether it should be recommendation or reference letters (according to the previous definition).

I only ask letters from persons with whom I have worked closely (typically my former advisors), because I believe they are the best persons to ask about me, but it seems that some people also include letters from persons they just know.

In other words, what exactly is expected when a job application asks to "give references who can provide recommendation letters"?


texts: What should advisors do if one of their PhD students has to withdraw?

texts:
Unfortunately, there are circumstances when not everything goes right in a student's PhD career, or there can be personal circumstances that require doctoral candidates to withdraw from a PhD program before they have completed the requirements.

However, what is not clear to me is how to handle this situation from the advisor's perspective. What should an advisor do to:

Help the candidate, should she wish to apply elsewhere?
Discuss the situation with the group, to maintain morale?
Handle the "transition" process (during which the student is still officially on the payroll)?


texts: Where to put a cited paper: introduction or discussion?

texts: I have finished the first draft of my paper. It extends a statistical method and it is applied to an application. I cite many papers in the introduction. As a result, not so many left for the discussion part. If I put them here again, it seems redundant. So my question is: when you see a relevant paper, how do you know that it should be in the introduction or discussion?


texts: Grade conversion for PhD application: Masters in France -> Phd in the US (Math)

texts:
I am Masters student in France and I am considering pursuing PhD in the US.
 Grading in France seems to be less uniform then in other countries, which results (from my experience) in that getting 90% of max grade is hard. US universities have GPA requirements, some pretty harsh such as 3.5/4.0 GPA.

A broad question is: what should I do, except from trying to get as high grades as possible,  to be admitted to a high rank institution in the US despite being on the verge of a GPA cut-off? A more specific one is: how are GPAs handled when the direct conversion of grades is difficult.

I am looking for answers from people who have first-hand experience. There are a lot of answers in the internet, related to grade conversion for undergraduate school applications (that is, about conversion of high school grades), and there are conversion tables posted by some US universities. However, these answers does not answer my question well: I am interested in how thing are done in math/cs departments on the graduate level.


texts: Is there any journal in which I can publish educational articles not a research article?

texts: I want to publish an educational article about some non-standard approach to Lagrangian Mechanics, but the problem is that I have written it in my country language (not in English) so I want to know if there is any journal which accepts academical papers, I shall surely convert it into English if there exist one. I want to mention that I have no background in research, I'm a lecturer at one of the state Universities.


texts: Filling in details from other papers, is it good or bad?

texts:
Say I find a Math Proposition in another paper, which is just stated, and no proof (nor even sketch of proof) is given.

If I am writing a paper referencing that paper, is it good or bad (from reviewer's point of view) for me to fill in the proof of that proposition?

If I do so, what is a good way for me to indicate it in the paper? (that the proof written is by me, though the proposition is by the other paper)

The proof is not trivial, though it is not particularly difficult either.

Or should I just privately verify if the proposition is correct? And just cite the proposition (without proof) in my paper?

Thanks.

I am concerned about this issue since I followed the news story in the case of Grigori Perelman's proof of Poincare conjecture; the authors who filled in "gaps" in his proof did not go well with the reviewers and the general public. (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/08/28/manifold-destiny)


texts: Would it be OK to ask a professor who recommended me to take a specific PhD program to write recommendation letter for another PhD program?

texts:
A professor recommended me to take PhD program A. However, I want to take PhD program B. Would it be still OK to ask this professor to write a recommendation letter for this PhD program B despite he recommended me to take PhD program A?

He would be an ideal professor to write recommendation for me.

(I am in Germany.)


texts: Cheaper alternative citation managers for Mendeley

texts:
I am using Mendeley for paper and citation manager. Mendeley have 2 thing I need:

index, searchable in all paper (title, author, content, ...)
auto-lookup all information (title, author, conf, ...). If Mendeley get incorrectly, I can manually input the DOI number, then it correct itself.
sync (including highlighter and note). Basicly, it work like you note, highlight the pdf and save on Dropbox.

However, my free space is going to fill up. Mendeley paid option is too much for me. I would rather pay for dropbox, but dropbox alone does not index, look up all useful info from my paper.

I am looking for alternative. It does not have to be one software do all thing, but combination of some software is good for me.

For example: I would like a software that index, info-lookup all paper (pdf file) in my local folder. Then I sync the folder with Dropbox (for cheaper storage price).


texts: Can someone call themselves Dr. so and so (ABD)?

texts: Someone in my profession is referring to themselves as Dr. so and so (ABD). It is my understanding that they are not a Dr. since they have not completed the dissertation process. Doesn't it seem fraudulent to refer to yourself as Dr. without completing a doctoral program?


texts: Reference for use of name@math.univ.edu for mathematics department email addresses?

texts: I have noticed that many mathematics departments (a little over half of the public and private Group I departments) follow the name@math.univ.edu format. Does anyone know of a reference to a discussion in Notices of the American Mathematical Society or elsewhere about this common practice?


texts: So in this data set, around 50/245 admitted prospective graduate students from 2009-2012 were part of the top 5% in his/her exam?


texts: How to deal with students who refuse to do anything except take exams?

texts:
This is a follow up to my previous question. Some context:

I teach at a new Fachhochschule-type institute, where my course is 5-day, 1 hour/day course to 20+ students.
I am actively teaching, providing the material, and encouraging the students to always ask questions.
My course is structured to have 4 days of lecture and 1 day of practical. In the practical, I explain a real-world problem and give the students graded exercises.

In week 1, the exercise in the practical was to prepare a half-page report on a short consultancy problem. I gave them 7 full days to write the report. No one asked questions or stated any concerns before the deadline.
The day after the deadline, only half the class had submitted on time, half of which only at minutes before said deadline. I was gobsmacked, since even half of the submitted results were very poorly made (one even stated, in the report, "excuse me, but I didn't understand anything"), by totally missing the point or even copy/pasting definitions without context from the lecture notes. In total 1/4 of the class actually proved that had sit down and worked actively on the practical.
The next day I explained that their actions were completely out of line, since in 6 months they are supposed to go in the workforce, and this behavior of completely ignoring and not giving notice to the professor would be very detrimental to their careers. I refused to evaluate any latecomer who did not advise me on time. My stern reaction did upset the students who didn't submit. I even received an 1-page email (double the size of the report) from one of the students claiming that my job is only to teach and their is only to take exams, and they are not obligated to do any extra work I give them.
Is there anything that I can do to improve the cooperativity of said students? Should I modify the final exam mark structure or organize the lectures differently? Since this is my first shot, I don't really know how to proceed.
Clarifications and Update:

It is technically true that the student's grades (according to university policy) are determined by exams only.
But, I am allowed to have practicals and other assignments count as part of the exam score. My mentor confirmed this.
I think these students are bad apples because they are clinging to this technicality rather than doing the useful assignments (or at least respectfully letting me know of their concerns in advance).
Based on the discussion here and with my mentor, I have decided to count the practical for extra credit only.


texts: Must I admit having started (but not finished) an MS when applying for a competitive PhD position?

texts:
I spent almost two years in a chemistry master’s program. I did many lab rotations where I learned many techniques, and I even made progress on my master’s thesis (though I never defended). Ultimately, however, I could not complete the required courses, and so the university asked me to leave the program (they suggested I transfer my credits somewhere else). After that, I worked as an research assistant in a lab where they only required a bachelor’s degree. I’ve been here for two years and am going to publish a few papers soon as a first author.

Now I have applied in a prestigious scholarship in Australia where they only require a bachelor’s degree. This scholarship will fund my PhD in chemistry. I was selected for further consideration. There are many steps (many committees, subcommittees, etc.), but I believe I am likely to be selected.

My question: I have not yet disclosed that I started but did not finish a master’s program. Should I disclose this? Previously I preferred to be honest and lost so many opportunities – they always seemed to be supportive but never ended up selecting me; I am worried the same thing will happen here. I do not want to lie or hide, but at the same time I am afraid I might lose this chance too. I really have no option left. If this goes on, I think I can never get into a PhD for being honest. Even I have tried to transfer my credits but its kind of impossible.

PS- I did not submit my CV yet as they chose me from my expression of interest and my publication lists.


texts: Are there cheaper alternatives to ACM and to IEEE Xplore digital libraries?

texts:
The faculty in which I am currently working is planning to subscribe to the ACM Digital Library and to the IEEE Xplore Digital Library. I am not pretty sure how much are the real costs of the subscription because for example in:

http://librarians.acm.org/sites/default/files/ACM_DL_PricingGuides2014_NoTabs_V19_Academic.pdf

it appears something about tiers; I suppose that for a small access to this material oriented only to students that are doing their bachelor's final year projects, we will be in tier 1. About IEEE I still do not have information about it.

In any case, I would like if there are another alternatives to those two digital libraries, excluding Arxiv because a lot of their articles have not been peer reviewed.

Any suggestion?

PD. Update information:
We would like to access to articles about all the fields of Computer Science, the access would be for around 20 students maximum each month (that is the number of students enrolled in their last bachelor project). We need only the articles to be reviewed for their research as supporting literature.


texts: How much weight does the tripos III carry for further PhD admissions?

texts:
I am planning on doing a tripos III this year in order to explore my interests and improve on a few bad grades in my undergraduate coursework. I would like to aim for a top 5 Math PhD program.

I have heard that the tripos exams are after most of the admission period in the US. Given this, how much of a factor does simply attending the tripos play in getting an offer for a PhD?


texts: (Indirectly) looking for a PhD before I have published a paper

texts:
I am currently in the final (second) year of my masters degree (in bioinformatics) and am beginning to look around for a PhD. Admittedly, my resume so far is not very impressive: I did pretty well in courses but I do not have any published papers nor any conferences to speak of.

A few days ago I had a conversation with a Cambridge professor who has visited my institution and has collaborations with many key researchers working on a topic I'm interested in pursuing (he himself does not work directly on this topic, to my understanding).

The professor said that if I send him my CV he may be able to forward it to his collaborators.

When I talked to my thesis advisers (I have two) about this, both of them told me that I would be far better off if I had a published paper, or at least a submitted one, before I apply for a PhD. Our intention is to try to publish the project I'm currently working on, but it is likely to be a few months until we will a manuscript that we can submit.

On the one hand, I agree with my advisers that a paper would improve my odds with respect to admission to a PhD program (in terms of finding advisers, scholarships, etc.) . On the other hand, I think that I am presented here with an opportunity that I might not have again as the Cambridge professor will probably soon forget me if I don't write him soon.

So, I basically have two questions:

Is it a good idea to try to submit my CV at this stage? Could this have any negative effects or do I have nothing to lose?
If I do write to the Cambridge professor, what exactly should I include? If I write directly to a potential advisor I would of course enclose a cover letter and letters of reference, or at least list referees in my CV, but in this case I don't know if this is appropriate and I'm not wild about the idea of pestering my advisers by requesting letters of reference for this after they already told me that they don't think it is a good idea.

Any comments will be appreciated.

Note: this question is somewhat related to:
Apply for PhD before finishing my Master's degree

Applying for a PhD before or after finishing master's

but I thought that having a contact makes my situation sufficiently different in order to ask a new question.


texts: how to ask help from an area expert and getting feedback?

texts:
Actually I am doing my PhD in Computer Science, and it is advancing a little bit slow. I am convinced that I can use a technique to solve a problem in my research, but my supervisor is not very keen with the idea. Searching on an online course I found an expert in the area that uses this technique, and I would like to ask for his opinion and maybe advice.

The questions I have are:

How to write an email to this expert? I mean should it be a formal one asking beforehand if he would have some time to read the doubts I have, or should I just send an email with the question I want to ask directly?
What to do in order to increase the likelihood of receiving a reply from this expert? I know they usually are very busy people and that they receive tons of emails, so what can I do to make the difference so that he will answer it?

Before, I have sent some emails to other experts and I did not get any reply, except for one special case from a renowned expert in the field of Evolutionary Programming that was incredible kind and eager to answer in a very detailed way the questions that I gave to him. Any advice?


texts: PhD contribution by combining two or more methods

texts:
It is known that the PhD would make an original contribution and/or advance knowledge in a given field. In my field ( Computer science), there are various PhD contribution that combine methods to solve a problem.

In short, my question is: What are the conditions to develop an original/novel method for a contribution of a PhD by combining two or more methods that had never been combined before. I mean the case where we combine method A and method B to solve a problem T where A and B has never been combined before to solve T.


texts: Is it okay that I don't meet my project supervisor until I can reach a certain subgoal of a long project?

texts: I am doing a project in my university under supervision of a professor. This project constitutes many subgoals. My supervisor told me to meet with him to discuss about the project. But I couldn't reach my weekly subgoal yet. Is it okay if I don't meet him until I reach my weekly subgoal?


texts: Citing my work that appeared in a many-author paper

texts:
I recently co-authored a paper with about 40 other authors. This was a position paper that appeared as the output from a workshop, and my name appears somewhere in the middle of the list.

My contribution to the paper was a literature review section, which told the history of our field in a novel way, emphasising common themes that hadn't been commented on before and introducing new terminology to describe them.

I would like to re-capitulate this work in a new paper, following quite closely the story I wrote for the joint paper, although re-writing the text and condensing it quite a bit. This would be as an introductory section aimed at a different audience than the previous paper, which is why I want to say it again rather than just citing it.

The question is about how best to cite the previous paper. On the one hand I could just say something like "we closely follow the treatment given by XXX et al (2017)" without mentioning that it's my own contribution. However, I'm worried it might look a bit odd that we follow the literature review quite so closely if it's not clear that it's my own work I'm citing.

So I'm wondering if it's appropriate and/or permissible to flag up that I wrote that part of the XXX et al. paper, e.g. "we closely follow the treatment that one of us (YYY) gave in XXX et al (2017)." There is nothing in the XXX et al. paper that identifies this section as my work, so the reader would have to trust me on that.

In case it's relevant, the previous paper is mostly history and philosophy of science, whereas the new one is aimed at a technical audience in evolutionary theory and cognitive science.

I note that this is related to Citing a result due to a single author that appears in a paper with multiple authors, but the context and my reason for wanting to single out one of the authors are quite different.


texts: What is the usual role of a faculty senate? Does it typically have any real power, or is it a rubber-stamp for the administrators?

texts:
Although the presence of a senate suggests that universities nominally are governed somewhat by their faculty, it is frequently stated that there has been a trend towards greater managerialism, which has perhaps undermined the powers of faculty regarding university governance.

What current powers does a faculty senate typically have, or is it mostly a rubber-stamp for the administrators?