texts: What should you do if you cannot reproduce published results?

texts:
I am trying to reproduce published results in a paper. Those results come from numerical simulations. The original authors and I do not use the same software, and theirs is proprietary (I don't have access to it). I have tried to reproduce their results, and it works qualitatively but not quantitatively: the differences between their results and mine on typical quantities of interest are between 2 and 5 times the expected accuracy of the method.

So far, I have communicated with the original authors, trying to clear out all possible sources of error I could think of (checked that I got the tricky parts of the algorithms right, checked that the “usual” parameters that were missing from their paper had the “usual” values, everything I could think of). They are forthcoming enough, and reply to my questions quickly, but it's clear they don't want to invest time in doing any serious follow-up on their side. And without access to their software, it appears I'm stuck.

Now, my question is on how to proceed. The “ideal case” for unreproducible results is to make a detailed analysis of how and why they cannot be reproduced, and possibly find out a source of failure (or at least plausible issues). This advances the field, and is probably publishable (not in a very high-profile journal). Here, this is not possible.

I have, however, nice results that I have obtained (extending their work far beyond what was already published), and if I didn't have these differences with their paper, it would make a very attractive paper. What can I do with those? Is it possible to publish them, merely noting the different with their paper without more comment? Or are my results simply unpublishable? I welcome any comment, especially from people who have found themselves in such an uncomfortable situation!


texts: Acknowledging a single funding source: do I say "partially supported"?

texts: I wrote my first academic paper recently (it is in math). I need to put a footnote crediting the NSF for funding. I have noticed that papers almost always say "Partially supported by [grant]". I got all of my funding from one grant. Should I still say partially supported? If so, what is the reason for this?


texts: Will my accepted paper appear in conference proceeding without presentation?

texts:
Will generally accepted papers appear in conferences proceeding without presentation? In particular my paper is accepted for this conference. In the conference web site they pointed out: "Accepted and presented papers will be included in the IEEE CPS Proceedings." In its registration page they have told:

  Please register your papers before 20 July 2014. It is strictly
  enforced. If we do not receive your registration by that date, your
  papers will be moved from the proceedings. Thank you very much.

Does this mean the registered papers definitively will be appeared in the proceeding? Unfortunately there is no contact info on the web site and they do not response emails. I could not attend the conference and I wonder should I pay regitration fee or not?


texts: How good to publish a paper in an E-Journal compared to printed journals?

texts:
I am wondering the qualitative difference between a printed journal publication and E-journal? Whether both have same impacts. I understand that impact varies from journal to journal and publisher to publisher. But I am talking about the reputed publishers only e.g. Springers, Elsevier etc. I would also like to mention that the said printed journals here are elecronically availalbe first while e-journals have no printed version.

So how good to publish a paper in an e-journal? Whether papers published in e-journals give same impression as in printed journals?


texts: What does it mean to go directly from "under review" to "decision in process"?

texts:
I submitted a paper to an Elsevier journal in mathematics, which is right now in "decision in process". The status changed in the following manner:
Submitted to journal----(after 1 day)--->with Editor----(after 8 days)-->under review-----(after 15 days)-->decision in process.
But there was an intermediate stage ("required reviews completed") between "under review" and "decision in process", which was not followed.
What does this mean? Is it a bad sign?


texts: Importance of undergrad GPA, when you have a masters, applying for phd?

texts:
Background: I'm a fourth year student studying a commerce and science degree at one of the top univerisities in Australia, namely, Monash University. My majors are in finance and mathematics.
Unfortunately I didn't do well in the first two years of my degree and my GPA is, in short, very average.
However, I plan to do an honours in finance (if I can get in) or masters in econometrics/statistics/financial mathematics (for which I satisfy the pre requisites). The institution I attend is very reputable in econemtrics.
I really have only been thinking about doing a phd for a few days now, and want to apply to NYU's finance or statistics program, 3 or 4 years down the road.
With a 2.5/4 GPA in my undergraduate, are my chances severely diminished even if my postgraduate scores are stellar, and have a competitive GMAT score?
If it makes a difference, my undergraduate GPA in my commerce(finance) degree alone is something like 3.2(granted not great, but better than a 2.5!) it's the science component which drags me down.
I don't know too much about American univerisities but have accepted that there isn't a chance in hell for me to get into Ivy's like Harvard, but would am still heavily interested in NYU tier universities for something in finance or econometrics.
Any help or advice is very much appreciated! Thanks!
Apologies for any typos - am on my phone.


texts: Manuscript status changed to editor assigned after under review, what could be the reason?

texts: Recently I submitted minor revision to springer journal. For 3-4 days, the status of my manuscript status was showing to be Editor Assigned and after that status changed to Under Review. Now status of manuscript is changed to Editor Assigned again. What is meaning of this change ?


texts: Should article submissions be formatted in draft format, or in the format of a particular journal?

texts:
Some journals do not require article submissions to be in any particular format. Would it still be better to try and copy that journals usual format, or use a generic draft format? Would you as an editor or a reviewer prefer one over the other?

For example, many articles use a two column format that is nice and compact for publication, but is a little harder to review and markup - so maybe the reviewers would prefer the article in a single column draft format?

EDIT: I'm specifically asking about journals that state you can use any format you like (for submission), leaving you free to choose whatever will be most convenient for the editors and reviewers. Do you try and still present a "finished product", i.e. format it like it will be if published - or use larger spacing, etc. to make it convenient for review. What would you as a reviewer or editor prefer in the absence of set submission guidelines. Or would you not care in the slightest?


texts: Keeping track of one's academic record and achievements

texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  What tools make it easy to maintain (or avoid!) the N versions of your CV?

When writing a CV (applying for an academic position, workshop or a scholarship), it's important to include one's list of publications, conference talks and posters, awards, etc.

Moreover, the list need to be tailored to the respective scope (and with the appropriate fine-graining).

The question is, is there a specific workflow (or software) to keep tracks of one's academic records, so that later it's easy to cherry-pick the relevant stuff?


texts: Getting a letter of recommendation from university

texts:
I am in the process of looking at applying to do a Masters degree. I finished my bachelors degree about 4 years ago, and this will be a different university I am applying to, in a different country (bachelors was in UK, masters will be in NL)

Since I don't know who works at the previous university any more (and didn't really have any particular person to ask anyway, as none of them are likely to remember me), what would be the procedure to go about getting a letter of recommendation from someone there?

Should I just email their Student Services department? Or is there some particular process for this?

Thanks.


texts: Two Papers Accepted. Co-authors presenting

texts:
I am a first-year PhD student and I have two accepted publications as a first author since the start of my program.
The thing is I thought I would be the one to travel to the conferences and present my work but my advisor is making the presentation, as he made me aware of it today. The conference is in Europe. He gives me an excuse that the reason he will be going is because he will be on the committee of reviewers for the same conference next year and this will be a good opportunity for him to know what is going on.
The first conference is somewhere on the west coast and his co-PI also will be making that presentation.
I feel a little frustrated that all my hard-work is being presented by people who had little or nothing to do with the hundreds of hours of work that led to these results.
I feel this might be a trend that will continue throughout my PhD. My question: do you think I should challenge these folks or quietly accept their excuses for wanting to go, though unhappy about it as it is, and hope for a better deal in the future.


texts: How much do European PhDs care about GPA?

texts:
I have an undergrad degree in field A and have a lot of skills that led to me doing research in field B (not a lot of crossover traditionally, but the lab skills are similar and the experiments I run in field B are improved by the lab techniques I have from A).

I am now a fulltime research assistant at a top 10 university and have done interesting work including introducing methods from A to our work in B and proposing experiments grounded in understanding the science of B.

I want to do a PhD, but the trouble is I have an undergrad gpa of ~2.0, and my degree is in field A. (I also did several years of undergrad research in A, including some pretty advanced work, in a top 20 department.) I will have glowing recommendation letters from some top names in B because of my research work.

I want to do a PhD and a lot of people have suggested Europe because they're shorter. Do they care as much about gpa as American PhD programs? If so, I think it might not be worth applying because of GPA.


texts: How is an engineer's degree viewed among the admission committee for PhD applicants?

texts:
How is a 5-year engineer's degree viewed among the admission committee for PhD applicants? How much weight does the name of the degree have in the review process?

Assuming a choice were to be made between an applicant who has an engineer's degree and another who has a master's degree in the same field (supposing the applicants are equal with respect to the other factors: same letters of recommendation, same SOPs,...) would the master's holder be advantaged just by virtue of holding a master's degree? What if the engineer's degree holder had taken courses that would be viewed more favorably with respect to the program they are applying to, would he still be at a disadvantage?

It would be fantastic if applicants and/or admission committee members could share their personal experience with this matter.

EDIT: The applicants hold degrees in Electrical Engineering, and are applying to a PhD in Electrical Engineering. But this doesn't exclude answers from those who were in similar engineering fields (e.g., Mechanical Engineering degree holder applying to a PhD in Mechanical engineering,...)

EDIT2: An engineer's degree is a degree received after usually 5 years of study. It used in some countries in Europe like France.


texts: academic dismissive undergraduate and research experience

texts:
I've got an academic dismissive (LOW GPA) from the department at my 2nd year of my undergraduate study due to money problems, then I got back to the program and raised my GPA from 1.9 to 3.2 (overall GPA).
Step by step, my GPA at the last 60 hours was 3.75> I overcame the problem because I've found a good job from home.
I worked as a research assistant for one year with two of my professors, had a 8 weeks internship in a good institution in London, had a 6 weeks internship in my country, and studied well for the exam so I've got 100 out of 120 in the TOFEL exam and 170 for the Q part, 153 for the V part of the GRE exam.

I want to take a Master of Science in materials engineering or aerospace materials, and then continue to PHD.

Please tell me if the dismissive mistake will effect the master's admission negatively?


texts: Is it illegal or unethical for a publishing company to pay in exchange for including a co-author?

texts:
Some weeks ago a company contacted me via email. In summary, they offer to pay you if you include a co-author. They also need you to sign an agreement with your University and them. So, from one side, it seems kind of legal (since in the agreement they state "sponsorship"), but from the other side, these practices, I am afraid could lead to unexpected retractions, due to the likely unethical side of the business.

Is this kind of service illegal or unethical?


texts: What accreditation is most important for cs jobs?

texts:
what accreditation do most recruiters and hr people look for when interviewing cs grads/candidates for coding jobs?

Edit to clarify: What is the main accreditation for United States computer science programs?

Why am I asking?
When applying to software engineering or full stack dev roles I would like to be as suitable a candidate as possible (I am not looking for advice on portfolio's, or certifications) An example answer may be: "ABET accredited programs are the standard for graduates of computer science looking for software engineering roles"  (Though I have heard that no one actually cares about ABET for cs. If this is the case please tell me what other accreditation I should be looking for in a school).
My background: I am looking to enroll in a computer science program.


texts: Should one put poster presentations on their CV in maths?

texts:
I have presented posters at poster sessions at a few large conferences in pure mathematics. Is it worth putting these down on one's CV?

For context, I am a PhD student and have also given talks at several seminars and (smaller) conferences, so my CV is not especially in need of bulking up. Currently I do not have them on my CV. Moreover, my feeling is that posters in pure maths are not peer reviewed at all (in contrast to my impression of other areas), though I do not know this for definite.


texts:
Although graduating from a low ranked college I was able to become research associate at a well known research institution. My work there provided me with three research papers.

Is there any possibility of getting a full scholarship for a MS program?


texts: Pros and cons of teaching as a PhD student for non-academic future

texts:
I started teaching this year. Since at the beginning the idea was just to do exercise sessions and now it starts becoming very (maybe too) time consuming with slide preparation, correction of homeworks and exams, I'm considering the idea to quit teaching.

My impression is that the time spent teaching/correcting/preparing is affecting very negatively the amount of time I spend in the research and the quality of my work.

Since from an economic point of view there are not a lot of advantages (roughly +10%), in the principle my idea was to earn teaching hours for a possible future in the academia, even without being sure about my future.

Since I have no idea about what to do after the phd and one of the possibilities is industy I was wondering whether ≈ 200 hours of teaching are seen positively from an industry perspective or if they are totally unnecessary from who is planning a future in the industry.


texts: Is there a way to see which papers have used a particular R package?

texts: I'm a new user of an R package (tidy text mining) and I'd like to see what papers have used this package as examples for the kind of things I can do with it. Is there a way to do this?


texts: I did everything on my own regarding my B.Sc. thesis. My supervisor did nothing. I want to publish it without his name

texts:
My B.Sc. thesis advisor did nothing regarding my B.Sc. thesis. I chose the topic, I have done everything on my own. He didn't even read the work or provided me with any guidance or any advice. Just passive aggression is all I gained from him.
However. I want to try to publish it. But since he didn't contribute even the slightest I don't want to put his name upon it. Also, the work I submitted at the university has some minor mistakes. So if I considered publishing it, I will change some minor details. So is it ethical or it will get me into troubles?


texts: Can I write the language specific summary of my thesis in dialect?

texts:
My mother tongue is Dutch and I'm writing my thesis in English. I am required to write a summary both in English and my own language, Dutch. Would it be ok to write the Dutch summary in a dialect? Which is still comprehensible to everybody, just slightly different spelling. I have a deep connection to my dialect which is dying out. My thesis does regard natural language but has no relation to dutch or dialects or anything of the sort.

I can't ask my uni because there are 0 guidelines to structure or style, just content. And it is very very strict on the size of a thesis, only allowing 6000 words which is ridiculously small for 8 months of work.


texts: Publishing in low quality conference vs posting in arXiv

texts:
We got a small set of good outcomes from some work that we were doing in recent months. However, the outcomes are not so good to be published in good conferences (CS).

So, we decided to post and keep it online via arXiv.

Recently, one of my friends rang me and asked to publish the work in not-so-reputed conference (preferably, IEEE).

I was wondering, is it a good idea to publish it in bad quality conference? Will it give a bad name to us?

Could we get some inputs although we know that the work could still be published after arXiving?


texts: Should I cite a pre-print as published on reviewer's request?

texts:
I have cited a recent pre-print posted in arxiv in one of my papers that is accepted for presenting in a conference. One of the reviewers (who is one of the authors of the pre-print I suspect) has suggested the cite the pre-print as an accepted version in an upcoming conference (different from where my paper is accepted). Now, the suggested conference does not have its proceedings published yet. The only evidence that this pre-print will be included in the final proceedings is the fact that it is mentioned in the published technical program.

Is it appropriate to cite the paper as published or should I keep the citation as a pre-print?


texts: How to ask for recommendation letter from someone already knew me?

texts:
due to covid, I think I will not be able to meet him in person. Writing him an email is the only option. In the email, should I introduce again to him who I am? He already knew and remembered my name.
Could you please tell me a format I could use?


texts: How to write an effective but very gentle reminder email to supervisor to check the Manuscript?

texts:
I had submitted my first manuscript to my supervisor in 2013. He checked it after one year and finally submit it to a journal in Jan 2015. After one major revision, it got accepted with a minor revision and due date was 30th June, 2015. I modified and corrected the manuscript. But my supervisor was so busy that he could not make a final check and could not submit it in due time. I reminded and requested many times to check and submit it at the earliest in his free time, but my supervisor always says that "Sorry, I am busy and wait until my check." Editor had also reminded couple of times and finally closed the file. One day my supervisor told me that we need to withdraw this paper, because it is too late. I got shocked. So my supervisor might had felt bad for his delay, so he withdrew it and submitted to another journal in the same day of Mar, 2016 without any check. Fortunately the manuscript got accepted with a minor revision with a due date as 29th July, 2016. I corrected accordingly and sent it to my supervisor. But again seems same situation that yet he has not submitted.

During this period, I was ready with another manuscript. When I requested him to submit that, he advised me to submit by my own to XYZ journal as he is very busy. I felt very happy and submit it to his recommended journal in Mar 2016. This manuscripts came with a major revision after 2 months. So I revised the manuscript and submitted in due time by my own and informed to my supervisor. Fortunately, this manuscript also got accepted with a minor revision and due date was 28th Oct 2016. I modified everything and supposed to submit by my own. But my supervisor told that he will check at least once before final submission. So I could not submit it by my own and still waiting for my supervisor's check.

So I am very much worried what to do in this situation. I have written and reminded many times. But as usual I always get a sorry reply. I am really worried how to write an effective but very gentle reminder email to him to check the Manuscript? I can't complain and be hard to break his faith on me.


texts: How do you cite a paper that you found online?

texts:
I found this paper online and would like to cite it. I've looked up the rules for citing conference papers, but this is not a conference paper. It's also not a book and not a website and not an essay. It looks like this image may have the correct format, but I can't tell exactly what information is what.

How do I cite any paper? (MLA is preferred, but multiple citation styles would be ideal.)


texts: Should I retire early from my tenured job?

texts:
I'm a tenured professor and like my job overall. I don't go to work giddy everyday, but I enjoy research, and usually enjoy teaching. I don't enjoy stuff like playing department politics or being part of a system that puts students into debt, but I don't think you can feel positive about every aspect of any job.

However, I'm also in the fortunate position of being able to retire early if I wanted (I'm in my early forties). I made some investments a while ago that turned out well, and they generate enough passive income to support my (modest) lifestyle on their own.

If I chose to retire from academia now, I'm confident there are other things I can do to fill my time. I'm not worried about being "bored."

However, given how hard it is to get an academic job and tenure, it seems crazy to walk away from it this young. I also worry that it would be impossible to go back to academia if for some reason I wanted to in the future.

So, would I be crazy to walk away from a tenured job if I don't need it financially?


texts: Why don’t researchers publish their raw data for the advance if science?

texts:
Publication bias. Reproducibility problem. Abusing statistical tests.

These are some of the many criticisms received by all fields of science for a long time. If I read an article on Psychological Science and am sceptical of their results, or if I want to apply another statistical techniques to see if the results remain convincing to me, I can't. I need to run another experiment. Or if I want to conduct a meta-analysis, maybe having other researcher's raw data is better than just the mean/CI they report in journals.

If scientists' mission is for public good and for the advancement of knowledge, why don't they publish their results in raw (of course they need to remove research participants' privacy information). They shouldn't be afraid of others' criticising their work. Only truth can endure the testing of time.

Nowadays, with the prevalence (and low price) of online storage platform and sophisticated database management, why don't they do it for the public's good?

EDIT: by raw data, I mean to make the dataset public and accessible to everyone (well... at least researchers)


texts: Is it possible to apply for a post doc (and get a post doc) while struggling with the health issues (a life-threatening illness: cancer)

texts:
I struggle with the exact question (or at least will have to face it near in the future) that was asked here: Do I need to mention having survived a life-threatening illness when applying for a new academic position?

When I was a kid, I had a cancer. Now I work at the university as a research assistant and I'm on my way to a PhD. After finishing my PhD, I would love to apply for a post doc, preferably in Sweden, Iceland or Norway (but my advisor suggests US or Australia, so I'm not sure where exactly I'm going to go).

There is a serious possibility that I will have a reoccurrence  in few years (talked with my oncologist many many times about it), or will not have, nobody could tell that, but there is a strong possibility.

At my current university (middle Europe) it was not a problem, I wasn't obliged to mention it to anybody, however, I informed my employer about my illness. My previous condition is almost not relevant today, however, I do have days when I do not feel good and just want to rest and sleep (but have to go to the University anyway, and of course, I go).

So, with my condition, is it possible to find a university and apply to post doc or not? And another, not less important: do I need to mention about my health when applying for a post doc position?


texts: What should I do with small research results in theoretical computer science?

texts:
I am a PhD student who works in theory. I was working on some problem for the last 6-7 weeks. After doing a survey for two weeks it took me about four weeks to solve a research problem.

Along with my research supervisor, I was able to solve the research problem, after having a conversion with my research supervisor I came to know that it is a very small result (not yet to publishable), he suggested to do the same kind of work for some closely-related problem and then we can submit by adding something more.

I am very much satisfied with my adviser's opinion. I am just wondering what else I should do in this situation. Should I write it and upload it on arXiv or to do something else.

Please note that I am not going against my research supervisor; I am just wondering what the other possibilities are. I am asking this question because I  am new, not because I don't trust my research supervisor.


texts: Do researchers reuse benchmark results for existing algorithm when comparing with their algorithm?

texts:
Unfortunately I do not have any prior research experience, therefore I had a few questions while I was studying papers on cluster analysis.

Can a researcher legally and with permission use the benchmark values of the pre-existing algorithm to compare with theirs? This question came to me after I noticed identical results reported in multiple papers for some population based cluster analysis algorithms. The different papers propose a new algorithm and then compare the performance of it with some other algorithms over some common dataset. I have noticed that, for some algorithms the values reported are an exact match. The nature of these algorithm is stochastic, and also the different authors claim to have run the algorithms different number of iterations and then use the mean. Therefore no two sets of run will result with the same mean, min, max and standard deviation.

My suspicion is either it is permissible to reuse the benchmark results with permission. Or a common benchmarking framework exists (still, how can two papers reporting using different number of iterations land into the same identical result?)

I have reproduced the work of the papers using Octave and benchmark is similar to what is reported in the papers, but is definitely not identical.

Also, how generally these are done? If a researcher has to implement 5 algorithms to compare, then do they implement their own and then verify and compare or request the version the author has used and then benchmark with respect to that specific piece of code to maintain unbiased experimentation?

[EDIT]

Quoting the results from another paper (with citation) is all right, but using it in the benchmark comparison table is something which is practiced in research?


texts: Does anyone still care about the name and address of a publisher?

texts:
As a follow up question to my previous one, under which circumstances is it reasonable to include the name and/or the address of a publisher in a citation?

In my opinion the most important characteristic of a citation is that it uniquely identifies a given publication and makes it as easy as possible to access it. This, however, is usually already given by title, authors and, if applicable, the title of the collection (proceedings, journal...). If available, a DOI alone would be sufficient for that.

As secondary feature, further details provide more information about the properties of a publication without the need to look them up explicitly. For example, the year is usually very interesting to assess the timeliness of the related work.

Neither the name nor the address of the publisher seems to fall in one of these categories, even though it might be reasonable for example for some exotic books that are otherwise hard to find*. For this reason I usually omit the publisher's name and address in citations, partly to keep them brief, partly since I am not aware who the publisher actually is, partly because others in my area of research (CS) do the same, partly because I am too lazy to put work into something that seems superfluous to me. Sometimes, however, the publishers and their addresses are added during copy editing, so there seem to be at least some people with a different opinion than me.

Is it considered bad academic practice to omit the publisher and the address?
What are other advantages or disadvantages?
Does it depend on the type of the cited publication? Books might be different from articles in journals or conference proceedings.
Does it depend on the type of the publication I write? In a short paper, brevity might be more important than in a PhD thesis where accuracy is essential. What about a publication list in a CV?
Does it depend on the area of research? Maybe we computer scientists are just lazy?

*Maybe someone wants to drive to Heidelberg to ring the bell at the Springer office just to be told that it a given publication was actually published by SpringerOpen in London...


texts: When is a proper time to consider quitting a phd?

texts:
I am considering the possibility to quit from the phd program I am involved in ( to be completely honest it is not me BiA considering that, but another person that wants to remain anonymous )

The group I am working in has several criticalities:

the advisor is not good in managing his time, and he continuously postpones meetings. He already told me several times that I should be more insistent and try to go randomly to his office, so that we could have at least one meeting a week. I tried several ways to fix appointments with him but it does not work.
the advisor changes goals for my work every time I met him. This is very confusing.
I feel that what is asked for getting the phd is essentially cheating. The advisor wants more than 3 publication in 3 years, and after joining the group I discovered that this takes normally more than 4 and 1/2 years.
a lot of people have left the group in the last year, more or less 50% of the people that I knew when I first came to this group. The reason are several but all related with the advisor
the people in the group are very friendly but they do not work as a team, also because helping other people in the group is not considered a good practice. Moreover in a while the entire group will be formed of just phd students in their first year.

Since I am still in my first year I am thinking of exit this ugly situation. But sometimes I think it could be too early. On the other side I don't see possible improvements in the near future. And I don't want to stay stuck in a bad situation for 3+ more years.

My primary question is, should one quit a PhD within the first year if the working environment seems to be a poor fit?

As a follow up, what would be good way to describe this situation to a possible future employer without saying "my previous job was really bad"? No one wants you to blame the old boss...


texts: What are the downsides of using DOIs in reference sections of publications?

texts:
Few papers use DOIs in the reference section (example below). What are the downsides of using DOIs when listing references?

A typical example from one of the main conferences in the natural language processing field showing no DOI:


texts: take visiting professorship or wait a year?

texts:
I've been doing a post-doc in physics for the past 5.5 years or so and have unsuccessfully tried to obtain a faculty job at a University for the past 3 of them. On a whim I applied to a visiting prof. job at a nearby (pretty highly regarded) liberal arts school and got an offer. It's for a year with maybe extensions.

I am wondering if I should take it and if I do, do I shoot myself in the foot when applying for University positions in the fall? How will they look at it? The job entails one class and 2 labs/semester so I'm somewhat hopeful that I can continue a reasonably good research output in the year.

On the other hand, this experience will give me, hopefully, the necessary requesites to break into the lib. arts academic setting which I'm not to adverse to either.


texts: Can I still try to publish my work if my algorithm's results are not as good as other algorithms'?

texts:
I've written a classification algorithm that does a pretty good job at classifying some datasets.  However, I compared my algorithm to other classification methods, and their results exceed my results by a little.  For instance, when classifying a dataset from a repository, my algorithm is getting 95% correct while another algorithm usually gets 99% correct.

Should I continue to publish my results although 1) my algorithm is a little slower, and 2) my algorithm's results are not as good as the other results.

I'm a little torn.  I'm excited as my paper and results are a contribution to the classification field as the algorithm is novel.  Also, I'm of the stance that you can't beat EVERY algorithm.  If we only published algorithms that could (loosely) beat other algorithms either A.) we'd never have new innovations, or B.) eventually every dataset would be 100% classified each time, or C.) every algorithm could instantaneously classify a dataset (speed).

I hope that my algorithm will continue to grow and others will pick it up and extend it.  I hope that one day -- with tweaks -- my algorithm can reach 99% too.

I'm afraid of being rejected by the journal again.  Yes, my first submission was rejected.  One of the reasons for the rejection was that my dataset was small.  However, when the dataset was small I was beating the other algorithms.  Now, as the dataset has grown, the other algorithms are now beating me.  I'd like not to be rejected again.


texts:
A lecturer of the programming course said: "In this course you can't use Google. If we find you are cheated, you will fail the course".

What kind of rights there are if I accidentally write something that is already published on the internet and I don't know it? The problems seems to be so basic level that there is a positive probability that if you have done programming before, you can find similar or even identical code from the Internet.


texts: Text between a Topic and Subtopic in a Thesis

texts:
I wonder, which one of these structurings is to prefer for a thesis.

To write text between a topic and subtopic, e.g.

A. Main Topic

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse viverra lobortis semper. Donec ultrices ante eu ex interdum, eget eleifend tortor iaculis.

1. Subtopic X

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse viverra lobortis semper. Donec ultrices ante eu ex interdum, eget eleifend tortor iaculis.

2. Subtopic Y

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse viverra lobortis semper. Donec ultrices ante eu ex interdum, eget eleifend tortor iaculis.

To write no text between a topic and subtopic, e.g.

A. Main Topic

1. Subtopic X

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse viverra lobortis semper. Donec ultrices ante eu ex interdum, eget eleifend tortor iaculis.

2. Subtopic Y

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse viverra lobortis semper. Donec ultrices ante eu ex interdum, eget eleifend tortor iaculis.


texts: I am struggling due to insufficient background in a graduate course and feel like a moron. What do I do?

texts: I just started an Astronomy PhD program, which due to COVID has been all-online so far. Research and my computational methods course have been going OK, but I'm being utterly destroyed by my Galactic Dynamics course. It's clear to me that I didn't have the necessary mathematical physics background going in, so I've spent all semester struggling. It's reached the point that I spend more time on the problem sets on this course than on my research and other class combined, and I can still barely do it. I've been working on nothing but the current problem set since Tuesday, without making any significant progress. I've been reaching out to the professor for questions via Slack, but as often as not this leaves me more confused than when I started. I'm starting to doubt my ability to do this, but I can't quit. What do I do?


texts: Does my supervisor want me to do my Ph.D. with him or elsewhere?

texts:
I am currently doing my master's under the supervision of an assistant professor. He's brilliant, professional and an amazing mentor. He is supportive but at the same time knows when and how to be tough on me enough to challenge me intellectually and push me to get out of my comfort zone. For all these reasons, he would be the perfect supervisor for my Ph.D. The only problem is that he doesn't work on the same topic as me (and doesn't really have much experience with it either) and seeing that it's a new and tricky topic, I need someone experienced in this particular area.

I spoke to him several times about my plans for my Ph.D. and mentioned that I planned on applying to several major universities and that I was looking for supervisors working on my field of interest. He would keep bringing up the Ph.D. programme at his departement and would tell me that I could work with him and also someone else from another university (co-supervision). I said it could be a good idea, but of course, I was still considering the Ph.D. programmes at other universities (which, I think is normal, I'm only keeping my options open). Of course, he knew that I could enroll in better programmes elsewhere, but he still asked me to stay, more than once (which is flattering since I respect and admire him). The Phd programme he's suggesting is the best option for me ONLY in terms of funding, because it has a special offer for foreign students paying extra fees (which he also knows...).

Now, I recently had a meeting with him and I mentioned that I wanted to do an internship in one of the universities I'm interested in. He said "It's a good idea and if you like the experience, you can decide to stay there for a Ph.D.". That was one hell of a slap in my face... He basically told me "Hey, I changed my mind, you're not a worthwhile student, finish your master's, then you're out". So at the end of our meeting, I decided to be honest and asked "okay, so if I understand correctly, you no longer want me to stay here for my Ph.D.?", to which he answered "No, I do. But I want you to explore your options. I don't want you to stay just because you think it's your only option but because you believe it's the RIGHT option for you."

So now I'm confused. Does he want me to stay or does he want to get rid of me?


texts: How to respond to journal suggestion we get a native-speaker editor when writing seems reasonable and one author is a native English speaker?

texts:
I've seen this question on suggesting someone get a native speaker to edit and check. But my situation is rather different.

Several colleagues and I wrote an article for a special volume of a journal. The initial review was R&R with some pretty severe changes requested. We've made those changes. After that we received an odd e-mail from the editor for the special volume (via her assistant -- but via subsequent e-mail confirmed to be under her direction):

  We have carefully read it over, and in order to move forward, we highly recommend that you kindly consider seeking out academic editorial services in order to meet ... standards.

Then later in the message:

  We recommend that authors have their manuscripts checked by an English language native speaker before final approval of their submission; this will ensure that submissions are judged at peer review exclusively on academic merit.

The publisher and journal are not known for being predatory.

As a native English speaker, I was rather surprised that the journal said this. So I reread the article and there aren't any gaping grammatical or structural issues (I actually edit papers for others who are non-native speakers in addition to my own publishing, so I'm rather accustomed to the sorts of mistakes they make).

What is a good way to respond to this request?

Edit to make clearer, I absolutely agree that part of what one should do when told find an editor is to find and get some objective checks done on the writing itself (non-author parties and other forms of third parties competent to check). My question is assuming you've cleared that hurdle and have received this sort of comment.


texts: What to think of zero feedback at a conference

texts: Is it commonplace to give a presentation at a conference and not have anyone ask a single question afterwards? What should one make of such silent feedback?


texts: Should I compare my proposed work with my implementation of the previous related papers or the reported result?

texts:
In computer science, I need to compare the accuracy of my proposed method to the previous ones. There are two possible options:

Implement the methods described in related papers on my own machine
Use the claimed results of the authors

Sometimes, when I implement the other papers, the results are different from the claimed ones, because of a lack of details, parameters and hyperparameters. What is the correct decision? Should I compare my work with the implemented one?
In addition, sometimes the reports of the previous works are on a different dataset and I have to implement the code. Is it the correct way?


texts: Finding graduate program with large number of high quality peers

texts:
From this answer I understand that it important to get into a top schools with top graduate programs because of the large number of higher quality peers makes a big difference.

I am wondering how do I find those schools? Do I need to look into this list R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity.

I am also under the assumption that some schools have a good graduate program on very specific areas that won't show up in the above list. Where do I find those schools?


texts: License selection when submitting a paper and uploading it to arxiv at the same time

texts:
I am a PhD candidate and I'm going to submit a paper to a journal (let's say to one of top-10 journals related to my topic) and at the same time I'd like to upload that paper to arxiv.
I know that the arxiv license strongly depends
on the journal requirements, but is there any general guideline for license selection? The second question is that will I be able to submit the paper to the second scientific journal If the paper

is rejected from the first one;
is uploaded to arxiv

and

the second journal prohibits the arxiv license  that was selected before?


texts: How can I ask to not be assigned a seat near a particular person during exams?

texts:
I'm going to write my exams next month, but since COVID-19 we have special rules on how exams should be carried out and one of them is that every student is assigned a place to sit in the examination hall in advance. I won't go into details, but there is one person next to whom I don't want to be sitting. My reason to not sit near him has nothing to do with the pandemic. And since our class is pretty small, it's very likely to get a place somewhere near him.
That's why I'm planning to write an email on Monday to the unit in my university, which is responsible for the organization of the exams (if necessary to my professors as well), explaining them that it doesn't matter to me where I'm going to sit, but I just want a seating place which is not directly next to him.
Do you think that's a good idea and is there anything else that you could maybe recommend me to do?


texts:
I am a student of biology at a State school in New York (SUNY), and my school is very liberal arts focused, I am also a racial minority.

I also have a poor GPA, 2.7ish currently, due to failings of a previous major(in computer science i received F's for 2 classes, and a D for one).

I am trying to do undergrad research, but only have 2 potential presentable results up and coming.

Do grad schools typically fund students like me to get their tuition totally waived and a possible small stipend? What can I do to better my odds at securing such a position? It is the only way I could even consider grad school.


texts: Is it ethical to do phd thesis about topic someone else did it before?

texts:
I have a big problem and I need your opinions and your advices.

Someone did his PHD 4 years ago using data collected over 10 years to develop some equations and simulate them. I re-measured the same data 2 years ago (i.e. spanning over 12 years; the methods of collecting the data are different) and I want to develop equations with simulating them in different program (I will do the programming of it). One of the equations was developed by him, and the two others are different. Is it ethical to continue my thesis or not? Is it considered as plagiarism? I have cited his results in the Scientific Background section, and in the Discussion I will compare it with my results.


texts: Is there a website that shows current research strides in several academic fields?

texts:
I am looking for some sort of website that shows/illustrates current research strides across several academic fields. It would be pretty cool if this existed  as a interactive interface like google maps (e.g. one could click and drag into different research areas and zoom in and see which problems are getting solved). The interactive part seems unrealistic, but I would at least like to be able to see a list of topics (perhaps a word-cloud of recent research papers per academic field would be okay) per academic field.

Can anyone show me something similar to what I am looking for?


texts: What should a supervisor do about a PhD student who does not try to improve?

texts:
What should a faculty supervisor do about a PhD student who does not seem to be trying to make their work better?  Let's assume the supervisor has given detailed and specific instructions, which the student agrees to follow.  But the student either does not finish the instructions or includes many errors.  The supervisor points out the errors.  This process has been repeated for several years, affecting both the student's research and job search.  The student is from a different country, and has not adjusted to academic communication practices, despite being aware of the need to do so.  The student has done a lot of things, but continues to have poor quality execution and pace.

Typically the supervisor does not wish to kick students out of the group.  What is the right course of action?


texts: Professor asked for details of letters I need

texts: I am applying for summer REUs in physics. A professor I asked agreed to write me a recommendation, but also asked for details of the letters I need. What details should I send?


texts: Is it possible to apply for Ph. D. program in Physics with a CS background?

texts: Currently i am doing BE in cs. Is it possible to apply for a graduate program in theoretical physics without having a bachelor's degree in physics or mathematics?


texts:
I submitted my paper two months ago to an Inderscience journal. Well, this is my first experience with Inderscience publisher, so while checking my paper updates, I can not understand the meaning of “Peer-Review Process” information in the track section.
Image of the track section
Is there anyone familiar with Inderscience who can explain to me this information :
-Are those 4 reviewers already begin reviewing? Or they did not yet accept to review the paper?
-Why there is no Reviewer 1 or 3?
-What is the meaning of the three columns in front of each reviewer?
-What is the significance of (Under review) in green colour?


texts: Should I contact accomplished researchers listed as editors of shady journal?

texts:
I recently got an unsolicited email advertising a questionable-looking mathematics journal.  Upon investigation, it looks pretty shady: page charges, manuscripts to be submitted in Microsoft Word (legitimate math journals always use LaTeX), overbroad scope, and a promise for peer review within two months (unreasonably short for mathematics).

In its three years of operation, one particular author has been published in it three times, including an “elementary” proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem, and another paper that appears to be a proof of a statement for which an explicit numerical counterexample is known.  (Interestingly, it appears the same author has also published a proof of the Goldbach conjecture in a journal with a nearly identical name from another publisher indexed in MathSciNet, and has also apparently settled the Twin Primes and Collatz conjectures!)

(Since the preceding paragraph may not make any sense to non-mathematicians, let me say: this is roughly the equivalent of a physics journal publishing a paper that claims to have achieved time travel with household materials.  I should note that the journal has a subscription fee (which I have no intention of paying), so I can't actually read the articles in question; but their abstracts are pretty damning.)

However, the journal’s editorial board includes some names from reputable institutions; people with many publications in high-quality journals.  (There are many other names from institutions I know nothing about.)  Giving them the benefit of the doubt, it’s entirely possible that they are not paying attention to what the journal is doing, or they agreed to be editors without checking on the journal, or even that they have been listed without their knowledge (this has been known to happen).

Is it appropriate to try to inform these editors what’s happening in their names?  If so, how can I do it tactfully?

On the one hand, if someone was using my name on a shady journal, I’d want to know.  On the other hand, I don’t want to offend or embarrass them by just sending an email saying: “this journal you edit is crap”.  It’s even possible that they somehow approve of the journal (e.g. they have a philosophy that the world generally needs more journals and fewer barriers to publication), in which case, I fear no good can come of me criticizing it to them.


texts: Citing StackExchange vs. Account Privacy?

texts:
In the answer to this and similar questions it is recommended that you cite an idea or useful answer for your research work on StackExchange.
Now, if you have asked a question requiring a walk-back mathematical process (lets assume its a contribution) using fundamental knowledge to walk-back, if you do cite in this case, how do you keep the privacy of your account name? Since, people would check the answer and could look into the account history of the questioner and the answerer. Also, these StackExchange websites are linked and it seems that not everyone would like that for privacy reasons. So how could this be managed appropriately?
Note: This is a modification of an existing question marked as duplicate.


texts: How can I get academic writing samples for PhD admissions after having been away from academia?

texts:
I am very interested in a particular PhD program that I feel is in line with my professional background.  Specifically,  I am thinking of doing a PhD in Communication Rhetoric and Digital Media.

However, I haven't been in academia for over 18-19 years. I was told by one of the program directors that I would need to have "academic" writing samples and if I didn't then it would be very difficult to compete for the program.

How and where could I write?


texts: Question regarding career in Mathematics

texts:
I apologize if this is not the correct place to ask such a question. This is my first time using Stack Exchange. Please feel free to point me to another site if this is not the correct place to ask this :)

I just completed my undergraduate degree in Mathematics and Applied Mathematics. The reason I chose these two majors is purely because I have a passion for maths and honestly enjoyed every moment of it. I have no regrets in choosing them as my majors.

Now that I am done with undergraduate, it is time for me to decide what I want to do next year. In my country, after finishing a undergraduate degree, you can do one year Honours degree after which you do Masters and PhD.

I can not see myself doing anything other than working with mathematics for the rest of my life. I would love to pursue postgraduate studies in (Pure) mathematics and work as a researcher and lecturer. My lecturers have pointed out to me that I have potential in mathematics, however, I do not know if I am good enough to make it "out there" at other universities (since I do not think I want to stay in my current country for my Masters and PhD).

My Pure mathematics throughout undergraduate used to be in the range of 69% - 85 % in first two years of undergrad, however, in my final year of undergrad (when we started courses such as Advanced Real Analysis, Topology, Abstract Algebra, Complex Analysis, Group/Ring Theory etc) my marks jumped greatly into the 90% since I really loved the more "abstract" work.

My question is basically - do you think I will be fine (and by that I mean "good enough") in order to pursue a career in mathematics academic and research? Will my more moderate marks of my first two years count against me greatly, or will my final year marks be a decent indication that I am competent enough to further my studies in Mathematics and succeed in an academic position? And most of all, what will it take for me to succeed and make this dream of mine a reality. Any help and advice will be greatly appreciated.


texts:
I have the privilege of teaching composition. This requires me to read several dozen papers in a given class. I have rubrics but no matter what I have to sit down and read the papers word for word in order to assess them. They're not long papers (about 10 pages), but I still have to read them.

Naturally, this takes a great deal of time in comparison to grading other forms of assignments. Checking main ideas, grammar, cohesiveness, APA formatting, etc.is slowly becoming a nightmare.

I want to know ways that others use to decrease the amount of time it takes to mark term papers.


texts: How to choose salary of principal investigator on NIH grant?

texts: I am writing a grant for the NIH, and I need to put a salary down for the PI. I was wondering, do I choose how much to put down, or is there a specific pre-determined amount?


texts:
Considering that sooner or later I will, hopefully, be able to teach formally at a university level, I'm curious about the following. While I do have pretty decent (some people, even, say, very good [he is blushing]) informal pedagogical skills, especially in terms of explanatory power :-), I'm thinking about how best to improve my ability to teach (I have informal teaching experience via high school students tutoring, corporate IT classes teaching as well as informal advising online and offline).

With that in mind, I wanted to ask people's recommendations on what are the optimal strategy and useful approaches in terms of acquiring some additional formal knowledge on pedagogy, instructional design, learning theories and similar disciplines and areas of study. While currently I'm preparing my research (have an agenda) and teaching statements, this question is not concerned about that, but rather about establishing a solid foundation for the long-term teaching success. In addition to strategy and approaches, some advice on relevant resources, including MOOCs and books on the topic will be greatly appreciated. (This question is inspired by reading this and this.)


texts: How to prove that a paper published with a particular English transliteration of my Russian name is mine?

texts:
My first name is Евгений (it is Russian; the usual transliteration is Yevgeny). I was born in Ukraine in 1990, when it was still in the Soviet Union, where Russian was the official language. I lived there until 2011, when I went to Canada, where I am currently working on a Ph.D in mathematics. The name indicated in my passport is IEVGEN. It has undergone two rounds of changes: first it was translated from Russian into Ukrainian (Евгений => Євген), and then the Ukrainian version was transliterated into English under the transliteration rules that were valid at the time of receiving the passport. If I received the passport under the present rules, it would be spelled as IEVHEN. The issue here is that the sound in the Ukrainian version is something in between of G and H.

I am deeply unhappy with the "name" IEVGEN: it looks odd, it is not pronounced as the Ukrainian version, and it is definitely not how my parents named me.

I really don't want this spelling to appear on my publications, and ideally even on my Ph.D. thesis. Right now I don't know which version I would prefer, but let's consider YEVGENY, which is the closest to the original, and EUGENE, which is the English/French version of the same name. I know that I am the one who decides under which name to be published, but it raises the following question:

If at some point I will need to prove the authorship of a certain publication that bears a name slightly, or significantly different from what is in my documents, will that be a problem?

EDIT: some of the answers suggest me several ways of how to spell my name, and I appreciate them, but it is not what I have asked. My question only had to do with bureaucratic and juridical aspects of the problem.

EDIT 2: The title of the question was changed by an editor to "What author name to list on publications when English translation of Russian name on passport is unsatisfactory?", which is again completely misleading. I am not asking what to put on publication, I am asking about how to prove that the chosen name corresponds to me. So I edited the title back to the original.


texts: How should I feel about a professor using an entire online course for his own course?

texts:
I'm taking a machine learning class at a school in South Korea. I've heard some good and bad things about this professor in particular, but I didn't really know until I actually took his course.

I've noticed that my instructor is literally following the exact course of the well-known online machine learning course taught by Coursera co-founder Andrew Ng. The print-outs he uses in class are also taken from the online course, and the examples and jokes he uses are also the same to the T. There are other print-outs he takes from Youtube which I happened to find which he seems reluctant to address when I asked him about it.

Perhaps I am thinking/acting out of my place, but I just don't think that it's appropriate, and maybe I feel a bit cheated because many students (including myself) have to work several jobs to come up with tuition money, and it doesn't feel good that I'm paying a large amount of money for a potentially free online course.

How should I feel about this? Is this more commonplace than I feel?

EDIT

I haven't mentioned the quality of education I'm getting through the course.

The quality is low, which is what led to my initial frustration. I honestly couldn't care less what material instructors are using as long as they cite the source and are able to use it to everyone's benefit. This instructor is not only not citing the sources, but is reluctant to tell me where he got them when asked about it.

Regarding the class itself, I've found myself in situations where asking the instructor of this particular class a question is often either not answered in a clear manner or is answered with "Just email the TA's," which has led me to seek answers either online or elsewhere.

Perhaps this is my prejudice, but when I ask a professor from an internationally accredited institute of higher education a question on machine learning, I am hoping to get a detailed explanation on the mathematical or conceptual reasons to how certain algorithms were formed or how we can prove they are sound. Not just an answer that goes along the lines of "Hmm well when I was working on this project this algorithm worked best, and you can find the proof online."


texts:
My advisor introduced a new student in my work saying that I am doing X,Y,Z and he will be doing A,B,C. I was asked to explain X and share all the data, results, reports, all related publications etc   to enable the student to do A,B,C. Once I have explained him X, Y, and shared my data and future plans, he changed/abandoned his directions and submits a paper with another lab collaborator and my advisor on my key idea X without even letting me know anything. After somehow finding it, I politely asked them about it. They were apologetic and both these students agreed through email exchanges that it was not their work and that they should have credited me. They also agreed that this should not have happened after a little confrontation.

I know, my advisor is fully aware of the whole situation, and this was done deliberately. I am not able get out of this whole situation for a long time.  Taking a fight with my advisor or the students is not an option. How would you all handle this situation effectively? How can you protect your ideas that are unpublished but you have been asked /instructed to share with others? Even I have experienced situation where the supervisor himself misuse and steals student work without giving credit to the student who did it. So a tough question is, how do you protect your ideas from being stolen by your advisor?


texts: How can I justify having only two publications when applying for postdoc jobs in physics/chemistry?

texts:
I have only 2 publications from my PhD, and I am applying for a post-doc position.

My fields are: Theoretical physical chemistry; condensed matter physics;
computational chemistry; cluster science.

I am already a postdoc and I am finishing 2 publications, and my collaborators are going to write other 2. The problems are: I have no idea when those 2 papers, that I am going to be co-author, will be published; the only proof I have publications is those 2 from my PhD, which are not really connected with the position I am applying for.

How to justify the lack of publications in my application form?
I always had this feeling that putting "manuscript in preparation" in my publication list sounds weird, even if it is true.


texts: Tools for Asynchronous Virtual Conferences in COVID-19 Aera

texts:
Due to COVID-19, we decided to move our conference to a virtual event. Since we have a problem in our community with different timezones we want to have not a synchronous event (i.e. a big telco with 100 participants), rather we want to have a asynchronous event where the participants upload videos of their talks, and for some time (e.g. 1-2 weeks) attendees can comment and interact below the video like with youtube (a hosting on youtube would not be an option).

I could programme a system like this by myself, but I assume that something like this is already out there -- out of the box.

Please let me know if such a tool exists! Or share your ideas!


texts: Is MRes after MSc redundant to get to PhD?

texts:
I recently finished a MSc and I was looking for a PhD. I noticed that some positions offer a PhD only through a MRes of 1-2 years, for a total of 4 years.

Does it make sense applying for another master or is it just redundant?


texts: Is it legal to publicly share questionnaires from research articles?

texts:
I've found articles on the development of diagnostic questionnaires that I only have access to through my university. I'm interested in sharing some of them publicly online so more people can have access to these materials, likely on my personal website.

Would it be legal to share these survey instruments as long as I cite them properly? If not, would it be legal for me to reference their questions outside of the context of a survey (so no measurement or scoring) with a citation?

I live in Canada, if relevant.

Thanks for reading!


texts: Intent behind Recommendation Letter requirement?

texts:
What is the inherent idea of having a recommendation letter/ "letter of reference" requirement in academia, especially while applying to grad schools?

I understand that if the person giving the recommendation letter is a bigshot or even fairly well-known, people would be ready to take his word regarding the applicant's caliber.

However, if the person recommending is previously unknown to the university you are applying to (of course, they may use Google to dig up some information, or they may not want to), what weightage does his word carry? If I am on the other side, I won't be inclined to trust the judgement of a person whom I don't know. What I would want to do is to judge the caliber of the applicant for myself, but that's a separate issue altogether. (Judge yourself, or trust some metrics...)

Now, in general, if "the other side" is a decent enough university, it will have applications coming from all parts of the world. Then, situation no. 2 (above) is more likely than situation no. 1. So, what is the intent of having a recommendation letter requirement in the second case?


texts: Will US graduate schools accept me retaking a GRE subject test in the spring?

texts:
I just took the GRE Mathematics exam and I think I didn't do very well. I answered only 39 of the 66 questions due to lack of time (I knew I could answer a lot more but it would take some time to do the calculations so I left them for the end and never managed to return-I didn't even get to question 60). What I want to say is that I know I can do better but I am not that fast. I tried to register for the October exam but it is impossible-everywhere in my country! So I want to ask:

Will my score be sufficient to at least have a chance in good PhD programs (my goals were UCLA, UIUC, Berkley, Stanford...)?
Do you think that these universities could accept my application if I say I will retake the test in April?


texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  What are the advantages and disadvantages of having multiple advisers?

What are the advantages to having a single advisor vs having two co-advisors?


texts: Postdoc in China: what are the possible difficulties and disadvantages?

texts:
According to the research paper, where the comparison of postdocs in China and US was done, there are several global cons of Chinese postdoctoral positions, like low sallary and lack of permanent jobs. But, what are the other unofficial problems I could face if I go to China?

First, I really recommend everyone who is interested in postdocs to read this article - Postdocs in Science: A Comparison between China and the United States (November 2015) (link to pdf).
After it, I turned my search vector to China and found the position in good academic institution. I have my own subjective reason to go there and the pros are clear for me. However, I worried about any hidden specifics of Chinese science. For instance, my position is only for European researcher and it was opened at the institution’s web page during last 2 years. If Chinese postdoc is still not very attractive for foreigners, why is so (except money)?

Moreover, China has very old traditions and they probably influence at scietific ethic and standards.

This will be my first postdoc, therefore, could you please share with me your experience and knowledge regarding unpleasant specifics of Chinese science.

*Possible topics:
collaborations and attending conferences (local and abroad);
grants and project I can apply for (local and foreign);
duties and demands (help from colleagues or PhD student);
tangible and intangible benefits and attitude to scientists (see Laowai).

Some questions have been already discussed here:

What is the average postdoctoral salary in
China?
Is it possible to study in China without knowing
Chinese?

PS: I also will be very greateful if you mention the possible solution for a problem (maybe add some point to my contract).


texts:
What is the best email address for a Research Assistant (RA)?

I noticed that most of the RAs and faculty in grad schools use their first name only as an email handle, like: firstname@school.edu.

However, as far as I know, the "perfect" professional email address would be like: FirstnameLastname@school.edu.

Only few of them used this format but with a dot in the middle, like: Firstname.Lastname@school.edu.

I think it might be neater to use the firstname-only form, but is it still professional to use it?

I'm sorry for this silly question, but I would appreciate your clarification.


texts: I am wasting my time post PhD due to delay in immigration documents processing. What to do? Please advise

texts: Graduated early this year. Was to start my postdoc position in March. Official appointment delayed due to delay in immigration documents processing. Have been losing motivation to work for past two months (just 14 hours/week). Am wasting my time with hobbies and Netflix, what should I do? Please advise.


texts: What to answer an author asking me if I reviewed his/her paper?

texts:
Suppose I review someone's paper anonymously, the paper gets accepted, and a year or two later we meet e.g. in a social event and he/she asks me "did you review my paper?". What should I answer? There are several sub-questions here:

Suppose the review was a good one, and the paper eventualy got accepted, so I do not mind telling that I was the reviewer. Is there any rule/norm prohibiting me from telling the truth?
Suppose the review was not so good, so I do not want to reveal. What can I answer? If I just say "I am not allowed to tell you", this immediately reveals me... On the other hand, I do not want to lie. What options do I have?


texts: What's the point of PhD theses if nobody reads them?

texts:
At best, the PhD thesis is read by:

The author
The examiners
The supervisor
The author's parents
The author's roommate / spouse / fellow students in research group

Or less than 10 people in total. What, then, is the point of writing it? Writing a complete PhD thesis is a time-consuming process, and that time could easily have gone into taking more courses, doing more research, supervising more students, and so on. Of course the PhD student has no choice but to write one, because the programme typically requires it. However that still begs the question as to why the programme requires it in the first place. if the thesis is so useless that so few people read it, what's the point of demanding a thesis as a prerequisite for graduation?

Somewhat related: What is the point of a PhD thesis whose content already exists in published papers? Still, even if there are more readers because a thesis provides a gentle introduction to the field, it seems more sensible to me to just write a monograph and leave out the thesis.


texts: The nightmare of being an independent researcher

texts:
My current situation is that I am stuck teaching in a couple of universities that do not support the research at all in my country of origin. I am 38 years old and I have finished a MSc degree in Europe (one year ago), but I find it pretty hard to get a funded PhD position until now.

Sometimes I really feel discouraged and depressed because I really like to do research, but is pretty hard to do it without economical support; and more difficult to share ideas if my current place of work has that null approach to research.

My question is, how I can get feedback from other professors around the world and expose my ideas? Maybe with the hope that they will like to guide me in their field of specialty or maybe doing a paper together. I know that a lot of good professors in their own field are pretty busy, so I think it would be not polite to approach to them, by email, tell them about my ideas and ask for academical support (not monetary, but about guiding and feedback).

The field that I like to do research is Computer Science. I have only 5 publications in different areas, but I would really like to do more.

Any suggestion?


texts: Lack of undergraduate research experience and impact on PhD applications

texts:
I am currently a second year (final semester) undergraduate enrolled in Nagoya University's G30 program. After I graduate, I intend pursue a PhD in the chemical sciences, and I am looking to apply to universities in the United States and the UK. So far, I have been doing well academically--I'm at the top of my class and have cumulative GPA of 4.08/4.3.

Unfortunately, till date I haven't been able to secure any research experience whatsoever in my university, and not for lack of trying. I have approached research groups in my departments whose work I found interesting, but have been turned down by all of them. The rules prevent them from taking on undergraduates students who are not in their 4th year, and they have stuck by them adamantly.

I do get to work on a research project in my fourth year as part of my graduation requirement, however, I do find it disheartening that I can't start early.

Regardless, I am still approaching people, looking for a break and also looking into other avenues outside of university.

However, what if nothing works out--would one year of research experience be sufficient? Personally, I don't think it is enough to prepare me well for graduate school. Moreover, I am concerned about how an admissions committee will view this lack of of research experience?

Additionally, in the UK, most universities that I am interested in encourage applicants to get in touch with faculty/potential advisors before the make a formal application. By my estimate, I ought to be doing this sometime during my third (early 6th semester) year, and thus would have had probably little to no experience conducting research in a laboratory. How can I overcome this potential handicap, and get them to take me seriously?


texts: How to cite the same source across an entire subsection of a thesis?

texts:
My thesis is based on the application of a evaluation process. Therefore I want to add a subsection in the "Theoretical Background" chapter where I summarize the whole process. The process is described very well in an official (extensive) document so it is the only source I need to describe the steps of the process.

The problem is that it seems kind of awkward to cite the source 2 to 3 times per paragraph and several paragraphs in a row.

Considering that the whole subsection is based on this official document. What would be the best way to make the in-text citations?.

I am using IEEE reference style and my thesis is about Computer Science.


texts: Does giving compliments to the fellowship help?

texts:
The fellowship (I'll call it XYZ) I'm applying to requires me to write a personal statement (note that this is not a research statement). This is their definition:

  The Personal Statement includes information about the  applicant’s background, practical experience, special interests, and career goals, with some attention to  plans  after  degree  completion.

After satisfying all the needed information, and trying not to be bombastic, I intend to compliment them a little bit, like this:

  I have been in regular contact with the XYZ team via email and I am pleased to say that they respond promptly and quickly.

Do compliments help? Will they feel that I'm fawning over them, so I make a bad impression? Will it be not good but not bad, and just a waste of space (which I don't have) and a waste of their time to read such a useless thing (which it may be)? If it does help, how much?

I think we should have an Impression tag


texts: Sending a thank you letter to a research professor?

texts:
I had an amazing research professor I conducted research under for my last two semesters of undergrad.  I graduated in December and am currently waiting to hear back from graduate programs.  This professor wrote me a letter of recommendation and I sent him a thank you email.  However, I wanted to send him a hand written thank you letter for the letter of recommendation, all I learned while researching under him, and to see how several projects are going since I've graduated and left his lab.

Is it too late or "awkward" to send him a handwritten thank you note now that it's been about one and a half months since I've last contacted him?


texts: Referring to paper from some other school when writing Statement of Purpose for Grad School

texts:
I am currently working on grad school applications to US Universities. Somewhere in my statement of purpose, I express my interest in working in a certain field. As a reason for that interest, I want to cite a particular paper written by members of the CS Department at the University of Toronto. The problem targeted by that paper was one that I was very interested in (at an abstract level) when I was in high school. Thus I got deeply excited and would like to extend their work.

Is it okay if I mention this paper in my statement of purpose for schools other than the University of Toronto? Could such a reference give the (mistaken) impression that I had written a statement of purpose specifically for the University of Toronto and then didn't bother to make changes for other schools?


texts: Publication fee paid, but no response from editor

texts:
I submitted a paper to a journal, which was accepted for publishing. I made the payment and signed the copyright form. I enquired the state of the transaction of the bank and the amount was credited to the journal’s account. After that, I got no response from their side.

What should I do?


texts: Are there resources for learning how to write a scientific paper?

texts:
I have very little formal training, but I believe I have some ideas to share. I have surveyed the terrain of ideas I need and have the complete picture in some haphazard form in my head. It is seeming quite impossible for me to write anything that looks good, complete and coherent. In attempting to do this I have read my previous draft and it seems hopeless... I am not sure what I can do, at this point. I'm not in a hurry, I can spend a month on the text to get the technique right. More specifically:

Is there a text that trains you on how to write a mathematical physics paper?
Is it possible to acquire such skills informally?


texts: I submitted a paper in a springer journal. After just two days of submission status was under review. After another two days status changed to required reviews completed and your days have passed status is still required reviews completed. Why the process is so quick? How can the reviews be completed in just two days? What would happen next?


texts: At what stage in academia are you most likely to suffer a mental breakdown?

texts:
Let's see, just in this week alone I got the news that I have failed four of my midterms (out of five courses in total, the last course doesn't have a midterm), achieving around 40% in each, quite consistent effort across the board. By the way I have around a 3.8 GPA over 4 years of engineering school and I received a letter from the faculty telling me to pull my grade up or consult mental health professional.

I think all this is happening I am in the final stage of wrapping up a year long project that has truly went awry. Two of the members contributed nothing and did not even participate in completing the final system. So I was there to build the entire system myself. This was easy until it was time to deliver our final report. Guess who wrote the 80 pg long final report.

During all this I had one huge McDonald per day at around 1:00 AM, drank a dozen of energy drinks which I know cannot be too good for me. Missed nearly every single lecture. Wrote a 1000 word email to my supervisor detailing how much I suffered through this project and later wrote a 20 word email apologizing for the rambling. Fell sleep in the middle of a lab exercise (thankfully I am able to make up for the lab tomorrow morning). Also rejected from two schools, not my dream school, but hurt nonetheless.

This is the part when I think I would be finally schizophrenic. Like John Nash or that girl in Proof, I go full blown insane. Wear a clown hat on my way to school while swearing at bus drivers, sitting in the middle of a floor in a 7-eleven crying or writing indecipherable symbols on the blackboard. I am not dealing with this stress at all. I have not talked to my professors about the midterms, no plans to make up anything. I have not bothered to pick up the midterms either to check what is wrong.

Surprisingly, none of this has happened. I wonder if I am in a phase that is beyond five stages of grief, or if I have truly given up in my subconscious. Has anyone experienced something similar? Like a setback that is so big that you would think you would run into emotional troubles but nothing wind up happening. At what stage in academia would one most likely to suffer from a break down of some sort?


texts:
I have no academic (peer-reviewed) publications to my credit but close to 6 years of industry-based experience. I have just completed a PhD in sociology.

Does my work in industry carry any weight in academia?

My work in industry included activities such as developing codes and operational manuals in a particular field to be used by operators in that field (e.g., a health and safety manual).


texts: Completing requirements for PhD programs years after undergraduate degree

texts: A few years ago I received a Bachelor's in Computer Science and I'm planning to return to school as a non-degree student. I'd like to complete prerequisite courses for a PhD program in Mathematics including supplemental graduate level math courses. As a non-degree student I would complete core courses such as abstract algebra, analysis, linear algebra, and topology. Additionally I would take the general GRE with the math subject test, and work towards letters of recommendation. How effective is the completion of prerequisites outside of an undergraduate to satisfy admission requirements for a PhD program?


texts: Is It Common For People To Write Literature Reviews On A Topic For Someone Else?

texts: I am working as a research assistant for a professor and I was hired to write a literature review on a rather broad topic that is well outside of my knowledge domain. I am concerned that i'll most likely create a bad product because I don't have a crystal clear idea as to what it is I am intending to search for, I only have an approximate idea. It seems sort of strange that I would be hired to write a LR on a topic for somebody else and I am wondering if this is a common occurrence? Do professors typically hire students write the literature reviews for them?


texts: How to send electronic TOEFL scores to institutions?

texts: This is the paper result, right?(I just randomly entered a university) So...how can I let ETS send them the electronic result after the score had come out?...0.0


texts: How does a PhD student make meaningful comments or suggestions regarding a professor's work?

texts:
So bobthejoe said this:

  The PhD students I remember the most are the ones who came up to me
  and made meaningful comments or suggestions regarding my work. They
  get extra bonus points if in the middle of the night the next week
  they offer more meaningful comments or suggestions.

Here's the question though: how many PhD students actually manage to make meaningful comments or suggestions about a professor's work? And how often does the professor follow up and inform the student that those comments are helpful (rather than pretend that the comments are helpful as a matter of politeness)? And if the comments are implemented, does the professor ever notify the student?

I'm saying this as someone who makes a lot of suggestions/comments to other people, but who can never be sure whether or not they find them helpful. Most suggestions seem to be discarded simply because it takes too much time/effort to implement them.


texts: How many journals can one follow at the same time?

texts:
I have been following 7 journals at the same time for may be about 10 years now. 4 of them are relatively unpopular and publish may be about 50 papers per year, so they are easy to follow, 1 has 100+ papers so it sometimes requires an effort to read about everything they publish but the other 2 are very popular and publish biweekly full issues with dozens of papers, so it is painful to follow them and I need to look at their webpages to see what is new almost every day. However, I'm interested in a field where I always need to look for papers outside of it and have to browse many journals irregularly to find possibly interesting information. That means I browse through dozens of journals irregularly and have to look through literally thousands of papers. And, oh God, it takes its toll. But the REAL problem is that my requirements only get broader with time, so I now can't just keep on. I think there are really too many journals and too many papers in them to browse through and I can't even manage to read through all the titles of all the papers that could potentially interest me, let alone read the abstracts.

This is why I would like to try to find someone who has similar problems and ask him/her how does s/he manage to solve them, e.g. what does it take to browse the maximum number of journals possible as far as search optimization, number of journals covered and time are concerned? Is it possible to cover a wide field and follow everything it happens in it so you could be aware of the new papers published in dozens of journals or is this simply impossible? I want to know how far can I get and how much time would the effort consume, so, if you could share with me your experience I would be very thankful.

Thank you very much!


texts:
I'm submitting an mathematics article concerning research that was done entirely while I was an undergraduate at University A.  This August I will be a graduate student at University B.  The only funding I received came from NSF through a ten week program at University C at the very beginning of the project, after which I finished the research on my own while attending University A.  On the other hand, while University B has nothing to do with the publication, it is the most up to date institution as far as contact information goes.

Should I put University A or University B as my affiliation (or both)?


texts: I want to do an independent dissertation type research project, not being part of a uni, how can I find out if my Question has already been answered?

texts:
I wish to live with an indigenous tribe or 3 months, to study their culture and answer an almost independent dissertation question, under said cultural Anthropology. I would like to know the best way to find out if my research question has been answered, how can I do that without an advisor from a university? Is there a database, or what routes could I go down to find out/which is best.

Thanks for your time to answer.


texts: As a tutor, how should I handle anxious/avoidant adult math student?

texts:
I'm a private math tutor, and I have an adult student right now (age 28), who is enrolled in algebra II in a community college. He is both very bright and has a kind of inferiority complex about academics because his siblings were much more successful than him in school and employment. This is his third attempt to pass algebra II.

He seems to struggle with math not because he can't do it, but for two reasons: because that's where he feels most inferior to his siblings, and because he has a hard time concentrating (perhaps has ADD).

The trouble is that when math gets hard for him, or when he's disappointed by a test result, he spends the sessions with me talking about anything but math, changing the topic when I try to bring it back to math. Or if I do manage to get in a couple minutes on math, he starts asking questions on peripheral topics that superficially seem like they are about math, but I think are really another way of avoiding the task at hand.

I've tried different ways of bringing him back to math, starting with using my body language (I'll, say, start writing with my pencil), then verbally suggesting we come back to math, then gently pointing out the pattern so he sees that he has to make a choice, etc.

One thing I don't do is criticize him. He's so vulnerable to shame, and so anxious (his voice trembles sometimes when we do math), that I have a feeling if I'm strict or demanding with him, that will be the end of all tutoring. He'll fire me or become even more intractable.

I've also tried supporting him by pointing out his strengths, and I do it honestly and with integrity : I genuinely see strengths in him and I can point to specific examples, so he knows I'm not flattering him.

As of now, he spends about 50% of our lessons avoiding math entirely like this. There are always other periods in which he learns, and the situation is not completely stuck.

I would like suggestions for how to handle this. Everything from how to more directly suggest or control our session activities, to how to support him in feeling less anxious and inferior so that he would more spontaneously choose himself to put in the effort.


texts: How to write/cite a description of a software product in a master's thesis?

texts:
I am writing a master's thesis in the area of computer sciences. A lot of developer tools and software technologies/languages are involved. Each of these tools and software technologies has its own website and few sentences, that describe the "product" and provide a short overview. I could not write it better. It is concise and precise.

just a short example

Dart is an open-source, scalable programming language,
with robust libraries and runtimes, for building web, server, and mobile apps.
Dart is class based and object oriented, without being dogmatic.

How do I use that kind of text/description in my master's thesis? It is obvious that I want to avoid plagiarism but it seems to me such a waste of time if I want to have the same information/facts in the paragraph, but I would have to restructure the sentence or paragraph.

Do I quote it? Do I say something like: According to the website of XY, XY is...


texts: Harsh marking - is it worth complaining?

texts:
I know that we have to be meticulous in pure mathematics courses, and I appreciate that. Comparing a particular course I took recently to the other pure math courses I've taken before, it appears that the marking has been unnecessarily severe. I had assignments which weighed 25% of the total mark, but the marker could almost arbitrarily pick what we would have had to specify in solving a problem. For instance, sometimes there were points in a proof for which it was not clear at all whether or not they should have been specified, since they were either evident (clearly, there were parts in which the marker was very fault-finding, not like in most other pure math courses I had taken) or were previously proved in class or in a previous assignment. The marking scheme was entirely up to the TA who marked the assignments, so that he decided which questions to mark or not to mark. There were usually 20 to 25 total marking points in each assignment, but some questions were deemed to weigh only 2-3 points, and the TA could easily deduct 33-66% of the mark for missing / skipping minor details of the problem, whereas the entire answer / main point was correct. The instructor had admitted during the course that either more total points should be introduced or partial points (such as 0.5) should be given, but that didn’t happen. Some questions weighed disproportionately many points, such as when in one assignment, which consisted of five questions and which was marked out of 25 points in total, one of the questions was worth 9 out of 25, and it was not the most time-consuming question. In the final examination, the marking style similar to that of the assignments was applied, and I’m convinced that it was too harsh.

I've discussed the exam results with the instructor, and I'm still convinced that the marking was not always quite appropriate. I also wrote an email to an advisor and he said that I could write a petition to reconsider the marking. But should I really do this? I feel that the department would not perceive such an action very kindly, and some talks in the department would probably follow. So I'm not sure if it's worth it.

Should I just move on and forget about this?


texts: What can a PI do about a low-performing postdoc?

texts:
This is a hypothetical question inspired by a flip side of the situation described here.

Consider a PI on tenure-track position, facing tenure / promotion panel in a few years. The PI has just got their first significant research grant, allowing to recruit one postdoc (research fellow) and maybe buying out a few hours per week of PI's time to administer and manage the grant.

After careful selection and recruitment process, following the regulations of the University HR Department, a shortlist was composed, the interview was held, the best candidates were identified and finally one of them accepted the offer and arrived to start the post. Suppose the project and the funding is for one year only.

Following the usual induction process, a program of research has been agreed and weekly meetings has been set to monitor the progress. A few weeks later, the PI is worried that the progress is slower than anticipated. The majority of time is spent by the postdoc on reading the  literature, discussing the problem with other PhD students in the group, formulating strategic suggestions on how to solve the problem and possibly also problems of other students in the group. However, when it comes to writing publications (and scientific code when appropriate), the progress is insufficient.

Suppose that the PI has tried to focus the postdoc on their area of responsibility by making verbal remarks, but it did not improve the situation and only made the relations a bit tenser. The PI feels that the postdoc is under-performing, but the postdoc denies such discussions and in discussion with other students describes them as non-constructive and abusive.

The question: Assuming the restrictions and processes of your current University (or other places your are familiar with), what would you do as the PI in this situation?

I assume that the short-term goals of the PI in this situation are to produce enough high-quality publications to successfully complete their grant, secure the following grants and increase the chances of successful tenure. However, if there are also long-term goals which are more important and should influence the chosen strategy instead, please describe them. I also assume that 3-4 hours per week is just about how much time the PI has to manage this grant, and the rest of the time is spent on teaching, working with PhD students, etc, so the strategies requiring let's say 2 hours of PI's time per day are not very realistic. This is based on the typical breakdown of time for EPSRC First Grant scheme in the UK — please feel free to point out if it's not applicable in other places.


texts: Should amount of citation/references be taken into account when grading an assignment?

texts:
As I don't like looking up the internet and read all the materials or references and all that when doing assignment, thus I try to pay full attention during lectures and/or tutorials. Therefore, my assignments are often long and with minimal to no plagiarism detection rate as all the contents are written by myself from my own knowledge - not paraphrasing. Perhaps I'm not until the stage where I need to often look around for more materials I guess? I'm currently still a year 2 undergraduate.
There's sometime where I have to lookup on the internet so adding references is unavoidable in this case. But in general, I ended up having my assignment to contain only a small amount of references, maybe 3 to 5. My plagiarism detection result is usually just around 0% to 1%. Or even in most cases, I just refer to my lecture notes and that's it.
But recently as I enter year 2, this started to give me problems. I just ended my first semester and was given lower than usual marks for my assignment, with the lecturer commented that the amount of references and/or citation is insufficient, although the plagiarism checker finds no match. Hence, marks are being deducted.
Therefore, my question is:

Should the amount of references/citation be taken into account when grading?
Let's say, this idea or knowledge is on my mind, or maybe I learned it from lecture, and it is sufficient for me to complete my assignment, without the need to actually refer back or anything. Should I take the extra effort to find out the related sources and reference or cite them?
Or, is my way of doing assignments actually wrong and improper? Should finding external sources of information as references when doing assignment is actually a must?

I also need to clarify that all my assignments are getting reasonably good grades.
Please do correct me if I got any idea and/or concept wrong.