texts: Strategies for dealing/interacting with a colleague who have suffered from academic burnout

texts:
There are quite a few question aiming at or hinting towards avoiding academic burn-out, but I couldn't come across one that targets interaction with a colleague that has suffered from a serious burn-out, which can be very tricky as I am learning nowadays.

Background: A colleague of mine (office-mate actually) has suffered a pretty major crisis over the past year and had to take an extended leave of absence due to stress. The person in question was/is close to disputation but due to the fact that they could not handle being at work anymore, everything was postponed.

After several months away, my colleague is trying to get back in the game by starting off 20%. I heard that it didn't work out all too good the first attempt, a couple of weeks later they are attempting to start again. As we were chatting the other day, I realized that I can't really say much without tripping my colleague off, in the sense  that the subject often raises old issues somehow and causes some frustration/stress for my colleague. That partially originates from the fact that most of what we have in common and talk about is work oriented somehow.

My natural reflex when I realize that the subject causes discomfort is to not feed the conversation and attempt to change the subject. But that doesn't really work too good, as it's not very discrete. I also suspect that specially avoiding small-talk with my office mate isn't very nice either, I don't want the person to feel isolated and alone. I mean the fact that a person had a stress-related problem, it's not something that one should be ashamed or embarrassed about, it shouldn't be awkward socially, but somehow it does feel like that.

Does anyone here have any experience about how to tackle a situation like this?


texts: I didn't acknowledge someone who helped with my thesis, is there anything I can or should do now?

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I received help with some aspects of my PhD thesis from a tutor (proofreading and graphics). Of the help I received, some mathematical notation they provided made it into my thesis.

However, I did not acknowledge the tutor in the PhD thesis for this help (since received).

Is there anything I could (or should) do to rectify this?


texts:
I am an assistant professor of chemistry. My department strongly values international collaborations. I contacted some research groups working on the same topics as mine, but half of them wanted my fund, and the other half thought I want theirs.

My imagination of research collaboration was that two groups do parts of a research idea by their available funds, and then preparing a joint paper by combining the results.

For example, a common suggestion I received is that they can host a PhD student or a postdoc fellow (for a minimum period of one year for the sake of official paperwork and adaptability) if I have a fund. How can I fund someone to work somewhere else on a project different from my funded project? And how is it a collaboration after all?

In my experience, it is very difficult to spend research funds in another country. It is even impractical to send joint proposals (unless there are governmental agreements between two countries). I wonder how do researchers from various countries plan international collaborations (which is apparently very common based on the joint papers)?


texts: How to cite a statement that cites several other sources?

texts:
The below is in a paper I am reading, written by Gareis.

  One of the uppermost complaints of study-abroad students remains the lack of
  meaningful contact with host nationals (e.g., Gareis, 1995; Klineberg & Hull, 1979;
  Marginson, Nyland, Sawir, & Forbes-Mewett, 2010; Ward & Masgoret, 2004;
  Yashima, Zenuk-Nishide, & Shimizu, 2004).

Can I site this in my own paper as:

  Many international students complain about a lack of meaningful contact with host nationals (Gareis, 2010).


texts: Publishing a paper that is not related your field

texts:
I am graduate student in mathematics, but I did undergraduate in a different field (Astrophysics/Geophysics). I did my undergraduate reaserch somewhat seriously and have a good thesis as an undergraduate. My advisor told me that maybe the result I got is publishable. I have never done any publishing beforehead, so preparing for it may take some time. Of course by doing that, I will have less time to focus on mathematics. Also it is not guranteed that the result will be published in the end.

Now the question is : will it be beneficial (in terms of career in mathematics) to spend time to prepare publishing my undergraduate thesis, which is different field from my current major? Will the publication make my CV stronger?

Of course I know it really depends on some factors such as 1.how much time will I loose by preparing the publication? 2.how is my undergraduate thesis related to the mathematics? 3.What is my future goal?, and perhabs more, so there is no single answer. I just want to listen to the opinions from more experienced.


texts: How to nicely communicate to my professor that I prefer a different topic/project

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Soon I will be assigned to a project with industry partner X which will start in couple of months and is very loosely related to my major research interests. The project might not be very challenging and time-consuming, but it has close to zero contribution to my actual research, that is why I am not so keen working on it. Also, there is very little potential to get any publications (although unrelated to my topic) from there.

On the other hand, a new industry partner Y is approaching our group. This partner is willing to offer funding for multiple topics, and they work in the field 100% related to my research.

I fail to understand why the principal investigator would assign me to a project with X, while we were anticipating the collaboration with Y, and knowing that the X project will not be mutually beneficial. But, I guess the decision was made just because X approach first.

How can I communicate clearly and nicely to my PI that I would fancy working in project with Y, and make the point that it will be beneficial in terms of tangibles (more research output in an area of interest to PI, me and company Y) and intangibles (more motivation for me)?

I am sure all this is obvious to the PI, but the PI is probably note concerned about anything but the money.


texts: How to deal with low quality software project that needs to be evaluated

texts:
I have evaluated a software project which has been created by a consortium of top scientists in the field. However, the project itself it doesn't really work, and has only been developed as a proof-of-concept rather than an end product (i.e., it works only with 2-3 scenarios).

This software application should perform 4 steps in order to successfully execute. Each step takes an input file, and produces an output file. The output file from the previous step is used as input in the current step.
Initially, you start with 1 file. This file is used as input for step 1. After step 1, another file is produced. Let’s call the input file general_input_file, and the output file general_output_file. When general_input_file is loaded into the application, general_output_file should be produced. Now, I have an input file which I will call my_input_file. I expect the application to produce my_output_file. However, the application only accepts specific_input_file and will produce a specific_output_file. This means that it only works with 2 files which has been previously generated. Both files exist in the project. When I look at the part of the project which should process the general_input_file, there is a statement which looks like this: if the name of the given input file equals specific_input_file, then return specific_output_file. This is a file inside the project. Otherwise, try to process the generate_input_file and generate general_output_file. At this point the software breaks. A number of exceptions are thrown, and debugging and fixing this is beyond of the work that I’m doing.

The question is: in the paper, how do you approach this issue? And how do you argue, in the paper, that the reason you're unable to evaluate the software in a different scenario is due to the limitations of the software? What is the best wording to be used, without being offensive to the authors?


texts: Is it possible to submit a conference paper without results?

texts:
I am writing a paper for my first conference which is actually about my MSc dissertation. In my dissertation I designed a system and tested it with a number of users however, I don't want to include the testing/results in the conference paper because I believe it needs more testing (on a larger number of users).

I'm not sure though if I can submit the paper without results or will it be rejected because of that?


texts: Getting a W on your transcript for grad school applications

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I am a Computer Engineering major at a top 15 engineering school. My goal is to get into grad school for Machine Learning. I have set very lofty goals and am aiming for places like MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, CMU etc. I will be applying for safeties too but these top tier colleges remain the goal.

I have got a 3.8 in college till now. The issue is that I am messing up a lot in my electrical circuits analysis course. I am in the C to D range in the course. The professor is extremely harsh while grading and covers grad school material in an intro course. I am thinking of withdrawing from the course. I am confident that I can perform well next semester when I take it under different circumstances. Seeing as circuits aren't related to machine learning or computer science, I was wondering how bad would a W for this course look in my transcript, while having an otherwise great record.

I am also involved in research involving machine learning and will be doing so till the end of undergrad. It's this one thing which is worrying.


texts: Doing a PhD at a famous football school: how can I ask for time off to attend games?

texts:
Consider a famous football school in the U.S., for example Penn State, Michigan, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Auburn, and Ohio State.
I am doing a PhD in a STEM field at one of these schools, and on 6 or 7 Saturdays of the semester, there is a home game for the football team, and I'd like to attend the game and be a part of the tradition.  It's likely an all-day affair, pre-game, going to the game, and more festivities after the game.
My research advisor isn't into sports — at all.  And the expectation is that we're doing work on these Saturdays, while our football stadium nearby is filled with 80,000 or so fans cheering on our team.
Would it be reasonable to ask my advisor for Saturdays off, so that I can participate in our school's football tradition?
How could I go about saying this to him, without upsetting him, or coming off as "unfocused"?
Clarification: Plenty of communication takes place on weekends. My advisor is very intense, micromanages almost, but that style suits me well, and I find his dedication really admirable. But I don't want to miss out on football either; I'm not in graduate school for very long.


texts: Being the right kind of demanding as a college instructor

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As part of my work as a graduate student in maths I currently teach a basic second semester calculus course. It seems like every semester I teach, one or two students want some sort of special privilege to turn in homework late for a month or take a test a week after they are supposed to. Many times they have somewhat legitimate reasons (documented depression, getting a divorce, wife having surgery.....). How should I handle these cases? I am not big into putting up with lots of late homework or late tests, but then again I would want someone to be lenient with me if things such as the parenthetical reasons above arose in my life.

How should I handle students with such situations? Should I write them off and just feed them to the dogs or should I allow them to catch up at their own pace? My honest opinion is that school is a sort of competitive game (Bad, yes, I know) and if they lose they lose. We do not shorten the football pitch because some club's striker is not a good runner. However, I think students should be allowed to have a chance to make things right.


texts: Nightmares and frustrations with students' sloppy homework

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I have a serious problem with HW usually submitted by students.  A considerable fraction of the students are not neat with their HWs. By neat  I mean respecting the guide lines I provided them to follow, such as:

A4-size paper, do not use detached papers from a notebook
Use only pencil, so you don't scratch
Be organized, not sloppy
Write clearly, so it is readable.

Things like that.

Unfortunately most of the students insist on not following these rules, or they will do it for some time, then they will start being sloppy again.

Am I the only one facing this issue? If not, how can one solve it?


texts: What can I do after giving GRE and TOEFL exams?

texts:
I just gave my GRE and TOEFL examination this month. I am willing to apply for MS in Computer Science in the USA for the fall of 2014 course. The problem is that I don't seem to understand how to go about it?

How should I know which universities should I apply for? There are so many good universities in US that it confuses me. What are the parameters that I should be considering while deciding where to apply? I don't want to just randomly apply and get rejected. Is there a way to know it before hand - what things a particular university would be looking for in an applicant?

Most of the people have suggested me to select 2 ambitious, 3 moderate and 2 safe universities. I am referring to this list for all my analysis. But its difficult to know the standards that I  should use to decide what an ambitiuos university is. I mean should I consider the top 10 or the top 30 universities as ambitious.


texts: Websites to publish for mathematics and statistics similar to arXiv.org?

texts: What are websites similar to arXiv where there's feedback that one can submit to for Mathematics and Statistics?


texts: Finding the right advisor in a US CS PhD program

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I am a first year computer science PhD student in US. The department expects us to match with an advisor. However, there is no lab rotations or similar things. Due to COVID, I can't visit any faculty. I sent emails to various faculty of interest, and most of them did not reply. Some were at least nice to say that they don't have any capacity for new students. I talked with other students and most them say that they had the similar experience.
There are some extremely limited number of professors that are available or looking for students. I joined to some labs, but the research going on there is pretty dry. Other options are trying professors whose research is very remote to me. Should I apply again to some other schools, or leave the program, or continue with the current scenario? Is this the case for most of the US CS PhD programs? Because I don't believe that I will be successful if I continue with the options available.


texts: Order of a PhD application in the United States

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I am applying to biomedical science PhD programs and have been working on personal statements for a while now. Many of the programs seem to have a very similar lineup with how they want the statement to look. However, they're usually ordered around a little differently.

I've found that there's a very good flow to my statement by starting with what influenced me (e.g. school/past research/etc.), current interests/faculty I want to work, career goals, research XP, and a closing statement that's usually geared toward why the school is a good fit. While this structure always varies between schools, I feel it's best done in how I sort of described here. Every now and then, a school is like "tell us why you like the school, tell us research experiences, tell us what motivated you, then tell us faculty you want and what you learned from research." This is sometimes hard to follow and ends up making my statement structure awkward.

Is it okay to not answer the personal statement points always in the order that they list the "points to consider including?"

Thanks


texts: Should a research presentation make use of suspense to engage the audience?

texts:
Suspense is a powerful tool. In story-telling, not knowing what is going to happen or how the story is going to end can grab attention and sustain interest. In giving a research presentation, one is often encouraged to "tell a story". One could certainly make use of suspense to do so.

  We are interested in how best to predict X. Previous research has indicated that P Q and R could be crucial here. [much later] It turned out that... [pause for drama]... variable K was surprisingly the strongest predictor of X!

However, most presentations take a more up-front approach.

  Welcome to my presentation entitled "How K can be used to predict X"...

The latter approach follows the advice that I have often received, which can be summarised by the maxim:

  Tell them what you are going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you have told them.

So, is it a bad idea to use suspense with the intention of making the "story" of your presentation more engaging?

[This question was inspired by an answer given elsewhere on Academia.SE.]


texts: How to find an academic mentor as a professional

texts:
I'm a professional programmer with 15 years of experience, working in game development as a game and engine programmer, currently working at a prestigious game company on two well known games.

I've submitted a paper to a graphics journal (jcgt.org), and am waiting on the review process. (2.5 months into an expected 3 month process!)

In the meantime I'm working on a computer science paper which doesn't pertain to game development, but is more related to cryptography and metaprogramming.

That realm is a little bit more of a challenge for me since it isn't my area of expertise, so I don't know as many obscure things, proper terminology, or what people expect to see, etc.

How would someone like myself - who is a professional with no academic ties - find a more academic minded mentor who knows more about these areas, that I could ask questions to, bounce ideas off, etc?

Or is that even a likely possibility?


texts: Professor not giving solutions to exams and assignments that I need to grade

texts:
I am a grader for a CS course at the college institution I attend. The professor I am TAing for is a full-time employee at a company. He is teaching this CS course on top of doing that. The first exam and homework assignment have been collected. He has effectively told me that he "trusts my judgment" in the grading and is not giving me solutions to grade the exam and assignment against.

Is this a fair practice? Whether the solutions are supposed to be given me was not established before I started as grader.

I'm just unsure since I have not heard of this type of situation happening. In my experience the professor has always given solutions to the grader. I am unsure of what to do at this point.

Edited Update: Prof still wants me to use my own solutions and the CS dept has decided as long as he is "supervising the grading," he is permitted to allow this. I will be grading them with my solutions. I suggest for anyone to possibly contact the department for the official policy. In terms of whether it's a fair practice, I see that the discussion still stands.


texts:
I supervise a student who is working on her bachelor's thesis. The problem is that she has not delivered anything, never asks for any help, and when I offer her some help she claims that she understands and she will work on it. But nothing really happens afterwards. We (me and my supervisor) talked to her multiple times in different 'intervention'-like sessions, with no success. Now it is the end of the semester and she has done no more than 10% of her assigned tasks.

Also, she never delivers what I ask for, even the most basic of things. For example, all students are supposed to hand in their time plan within two weeks of their work, but she has never handed it in, despite my (and my supervisor's) repeated requests. Not only does handing in a time plan help to keep track of one's work, it is also part of our grading scheme. And she knows about that, since we are very transparent about how grading of the thesis works, by giving the students our grading excel sheet before they even sign up for a thesis with us. Nevertheless, she didn't bother handing a time plan in.

All the other students in our institute have their final presentations next week, and even though she knew of it, she was asking for an extension. When I refused that via email (I saw no reason to give her an extension), she just dropped in, claimed that she is not prepared for a final presentation, and that I have to give her an extension and so on. I eventually gave her an extension, because she was extremely stressed and not in normal conditions, was almost breaking into tears, and most importantly made a scene in the institute hall. I played a little tough though, by asking her to give me an exact delivery date within two days.

I have even asked my colleagues and fellow PhD students multiple times if they think there is something wrong with my supervision of her, but they always assured me that there is nothing wrong with that and it's about her personality/character (we have a very transparent culture in our group, so we criticize each other openly). Also, my former students gave positive feedback to my adviser regarding my supervision. I even made my supervisor ask her privately about quality of my supervision, and she gave him positive feedback!

Moreover, she also has an exercise class with me, and she was the only student playing computer games on the lab computer instead of working on her exercise. She knew that I (her thesis supervisor) can see her, but she didn't bother. That, I have to say, was the last nail in the coffin.

Given this background, I already know that she cannot (will not) deliver, no matter how much time I gave her. Thus, she will almost certainly fail her thesis. But on the other hand I feel very bad failing a student in her first big project, especially since if she fails she will probably need to study one more semester to finish her studies.

Now I am struggling with these three options:

Wait for two days, and if she doesn't give me an exact delivery date (which she probably won't), just give her a fail grade.
Give her an extension for ten days or two weeks, and then grade her based on what she delivers eventually, which most probably is a fail grade anyhow.
Give her a longer extension, long enough for her to pass the thesis.

I would be glad if anyone can give me some recommendations on how to deal with this situation.

PS: For all people asking if I was allowed to give her an extension: Of course I was. Otherwise I would have a very good reason for refusing her request. In our university supervisors have lots of freedom in how they want to deal with their students.


texts: Doing two PhDs one from Electrical Engineering and other from Theoretical Physics

texts:
I am currently doing MPhil degree in Electrical Engineering (Sensors & Robotics). I did my bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering as well.

I have real motivation and love to do research on Theoretical Physics as well. The more I learn physics more I need to do a research on physics.

My initial thought was to get an M.Phil on the current University in EE and get my Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from some other more reputed university. But since now I have an idea of doing Ph.D. in physics, now I am thinking of extending my M.Phil to a Ph.D. and finish it and do another Ph.D. on physics in a foreign University (Australia).

I have two questions,
1)what is your opinion on this path? I appreciate answers, especially by PhD supervisors.
2) Does getting a Ph.D. in electrical engineering minimize my chances of getting selected for a PhD( funded Ph.D.) in theoretical physics? (I mean is it better to apply for Ph.D. in theoretical physics after completion of just M.Phil).
Note: It takes only one extra year for Ph.D. if I extend my M.Phil.


texts: In the EU, how much protection do I have if I report an assault on myself by my department head?

texts:
I had a very ugly incident at my corrupt institute (I live in E. EU). In short, I was assaulted by one of the department's heads during my own group meeting on my own grant for daring to "back talk" after he had abusively terminated that meeting. Him, and my own department's head had sabotaged my projects by sidetracking the people working on them, threatening them, and, lately, by denying access to shared research facilities which they don't really use.

As this behavior has been tolerated by the director (who is the ultimate god there), I expect things only to get worse. I'm seriously considering whistleblowing as my only option, as my reports of the incidents are merely CYA actions since they've gone unnoticed so far.

I might be out on my ass by next week for the "lese-majeste" of this week. If I do whistleblow, is there a way within EU to protect myself and my research group? I doubt I'll get any understanding in my own country.

Update: I'm not fired, they just found a nice and sneaky way to dissolve my research group. Funnily enough, no one is on my side, including the people who witnessed the incident.


texts: Am I being taken advantage of by working on a committee member's research with no payoff?

texts:
I am currently pursuing a Master's degree in Computer Science which requires me to have three members on my graduate committee.

Last August one of the committee members asked me to work on a project for him as part of my graduate work. However, the work was not enough for a thesis, I would need to switch from thesis-track to project-track, which I am not interested in doing, and the topic wasn't what I would like to work on full-time for my research.

My major professor suggested I work on the project for a shot at getting a publication under my belt for the work I will have done. Because of this I accepted the proposal and put a ton of time into the project on top of my research and course load. Recently, the research was funded and a poster was made to present the research. Lo and behold, I was not listed as an author on the poster with the professors despite my countless hours slaving away.

There have been no publications yet, so I don't know if I will be listed as an author on the actual paper but, being new to this, I would like to be sure I'm not being taken advantage of. I've got enough things to take care of outside of the project and was expecting some sort of payoff if the research had gotten this far.

Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful for the opportunity. I'm still assisting with the research and would like to continue to assist the professor with hopes of at least getting a good letter of recommendation for a PhD program but, if the general opinion is I'm being taken advantage of I would like to know to perhaps confront the faculty member.


texts: What should a letter of motivation/statement of purpose contain?

texts:
I am applying for some postdoc programs and have come across a requirement called "motivated letter of application" which I assume is essentially similar to what many here refer to as statement of purpose.

Since I never had to write such a letter before I am not quite sure what it should contain. I couldn't find any specific instructions regarding the letter so I wonder whether or not there are general (subject-agnostic) guidelines or expectations regarding this type of personal letter.

Is it essentially about:

who I am, or
what I have done so far, or
what I want to do in the future, or
why I am applying to this specific position?

(1) is essentially answered by the CV, so it would be mostly re-iterating the same stuff in a less verbatim/list format.

(2) is again answered partially by the CV and partially by the list of publications and thesis.

That leaves (3) and (4), where the first one is dependent on what resources I can get. I mean, coming from a cross-disciplinary field I can imagine developing towards a number of different fields. I don't feel like there is one very specific thing/project I want to do. Finally, (4) is also a bit tricky to answer, since the truth would be as simple as, "it's a cool position". The more elaborate answer would be something like "I like the project description and consider myself fulfilling the requirements"

Those of you who do read such letters of motivation, what do you actually look for in specific terms? Things like "suitability of the candidate" doesn't help much in terms of structuring the letter, I think.


texts: Why do some journal proofs insert dozens of typesetting mistakes?

texts:
Why do some journals change the final software and do not provide a template for the final draft(e.g. contains the same font as in the gallery proof)?
I often hear that some of my colleagues get unacceptable proofs (often even from Elsevier journals).
I am checking an Elsevier paper (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0141029619305024) which was in the state of Galley proof (after acceptance)

letters in math equations look different: (converted all math equations to vectorgraphics)

letters have inconsistent size even in the continuous text

made a screenshot of the rendering of jpeg-graphics if the jpeg-image contained two images (a) and (b)

where they converted all simple *.eps-graphics (nothing complex) to *.jpeg with 110dpi (text is almost unreadable) also declare a min of 500dpi in the author guidelines

changed the font from the font declared in the template("Times") to "Charis SIL", now the continuous text is in Charis SIL, but the equations, the variables in the text and the figures are in Times
The font color is generally dark gray, but in math equations it is black

the variables in micro-environment are not aligned with the surrounding text (sometimes smaller letters are even higher then capital letters)

several manual line-breaks are awful (some lines contain more space than letters) also a short word is following

some lines start with "," or "."

converted a table (conatining text and two eps-graphics) to jpeg with obvious compression artifacts

added space between "mm" and "²"

removed spaces

some citations are outside the page border

According to the pdf metadata, it was created with Prince 10 rev 7, which only supports SVG as a vector format.
Why don't they convert all eps/pdf-files with inkscape to svg (can be done fully automatic as a batch-process e.g. pdftocairo.exe -svg "Input.pdf" "Output.svg")?
In my field, if I use a space instead of a small space, it is unacceptable or at least unprofessional. (As a reader, such mistakes are evident and disruptive.) And it is so super-important to add it as vector, but then the proofs ruin everything! Why do they have guidelines for authors if the journal introduces illegal (according to the guidelines) mistakes on their own?
Why do some journals change the final software and do not provide a template for the final draft?


texts: Is it crazy to leave a tenured position for a non-tenured but tenure-tracked job?

texts:
I recently obtained tenure, and lo and behold, my dream job comes up, but it is posted at a lower level. I would have to go through the process all over again, though potentially being posted further along the track rather than starting from scratch.

Do people do this?


texts: What should I do if someone submit a review of a manuscript in journal system sooner than I know and I already prepared a detailed review?

texts:
I am a Ph.D. student. My supervisor frequently tells me if you want to do a review for journals, login into my account and perform the review. He never reviews any paper. He is very lazy and I have to do all of the submission of my articles into journal system myself using his account.

A while ago, I wanted to check a journal and I saw a pending invitation for review from a famous researcher, which I love his works very much, as associate editor of that journal. I accepted review and downloaded manuscript. I read the manuscript and wrote a detailed review of it, six pages long!. I recommended a major revision. It takes a lot of my time to read the references and perform the review. In my review, I suggested a set of improvements to the authors which I think will help them improve their work.

Today, I wanted to submit the review using my supervisor account. I suddenly noticed that my supervisor submitted a review. I am very upset as it took much of my time to perform this task. I read his review, a very short note to reject the manuscript, less than half a page long. Other anonymous reviewers recommended a minor revision.

What should I do? Is there any way to make the best use of my review? not to waste my time.

Disclaimer:
Please don't be so judgmental. Assume someone in such a situation.
He didn't know it is unethical not even a bit until asked this question. He even guesses his supervisor himself not knows this. Since there was never any evil intention by any of them.

Here we want to ask questions and consult/educate ourselves from members; not judging people. He just worked hard to help some other researchers and nothing else. Not a first-year Ph.D. student.


texts: How to approach professors for funding after acceptance into PhD program?

texts:
I have been accepted into a PhD program in the US for Mechanical Engineering, but the graduate school did not give me funding for the first year. Being an international student, I do not have opportunity of funding through government fellowships, etc. So, I am planning to contact professors for opportunities in their groups.

What should I mention in the email? I am trying to understand proper way to approach professors for funding after admit. Also, what other funding sources you will suggest?


texts: As many universities provide funding covering only part of the tuition fee or living expenses, especially in the UK where tuition fees are different for UK/EU and international students while most scholarships only cover the first one, i.e. international students have to pay the difference. My question is whether it is possible for PhD funding to be updated/upgraded (to cover more expenses) if a student performs well, e.g. produce high quality publication, while doing his PhD.


texts: Is there any software to regularize British vs. American spelling in a text?

texts:
This is a minor but ongoing annoyance that takes up more time than I would like, and I am wondering if anybody knows of a solution.  I often write papers with foreign collaborators, and we tend to end up with a mixture of British and American spellings of words in our text.  We know it's a problem, and often agree on which to use ahead of time, but it's so ingrained one often doesn't even realize when you've made a mistake.  Thus, in the final proofing stage, somebody has to go through and manually regularize the spelling, which is really boring and time-consuming.

My question is this: does anybody know of software that can help automate this process?  It feels to me like it should exist, but I don't know of any...


texts: Is it beneficial to prefer keywords complementary to words in the title?

texts:
This was some advice given by an editor in a writing course:

  If there is a limit to the number of keywords, don’t use terms already used in the title. Rather, use terms that are complementary, synonymous, or equivalent (even “non-standard” terms) to those in the title. This will allow your paper to appear in more searches in Google Scholar and similar search engines.

Is this correct?


texts: Should I worry that my bachelor's degree will be revoked because I only completed half my internship hours?

texts:
This happened in 2016. In my college where I got my bachellor degree (no thesis required), one of the requirements to get that degree is to have 600 trainee hours at a company. The company send a letter to the college which states that I only worked for 300 hours as a trainee (which is correct).

However, Now I've just remembered that the college considerated the 300 hours as 600 hours. Should I worry that they will find out their mistake and revoke my bachelor degree?

I remember that I told the secretary that they were making a mistake but she didnt care and told me to go away.


texts:
I just got a permanent position. Hooray!

My question is the opposite of this one (that popped out as a suggestion from this site): How to care less about teaching?

During my PhD studies I TAed a little but was essentially told by everyone not to worry too much about it. During my postdoc I did not teach at all.

Now I will have to teach half a load the first year and a full load starting from the second year. This is a bit scary. I want to spend more time on teaching, preparing the course, actually learning how to teach (something I never did, it's just assumed that since I spent so long in universities I'm now a teacher through osmosis). But whenever I start doing that, I remember that I will never be evaluated on teaching in my life, and if I want promotions later, only my research will count. Any second more than the bare legal minimum spent on teaching is time not spent on research. How do I stop feeling guilt about this?


texts: Optimal configuration of a research group

texts: In most of the European Universities I know, research groups are created from the equivalent of Assistant Professors and the Principal Investigator is voted in some sort of election, where there are elections every 2/4 years. In groups with such profile I have usually seen that scientific output is low and that most of these members are not really motivated to do research and are only affiliated to these groups for CV and promotion purposes. But this is of course my personal experience, I do not state this is always like this. From the other side I know other groups that are created from scratch from somebody with a very good CV, who has a vision and ambition, and who gets all research group members not from Department colleagues but from funding he/she attracts.  All group research lines are derived from her/his experience and CV and scientific output in this case and according to my experience, tends to be high. Based on your personal experience or factual evidences, what is the most optimal configuration for a new research group, the former or the latter or do you think there are other different configurations?


texts: Are there ethical guidelines prohibiting penalties against potential research subjects who have not yet provided consent?

texts:
Are there any ethical guidelines that would prohibit the use of penalties against individuals who sign up for a research study but have not yet provided consent and are therefore not yet officially subjects?

Please provide references.

Background

In the psychology department, we have an online recruitment system, whereby every time a student signs up for a research study for extra (course) credit they occupy a 'seat' out of a limited number of seats. This limitation exists due to the fact that research credits are distributed fairly among researchers to ensure that everyone is able to recruit in proportion to their needs.

Online studies pose a particular challenge for the recruiter because the participant is afforded the opportunity to complete the study by the end of the semester and there is no guarantee that they will follow through. The problem is that many students do not have the courtesy to cancel before the deadline if they decide they no longer wish to participate, and in doing so they are preventing other students from participating. Not only is this behavior not fair to other students, but it also means a loss of potential subjects for the recruiter. Although this scenario applies to online studies, there are certainly other scenarios where careless behavior results in major inconveniences to the recruiter, for example people not showing up for appointments (i.e., in-person studies, experiments).

If those signed up for a study have not yet provided consent (i.e. are not yet officially subjects), what are they protected against? Specifically,

1) Is it admissible to issue penalties, such as, for instance, a loss of research credits?

2) Is it admissible to communicate a general warning to all individuals using the system that a failure to cancel their seat or to show up for appointments could involve unspecified penalties? (In this case, there would be no penalties but the warning would serve as a deterrent.)


texts: How to acknowledge copyright for figure reproduced from arXiv preprint?

texts:
I am coauthor of a review article, in which we reuse a figure from another article that is, so far, available only on the arXiv. In such a case, one would usually obtain the copyright from the publisher and acknowledge the copyright holder with a statement similar to

  Reproduced with permission [reference]. Copyright [year], [publisher].

What is an appropriate analogous phrase for an article published on the arXiv?

From what I understand of arXiv's help on licenses, the default option only grants arXiv the right to distribute the article, while the copyright remains with the authors.
However, including all authors of an article in the copyright statement can make the statement very long. Perhaps one should restrict it to the author that submitted the article to the arXiv?

  Reproduced with permission [reference]. Copyright [year], [submitting author].

P.S. In this particular case, the arXiv article was authored within our group as well, i.e. we are free to choose the copyright statement. In general I assume it would be up to the authors to choose how they would like to be acknowledged.


texts: How can one overcome the disadvantage of studying in less prestigious international school for admission in top 10 Math PhD programs?

texts:
I am a international applicant. I study in fairly less prestigious undergraduate school. I am aware that this will have a affect on my Grad School Applications. Since I am freshman I was wondering of how I can minimize the disadvantage. I do think of four possible ways:

Taking toughest courses possible:
My school is kind of a unique model. It has very less permanent faculties. It usually borrows Math professors from other institutions in my country which sort of have a international reputation. They usually offer grad level courses known as electives. I do have the option of taking as many of them. I won't run out of these courses. However the undergrad transcript will not show the name of professor under which the class was taken. I am kind of skeptical how admission committee will judge these courses just by looking at name of undergraduate institution.
Amazing letters of recommendation :
Since good and internationally known faculty take courses at my school I do hope to get recommendations from them. This should
help but I am not sure how much.?
Budapest semester in mathematics and IMC :
I am sure BSM will help however will doing really good in IMC make my application better ?
Good honors thesis:
I do have the option of completing my honors thesis abroad at a different institution. Usually honors thesis don't contain publishable material however that's a matter of hard work. It won't be published before the application deadline but will a letter from advisor highlighting the work and results of my thesis do any good ?

Even if I check each one of the above box's how worthy and comparable my application will be to those from the very best undergrad schools ?


texts: University does not explicitly request either a motivational letter or recommendation letters

texts:
I am applying to University of Helsinki for Master degree, just filed the application. But the weird thing about it - they do not explicitly ask neither for letter of motivation nor recommendation letters. They only mention motivational letter very briefly on just one page, but after I filed online application their system said that I just need to provide my transcript of records and degree certificate, that's it.

The other thing that confused me - in the online application they asked me to write brief message why I am applying to their university (under 2000 symbols). They didn't call it "motivational letter", but can it be that they take this short 2000 symbols online input form for motivational letter? I highly doubt it, but then I don't see the point of writing it, when they will have the same thing(even more detailed) provided to them in separate letter.

As for recommendation letters - I think they don't mention it at all, at least on the main pages concerning applications for Master degree.
This is not common for Finnish university, many other universities explicitly demand recommendation and motivational letters.

My question is - can I be sure that the admission board will read my motivational and recommendation letters? I always thought that the main thing admission board looks at are these two type of documents, am I wrong?


texts:
I recently installed Mendeley on a new computer. I had deleted all articles from my previous computer and my online profile also did not list any articles. So my library was/seemed empty.

However, when I installed Mendeley on my new computer, it downloaded over 250 articles! All articles I had included in Mendeley at some point in the past, but had long deleted.

I tried searching for a way to delete this data from Mendeley, but could not find it easily. I find this behaviour so infuriating...

How can I purge all articles (not the actual PDFs, but the associated metadata) from Mendeley Desktop and from my Mendeley online account?

Note that I want to delete information from Mendeley, not delete PDFs from my computer.


texts: Does ''recommended for publication subject to minor revision'' implies aceptance?

texts:
I have submitted my manuscript to one of the peer-reviewed journals of chemistry and the decision was 'recommended for publication subject to minor revision'. I have submitted the revision but two weeks have passed and the status is still showing that the manuscript is in peer review in scholar one. Please suggest future steps.
Thank you


texts: To choose which Masters program to attend, should I favor institution or specialization?

texts:
I am an Electronics & Communication Engineer and I want to pursue a masters degree.  After completing the degree, I would like to work in industry with zero inclination towards a PhD.

I am considering two institutions and two possible specializations (e.g., VLSI vs. Signal Processing). I prefer one institution over the other because of its general reputation, faculty, placements, and lab facilities. I prefer one specialization over the other because of personal preference, prior knowledge in the specialization field, type of possible jobs, and placements in the specialization field.

Suppose I am offered acceptance into the more-preferred specialization at my less-preferred university, and the less-preferred specialization at my more-preferred university.

Which option will better position me for my eventual goal, of completing the masters degree and getting a job in industry? Which criteria is more important in choosing a masters program, the institution or the specialization?


texts:
This is actually specific to mathematics. In particular, in the sub field of category theory, differential geometry, algebraic geometry.
Question is as mentioned above.

How much is too much when it comes to diagrams in a research article?
Do more diagrams annoy a reader?

I did not expect this question to create so much confusion. May be some one who has experience (don’t ask how much) in reading research articles in mathematics (pure mathematics, if that makes some difference) can say something relevant as it differs from one field to another field.
By diagram, I do not mean graphs. I want to explain the setup in diagrams. I do not know if it reach correctly but,  I want to add diagram of heart and not graph of case study how many times it beats in different persons of different age or something like that.


texts: As a teaching-assistant, how can I avoid repetitive teaching?

texts:
As a teacher assistant, I am always thinking about preparing my students with up-to-dated teaching materials and examples; however, I can see many TAs in my department who teach the content they used to teach in the past semesters and now it is obvious that because the students have access to the previous year's pamphlets and handouts, they are not encouraged to attend these TAs classes. Even some of these students just copy and paste the problems and assignments from the past homeworks.

  As a teacher assistant, how can I avoid being stuck in repetitive
  teaching?

However, changing the problems each semester seems really a hard work and is almost impossible because the TA has to revise more than a hundred question or even find such quantity of new problems.

  What are the techniques you use to keep your teaching material up-to-dated and
  alluring to the interested student; also to avoid lazy student to copy
  the paste semester materials?

As asked in one of the comments,

The courses I do teaching assistantship is engineering mathematics for masters students consisting solution of partial differential equations and also ordinary differential equations for bachelors students of engineering or one or two other subjects related to my major; (each semester I may have only one of these classes, I don't take simultaneous teaching assistantship classes).

I have regular classes each week for instance having two hours a week teaching assistant class.

I usually prepare some problems and after a brief review on the methods, formulas and concept; I solve those problems for students. I usually photocopy my problems for my students. Also, at the end of each topic, I assign them some problems to solve and ask their questions if they have any. Also, I give them two exams, one at the middle of the term and one at the end of each term.


texts: Etiquette and guidelines for sending pre-published work to other people?

texts:
So I've just written up a report that could eventually turn into a publishable manuscript, but since I'm new and this would be the first paper that I've ever written, I'm definitely going to need quite a bit of feedback before submitting it (especially since it's important for research to be interesting to multiple individuals if it's ever going to be cited).

So I'm wondering - how should I phrase an email asking someone to look at my work? Which people should I ask to comment on my work? And how would it differ from professor to graduate student? I'm thinking that my research can be interesting and helpful to a few grad students, so they can often provide a lot of help (that, and they have a lot more time than professors).

If one has time, I'm also wondering if it's a good idea to send the manuscript to people sequentially (e.g. send it to a 2nd person only after getting feedback from the first). That way, no effort is lost if two people suggest the same set of changes.


texts: Should scholarship/fellowship monetary amount be listed in CV?

texts:
I know there are similar questions but here I would like to focus on scholarships and fellowships that pay tuition and/or a stipend. This is for a CV for PhD or scholarship/fellowship applications, so early career stage and whatever that my imply on the length of the CV.

Given a candidate with 3-5 of these ranging from $1000 to $15,000. Should the amount and what the amount covers be listed? Or just list the institution and award name?


texts: Are there cases when UoPeople degrees are not accepted?

texts:
UoPeople (University of the People) is an extremely non-expensive (because it is a non-profit organization and is run mainly on donations and volunteer work) online university offering several Associate, Bachelor, and Masters degrees in several fields of study.
For example, I recently started a study for a degree. I paid $60 admission fee and $20 (it would be $100 or $120 - I don't remember for sure, if there were no scholarship for me) per course plus $17 per a proctored exam when an exam is proctored, with no other fees if I recall correctly (well, I think there is also a small graduation fee).
Are there (many of?) known cases when degrees or credits of UoPeople were not accepted (e.g. by employees, other universities, etc.) where degrees or credits of most other online university courses are accepted? Or are there rumors of it being not legit or not competitive enough degrees?
If you can mention any such cases, what were the reasons of valuing UoPeople students not well?
In my opinion, UoPeople is a quite legit university by the following criterions that I consider the only valid criteria of a legit university:

It provides hard enough and relevant enough courses.
Rating well is not easy (as I know now - I studied in another university in the past and there it was easier to get good grades).

In other word, in my opinion it means that the degrees are not at all fake. (Just like as Linux is gratis but it's not a fake or bad software but could compete well with Windows if it were advertised enough.)


texts: How to cite simple definitions when writing university papers?

texts:
When writing any kind of paper or homework at the university I am supposed to give references for my citations. At the same time, sources like Wikipedia are not considered good for university level. Now let's say I am writing about malware, and I want to give definition about virus. Wikipedia has a good explanation, but I obviously cannot just copy without references (right?), and to give reference to Wikipedia is considered unacceptable.

So how am I supposed to give reference to such an item? Am I supposed to change the sentence in such a way that it cannot be tracked where I took it from?


texts: Would I be disqualified from academic positions in mathematics if my PhD is in cognitive science?

texts:
I'm currently working on a PhD in cognitive science, but my research and interests straddle the line between cognitive science and mathematics. Right now, I am most interested in pursuing an academic career, and I've begun looking at job openings for postdocs and assistant professorships just to see what's out there (fully realizing those exact positions will be long gone by the time I graduate). I noticed that some positions listed in statistics/mathematics programs seem to fit my overall interests and skills; however, they almost universally state that a PhD in mathematics or statistics is required to apply.

When the time comes to apply for positions, should I even bother applying to the ones where my PhD is not technically among the ones listed on the job opening? Obviously, if my PhD was in a completely different field than the position in question, my chances of getting it would be low. However, what about positions where my research is within the scope of the field in question, even though my PhD is not (e.g., my PhD is in cognitive science, my research deals with statistical approaches to study cognition, and the position is in a statistics department)? Would I be disqualified on a technicality?


texts: Is it evident whether I am a masters student or a PhD student just by looking at my transcript?

texts: After I finished the first year in a PhD program, considering that I took the same courses that masters students in the same school take, is there a way other institutions can tell if I am a masters student or a PhD student just by looking at my official transcript?


texts: Can publications on research conducted before I started my tenure-track position count towards tenure? Do they need to have my new affiliation?

texts:
I am joining a new school as a TT Assistant Professor soon and I know I will be on the 'tenure clock' and have to publish manuscripts in certain prestigious journals. I have two pending publications in high quality journals that would certainly help a lot with this. In both, most of the research was done before I joined the new school, but will be published after I officially join.

How do these papers get counted? Do they need the new affiliation in order to count towards tenure?
Is it acceptable to change my affiliation to the new school?


texts: Applying to a PhD program 12 years after completing an MS degree

texts:
I have finally found a PhD program that appeals to me based on my work history and research interests. There is a potential problem, though, in that the program wants at least one academic reference--but I graduated with my M.S. in 2008.
The head of the program indicated it would be acceptable for me to apply without any academic references, but they would prefer I have one from my thesis advisor if possible. This isn't possible, as I've tried over the years to reach out and say hello and maintain the connection, but he eventually just started ignoring my emails. The one upside is that I do work as a researcher in industry, and I have journal and industry publications, as well as speaking engagements I can point to.
Would it be better in such a scenario to go back and try to reconnect to my advisor? Or would applying in for the MS program alone be better?
Thank you for your insights!


texts: Visa application for PhD studies Australia

texts:
I want to commence my PhD studies in Melbourne as an international student. I have come to know that I need to enroll my child in australian school for submitting visa application via homeaffairs website.
Can anyone tell me any government or affordable school in melbourne?
Also tell how to submit my application for admission online for my 6-7 year child?
Please advice soon.


texts: Can we use students' class homework solution for research purpose?

texts: A colleague of mine would like to compare 25+ different Java implementations of the same homework. Is it OK (ethically/legally in the US) to share my students' class homework solutions with him for his research purposes?


texts: Is it bad not to answer the "Tell me how you behaved in a situation of conflict with your previous supervisor" question in a PhD interview?

texts:
I had an interview where I was asked to tell the committee about a situation where I had a conflict with one of my previous supervisors.
I told them the truth, which is "I have never had a conflict with any of my supervisor before". But they gave me a couple of minutes to think carefully so maybe I remember something. I could not come up with an idea.
Is it bad not to answer this question? In other words, should I have been not honest and make up a story?
How much of an effect can this question have on their final decision?


texts:
I graduated last year and had been working on a problem. Now I have some progress and am interested in applying (non US places mostly, mathematical physics). How should I write a thesis proposal? I have the draft version of my work but it is extremely technical and will require serious patience to read the whole thing. Whoever I can summarize the important ideas in a smaller thing.

My question is if I should attach an abstract, a summary and the draft of the paper along with the introductory mail? How should the mail be structured?

On a side note, one of the people at the institute had commended my work some time back when I had sent them a previous draft.


texts: How often should I chat or exchange messages/emails with my previous advisor?

texts:
For example, it will be really awkward if I never chat with my common friends for a year, and then asking for help when I need it.
A lot of people here on ASE has been suggesting that we should treat professors as common people, rather than a "special type of species". So I wonder if similar rules apply: shall I infrequently greet my previous advisor during holidays and/or chat about general research ideas, perhaps once every two months, to keep a good relation?
Ultimately, I will most likely need some help from advisor at some point of time, I think. It is master advisor in my case but if you have some general thoughts please feel free to share. Many thanks!


texts: Can I accept two funded offers from universities and decide later after April 15?

texts:
I am an international student. I received several offers, but I am interested in two options:

1) Option A: It is my top choice. However, it gave me only partial tuition, so I will need external sources of funding. The resolution of these sources is going to be in June (federal funds), several months after the April 15th deadline.
2) Option B: It gave full tuition and a monthly living stipend. I am very grateful to the university.

For both programs, I have until April 15 to accept offers. I have been reading about April 15 Resolution and it has complicated me to make a decision. Since both schools gave me financial aid, I think there is a problem in there about accepting an offer concerning financial aid. As far as I understand, in Option A, if I pay my deposit fee I accept their financial aid. Nevertheless, to attend Option A I will necessarily need external funding. If I don't receive it, I will not be able to attend Option A.

I already have an opportunity to study a graduate program in US (Option B). I would not like to be in the scenario of rejecting a good and safe opportunity and not have external funding, that would mean not to attend graduate studies this year. I would love to go to Option A, but I am restricted to external factors as funding.

Is there any advise you could give me in this situation?


texts: How can I recover professionally from being a crank?

texts:
Three years ago I got kicked out of graduate school in physics. I was suffering from mental illness, which led me to believe I made a huge discovery in physics. But my advisor kept saying that what I was doing is nonsense and that I should focus on something else. I just ignored him and kept working on huge discovery, convinced I was going to win a Nobel prize.
I started sending many emails to many physics people (I had a list of thousand email addresses I found online) hoping someone would realize my amazing discovery. I got kicked from school which made me send more emails (almost one a day near the end), and when I got negative responses I sent an email to everyone on the list insulting them and saying I deserved to be in their place.
I got psychiatric help, and eventually doctors found a brain tumor, which they removed. I am now taking drugs, and doing much better. I now realize how insane my behavior was.
I want to re-apply to grad school, but I’m scared people will recognize my name or contact my university. My undergraduate grades were very good. Should I mention my illness (with proof) when applying? Should I send apology emails to the people I’ve contacted?


texts: Where can I apply for a third party Travel Grant?

texts:
I am a fresh graduate (LLB) and I was selected as an volunteer for a conference in UK (held in June 1st & 2nd). They don't provide travel or accomodation expenses.

I'm a Sri Lankan citizen who resides in Sri Lanka and this volunteering opportunity will definitely be a great experience in my life. I really can't miss this opportunity.

But as a citizen from a developing country, its really hard for me to spend on huge airfare. Is there any place/organization that I can apply for a travel grant for my volunteering? (It will be a great help if I can gain even only the airfare, then I can spend my own for accommodation)


texts:
I am writing a master thesis of about 80-100 pages and want to know a good way of structuring my document either using only chapters or chapters and "parts". f first wanted to post this question to the TeX Stack Exchange but realized that it was too philosophical.

As most thesis writers I use LaTeX and I have seen thesis templates that use \part (classicthesis) and ones that do not (master thesis template from a university). I think that classicthesis is mostly aimed at PhD thesis documents that are longer and will become a "book".

So when is it appropriate to use \part? Any specific document length in pages or number of chapters?

When you use \part then a page is cleared after the text. Is this a style that is used in American PhD thesis documents? Why is this done?

I have also looked at some textbooks and they often do not have something similar to part. Instead these books only use chapters. One of my favorite textbooks (Artificial Intelligence: A modern approach by Russel) uses parts but no actual pages that show the parts name. Instead they are only visible in the table of contents.

My two competing ideas are with and without parts:

   \chapter{Introduction}
\part{Concepts}
   \chapter{Background}
   \chapter{Related work}
\part{Methods and systems}
   \chapter{Proposed method}
   \chapter{Implementation}
\part{Evaluation}
   \chapter{Experiments}
   \chapter{Analysis}
\part{Conclusions}
   \chapter{Conclusions}
   \chapter{Future work}


texts: I unknowingly submitted plagiarised work

texts: I have received an email saying that my essay is under consideration for the ethics committee for suspected plagiarism. My lecturer had told us that we could work on our essays together as we were all using the same data. My friend handed in her essay in semester 1 and I handed in mine in semester 2. We used her essay as a guideline because she received such a good grade in hers. I have a meeting with the ethics committee and I want to be prepared. What should I say and what should I avoid saying?


texts:
Is transfer credit transitive?  If B accepts credits from A, and C accepts credits from B, will C accept credits from A, provided a student transfers to B before coming to C?

I have transfer credits at my current, American, university.  Some of them are from a previous American university, some of them are from a foreign high school, and some are from online classes.  If I transfer, will the university I transfer to accept my current transfer credit just as it does any credit from my current university?

Something I'm looking at now is online classes from Saylor.  I'm just afraid that even if my current university accepts ACE credit, if I transfer, these credits may not follow me.


texts:
I notice that in the physics field, there are sometimes co-first authors, both names being followed by a footnote saying "These two authors contribute equally."

Even though explicitly labeled as so, one name still comes before the other. Also, as far as I know, the one believed to contribute a little bit more goes first. Hence, these are actually not real co-first authors.

Imagine in some journal with an author-title header on every page. The name of FirstAuthorB, the co-first author who comes after FirstAuthorA, will not be shown, as in

  FirstAuthorA et al.: Paper Title

So is there some other generally accepted ways to truly display two first authors as completely equal?


texts: How do I cite a quote in the title of a paper

texts:
I have written a paper (only internally marked) and I have a title:

"GCR2: A Riddle, Wrapped in a Mystery, Inside an Enigma".

This was initially a Winston Churchill quote about Russia (after the colon anyway). However, it seems silly to reference it directly in the title and I have been looking around on the web and cannot find how to reference something that only appears in the title.

Any guidance or links to websites will be very helpful (although I couldn't find any!)


texts: Switching postdoc position (station) in China

texts: I had applied for postdoc in a university in China, all documentation went through and my was successful in that funds were approved @ 120 K RMB (lowest) + 30K and housing etc. I received the work permit from the school, and then the pandemic came, I wasn't able to even apply for the Z visa. This happened around December 2019 - January 2020. The permit expired and as of today I haven't heard anything from the school. In the meantime, I have found another better postdoc offer from Beijing, the documentation hasn't started yet but I am concerned that my information might already be in the system linked to the previous school. How do I get rid of the previous school or do I need to worry at all? Because I never started the first position in the first place, and I prefer to chose this new offer instead of the previous. Anyone who has experience with Chinese postdoc system might be able to help and guide. Thanks.


texts: Applying for masters in a field different than what I have experience in

texts:
I am sorry this is a bit long, I tried to keep it as short as possible. So please bear with me.

I am currently in the final year of my undergraduate course and am planning to apply for masters in computer graphics, and although I have a significant experience in graphics (by working on shaders and image effects for games as I am heavily interested in game development), I don't have any academic research work, or recommendations in that field and moreover none of the professors in my university are actively working in that field whom I can work with.

I do have research based work in AI and natural language processing including a research paper but only because a lot of my professors and peers were enthusiastic in the field whom I could work with and also I had somewhat interest in that field. But its not something I would want to pursue masters in.

My question is how do I make my application such that I can represent myself as a valuable and worthy candidate for a course in computer graphics even though I have little experience in it. And also will showing in my application (SOP) that I have research work in AI and not in computer graphics weaken it, as it will portray me as someone whose not focused towards this track, or for some other reason? Or would it actually be beneficial to include that?


texts: Does a sponsored invited talk count for my cv?

texts:
I was invited to give a presentation in a lunch symposium of an important national medical conference. The symposium was sponsored by a pharmaceutical company (my talk was unrelated to their product).
Would this constitute an invited talk in my cv (or keep it a secret)?


texts: Building a local database from Web of Science and Scopus search results

texts:
I would like to build a local bibliography database (possibly with SQL) with the data exported from Web of Science (WOS) search results. I can export these online query results in a BibTeX file and process this file offline with my favorite scripting language.

Now, the problem is indexing the data. WOS provides each BibTeX entry with their own "WOS Unique ID" (often times, but not always, provides DOI), however, researchers' names are not uniquely identified. This is a problem because researchers often have different names in different papers and other BibTeX entries.

I really need the capability of indexing authors on my local database, to interface it with my scripting language. Ideally, WOS would allow exporting the query results datafile with some "author IDs". This would solve my problem, but can it be done for free? Is anyone aware of some other method I could explore to go about this problem? Thanks a lot!


texts: Editor rejected paper because of insufficient reviews

texts:
I received a decision notice on a paper this morning. Reviewer 1 gave a positive review, suggesting relatively minor cosmetic adjustments, etc. However, the editor was apparently unable to obtain a second review, replying:

  ... the Editors have decided that your manuscript cannot be accepted for publication in XXXXX, as we have been unable to secure enough agreements from peer reviewers to examine your submission.

I admit that I'm puzzled by this response, and am curious what if any response from me could be useful. Is it possible that the paper was just not a good fit for the journal? If so, I wish the editor had rejected it right away. I'm curious if anyone has another explanation or suggestions for steps forward. And if the step forward is just "find a different journal" that's kind of what I'm expecting at this point.


texts: Advice on acquiring letters of recommendation and from whom

texts: I am currently doing my Masters in Neuroscience and applying for a PhD in neuroscience and had a research project component (50%) but my supervisor is close to retirement and sort of unaware of the system of LORs and how strong they need to be/how they need to be written. I have a really good one from one of my academic professors and I have asked my supervisor and she said yes, but she's been sitting on it and hasn't done it yet. I do however have really good recommendations from my undergrad - college principal/head of department and a professor. Could I use those? Or should I submit an above average one from my supervisor (if she gives it to me, I know she'll just say that I did good work and finished the project - no personal references etc). Or should I try getting another academic one from one of my masters professors?


texts: How to take notes while reading textbook?

texts:
I am very interested in Physics and I want to read as much as I can. Most people, including my teachers, advise me to take notes as I read. But I find this very difficult. I can concentrate only on one thing at a time -- whether that's reading or making notes. When I concentrate on reading then usually the notes that I make are of very bad quality and eventually I lose interest in reading. When I focus on reading then usually I read particular content from various resources and I find this very fascinating. On the other hand, if I focus on taking notes then usually I lose interest in reading.

How can I get rid of this habit of mine? How can I take notes effectively?


texts: How do I 'read the room' and adjust my pace while lecturing?

texts:
I am a PhD student. I've never taught a lecture-style course before. I just filled in for my advisor at the last minute, giving a lecture in an undergrad course.
I taught from the lecture slides that my advisor had prepared, drawing diagrams and examples on the whiteboard where I thought it was warranted. I stopped often and asked if anyone had questions, and if nobody did I posed questions to them, e.g., "What do you think is the benefit of this system over that?" "What did you learn about X?"
My impression was that approximately 30% of the class was pretty engaged, asking and answering questions, etc., 50% were taking notes and paying attention but not really speaking up, and the rest were zoned out. I think this is normal (from what I remember from being an undergrad), so I thought I was doing OK.
However, towards the end of the lecture, a few students said that I was going much faster than normal. And, I did get through more slides than my advisor said I should expect to, so they're probably right.
My question is:

What clues do you look for to "read a room" to tell that you're going too fast, even though people seem to still be "getting it"?
What can you do to slow down, beyond asking if anybody has questions and bringing up more examples (I can only think of so many examples)?

I am asking specifically about teaching undergrads, because I think they are more difficult to read than postgrads, or senior academics in the audience of a conference talk.  But I would appreciate answers that apply to the latter scenario as well.
Also, I understand that things like clickers and discussion groups can make a difference, but I am asking specifically how to improve my lecturing, not how to restructure classes so I spend less time lecturing.
A related question is How to improve myself as a lecturer, where one answer says "Never assume that students follow you" and suggests you "see if they get the idea, sort of get the idea, or don't get it at all." I tried to do this, and it seemed like the students that were willing to engage were "getting it." Apparently they were getting it, but I was still going at a speed that made their heads hurt :)


texts: Application Letter for European Universities

texts: I'm applying for a research fellowship at a European University, and one of the requirements is an application letter that outlines which project proposals (created by professors at the university) I'd be the most interested in. Is anyone familiar with this process? What is the format of this kind of letter?


texts: Should you email a journal after 3 weeks kindly asking why a manuscript hasn't been sent for review, or is this too soon?

texts: Am I simply being impatient? It's a computer science/biomedical journal. Don't want to seem pushy, yet it seems like it shouldn't take 3 weeks to see if a manuscript is within scope and decide whether to send it for review. It's been sitting at the "with editor" status with no status updates.


texts: Submitting theory papers to EECS conferences with hard 8/10 page limit

texts:
Paraphrasing the 'Call for Papers' for the popular networks conference INFOCOM, submissions on a wide range of research topics, spanning both theoretical and systems research are invited. INFOCOM also has a hard 8 page limit on submissions including appendices etc.

For papers on the theoretical side / relying on proofs, the 8 page limit is far too short a span to submit self-contained papers. Is there a general protocol for submitting longer theory papers to such conferences which do not explicitly mention anything about an extended-paper being submittable alongside.


texts: How to cite a published review report of a journal article?

texts:
I found an interesting idea that was discussed in detail in a published reviewer report on an article in journal X (an open peer review journal) and I want to mention it in my manuscript.

How to cite and reference that reviewer report in Vancouver style?


texts: Can I use the exact same research proposal for different scholarships?

texts:
I wrote a research proposal (edited by my potential advisor) for an external scholarship application. This application is due at the end of the month.

I just found out that the internal scholarship also requires a research proposal. Would it be ethical to use to exact same proposal (i.e., copy and paste) for the internal scholarship application which is due at the end of next month? Or would this be considered plagiarism?

The department will have both of my scholarship applications. So they will be able to see they are the same.


texts: What things can I do as a job market candidate to gauge the internal political culture of a department that is hiring?

texts:
I am about to finish my phd and have been frustrated with the toxic politics and culture of my department.

During the job search, what are some specific things I can do to learn about the internal political environment of the hiring department?

I am not talking about their personal political beliefs, but instead the politics of how things are decided in the department, whether people respect each other, whether there are camps fighting for power, etc.

I want to avoid ending up in a department with similar political problems as the one I'm in now.


texts: Hiring academics for very large industrial consulting projects - how to find an arrangement without full-time employees?

texts:
As described in Hiring a faculty consultant, we need to hire a faculty consultant. The initial stages are perhaps only 100 hours, but subsequent stages may blossom to ten times that.

Will good professors be able to deliver that much consulting time? Would I be better off with a grad student or postdoc - could they deliver that much time?  Or with a less accomplished professor with more time on their hands?

One alternative we've considered is to hire a fresh Ph.D. looking to enter industry. The problem is that we are not ready to commit to a full time employee - it's only if we get good results in the initial stages (and our investors agree!). Is there a solution for this?

One last alternative is to work out a research arrangement, where the professor would direct some of their research towards our needs. They'd get to publish the papers (with the application details removed, but the algorithms there) and we'd get ownership of the IP and control over the research agenda. Is that an option?


texts: What should raise red flags to detect fabricated data

texts:
In academia, there has been recently some cases that came to light of very well known scientists that have fabricated their data out of thin air.

In some instances these papers have been cited many times by other researchers and some of them have even been praised. Thus, when the truth came to light, it also appears to the  public that scientists have bad peer-review processes.

In light of the presented reasons, how can a reviewer make at least some sanity test that the data is (most likely) not fabricated? Suggesting so could come as a great injury to the researcher, but I think there should be some kind of mechanism to control this.


texts: Is it wise to try to remove myself from predator mailinglists?

texts:
A predator journal (Americal Journal of Applied Mathematics) regulary sends me mails about how I should submit to them or join the peer review. Recently I discovered there is a Unsubscribe link in the mail. Now I'm wondering if I should use it.

On one hand, if it works, great.
On the other hand a general rule is not to reply to spam in any way. I can't say where I've heard that but that is my usual MO. But the predator journals are not a fake Nigerian prince, so I'm wondering if I should unsubscribe.

I am aware of the fact I can just mark these mail as spam or delete them automatically with a decent mail client. This alternative is known, but not part of the question. The question is if unsubscribing would be without negative consequences. Maybe someone had some experiences with SciencePG (the predator publisher) or similar groups.

EDIT: For future readers I would like to point out Nav's comment, which links here


texts: Is it necessary to understand every detail of a research paper?

texts:
I am currently an undergraduate thinking about doing a Bachelor's thesis (and publish one or two papers if at all possible). I have found an advisor in computer science (artificial intelligence). I have begun to review literature suggested by my advisor. Most of the times I can understand the general idea of a paper (and why it is novel or important). However, very often I can't understand all details of it. Sometimes it is the lengthy math proof that I can't follow and sometimes it is the algorithm description that lacks too many details for me to code it up by myself.

So is it necessary or recommended for me to figure out everything in a paper? I can certainly ask for advisor all questions I have about a paper but I do not feel good about it. I think it is a kind of wasting his time to go through all mathematical details that support a major claim which I have already understood. Also I want whether this aspect of literature review is different if I am an undergraduate vs. PhD student vs. professional researchers.


texts: Why does this US DOI manuscript on archaeological sites have blacked-out text?

texts: While searching for information for a course I'm teaching, I ran into this article from the US Department of the Interior describing some archaeological sites in the Southwest. It has tons of blacked out text. It doesn't seem to serve the purpose of correcting mistakes, as lots of details from the article are hidden. Is this a form of censorship of the information? If so, why would the US DOI have a reason for censoring this information?


texts: Article-based PhD and advisor's (new) role?

texts:
My engineering university offers a relatively new option to do an article-based dissertation, where the primary research is submitted (and hopefully published) in several scientific journals (at my university it's 3). The dissertation is then shorter than a typical PhD, because it describes how the articles fit together to form the thesis, etc.

It's a relatively new idea (for engineering PhDs and for me), which I find interesting as an advisor because it engages PhD students more in the research experience (publishing). Also, it is theoretically more efficient for the advisor and student (as a co-author), since time and energy spent on revising could be more focused on getting publications, and not only on a big PhD dissertation that few people will ever read.

There are other advantages described here (not my university).

My question is not about whether it's good or bad, but how the role of an advisor on co-authored papers might change in such cases.

For example, when students write a traditional dissertation (masters or otherwise), they often struggle with communicating. Students grow and improve written communication and contents of the dissertation in an iterative and incremental process (draft revisions after feedback from the advisor).

In traditional grad-student co-authorship setting, I would take a more active role as an editor (as my advisor did when I was a PhD student) on a paper, mostly because of experience and to increase chances of getting an article published. Sometimes that role is minimal, if only a workshop or conference is targeted, since it might be easier to publish there.

But with an article-based PhD, it seems that the active approach in editing co-authored journal papers is essential, and in effect writing a big part of the dissertation for the student. I realize every case is different.

I'd be happy to know from experienced advisors in this setting to know if and how an advisor's role must change in article-based PhDs.


texts: How to improve English quality of my paper?

texts:
I am in phase of writing 2nd paper. Previous paper is rejected. The one of the main objection in previous paper was English quality. As English is not my native language and reviewers only say "there are some mistakes, paper quality needs to be improved". This puts me doubt in myself and my major concern becomes writing instead of doing research. I spend a lot of time to read my paper again and again and re-write sentences. But how do I know that it is good now. It is infinite loop for me. What should I do to enhance quality of English. I have nobody available to review my paper for me. Kindly give me some suggestions:

What about online proofreading software i.e. grammarly, language tool, perfectit etc? which one do you use especially for scientific writing form computer science domain?
What about online copy-editors and proofreaders that are available to read my paper. I have checked some websites but the charges were too high. Do you have used any service like this that had affordable cost
any other options?


texts: Citing works in a list without having read them

texts:
I know this may seem a duplicate question, but I haven't find an answer to my question and I am scared to ask my supervisor.
I am doing my literature review in sociolinguistics and I have different reputable sources: articles and books.
Most of the authors quote the same famous works while describing that they made a contribution to the discipline.
Many of these works are well known and not easy to find (old).
So, is it ok if I write "[...] These themes were examinated by other scholars (e.g. Smith 1970, Doe 1977)", without having read those two books by Smith and Doe, but having read reviews and studies that explain them?
I have just read a dissertation which was written in less than 1 year after fieldwork and it has hundreds or references: I can't imagine the author actually read it. It seems common to me.
Can somebody clarify?


texts: Is there a university website that lists all books used/recommended per course in order?

texts: That non-enrolled people can access, of course.


texts: Are PhD scholarships and assistantships taxable?

texts:
I'm currently in the process of applying for various scholarships to fund my PhD.

Many scholarships mention explicitly the approximate amount per year of the scholarship. This is usually the amount excluding tuitions, so the amount mentioned is intended to be a stipend to cover living expenses.

I've never seen it mentioned anywhere, nor could I find a definite answer of this online: will this stipend be taxed? E.g., should I subtract a certain percentage off the scholarship amount that's mentioned, to calculate my real monthly income? Does this depend on the country the scholarship is given in, or are there international agreements on this?

I'm in the initial stages of setting up my PhD programme, therefore I'm in contact with professors in New Zealand, Australia, the United States and Canada, so ideally, answers to my question apply to any of these countries. If it's relevant: I'm a dual citizen (European/American Citizen).


texts: Applying to a school with a new PhD program

texts:
I am interested in studying biostatistics, and was looking at several schools to apply to. I live in the DC area and would ideally like to stay in this area. Georgetown and the University of Maryland have new PhD programs in biostatistics. I believe they have both had masters programs in biostatistics for several years now, but their PhD programs are new.

My question is this: Is it risky to apply to a PhD program that is new?

More specifically, does that hinder future employment because the university doesn't have as many connections with other places? Does the fact that these universities already had a masters program mitigate that?


texts: Is it ethically questionable for me (an undergraduate) to hire "research assistants"?

texts:
I am an undergraduate student being paid a (relatively speaking) hefty monthly research stipend. I need only some of this money to pay off my university fees and living costs, since I have wonderfully generous parents.

The research projects I work on officially revolve around applied problems in math biology. Lately, I have been interested in Baez's work on "network  theory", but  because of full course load, along with the research project I am responsible for, I don't have the time to explore these ideas as I'd like to.

I have some ideas for pure math projects that involve extending Baez's nascent network theory ideas to problems in biology. I also have some ideas for tools that could be made in order to help a researcher formally analyze interaction systems.

These ideas are completely tangential to my own work (for the moment), although if I were able to set up the groundwork for them to the point where I am able to see that they do have potential, I'd love to bring it up with my professor.

One idea I have had recently is that I could hire my own "research assistants" out of my stipend (I am allowed to spend it as I like, right)? I could provide them with my motivations, and give them "guidance" (I don't know how capable I would be of this) through ongoing communication. This way, I would be able to explore my ideas, even if I don't personally have the energy and time to see them through right now. The alternative of course, is that I buckle up and find time from somewhere (e.g. by not writing this post) to work on the ideas, or put them away for a later date when I do have time.

So, is hiring my own research assistants at this time ethically questionable?


texts: Seeking out guidance from a Professor at another institute during PhD

texts:
I'm interested in the research of a particular professor at University 1 (top 5 in my field), which recently rejected my PhD application. I do have an offer from another place, (University 2, top 20) which I now plan on attending.

Can I go to University 2, complete the requirements for a masters, and reapply to University 1?
Would it be possible for me to seek out guidance from (or maybe even collaborate with) the professor at University 1 during these two years who might then want me as a PhD student?

This is all in the US.


texts:
As part of my graduate program, I am required to give presentations to a group of attendees and a program panel about various topics including but not limited to research, involvement, and case studies.

The audience pays attention but rarely ask questions. A survey was released about my effectiveness as a lecturer and nearly 65% of attendees stated my voice was "too authoritative."  A common problem was my voice being authoritative and causing the audience to be too timid to ask serious questions related to the topic. Talking in an "enthusiastic" tone (in my own opinion) yielded no results. My voice is very deep and, in order to project well, I tend to speak loudly (no microphones).

What are some tactics to get the attendees engaged and not appear "too authoritative?"

EDIT:

Let me add some details that I find relevant that I missed adding. The survey is handed out as attendees walk in. Between each lecturer there is a 10 minute "intermission" to allow attendees to exit or enter. The attendees are required to hand in surveys as they leave. The uni hosting the lecture combines common themes among the surveys. It is unknown how similarities are determined except to the staff reviewing the surveys. The results are then emailed to the lecturer with good and bad things about the lecture. I am then required to email to my supervisor.


texts: What to do about repeated PhD rejections?

texts: I'm a prospective graduate student in political science with a strong GPA and research interest in climate change and environmental conflict. My challenge is that I have been finding it difficult to get into a PhD programme. I have been applying since 2018. This year I hoped I would get into my desired choice but I was rejected due to my low GRE score. I don't want to take the exam again but political science departments seem to strongly value high GRE scores.  What can I do to improve my chances of acceptance?


texts: How to submit code (visual studio projects, C#, OpenCL) with my IEEE paper submission

texts:
I am trying to submit a paper to IEEE (transactions on signal processing). Along with my paper I have written some code (Visual studio projects, C#, OpenCL and accompanying dlls and exes).

The software is about 25MB in size (once compressed to zip). While I can submit the code text files with my submission very easily, the full working solution is not easy to submit with my paper. The IEEE submission system does not appear to like zip files. I would like to submit my code to the journal in a form that is easy for them to run so easily see how I produced my results.

What options do I have for doing this?

In future I would like to put the code on github as well but I am not sure what stage in the process is best for this.


texts: Is it true that it is easier to obtain a PhD in Europe than the US on average?

texts: I am a physics undergrad, and plan to pursue a PhD in mathematical physics (string theory?). I have heard from a lot of people, who have personally seen the research scenario at universities both in the US and Europe, that it is much easier to get a PhD from a European university, that it takes about 3-4 years in a good university in Europe, while more than 5 years in American universities. Another thing I have been told is that in Europe you get your PhD after 4 years atmost by default, even if you have not done any original research. Is it true?


texts: Pseudocode, in a paper -- is it a figure or a table?

texts:
The question is simple: I have to insert more pseudo codes in my paper. Last year we have labeled them as Table.

Yesterday, my supervisor has said me to use Figure.

What is the standard for IEEE articles and for the dissertations?


texts: How can my organisation's published reports get indexed by Google Scholar?

texts:
My organisation (i.e. my employer) publishes peer-reviewed research reports in the form of a journal series via its website.  The organisation alone publishes the reports and they are not published in conjunction with any publishing agency or academic body.  The research reports are written and peer reviewed by academics and the research activity funding is managed by my organisation.

The research reports are in PDF form (with metadata attached), and are listed on a web page containing metadata in the form of the fields required by Google Scholar.  The Google Scholar submission process was completed ten months ago in March 2016.  There was one issue identified: there is not a volume/issue listing of the reports, they are discoverable via the website search engine.

The website has been submitted to Google Scholar with example URLs, but to date, the body of research that is made available via the organisation's website is not included in the Google Scholar index.

Where the research reports are also stored and published by university databases, these do appear in the index.

Additionally, citations to the research reports do often appear in the index without any link to the location of the report.  Ideally, we would like to enable these citations to also show links to the online reports.

I had thought that the form and structure of the research report publication was suitable, but our organisation's website has not been included in Google Scholar indexing.

Some suggestions on the Google Scholar website are to use a journal publishing service (established journal hosting services) or recommended software such as Open Journal Systems.

What process should I follow to investigate or progress this issue further?

I suspect that I'm not looking in the right place in my investigations, so I need some direction.


texts: Asking questions/sending note to the three authors of a paper in economics, three personalized letters?

texts:
A famous paper has three coauthors. I wrote a note regarding that paper and want to get some feedback from them. Shall I send the note and my questions in one email to the three authors together (with two of them in cc line or also in "to" line), or is it more respectful to send three different personalized letters?
If I am sending three personalized letters to each of them, shall I tell them that I also send the letter to the two other authors?
One obvious answer for natural science disciplines is to send one email to the corresponding author only. However, most economic papers have equal coauthors and many economic papers have no corresponding authors or three corresponding authors with email addresses specified. In contrast, the natural science papers usually only have one corresponding.


texts: Should I mention in my manuscript's cover letter that I am a PhD student?

texts: I am a PhD student in Mathematics. My adviser told me that I can submit our manuscript to some journal. So I am writing a cover letter and I am just wondering if I should mention in the cover letter that I am a PhD student.