texts: Will following a famous professor as a research internship be bad?

texts:
I am an undergraduate student majoring in computer science.

I just get an internship offer to work for a famous professor's (or say leading person in his field) lab in a top university. It is a good opportunely for me, I can have great exposure, good guidance(though as they said mostly I will follow his phd students) and might have chance to get some publications with them.

The thing I am concerning is as he is a leading person in top universities, he must be surrounded by lots of smart persons. Even though I push myself to the limit I might still be an average or even a lower average person to him. The reference letter I get (for my graduate application) might not be that good or even an negative factor (in someway called "proved failure", proved I am not that smart). It is kind of like in my own university I can get an A level grade, but when I am in the top university, due to the competition and other factors I might only get a B or C level grade. And unlike grade, I can never know what he wrote in the reference. If I don't have that reference, the admission office might never my limit but with that my limit is obvious to them. Maybe after working for one year I will not get a "plus" but a "minus" for my graduate application.

If I go I will defiantly try my best, but I am currently have another offer from a "less famous" professor and following whom I might have less risk to be affected by the factor I mentioned.

If just considering the factor I mentioned above alone, will it be bad to follow a famous professor?


texts: How should I ask what degree abbreviations an academic wants to come after their name?

texts:
I am writing a conference presentation application form, and so far presenters must fill in the blanks as follows:

Name
Title (Mr, Ms, Dr, Prof, etc.)
Position
Organisation

I also want to know what degree abbreviations the presenters would like added after their name, e.g. Dr. John Doe, PhD, MSc.

What label should I give the blank that they must fill in?

Degrees awarded?
Degrees associated with name?
Highest degree obtained?
Degree abbreviations that you would like to be placed after your name? (too long!)


texts: In academic papers, is it always necessary to show the full mathematical description of well-accepted norms?

texts: For example, let's say you use a well-excepted data normalization method like z-normalization. To avoid clutter and help the flow of the paper, can you simply cite a source for z-normalization and move on, or will reviewers generally want to see everything formally defined in the paper itself? This assumes there is only one possible version of the technique being mentioned (if there were multiple, I would see why a full description would be needed).


texts: Can I lose my job over writing a negative comment on (anonymous) faculty evaluation of institution?

texts: I'm faculty and I work at a place that does faculty evaluations of our institution. I wrote a pretty harsh, but true comment on the back. While it's supposed to be anonymous, I'm still afraid it could be traced back to me. I know, it was a dumb move, but it didn't occur to me that writing the comment would be. Do you think I will lose my job over it? Maybe another dumb question, but I'm stressing right now.


texts:
Problem 1

I have been struggling coming out an efficient way to take notes while reading papers, one commonly-used way is annotate the paper while reading, but some issues include

These notes are hard to organize since they are distributed through the text.
There notes usually could not include mathematical formula. However, it is the major part of my notes.
When paper is lost in thousands of papers, it is impossible to recover them.

Therefore, I tried to use stand-alone notes written in markdown, but problem 2 arises.

Problem 2

As mentioned in problem 1, there are so many papers (and notes) I need to keep and it is just not feasible to keep hierarchy of folders, which could have up to 5 or even 10 hierarchy. Even though problem 1 is resolved, an effective and easy way to search and retrieve previous papers and notes is still needed.

Finally, any input about your solutions is appreciated.


texts: Finding more mathematicians who can write recommendation letter(s) for me

texts:
My question is specific to admissions in the graduate mathematics. I have had an unconventional training this far; I started off as an Economics major. I realized that I enjoy doing physics and mathematics much more, especially when I had my first exposure to a proof based course in mathematics. I then started taking physics and mathematics. Unfortunately, though, I took more physics than mathematics courses, even though I seem to be more interested in mathematics.

  I am contemplating applying to graduate school in mathematics, hoping to work under the supervision of someone who works in mathematical physics. Most mathematics departments mention that 3 letters of recommendations are required. Here's my situation:

I can arrange one mathematics professor, say Y, to write a letter for me. I have taken a second course in analysis with her, and I have been her TA for the first course in analysis twice. Other than that, due to my unconventional background, I have been studying mathematics with her out of class, and I continue to do so during the next year which I shall be taking off. My other two letter writers will be physicists: one works in the field of quantum dynamics; by the time I graduate, I would have had 4 courses and a paper with him, though I don't see myself working in his area of inquiry. The other one will be, hopefully, from a high energy physicist, with whom I took 2 400 level physics courses, and studied a bit of QFT in the summer. I'm not sure if I will continue working with starting summer as he is due to leave for a sabbatical.

  Should I arrange for more letter writers who are mathematicians? If so, what difference would that make in my case? For instance, suppose I arrange letter write X. With X, the best I can do in the next few months is to cover some material that I haven't done in a course. I can do the same material with professor Y as well, who seems open to the idea of my discussing the material I self study with her. Or, should I contact another instructor, X, and perhaps try and do something else with him or her. If so, what options should one choose to strength the application?


texts: As a US citizen, can I work for my Canadian university without a study permit from the US?

texts:
This is probably a fairly unique situation and I'm not sure if it's appropriate to ask here, but I'm currently finishing up my master's at a university in Quebec, but I no longer live in Quebec as I have no more classes to take and I'd rather be in the US for various reasons. My thesis advisor, however, wants to contract me as a research assistant for work that I can do even while I'm in the US.

The problem is that my study permit expired about a month ago and I'm not sure he'll be allowed to contract me unless I have a permit, even though I don't need the permit to finish up my degree since I'm not actually living in the Canada. I can probably renew the permit, but now that the expiration passed, it would cost me $350, which is hard to swallow considering that that would take up the first two weeks of pay.

So, are study permits required in this situation? Is there another type of permit I could get instead? Do I need a permit at all since I won't be stepping foot in Canada?

(I would call CIC directly to ask about this, but for some reason their 800 number does not accept calls from the US. I have not been able to find any way to directly contact CIC from the US.)


texts: Finding and connecting with academic headhunters

texts:
As a senior in my field, but very unhappy in my current institution, I am eager to move. My high REF score/productivity and ongoing Impact mean, even before grants, I cost less to employ on a fractional Chair, such as I currently hold, than I bring in. But there is a limit to how many fishing conversations I can have with colleagues elsewhere without these getting back to my current employer. Plus it becomes generally unprofessional.

So I am looking to post with academic headhunters (I know they're relatively rare, but they are used, especially for this kind of post).

Google search reveals firms who are only interested in approaches by institutions.

What are effective strategies for finding and connecting, discreetly, with academic head hunters?


texts: Does having a masters degree from a Chinese university have negative view for a PhD applicant in the United States?

texts:
I love travelling and I was thinking of getting my Master’s degree in mathematics abroad (I got my bachelors in the USA). I know that I can get funding if I go to China for my master’s.

Will it be viewed negatively if I try to apply for a PhD in the United States?


texts: Is it acceptable to keep extending medical leave to prolong insurance coverage, when one has no intent of returning?

texts:
Two years ago I enrolled in a very high-ranked program in field X. Partway through the program, I developed severe health problems which affected my memory and cognitive function, and which made it difficult to learn the required material. In addition, I also found I was not that interested in the research itself (although the aforementioned memory/cognitive problems were far more damaging to my learning than the lack of interest).
Due to the combination of these two factors, I sought medical leave to deal with the health problems, which was granted in March. Around July/August, the problem was partially alleviated, and I have mostly been feeling better, and have decided to switch to another field of study Y. I talked with my adviser about my situation and explained the health problems, and he asked me if I was still planning on re-entering the program, and I told him that I felt that I might perform better working in field Y; we mutually agreed to terminate the leave, and I am currently applying to a second round of graduate schools.
This is where things get slightly more complicated. The health insurance I had under the medical leave was far better than my ordinary health insurance, and my mother has (since August) been trying to persuade me to extend my leave as long as legally possible, potentially up until Fall 2015 enrollment. According to doctors I talked to at the previous institution, it is not uncommon for students to take up to three years on medical leave, so this is AFAIK legally possible. In the interim time, she wants me to tell my adviser that I am still dealing with medical issues, and am not yet able to decide on re-entering the institute's program in field X, during which I can apply to other schools in field Y and enroll in one of them for Fall 2015. I have not yet told her that I have previously spoken with my adviser and agreed to end the leave.
My question is:

Under this set of circumstances, was I right in contacting my adviser and terminating leave, instead of extending it up until Fall 2015 enrollment at another institution?

Personally, my gut instinct towards my mother's proposal is that it is effectively financial blackmail, arguably dishonest, and would sour post-leave relations with my adviser. However, I am generally bad at gauging these sort of questions, and seek advice here as to what the correct course of action would have been. My mother has told me that the institute legally has to extend my medical leave as long as I am otherwise in good standing and still expressing desire to eventually re-enroll, and that by doing otherwise, I am potentially burning academic bridges behind me and making it more difficult for me to find a new graduate position. In any case, I hope that this question is sufficiently generalizable that it can help people who find themselves in similar circumstances regarding the handling of academic medical leave.
Edit
To clarify, I was not paid a stipend during leave, and the insurance premium was paid for by the institution.


texts: Finding conferences in subject area (Medical Informatics)

texts:
I am struggling to find conferences in my subject area, preferably in Western Europe. My supervisor tends to be otherwise very busy and is poor at actually providing this information in practice.

My area isn't terribly niche: it concerns text mining of medical information (therefore straddling both medical informatics and computer science).

Is there a website that contains lists of informatics conferences? Or a particular avenue that one should ideally use when looking for conferences in this area?


texts: How can I present the significance of two statistical tests in one table?

texts:
I am working on my first independent publication and am unsure how to report the significances of two statistical tests in one table.
My professor has recommended that I should perform two statistical significance tests for robustness and present them in my article.
So far I have only done the t-test.
(If the value is significant according to the t-test, asterisks are added indicating the significance)
But I should add the significance of the Wilcoxon test as well.
The problem is that my tables with the t-test are already big enough and I can't expand them any more.
What can I do to also report the significance of the second test in the same table?
Should I perhaps write the values in bold if they are also significant according to the second test?
Or does anyone have a completely different idea?
Adding columns to the table or creating a new table is out of the question.
Here you can see an example of a table:

Many thanks in advance!


texts: How to know if I satisfy an equivalent 3.8 US GPA?

texts:
I graduated with a bachelor of math advanced (honor) with first class honor from an Australian university with a WAM (weighted average mark) of 93. My university does not have any GPA system.

I am applying for a graduate program in math in US and somewhere in their application, they say:

  If you have a GPA less than 3.8, then do not apply.

I do not know if I fall below 3.8 or not. All my grades are HD (High Distinction) per the Australian system. My lowest mark is 88 (out of 100) for a course in real analysis. Other grades vary between 90 and 99. In the Australian system, if you get a mark between 85 and 100, then you get HD grade for the subject.


texts: How many manuscripts per day are sent to leading journals?

texts: I wonder how many manuscripts are submitted daily to the top scientific journals, such as Nature or Science. Each of those journals has multiple editors, specialising in narrower fields. The question that follows is how many submittions does one editor handle daily?


texts: Should I cite a really bad research paper published in my small research area?

texts:
I am working on a special topic in applied math. We are trying to explore a new and largely unexplored area in our line of research. Our hope is to be the first researchers to have solid results in this new line of research.

Couple days ago, my co-author and I have stumbled upon a paper that is titled almost exactly as the topic that we wish to explore and publish.

However, upon further reading, we realized that the paper (despite being published in a journal) is actually very low quality. Not only that the theoretical guarantees does not support any of the applications in the paper, the theories themselves are also very poorly explained, definitions are missing, handwavy at times, and we suspect that the proofs are wrong, but cannot be verified due to author's lengthy and unconventional proof style, which involves some vague interpretation of results contained in other references, one of which is written in a language that is completely foreign to us and couldn't be found online after a quick Google search.

This isn't to say that the authors are cranks (even though the paper reads like one). The paper is roughly 10 pages. Properly formatted in the style of the journal. With ample (albeit, strange) diagrams. It is just that the results are confounding, suspicious, and paper is lacking in rigor, despite being peer reviewed and published in a journal.

For what it is worth, the authors are not working at a top-tier research institute and the journal is not the highest quality of this field.

What should we do when we start our writing process?

Should we painstakingly go through the process of providing a
critique of a paper that is written in such a way that it is difficult to critique (without dismissing it as poor writing)?
Or should we ignore the paper and pretend that we didn't see it? (Despite the fact we wish to work on the same, very specific, topic?)
Ultimately, what should you do when you see bad research papers like these?


texts: Would taking the GRE (when it is not required) be likely to help my application?

texts: I want to go to grad school for Applied mathematics, and I have a high GPA in my undergraduate of 3.56 in Applied Mathematics. I wanted to take the GRE. However, they are very costly around $200, which I am not sure if it is worth paying that much to take the GRE. I plan on applying for Graduate Assistantships. If I do not take the GRE, will that decrease my chances for getting into Grad school and a Graduate Assistantship even though the schools I want to apply to do not require the GRE?


texts: As a new PhD supervisor, how should I deal with taking a student to a wrong direction?

texts:
I am a postdoc who was supposed to co-supervise a PhD student along with another academic who invited me for that. However, I ended up fully supervising the student after the supervisor became too busy to attend meetings. Eventually, I also ended up defining a problem for the student, which, after 2 months of work, we discovered it is invalid. How should I deal with this situation? I feel that it's my fault and feel bad for the student. The student is in his first year, and this is his first research problem.

Any ideas on this from experienced supervisors over here? Thank you.

Edit: Thank you, everyone, for contributing your answers and comments. For those of you talking about failure/recovery/publishing what's in hand, I would clarify that the discovered issue is in the problem formulation, where the solution would involve inverting a rank-deficient matrix and differentiating a non-differentiable function. Thus, a mathematical solution is not defined. Therefore, the formulation is invalid. This wasn't foreseeable at the beginning, and only when the student made some deviations, it was possible to reach this conclusion. Now, in terms of publication and thesis content, the efforts exerted thus far don't mean anything.


texts: What causes some students to be selectively impervious to supervision of their thesis writing?

texts:
Background

In my academic surrounding, we follow the following approach for supervising the actual writing of a bachelor’s and master’s thesis:
Whenever the student has written something more than a page, they can give it to an advisor (PhD student, postdoc, or professor) and they will quickly receive extensive feedback. Later, they hand in entire chapters, and eventually their entire thesis will be criticised – before being submitted.

The idea of this is that the students can refine their writing step by step and learn by actually applying what they learnt from critique.
Also, they do not have to revise the entire thesis with respect to basic issues that can be spotted from one page of writing.
Finally, this process is less exhausting for the advisors, as they usually never have to read a mess of a thesis.

We make all of this clear to students in the very beginning of their thesis and usually later on.
Note that this is not compulsory: If a student does not wish to receive any feedback but just submit a thesis at the end, they are free to do so (though it usually doesn’t turn out well).

The problem

For nine out of ten students, the above works fine¹. The remainder follows the following scheme:

They hand in their writing as we suggest.
They listen to and seem to accept the critique and suggestions. In particular they get to keep their annotated writings and make notes themselves.
They do not amend their existing writing or change the way they write new material. Note that this includes very straightforward changes such as fixing typos.
They continue handing in revisions.
They seem to understand and accept it if we tell them that what they are doing is detrimental to them and annoying for us², but they still do not change anything.
They eventually hand in a mess of a thesis.

There are three striking aspects of this phenomenon:

If it happens, it is very consistent in the way it happens. The students in question do not deviate from the above scheme by stopping handing in their work or change their ways in light of criticism. I also have never observed an intermediate case between this and a normal supervision.
There is no apparent correlation (or anticorrelation) to the quality of the student’s scientific work, their work morale, language proficiency, or how well they respond to feedback on their scientific work. If it happens, it comes out of the blue. In particular, this also happened to students who were otherwise very motivated and delivered good scientific work.
This is independent of who is the student’s primary advisor, i.e., the person who first gets to criticise their writing.

These suggest to me that there is a common underlying cause of this problem that can be addressed.

Question

So far, we addressed the problem with typical procedures for badly performing students – i.e., we tell them that their behaviour is problematic and why, explain our general approach to supervising writing, ask them where the problem lies, etc. –, which has lead nowhere so far. Thus I am looking for alternative approaches.
While my ultimate goal is to prevent or mitigate the above problem, the first step to this is understanding it.
Thus I am asking:

What are possible reasons why students react like this?
Is this a known and ideally scientifically described phenomenon?

¹ or in rare cases doesn’t happen at all because of the student having general difficulties with supervision and working on a thesis project.
² in particular, if they make us read the same material with the same problems twice or have two advisors read the same material and tell them about the same problems, which they then ignore.


texts: Using first name only for university email alias

texts:
I’m an incoming grad student at a US university and I’ve been asked to set up my email alias. The university doesn’t have an explicit policy on what the aliases should look like, but I’ve noticed most faculty and grad students have gone with either of the following:

  firstname.lastname@acme.edu
  lastname@acme.edu

However, my first name is shorter, available, and easier to spell.
It’s an unusual name in the US (which helped me secure firstname.com), but it’s four characters and hard to get wrong.
Therefore, I’m thinking of going with:

  firstname@acme.edu

Could that be interpreted as inappropriate/unprofessional/overly casual by some, or would it be fine? It’s one of the top-five programs in economics in the US – everyone seemed friendly on my fly-out and they’re probably among the less formal departments I’ve visited.


texts: Should undergraduates add a "course-based research experience" section in their CVs?

texts:
I am an undergraduate student in the US getting ready to apply for some research internships as well as cold emailing some professors for some opportunities (all in the US). This will be the first time I will be applying for a research internship; that is, I do not have any previous internship-based research experience. I've noticed that undergraduates who have completed research internships tend to have a "Research Experience" section on their CVs. I have, on the other hand, completed a few courses with significant research components.
Is it acceptable if I include a "Course-based Research Experience" in my CV wherein I briefly explain (using a couple of bullets) the kind of research I did in these courses or am I better off having that information in a cover letter? The issue is that some internships don't allow me to submit cover letters and for the ones that do, if I try to describe the kind of research I did in detail, the cover letter ends up being longer than ideal.


texts: How should I interpret a promising preprint that was never published in a peer-reviewed journal?

texts:
There have been a couple of occasions in my research in which I've come across a preprint that is several years old and is very relevant to the work that I'm doing.

Often these preprints have very promising initial results. However, when looking at the CVs or Google Scholar pages of the authors on the preprint, I can't seem to find a version that ended up getting published in a peer-reviewed journal, even if the preprint is several years old already. Why would would a researcher abandon a manuscript that they obviously put a lot of time into?

Do researchers sometimes just abandon lines of inquiry because they get too busy?  Or, is this an indication that their promising initial results were not robust enough for peer-review, and I should be wary of attempting a similar study?


texts: A peculiar PhD situation, working full time in a government lab but getting my PhD from an unknown university because of formalities. Advice?

texts:
I am involved in a peculiar PhD situation. I am working full time at a government lab that is fairly new (<10 years of existence), but has however attracted some strong names in my field (Computer Science and Data Management) as appointed researchers. Government labs do not issue PhDs, so I had to enroll at a university. The university that I enrolled at (not my choice) is among the top 10 in my country, but lies in the top ~1000 area worldwide. Furthermore, my advisor is not really involved in my work and is generally active in somewhat different research directions. However, I had very good funding so I decided to treat this as exactly what it is, i.e., a formality, as I can't get my PhD from the government lab.

During the past four years, I have been very productive and managed to create a solid publication record at A-level and A*-level conferences and journals, as well as a decent citation count (~150). I am first author in most of my papers, and some of the people I worked and published with are very established and acclaimed academics in this field.

Before starting my PhD, a obtained an Electrical Engineering degree and a Masters degree from top schools in worldwide rankings. Now my question is, do I need to somehow reflect this situation in the form of a justification of why I am getting my PhD from an unknown university? Or the fact that after two excellent school names, I have this third name in my CV that is unknown and overall a weird addition?


texts: How do I protect my idea before presenting to a large company?

texts:
First of all some background info:

I did a PhD in Electrical Engineering. Basically during my PhD I developed a concept that is now being trialled by two companies. One is very small, but one is a large multinational. The companies that were involved with my department were not interested in patenting the idea. I was forced to publish it. I don't really care about publish/patent, as it will still be great if my PhD gets used in real life.

The problem is now that at the end of the year I dont have a job. I dont publish many papers, whereas others here seem to be able to publish 5 or 6 a year. Yet, my PhD is the only original idea that is being trialled by industry (that I know of) from our group.

I now have another idea that I think is just as good and would probably be trialled by industry. The idea is very simple and requires basically just 1 op-amp. I want to present this to external companies. I am visiting a very large one in November who were interested in using my PhD.

My goal is to use this idea, combined with my PhD, to try to get external private funding, or a job that means I still have a job in this city. I don't really have any skills, all I did was a PhD, which was a really simple idea and made a few circuits to prove it in a lab. If I had experience in designing proper circuits for real products I would have probably been able to get a job elsewhere. My only skill is that I can show that I can analyse the current state-of-the-art, and generate improvements using very simple concepts (which are also novel).

My last resort is to publish it. Again I don't care if I publish it or not, but I already published 13 papers in 3 and a half years. Who cares if I publish 1 more when there are others with 25. I just want to maximise my chances of getting a new job since according to this group's standards I am 'unproductive'.


texts: What is the relationship between graduate coursework and research?

texts: I feel like after graduate students pass their qualifying exams, they still have a lot of learning to do before they're knowledgeable enough in a specific area to understand and work on the open questions in that area. But how do they get there? Do they just take advanced courses in the area of interest, or are they expected to read up on their research area outside of coursework? If the second, should they be doing this while they're still taking classes, or do they start doing this after they're done with their coursework?


texts:
Recently, I defended my PhD thesis in one of the universities in this "lovely" world. I was studying in a university out of my country, in a different environment, language, and culture.
During my PhD, I was doing great works .. always motivated and working hard. My supervisor was pleased, and he was telling my colleagues: "Be like him (me)". I have good relations with my colleagues and they were telling me this after their meetings with him.
Unfortunately, despite the good works that we were doing, I was always mad of my supervisor because of his attitude.
He was always talking about morality and life values, but I didn't see any of these in his personality.
He is a very racist person (he thinks that he is anti-racist!) and he was always offending me with his silly jokes. I never told him anything wrong or replied in a bad way to his jokes, but I tried to show him that "I don't like your jokes". Also, when I finish writing up any of my papers, he was telling (asking) me that we have to add X. X is a postdoc working with him, and he is a sub supervisor. Unfortunately, X has never been involved in any of my research works, or even giving any suggestion.
The thing that made my relation worse with him is that: at the last year of my PhD, he asked me to work on a project for him (totally out of my PhD topic) because his postdoc cannot continue. In the beginning, I accepted the idea, but then while he was talking, he said: "if you don't work on this, I can't continue funding you". Actually, this was not the first time he says something similar: he did it during my second year, and he made me working on something for his projects.
At that time, I started working on the project, but I was outraged and upset (because of what he said) .. I didn't finish the work properly (I kept very small things to the Postdoc researcher). Then we had another meeting, and it was a very tense meeting; as a summary, he said that he will stop my fund. This was 5 months before the end of my PhD. In that time, I got an opportunity to work with a company where I did my internship. Actually, he could have stopped my funding during the first 2 months (of the 5 months), but he didn't do it.
After the defence of my PhD, while we were having dinner (a local tradition), he asked me: "why did you refuse my suggestions for more publications when you started working in the company?", I told him that I didn't want due....I mentioned some of the things that made me upset during my PhD (actually a couple of very general points). He didn't like my answer, and he started replying to some of my claims (he became mad). Anyway, we finished the dinner and we left the restaurant in a very uncomfortable way.
My problem now is that:
Soon I will leave the country where I am because I had awful memories in it and I don't want to stay here anymore. So, I was thinking of sending an email to thank him: why?

He helped me to start my PhD by accepting me and funding my
study.
I don't like the idea of leaving without even saying:
"Bye!".

I'm still angry about what I've experienced with him. On the other hand, I feel it's my mistake that I didn't stop his lousy attitude since the beginning.
So, what I want to ask is, do you recommend me to send him a "thanking + Bye" email?


texts: How/where do I publish a 50-page-long writeup?

texts:
I've written this document developing a new theoretical model, with many definitions, some examples (with diagrams), and some fundamental uses of this model which are closely intertwined with its definition (specifically, without them it is not clear why it's interesting at all). It does not present nor discuss experimental results.

So, this thing is shaping up to take somewhere between 45-50 pages (still working on a few parts of it). Granted, that's in 1-column mode and in the default font size of the article document class, and there are generously-sized diagrams, a TOC, references and an index - but still, pretty long. I don't think that a reasonable 10-12 page conference paper can be cut out of it: Either it would have no grounding and be based on hand-waving; or it would be bits-and-pieces all over the place; or it would be a long series of definitions which doesn't go somewhere very interesting. On the other hand, this is not book-length material.

My question is: How / in what kind of venue could I try to get this thing published?

Notes:

I'm in applied computer science, even if the document is somewhat theoretical/reflective.
I'm open to outside-the-box suggestions


texts: How to search for list of papers citing both papers A and B?

texts:
For given papers A and B, I would like to search for all papers that cite both A and B. I guess one can generalize to papers {A,B,C,...} and find all papers that cite all of them.

A quick Google Scholar and Web of Science search revealed nothing. Google Scholar has a "cite=..." thing in the URL, which I messed with a bit to no avail.


texts: Would it be unethical to claim affiliation when it was not made official yet?

texts:
I received an acceptance letter to a Master's Program. The official enrollment will be in one month. Until then I am not officially in the program yet.

I am about to finish a paper and I want to submit it to a conference. Would it be unethical to claim affiliation in my paper in this situation?


texts: Is one spelling mistake in the academic CV a big deal?

texts: Just after submitting my CV to graduate school for masters admission, I realized that there was one spelling mistake on the first page of my CV. I misspelled the word 'merchandising'(missed the h). Is it going to be a major issue for my application?


texts: Applying early as a postdoc + two-body problem

texts:
A recent question asked about applying for tenure-track jobs before the end of a postdoc.  I'm in a similar position, also in math, and would like to ask the same question with an additional twist.

I'm in the middle of a postdoc.  I've been advised to apply to places I'd definitely accept offers from this year, but my wife will also be looking for a job.  She is not quite looking for an academic job, but the ideal outcome would be for her to work at the same institution as me, in a non-faculty job.  (Let's say she wants work in the registrar's office.)  The hiring for her sort of job doesn't take place so far in advance.

I would be very reluctant to accept a job a year early if I did not know for sure that my wife would also be able to find something there, especially if we were not moving to a big city (and we would prefer not to, if we can help it).

I'd be grateful for any general wisdom, but here are a couple concrete questions:

If I get an offer and turn it down because she can't find anything, and finish out my postdoc instead, would this be a very bad move?
If I get an offer and she can't find anything, is it possible I would be able to defer a year to help her job hunt?


texts: Does the acceptance rate of a conference influence its reputation or rank?

texts: Top conferences such as CVPR, ECCV, etc. typically have a low acceptance rate, i.e., ratio of accepted to submitted papers. Does this give them a high reputation or rank? For example, this year the AAAI conference has more than 8000 submitted papers but only 1000 accepted papers.


texts: Where can I get graduate level "tutoring"?

texts: I'm a practitioner who is struggling with techniques from some difficult academic papers (computer science & mathematics). How can I find "tutors" (graduate students perhaps?) who are willing to work on an occasional basis to help me understand specific papers?


texts: Unfinished Paper Undergraduate Admission

texts:
I am currently in high school and I have written a research paper about a topic in mathematics. The paper however is incomplete and there is still quite a lot of research left.

I am also writing my university admission essays right now and I have a strong desire that universities see whatever progress that I have made so far.

What do you think should I do? Do you think it is wise to send in unfinished unpublished paper or should I first publish whatever I have done so far and then publish the remaining paper later on?


texts: In an interview, should I greet a professor I know in one of his speech?

texts:
In an interview that I'm going to attend, (top) professors from other countries will travel to my country. Because they cannot just come, judge candidates and go home, usually they will have their speeches in universities. And because of that, candidates can guess who they will meet in their interviews.

I have identified a professor that will interview me, so I have researched them. All I want is to make a friendly atmosphere, and gain myself confident. If they get surprised, and ask why I know them, I can answer that I have attended their speech in my university, and have asking them a question. My question is not about them or their work, but about their notorious advisor (this is not a workshop or conference so I think it's OK to ask that). They may remember that question because it's the only one asking about their life.

Q: Should I greet them by saying their name when I meet them? Is it OK to remind that I'm the one behind that question? And if it is, how to do that? And besides that, I have a feeling that other committee will feel unfair or jealous because I don't know anything about them.

(I don't intend to play a psycho game with them, because I guarantee that I'm going to lose.)


texts: Is it true that almost everyone who starts a PhD and sticks around long enough can get one?

texts:
Not referring to degree mills here, but genuine PhDs.

This claim comes from this blog post by Cardiff University psychologist and neuroscientist Chris Chambers:

  A PhD is essentially a test. Don't fool yourself into thinking that you pass this test by passing your PhD. Wrong. The fact is that passing a PhD is like getting a certificate of participation. Why? Because almost everyone who starts a PhD and sticks around long enough ends up getting one. No, the real test is what happens after your PhD. That's when you’ll know whether you’ve really passed. Do well and it will open the door to a career of unparalleled intellectual freedom.

(emphasis mine)

The claim sounds fantastic to me. Is it true? Are there any statistics that indicate it to be so? Chris Chamber's post links to a source, but unfortunately it appears to no longer be available.


texts: Should I apply for PhD with a 4 on my master thesis?

texts:
Today, I just got the very bad news that I just got 4 on my master thesis

Marks:
Excellent – 5 (> 80%)
Good – 4 (60–79%)
Satisfactory – 3 (41–59%)
Unsatisfactory – 2 (< 40%)
 I am applying for a PhD. I don't know how to tell people I just got 4 on my thesis.
I begin to doubt if I am suitable for PhD.  I did have very high expectation for this thesis. Finally, the result let me down.

My goal is to apply for one position with funding. I don't care the ranking of the university. below is the comments from my supervisor.


texts: How do I transition from a Ph.D. in engineering to a career in medicine?

texts:
I am in a Ph.D. program in Engineering and I do probability, statistics and differential equations. My relevant previous works are: Modelling of blood flow, programming using DNA molecules. (But most of things I do, which will lead to a Ph.D. are very mathematical and don't involve any medicine.)

But lately I feel very inspired to pursue a career in Medicine instead. I am planning to complete my Ph.D. (I am from India) and then join a MD program (in USA).

I am interested in the mathematical modelling of living systems. I have read some papers in this area. I noticed some of these papers don't get the maths or physics right at times. I feel I would have the right skills to contribute here.
I am also interested in Bio-medical instrumentation. I have degree in Mechanical Engineering and I feel I would have the right skills for this industry.

I am aware that to be able to pursue either of above, I don't need a MD degree. But lately, I feel very passionate about actually saving lives and working closely with people. It is like a dream that keeps me inspired and working all the time. I want the MD degree.

So I want to know:

Is such a thing possible? Would I be eligible to apply? I am not very well clear about 'pre-med' course requirements.
I am asking specifically about the MD program in USA on mind. However     information about MD programs in other countries, would also be useful.
If it is possible, I want some advice on how to go about preparing for it?

(If you feel strongly the need to discourage my decision, please feel free to do so, giving adequate reasons. I would find that useful too.)

Thanks!


texts:
I have been a postdoc for many years now in a theoretical field. Thus, while progress in my career has been slow, I am not without experience. There is one particular thing that I feel keeps limiting me, and has been a source of a lot of anxiety and worry: over just a few months, I forget things I learned. I forget the names of techniques, theorems, authors about which I had tens of conversations. I forget mathematical techniques and derivations I worked with many times. I forget how to effectively use programming languages I have not used for as little as 6 months. I forget small theoretical results of proofs I produced and neglected to write down because they seemed trivial t the time.

I worry that personally I am much worse at remembering than others, and sometimes this makes me wonder if an academic career is even suitable for me. There are people I admire for their vast knowledge and how they can contribute something meaningful and relevant to just about any conversation. I wish I could be like them, but all I can recall is some very vague memories, unless I am currently working with the topic we are discussing.

Are other people struggling with this issue too, and are there techniques or exercises to improve? Is this perhaps caused by the constant flood of information that bombards us in this digital life we lead, and maybe displaces the actually useful knowledge we accumulated earlier?

I apologize if this is considered off-topic. Just delete the question then. This is something that has been seriously worrying me for years now, and it is hard to discuss face-to-face.


texts: Do academics get paid when they give interview (or other form of appearance) in the media?

texts:
Which factors determine whether academics get paid when they give interviews in the media (or other kind of media appearances, e.g. debates)?

I am mostly interested in the field of computer science, and English-speaking venues.

I am also interested any statistics giving some insights on how frequently academics get paid for media appearances, and how much.


texts: In what kind of research should I analyse its possibility, necessity and feasibility?

texts:
I'm an educational/instructional technology major in China. My supervisor asked me to analyse my thesis' possibility, necessity and feasibility which seldom have I seen in papers written by Western researchers. What's more, I have articulated the literature review ahead. I'm just wondering if masters in your university need to write such things.

the background

It may sound strange to you, but I'm truly confused on this issue. I'm pursuing a master degree under a very reputed and elderly tenured professor. Although he has a PHD background in Dutch in the earlier 1980s, I thought he is kind of too non-international.


texts:
Let's assume that a journal editor has been allocated a submission, started reviewing it himself, but stopped responding to the managing editor (= you) despite a long time since the authors had sent the submission (a little less than 3 years).  The submission is longer than each of the papers accepted during the last 5 years, but historically, even longer papers were accepted. The authors are aware of the length issue, but they are concerned.  The editor's Web page gets updated (say, new teaching contents appears), so, she/he is presumably still alive, but simply unresponsive.

The journal has no written, formal deadlines in its guidelines.  How long is it acceptable for the managing editor (= you) to wait after the first unanswered message to the editor before replacing the editor? What is typical in the field of computer science?


texts: Socially acceptable to email a connection of a connection requesting information?

texts:
I'm interested in knowing the optimal technology/techniques to implement something (storing Lidar data in a database) in a corporate IT world. I have a colleague who recommended that I contact his old phd adviser since his old adviser has done what I'm looking at doing before. He carried out the work as a means to an end for his research and the work I'm interested in is not his research itself. I believe they parted on less than perfect terms and my colleague has said mentioning him might not achieve anything productive as a result (I suspect this wouldn't be too bad as it is simply a referral from a colleague and was a while ago).

So, is it generally regarded as acceptable to email this old phd adviser of his with or without mentioning the referral and ask him if he would mind answering 3-4 basic fairly high level questions regarding the work he has previously carried out? Since acceptable depends on how it is written, what are some good techniques for writing cold email requests for information in this sort of scenario?

NOTE: This is in academia primarily because I'm wanting to email a professor and ask about information he has worked on that he carried out as a means to an end.


texts:
I am a PhD student and  I have to supervise two BSc students in conducting their thesis. Unfortunately, I am very (very!) frustrated with one of them.
First of all, this specific student doesn't show up in our arranged Skype meetings (without prior notice). The first time we (finally!) managed to discuss his project he seemed to have no idea of what he needs to do. I asked him his ideas about possible projects and obviously, he had not bothered to devote some time to this  (please note that our first meeting took place two months after the beginning of the semester which is plenty of time to decide on a research subject). I advised him to choose a subject he likes and read a lot of papers to develop his research questions and he asked me what a research question is!
But the worst thing is that he shows no motivation to work on his project. For example, he expects ME to develop the subject as well as the research questions. I certainly don't want to tell him what to do. However, I am worried that a possible failure in his project will indicate that I am an incompetent supervisor.
What should I do with this lazy student?


texts: Can I include the schematic and layout I designed on Altium CircuitMaker in my thesis?

texts: I’m currently seeking my masters degree. Part of what I do is testing the design on a PCB. My institute doesn’t have OrCad or Altium Designer licenses, so I opted for the free Altium CircuitMaker. However, one of my colleagues has pointed out that its results can’t be accepted in an official thesis. So I want to make sure, is he right? Should I halt it and start looking for a way to get a fund for one of the commercial programs?


texts: Research proposal for PhD application - should I talk about my background?

texts:
This is for a PhD application at the department of computing in a UK university. It says I need a research proposal with the following

  Your research statement should incorporate a brief description of the
  general research areas and topics that interest you, as this may be
  used to select suitable academics to whom your application will be
  circulated.

  Your research statement should also discuss:

  1) motivation for the
  research (i.e. why the topic is important and potential applications
  for which your research could be useful)

  2) research issues you intend
  to address during your PhD and

  3) your initial ideas on the research
  methodology (e.g. what sort of simulation or experimental techniques)
  you intend to pursue to address the research issues.

Nowhere does it ask for a discussion on why I am suitable, my background etc.? Should I then omit these and write the research proposal in a way where I'm simply pointing out an interesting problem and some approaches to solve it?


texts: Can members of the Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study supervise PhD students?

texts: There is a faculty member of Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study (a mathematician), whose research is particularly enticing to me. Do faculty members of the IAS take PhD students? If so, should I just contact him directly?


texts:
I have a classmate who is extremely stressed up. He has a 4.0 GPA and is an exception student. But seems like he is pushing himself way too hard and this is very obvious if you talk to him. He is very frequently showing up awake the entire night.

He doesn't have any heath issue (at least he says so) aside from overworking himself and missing sleep constantly without taking any breaks the entire year.

Will professors give a great recommendation letter to such a student? Won't they be concerned about his ability to handle stress in the long term? Talking to him makes you wonder how long it will take him to collapse.


texts: Continuing to list as second affiliation an institute where you've never had a paid position

texts:
This question is similar to other questions of affiliation, but I cannot find anything that quite addresses it. Perhaps this is closest: Adding affiliation due to a 1-month visit during a salary gap
I am the PI on a grant in mathematics. On the grant I have a collaborator and postdoc employed at 100% capacity (1 FTE). We are about to have a paper published. In addition to his current affiliation, University A, he wants to list University B at which he did his last postdoc, which I think is fine as much of the work on the paper was carried out there.
In addition, he wants to list a third affiliation, University C. He has never had a paid position at University C. It seems that someone at University C said it would be okay to use this affiliation during a period of time when he was unemployed but looking for another postdoc. None of the work of the current paper was done during this time of unemployment. Indeed, he plans to keep using this affiliation in the future. As far as I know, he has no collaborations with any researchers there, nor has he lived in the city where the university is located during this time of unemployment. I cannot find any online reference to his being at that university, other than those references he has created himself (eg. I find papers of his, or his CV or personal website, but nothing from the university itself).
Is using this affiliation ethical?
I understand that one should generally leave it up to their collaborators to decide their affiliations. However, in this case, he is employed on my grant at 100% capacity and I am worried the granting agency will not be happy that he is also apparently employed at the same time at another university in another country.
I have suggested he put University C in the acknowledgments section, but he is not willing to accept this compromise.


texts: Is it safe to send official GREs almost on deadline (e.g., the day before)?

texts:
I know I should send emails to the specific institutions rather than ask here. But the problem is it's faster here and I have not much time left, and it's a weekend now.

My GREs and TOEFL are already reported to me. Specifically, I'm asking about Cornell and Yale (physics) departments. They both have a deadline on 15 December. They require the scores by the deadline, but even if I order a score report to them now, ETS needs few business days to send them. So they'll arrive after 15 December, most likely.

Do you think my application will be automatically considered incomplete and dismissed?


texts:
Let's say I want to be a college professor, but the field I am interested in is known for having an unbelievably bad job market (worse than usual). We're talking people coming out of top 5 programs not being able to find jobs at liberal arts colleges. To add, let's say I would prefer to be working in a very specific region (e.g. northeast), which narrows my options further.
Is it feasible, after my PhD, to try to get adjunct work in my desired region, while also having a "day job" in something totally different? In other words, working a <= 40 hr/wk job to pay the bills, but teaching two classes or so at night at a college nearby? While publishing independently on any remaining free time, maybe?
Or do the demands of adjuncting make this setup basically impossible? Is it difficult to find adjunct work even in a major city?


texts:
TA (a PhD student) of one of my classes was looking for an undergrad to join in one of his projects. This was not directly related to the field I want to work in grad school, but there is no group or faculty in my preferred area, so I wanted to join in anyways (because it is another area I enjoy and I had lots of free time). We started working on it with him, had weekly meetings, I helped with theoretical aspects, and I did all implementations (replicating the other papers that did not provide code so we can compare plus our own experiments). I also did a lot about designing the experiments (which is the only way of proving your work in this area).

This got accepted to one of the top conferences. While I obviously didn't expect to be the first author, I was kind of suprised when I saw that I was the last author, and the professor (PhD student's advisor) was the second last author. For context, it is CS (but not theory), and the author list in our paper is clearly not alphabetical. Now, my questions:

Isn't this unusual? I thought it was better for a professor to be the last author? When I asked the PhD student about, he just said it was the professor's decision.
Should I still include this in my PhD applications (it's my only publication so far)? I feel like the admissions committee would ask about why I am the last author.
When asked, should I mention the possible reasons? I never asked the professor, because, after this project, the PhD student left the program and started a PhD program from scratch somewhere else. Since I had mainly worked with him, and since it was not my primary interest area, I decided to not start a new project. (I don't remember if I conveyed this to the professor after the author list was sent or before, it might have had an effect).

Finally, I have checked this professor's Google Scholar page, and in fact he has acted similarly at least 3 times before (3 publications, each with some of his PhD students, in each one, one of the PhD students is the last author). I believe this (and his other PhD student leaving) are supporting facts for me, I still feel like it could come across as whiny


texts: Should I put on my CV a postdoc which I am going to quit?

texts:
I am currently doing a postdoc but I am looking for something else as the position turned out to be completely different with respect to the job description.
I have been in this postdoc for 4 months and I will leave as soon as I find another job. Should I include this short period on my CV?
I am applying to research positions both in academia and industry.


texts: Can an instructor ask students to write a letter of recommendation for them (the instructor)?

texts: I am considering applying for two new jobs. I love where I am now, but these opportunities would be better for me as they would come with higher compensation and are closer to where I live. One idea I had was to ask a couple of my best students to write a letter recommending me for these positions. Is that ethical? I do not need them per se (I have others I can ask), but I was wondering about this idea. It seems like this school is looking for student-centered instructors, so I thought this might be a way to set me apart. Thoughts?


texts: If you want to be a computer scientist, can competitive programming be helpful early on in your career?

texts: Competitive programming is a craze among many computer science and engineering students. Is competitive programming important to be a good computer scientist? Thank you.


texts: How do US Ph.D. applicants without research experience convince admissions committees that they are interested in a particular field?

texts:
My question is mainly for mathematics Ph.D. application in the United States. However, the answers from any other field (or other countries) where undergraduate/master research doesn't play a critical role in admission are also welcomed (by "critical" I mean if one has no research experience, then the chance of acceptance is small).

As we know, in mathematics or theoretical physics, a solid background in some areas (like algebraic geometry) need several years to lay down and some applicants may not have research experience in the area they are interested in.

Suppose the main reason that applicants want to apply to school A is that the math department of school A has a strong algebraic geometry group, but they have no research experience in it. How would they convince the graduate committee that they are truly interested in algebraic geometry in the statement of purpose?

Please note under some circumstances it is important to convince the graduate committee that one is really interested in a particular field. For instance, if they had changed interest from another field, say analysis to algebraic geometry or they are transferring from one school to another to pursue a Ph.D. degree in algebraic geometry, or the department to which they are applying has only a narrow range of research focuses (some elite private schools, for example).

To put in another way, for an applicant without research experience in a certain field, what kind of experiences/characteristics could make the graduate committee believe that they are really interested in this field?


texts: Which are the most relevant sources on the goals of university and their relation to its origins and evolution?

texts:
During my university student life here in Brazil, I've heard and read different opinions about the goals of modern university, from "provide social justice" to "form an intellectual elite". That's why I'm looking for books or articles about the goals of present universities and the relation between those goals and the history of universities.

That's even more relevant now that I am a professor, because students commonly complain about having to study things that they consider irrelevant to themselves. I've been teaching "Physics for Agrarian Sciences", and that problem is bigger there because some students think they will not use that much Physics during their professional lives.

I tend to answer that some may not use it but others will, and that university is supposed to provide more knowledge than that directly applicable, due to its "high education" character. Otherwise, they could get some non-university technician degrees available at technical schools.

On the other hand, I'm not sure that my view of what a university is or should be is consistent with its origins and evolution.


texts: What are the differences between viXra.org and arXiv.org?


texts: Affiliation on a paper - moving to a place where I actually did the work

texts:
Me and a person from University X wrote a (pure mathematics) paper together. Most of the work on this paper happened when I was visiting University X during last summer (they were kind enough to provide a room for me and invite me to give a seminar). It is also worth mentioning that X is located where I come from, so given that I can be quite mobile in my work, I would probably be spending most of the summer there in any case. I am currently a PhD student at University Y, located abroad, and I'm just about to finish my degree. Once this happens, I am going to sign a contract with X (the paperwork is waiting until I graduate).

Now that the paper is finished, I wonder what affiliation it would be ethical of me to mention on the paper. It goes without saying that I should mention Y - that's where my position is at the moment, they are the people giving me funding. However, I would also be happy to mention X - there are various reasons why I would want that, some more valid than other. Would it be right of me to do so?


texts: Postdoc salaries/taxes in California (Caltech) for foreigner

texts:
I have seen some confusing information online. I am looking into postdoc positions at Caltech (Pasadena, CA). From my understanding, the annual salaries are somewhere in the 55k - 60 k range. What kind of taxes apply, though? I've seen conflicting information, and am quite confused.
Here it seems that some of Caltech are exempt from federal tax, but I am not sure if this applies to postdoc researchers.
Also, how does one being a foreigner (with a work VISA) affect taxation?


texts: How to present preprints that are not publicly accessible on a CV for math academic job search?

texts:
In the context of preparing a CV for a math academic job search

Is it advisable to list preprints which are not yet accessible to the wide public in the CV?

If so, should it be in a rubric of its own (i.e. separate from "research publications"), or can I put it in the same rubric but write something like "(draft, available upon request)" or "(in preparation)", depending on its actual status, to its side?


texts: Contacting potential advisers before deadlines

texts:
I am applying to PhD programs in physics in US. Majority of the deadlines are in one week from now. My question is, does that help at all at this time to contact potential advisers and let them know that I am applying and am interested in their research? (At least one place requires me to indicate potential advisers in the online application form).

If contacting can help my application at this point, what should I do if there are more than one potential advisers whose interests match my experience and interests in a given department? (For example in one case I am even asked for naming three potential advisers in the application form)


texts: How to deal with advisor who wants me to submit dissertation on time even though there's a major problem?

texts:
I'm on my last month before the deadline to hand in my dissertation.

I found a severe problem with the work that renders it pretty much pointless and I pointed out to my advisor that I would need some extra time to fix the problem and at least achieve the objective of the work. He basically told me to keep writing the dissertation in order to meet the deadline, without trying to fix the problem. My advisor is also going on a sabbatical, so it feels like he's pushing me towards handing in my dissertation regardless if the work is complete or not. This would pretty much guarantee that I'd have to provide bleak explanations to the committee that will discuss the work with me (because telling them that my advisor rushed me isn't an option).

I really don't want to create a conflict with my advisor. Plus, I'm having a terrible time trying to meet the deadline and my motivation is pretty much gone. I'm considering quitting the program without handing in my dissertation and pursue other career options.

Should I hand in the dissertation even though there's this problem that renders it useless? Or should I try to convince my advisor to get me more time to fix the problem (even though he seems reluctant)? Should I not do any of this and just simply quit the program?


texts: Attending graduate school at my undergraduate university

texts: I've been told by numerous people that (1) my undergraduate university will be disinclined to bring me on as a graduate student, and that (2) it's a bad idea to attend grad school where you completed your undergraduate degree, anyway.  Is that true? If so, why?


texts: Is there any established database schema to store references?

texts:
I wonder whether there exists any well-established database schema(s) to store references.

For example, the Perl package Bib2ML (aka. Bib2HTML) contains a bib2sql tool that generates a SQL database from a BibTeX database, with the following schema:

If there is no well-established schema, I am still interested to know about alternatives. One can assume the data it contains can be extracted from the paper or the BibTeX (i.e. no need to be able to store information coming from other sources, and the focus is on the reference, not the paper's content).


texts: Does dropping a Coursera course look bad in a PhD application to the university offering the course?

texts:
A few weeks ago I've enrolled in a Coursera course offered by university A, without asking for a certificate. I've completed some of the work, but now my university holds a course on the same topic, to which I am enrolled for credit.
Consequently, I decided to stop doing assignments from the Coursera course and focus on the course I'm enrolled in.

University A is one of the universities I am planning to apply to for my PhD studies next year, possibly in the topic of the course (or even with the professor teaching it).

How likely is it that the professor and/or the committee will check whether I've already been enrolled in something offered by them, and will get a bad impression because of me dropping the course? (e.g they might conclude that I'm not serious/committed when it comes to studying.)

Do committees generally look for academic information on applicants other than in the documents they provide in their application?


texts: Tips on organising the survey of a large body of literature

texts:
For a paper I am currently writing, I am doing an extensive literature review on a subject which is much more vast than I had anticipated. Are there any specific tricks and tips for organizing ones reading when the body of literature is so large? I tend to get carried away with interesting references and lose the overview a little. If I read everything linearly from A-Z, I would not have the time to finish my review. My goal is thus instead to have a non-exhaustive, but ideally representative impression of the structure of the literature (that is, different strands of research, who 'responded' to whom, etc.).

I would very much appreciate any hints from an experienced academic.


texts: Replicating the classroom experience in zoom during covid: Powerpoint slides + annotation + whiteboard to sketch on

texts:
I teach an engineering class and pre-covid used to use Powerpoint slides projected on to a whiteboard so I could easily annotate on slides.
Plus the class had spare whiteboards where I could draw additional concepts.
Post-covid I am using zoom for my courses via my laptop (non touch screen). Now I can still share the slides but then come several problems.  Annotating via zoom on the laptop is clunky since the mouse / trackpad isn't too good for this. A workaround is that  to sign in from my Android tablet (Samsung S6 lite) as a second (dummy) user and then annotate using the stylus.
This works somewhat but has it's flaws again. First, the palm rejection doesn't work within zoom so one has to hold the stylus clunkily. Second every time I change to a new slide I've to manually "clear" the annotations since zoom seems to assume those should stick to all slides.
Furthermore, the annotations are lost and then don't make it to anything permanent that I can share with the students.
I could use the inking feature within power-point but then I would need a touchscreen laptop or to buy something like the Wacom bamboo. Not sure how steep the learning curve would be for that.
Finally, if I just need to sketch something in "parallel" to the ppt (which I would have done in a normal class using the 2nd whiteboard) there's no good way to do that.
Just curious how others are handling this? The tablet annotate screen real estate seems too small while writing with a stylus (due to a resolution mismatch). One can barely write 3 or 4 lines whereas a physical whiteboard would easily allow 10. It's difficult to keep as many concepts / equations / diagrams in the visual window to make a clear point.
Just wondering if any tips regarding the technology setup others are using? Any better tooling that would handle this multiple task set of powerpoint + annotation + multiple whiteboards?


texts: Wrong internship dates in my CV for graduate application

texts:
I am sorry if this is already repeated but it is a very urgent need of mine.
Actually in my CV for graduate applications, I put my industrial internship period as May to June 2016 and research internship period as May to June 2016. Actually it is may to June 2015 for industrial internship period. I didn't notice this mistake till now and I have already submitted my applications. What do I do?


texts: Demonstrating capacity for independent work in light of parasitic co-authorship

texts:
I'm applying to a prestigious funding program for early-career researchers* that places a heavy emphasis on the "scientific excellence" and "intellectual capacity and creativity" of the PI.  To demonstrate this, the proposal is required to include a section on "early achievements" that lists five top publications, "highlighting those as main author and/or without the co-authorship of [the applicant's] PhD supervisor".
My problem is that my best publications overall, as well as the publications most relevant to my proposal, list my PhD supervisor as the co-author, even though they had no significant involvement, neither in the formulation of the research questions, nor the planning and execution of the experiments, nor the writing up of the research results.  This is because I worked in a fairly large research lab where the more experienced doctoral candidates and postdocs were granted considerable autonomy in pursuing their research, but it was the official, documented policy for the lab head to be credited as co-author on all publications, irrespective of their involvement.  There was a minor kerfuffle when a colleague of mine pointed out that this policy was at odds with the ethics and authorship guidelines of the journals and proceedings we regularly published in. This resulted in the deletion of the policy from our lab's internal handbook, but the policy continued to be applied in practice.
So I'm wondering what to do about my publication list in the grant application.  Should I focus on the publications without my supervisor as the co-author, even though these aren't my strongest or most relevant work?  If I do include one or more publications that list my supervisor as co-author, should I explain in the proposal that the co-authorship is purely nominal, or will this come across as suspicious, egotistical, and/or desperate?  What course of action is most likely to leave a favorable impression on the reviewers?

*The program is the ERC Starting Grant, though my question is probably relevant for others applying for an ERC Consolidator Grant (which has the same evaluation criteria) or to similar programs from other funding agencies.


texts: How long does it take to get a reply to your PhD application email in Germany?

texts:
I am applying for PhD positions in Germany. Normally I need to send an email to the professors with a list of references, grades transcript, CV, master's thesis, etc. I want to know how long after sending my email should I assume that I am not getting the position?

Thanks


texts: How do I determine whether "Global Scientific Journal" is reputable or not?

texts: I have published my paper in Global Scientific Journal. But some scholars are telling me that the journal is not reputable. How do I determine if Global  Scientific Journal is reputable or predatory?


texts: Getting a Phd abroad: is there any chance?

texts:
I am Earth Sciences major with post-graduate studies (Master) in the field of Geophysics/Seismology from Greece. In the last couple of months i am trying to find a PhD opportunity abroad in order to continue my research journey. I think i have built a pretty good CV for my level (and young age) with good grades, numerous poster presentations and 4 peer reviewed publications in well known journals in my field. Is it possible to find a PhD in a prestigious University abroad, based on a good CV with degrees (Bsc, Msc) from Greek University? Any advise or experience is more than welcome.

Thank You!


texts: Manuscript status changed immediately from "With the Editor" to "Decision in Process"

texts: I submitted a manuscript in a journal (Springer) and after 3 days the status of my MS changed to "With the Editor" followed by "Decision in Process" after 5 days. My MS apparently did not undergo peer-review. Should I expect rejection on this stage?


texts: What author changes are acceptable after paper acceptance in the camera-ready

texts:
In a conference in the CS field, what sort of changes are acceptable from an author of a paper in the camera-ready version over the submitted version?
Can the author add few new related findings?


texts: How "submitted", "to appear", "accepted" papers are evaluated in a CV?

texts:
Assume a search committee is reading my CV and in the publication section they notice some of my papers are only submitted or claimed to appear in a journal (or accepted for publication in a journal). Sometimes the journal which has accepted the paper for publication lists the title of accepted articles before actually publishing them, but in the rest of cases there is no evidence to prove that the referee process of the paper is over and the journal has accepted the paper for publication. Also assume preprints of my papers are available in ArXiv. So, my questions are:

How a search committee interprets and evaluates those papers which are just submitted or are claimed to appear?

Does a search committee consider these types of publications less valuable than the published ones (assuming the same quality)?

Does a search committee refer to my preprints in ArXiv to evaluate my submitted or accepted papers?


texts: How to write a recommendation letters for an undergrad student applying to transfer to another university?

texts:
As a new faculty member,
I have just received my first request to write a recommendation letter
for an undergrad student who is looking to transfer
to a more prestigious university.

I taught this student in a class in his first semester,
and have met chatted with him twice informally for about one hour each time
because I am his academic advisor.

What should I write in my recommendation letter?
I have some information about the student,
but I don't know the student as well as
I might know my PhD student for example.
Is there some kind of standard template that I can follow,
so that I can do a good job but also be done with it quickly?

A second smaller but related question.
This student has a very high GPA.
Should I persuade this student to stay,
or let someone in my department know that this student wishes to transfer,
so that someone can persuade him to stay?
Needless to say, I would not try to sabotage his application
by writing a bad reference letter.


texts: Is it possible to switch from a "normal" IT career to an academic career?

texts:
I have a long experience of working like a programmer in many companies, but I was always tending to research. Is looking for PhD position real for me? Is it like looking for a job and how is it different? Do they pay money for research at PhD position? :D
I was passing a lot of exams on my jobs, but have no publications at all.


texts: Is it acceptable for a professor to ask post-doc student to babysit for free?

texts: Like the title says, I have a friend who is a post-doc and her professor is asking her and another post-doc to baby-sit for him.  He does not pay them, he simply expects them to baby-sit for free because they work for him.  It is not clear whether this happens during the day or in the evening, though by my understanding it makes little difference in academia.  It is also not clear just how common it is for him to ask, but apparently it is at least semi-regular.  To me this seems like an abuse of power and there should be rules against it.  Is this kind of thing normal?


texts: Can student second author go to conference?

texts:
I am an undergraduate in computer science. I worked on a professor's project, and he submitted it to a conference with me being the second author (he and I are the only authors). If it is accepted, I would really love to attend the conference (I have never done so before), both for knowing what other people are doing and establishing some relation with other professors. However, I am not sure whether it is even appropriate to ask my professor. We are keeping a very friendly relationship, and I don't want asking him for this thing to make him perceive me as "conceited" (or something else).

For my contribution to the research, he came up with the theory, and I did most of experiment and data analysis and visualization to empirically support it. It amounts to about 25%-30% of the total length of the paper.

I am completely unclear about funding issue. Do conference organizer provides some compensation? Or should I ask for university for support (I guess they will be at best reluctant since I am not the first author)? Or should I ask for my professor to use his funding? Or do I need to pay my travel expense myself?


texts: Would taking an Editor-in-chief position at a mid-tier journal be good strategy for a tenure track professor?

texts:
I'm in the sciences in the USA, and a very relevant to my field, well respected journal just advertised. I have been encouraged to apply. The workload is advertised as not egregious. I already sit on several editorial boards.
I worry that this kind of service may be better left for post tenure. My personal advisors are split: I likely have a good shot at it, some think it will be a good move, others hesitate.
I'd be very interested both in answers outright, and things to consider that I an my mentors might have missed.


texts: Should I pursue my PhD dream based on my Undergrad experiences?

texts:
I'm an Undergrad student from one of the Indian Institutes of Technology and I still have a year left to complete my Dual-degree course in Computer Science(offers me M.Tech & B.Tech by the end of June 2014). I've a not-so-proud-of gpa of 7.5/10 which is around 3.0/4.0 which I assume is pretty low when compared to my seniors' gpa who've taken up a PhD. But, what I've experienced from a last summer's industry internship and the previous summer working under a professor doing research is that I really can't work in the industry for a longer time writing Software as making money is the least of my concerns. The research work yielded in a rejected publication though I was way more satisfied than the internship

I worked under another professor the next winter, published an article in a highly reputed journal in the field of Complex networks and working on another publication this fall. I'll be working along with IBM in a research internship this summer and hoping to do well. A bit of a late realization haunts me day-to-day. Needless to say, my transcripts suck. So, to dodge all the obstacles that I created myself, I'm planning to do research work extensively for the rest of my Undergrad time. Also, I'm thinking of joining the industry after my graduation for about a year or two before PhD for two reasons. One being, my work experience can be of help and can make up for my poor transcript and second being that I can reinforce the industry-is-not-so-interesting belief. The second being not so important.

So, is pursuing PhD from a reputed university still in my scope? What suggestions can you offer for increasing my chances that I can do during my last year? Reading a lot of questions in this forum site, I believed this might be a good place to vent my rant. Thanks a lot in advance.


texts: Can I pursue a bachelor degree at 42? What should I consider when deciding whether to do so?

texts:
I am contemplating pursuing a bachelor degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering or System Engineering. Not to look for a job with it but just to expand my knowledge. I have a reasonable income as a programmer.
I have a certification in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from City&Guilds 20 years ago but ended up being a self-taught programmer. for the past 15 years, I have been able to win and deliver myriads of projects projects successfully. I'm versatile in various programming languages: C/C++, Java, Python, Rust, Haskell, Lisp (and its derivatives).
I thought of expanding my knowledge in Electronics Engineering either by self-thought or via school. My worry is, I will end up having my degree at 47 if I enroll.
What do you suggest I should consider when making this decision?


texts: My professor and chair of the department traced back a supposedly anonymus course evaluation to me. How to proceed?

texts:
At my large American university, we have the opportunity to fill out course evaluations. They are not mandatory and are allegedly anonymous. I wrote a negative review for Dr. Smith's course. I stand behind what I wrote and it is all true, but it was scathing and lengthy (over 1500 words) since I listed in detail almost every thing I didn't like and why, with specific examples. If it matters, my main complaints were that I consider his class to be too easy, his standards were too low, and that he took a long time to grade our assignments.

I received an email from the chair of the department asking me to meet with him to discuss the evaluation. The content of my evaluation is all true, but I am embarrassed that my identity was revealed (or correctly assumed) since I would have been less harsh if I was aware the anonymity wasn't guaranteed. It wouldn't surprise me if they guessed I wrote the review, since I made by far the highest grade in the class and had actually complained about Dr. Smith in the middle of the semester to the chair since Dr. Smith allowed something unfair to happen during the midterm. (I was advised by other faculty to bring that specific complaint, so I hope it doesn't come off that I like to complain.)

What should I do and can anything negative happen to me over this?


texts: Why do breakthroughs in science and research that have enormous (and obvious) potential often not (or barely) go beyond the lab?

texts:
Sometimes advances are made in science research that have enormous and very easily visible potential. There are two examples that I have seen recently.

One example is this newly engineered inexpensive process to convert carbon dioxide into methanol, for fuel. As the article says, "Making methanol from carbon dioxide, the primary contributor to global warming, would both reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide a substitute for the fossil fuels that create them." This has huge potential, and it seems this should be of great excitement to researchers and activists alike working in this field.

Another example is this development of four strategies that represent partial but significant progress into the fighting of general cancers. This also has lots of potential in its field, and clearly is more advanced than many methods used today.

These two advances are by no means the only ones of such significance that I have seen, and there are surely much more that I have not seen, yet none of us see these go beyond this stage.

Why do breakthroughs in science and research that have enormous (and obvious) potential often not (or barely) go beyond the lab, and what makes them different from those that do become applied in the real world?


texts: Would getting an MA at a less-than-prestigous school hurt my chances of getting into a prestigious PhD program?

texts: I'm an economics student who hopes to one day get a PhD. Before doing so, I'd like to get a Master's, both as a way of improving my strength as an applicant and to get a feel for grad school before fully committing myself to the enormous investment that is getting a doctorate. Long story short,for financial reasons I'm thinking about enrolling in the master's program at my local university (UNC Charlotte). It's not a bad school by any means, but it's not exactly Harvard either. Though I'm certain I could get into higher ranked programs, this just makes the most sense for my financial situation. Realistically, would getting a master's at such a school impair my ability to get into a prestigious doctorate program?


texts: In a research statement for PhD admissions, should I start with the context, or directly with the idea for my research?

texts:
I'm applying for a PhD in engineering and I was asked by the advisor I have chosen to write down a short program (~10 pages) about the "research" I will conduct if I get into the PhD program.

The advisor provided ten choices where the future PhD program will lay. The topics are very large and well studied in the literature. Our "task" is to choose one of them, find out something "new" inside of this big sea and write it down. I did a lot of research on Scholar and downloaded more or less 20 free papers I found interesting. I collected data and results, thought a bit about the problem and found a ( maybe ) new application that fits my interests and past studies and I think it could bring some novelty in the field I'm applying.

Now my question is, which is the best way to format the proposal?

Should I start with the context of the research, point where previous studies went and what kind of results yielded and now focus on my brand new idea?
Should I skip 1) and start in medias res with the heart of the matter?


texts: Journal paper published without correction of errors

texts:
I notified a journal prior to publication that there were errors in a paper. This was submitted around 3 weeks ago, the review process was quick. On Thursday I was given 24 hours to make a list of corrections to the final version I was sent. These were done but then I noticed a few errors after and emailed a revised version along with a document outlining and explaining changes. I had an email today to say the paper has been published (early access version) but its the version with the errors.
The email states changes to text can no longer be made. But they published this after I notified them of errors. This seems to have been rushed.
I emailed back within a few minutes of getting this email today but I expect I won't get a response until Monday now, so I have a weekend of worrying. I didn't expect the paper to be published at a weekend, it makes communication more difficult.
What is likely to happen now? Are changes likely or will these be denied?
I didn't see the version after they made edits, which their communication led me to believe I would, particularly as they were asking me to make a lot of changes. Nonetheless I emailed them before this was published to correct errors. It puts me off publishing with that particular journal again.


texts: Check whether an article has any correction or been retracted

texts:
Is there any website where I could enter the reference of an article, and see whether any correction or retraction has been made on the article?

I know some publishers indicate it on their website, but ideally I would prefer to use the same website to check (i.e. a Google Scholar for corrections/retractions). APIs are good too.


texts: How do I find a supervisor for PhD studies?

texts:
I am thinking of doing a PhD. Problem is, I am not a student and the only professors I do know are the ones from the university I took my bachelor and Master's degree. However I was thinking of changing institution or even moving to a relevant scientific field and thus I do not want to contact one of those professors.
I have located some institutions and faculties I might be interested in following a doctoral programme. Question is how can I contact one of the faculty professors, since I do not know them either personally or academically? Is there any other way except of spam emailing them?


texts: How does one use the Chegg bulk-takedown request form?

texts:
Cheating in online tests has accelerated and become rampant this year. I'm in the U.S. and my institution has had all-online courses from March 2020 to at least September 2021. Many of my test questions have been showing up on the Chegg website during the course of my tests. This was much more pronounced in the Fall term versus the Spring term.
Having tracked down a significant number of such posts, I note that Chegg has a web page for submitting DMCA takedown notices regarding content for which one can assert copyright. I have submitted one notice and the test question was indeed removed a few days later.
For the extensive number I'm dealing with, I further note that there's a tab labeled "Upload file with links" that claims, "For a large set of links, we accept a CSV file". In this case, I've prepared a CSV file of offending links (with simply one link per line) and attempted to upload it. However, this fails and returns an error: "Invalid file type, please upload csv file".

I've tried this on three different web browsers, and the result is the same in each case. I've reached out to the Chegg company for technical help (via copyright@chegg.com) and received an apparently stock response which did not address my technical question. My follow-up inquiry received no response.
Question: Has anyone successfully used the Chegg bulk takedown request facility? If so, what is required?
Note: This is not a question about how to prevent cheating during an online test in general. Such a discussion would be a separate question (example for math). Answers that focus on changing or avoiding the online assessments in the first place will not be chosen as the accepted answer, and comments in that vein will be ignored.


texts: Finding an error in my paper( mathematics) after it has been published online

texts:
My paper got accepted in a decent journal. The online first version was out 1.5 months ago. A colleague pointed out a mistake in the end of the paper. Majority of the results remain true. But significant applications of the developed theory are now partially false.
The paper has not been assigned an issue yet.
Can you help me as to how should I proceed with this situation? Whom should I write? And what all options do I have.?


texts: Mailing a relevant researcher before starting to think about the problem

texts: I am starting to think about a problem, inspired by a series of papers on similiar questions. Is it correct for me to e-mail the professors that wrote these papers, and ask them if they already thought about it? If they did, would it be fair to ask for the ideas they had, and what they tried (of course, assuming they are not currently working on it, and don't plan to publish on their own)?


texts:
We recently submitted an article to IEEE's Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics journal. It is the first time I submit to a journal so I am a bit unfamiliar with the process, being used to conferences.

In their website they mention that the review process usually takes between 6 and 12 months. I am wondering, does this refer to the time taken by all reviewers to take a single iteration on the manuscript or, does this include more review iterations? I.e. does this time take into account also the time needed by the authors to revise their manuscript according to their comments and resubmit it? How much time does one have to do these revisions? Provided that it is not rejected...


texts: Teaching advanced courses in a specialized area of math

texts:
Today mathematics (and probably also other sciences) became very specialized: every researcher works in their own narrow field which usually hardly interacts with fields of other colleagues, even on the same department.

At the same time every researcher is often expected to accept PhD students and introduce them into his/her field. Some mathematical fields (e.g. algebraic geometry, algebraic number theory) require significant background before starting the research, and hence teaching quite a few advanced courses.

  How this problem of regular teaching of many advanced courses on a certain  subject is resolved on your math department? Who teaches all of them? Does there always exist a group in your area on your department so that the teaching load can be shared? How it is decided who teaches what? (Please indicate your country.)


texts: What are the general ethical procedures to restart abandoned research?

texts:
Please note: this is a hypothetical situation

Sometimes, for whatever reason, research is started by another academic (not necessarily known to you) and abandoned part way through (more often than not, the reason is tragic).  This will potentially leave research incomplete.

In a general sense, what are the practical and ethical considerations and procedures to restart and complete the research that has been abandoned by another academic?


texts: Where can I find a list of think tanks broken down by funding source?

texts: I'm doing research on funding for think tanks. I'd like to know if anyone maintains a database of who funds think tanks. Ideally, the list would state each organization that has contributed to a think tank within the last few years, but I would be happy with more general data as well (i.e. funded by a government, funded by an individual, funded by a nonprofit, etc).


texts: Has there ever been a successful copyright infringement suit against someone using a small amount of a protected work in an academic publication?

texts: I am familiar with what the US Code says about copyright and fair use, and am specifically interested in actual practice regarding academic publications which use small amount (under 10% of the original) of a protected work, without obtaining permission. Specifically, I would like to know if an infringement suit has ever been successful when the amount of copying has been under the prevailing "substantiality" threshhold, and the copying was in an academic publication. I'm not asking what might happen or whether I should ask permission. U.S. cases and non-U.S. cases would be relevant (to the extent that "fair use" concepts exist in other systems). Alternatively, if you know of a case where the copier prevailed specifically because the use was in an academic publication, that would be relevant.


texts: Should one provide a reference list and a bibliography in an academic paper?

texts:
I was wondering whether it is good practice to present a reference list (works one actually cites) as well as a bibliography (additional literature that has been used but that is not referred to). Is there any difference between MLA and APA in the matter?

Both MLA and APA go quite deeply into how to construct a reference list, but a bibliography is seldom mentioned.


texts: Searching for papers on a subject I'm about to start researching myself but nothing comes up. How do I know that I've searched enough?

texts:
I'm about to begin my master's research, and I'm in the process of formulating my research question. Therefore, I am searching for papers about the same topic to make sure that what I am planning to do has not been done before (at least not the way I am planning to do it), but so far I cannot find such papers.

How can I make sure that I've searched enough and that I am not missing anything obvious? I have chosen characteristic keywords from my topic and ran them in Google and Google scholar. Should I perform the same search in other places, or should that suffice?


texts: Acquiring a bound copy of someone else's thesis

texts:
I am in Canada and wanted to get a bound copy of someone's doctoral thesis in Sweden. The thesis is fully available online in PDF form for free from the library/publisher, but since there is a copyright on it printing services won't print and bind it for me without proof of printing permissions. The library does not seem to offer a service and does not seem to understand what it is I want since they keep directing me to the online PDF, while the author doesn't seem to be responding (probably ended up in his junk mail).

Does anyone know how one would go about this?


texts: Is it necessary for a letter of recommendation to include the full name of the candidate?

texts: I'm applying for Colleges for my MSc. But all of my letters of recommendation address me by my first name. is it okay, or should the complete name of the candidate be included?


texts: I wrote the code based on a paper's methodology; are there any legal problems with making it open source?

texts: I coded the methodology based on the paper "Free Water Elimination and Mapping from Diffusion MRI" and I am curious if I am legally bound to take permission from the authors or the journal in making the code open source on Github?


texts: Masters application with bad 1st year transcript

texts:
When I started the course I had a very negative attitude and did not participate or even bother trying to pass. I am not proud to say that I failed multiple subjects in my first year of degree.

In my second year I came to realize that this is the opportunity I have been given and actually started working really hard on pushing my CGPA up. I have successful done so bringing it up to 3.25 out of 4.0 from a low of 1.9. Once I started actually trying I found that I do have a passion and would love to pursue a master.

I am worried that I stand no chance because of that first year record. My question is do I stand a chance to get in a masters program and what do you think would help strengthen my application.