texts:
Regarding the following quote:

  ... editors say an increasing number of journals based in China warn authors that they are not affiliated with any paper-selling companies.
   Mara Hvistendahl, China's Publication Bazaar, Science, 2013.

Partly out of curiosity and partly because I work in China, I'm interested in finding a concrete example of this.

Question : What is an example of a journal based in China which "warns authors that they are not affiliated with any paper-selling companies"?

Ideally, I'd like a web link to a journal based in China showing this warning.  Or perhaps someone received such a warning in an email as part of communications with a journal.


texts: Polite way to ask professor's graduate research topics and if any matches an specific area

texts:
currently I'm applying for a specific university I had an exchange program couple years ago, and I asked one specific professor about a recommendation letter, also stated I had the desire to work alongside her as her assistant (being a TA or RA). I'm still waiting for the results (fall 2017), but I would like to ask her which researches she is conducting right now (her focus is software engendering), and if any is with web/mobile development (areas where I have work experience.

Thanks, guys!


texts: How to manage very weak students presenting problem solutions?

texts:
In some of my more advanced classes, I have students present solutions to problems on a rotating basis.  Not all solutions are perfect, but for almost all students this goes okay.  However, sometimes there is a student X who seems incapable of solving all but the most trivial problems (and cannot always do those correctly).  I am unsure whether X is even aware of the difference between themself and the rest of the class (my impression is they are not), but the X's presentations are not pleasant for the rest of the class, and probably not for X either.  They typically involve me or other students making several corrections, taking 2-3x as long as needed (and the problems X has gotten so far have pretty easy already), then me eventually cutting of X and saying "Okay, all you do is [...].  Next."

  I was contemplating only giving this student trivial problems to present.
  Is this a good idea? Are there better ideas?

My concern about doing this is that it will probably be obvious to the rest of the class if X is routinely getting significantly easier problems to present.  It may also be obvious to X, though that is less clear--if so, I can imagine it might be embarrassing.  (And if X cannot successfully solve those, it would be more embarrassing.)  Not letting X present would probably be the most embarrassing.  Right now, my inclination is to let X's problems naturally vary between trivial and normal, based on the rotation, but make an attempt to keep hard problems away from X.

Another option is to say something to X, but I am not sure what, apart from suggesting X check their solutions with another student before presenting.  One thing I definitely want to avoid is teaching X individually outside of class.  Based on previous interactions, this could quickly become a time sink, and I am too busy already.


texts: I was recently invited to a job interview regarding a PhD. I was told to make a short presentation of a few ideas regarding the project topic. I also have received an overview over the project aims, preliminary work etc.. I must admit that I am quite clueless what to present. In this project a new simulation platform should be developed with the help of the methods already implemented by the two participating work groups in their own software. I thought about presenting some methodology, but this would largely consist of implementing methods that these both groups already published and nothing really new. Also I'm new to the simulation method that is used in this project. Do you think that it would be sufficient to list the methods that can be used for the several parts of the simulation and in which order I would plan to implement these?


texts: Colleague gaining majority credit for largely my figures/analyses in their scientific poster

texts:
A colleague in my lab, let's call him Jim, has recently presented a poster at two different conferences containing largely my figures and analyses. I had generated 4/5 of the figures, which had taken months of analyses and work. I was fully credited on the work and listed as second author, I was not asked if the figures could be used however. Moreover, it is difficult to see Jim's substantial original contribution in the experimental design or analysis of the presented work. Jim also went on to win a non-trivial monetary prize for the poster, which I also had no knowledge of until recently. Most of our lab's work is formed from a collaborative effort, which I fully accept. I do however think that when presenting a poster of a project, you should have a substantial hand in the experimental design or analysis (excepting of course if you are presenting on behalf of someone who couldn't make the conference).

We are working on the same project, Jim has generated the data and I have analysed it and the PI has lead the direction. Jim is an experimentalist and I work in informatics. Jim is working on more experiments using some of the insights that came from the analysis, which is all well and good. These experiments only have preliminary results, which is why I think he went with my figures, as I had generated a fair few in my analyses and sent them on to Jim and the PI. In terms of driving and shaping the analyses, they have largely been led by the PI and myself. Jim has assisted, however contribution to forming conclusions about the analyses, or guiding which figures to generate, his contribution was minimal. For the record we are equal way through our PhDs.

Once Jim's experiments start to gel I'm sure our contributions will start to diverge, however it bothers me I wasn't consulted about use of the figures. We are both final year students, and I don't see lack of results as an excuse at this point. Use of 1-2 figures I would have been indifferent about, but 4/5? The poster prize definitely didn't help the situation. I am worried about my figures being used in Jim's thesis without consent or comprising the majority of future posters, for which he'll get majority credit.

Any advice on best way to handle this? Talk with Jim directly? Go the PI? Go my advisory head (who is external to the lab)? Or is this just the nature of highly collaborative labs?


texts: I'm wondering if the growing catalogue of preprint repositories have known 'impact factors' similar to those of popular print journals. If so, can anyone highlight them?


texts: Can a researcher hire 100% themself with funds from H2020 project (or other call)?

texts:
Once in some conference I heard that some guy was working as researcher (PI in different projects) at some university in Italy, but he had no official position. I understood that somehow, before entering this university he applied to an H2020 project (no ERC, StG, CoG, or AdV) that he got and that in the conditions he put in the budget 100% of his salary. So he kind of hired himself. Then he was always applying to H2020 (or other) calls in order to get continuity of his contract.

I wonder how this works.


texts: Can a faculty on a 12-month appointment apply for grants?

texts:
I'm wondering if a 12-month appointed faculty (mainly teaching but also research duty, R1 university in the US) is allowed to pay him/herself from grants (especially NSF or NIH). I heard that they may buy the time with grant money, but I haven't heard if they can be paid extra. Also a rumor says agencies sometimes don't like to trade course loads.
Does anyone have experiences with these? Thanks.


texts: Equipment/Computer Budgets for CS PhD Students

texts:
I plan on attending graduate school in computer science next year (fall 2020 semester).

In a computer science (or related field like software engineering) PhD program, is it standard to furnish graduate students with a "work computer", separate from a personal laptop purchased out of pocket, for conducting research?

I want to know if I'll have to shell out some cash for a beefier laptop or if computing resources are usually provided. If so, what computing resources are available (either as cash/budgeted money or as computers PhD students can use), and where does the funding usually come from?


texts: After my PhD I received the diploma with the (external and one internal) examiners final recommendation that was used to award my PhD.  Because my Ph.D. wasn't graded and this recommendation is very positive, I want to share it on my LinkedIn profile. Is there anything that prevents me from doing this? I cannot really see any problems but I haven't found anyone else doing it.


texts: Should I use degree name as their system?

texts:
I am writing Statement of Purpose for PhD application to Canadian university and I am stumbling over a little issue that when I write like this

  I have completed my masters degree ...  after completing bachelors
  degree..

So should I write undergraduate/graduate degree word as what they say at their place or I use words that what they say at my place as I written above? or either one is okey?


texts: What journals that may consider "new proof of old results"?

texts: Are there journals that may consider articles of the type "new proof of old results" but the paper is exceedingly short(1-3 pages)?


texts: Publishing: Is working at home perceived as unprofessional?

texts:
I've done research work entirely at home, it is completely unrelated to my thesis. I am going to publish it in some journal.

Although I am aware that I should not use my affiliation, and it is possible to publish without it, I am unsure about if it would turn into a disadvantage in the following sense: 1) Chances to be accepted for publishing (In real world!). 2) Perceived value of the work (for example, for future opportunities to obtain a post-doc position).

Also, the work could not be done in the same way, if someone close to me has not lent me his personal computer  (which is far more powerful than mine, but a regular PC) for few days. Does it look unprofessional to add acknowledgement to "Mr. X" (instead an institution) for providing the computational resources? Considering that, no unusual computational resources are needed (an ~400/500 USD PC in US), in a field where most first world research groups have very high computational power.

I know how it should be in theory, but I am looking for sincere answers about how  (in real world) the worldwide scientific community perceive about it, for both, chances of publication and future jobs. Any interesting consideration that I did not notice is welcome.

Edit:
Currently I am doing my PhD in a research institute which depends on one of the more recognized universities of my country. I have already published using this affiliation and using it wouldn't be a problem.


texts: How do I use MLA citations for the title of my paper?

texts: I have a short quote as part of the title of an essay I am writing, and was wondering how I'd cite a quotation in the title of my essay in MLA format?


texts: Is it lawful for a fellowship linked to a permanent faculty position at a British university in the STEM field to only be available to females?

texts:
The internally funded Anne McLaren Fellowships at The University of Nottingham state in their eligibility that "Candidates for the Anne McLaren Fellowships must be female and pursuing a career in a STEM subject". (link) One of the benefits of the fellowship is

  The linking of the Fellowship to an indefinite academic post, subject to performance against a high-quality threshold and the continued right to work in the UK

What this means is that fellows will be presented 2 contracts. The first is a 3-year fixed term research only contract with a start date mutually agreed upon by the university and fellow. The second contract is a permanent research and teaching contract with a start date immediately following the end of the first contract. The second contract has stipulations regarding if you get terminated during the first contract (e.g., due to a loss of the right to work in the UK or performance issues) then the second contract is also terminated. There is no hiring process at the time of the second contract.

The Equality Act 2010 protects people from being treated less favourably because of their gender during recruitment. Section 159 of the Act does allow positive action (e.g. favouring an underrepresented group in a tie-break) but as those not classed as female are completely excluded from applying then this appears to be unlawful discrimination not positive action.

It could be that The University of Nottingham has a general exception due to being a charity.  But then it would need to be included in the aim of the charity and the  University's Charter of Incorporation contains "16. The University shall treat students, staff and other people solely on the basis of their merits, abilities and potential, regardless of gender".


texts: What happens if an IRB mistakenly approves unethical research?

texts:
In human subjects research, it's fairly well settled that researchers may not go ahead without the guidance and approval of an IRB, even if their research otherwise lacks ethical infirmities.

What happens in the opposite situation? That is, suppose a researcher gets IRB approval for their project, but later on, ethical issues are found in the research that the IRB missed?

Since researchers are not allowed to trust their own understanding and must seek IRB approval even in the most obvious "there's no way that could be unethical" scenarios, it stands to reason that the opposite is true - that if research has been IRB approved, then researchers may go ahead with a clear conscience even if there could still potentially be ethical issues in the research.

I recognize that there could possibly be civil or criminal liability outside of academia, but I'm not asking about this.

If research turns out to be unethical, but it received IRB approval, who is held responsible? Is it solely the responsibility of the IRB for misguiding researchers, or does the researcher bear some responsibility for not recognizing the ethical infirmity?

Another way of asking this is whether researchers have a duty to police their own IRB, potentially second-guessing their approvals.

To be clear, I'm asking about situations where the average non-expert might be unclear as to whether or not something is ethical. Obviously, if an IRB tells someone, "Yes, it's ok to torture political prisoners as long as you kickback 5% of your grant to us", that's blatantly unethical and no one should accept that, but an IRB saying, "Yes, we reviewed your consent form and we don't think you need to disclose the extremely remote risk of the subject being hyperspace tunneled" might be one where the average person (or even researcher) would just get glazed eyes and defer to the IRB.


texts: I'm very frustrated about what "research collaboration" is

texts:
I cannot blame anyone but myself for this because i created an illusion of what "research" would be. In my case, i am a Computer Science Masters' student of a quite large university. I have met some people and started to visit the CS lab often.

In my thoughts, i was hoping to find groups or students interested in collaboration. Instead, i found individuals working on their solo projects without a break. I can't stand a chance to explain my difficulties and share experiences. My advisor told me that his best works came from when he spent his time in lab as a student with other students.

I know that is none's purpose to be there helping others out or work in my projects, but what is the meaning of the lab existence if not providing an environment to share experiences and helping others?

So, for my point of view, i feel a little disappointed about that. I don't know if either i am quite anti-social or my lab isn't good. I'd like to hear some advices about start engaging with other researchers.


texts: What to do when someone does not respond to your email?

texts:
So, I am struggling with one of my upper division math class(Partial differential equations). I contacted a close family friend to see if he can help me or if he knows anybody that can tutor me because he is a math professor at a college. Long story short, a grad student emailed me and said he is willing to help me because he had the same professor with same class, but has not done that class for a while but is willing to catch on after reading the notes.

Then, he asked to email him the course topics and I emailed it to him. Two days later no respond. I am frustrated because I am really having a hard time in that class and recently failed a quiz, and I am stuck on the next homework assigned and have another quiz this week. I don't want to go to my professor for help because he will ask why I did bad on the quiz, which I feel embarrassed  and I had been going to his office hours for help before quizzes and homework. So, what do you do in this position?


texts: Is it possible to apply to a masters program without letters of recommendation?

texts:
I've been out of undergraduate for several years and am applying to graduate school. However, I'm hung up on how to obtain the required letters of recommendation.
While I did exceptionally well in undergraduate, I am pretty introverted and I graduated awhile ago. I didn't cultivate deep, long-lasting relationships with any of my professors.
Since graduation, I have worked exclusively with individuals who speak minimal English and come from cultures where letters of recommendation do not exist besides, and with people who are living with extreme mental disabilities. In both of these professions, I have been my own supervisor.
Frankly, I am feeling very up the creek without a paddle. I don't know where I would be able to get one letter, let alone multiple. Is it possible to apply for graduate school without letters of recommendation? How do you go about compensating for this?


texts: Offer to chair a session - how should I decide whether to accept?

texts: I am doing my PhD and presenting a paper at a conference, which I have already done a few times. However, I just saw an email from the organising committee asking if I am willing to chair one or more sessions. How should I decide whether to accept this offer? What are the reasons to accept, and what are the reasons to decline?  Is it a very common thing to do for a graduate student, who does not even have a Ph.D, to be invited to chair a session? While I feel honoured, I am also somewhat overwhelmed and not sure if I should accept it.


texts: Why do "everyone suck at their first research interviews"?

texts:
I needed to do some research interviews for my master thesis. I study software engineering and in the interviews I ask people about preferences and more regarding a piece of software.

When listening to the recordings it's obvious that I did a very poor job in so many different ways:

ehm, ehm, ehmmmmm, ehm, constantly
interrupting the interviewee
forgetting to acknowledge his answers
missing important questions, though they are in an interview guide
failing to formulate my questions clearly
elaborate on questions way too soon, because I find the silence uncomfortable
worried about the interviewee feeling that he is wasting his time, or that I am stupid or incompetent
sounding nervous, yes I was
not sounding interested in their answers, though I certainly was
my speech gets sluggish and less precise than normal, I really just sound stupid (more than I am)

...and much more.

I spoke with two different anthropologists that I happen to know. They said that they had the exact same experience, and for the first many interviews they tried. They say there is a consensus in their school about how it takes time to learn, as a craft. According to them one can prepare very well, which will help, but still the interviews will be quite bad, but that in time one will learn and get much better. Even the professors said this, that they should expect to do bad at first, but later they would learn, that this was almost inevitable.

This was nice to hear for me :)

I need to reflect on this in my thesis, that my performance was so bad. To do so, I need a source.

My questions is: If there is a consensus about this, are there some sources supporting this claim, or just sources dealing with this issue?


texts: Chances at Going to a Math Grad School with 3.5 Math GPA

texts:
I am a 3rd year at UChicago, and I'd really like to try and get a math PhD. Currently I have a 3.75 GPA (3.5 Math GPA—but if you remove the one B I got during CoVid that goes up to a 3.6). I've taken Real Analysis, Linear Algebra, Algebra, and Topology and got B+/A- in them. I expect to have taken a few more higher math electives (i.e. Measure Theory, ODEs, etc.) and 3 grad classes. I've also done an REU and some (3-5) reading programs in all sorts of fields with my specialty being in Geometry and Topology. I think I'll have decent recs.
What kinds of PhD programs could I realistically get into? Now I'd really like to go to a school like UMich, NYU, UChicago (again), Northwestern, CUNY, Brown, Cornell, CUNY etc. Would any (and if so which) be possible?
Also, I consider myself Agender. Would this hurt/help me in anyway in my application? I don't know any non-cis mathematicians so I figured I'd just ask that here.


texts: Novel-like writing style often sacrifices clarity and accessibility, is it ok to use it in scientific texts?

texts:
In writing, there are many things one can do to make the text better.
Some basic rules of thumb include avoiding repetitions, avoiding passive voice, breaking down long and complicated sentences, or letting the reader think for themselves.

Do such rules also apply to scientific texts, and if not, why?

I can think of a few reasons why they may not.
For example, avoiding repetition may create confusion — it might not be immediately clear if the alternative term is just a synonym, or if it is different and in what way.
Moreover, using more advanced devices (or,  for that matter, sophisticated vocabulary) could be problematic even for native speakers.

Surely we need to make the text as accessible and clear as possible, but it would be great if it were also enjoyable to read.
Where lies the right balance?


texts: Researchgate and Elsevier sharing policy

texts:
We already have a similar question but it does not seem to address the issue I have. Assume I have a manuscript that is accepted for publication. When I look at the sharing policy of Elsevier, I see that I "can share my preprint anywhere at any time".
The moment my manuscript is accepted, there seems to be a different set of rules. Why is that? Can I still share my preprint wherever I like?

I would like to share something through researchgate.net. Can someone help to clear these two specific questions?

Regarding the rules of Elsevier, can I share my personal pre-print (not the final publication) at any time, no matter if my manuscript is accepted or published?
Can I upload the graphics or images from the pre-print to researchgate since they have such functionality or is this not allowed?


texts: Can I email a professor from a different university about a proposed course project?

texts:
I am currently taking a math class and saw that a professor from a different university had some ideas/open questions for final course research projects on his page. I began working on one of these project ideas but I ran into a problem that I couldn't overcome (basically a certain type of equation doesn't seem to exist for the object proposed in his question).

I asked my math professor about it but they weren't sure. Would it be inappropriate to email the professor from a different university about it and ask them if this is the correct direction to work in for the problem? It would just be a one time email, not like expecting him to answer all my questions, but I understand how he could take it as such.


texts: What questions should I ask as a candidate during interview for a PhD program that assigns you an advisor?

texts:
*I'm applying for Psychology PhD.

There's a university that I am applying to but unlike some of the other universities I've found, where students can state their desired advisor, this university accepts students based on a collective decision and assigns you an initial advisor.

There were articles and questions on what to ask during PhD interviews, but not many for programs that do not give you the freedom of pick and choosing the lab you wish to work in.

What are some good questions to ask during the interview for a program that does not give you this option?
Since it's the collective department accepting you, are there any useful ways to spot potential 'red flags'?

Thank you in advance to those who read and answer this question


texts:
I am currently writing the introduction to my PhD thesis and have one specific doubt about how to include or cite a review article that I have published with jointly with my supervisors.

In my opinion, a review article and the thesis introduction are quite similar - they review a specific field for fellow researchers. It's very difficult to make a summary of a review, given that it is already quite densely written. What would be the best manner to include my own text from the review in my thesis?

Paste the review paper it as introduction chapter (with journal layout) ?
Mention that this introductory chapter has verbatim extracts from my review and cut and paste the most important parts ?
Summing up and rewording large parts of the review paper and avoid self-plagiarism?

Generally, my university allows to include my papers that are already published in the thesis, but the guidelines do not elaborate much more as I guess everybody assumes that research papers are pasted as result chapters. I have talked with several people (including PI, secretaries). I'd just like to consult the opinion of people outside my everyday universe. I am curious on what you have to say, thanks.


texts: What are the best ways to organize one's research workflow when using multiple Operating Systems?

texts:
I have a good memory, but some of the fields I'm working in (NLP, Semantic Web, Information Visualization, Machine Learning) are quickly expanding.

While I do have a good method of keeping track of good research (I only follow the best researchers and research groups on Twitter, Scholar, conferences, journals, etc), sometimes perhaps it's better to save all the interesting papers, add notes to them and put them in context and relationships with other papers (if a paper frequently cites another paper and is a sequel to that paper, perhaps it's better to read those 2 papers together, for example).
Essentially the things I want to do are these:

keep records of the workshops, classes or tutorials I attended, but also
video recordings of presentations I have never seen in real life
annotate PDFs, extract metadata from them and generate bibtex
bibliographies
keep tutorials in pdf + video format synced (where possible)
keep everything in context - organized in folders, tagged,
cross-referenced if possible (if an article is cited in a paper and I
already have it in my library, I want to be able to access it fast)
I want to be able to search about various keywords/tags regardless of the location where the actual files are stored and OS.

I noticed most of these things are doable in the Apple ecosystem (iTunes, iBooks, etc), but not really on Windows and Linux. Does anyone has any idea about how to do this in Linux and Windows? I happen to absolutely need to use both operating systems (still have some work with SQL Server, Excel, etc), but most of my development work is in Linux (coding in Java, Python, JavaScript and others, but also writing papers in LaTeX).

I would preferably only sync a huge zotero (or similar) folder using Dropbox, and papers/tutorials should be in sub-folders named after their research field, but also tagged so that I can find them regardless of the folder.

EDIT:
I have paid Dropbox, but apparently finding free WebDAV is an issue (therefore that would mean an additional 5-10 euros per month). As far as code goes I use GitHub and GitLab.

After seeing your answers, it occured to me that I'm thinking about it too much. Perhaps the best idea is this: the whole workflow should be a webapp - this way it will perform almost similarly on all operating systems, as even if there are differences between browsers, they are not so big as the differences between OSes.


texts: Are patents appropriate in taxpayer funded academic settings?

texts:
I am asking because I work for a non-for-profit academic hospital where the vast majority of the funding comes, one way or another, from the taxpayer. It is certainly possible, actually encouraged, for us to file for patents should we find some new way to diagnose or predict disease progression.

But, I will mention this again, we are funded by the taxpayer so we are already getting a salary and resources to do our work from them. Is it filing a patent and consequently delaying the publication of our research in order to find out a way to commercialise the work something that could be considered ethical?


texts: Does your areas of research matter for graduate school?

texts:
I know research is important for a Ph.D. program, but I'm wondering if research in a not-very-related field is still as useful?

For example, in the past I've done research in bioinformatics. I'm thinking of continuing just because I really like my advisor. However, I don't see my self doing a Ph.D. in that field. I am more interested in AI and/or embedded systems.

I am wondering if continuing to do work on a project in a field that I don't intend to do a Ph.D. in wouldn't be very helpful for me for grad school admissions, thus I should find a new project that will be more in line with my future interests.


texts: I have experience in one area but I don't have a good relation with my supervisor. How can I show this experience when applying for a PhD?

texts:
I have this particular situation, where I started one thesis during my master's about X topic (which I love). I was asked to wait around 4 months while the base code was ready to work, but when the time arrived, the program was buggy and poorly coded. However, I studied all the theoretical background that they coded, and then debugged the software for around 3 months, but in the end, it never worked.

This professor was very helpful while I was debugging it, but when I decided not to continue with the project as it looked like the debugging was never going to end, he became angry and behaved as if the project failure was my fault... I was the one who should've been pissed off after more than half a year wasted in that project...

In any case, I graduated with another thesis and now I am looking for a PhD, in that X topic... I found a very interesting one very related to the thesis I was doing before, and I would like to include in the motivation letter, my background and the experience I got while I was debugging (in fact I learned more about the topic while debugging, than reading the theory).

What would be the best way to mention this project without backfiring at me, or being asked for a reference from that professor who will definitely not recommend me?

Thanks!


texts: Tips for managing a panel at a conference

texts:
My advisor invited me to host a panel at a conference next week because she is on vacation and of course I said yes right away without thinking.

But now I realize I should asked more questions, because I don’t really know what to do.

What are some good tips on how to be a great host for a panel? For ex, maybe I should get everyone’s presentation in advance on the same pin drive so we don’t need to switch between presentations all the time. That’s obvious. But what else?


texts: How to overcome the need to know everything about a topic?

texts:
I seek advice from mathematicians.

Sometimes I come across a topic I partially understand in my research, but I understand enough to get my work done. Yet I want to know everything about the topic, even if it isn't beneficial to my work. I can not get rid of universalism. For example, I think I do not know a lot of about my research field without reading all the grad texts.

But at the time of doctoral education teachers always advise you to look at the research and stop reading too many books.

How is it possible to get rid of universalism?


texts: Can I host my published software at Dropbox?

texts:
I am about to publish a software in Bioinformatics Journal. May I keep the files for online availability at Dropbox as public link.

If that's not a good idea what are the options?


texts: Fellowships of smaller amount to support your main postdoctoral fellowship

texts:
I've a certain postdoctoral scholarship for a year in certain area of applied science. But the scholarship is not very generous compared to the local cost of living (think of Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship as something very generous for any place), so I'm planning to apply for a scholarship which I'm okay with being relatively smaller amount (as much as € 500/month or $ 700/month is good enough, more is of course better :), which I can earn as my 'research expenses' scholarship, or some such similar.

Do you know of any such examples of such a scholarship? If yes, could you please be kind enough to mention them?


texts: Include publication done outside PhD study

texts:
While preparing the thesis, there is a section on list of published journal/papers.

Should I include also some published papers before I started doing the PhD study ?

The topics of the previously published papers are not strictly related to the PhD study and not contributing to the content of the thesis.


texts: Clarification on Teaching Prep definition

texts: So my question is say you are teaching 3 Health 101 classes... one is a regular 15 week class in a classroom... one is an online section and one is an accelerated online 8 week class would this be considered 1 prep... 2 preps or even 3 preps as they are all 3 Health classes but all are somewhat different in what would need to be done and when.


texts: I got accepted to a PhD program in England. I received a formal offer letter on January 20th, which stated that I was supposed to contact the Graduate Studies Administrator via email in order to accept the offer. So I sent them an email on January 24th, telling them that I intended to accept it. However, I have not yet received their reply, and I am wondering if my email was properly delivered to them. According to the letter, the deadline to accept the offer is February 14th. Should I send them a follow-up email?


texts: How did Russia produce a comparable COVID vaccine with inferior resources?

texts:
It seems that the Sputnik V is slightly less effective than the most effective vaccines (Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech), but has some advantages as well (in particular it can be stored at higher temperatures, and it is cheaper), such that it is not clearly inferior.
How did Russia produce a vaccine of comparable quality to its competitors? I would've thought that money and talent are the two biggest drivers of quality research, yet Russia seems to be well behind its competitors on both these metrics:

Russian R&D spending is way less than the US/Germany, as well as Belgium on a per capita basis; and
Russian universities do poorly on international rankings, implying that the best brains do not work in Russia

Only other thing I can think of is luck, but I intuitively dislike luck as an explanation since it is applicable to many things.
I'm asking this on Academia.SE because it's more a question about research process than about politics.


texts: Is it acceptable to add results to an arXiv publication?

texts: I have a paper (in computer science) which I have sent to a conference and I am planning to make a journal version which will contain some extra results. Is it acceptable to put the conference version to arXiv and later, when the journal version is done, add the new results to arXiv?


texts: How to reply a faculty to ask him to recommend you to another faculty who might be recruiting this year?

texts:
I am a graduate school applicant for PhD in XXX engineering, fall 2021. I contacted a POI for the same and got the following reply:

Hi hashbrown,
sorry at the moment, the only graduate student position I have available is for YYYY research.
Thanks

Can I ask them to recommend my name to another faculty in the same field?


texts: Do graduate schools check the disciplinary record of PhD applicants?

texts: Do Physics (STEM) graduate schools in the US check for disciplinary record if they don't ask for it in the application? The outcome of the violation doesn't appear on my transcript. Only way a graduate school can find out is if they ask my school (in US) for my academic record. I am not going to lie if they ask but some school's application form doesn't ask for disciplinary records. Does that mean they will not check for it?


texts: How to intervene with a student struggling in the major?

texts:
As a lecturer, at the start of each semester in all of my courses, I have students complete a first-day diagnostic quiz on topics from the prerequisite course. There are usually a few significant under-performers (say, 40-50% success where most students are in the 70-100% range).

I then follow up with those under-performers by looking at their prior total course history. I always find a few cases that look like seriously troubled fits for their academic major. For example: Failing core courses one or more times and then passing with a "D" before repeating at the next level (e.g.: Introductory Programming for a C.S. major, Precalculus or Calculus I for a math major, etc.). Failing 5, 10, or 15 core courses over several years in the major (so far).

I feel like I want to do something to counsel these students, reflect on their choice of major, find the most profitable use of their time and resources, and/or find how to support or remove roadblocks if appropriate. But as the instructor, I'm not sure how best to do that.

One option would be to have a meeting in the first week and ask, "What difficulties can we improve on?", etc., so as to get off on the right foot and make the most of the time in the current term. Another option might be to say nothing until they likely fail my first exam and then use that as a wake-up call in the course.

How should I, as an instructor, intervene or counsel students who are struggling greatly with their major over a number of years?

(This is at a large U.S. community college.)


texts: Noting posters/presentations (formal project titles/dates/locations) essential for statements of purpose in US PhD programs?

texts:
I am applying to biomedical PhD programs in the US. I have taken part in 2 summer internships that resulted in poster sessions and presentations at local conferences. I have also taken part in research for 3 years at my undergrad. university that will result in a publication within the next 6 months (unfortunately, not in time for graduate school applications as this is my senior thesis).

In my statements of purpose when discussing my research projects, is it okay to simply talk about my hypothesis/question, methods, results, and overall implications without listing out the formal titles of my projects or how I communicated these projects (e.g. a poster session or a presentation in my cases)?

I have very limited space in my statements of purpose to discuss research, so adding an extra 1-2 sentences about my presentations (place, date, formal titles of project, etc.) takes a lot of extra room. I also am given the chance to upload a CV and typically list my posters/presentations in some sections of the application.

The reason why I ask this is because my PIs and advisors have told me to always list the "proof" of my work (e.g. poster or presentation in my case) at the end of my research explanations in the statements of purpose.

PS: Some applications tell me to highlight "whether any of these research activities [research projects] resulted in a presentation or publication." In these cases, I most definitely will include formal project titles/dates/locations of posters and presentations I gave.

Thanks for your insight!


texts: Learning new topic: read literature from oldest to newest or the other way around?

texts:
I need to start learning about a new research topic, I've been collecting articles for about a year now. I collected +400 articles, spanning a range of ~40 years.

I haven't had the time to read them since I was working on finishing a few papers, I'm finished now so I want to get on it.

The question is: should I start from oldest to newest, or from newest to oldest?

I can see some pros and cons in both approaches:

Oldest to newest:

Pro: it feels right, since that is the way the research actually happened.
Con: It will take me a lot of time to become acquainted with the latest developments in the field, and I am not able to start working on it until I do.

Newest to oldest:

Pro: I will quickly develop some knowledge (not in depth though) into the actual state of the field. This allows me to start working, at least on minor things.
Pro: It will alert me of wrong paths taken previously in the field, so when I find them in the older literature I'll be already aware.
Con: It will be considerably more difficult to follow, specially at first, since I'll be diving into the analysis of the latest developments of an unknown field.
Con: I'll necessarily be jumping back to older literature anyway, risking going down the rabbit hole of research.


texts: Arranging a visit to a professor you do not know yet

texts:
I am a PhD student in mathematics and I’d like to visit professor X (whom I don’t know personally), as he’s an expert in my field and could really help me with some passages in my research. I have quite a few questions:

How to approach professor X to ask if I can visit him and what sort of information should I provide?
When PhD students visit academics, what happens usually? I mean, would professor X become a sort of supervisor for the time of the visit, or would it just be that me and professor X would mostly be in the same place at the same time and able to chat a bit if the opportunity arises?
How long do visits last, usually? Would I be a student at professor X’s university during the time of my visit? Would I have any academic requirements (e.g. to give talks at seminars, etc.)?
Professor X is in a different country than I am. Are professors based in a different country than a potential visiting student more reluctant to let students visit them? If so, why?


texts: What tradeoffs are there between internal and external validity?

texts:
I was reading through an article about research design. The authors gave an example on the relation between internal and external validity which I thought might be an important area of consideration when designing research proposals.

  "A restricted study population (and exclusion criteria) may limit bias
  and increase the internal validity of the study; however, this
  approach will limit external validity of the study and, thus, the
  generalizability of the findings to the practical clinical setting.
  Conversely, a broadly defined study population and inclusion criteria
  may be representative of practical clinical practice but may increase
  bias and reduce the internal validity of the study."

Broadly speaking, what questions can be asked to help decide one should strike a balance between the internal and external validity in our research proposal designs? Is it necessary then to carry out a pilot study first to establish some level of internal validity before moving on to establish external validity in a much bigger and formal follow-up study?

Crosspost: Quora


texts: I am in systems Phd program, but I want to do theoretical research

texts:
I am 3rd year Phd student. So far I have been doing systems research in top US university. I realized that I want to do theory (in particular machine learning (ML) theory), but unfortunately I do not have any publications in that area. I do not have good math background, I never majored in math, and I did only basic math classes back in undergrad more than 6 years ago. So you realize that my math skills are very-very weak.
But I truly enjoy learning maths, read ML papers, read theory papers, even though I struggle. It makes me feel happy, intellectually inspired and motivated.
Meantime I completely do not care about systems research.
That said I am def much much much less qualified than most Phd students in theory who majored in math, have tons of experience and publications.

Do I even have a chance to switch to theory? Should I even talked to professors? I am completely fine to stretch my Phd for the next 5-6 years (since if I switch I will need to start from the beginning and have a long period of learning).

Do you think I should give it a shot? Is it even feasible?


texts: About legality on self-plagiarism when publishing an article

texts: I found out that a collegue published about 5 years ago a paper in the proceedings of a conference about education in engineering (proceedings has ISBN, but publication has no DOI, in case that matters for this question). Then reworded the whole paper but kept literally the same references, same research questions, same arguments all over the paper and published in another conference (IEEE, this time with a DOI). So I imagine he purposely reworded and made up two papers with "the same" content, though he obviously rewords paragraph by paragraph (changes sentence order, synonyms, etc.). I thought this practice was not allowed but does anyone know the legality of publishing the same paper (though reworded) in two conferences?


texts: American universities - where does all the money go?

texts:
This question is about Title-IV eligable 4 year institutions in America, the majority of which are non-profit.

Colleges have a range of funding sources, including tution fees. Tuition fees have increased by ~500% in the past 5 decades, much faster than inflation.

My question is, given the increase in income from that source, and that the institutions do not make a profit, where is the money going?

For instance, is this offset by decreases in state funding? Are they spending a lot more on grounds maintainance or research?

I would prefer answers that refer to some kind of data, for instance graphs, university financial report...


texts: What is a committee looking for in a dissertation proposal?

texts: I've started narrowing down the scope of my dissertation, and I have one year before I need to defend my proposal.  I'm curious to know what is expected from a dissertation proposal.  What are the key elements that I should include / exclude?  What criteria typically used to judge whether the proposal defense is successful?  Are the committee's feedback of the proposal typically used as a criteria for the full fledged dissertation defense?


texts: What's the difference between regular (aka full), position and short papers?

texts:
I've sent the article to the conference and it has been accepted. However, I received a message that my paper has been accepted as the short paper.

I know that there's a difference in, for instance, the oral presentation time between those 3 kinds of papers. However, I wonder if the type (regular, position, short) can say anything about the quality or the importance of the paper's subject?


texts: Should I WX(drop) a class if the highest grade I can get is a B+? How badly would this hurt my PhD application?

texts:
I'm an undergraduate right now and in my junior year. I was overloading courses and fell behind one course, leaving me with a B+ as the highest possible grade for the course. Should I retake it next year if I know I can get an A in the class?

Also: it is a core class and I can technically get an A- but thats with a 100 on everything...


texts: ePrint Archive for PhD Dissertation in the Social Sciences

texts:
I understand there are a number of specialised ePrint archives or repositories where scholarly works could be posted for wider dissemination (for example, arXiv).

I am wondering if there is a preferred one for PhD dissertations in the social sciences?


texts: Will a post on arXiv as a high school sophomore hurt my future academic life?

texts:
I am a high school sophomore student who is very passionate about the subject of number theory and college level calculus. However, I am currently only in the high school class of precalculus/trig. The paper contains material beyond high school calculus, but am afraid that it would not be good enough for an actual arXiv paper.  Here are a few important facts to consider about my particular situation.

(The math side) The proof is basically a non-summation proof of an inequality between an integral and a constant. By "non-summation" I mean like, if you have a sum of infinite terms, you are not allowed to approximate using 1000000 terms or whatever. This implies more strategic methods, no use of any obvious approximation methods like trap rule, and most importantly, in my opinion,  why I feel it good enough.
I feel that this is not necessarily good enough for arXiv because I am not proving some general result, have 0 co-authors, and very limited assistance on the subject.
I currently have no people to endorse, but quite confident I can achieve one (connections).
If this is too low level, I am afraid that this might mar writing papers in the future, my credibility, etc.
I have an unused arXiv account, which I doubt will be harmful (side question: will it?)

But, Ok, let's assume that I manage to pull this off during the summer. Assuming the paper is written fair enough, but about the content I am talking about, would writing the paper hurt my academic life down the road?


texts: Is there a pre-publication access for ACM journals?

texts:
After a manuscript is accepted in a journal, usually it takes serveral months before it actually gets actually published. Many publishers now provide online access to the published papars, before they get printed, and even before the typesetting.
Some of the ACM journals have a section called "Forthcoming Articles" in their homepage, but clicking on the articles in this sections leads to nowhere! So, I wanted to know if there is a pre-publication access for ACM journals or not.

Here is an example:

ACM Transactions on the Web (TWEB)

I have searched for some of the articles of this type in third party pre-print servers, but I couldn't find anything.


texts: What are the expectations of bioinformatics Masters students?

texts:
Country: Looking for answers for US/Canada/UK/Germany, ideally Canada.

Subject: bioinformatics

I am starting a bioinformatics MSc degree in a biology department of my university (no bioinformatics dept exists).

Until this point, I've talked mostly with grad students pursuing biology degrees. The expectations for bio MSc student have been described to me as produce data for 1-2 figures. PhD students are expected to produce good data for an entire paper, i.e. 5-6 figures.

Similarly, what are the expectations for MSc students in bioinformatics?

For masters, is it possible to take an open source tool and build on top of it to solve some issue it has?

Basically there is a tool that has two components A and B. Component A is fine as it is but component B is done poorly - so many people can't really use it. Can I take this tool, scrap a part of it and redo it?


texts: Why do national laboratory presentations contain so much info per slide?

texts:
I've seen many, many examples of scientific presentations from the National Laboratories in which virtually every slide is oversaturated with information.  If this were an isolated event, I wouldn't have given it any thought.  But I've noticed this pattern in presentations over many years from among presenters hailing from US national laboratories.  Though my field is computational science, I've seen talks from national laboratory scientists in other fields and their presentations also have this same characteristic.

In academia, I've been taught to keep slides as simple as possible, with as little info per slide as necessary.  My understanding is a presentation should be though of as an "advertisement" for the paper to be published.  Thus, presentation slides should be designed to preserve the audience's interest.  One method of keeping the audience interest is to not overwhelm them with too much information all at once (e.g., not too much text and not too many pictures in a single slide).  I presume this is universally true, regardless of discipline.

However, the overwhelming majority of national laboratory presentations that I've seen seem to fill up virtually every available space with as much information as possible.  Why do presentations from national laboratories tend to contain so much information per slide?  How does this meet the needs of their target audience?


texts: What are some good ways to showcase one's research capabilities while applying for graduate programmes

texts:
I would like know to what are some good/effective ways to showcase one's research capabilities, other than paper publications, when the person is out of academia and applying for schools in USA for MS(preferably MS by Thesis)

Specific to my case, I graduated 3 years ago and now I am out of academia. I do not have any paper publications. So I am looking for other good ways to show the admissions committee that I am capable of doing research. But how?

For eg., a personal website where I can list my technical essays (which are not worthy as to be published as a paper) mentioning methods I tried to improve an idea, or where I failed etc. List of research projects I did independently.

Basically I want to know how can I make myself a potential candidate for the MS by thesis programme(other than paper publications) being outside an academia and working independently.


texts: Lack of mathematical training for a CS Ph.D

texts:
I've graduated and I'm looking to apply to a Ph.D. program in computer science. However, during my undergraduate years I did not take math courses other than the ones required for the CS major (i.e., discrete maths and algorithms). Thus I haven't taken a college course in calculus/statistics/linear algebra/probability, which I am aware is essential training for CS Ph.D. students. I also haven't taken an operating systems course since it wasn't required for the major and I opted for a different set of CS courses.

The reason for this was that I did not consider applying to graduate programs at the time, and chose to take courses in other unrelated departments to fulfill requirements for my second area of study. However, I am currently taking an online MOOC in calculus and linear algebra to increase my technical knowledge.

Although I have good grades in my CS courses and research experience, I'm wondering if this would be considered a red flag that I should address in my statement of purpose. If so, what would be a good way to do it?

Alternatively, would it make sense to apply for a Masters program to get more coursework under my belt before applying to a Ph.D. program?


texts: If I'm personally invited to give a talk but have to pay and submit an abstract does that count as a invited talk?

texts:
Suppose I receive a personal, written invite to a conference. I would like to attend, and the procedure still requires me to submit an abstract and pay for the conference, would that count as an invited talk?

On one hand, it's not different procedurally from someone submitting an abstract that gets accepted. But on the other hand, I have technically been given what seems to be an invite.


texts: How to get covered in non-academic media

texts:
Scientists and other academics often embark on studies or make research findings of interest to a wider audience of laypeople.  Sometimes this work gets covered in media devoted to pop science or pop culture (Popular Science, Quirks and Quarks, etc.), and sometimes even in general-purpose news magazines and newspapers like TIME and The New York Times.

If your peer-reviewed research has produced something likely to be of interest to the general public, what are the best ways of bringing this to the attention of non-academic media outlets?  I imagine networking could play a big role here (that is, once you've been covered in the media once, you could contact the same journalist with news about related research by yourself or your colleagues).  But what if you have no prior contacts?  Do newspaper editorial desks welcome tips for science/humanities research stories the same way they do for general news events?  Is it a faux pas to write an enquiry directly to a magazine journalist who has previously covered research in a related area?  If a press release is the way to go, exactly how and where should it be posted or submitted?


texts: PhD Research under guide/advisor of a different department

texts: I am a physics undergrad, who is also interested in pure mathematics. I am not very sure what I want to pursue for my PhD. Though I have specific interests in each of the two, and also inter-linked interests, in general I am very confused. My question is it legally and practically allowed for you to chose a guide from another department different than that which you are affiliated to? If not, can someone from another department become a co-guide? In particular, I am looking for laws and practices in the US and Europe (may differ from country to country).


texts: How to inform conference organizers about your legal name

texts:
I am in the following situation. I have a name I prefer to use for personal reasons but the name on my passport is different.

If I apply for travel support for a conference, the recommendation letters will be for the preferred name but the invitation letter for visa, if I am to use it, should be for the legal name. What is the protocol for informing the organizers about this discrepancy?

In my previous experience, when my preferred name and my legal name were the same the organizers issued the letter for my preferred name without checking whether it is my legal name so action from my side must be necessary.

When you apply, there is a form; should I simply fill out the name field like "Preferred Name (legal name: Legal Name)"?


texts: Saying that you will do something in the near future in CV and statement of purpose when applying for grad school.

texts:
I am applying for PhD and In my statement of purpose I said that I have submitted a paper for a certain conference and that I will submit another one to a top conference once I have completed doing certain measurements.

I also said that by the end of my degree I will have done this and that. I mention these things in my CV too which I will submit to that school.

Is it OK to say such things ? These are near future plans and show how I progress and what I plan to do and I believe that they will improve my chances of getting admissions. How will professors and admission committees look at such a CV ?


texts: Plagiarism from preprint of paper (from the Arxiv)

texts:
Recently we have written a research paper and posted a preprint on the Arxiv to obtain some non-official peer review and to increase the quality of our paper. Till now we have not submitted this paper to any conference or journal (it is unpublished), but we are interested in sending it to a conference.

While testing our paper for plagiarism using free sites, we obtained results showing 83% plagiarism from the version we posted on the Arxiv. In other words, the software is saying that we plagiarised our own paper. We also tried pulling down our paper from the Arxiv to avoid this plagiarism, but it’s not possible. Does that mean our paper will get rejected by all conferences? What should we do?


texts: How to convert a grade in Italian scale to the UK grading scale?

texts: I got a grade as 99/110 during my Bachelor degree in Italy. What would be the conversion to the UK grading scale?


texts: My paper has been sitting with the editor without peer review, and the journal is not responding. What should I do?

texts:
I'm about to graduate college and this is my first time submitting a manuscript and I need some guidance because my PI has been busy with his grant. I submitted my manuscript to Behavioral sleep medicine since January and it has been sitting with the editor and did not enter the peer review process.
I thought this was a great journal because of their metrics.
I found out it was a lie. When I looked them up on PubMed I noticed only 40 papers got published in the last year which is really small compared to other journals even during COVID-19.
I emailed the journal multiple times about a time frame and they copied and pasted this same message twice "I do apologize, but I have no further information at this time. The editor is working diligently to get decisions out as soon as possible."
I'm about to graduate and I feel like I won’t have time to work in this journal and neither would my coauthors and I was wondering what I should do. I worked on this project for 6 years straight from undergrad to grad. Should I withdraw and submit it to sleep health?


texts:
I'm teaching my first class this semester, and was quite happy with Gradescope when I used it as a TA last semester. Does anyone have experience using Gradescope with large (100+ student) classes for evaluating exams?

Is it worth having a teaching assistant help me scan the quizzes?
Is there anyway to structure my quiz to streamline the scanning process?


texts: arXiv or MathSciNet statistics by MSC classes and time

texts:
I suppose I'm not the first person who came across this idea. I would like to compare math branches by means of numbers of articles published. I have access to two large math article indices: AMS' MathSciNet and arXiv.

My question is: Is it possible (in either of them) to get the information how many articles were published with a given MSC class, year by year?


texts: Is first authorship a big deal (in terms of highlighting it on CV, etc.)?

texts:
From August 2015 through August 2016 I was on a Nuclear/Radiation Physics based work placement in a scientific research institute, between my second and third years of my university Maths degree. I am now back at university, half way through my third year.

About half way through my work placement (which I thoroughly enjoyed), my supervisor suggested that the work I was doing could be considered publishable. Being an undergraduate this was (and is) obviously a very exciting prospect. It turned out that we did decide to write a paper, and my supervisor said to be that I would get to be the first author. I don't understand much, but I'm under the impression that's something to be excited about too.

I finished with all the analysis and wrote a draft of the paper. It was then time for me to leave my placement and my (now ex-)supervisor are still in correspondence, whilst he finalizes the paper. There have been various (unrelated) issues which have held him back from spending time on it - but he suspects (as it stands) that he will possibly finish it and submit it to a journal by the end of February. He's basically completely reformatting a lot of the paper, and probably rewriting a whole bunch of it, because being an undergraduate I have no idea how to write a paper. Of course this means that if I do turn out to be first author, my supervisor has probably been very generous.

Long story short - if things go well and the paper is accepted in whichever journal, is this a big deal or nothing to be so bothered about? I ask basically to figure out where this ranks in terms of putting it on a C.V. (or something). Is this something to simply add on as an achievement, or something to really highlight?

I understand my question is really rather ambiguous. Essentially I'm really not sure what to expect under the circumstances that the paper is published - if anything.


texts: Taking out a loan to pursue a degree in theoretical physics in the EU. Bad idea?

texts:
How common is it for students to take a loan to pursue a theoretical physics degree in Europe, as a non-EU foreigner.
Theoretical physics and mathematics students are advised not to take a loan as there are very few jobs in both the fields. I was admitted to a Masters Theoretical Physics (Quantum fields and Strings) program at Uppsala. So far I am still looking for a scholarship.
Is taking out a loan to pursue a degree as non-EU citizen in one of these two fields always a bad idea?


texts: Do published papers always have to present an innovation?

texts:
I would like to publish a/some papers online. But do the things I discuss in these papers have to be innovations. I am still a student and would like to publish a paper about aerospace engineering (especially attitude determination, control systems for satellites, GNC systems).

Those are not the easiest topics, especially as I am doing that alone on a voluntary basis. So does the paper I will publish have to discuss any innovation? I think publishing something where I explain how some algorithms work, which I tested my self, is much more doable. I could then just explain the algorithms (which already existed) and present their results. Would the latter still be considered as a decent (research) paper?


texts: How to search for a Career Counselor / Specialist for Life Sciences?

texts:
Does anyone know how I could go about finding a career counselor that can help an "ex-academic" in some way to find a job in "real world"? Essentially, I am looking for type of counseling service that is similar to K Kelsky's "Professor Is In," but with expertise in and inside knowledge of biotech/life science. I know this forum cannot recommend individuals directly, but maybe you can tell me where/how to look. I would love to hear other people stories: if anyone used a career coach/help in "Life Sciences", how did you find that person and how did you know that you are getting sensible guidance?
I am a former "life scientist" (molecular biologist). I am aware of "Cheeky Scientist's Association", but I would never-ever approach an company that employs such a predatory marketing strategy.
I would like to provide an excerpt from someone else's blog post to explain my problem:

I was desperate to find jobs in industry and somehow got hold of the
CEO of a mid-sized pharmaceutical firm for an interview. I didn’t get
the job because he couldn’t see where to fit me in his organization.
Take for example, as he ran through the choices:

I can’t put you in sales or marketing because you’ve never sold a product
I can’t give you a manufacturing or production role since they require different expertise such as GMP, GLP, etc unrelated to yours
I can’t assign you a role in quality control/regulatory since you’re
not aware of the compliance and regulatory issues related to the
pharmaceutical industry
We like so many pharma companies are into
generics and there is no R&D arm; so I’m not sure where to have you
within us”

None of this was done in a condescending way. It’s the reality. And
then I understood this: Really world values different set of skills
(life skills) over academic smartness.

Unfortunately, this was precisely my experience as well during a really intense job search a few years ago.
As far as pharma/biotech is concerned, they look for either people with 10 to 15 years of industry experience, knowledge of industry-specific regulations, credentials etc. Alternatively, they need B.Sc. or, at most, M.Sc. to work as technicians in control or on a production line.
I feel that I have exhausted my creativity and completely lost now. I had extremely damaging experience in "academia" (from a bad Ph.D to a horrible postdoc). I do not believe that I have any competitive edge, to be honest. I feel like I do need an external council, but with a professional who knows the field.
P.S. To make it  really clear: I have no chances for successful "academic" career and I do not want to waste time and effort chasing it. I desperately need a non-academic career. However, I cannot find anywhere the guidance/career coaching that I need.
P.P.S. I was a "wet-lab" scientist. People refuse to understand that there is a HUGE difference in employ-ability between bio-statisticians, bioinformaticians and people of this ilk and "Wet-lab scientists".
It took me ~ 12 months to find a job of a project manager on "soft money" at a small University. I have applied like crazy all across Canada. Now things start to collapse due to politics and ever-absent/super-busy PI of the project. I simply do not have administrative power to hold people to account and make things work.
I am out of ideas now. Seriously. I am sick and tired of academic BS.
I have no imagination left. No ideas. Zero. I do not do drugs. I am out of any ideas. I need a career coach, a creative writer, a fairy-tale writer, I do not know whom to get some fresh ideas. I cannot live like this anymore.


texts: How usual/feasible is it for European universities to accept PhD candidates right after their bachelor's degree? (computer science field)

texts:
I am nearing the end of my bachelor's degree and wish to know what my options are for continuing. Optimally, I would be able to immediately pursue a PhD, but I get conflicting information on the matter by different professors, advisors, and online sources.
The institutions I am mainly interested in are: EPFL, ETH Zürich, University of Edinburgh, Technical University of Darmstadt (TU Darmstadt), UCL, and University of Warsaw, as this is where I could find advisors most relevant to my research interests.
I was told that, besides the advisor being interested, the university has to have a precedent or a way for the master's degree requirement to be bypassed, but I am having a hard time locating such information. Any and all insight on previous cases of the aforementioned universities accepting or explicitly denying a PhD candidate on the basis of not having a master's degree is very useful.
Personally, I will have four to eight publications to my name by the time I graduate, but probably six at the time of sending out applications, and a very very strong research thesis. If that is not enough regardless of universities accepting without a master's degree or not, that would also be some useful information to have.
I repeat; I do not care about the rest of the criteria, just whether or not not having a master's degree is an absolute deal breaker for a PhD in the aforementioned institutions.


texts: What are the potential ramifications of a student intentionally deanonymizing his/her class evaluation?

texts:
Presumably, evaluations are anonymized to protect the students from possible retaliation by the instructor or institution.

Is there anything in the reverse direction (keeping that information hidden is beneficial to the instructor)?

What are potential consequences if a student chooses to place identifying information (e.g. knowledge of a particular conversation) onto an evaluation?

The exact situation is that one of my friends was considering discussing a very long conversation she'd had with the professor on the class evaluation, and how it exemplified issues she'd had with the class. She's taking a class with that professor next semester, which is a big issue for the student. That issue aside, I'm wondering if there would be good reaons to avoid this even if she would never take another class with this instructor.


texts: What's the easiest way to get a references section into a single citation format if they vary to begin with?

texts:
I have a ~5 page references section with citations added by various authors in varying formats. What's the easiest way to get them all into the same format?

The two options I see are to do it manually or use citation management software like Zotero. Doing it manually is feasible but tedious, prone to mistakes and will probably take an hour or more. I'm not sure if it's possible to import these varying format citations into Zotero and export it in a common format, but that's what I'm about to try.

I wanted to check with experts here first. If I find Zotero works or not I'll add that info to this Q&A.


texts: Mention two-body-problem in PhD applications? If so, where?

texts:
My significant other and I finish our master degrees at the same time and thus we are applying for PhD programmes at the same time. One major factor of accepting a potential offer would be if we could study at the same university, so I feel that mentioning a two-body problem would be advantageous for both, us and the admission committee. But where do I mention this? Is a line in the statement of purpose suitable here?

  If you admit me, please also consider admitting my significant other Jane Roe.

Some additional information: We both do research in computer science. While I do research in natural language processing my partner does research in computer vision.


texts: Are there any guidelines for labeling axes in plots/graphs when the "unit" is "number of people"?

texts:
I have read the question Are there any guidelines for labeling axes in plots/graphs? and related answers and they cover the case where the unit is from the International System of Units (SI), but what about when the graph shows information about people?

I am interested in medicine or in psychology where a lot of graph are related to number of people, is there any wide adopted guideline?

What is the right word to use?
People?
Person?
Individual?

For example if person were a unit of measurement I should write 10 person and not 10 persons because for SI units we do not use plural forms.

In the same way, in a axis label I should write person and not number of persons because we usually write meter (if not abbreviated) and not number of meters.

And then, what is the short form for person? I see sometimes pax but as a short form for passenger of an aircraft.


texts: How much independency does a postdoctoral researcher have?

texts: I am a postdoctoral with governmental grant, means that it is not a grant from a research supervisor for a specific research project. Of course, when I was applying for this grant I was asked to connect with one of the professor in university X and I provided a research proposal. During working on the research related to my proposal, I am working on some other aspects which are not far from my proposed research in cooperation with some other scholars and professors outside of my university. I would like to ask your opinion on whether it is normal for postdoctoral researchers to have collaborations with other people as well?


texts:
I have been asked to become a MathSciNet reviewer. I personally find the database very useful, but I am a bit held back by the fact the database is kept behind a paywall.

What is actually the licensing/copyright status of reviews submitted to MathSciNet? Do authors keep the copyright and are allowed to post copies on their websites (like the AMS license for its journals)? If so, does anyone actually do the latter?

The information is nowhere to be found on MathSciNet, and actually I have never seen anyone releasing their reviews somewhere else.


texts: Is there a metric for the impact in teaching?

texts:
There are different metrics like the h-index which try to measure the impact in research of a scientist.

Is there a metric which tries to measure the educational impact of a lecturer or a tutor?


texts: Is there an attribution obligation for arXiv preprints with the standard license?

texts:
I'm currently learning more about arXiv's different licenses. One of them is arXiv's own perpetual, non-exclusive license. Unlike the CC licenses, it does not seem to include any clauses on attribution to the author.
Are scholars under the obligation to cite or attribute to the author of an arXiv preprint when it is under the “standard” arXiv.org non-exclusive license to distribute?


texts: Will a D in a major elective keep me from getting into a PhD program?

texts:
I am in my last semester of undergrad (majoring in mathematics) and am currently working on applying to PhD programs (in mathematics). During the fall of 2016 due to a health issue that lasted for the majority of the semester and the general difficulty of the course I received a D in Topology. Topology is not a required course at my university, but is an elective in my major. I was going to immediately retake the course, but my school has not offered the course since I last took it until this semester (fall of 2018). So, I could retake it this semester (and am currently planning on it), but my applications will need to be submitted before the new grade can be recorded, so I will have to submit my application with the D on my transcript.

I have done everything in my power to try to remedy this flaw on my transcript. I have a ~3.7 (3.68 exact) overall GPA and subject GPA (although if I had the chance to retake the course my mathematics GPA would be a ~3.8), as well as having received permissions from the department to take several graduate courses as an undergraduate in which my GPA is a 4.0 and taken several courses that cover and use topological concepts and received A's in them. I strongly believe that given the chance to retake the course I would have no problems receiving an A (or using topological concepts in research/other classes) since I have already mastered topological concepts in a variety of other courses as well as my prior knowledge from my first time taking the course.

I also have prior research experience from my freshman year (in a different engineering area since my freshman year I was a computer science major) and will also be starting mathematics research during this coming semester, so I will most likely not publish anything but will have research experience. My GRE scores are average to slightly above average according to GRE data that I have looked at and will be retaking the GRE to improve my scores even further next week and my letters of recommendation will be strong as I have worked closely for years with all of my recommenders.

Will this bad grade effect my chances of getting into a PhD program? Should I apply to a masters program first? Should I retake topology this semester even though admissions committees will not see the new grade until after I have received a decision? Any advice would be appreciated!

(Note: I have read a handful of other posts on here about one bad grade, but none seemed to quite match the dilemma of a bad grade in an upper level elective in one's field of study. Thanks!)


texts: Is it a good idea to leave a PhD program for another one in a better school after two years?

texts:
I am finishing my second year as a PhD student in computer science and I have an opportunity to go to a much higher ranked school. Is it a good idea to just leave my current program to the future school? Or is it a better to wait and hope to get a good admission for post doc? How much the school prestige for PhD affects the future academic career?

My research is moving okay and I am done with all my coursework in the first year. It is not convenient to abandon all my work and just start over. But I want to know if it is worth moving to a better program for potential greater good.


texts: What to do when your name appears second instead of first?

texts: As a Research Associate I wrote a paper which was published with my professor line manager as second author (even though he didn't work on the paper). I did the research, I wrote the paper, yet his name appears first and mine second in all online repositories such as Google scholar etc. Is this right? What should I do if it is not? Should I be even bothered about this? In the actual paper PDF which can be downloaded my name appears first. It was a good paper as it won an award. But in online repositories my name appears second.


texts: I just submitted my SoPs for PhD programs in Earth Science and I realized I wrote "for these reason" instead of "for this reason". I also wrote "this inquiries" instead of "these inquiries". Now, I am worried that I'm not going to get into any grad school. I am an international student, valedictorian and I gained great research experience in my country and the US. Do you think these mistakes are going to hurt my application?


texts:
Chevening funded scholarships have a 'two years rule' which means you have to return to your home country for two years after finishing your masters degree in the UK. For anyone who has experience with this scholarship, or knows someone that has, I have a couple of questions:

Does the two year rule means you have to be in your home country, or just outside of UK for two years?
I put more emphasis on autonomy as a person. Could a Chevening scholarship affect your autonomy in the future (meaning you are obliged to go to gatherings, embassies etc)?


texts: How to format citations for proposals with a 5-page limit

texts:
I’m submitting a proposal that has a 5 page limit (12 point font!) for EVERYTHING (figures, citations, tables) and I’m wondering how best to format my citations to save space.  No specified citation format is given.

What I’ve tried to do is abbreviate common words, use initials for the journal titles (I provide a key), drop “19” and “20” from the year, and pile everyone after the 1st author into “et al”.  In some cases, I’m dropping words, eg, if they come after a colon.  My goal is to provide enough info to indicate what the paper is about and that it could be found using Google.  I put it all in 2 columns.

I’m worried that this is getting ugly  and that I might annoy reviewers that are used to a certain format.

What I currently do:

3)Doherty et al. ‘02. Surv. of resident birds in a frag. forested landscape. Eco 83.

4)Lawson et al ‘15 Env. variation and pop. responses to global change. EL.

One option is what Science uses, eg
D. G. Ainley, L. B. Spear, S. G. Allen, Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 137, 1 (1996).

But I’ve never liked this b/c the title gets completely dropped.

Another options would be to glob everything together like this
1) Barraquand et al. 2013. When can env. variability benefit pop. growth? Counterintuitive effects of nonlinearities. Theor. Pop.Bio 89:1–11. 2) Black et al. 2012. Stochastic formulation of eco. models & their applications. TREE 27 3) Bled et al. 2013. Modeling trends from North American Breeding Bird Survey data : A spatially explicit approach PLoS 8. 4) Caswell. 2006. Matrix Population models.
5) Clutton-Brock et al. 2010. Individuals & pop: The role of long-term, individual-based studies of animals in eco & evo. TREE 25:562–573.

A final option is to be more conventional in the citation list and just remove citations and content from the proposal so that it all fits.


texts: Why do departments hire GTAs instead of more permanent faculty?

texts:
I notice departments often hire graduate students as teaching assistants.

I'm curious why departments do this instead of hire a lecturer to do the teaching. I'm sure this is helpful for the GTAs, since they're 1) getting paid and 2) getting teaching experience, but if the department is hiring GTAs to give the students teaching experience, then why not require students to teach as part of their programme? If one is concerned about "free labor" being exploitative, then one can also just add the extra money that would've gone to the GTA's salary to the student's stipend.

The only other reason I can think of is cost, and full-time lecturers are more expensive than part-time GTAs. Is this the case?

Edit: In the arrangement I'm familiar with, the students (which can be undergraduate, Masters level, or PhD) are funded separately. They could, e.g., be funded by a department scholarship or by their professor's grant. They are then offered TA positions in the department, which they are free to accept or decline. If they accept, they are paid a salary, effectively making them employees of the university.

This question applies to any country in which this is practiced.


texts: Can a failed research become the object of research?

texts:
I am working on a paper on social conditions during the pandemic, and have been using mixed methods. Unfortunately, the qualitative data collection process has been a disaster as I was unable to conduct any interviews. The reasons given for declining interviews were mostly due to pandemic disruptions. As such, I am now wondering if it's possible to do a reflective analysis instead, by arguing that the failure to collect qualitative data is in fact an indication of the real-time state of affairs?
I haven't quite been able to find relevant precedence and am unsure if there's an established methodology for this sort of "reflective analysis"? If anyone could point me in the right direction, that would be greatly appreciated!


texts: What's the best way to present regression results in a conference?

texts:
In many disciplines, regression results are a key finding that we use to present in conferences or seminars. I've seen many presentation slides full of numbers where in the end no auditor can identify a singe number.

What's the best way to present regression results (and other numeric tables) e.g. in seminars or conferences?

For example, what about mrkers for statistical significance instead of standard errors (or t statistics or p-values) and colors? Or should I prefer additional visualizations of coefficients?


texts: Does "bad credit" affect postdoc application in math?

texts: Does a bad credit score affect my chance in applying for a postdoc in math? In my case, I have a credit card that had the bill sent to the wrong address and this impacted my score with all three credit agencies.


texts: What Problems Are Applied Mathematicians Concerned With?

texts:
I have been doing some looking around to try and learn a little bit more about what applied mathematicians work on in a more general sense and think that I could benefit from a question posted here. Research in applied mathematics seems to be something like a 'jack of all trades' type of discipline in which applied mathematicians can work across many different and seemingly unconnected fields that could benefit from mathematical modelling. But, modelling in a specific field seems to me to be the role of the domain specialist.
Then, what is the utility of an applied mathematician when domain specialists would (should?) be the people who tackle, solve, and model the problems related to their field of expertise? Where do applied mathematicians fit into the research puzzle where domain experts do not?


texts: On a Paper, Change the Methodology or Report in Results Section?

texts:
I'm currently working on the final phase of my MSc dissertation, but I've been having technical issues regarding my initial approach set out in the methodology. I've made what I consider a temporary change to prove the concept but I also intend to discuss why the initial method would be better suited if the technical issues were not around.
Do I...

Change the current methodology to reflect what is going on now, discussing what was the initial method in the latter sections? or..
Leave the current methodology but discuss the "Temporary Fix" in the latter sections and how it's partial success relates to the initial method, and proves it's potential to be successful in practice?

Thanks


texts: How much do I have to know about a group's research before I email the PI about openings?

texts:
My field of study is purely theoretical, meaning that there are a ton of equations and a bunch of numerical simulations. I am targeting groups that align with my field and I am trying to read their research. I know this question has probably been asked before, but how much of the group's research am I expected to know before I email the PI about lab openings? Three levels of abstraction are given below:

Just the title of the projects and the material given on the webpages.
Go through the abstract and conclusions of their latest papers.
Take a single paper and go through it line by line, understanding all the equations and simulations.


texts: If PhD programmes prepare the candidate for research, why do teaching positions require it?

texts:
Example, example.

From the first example:

  The Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering invites applications for a full-time Assistant Professor of Teaching (Lecturer with Potential for Security of Employment (LPSOE)), comparable to a tenure-track assistant professor appointment. Professor of Teaching faculty are Academic Senate faculty members whose expertise and responsibilities center on undergraduate education and scholarly analysis/improvement of teaching methods. The successful applicant will be responsible for teaching both lower and upper division undergraduate Agricultural Sensing and Data Science lecture and laboratory courses (up to six courses per year) ... Qualified applicants must have a PhD in Engineering or a BS in Engineering with a PhD in a scientific field, preferably with postgraduate experience.

(Emphasis mine)

If this is a full-time teaching position, why are they looking for PhD degrees and postgraduate experience? How are these primarily-research degrees relevant to teaching?


texts:
Looking around online, there are some statistics that foretell doom for PhD students; some examples of this:

the number of faculty to retire in the next 10 years is at the lowest in 30 years.
the number of PhDs awarded is around 100,000, while the number of professor positions open is around 16,000.
there has been approximately 40% budget cut for math between 2008-2011 (but there was a hiring freeze put on most state universities in 2009-2010, if I remember correctly, so this may not be entirely accurate).

For more statistics, see this:
http://marccortez.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/phd-job-crisis-640x4627.gif
The creator of this argues that the number of grad students and postdocs is way too high, while the number of professors is on the decline.

I think that this is not true for math. Postdocs are considered to be a mandatory part in our career (and postdoc positions are quite competitive!), and while many people do a second postdoc, I rarely see people with more than two postdoc experiences. Also, there aren't so many adjunct positions; some postdoc positions are called adjuncts, but these usually expire in 1-3 years. So I would like to know the real statistics. In particular, I want to know these figures for last year (percentages with respect to the number of PhDs will also do):

the number of PhDs awarded (all figures from here onwards applying just to the US)
the number of PhDs hired as postdocs at PhD-producing institutions
the number of PhDs hired as tenure-track professors at liberal arts colleges
the number of postdocs finishing
the number of postdocs hired as tenure-track professors at PhD-producing institutions
the number of postdocs hired as tenure-track professors at liberal arts colleges
the number of postdocs hired as postdocs at PhD-producing institutions

To summarize, I would like to know how harsh the funneling process is in math; I know from experience that many grad students leave academia without obtaining a job as a postdoc. Is the same true of postdocs? How about the tenure-track level?


texts: Should a researcher share scientific ideas in a temporary position and are they entitled to recognition for doing so?

texts:
A postdoc joins a group with a good idea to work on, while no specific project was given to him by the PI. After recognising the potential of the idea, the PI decides to take PhD students to work on it. When the postdoc asks, the PI says that the postdoc is going to be on this position only for a short time and the project (work) may not be finished before his contract expires. The contract is funded by the PI.

What should the postdoc do? Is it right for the postdoc to give his ideas in the first instance and should he be recognised when the work gets completed? If so, what about authorship?


texts: Should I challenge the GRE requirement for a doctoral program in education (in the U.S.)?

texts:
I'm just starting to investigate doctoral programs in education in the United States, and I'm considering how to handle the GRE requirement:

Hardline Activism: submit my incomplete application with a well-researched essay justifying my refusal to take the GRE.
Soft Activism: submit my complete application including my first-try GRE scores along with a well-researched essay debunking the significance of my GRE scores related to my value as a candidate in the Ed.D. program, AND flatly stating that I spent no more than four hours (the length of the exam. i.e. No test prep.) on the GRE, in light of my scientific conclusions about it's relevance in this situation.
Passive Acceptance: submit my complete application with my first-try GRE score and hope for acceptance.
Active Acceptance: Study hard and take the GRE, then study some more and take it again. Submit my complete application and hope for acceptance.

Are there other options that I'm overlooking?

My position is not "the GRE has no value." My position is "I'm an excellent candidate for this doctoral program, as evidenced by my application. GRE scores would not alter that conclusion."

I found this discussion very useful, especially the answer and citations by Jeromy Anglim.

As an aside, I admit that I enjoy testing boundaries just for fun, but this issue is more than that. As a proponent of thoughtful, responsible education reform, I'm leaning toward options 1 and 2.


texts: My university's policy is to consider only the most recent grade for a failed course that has been retaken, how should I declare my GPA?

texts:
Suppose that I am submitting my application form for admission to a PhD program in USA/Canada. When I am asked to declare my GPA, should I declare it the same original way that my university has calculated it in my transcript?

Here's the thing: I have a failed course in my transcript that was retook the next semester and I have passed it with a good grade. According to my university's policy, when a student retakes a failed course, only the most recent grade is considered in their GPA. So, the GPA that my university calculates is a little bit higher than just averaging all my grades. Should I declare the GPA that my university has calculated as my GPA? Or should I write down the average of all my grades and calculate it on my own?


texts: In a paper whose I am the sole author, should I use "I" or "we"?

texts: When writing a paper whose I am the sole author, should I use "I" or "we" when referring myself?


texts: Is there a benefit to registering digital identification via both ORCID and ResearcherID?

texts:
This question is in continuation to the discussion from about a year ago, concerning researcher digital identification: Why use unique digital researcher ID?.

It appears that researchers, who would like to identify themselves within research community, today have two options: ORCID and ResearcherID. The former relies on open source code and open directory, while the latter is a subsidiary of Thomson Reuters, a for-profit company. It seems to me that ResearcherID is essentially a tool for Thomson Reuters for increasing information flow to their commercial systems Web of Science and Highly Cited Research.

If my observation is correct, then I'm interested about whether it makes sense to register with both directories (fortunately, ResearcherID seem to be compatible with ORCID)?


texts: Do I have to disclose that I have a masters degree if I am applying to a second masters in an unrelated field

texts:
So I have a horrible GPA of 3.33/4 in Masters in Computer Science. I also have a Bachelors's degree in Computer Science as well. I was 21 years old when I flew into America to get a Masters's Degree. Back then I had no idea what Masters's is or what Grad school is. I did it to get a high paying job and only because everyone else around me was doing it too. Back then my only concern was to maintain a 3.00 GPA so my visa wouldn't be canceled and somehow make enough money working a minimum wage job to pay my house rent. For all practical intents and purposes, I did not take my master's degree seriously.
Now. I am 29 years old and I want to do a Masters in Robotics. I work as a software engineer. My employer will most likely pay for the second master's. I want to become a Robotics engineer or follow up the masters with a Ph.D. in Robotics. Do I need to disclose that I already have a master's degree? I am simply not proud of my GPA and I don't feel it is even relevant to the application process. In most of the place, a Masters in Robotics is offered by the Mechanical engineering department not the computer science department.


texts:
I'm aiming to apply for a MA in Germany and in the description for my programme of choice it says:

The study course is admission free.

I'm a bit unsure of what this could mean, any German student could clarify if this means that meeting the criteria is enough for admission or something else?
How to apply section

Most important points
The study course is admission free. Application
for beginning students is possible in summer semester.
First day of application: December 15th 2017
Application deadline: March 31st 2018
Special admission requirements: Bachelor's
degree or equivalent qualification in Philosophy or in a closely
related field worth at least 60 credit points.
Admission requirements: A very good command of German is required.

Application/admission procedure section

This is an open admissions degree course, and applications are
accepted for both the winter and summer semesters. Please note For
open-admission Master's degree programmes it is strongly recommended
to submit their applications as early as possible before 15 July for
the winter semester. If the supporting documents are submitted after
these dates but before the standard application deadlines, your
application can only be processed at the start of the lecture period
in the new semester.


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

texts:
Could multiple advisers mean that it might be easier for you to get funding? (since you're not just limited to one person?) Could it also mean that you get more overall input in your project (the input of 3 different people), and that maybe your project will be geared in a way that it's "interesting" to more people, and consequently might also get more citations that way?

They might pull your project in different directions, but how much is this really a concern?

And what about the special case where they explicitly expressed the desire to interact with each other more through the student? (this was actually the case in my situation).