texts: Is it better to cite a PhD thesis or an article under review?

texts:
A collaborator of mine has finished and defended his phd thesis, he has also submitted one chapter of the thesis as an article, and now this article is under review.

I am submitting an article and I want to cite this work, which one of the two should I cite? And if I cite the article should I use "Smith et. al, in review unpublished or pers. communication"

I was thinking that even though not peer-reviewed, a thesis might be better than something under review.


texts: Are there any citable Github repositories not published in journals, that receive a lot of citations?

texts:
I wish to know whether there is some way, or maybe even some standard, for making a GitHub repository citable in a way that is recognized by academics. Many options have been suggested here, e.g., FigShare and Zenodo, but it seems to me that these routes are not actually established or taken seriously by academics.

For example, I made a Figshare DOI for my GitHub program in 2013 and it turned out to get zero citations, despite the paper related to the code getting many citations. People simply found citing something from Figshare to be awkward so the GitHub repository did not get citations the way an article would.

My question is this: Is there any practical evidence that some way of making a GitHub repository citable is somewhat accepted? For example, can anyone please point me to any GitHub repositories that have actually been cited many times as recognized by Google Scholar?


texts: How do you decide between two PhD offers?

texts:
I have two offers for graduate study within the UK and I am trying to make a balanced decision.

My offers are:

Four year doctoral training centre at University of Oxford (approx. £14k/year)
Four year PhD at the Cancer Research London Research Institute (LRI) (approx. £21k/year)

I suspect that the Cancer Research institute does not have a comparable international reputation when compared to Oxford. On the other hand, I've met the research group at the LRI and they seem nice. At Oxford I wouldn't be choosing my research group until after the first year. I already have significant ties to London and have been living here for four years.

What other factors should I be considering in order to make this a rational decision?


texts: PhD application recommendation letter from 2 supervisors who guided the same project?

texts:
I need 3 recommendation letters for my US Science PhD application.

I have 2 supervisors prof. A and Dr. B who have guided my thesis project.

Prof A knows me very well. I have taken multiple courses and research projects under his supervision. He will no doubt give me an excellent recommendation.

Dr. B is a researcher at an institute. He knows me well and has co-supervised my thesis project. He might give me a good recommendation (possibly not as good as prof. A). He has a few personal contacts in some universities that I will be applying to.

I have an inclination towards taking recommendation letter only from prof A. However, in specific universities, it might be helpful to have a recommendation from Dr. B as well, due to his contacts and reputation.

Will it do more harm than good if 2 out of my 3 recommendation letters are from the supervisors guiding the same project (assuming that both the letters are positive)


texts: What challenges will an international joint PhD program pose to applicant?

texts:
To elaborate, “international” means you have to work at institute A for a minimum of X certain years, and work at institute B for a minimum of Y certain years. They are supposed to be far away from each other geographically (like Europe and U.S.)

And “challenges” are the ones during such kind of PhD life.

NOTE: I also posted this question on Quora.

EDIT: To narrow down the question, I particularly want to learn about the challenges in frequent travelling and working with multiple advisors in different locations.


texts:
This question is closely related to How should I cite a website URL? but more concrete.

I'm currently writing my master thesis. In the section "related work" I give an overview which also includes concrete products (normally software). Usually there is no academic paper published about this work and often there is only a product homepage, a git hub repository or a manual available.

How, if at all, should I cite this "products"? I thought about adding the URL just after the name of the product, adding it as a footnote, cite it as usual with a MISC BibTeX entry or not mentioning a URL at all (usually they are easy to find with Google). I'm a bit worried too blow up my bibliography to much.

I give a few examples to stay concrete, my thesis is about a pattern matching algorithm (well, very simplified) so I want to show tools that help programmers with writing regex:

The software RegexBuddy (http://www.regexbuddy.com)
The online tool RegExr (http://gskinner.com/RegExr/)
The Statically Checked Regex (a software artifact) in the Git Hub repository https://github.com/retronym/macrocosm
The function ctRegex in std.regex (http://dlang.org/phobos/std_regex.html)

Could you please also please also answer if it's OK to include a lot of citations (around 20) to mention this products although the text is only around one page, respective one sub chapter (in a work that is expected to have something around 100 pages).


texts: Is a publication with co-authors worth less that a sole-author paper? Does this explain people's reluctance to include someone as a co-author?

texts: Is there a lower value to publishing with other co-authors instead of just oneself? Why are some people so reluctant to acknowledge your participation and contribution?


texts: How specific should I be in my SOP, regarding courses and thesis subject?

texts:
I know there isn't an absolute answer but I certainly could use some hindsight.
I'm writing an SOP for an Msc at TU Delft in Aerospace, and I am having trouble with two parts of it : specifically I'm required to provide hypothetical thesis topics and explain why among the different tracks in Aerospace I want one in particular.

First of all, regarding the track, I've explain my interest by explaining in detail which courses I'm really eager to follow and which part of these courses I feel are the most appealing, but I'm not sure if I should be this is the right approach, I'm also wondering if I' not going too much in details by being so specific about the courses.

Then about the thesis subject, I know what the focus of the Msc is going to be , what courses I will follow and what the research themes are but I don't know what thesis subject are going to look like, and what is a relevant subject or not. So I don't know if I should stay a bit generic and talk about the fields of research or try to make a concrete thesis subject anyway ?

Thanks in advance.


texts: US editors and reviewers vs. Iranian authors?

texts:
Could you please let me know your opinion about the following?

  Subject: US editors and reviewers can no longer handle submissions by authors
  employed by the Government of Iran

  OFAC Sanctions

  US editors and reviewers can no longer handle submissions by authors
  employed by the Government of Iran

  Dear Dr Bruno Granier,

  The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Department of
  the Treasury administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions. As
  a result of OFAC sanctions we have been made aware that US editors, US
  Elsevier staff and US reviewers are now unable to handle scientific
  manuscripts where any of the authors are employed by the Government of
  Iran. This includes the research departments of the various oil and
  gas  companies which are deemed to be entities of the Government of
  Iran.  We realize that this OFAC regulation will cause some
  inconvenience in your role as an editor but Elsevier is legally
  obliged to ensure that  all reasonable efforts are made to avoid
  submissions from Iranian  government agencies and companies being
  handled by US editors, US  Elsevier staff and US reviewers.  Please be
  aware that editors, Elsevier staff and reviewers from outside the US
  may still handle these  manuscripts and that this OFAC regulation does
  not pertain to  manuscripts where the authors are based at Iranian
  academic and research institutes.  Manuscripts originating from a
  clinical setting that are  not government run, for example, a hospital
  or clinical practice are  also exempt from this regulation.

  To view the official OFAC regulation, please click here.  In practice
  the result of these sanctions will mean that:

  Submissions where any author is based in Iran, and is not at an  academic and research institution, cannot be handled by US-based
  editors, US Elsevier staff, US reviewers, or any US citizens based
  outside of the US.
  If an Iranian author has dual affiliations (eg.  university and  government), their submission cannot be handled by US-based editors,
  US  Elsevier staff, US reviewers, or any US citizens based outside of
  the  US.
  Affiliations of Iranian authors should therefore be checked, and any manuscripts which fall under this OFAC regulation delegated to a
  non-US editor, before handling.
  When assigning reviewers, affiliations of Iranian authors should  also be checked, and any papers which fall under this OFAC regulation
  should only be sent to non-US reviewers. (As an editor you should do
  what is reasonable to determine the nationality of a reviewer e.g.
  check their email address. This check does not extend to emailing
  reviewers  directly to confirm their nationality or location). Unless
  there is  specific knowledge that a non-US-based reviewer is a US
  citizen, editors can send such submissions to reviewers based outside
  the US.
  If your journal workflow involves all submissions being handled by  US-based Elsevier staff, they will reject these manuscripts outright
  before they reach you.
  Should there be no suitably qualified editor or reviewer, please reject the manuscript outright.

  When rejecting manuscripts which fall under this OFAC regulation
  please use the new EES Decision Term "Reject - OFAC Sanctions" and the
  following text:

  "As a result of OFAC sanctions all editorial staff who are
  US-based/US nationals are unable to handle scientific manuscripts
  which  are authored by Iranian scientists, employed by the Government
  of Iran.  Based on this OFAC regulation we are unfortunately unable to
  handle your manuscript. We wish you success with your submission to
  another  Journal."

  We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause. If you do have any
  questions please contact your Publisher.

  Sent on behalf of Dan Lovegrove

  Cretaceous Research


texts: How much do my career prospects suffer if I start a mathematics/CS PhD. at the age of 27?

texts:
I was doing a PhD in a different subject and that was going nowhere and I lost interest in everything that I was doing. But I always loved mathematics and during the dark days of my 3rd of my (former) PhD. I happened to meet some exceptional theoretical CS people who encouraged me a lot. One of them got me as a TA and I am starting afresh in this new field.

How optimistic should I be about a career ahead?

I want to be a researcher/faculty.


texts: Can I ask a Master's paper reader to be a referee for Ph.D.?

texts:
I am applying for Ph.D. and am looking for a third referee. I was wondering if it is appropriate to ask a reader of my Master's paper? To be more specific, he was a post-doc at the time but since has earned a position at another university as Assistant Professor. He was not only one of the readers of my paper, but has seen me give a few seminars and knows me personally.

Any clarification on this matter would be greatly appreciated!


texts: Is this a tired phrase? -- journal article titles that start with "Towards a theory of..."

texts:
Many journal articles start with the phrase:  "Towards a theory of...", as in these real examples from diverse fields:

"Towards a theory of innovation in services" (Management)
"Towards a theory of soft terms for the supersymmetric Standard Model" (Physics)
"Towards a theory of communicative competence" (Sociology, Linguistics)
"Towards a theory of parallel programming" (Computer Science)

My literal interpretation is that a full theory is not being presented; instead, the article presents useful elements or steps.
But I wonder if this phrase is overused and tired. It seems like it could be a mask or even false modesty, perhaps to deflect criticism. My inclination is to avoid it if my article actually presents a theory, or most elements of a theory.  I would be inclined to use it only if the article was presenting a primarily a directional argument, i.e. "go this way, and not that way" to make progress on this theory.
Based on this data from Google Ngram Viewer, English books, it seem like it is declining in popularity:

Question: Do you think this phrase is tired, and therefore should be avoided when possible?  Or do you think it is valid and should not be avoided?
I'm looking for answers that are based on experience, conventions, and norms in particular fields and institutions.


texts: I expect much more commitment from my PhD-supervisor. How do I communicate this to him?

texts:
I am a doctoral student in economics and have problems with the progress of my doctoral thesis because my supervisor hardly cares about my work.
I currently need some feedback and comments from him, as I cannot publish my results before.
This problem is not a current problem, but has existed since the beginning of my PhD.
It seems that this is not only the case for me, but also for other doctoral candidates and students who are supervised by him.
During the semester I can go to his office if I have a question.
However, even at these meetings he almost never read my work before and told me that he had no time or had forgotten about it. Currently, these personal meetings are also not possible due to the coronavirus.
Therefore I have already sent him e-mails several times, but he hardly answers my messages.

So I would like to ask how I can politely express that I would like to see more commitment from him?
Otherwise he is very friendly and can also help me with technical problems (if he does this once).
I therefore do not want to burden the relationship with too negative criticism.

How can I get him to 1) read my current work in the near future and 2) generally pay more attention to my thesis.

Can anyone give me any recommendations on this?


texts: how to answer "Where did you draw the line on what you included in your literature review?" during the phd viva?

texts: I am preparing for my upcoming phd viva and came across a list of questions that might be asked during the viva. One of them asked "where did you draw the line on what to include in your lit review". I was a bit confused by this question and I was wondering if you could provide some guidance on how to structure the answer. Thank you!


texts: Applying to theoretical physics Masters in Europe while not having a physics undergraduate degree

texts:
I intend to apply to European Master programs in theoretical physics. I don't have an undergraduate degree in physics.

My question is : Is an undergrad degree in physics absolutely required for admission ? Can I get admitted if I can demonstrate that I have the requisite background knowledge in physics and math ?

All the programs that I looked at explicitly state that an undergraduate degree in physics is a prerequisite for admission.

I took the physics GRE test , teached college level physics "TA" , worked as a research assistant in theoretical physics , attended graduate level courses , can provide letters of recommendations. However , my undergraduate degree is not in physics.


texts: Can you do research at home, without being backed by a university? [electronics]

texts:
I am wondering this because I love electronics, but I go to a college which is mostly for vocational training. Often times I feel like our courses are 40% waste of time (usually too much industry software and/or uninterested lecturers giving compulsory classes).

So I had this idea of taking a year off to focus on my own projects as I did over last summer.

Since I am not sure a masters degree will teach me anything that a book can not, I was wondering whether I could do applied research at home permanently and potentially make money off of it? Right now I earn some money at home online via a site I own. Not much, but enough to get me by. I know how to read and I spend 10 hours in the library with ease (as I have been told this is how grad students work their way through projects). I mostly work on small-scale electronics, like currently an abbreviated type of joystick for paraplegics (that a paraplegic friend suggested). I work alone, at least at the moment.

Could I work on projects on my own and make a life out of this or should I try to join a good university for my masters? How are people without degrees regarded?


texts: Is it ethical to request the advisor to share the registration fee for submitting a conference paper?

texts:
My advisor and I have decided to present some resent research results in a well-known conference, selected based on our discussions. Now the aforementioned joint paper has been accepted and the clock's ticking to consider the payment of the registration. We have never talked about the financial aspect of this process. The cost associated with registration and transportation is quite high, but my advisor has not yet told me anything about any plan to take that into account and there are just a couple of days left until the payment deadline. I am wondering if he assumes that I myself must pay the fee, but I cannot afford the whole cost . If he expects me to pay all of that registration fee, I have to get over finalizing the registration and the conference, at all. In my perspective, the 50-50 code of ethics sounds fair enough.

Is it ethical to talk about such a thing with the advisor?

If so, how would I supposed to explain and handle the case?


texts: How to acknowledge oneself as the author of materials created in industry research position?

texts:
I am an industry-based researcher. As part of my role, I develop various resources for use by our clients. They include manuals, codes, quizzes, factsheets and the like. In all cases, I am the sole author of these resources.

These resources carry the name and logo of my company. However, I also want them to carry my name (and title), so that I can claim authorship. I need to do this for a range of reasons, including demonstrating my research output, as well as ensuring no one else claims credit for them in the future.

Implicitly, my colleagues know I am the author but as many of them are taking better job offers elsewhere or retiring, there may be no one left to 'vouch' for me.

Currently, I put my contact details at the start or end of these documents, which basically says "For more information or clarification, contact [Name]". I want more that this but in a discreet manner i.e. I do not want to put my name on the cover page, as this would be too much in the "face of everyone".

The last point is important because these are industry resources and their "weight" comes from the fact that they have been developed under the auspices of my company. Hence, the copyright is held by the company. I have no issues here. Its the right thing, as I am an employee.

However, it is not the company but me who is developing these resources. My company will have no issue if I put my name somewhere in the documents but it has to be done discretely. The reason I am saying discreetly is because it is the company name and logo, rather than my name, that are important consideration for the end-users (including my CEO!).

I am looking for some strategies to have myself acknowledged in this context? In particular, I want it to be without any dispute that I am the author of these resources.


texts: How to inform adviser that morale in group is low?

texts:
Recently, morale in the lab that I work in has been dropping. I don't want to speak for everyone in the lab (there's >10 grad students and >5 postdocs/research faculty), but at least 3 or 4 of the other graduate students and 1 or 2 of the postdocs I've talked with have given me similar opinions.

The general reason I've gotten from everyone is that my adviser -- the head of the lab -- seems to be more and more focused on bringing in as many dollars as possible and growing the size of the lab. I think I can safely say that we're all grateful for his hard work in ensuring our continued support -- funding issues are non-existent -- but as they say, money doesn't always buy happiness. We hold meetings where research is discussed and decisions are made, only for my adviser to come back a few days later and change the decision unilaterally. Several of my grad students have intimated to me that our adviser is (seemingly out of nowhere) threatening to pull their funding if they don't switch projects or publish in short order. And finding time to meet with our adviser is harder and harder -- he's frequently out of town meeting with sponsors, and when we do arrange time he's feeling rushed.

I don't want to pin the blame on him -- like I said, we appreciate the hard work he puts into getting funding for us all -- but it's starting to affect morale I think. I'm not sure how to best tell my adviser -- or even if I should inform my adviser -- about this, and I'd appreciate any advice the Academia S.E. community has.


texts: A trivial correction to my currently-under-review paper - What to do?

texts:
I have several small corrections to apply to a paper which is currently under review. The errors are - as far as I can say - not very significant. There is a citation which it would be good to include, but maybe is not crucial (I only recently discovered a paper which deals with a somewhat related problem), plus a number of typos that I recently discovered.

What is the correct way to proceed? Should I update the paper and send the corrected version to the publisher, or would it be better to wait for the referee reports and apply these corrections together with the ones the referees request? Or have I lost my chance to correct the paper when I sent it for publication, and have to accept that I can't apply the corrections I want?

There is a similar question where the accepted suggestion is to send in the corrections; however that is a significantly more serious correction than in my case. My field is mathematics, if this matters.

Edit: This question is very similar to this question with the slight difference that there they consider an error in a paper and worry about a possible rejection, and here I'm mostly concerned about modifying a paper in a way that (in my opinion) makes it better but not necessarily more correct.


texts: What should I write under the heading "Significance of Findings" in my dissertation?

texts:
I've been writing my dissertation regarding a Rubik's Cube Solver I have developed. I have performed various tests regarding each solving methods' performance and I have created several graphs and such for a "results and analysis" section. I am a bit stuck as I have a chapter called "Discussion" under which is a heading we've been told to cover: "Significance of findings"...
I'm unsure what information I would write here that hasn't been said already?
Any recommendations, thoughts, and ideas are most welcome.
Thank you.


texts: How should I cite or reference books when I'm trying to compile a book (from other sources) for a specific course at my college?

texts:
So, I'm trying to compile a text for my fluid mechanics course, since my course does not follow one text, its difficult for reference. Most of the content will be taken word to word from established texts. So I want to know how to cite or reference those. If I do it for every section or paragraph, or just at the end as sort of a bibliography. Note that I might take content for a certain topic from different texts too.
Is there a certain set of rules to follow?


texts: Is qualitative method welcomed by editors/reviewers?

texts:
I've written two papers, one using a qualitative method and the other one using a mixed method.
Although I think that every method is significant in its own area of research, however, based on my experiences, I find out that my paper with the mixed method is more appreciated by the editors or reviewers; and my other paper with the qualitative approach seems to get rejected more often.

my qualitative methodology includes these sections:

the swot analysis that I've been used.
details of several visits with the specified date.
qualitative interviews to better understand the case.
sources of secondary data.
and the process of the paper.

So my question is "Is qualitative method welcomed by the editors/reviewers"?
If the answer is yes and it is not the issue so what am I missing here? Should I include something more? should I use a new method or kind of model to attract reviewers' comments?


texts: How write an article when the "waterfall model" is not a good fit?

texts:
Most scientific articles are written as if the research followed some kind of waterfall model. In other words, a typical paper proceeds pretty linearly from the idea to the results to the implications of the research, hiding the fact that one thing might have lead to another in a very non-linear way.

I guess the reason for the linear format is to attempt to make the research easy to digest for others, and to keep the paper as short as possible. However, what should one do when following the standard format becomes a too large burden (e.g. excessive cross-referencing), or hides a key insight about the research process itself, which could be valuable for others to know?


texts: Qualitative data but quantitative outcome; what type of research methodology is this?

texts:
Following are the steps, how I am working on a project:

Qualitative approaches to collect data
Forming criteria from collected data
Mapping criteria to function
Getting a matheimatical function to quantify data
Result in a (quantitative) tabular form.

Is this quantitative research methodology or mixed methods research methodology ?


texts: Authorship for insightful suggestion during a talk?

texts: I gave a talk a few months ago, and one member of the audience made a particularly insightful suggestion. My advisor and I are still working on this topic, and it seems like our research is heading in a direction where his suggestion may end up being incorporated into our work in a fairly significant way. We haven't spoken to him about this work since, but how should we deal with this? Should he be an author, or only mentioned in the acknowledgments?


texts: Is it okay to talk to the editor about the topic of paper or whether if our manuscript is suitable for the journal before submitting?

texts: So this is my first research paper, I just wanted to know whether these things are considered unethical or idk creepy way to lure your paper in or its totally okay and people do that.


texts: Is it normal that my adviser remove my information, pictures, everything from the lab homepage after I suspend my school?

texts: First of all, I studied in Japan. After I complete all graduate courses. There will be 3 years to submit my thesis. During this time, I drop school and work in a company. So my professor removed all my information from the lab (%100) like I was not there, even Alumni name list. I would like to ask is it common for other schools.


texts: Will my UGPA keep my application from even being looked at, despite having turned things around?

texts:
I'm an international student who recently applied to CS Ph.D. programs in the US and this thought's been eating me up. My undergrad background isn't actually in CS. I was originally a literature major and did a CS double major. I wasn't familiar with anything, so my GPA tanked. It's around 3.1-3.2/4.0. If you take the CS-only courses, then it's actually around 2.95/4.0.
I'm a master's student right now, and I've managed to maintain a GPA of around 3.8-3.9/4.0. Aside from my UGPA I think my application isn't _that_ bad - good GRE/TOEFL scores, publications as a coauthor, and good LoR's. However, I've been consistently hearing that the undergrad GPA is "what matters most" and that it may keep me from having a person even reading my application. I personally think that's asinine and doesn't make any sense, but I suppose I'm not in a position to be voicing my opinion on that. I'm just wondering what the point of working hard to turn things around is if someone's application won't even be looked at.
The anxiety's been even worse because I've been hearing of people who chose the same POI's as me getting interviews, and I  haven't been hearing anything yet. I was hoping that people more knowledgeable than I am may be able to provide their two cents. Thanks.


texts: Contacting authors at conference after refereeing their work

texts:
There are a few questions about contacting authors of papers when acting as a referee, but my question is related to the review of conference proceedings. After reviewing a paper which was submitted as a work in progress (meaning that it is in the early stages and the author intends to receive feedback at the conference) I am wondering whether I should approach them at the conference and reveal that I was a reviewer on the work. As I reviewed the paper I thought their idea was good but there are lots of small things I've commented on; perhaps since I reviewed the paper I have read it more closely than others will.

So the conversation would be,

  Hey I read your paper, such and such title, as a reviewer before the conference and I thought it was good. I've been thinking about your ideas since then and ...

I can obviously approach them noting that I've read the proceedings, but should I reveal my work as a reviewer?


texts: Do any statistics program provide funding for masters students?

texts: I plan to be applying to graduate school next year in Statistics or Biostatistics and due to some financial constrictions, I will not be able to attend unless the tuition is waived at the the minimum. I am hesitant to commit to a 5 year PhD program for a funded education since I may run into some financial issues a few years in and may not be able to complete it. I know that most schools use their Masters program as a cash cow and thus are usually not funded. I was wondering if anyone here knew of any statistics programs that go against this and actually do fund their Master students?


texts: Indentation of the first paragraph in a section

texts:
Several papers that I have read only indent paragraphs that are not the first paragraph of a section:

1.1 Introduction

This is the first paragraph.

    This is the second paragraph.

    This is the third paragraph.

Is this a common convention? Are there rules for when to indent like this?


texts: How does it look if I finish my PhD in five years instead of four?

texts:
I’m doing my PhD in computer science in Germany and next year would be my 4th (last) year. I can wrap it up until then, but I really like to have an extension to the 5th year. There are still 2–3 ideas that I have investigated but couldn’t finish because of the time frame, so I would like to do a bit more.

I have two publications so far and hopefully can have one more during the coming year, but I would like to have more publications, especially in better conferences. Also I think that I do not have yet enough expertise on the topic I’m working on.

Anyway, my supervisor prefers that I finish my PhD in four years, although I haven’t talked to him seriously about it yet. Also the funding would be available outside of his grant budget so he won’t be worried about it.

I’ve heard of many other students who finished in five or even six years, but I’m not sure in practice how important it could be especially if I can have good publications by extending my PhD.


texts: How often do universities in General have admissions for graduate programs?

texts:
I am thinking to apply to a graduate program in computer science (Research Masters or PhD), but I am not sure how often universities accept applications.

For example I know the University of Toronto does so each December (so only once a year). But I wonder if other places (anywhere in NA or Europe) have different patterns.


texts: When are usually the applications deadlines in United States for a Computer Sciences graduate program?

texts:
I’m a French student graduating in computer science this year, and I want to do my master in the United States, I want to join the US Army, but that's another story. I have to apply for a program starting Fall, 2016 at the latest in order to still have a chance to join the French Army as a commissioned officer, a second-choice job plan. I know I have to pass a the Toefl and a GRE test.

Yet, I’m absolutely new to the Anglo-Saxon system, and it seemed that most application deadlines were closed by the 8th of December.

Thus, generally speaking, what are the deadlines for applications?
Is there an official date? And last, do I still have a chance to join a United States graduate program for Fall, 2016?


texts: What do supervisors have to gain from a success or failure of a PhD student?

texts:
I'm finishing a really messed up dissertation. Maybe decent in some sense, but all the PhD has been done without following any of the supposed methodology and criteria. Since I'm in a sort of arm wrestling with the supervisor from years and since I didn't miss the chance of exposing some soft versions of my PhD nightmare, I think that my supervisor might act in the following ways:

Helping to actually finish successfully the PhD so that all the issues will be silenced and hidden under a carpet. This might imply inviting examiners that are under his influence and pretending that everything is alright.
Otherwise, he might bring me to the viva knowing that the research cannot be accepted and exposing all its shortcomings.

This last one would open to two possibilities:

Asking the changes that he expected from the beginning of my research (independently from their actual value)
Making me failed so that I can take all the blame without having any chance to expose his responsibilities and delegitimize any possible retaliation I can do

I have the feeling that the only thing he wants to avoid is that I leave the PhD, because in that case he is powerless over me and I can actually expose the problems that occurred and ruin his reputation.

For this reason I'm trying to understand what is on the stake for the supervisor if I succeed, if I fail or if I abandon. I would like to know how this might affect his reputation and/or his role in the institution, or if any of these options would not change much (in positive or negative) for him.

I'm asking this, also for another reason: in any case and at any moment, I never perceived that my supervisor expected or had any interest in having me doing a great job. I have the feeling that this doesn't really matter to him. The only thing that matters is the utility that this research can have for his personal, social, institutional purposes.


texts: What strategies are there for finding literature for a literature survey when the terminology used is diverse?

texts:
I want to write a literature survey on a topic, let's say it's risk of crime due to a new technology, let's say due to the Gutenberg press. However, when I search for the overall theme (crime and "Gutenberg press"), it returns few results. Yet, I know of some papers that fit into the topic that are appropriate, it's just that they each use different terminology (e.g., mass-produced slander or text that undermines the Church's authority). These relevant papers don't link their results to the overall theme, namely crime.

The problem is that to perform an exhaustive and methodological survey is difficult, since it depends on me knowing links between papers I have read and the theme I want to investigate. I was wondering what methodologies I can use to address this problem?

For example, in comparison often a literature survey's methodology section will have something like "we are interested in everything to do with X within topic Y" and base search terms on those two aspects and summarise the results from each database. Then, following sections cover the area based on those results. I would like to achieve something similar, but the ability to search the literature in my case is limited.


texts: Supervisor offered work in lab, I accepted. What are the next steps?

texts: I am looking to join a research MSc this fall and one particular supervisor asked me if I would like to join his lab and I said yes.  I though forgot to ask him what to do next. Do I contact the program and tell them that this supervisor has asked me if I would like to join his lab or wait for him to contact the program,  do the needful and then contact me if accepted? Would it be alright if I send him a mail asking him if I should contact the program informing them that he had asked me if I could join his lab? Please advise.


texts: General idea on how do Committee Members read PhD thesis

texts:
The question is divided into two parts and related to the situation like:
Committee gets PhD thesis to read through/give comments/report on it.
Thesis is written based on several publications.
1. What is the chance that Committee members are going through the papers as well as the thesis? For the purpose of comparing/so on...?

2.I am wondering because if they would find that some information which was published looks different in your thesis (reevaluated or even corrected because in the paper there was not-fully-correct data)...how will defense then go and how to turn it to a safe ground?
(P.S. corrections which do not change the main idea and conclusions are still the same. As an example it can be like you corrected the background of your signal in one way for publication,then you realized that it was rather stupid and corrected it in different way. Signal is still there, interpreted the same, but qualitatively Figure looks different.)

Thank you for your answers!


texts: Detailed navigator for UK Computer Science Master's?

texts:
I'm trying to choose the best university in the UK for a computer science master's course, leaning in a more theoretical direction. But sites like prospects.ac.uk are too broad, I don't want to filter 350 results which consist of basically the same buzzwordy text about carreer opportunities manually.

My current approach is checking out universities I've heard of in the field, trying to find the actual course listing and guessing from that the actual direction teaching might take (currently Glasgow is my first choice because it's the only one to list a "functional programming" course, which is at least a first step into the direction I want); but even the course descriptions in the listing are quite fuzzy…

The problem of looking at publications from areas I would like to work in and choosing a university from that (hoping that a master's there might set me on a PhD route) is that, at least in undergrad studies, there's little connection between the researcher's work and teaching. But I haven't nailed down an exact direction to go in either, so directly finding research groups I'm interested in and working backwards from there would be hard, too, since there would probably be more than 350 of those as well.

So, is there a specialised computer science master's course ranking website with a column for “philosophical direction” or some kind of “business vs academic career” weighting?


texts: When reference letters are requested, does this say anything about the chances of getting an interview?

texts: When a candidate is applying for a faculty position and the university asks for their reference letters, does this say anything about the chance of getting an interview? Obviously it's not a bad thing. But have they made the short list? Does this mean the application wasn't desk rejected (but nothing more)? Are they in the top 25%? 50%? Something else? This is a social sciences department in the United States.


texts: Who is to decide the main idea(s) of research in a PhD Proposal, the student or his/her supervisor?

texts: I'm a pure math phd student and the supervisor gave me two papers so as I find an idea to research but the subjects are unrelated and I can't concentrate on one of them and can't decide which one is likely  to be a fruitful subject, What should I do?


texts:
I recently got accepted into one of the schools in Europe. According to the anticipated date mentioned in the offer letter, my studies will start in Dec 2017. Now, the problem is that I've got two papers ready for submission at the moment and I don't have the faintest idea what to put for my affiliation. Any ideas?

Just to clarify that this question is not a duplicate:
When I was working on the above-mentioned studies, I was not either employed by or affiliated with my former university. My former supervisor did help me out with some parts of the papers, but rather as a colleague or a friend than as a "supervisor" in the true sense of the word.

Thank you


texts: Teaching demonstration: Computer Science

texts:
I have an interview coming up as an adjunct faculty for computer science. I am required to do a teaching demo for the interview. What is the best way to show the faculty my teaching style? I am using powerpoint to aid in my demonstration. I do not want to be the "person who reads off the powerpoint."

Thank You


texts:
What is the official way of addressing a lecturer/tutor in an English speaking university?

If it helps, I will be studying in an Australian university. In my country, we would address a lecturer/tutor as "Master" (English translation of the word in my language) so I was wondering if I could address lecturer/tutors at my Australian university as "Master"?


texts: Applying for assistant professor position, teaching statement required but I have no teaching experience

texts:
I'm going to apply for an assistant professor position in a European university's campus in China. The problem is that I do not have any formal, class-based teaching experience while the job specification says that I need to teach four courses. The university also asks for a teaching statement. What shall I put in that statement?

Please advise and thanks in advance.


texts: Is there a need to cite a general idea in the introduction which shall be later developed with a reference?

texts:
Say like you state in your introduction the following:

    This part will examine the demographic reality and the cultural habits of X people in Y country.

In the body of your work, you elaborate with citations:

    X people are characterized by a habit of doing A, B and C (Smith 2010, p. 1). They are a population of 100000 (Smith 2010, p. 2), whatever.

Is it required to backup the introduction statement with the same citations? isn't it just a general statement? In case where the 'general statement' (which supposedly doesn't need citations) was inspired by the actual cited study, shouldn't I back it up even if written in a general form?

My question was inspired from this.


texts:
Due to my wife’s job, we’re moving to a country in Latin America (Brazil). I’m finishing my undergraduate in mathematics in the US and I’m starting to think about applying for PhD positions.

How does having a PhD from Latin America impact an academic career in mathematics in the US?


texts: Should a senior Program Committee attend the conference?

texts:
I would like to know whether a senior Program Committee should attend the conference or not. I mean that physically being there.

Thanks in advance.


texts: Dutch Higher education degrees have a major or a minor?

texts: The Dutch education system adds a major or minor to their Higher professional education or University education? I saw some examples as: HBO Management (would HBO be the degree and Management the major, or HBO Management is the degree). I am doing a comparison with the US education system.


texts: Accepting 2 postgraduate university offers

texts: I have received a conditional offer from the University of Birmingham and an unconditional offer from the University of Leeds for a masters degree in marketing, both programs are great but I have a deadline to accept Birmingham's offer so I was wondering if I could accept both offers and then decline one of them.


texts: Professorship without PhD in the United States

texts:
In the discussion made in comments to this question, it has been stated that in France, it is possible (though improbable) to become a professor without having PhD. It made me curious if there is such possibility in the United States. I know that in 1970s there were leading professors in the US university who had only MSc. However, I think the main focus was on knowledge in the past, but now formalities are much more important.

Anyway, I am curious if the current regulations in the US universities allows this at all? For promotion to full professor, one needs to be assistant/associate professor. In the past, having a PhD was privilege, but it is now mandatory for holding any assistant/associate/full professor.

Does the current regulations allow a professor without PhD to teach PhD students?

This question is about impossibility vs. improbability.


texts:
Last year Economics of Governance (Springer) published an article that I co-authored  titled "Political determinants of fiscal transparency: a panel data empirical investigation".
Google Scholar  appears to find the article only if I search for the complete title or search for political determinants of fiscal transparency. If I enter any other combination of words of the title or the keywords  in the search query the article disappears from the results.
Even more strangely, Google Scholar does not find the article when I look for political determinants fiscal transparency. How is it possible that the word of makes such a difference for Google Scholar?

Thank you!

P.S. I wrote to the journal and they replied that this is how it is supposed to work, but this answer is not really convincing.


texts: I often encounter the expression "trade journal", but what is it exactly, and how does it differ from "academic journal" or "scholarly journal" or "scientific journal"?


texts: Should I be considering a Accelerated Master Program?

texts:
I'm a 3rd year undergrad in Mathematics and Chemistry. I find most of subjects I have encountered very interesting, like computer science, physics and my two majors. I try to be involved with projects with professors from different fields. I'm having a hard time to decide what I truly want to do. That's why I want to learn more about each subjects. Should I focus on one thing at a time?

The decision I need to make right now is that, I found two Accelerated Master Program (AMP) in both Chemistry and Computer science. They are both 5 years program. The deadline is the second semester of junior year. I heard from my Chemistry adviser that I cannot use any AMP credit to fulfill part of a PhD if I changed my mind later. I think AMP is a good chance for me to have a better view of those subjects without committing 5-6 years PhD work. I'm afraid once I go in depth and I find I like it then I will have to spend more time later.

Is it more advisable to pursue an accelerated masters program or just a bachelors degree when planning on possibly pursuing PhD program latter?


texts: Is it OK to refuse to cite paywalled papers?

texts:
I wonder how reviewers would react if authors of a submitted paper refuse to cite paywalled papers. Is it a valid reason to refuse citing some papers?

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


texts: Sending a second reminder to a professor about LORs, after the first reminder

texts:
As graduate school application deadlines roll around this season, I believe this site would get a lot of questions concerning letters of recommendation, including sending reminder e-mails to professors about this.

My question is now what is the best approach to sending a second reminder to a professor concerning writing an LOR? A couple months ago, after having discussed my graduate school plans with the professor, they agreed to write his letter and have me send them the e-mail link to the LOR. I sent the first reminder last week, but they did not respond. And this professor is normally responsive in e-mails about other things, such as coursework and advising. I suspect the professor is beyond busy, and I hope that is the case; I just hope they haven't forgotten about the LOR or changed their mind about it.

I would like to add further that my two other recommenders have already submitted their LORs. I am still waiting on this professor now. Should I mention this in my second reminder e-mail to them, if I should send that second reminder at all? What should I be saying in the e-mail, to politely remind them for the second time?

Any input helps.


texts: Is a "big ego" necessary for a tenure-track faculty position?

texts: I have worked in a few high profile research institutes for my PhD and postdoc, and find myself a little intimidated by the "strong opinions" and arguments that seem to crop up at the principal investigator level.  My personality is somewhat more laid back or agreeable, and I find myself wondering if this would be seen as a "personality flaw" in the somewhat cutthroat funding and scientific world (or at least that part I am exposed to).  I'm sure it helps to have a strong opinion of one's own work, but I sometimes find it hard to do so, as I tend to be more self-critical and more concerned about stating something correctly and figuring out what is "right" than necessarily being self-promoting and overconfident in my own abilities, but I feel like that ends up manifesting as some sort of fundamental flaw in relation to others I see advancing into the faculty ranks.


texts: Terrible undergraduate transcripts. Everything else is good. Is it still worth applying to a Ph.D program in economics in a top 30 U.S. university?

texts:
I am an international student who is thinking of applying to a Ph.D program in economics at some top 30 economics departments in the U.S. I have a bachelor's and a master's degree in economics. My GRE, both verbal and quant, puts me well above the 90th percentile. My TOEFL is very high. I have three outstanding recommendations, probably placing me at the top of my master's class and comparing me favorably with former coleagues that were accepted to top universities. My master's disertation will make for a very good writing sample (the paper that grew out of it is serious research, publishable in the best theory journals) and I have two years' work experience at a prestigious job at the public sector. My master's transcripts are almost impeccable, even though I completed a LOT more coursework than what was required to graduate. I have plenty of maths coursework under my belt.

The only "small" wrinkle is: I was the archetype of a wayward student as an undergrad. My undergraduate transcripts are a disaster, as in I flunked 12 of the 70 courses that I enrolled in, simply because I had the terrible habit of abandoning classes when there was something more interesting going on. What I want to know is if this problem destroys my chances of acceptance.


texts: What are common techniques to grade/mark assignments efficiently? Is it better to focus on one question and go through the pile or do them assignment after assignment? Or are there other techniques and tips people have?


texts: NSF proposal dwell time during COVID19 pandemic

texts:
I would like to hear your experience in the dwell time of the current NSF merit review process during the COVID19 crisis.  Per NSF data, they met their 75% performance goal to provide a decision within 6 months for the past years (except for 2017, due to the relocation to new headquarters).
Our proposal (in the CS discipline) was submitted in November 2019. It's now almost 8 months but still, no acceptance or rejection.  As far as I know, the review panel has already met, but nothing else.  Anyone facing a similar situation?  Thanks :)


texts: Touch screen for projecting results and mentoring PhD students: a good solution for a computer lab?

texts:
I just got an assistant professor position in the USA. I am negotiating the startup package. I am mainly doing computational staff (engineering deparment) therefore I am asking for computing nodes in the campus HPC facility and for a small local cluster to put in my relatively small computer lab, where initially 2 PhD students will work (and more in the future + post-docs). I would like to add a nice touch screen, probably around 40 inches or more in which I can project powerpoint presentations and simulation results, and which could be also used as a board by means of a pen or fingers. It would be nice to explain things to my group by drawing on the screen and then saving the notes directly on a file. Which one is the best solution for my needs? I see that there are:

LED Interactive Displays
Whiteboards
Interactive Projectors

Which are the differences? Which option is best? I was thinking of a LED display. What I am looking for is:

multiple finger touch
touch screen feature has to work also if projecting my laptop screen (and any other pc in the lab) to the big display by cable
possible to project screen of any other computer in the lab via wifi, and touch screen would still be available (optional)
the display has a little processor and hard drive, with windows installed (optional, maybe not really necessary?)

I guess here is not the right place to suggest brands, but it is possible please go ahead, otherwise general indications are fine.


texts: In ACM in-text citations, should the first citation to a given source include anything except a number enclosed in brackets?

texts:
For example, suppose I am citing Dr. John Doe's Pie Are Round, Pi Are Not Square: Digitally Representing Double Entendres from Natural Languages for the first time in my paper.  Which of the following would be acceptable?

A particularly useful algorithm for ranking the corniness of natural-language jokes may be found in [3], where...

Doe [3] presents a particularly useful algorithm for ranking the corniness of natural-language jokes, where...

In his groundbreaking Pie Are Round, Pi Are Not Square: Digitally Representing Double Entendres from Natural Languages, Doe [3] presents a particularly useful algorithm for ranking the corniness of natural-language jokes, where...

Thank you...


texts: Terminology & description: what are the steps after A Levels

texts:
I'm a science student currently doing my A levels under EDEXCEL from Bangladesh. I've never really paid attention to or had any counseling about career paths and the steps necessary to finish my studies. I'm even completely clueless about the questions to ask here.

What i particularly want to know about the name and elaborate description about an engineering and Business administration career path. I have loosely heard about terms under graduate, post graduate, masters, Honors, BSc, MBA etc and I have no idea what they are.

If someone would give me an explanation about the whole system I'd be forever grateful. Thanks in advance to anyone for even directing me to a guideline to learn this things.


texts:
I'm submitting a paper on image processing.

I previously submitted it to peerj, but they rejected it with this message:

  I am afraid that your submission does not fit our Scope -
  https://peerj.com/about/aims-and-scope/cs - because PeerJ only
  considers and publishes Research Articles with primary data and
  experimental results across the whole of Computer Science.

Ok, so I need to find a journal with a matching scope

So I tried IEEE transactions on signal processing.

On the web submission form I see this message

  Is this manuscript a re-submission or shortened version of a
  previously rejected manuscript? If you answer "Yes", specify the
  journal and manuscript ID of the previous submission and upload a
  response to the previous review. Please read the IEEE Signal
  Processing Society policy 6.16 "Handling of Rejected Papers" before
  resubmitting the manuscript.

The web form however does not appear to provide any have any field where I can specify the requested information. Also, peerj does not appear to provide any kind of "manuscript ID", since the paper was rejected, it is not even publicly available as a pre-print.

What should I do in this situation?


texts: If I (completely hypothetically) got a PhD in pure math with a minor in philosophy, what would be my chances of getting an academic job (research most preferably)? I live in Northern Europe.


texts: I graduated with a PhD after 2 years (I was very efficient) and even though I have already received my degree and moved out of town, I'm still getting a stipend deposited into my bank account. I contacted my advisor about it but my advisor didn't reply at all, so I don't know what to do about this. Is there a minimum funding requirement or something like that? Or is it just a mistake? What to do now?


texts: What qualifies a paper/dissertation to received the status 'published'

texts:
This is for a master's level, if a department decides to publish students' dissertations, does that qualify to be named as a published paper? or does it have to be a journal with certain impact factor?

Edit: if online publications are considered ok, can they be added to a resume in 'publication' sections?


texts: Should I encourage foreign students to adopt local handwriting customs?

texts:
I am an American teaching in a US university, and I've noticed that many foreign students come with their own handwriting customs for writing English. In particular I've noticed that Indian students often write the letter 'x' so that it (to me, anyway, and probably to many Americans) resembles an 'n', and makes their work (very slightly) harder to read. (Another example: a Croatian friend of mine wrote his 'q' so that it looked like 'g' to me.)

Should I encourage them to write in an American way? I am especially interested in hearing from foreigners and whether they would have appreciated this. On the one hand I don't want to presume that my culture is superior to others; on the other, they have chosen to study in the US and I would like to help them communicate their ideas with as few obstacles as possible.

Does the answer depend on circumstances (e.g. whether the student is an undergraduate or graduate, whether the student has teaching responsibilities, and where the student aims to work after graduation)?


texts:
I want to include an image in my lecture-note paper written in English. The image elements are fully made with non-English language. Below I show a part of the image:

.

I use this image because a reviewer commented:

  The authors could have given fig 1 with the actual example of the
  contest data.

And the contest data is Persian, however I want to publish it in prestigious proceedings.

I want to know if it is wrong to exactly use the data or I shall use the translated format?


texts: Recommendation letter from a research adviser who is expelled from the university

texts:
My undergraduate research adviser is expelled from the university for political reasons (in Middle East) after more than a decade of teaching and research. Now they have even forced the department to remove his name from the faculty list on the website of the department and they have taken away his academic email address.

I am applying to graduate schools in US and I want to include his recommendation letter in my application. What are the chances that the admission committee rejects my application due to

My adviser not being listed on the department webpage.
Not having an official email.

Some additional info: He has tens of publications which indicate his affiliation. He does have the letter head of the university, which can be used to print the letter on. The webpage of the department cannot be easily found by one search. One must find it through the university website which can take some effort.


texts: Is a journal based on extending Wikipedia articles feasible?

texts:
A large part of the work in writing a paper in my field (theoretical CS and economics) is writing the introduction, the problem description, the motivation, and the related work. A large part of this writeup repeats in different articles studying a similar problem; thus there is a waste of effort. I thought of initiating a journal in which the authors will be instructed to base this part of their papers on relevant Wikipedia pages. Each article would start with a paragraph such as the following:

"This paper extends the Wikipedia article ABC (version from date of submission). Our contributions are as follows: (a) we prove that the ABC theorem is valid not only for $n=2$ but also for $n=3$. (b) We refute the ABC conjecture for $n=4$. (c) We present an efficient algorithm for solving the ABC problem for the case $n=2$.

The authors are responsible for ensuring that the Wikipedia article at the date of submission is uptodate, contains a complete problem statement, and all relevant related work.
The referees will have to verify this. Then, the rest of the paper will be verified as usual.
If the paper is published, then the new contributions will be added to the ABC page.
Advantages:

The literature survey will be done only once, and it will be kept uptodate.
The notation will be uniform (based on the Wikipedia article).

Current journals will probably not agree to this scheme. But can it work with a new journal? Is this scheme reasonable?


texts: Should I include interviewees in my dissertation acknowledgement?

texts:
Background: I am writing a MSc dissertation in a technology/business-related topic.  I interviewed 15 people for about an hour each.  Each interviewee was given a choice of anonymity (e.g. tech-sector employee), organisation only (e.g. Microsoft employee) or named (Joe Bloggs of Microsoft).  Most went for named; although in the final version of the text when I referred to interviews I just used organisations (mostly for presentational reasons).

Question: Is it considered polite to include the interviewees in the acknowledgements (clearly just those happy to be named)?  If I did so I would probably email first to check they were happy (and I'd got their name/title right!); although might be overthinking this...

Edit: I have written consent from each participant regarding the use of the information they have provided.


texts: Do I have any chance to apply to a graduate school after a bad junior year?

texts:
I am a senior at a top 15 public university in the states and planning to apply for graduate school in mathematics. Having been a top 100 Putnam performer and won a couple of medals at IMO in my high school, I believe I have a strong enough mathematical background to be a competent student at a top 5-10 graduate program. However, my application will not be stellar.

In the beginning of my junior year, I got severely addicted to a computer game and my grades suffered from it. Now I have one C in an economics class and an F in summer English class as well as two B's in upper level maths classes. Luckily, I have completely recovered now and performing very well in all of my current classes.

On one hand, my addiction problem in the past would certainly make it look like I am not strong enough to get through long and hard five years of a maths PhD student. But I do know that a researcher in pure maths will be my career and is what I am passionate about the most.

On the other hand, my adviser at the current university believes that I belong to a top school. He said:

  ...a student of your talent really needs to go to one of the best maths programs...

Now I am taking a second course in complex analysis with him and he seems to like me.

Because of my financial problem, I can apply to at most a dozen schools and want to make the best out of it. I thought that top 20-40 is my reach and top 40+ is my safety range. I had completely ruled of the idea to apply to a top 20 program. But what my adviser told me made me confused.

So my question is will it make sense for me to apply to a top 20 school? I have a really tight budget and do not want to waste spot for a school that I do not have a shot at.


texts: Does the usage of mathematical symbols work differently in books than in theses?

texts:
From what I know, one cannot use a mathematical symbol for two different notations in a thesis. Is this right? The thing is that I am trying to cite a book in my thesis, but this book uses (tau) for both viscous stresses and reynolds stresses. Can I do the same in my thesis or do I have to choose another notation?

Bear in mind that I am new to academic writing, thanks!


texts: Is it my responsibility as an undergrad student to figure out if my thesis is affordable?

texts:
I have an undergrad thesis idea that involves transformers. I am trying to take the lead on the idea before I contact a professor about it - i.e. figuring out exactly how I'd make it happen, and if it is realistic. The problem is that because of covid, the largest research funding I can get from my university as an UG is $500. I read a paper about a type of transformer, and I would like to apply that to an area it hasn't been applied before (my interest area). However, it seems like transformer based research is expensive.
I am worried about two things:

I don't want the professor to think I am idiot for suggesting an idea that might be big in scope / too expensive, but I truly do not know how to determine if it is too expensive / out of scope
I do want to publish first author. If this idea is too expensive, am I allowed to ask if he has any other projects for me (I can also provide him with my other interests).


texts: How to save my academic career after ending up in a deeply problematic lab for PhD?

texts:
I graduated with an excellent master's degree from one of the western European countries. I thought it would be good for my career development to do a PhD in another university but unfortunately I now find myself in a lot of trouble. The lab I am working at has several issues and there are many deeply unethical things going on. I am pretty confident that if I leave the lab without completing a degree, the professors will try to hamper my applications to other places.

Is there anything I can do? Obviously I am no longer a good applicant but someone who (at least seemingly) "failed" first. I wish this was my fault but it is not.

To make the question clear, I am contemplating on leaving due to ethics issues, general unfairness, and repeated mistreatment of employees (not just me).


texts: What should I do while in an undergraduate engineering course to keep a proof of the math knowledge I gain by self-study?

texts:
I'm an undergraduate electronics and communication engineering student (sophomore) at an Indian university. I joined this engineering course because I found the areas of quantum computing/information and quantum engineering quite interesting, and I felt an EE background would help me later on to pursue higher studies in these areas.

Lately, although I still have great interest in those areas (quantum computing/information/engineering), I am finding myself very much interested in certain topics in mathematics and mathematical physics. Namely, mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics and quantum information (which involves learning a lot of extra math topics like functional analysis), differential geometry and topology (and their application in theoretical physics), statistical learning (I'm finding the application of statistics in machine learning quite interesting and have been reading quite a few books related to that) and discrete mathematics (graph theory and combinatorics).

The natural thing to do in such a case would be pursue a minor in mathematics. But, unfortunately, our university does not offer any minor degrees or dual major degrees. So, it's not possible for me to formally take extra classes in mathematics. Upon pondering a bit I realize that I might want to pursue my higher studies in some interdisciplinary area which involves knowing things from electronics engineering as well as from the rigorous mathematical physics and statistical learning (machine learning/data science/AI). I'm not sure if such an interdisciplinary area of study even exists at the graduate level (?). But I'm really enjoying learning the new things in mathematics and I don't want my spending time on learning these things go in vain.

So, in short, what would be the correct way to keep proof that I'm actually learning these extra things (so that I can show that I actually know these extra subjects/topics while applying for grad school) ? Should I participate in some research projects in these areas? (But then again professors don't seem to accept people who haven't taken formal courses into their research projects). If it were computer science, I could have taken online courses on sites like EdX and Coursera, for certificates. But for mathematics, no such site exists which gives out certificates based on completion of certain courses.


texts:
I am currently a third-year student at a U.S. liberal-arts university located abroad, and I come from a completely different educational system when it comes to taking exams. Back home in high school, we would usually have a suitable amount of times and similar questions, so test completion and a perfect score weren't my issues.

I'm now in an extremely competitive environment and many of my econ classes are too optimistic towards my approach to taking exams. I'm now doing a lot poorer than I would want to struggling with time pressure and questions that are too real-world issues based, so I can't find connections that fast again.

Is there any way somebody has overcome the same issue or knows how to improve?
Similar tests will still be out there in the next 1.5 years + I  want to take graduate school exams, and I feel discouraged a bit, if nothing changes.


texts: What is the best way to include publications in my statement-of-purpose which I want to submit to a university? Should I give a full description of my publications, or just list them?


texts:
I read on Wikipedia:

  UK universities rely on the EU for around 16% of their total research funding, and are disproportionately successful at winning EU-awarded research grants.

Why are UK universities "disproportionately successful at winning EU-awarded research grants"?


texts: Can one hire an illustrator to make drawings for a paper?

texts: I am curious if one is allowed to hire an illustrator to draw images for a paper (e.g. a cartoon of some chemical reaction). Should this person be included as an author or in the acknowledgements? Or is this outright not allowed?


texts: How to prepare for grad school? [with 1 year to spare]

texts:
I plan to enter graduate school (MA+PhD) in September 2018, which means I have something of a ‘gap year situation’ ahead of me [not in a strict sense, as I’ve been working for a number of years now]. I want to use this unstructured time ahead the best way I can.

If you were in my position, how would you spend these spare 12 months before grad school officially begins and the clock starts ticking? How would you prepare for what’s ahead, what would you focus on?

It goes without saying that I have already given these questions a lot of careful consideration, but I’m very curious to learn how others would approach this topic; especially, current PhD candidates, postdocs, and lecturers/professors. Knowing what you now know, if you could go back, how would you spend a spare year like that?

Some background:

My field is social/cultural anthropology.
My ultimate goal (grad school and beyond) is to prepare a CV and a research portfolio, which will aid me in launching an academic career in Europe.
I have a BA in anthropology and an unrelated MA,
I currently freelance (unrelated field); I have plenty of spare time, and can arrange my schedule in whatever way I see fit.
I live in a mid-size European city (not a capital); can’t move anywhere this year, but can likely do some limited traveling.
There’s a small anthropology department here, but I’m not affiliated with it, and never was. My degree is from the US.
I can speak the local language fairly well.
The grad school (next year) will be in a different county, and learning the new language will be one of my key objectives this year. The language of instruction will be English, however.

Note: Not sure if I made this clear, but I’m not looking for suggestions such as “travel for fun,” or “get a new hobby.” I want to use these 12 months in the most productive way possible.

In response to feedback from comments: I would like the advice focused on: setting myself up to do outstanding work in grad school and beyond (postdocs, etc). I am not concerned with the "getting into grad school" part here.


texts: How do you keep up with (non-periodical) conference proceedings?

texts:
I am an EE & CS graduate student and IEEE is a typical and well-known associations.

I am getting papers published in Transactions, Journals Magazines, etc... via RSS feed. For example, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing has a feed published once a month.

So far, however, I couldn't find a way to get a list of conference proceeding papers when they are published. As a conference proceeding is not a periodical publication, generally, there is no such feed things. Therefore, I have to wait and check everyday until it is published. (Some conference provides papers when conference is being held. But in general, it takes two or three months from the conference to be published.)

Furthermore, USENIX has a feed, but it is not a feed about published papers. USENIX does not provide any feed even for the periodical.

In such situation, how do you keep up with the recent publications?

I don't care about the recent publication. I search them on demand.
I keep up them manually. (You are a very diligent person. :-> )
My organization (university, company) has a sort of curation, curator.
None of them. Other ways.


texts: Electronics Engineer Doing a Bachelor Thesis in Physics

texts:
I am an electronics engineering undergrad currently choosing a topic for my bachelor thesis.

I  have always been interested in physics in general, and in quantum mechanics in particular. To make sure my attraction to quantum mechanics wasn't merely that of a layman reading about the cool properties of the quantum world, I studied as much textbook quantum mechanics as I could lay my hands on. I audited online courses offered by MIT and Stanford in addition to the studying I did from the best undergraduate textbook out there. And I was doing that parallel to my university engineering work.

Now I have the opportunity to apply for a bachelor thesis at a prestigious german university in the topic of Quantum Dot Qubits, which is, as you might have deduced from the name, a quantum mechanical topic.

But because physics is not my major, I had doubts about whether I am qualified to apply, so I looked at the university's undergrad physics curriculum and, not surprisingly, the Quantum Mechanics courses included titles that I know of but did not have the chance to delve deeply into. But I am quite confident (with a hope that I am not overestimating my abilities) that I can catch up to whatever I am lacking (which is not a lot - pretty much little chunks here and there) pretty quickly.

For the past couple of days I have been deciding back and forth on whether I should apply, with my leash being that ,whatever I have studied, I don't have as much experience as the physics students (I did not solve as much problems) to carry out the highly physical research that would be assigned to me. But I saw this post and this post, and after reading that "Bachelor theses are closer to literature reviews" I think my decision is going to be to apply after all and acquire the chunks of knowledge I am missing on the go. Would that decision be wise?

EDIT (Jan. 23, 2017): 5 months ago, I successfully completed my bachelor's thesis in the field of quantum information, and I got the top grade. I am currently applying for grad studies in the same research area.


texts: How do I know if I'm good enough to be a math professor?

texts:
I would like to apply for graduate school to become a mathematics professor.

However, given that the opportunity cost of grad school is high and that I already have a stable, good paying job, I would like to know whether I have the talent and ability to be a math professor before I start. This is obviously a very difficult question to answer, but I'll explain my situation.

I believe I have above-average math talent, although I wouldn't consider myself a genius and I've had people in my classes smarter than me. However, I've gotten high marks in nearly all math courses and I've written a honors thesis which has also received very high marks. I've also worked as a research assistant. Basically, I think I've done pretty well and perform competently in all the mathematical challenges that has come my way so far.

But being a math professor requires original ideas and lots of publishing. I haven't had any significant original ideas, but it's probably true that most people at my level of education also haven't (correct me if I'm wrong here). My main concern is how do I know if I would be able to generate enough original ideas to keep publishing and maintain a successful academic career? Unlike working in mathematical modeling in the private sector, where one cannot really get "stuck" in the same way, it seems like a risk to be a professor since it's really hard to guarantee that you'll always be able to produce new research.

Do any mathematicians working in academia have any comments about how one knows if they'll be able to continually generate new ideas to produce publishable research?


texts: How does one find "suitable referees" for publishing a paper in journal?

texts:
In many journals, authors who have never published anything before are required to have two or more "referees" in order for the paper to be reviewed. Who are these referees, and how can one "find suitable ones"?

Also, how does one go about finding referees when one is not in academia (i.e. doing research as a hobby rather than a profession)?


texts: "This is very interesting as a project" What is the next step to obtain PhD position?

texts:
I am submitting to several schools for PhD position in CS. I am following the advices about how to contact professors.

One professor I sent to suggesting some idea about her previous research and asking that I want to indicate my desire to work under her supervision. She replied "This is very interesting as a project. Please apply for the next deadline". It is very encouraging response. However, the admission decision is at the department level. So I will have to apply and there are several other requirements which I am not completely sure if I entirely meet.

I feel like I must focus on this positive side in order to increase my chances, but I do not know how. Should I keep in touch with the professor although she can do nothing now until the decision is made? Should I send more details about the suggested idea in order to show how motivated I am (I am not sure if she's part of the admission committee). What is the second step to increase my chances to get admission?

Do you think sending more emails to the professor is annoying or does show my enthusiasm? Any thing I can do to support more application at this time?

Update for who may concern
The application has not been accepted.


texts: Most efficient way of booking academic supervision appointments

texts:
I'm wondering if there's a more efficient method of booking an academic supervision appointment. The method I experienced was a schedule on the professor's door, first-come-first-serve.

How do we employ technology that is the most efficient (reduces scheduling time, permitting all students to view sign ups)?


texts: How should I describe my country's volatile situation in a letter for a scholarship application?

texts:
I'm writing a letter of motivation to apply for a master degree scholarship. However, my marks in final years of study weren't the highest possible due to the effect of the ongoing crisis in my country, Syria, on me.

In this question, I asked whether I should mention this in my letter, and the answer was that I should.

Now I want to know, what is the best way to mention this in my letter? Is one paragraph about it too much?


texts: Do I own the copyright to my Master's thesis? or does it belong to my university?

texts:
I am just done with my Masters degree in one of the universities in Germany.  I am wondering if I can make my Master's thesis open for public to download and read.

I am not talking about submitting it to a journal or a conference, I am just asking if I can put the PDF file I submitted to my professor on my website. My question is that if I do put on my website, will I run into copyright issues and stuff of that kind?


texts: What is the proper way to cite an image source, if they were given to me by a company?

texts:
I am writing my thesis and use images that were created by a company. These images are not available online, they were handed to me.

How would I properly give them credit for their images? If it is relevant, I have to use IEEE citation style.


texts: Is graduating on the August a problem in admission for PhD programs in the U.S.?

texts: I'm studying at UCB through an off-campus program this year. My original school is University of Minnesota, and I'm applying for PhD programs in the U.S. which begin from the end of August. I found that there is a chance that I have to either take online courses during semester or spend the summer (until the beginning of August) to take liberal education courses of UMN in order to graduate. For the latter case, I will get my degree on the beginning of August, and this is much later than the norm. Is this going to be a problem in admission?


texts: Can I share an unpublished paper without this counting as prior publication?

texts:
I need to share a draft of a scientific paper with another person. I have the intention of publish it, but it is not ready for submission yet.
When submitting my paper, I would like to avoid accusations that it is not original work.
Do I have to take anything into account in this respect before sending it?


texts: What are the health impacts of standing / sitting while lecturing?

texts:
I often find myself lecturing for 7 hours in one day. This question is not about how to reduce my hours, it is about making healthy choices with my existing constraints.

I am lecturing to different classes during the day (it is not a single group of students for all 7 hours), in case that makes a difference.

I realize that during my lectures, I must choose what to do with my body. Should I sit (blood clots, deep-vein thrombus) or do I stand (I've heard non-lecturers complain about swelling legs when standing too much).

My questions are:

What impacts are known from standing while lecturing for 7 hours per day, 3 days per week?
Is it better to stand or to walk around?
Is it better to sit for the whole time?
Is it best to do a "little bit of everything?" If so, where is the optimal balance?

I realize that this might be specific to the person but I am hoping to find some experiences or, even better, research, which will indicate the best choices to make when one must lecture for many hours.


texts: Why mention town and country of equipment manufacturer?

texts:
For reproducibility I see the use of mentioning the equipment type, version number and manufacturer. But in the internet age it seems unnecessary to me to mention the town and country of an equipment manufacturer in the methods section of an academic paper.

In my opinion it was probably useful when you needed a phone book to look up the company details. Nowadays, I think these details make the papers less readable because they break the flow of the text.

However, my PI and some coworkers always want me to add this information without giving a reason why. (If they give reasons they are: "the journal wants it" [not true], or "everybody does it this way" [bad reason])

Is there any good reason to add the town/country that I did not think of?


texts: Comparison of student involvement in research in different countries

texts:
In the United States, a student who will successfully enter academia will do some research as an undergraduate, and then in graduate school focus mainly on research. (Obviously this is just a generalization).

My question is: how is this different in other countries in terms of how students are involved in research? In what ways at what ages? For example, the United states has lots of government funded programs where undergraduates can meaningfully participate in research. Are there comparable programs in other countries?


texts:
Imagine the following situation: Mr. Expert writes that it is important to have A,B & C. Dr. Smart writes it is important to have A, Y, Z. As both are using the arguments to lead to different topics, their list is not exhaustive and {A,B,C,Y,Z} do not contradict.

I think all points are important, but I would also like to add that A may be red or blue. Hence I think:

Red and blue A, B, C, Y and Z are important.

But how do I cite them correctly?

Red and blue A, B, C, Y and Z are important [Mr. Expert; Dr. Smart].

This is the only form that doesn't make the sentence contain more citations than actual words. Is this a bad citation style, e.g. might Mr. Expert complain that he never said A should be red or blue or that he thinks Z is completely irrelevant? Or am I just noting that some ideas might be copied from one (or maybe multiple) listed sources?


texts: Is it ethical to profit by having my students buy my textbook?

texts:
This question was suggested to me by How can I sell my text book to my students in e-book format? which asked about the practicalities, but attracted many comments about the ethics.  So this question is to ask about the ethics directly.

Suppose I have written and published a textbook, and I want to use it as the text for a course I am teaching.  I receive royalties from each copy of my book that is sold, so if my students are required to buy my textbook for the course, I will make some money.  Is it ethical to do so?

Well-reasoned opinions would be useful answers, but even more useful would be pointers to institutional policies, professional codes of ethics, etc, that address this issue.

Of course, there are many ways to avoid profiting from the sale of my book to my students.  If my contract with my publisher allows it, I could distribute PDFs to my students, or have the university bookstore print out copies and sell them at cost.  Another approach I've heard of is to compute how much I earn in royalties on each copy, and refund that amount from my pocket to each student who buys a copy.  Or, use my royalty earnings to buy pizza for the class.  Certainly these are nice gestures, but I would like opinions on whether they are ethically required.

Edit: To address some questions that have arisen in the comments:

This question is hypothetical.  I haven't published any textbooks myself and have no immediate plans to do so.  In any case, my personal preference would be to make the book available to students for free, if at all possible.  So I've phrased this question in the first person for rhetorical convenience only.
I had intended the question to be only about the potential financial conflict of interest that could arise if I make money by assigning my own book.  Some of the answers feel that it is improper for me to assign my own textbook at all, whether I make money or not, but I don't think this point of view is prevalent within the academic community.  If it happens that my book (as a pithy but now-deleted comment put it) "blows", I think most would agree that my decision to assign it is pedagogically unfortunate, but not unethical.
I don't literally mean that students would be required to buy the book, only that they'd be expected to have it.  I might assign readings or homework problems from the book, so that the student needs access to the book in order to do them, but they could certainly achieve this by getting a used copy or borrowing from a friend.  But probably most students would buy new copies anyway, since that is the most convenient way.


texts: The paper I reviewed got worse in parts, due to poor advice from another reviewer

texts: I reviewing a paper and now getting the revised paper for the next round.  Although it has improved overall, in some parts, the paper has become worse when the authors followed (in my opinion) poor advice from another reviewer (I can see the other peer review).  Is it appropriate to advice the authors to ignore the advice from the other reviewer and revert this particular change?  It concerns a minor point.


texts: Applied vs Theoretical Journals (or venues)

texts:
This question is primarily for the Math/TCS/Systems community. I expect that similar situations (theory vs practice/applied journals) arises in other context as well so feel free to comment what is going on in your field. Also, it is not exclusive to journals.

I have what is in my opinion a good theoretical/algorithmic result that has many applications to system stuff like cloud computing/fault tolerant stuff etc. The paper is theoretical nevertheless, without experiments etc.
I have two options:

submit it to a good TCS journal (DAM/Algorithmica etc) without caring too much for applications and focus purely on the math stuff.
Submit it to a more "system" journal (for example IEEE/ACM TON/ToPDS or Journal of Par. Dist. Comput. etc). Such journals could accept, on principle, more algorithmic results provided they have clear real world applications relevant to the scope of the journal.

My question to the TCS community:  How bad/good looks on the CV a theoretical result on a -nevertheless good- system journal but not so visible to the TCS/Math community?

My question to the System community: How do you react when you see such a pure algorithmic result in such a journal? Even if it is motivated by real life system applications.

My question to the Industry people: Does it make more sense for my CV to demonstrate that I can publish to more system journals (like the above). How do you act when you receive application from TCS people?

The last question is in purpose general. Depends the position. But do some publications in more practical journal give extra credit to the applicant?

Update: For what is worth, in case anyone is interested I can share my mild experience. I submitted to a (prestigious, if it matters) system journal my work (which is rather heavy from technical/math point of view). The paper got accepted, but it strikes me that none of the reviewers spent time on the technical part (at least not very carefully). They rather cared on the applications part (and they were happy with it). I am a little disappointed since I expected people to check the math part, and this makes me a bit reluctant to try similar journals in the future.

Still, my question stands: How does it look on the CV from a TCS/Math point of view? Does it make any difference (positive or negative)? Does it look "suspicious" that I have chosen a system journal when I could perfectly choose an algorithmic/applied math one? The reason I did that, is because I wanted to show a little bit of "diversity" in my CV (plus the fact that I like systems in general). Does it make any sense?


texts: Second Masters in maths after master's in physics: how does it help getting into PhD in Europe?

texts:
How does it help doing a second master's in mathematics after doing first master's in Physics for getting a PhD in theoretical Physics in Europe?

Will it be helpful to compensate for a low GPA in Masters in Physics?

Does the reputation of the university (master's degree) really matters for the PhD admissions if one has got enough project experiences in the field from top institutions?


texts: How to make transition from trade school to graduate degree?

texts:
This question is asking how to bridge the gap between knowing programming to research.

I'm an undergraduate in a decent BA computer science program at a college with a decent-to-low reputation. Most of the professors here aren't PhDs. I can't transfer to another college, because a close relative of mine is at a prominent member of this college's staff and all eyes are on me. I've taken data structures, architecture, etc but it's much more of a trade school than a rigorous theoretical foundation.

After reading a few advanced data structure books, I've become very interested in certain theoretical computer science topics. If I want to do research after undergrad, how should I go about it? I'm a pretty motivated person and I am good at self studying. Should I try to create interesting projects? work on open-source? work at a prestigious company?

Thanks for any advice.


texts: How to work with a RA unwilling to work with me?

texts:
I've recently started a new role on a three year project. I'm a research officer and I've joined onto the project about 8 months in at new research institute, there are three CIs. I've been brought on due to my expertise in a set of areas that the project is lacking, which includes theoretical/methodological knowledge and project management experience/skills. In terms of hierarchy, it's the three CIs, then me, then the RA. I've been brought on as a new early career researcher having already completely my Phd.

There is a graduate student research assistant involved with the project and their contract will finish at the end of the year. There is no money for additional work for them, and it is expected that I'll be taking over all of the their duties in addition to project management as well as creative contribution. The RA has been tasked to support me in the transition period as I take over the project and see out its implementation.

I've been getting along well with the chief investigators and am beginning to settle into the role. However, my struggle is with the RA, who is unwilling to work with me or allow me access to any of the materials. If I ask them to help me with something, they go to one of the CIs and complain that they are confused about what they are being tasked with. In meetings, I find that they roll their eyes at me, and give off a hostile vibe. In some cases, I feel as though my intelligence is being belittled despite being brought on as a senior researcher, because my research background, (while complimentary) is quite different to the standard background at this institute.

I know that this could potentially be a bit of backlash for me being brought onto the project, and that they are concerned about their contributions. They have been told that they are not staying on past a particular date (or so I've been told), and there might be some unintentional gate-keeping/attachment to the project that they are unwilling to let go. However, they've also been made aware that their contributions will count towards co-authoring a paper or two, so they won't be kicked off completely with nothing to show for it.

While I have brought up this issue with the CIs, it's still happening, and I'm not sure what the next step is or how to manage this effectively.

Has anyone had this experience before and can offer some suggestions/guidance?


texts: How are academic relations between mainland China and Taiwan?

texts:
Both mainland China and Taiwan have internationally notable universities. How are the relations between their academic research communities?

Does getting involved (as a Westerner) with either of these research communities lead to political obstacles regarding the other?


texts: How can I determine whether a conference is reputable?

texts: I recently received an invitation to a conference and I'm trying to determine how reputable it is. Is there a good way to go about this?


texts: What subjects benefit from textbook editions?

texts:
I've read several questions relating to the (typically US) practice of requiring students to buy up-to-date, expensive, editions of textbooks. I can see why the publishers are in favour of this, but I don't understand why everyone else plays along. As far as I've seen, the UK seems to get along fine without this.

In my field (mathematics) it seems pretty obvious that new editions are generally not that important - maths just doesn't change that fast (the material taught at undergraduate level has mostly been around for the odd hundred years). So my question is:

Are there subjects for which it is important to have the most up-to-date edition of a texbook, enough to justify the cost to students (/libraries)?


texts: Choosing between primary advisors for a PhD program

texts:
I currently work as a research assistant for Prof. A on a government funded project which ends this year. I have advised Prof. A that I am interested in pursuing a PhD and that I would like to stay at the institute I am currently at and to potentially complete it with them as well.

My job has ended up being that I do the bulk of my experimental work in Prof. B's group, as they have the necessary tools and expertise to answer the questions we have and I have established a healthy collaboration. As Prof. B's group is more focussed on work closely pertaining to mine, I find myself more engaged in meetings and conversations of the subject matter with this group than of my own with Prof. A.

Prof B. has since offered me to be a PhD student in their group next year, quite insistently, with 60% primary supervision to Prof. B and 40% supervision to Prof. A. Understandably, Prof. A would prefer it be the other way around.

I enjoy working for Prof. A a lot, but can also see working for Prof. B being highly rewarding albeit a little bit tougher on the expectation and 'cracking the whip' front. Both would offer me an excellent PhD opportunity, but with two very distinct outcomes and professional training. I'm a little stuck on how to decide between them.

Is it a better option for me to have Prof. B as my primary supervisor given that's where my professional goals lie, or is it more important to work for someone that I am much more comfortable with and have extensive prior experience with such as Prof. A?