texts: Is it possible to complete the last year of a German Diplom in another university if ineligible in original university?

texts:
I have a friend who was studying civil engineering in Dresden, Germany. He somehow got a very... VERY bad case of electronic addiction (he would just play online games and only procrastinate) and he lost connection to reality. He also had to go to rehab for this.

He is doing a Diplom, he has to write his final dissertation. He has over 20 semesters in the degree, it was a bit of a start and stop. This is a German 'diplom' meaning it is equal to a masters' so he holds no previous degrees.

Now he is ready to do the last part of his degree but he has been waiting for a decision from the university as to if he can continue his degree.

My question is, if this decision from the university is a "no", is it possible for him to complete his education? I mean is it possible for him to enroll in another university only for the last year. I think it is not possible in Germany to do this (something to do with having done too many semesters already), but maybe in another country.


texts: Reasons for dramatic differences in pay for adjuncts?

texts:
I recently came across a survey of pay for adjunct faculty at California community colleges. It doesn't surprise me that rural schools pay less than urban ones, but there are some pretty amazing discrepancies between schools that are close together geographically. For example, the highest pay for a part-timer with a PhD is 50% lower in the North Orange County district (where I'm full-time faculty) than at Mt. San Antonio College. These two schools draw students from adjoining areas, and are 25 minutes apart on the freeway. Community colleges in California basically get their money from the state's general fund these days (not from property taxes, as in the past), so funding per student should be equal.

Are these wild contrasts present all over the world, or are they a specific to community colleges in California? Why do these huge differences exist? Are they evidence that this labor market is one that economists would describe as inefficient, with people not being able to make rational choices based on accurate information? I wonder if they simply reflect the political and fiscal attitudes of the schools' boards of trustees.

related: Why is it that adjunct faculty positions pay so little?


texts: Handling unsolicited proofs of famous mathematical problems

texts:
I have been receiving mails from (most probably amateurs), who claims to have proved famous mathematical problems, like the ABC Conjecture or Goldbach Conjecture. But invariably, they all contained mistakes. I decided not to waste my time on such unsolicited documents. But recently something interesting happened.
About 14 days earlier, I have received a mail from an Indian undergraduate student who claimed to have proved the Sylvester-Gallai Theorem in an elementary way. What is more amusing is that he claimed to have proved it using Mathematical Induction and a basic Euclidean Axiom. I decided to ignore it as usual. But yesterday I got his mail, telling me that-

I suppose you haven't considered my document worthy of your time and so you haven't gone through it at all, or it may be that you are so busy that you haven't found time to check your email account. If that's the case then just ignore this mail. But if it's the first case then I would like to tell you something.
Perhaps you have heard about the Indian Mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. He also sent his mathematical works to renowned mathematicians like Baker and Hobson but they didn't reply. Later he sent his manuscript to Hardy and his genius was recognized. But just suppose that Hardy also considered his work to be the work of a crank, without even going through it. Consider this be the case even if he would sent it to other mathematicians. How long could he continue sending his unsolicited formulas and theorems (which were without proof!) to other mathematicians and be rejected? Of course, finitely many times. After that, he perhaps wouldn't write to any mathematician even if he had, suppose for example proved the Riemann Hypothesis. Why would he? He was likely to be rejected.
So I suggest you at least to go through my document thoroughly and tell me precisely about it.
Please don't behave like Baker or Hobson.

What should I do now? Should I remain silent or go through the document? Any suggestion will be welcomed.


texts:
I have written a paper and posted that in arXiv. The paper is cited once and I have cited roughly 40 manuscripts in my paper. I am now thinking that the title of my paper is not fully representing what is going on in the paper and I have a better alternative title for the paper. I have not published my paper in another journal and only the arXiv version exists on the internet.
I know when you submit a revised manuscript in arXiv all the previous version still remains public and this is not an issue for me.
My question is: Once I change the title what will happen to the cited paper (with the old title) and all the papers cited by this paper? Are the citations going to be removed since the paper is changed? Are the citations automatically point to the new manuscript? the last but not the least is Google scholar is going to point to the most recent version of the arXiv automatically?
I have read the following post: Change title to arXiv paper.


texts: How much does it cost the publisher to transform the draft of a textbook as given by the authors into a final publication (for web or print)?

texts:
I wonder what are the actual costs of translating a manuscript of a textbook as given by the authors into a final publication (for web or print). I.e., ignoring the costs of marketing the textbook, and printing the textbook, and serving content via web.

I am mostly interested in the fields of computer science and maths, English-speaking venues, and the United States, but I am curious about other fields, languages, and countries as well. I am looking for referenced numbers, not guesses.

Given the number of downvotes and close votes from people who seem to think it's impossible, here is an example…


texts: How to cite when true publication date differs from journal's claimed year?

texts:
I am citing in Harvard style, so my entries end up something like this:

  Widom, H. (1975). Asymptotic inversion of convolution operators, Publ. Math. Inst. Hautes Études Sci. 44: 191–240.

With the above entry, I noticed that the same author cited the year as 1975 from his later papers, but the publisher's website says volume 44 is from 1974. I looked at the actual journal volume and sure enough it has 1974 in big letters on the title page, but the small copyright notice says 1975. It seems that this is the journal volume for 1974, but was actually published in 1975. (According to the stamp on it, my university's library received its copy at the start of April 1975, so my speculation is that they only narrowly missed a deadline to pubish in 1974.)

My question is: how should I cite this? Should I mention both years? If so, how should I fit them in to the citation, and if not, which should I use?


texts: Preparing a very short presentation for a PhD interview

texts:
I have an interview for a PhD position for which I have to create a presentation. They say:

  In this first stage interview you will be asked to give a four minute presentation on a project you have recently been involved and your suitability for this Ph.D. This will be followed by around 10-15 minutes of general questions from the panel.

My English is not very well and the interview is in English.
Does anyone know how I should create a presentation? What topic I have to mention it?

What are their possible questions?


texts:
I have noticed that in some fields, it is common to indicate in your CV (with italics, asterisks, or other symbols) if a coauthor is an undergraduate student. I have even seen similar practices for indicating grad student coauthors. I can imagine three reasons for doing this:

Emphasize one's own contribution by suggesting that an undergrad or graduate coauthor did not contribute as much to the paper.
Emphasize the undergrad/grad student's impressive feat of contributing to a paper so early in their career.
Emphasize one's own dedication to mentorship and involving students in research.

Personally, (1.) is not something I would wish to convey on my CV, while (2.) and (3.) are points that I would like to convey on my CV.
In my field (mathematics), I have seen some CVs that indicate when a coauthor is an undergraduate, but it doesn't seem to be as common as in other fields. Perhaps one reason for this is that authors are frequently listed alphabetically in mathematics.
Question: In mathematics, would indicating which coauthors are undergraduates convey a positive message about the undergraduate's contribution to research, as well as my involvement of undergraduates in research? Or would this downplay the undergraduate's contribution?


texts: Is getting a second masters in a different technical field worthwhile?

texts:
If a person has a degree in one technical field and sees and opportunity to obtain another from an even higher ranked university in a field that has great synergy with where they are now, is it worth the time and especially money spent? By worth, I mean would having a second masters be a significant benefit for someone working in industry?

That is the general question. In my case I will have an M.E. in Systems Engineering and about 4 years experience programming in an engineering field. I am looking at a Data Science program at a top university, it would be a year and a half and lead to an M.S. The cost of both is considerable, I am unsure that the benefits outweigh the costs.


texts: How do researchers cope with political backlash from working on controversial topics?

texts:
Suppose, a researcher is very interested and enthusiastic about a controversial topic. If he works on that topic and publishes papers, he may be in political trouble from his government or another government.
Think about an Armenian researcher who wants to prove that the said genocide of Armenians in the hands of Ottomans was not as true as Armenians say. Or, think about a Turkish researcher who wants to prove that Turkey actually did the atrocities on Armenians.
How do researchers deal with this dilemma?
How do they cope with the political backlash?


texts: Giving a test lecture, what should I keep in mind?

texts:
I hold a PhD in computer science. I've been travelling to conferences presenting my papers and sometimes as part of my teaching assistance duty, I had to give some very simple lectures to students.

I found a position as professor and researcher in a university, and I've been asked to deliver a "test lecture" on a subject I don't know to students from a different background than mine. There will be a body of professors evaluating my teaching skills as well.

I am in the process of preparing the lecture, and realised I am preparing it as a presentation. I was wondering, what should I keep in mind when preparing the lecture? I am used to present in front of (a lot of) people, so that is not a problem. I am also used to prepare presentations for my work, so I was wondering if there is something I should keep in mind while preparing/delivering a lecture which is different from delivering a presentation.

Thank you!


texts: When should we use publication list for peer evaluation?

texts:
This is a second attempt to ask about peer evaluation, after a pretty unsuccessful one which was probably much too broad. Let me start again, with a more precise subquestion.
The point is commonly made that one should not judge one's peer by looking at the impact factor of journals where her papers are published, as IF is a very poor indicator of the citation rate of individual articles, and certainly even poorer at asserting the intrinsic merit of individual articles. Some go further and consider that one should not judge one's peer by looking at the prestige of journals her papers are published in (e.g. because more selective journals tend to publish less reliable science). Last, the sheer number of publications is obviously no more useful to judge one's peer than the sheer number of books written is useful to judge a writer's merit. So, following these principles, one is lead not to use publication lists in peer evaluation.
However, publication list is most certainly the main component of a record in many, if not most, evaluation.
I have several questions on this paradox, to which I have personal answers which are partial and non definitive.

Q0 What are the actual practices you witness about the use of publication lists in peer evaluation?
Q1 Are there circumstances where using IF, journal prestige or other aspect of publication list leads to a better evaluation than not?
Q2 What other proxy if any can be used for evaluation that are expected to be done rather quickly (e.g. extracting a short list from dozens to hundreds of applicants for a tenured position, attributing small fundings), and what are their pros and cons?
Q3 What criteria can be used for evaluation that are expected to be done more thoroughly (e.g. hiring for a tenured position once a short list has been established), and what are their pros and cons?


texts: What is the best way to explain unrelated work in a Masters application?

texts:
I graduated in 2016 with degrees in Law and Arts, with Arts majors of International Relations and Criminology. Since then, I have been working as a corporate lawyer (specifically, insurance).

I have realised I don't want to do this long-term, and am applying for Masters degrees in the field of political science / international relations / public policy.

I have decent academics and plenty of relevant extra-curriculars from my undergraduate degree, but I am not sure how to best explain the last 3 years?

I am based in Australia and applying for coursework Masters programs in Europe and the US


texts:
I think I have good results for publishing a paper in a math journal, but I've never published one. I need a propose about any good math journal in mathematics for young mathematicians who have never published a paper. It can be with impact factor or with international board.

Thank you in advance.


texts: Can I use code from a supplementary material and publish it as part of my own paper?

texts:
Someone published a paper whose supplementary material contains source code. Can I include part of that code (I would mark it as copied in the source and the manuscript) in my own code, which is intended for the supplementary material of my own paper?

If not (or at least not automatically), who would I have to contact to ask for permission, the journal or the author of the other paper?


texts: How to quantify the loss in productivity due to time spent on writing proposals

texts:
During my PhD it bothered me how much time my supervisor had to spend on writing proposals to get funding to do science, which in practice pretty much meant that he had no time to do science because he spent all that time in the time-consuming business of getting money.

As I was finishing my PhD and looked at postdoc opportunities, I wrote myself a project proposal for starting investigators in which I spent overall about one month (literature review, securing collaborators, writing itself, etc). This was very competitive and only one in every 100 applicants got funded - I did not get funding, although I made it to the interviews, which I was told meant I made it to the top 10%. I am not completely unsatisfied about the outcome because I gained experience and contacts, which eventually led me to being offered a postdoc position by one of the people I had included as collaborators. However, the whole process of putting the thing together meant I lost about one month that I could have spent doing science. It also made me realize that even writing a high quality proposal in which I had spent a lot of time working on the details would not necessarily lead to guaranteed success. If only 1% of applicants get funded it means that statistical noise alone is enough to push you out of the winners pool!

Now that I am a postdoc I have to spend some time helping my new boss with his proposals and in the near future (maybe in the next year) I will have to start applying to some competitive project money myself. Again, this means that I will not be doing research during that time and will spend a considerable amount of time trying to get that research funded.

How can this loss of productivity be quantified? Are there studies on how much less research is carried out because of the time spent on competitive hard-to-win grant calls?


texts: How do I write the methodology part of a paper if I use commercial software?

texts:
I research the aerodynamics of an air vehicle. I use commercial fluid-dynamics software (we have a commercial license). However, I noticed that most papers dealing similar research use homemade software and write about it in the methods section of their papers.

Should I describe how I operate the commercial software in the methods section of my paper? If not, how should I organize this part of my paper? What aspects should I cover in my paper?


texts: Which year can I start to apply graduate program in United States?

texts: As the question stated, is it possible for me to start applying graduate programs during forth year of undergraduate studies?


texts: Can a bad grade in a class be negated by a good grade in a more advanced class?

texts: I am an undergraduate who is expecting a mediocre grade in my optimization class this semester (roughly B-), which is in significant contrast to my near straight A transcript. Unfortunately, I want to do a PhD in machine learning and so I expect this grade to be viewed in a negative light by graduate admissions committees due to the relevance of the material and the aforementioned contrast. But I will take an advanced graduate level machine learning course this coming semester which has the optimization course as a prerequisite. Will a good performance in this  graduate level class negate my mediocre grade in my optimization class? In general, can (and will) good grades in more advanced classes negate bad grades in prerequisite classes in the context of graduate admissions? To what extent? I understand that each admissions committee will view this situation differently. I am looking for a general opinion.


texts: How to make notes on journal readings – necessary, or emergent skill?

texts:
I'll preface by saying I honestly have a load of anxiety associated with this by now, such that it detracts from reading.

I have never been a note-taker (only taking them when forced to by teachers, specific things such as formulas, as outlines of topics in preparation to guessable exam questions, or as a bullet-point list of what I am going to say – on the document that I am writing). Going into the third year of my undergraduate, I began to feel: ‘Well OK, now I need notes, because I am reading a lot of papers.’ A lot of time passes, and I am falling behind. I speak with the study skills folks about my concerns, they offer me some tips about summarizing and stuff, most of which I already put into practice, and their conclusion was that I was probably just anxious.

However, I kept falling behind, despite putting in more hours than most of my peers. It is apparent to me that I do not know how to take notes – possibly because I do not know how to use them.

Most of my notes essentially end up as paraphrasing. While I can then go through and summarize, I always feel this is an aimless activity, that doesn't really aid my understanding. In one case, I have literally more pages of typed notes than I the article has (25 pages of notes for a 22-page article), and certainly my handwritten notes are similar, and are often just lines and lines of prose summaries of paragraphs. (I can comment with examples of both typed and written notes if it'll help clarify.)

This leads me to ask for thoughts: How can I rectify this moving forward? It's gotten to the point where my academic future literally seems to hinge on this silly issue, because it takes me so long to make notes on content that I fall behind, all the while feeling that I am struggling to understand, etc. (Before, in the previous years, I just did a lot of reading, often wider and more extensively than most of my immediate peers, and it lead to positive interaction where people came to me with questions; now, I have really had all confidence shattered, I feel I cannot understand the papers I have spent a lot of time making notes on, even if in principle I do understand them as shown by my ability to answer questions on them. I even have pages of notes on how to make notes, and I certainly feel like I don't understand that.

Is note-taking an essential skill? Would it develop naturally if I 'needed' it? I can't help but wonder if I would find it developing as and when I needed it, without the thought and the stress, and the failing, but it is very clear that, because I never developed these skills, I really have no clue. At this point, I certainly feel as if I would probably understand more of my field at this point if I relied only of reading, because we are talking about days a week to make notes on single papers, and, again, I have not found single-two page summaries of the papers (as many prescribe with several questions about them) to be useful.


texts: Structuring Dissertation as Thesis Rather than "Standard" Bachelor's Structure

texts:
I'm in the process of developing a quantum random number generator utilising novel mechanisms that haven't yet been implemented in commercial products in an effort to achieve better randomness and a higher bitrate. This is for my Bachelor of Engineering degree in the UK.

My university doesn't stipulate any particular format, and since it's just a BEng (not an MEng) doesn't require a literature review. However, since I intend on pursuing a PhD immediately following the completion of my BEng, I feel it would be beneficial to structure the dissertation as a mini-thesis broken into relevant chapters with names that I find appropriate rather than using the more standard dissertation template simply using stock headings (research, evaluation, etc.). I'm also planning on doing a literature review.

Do you think this is appropriate or could it backfire?

If it's relevant, I'll be using Latex book rather than article, to give you an idea of the formatting.


texts: Where to put the interpretative mathematical derivations in my research paper?

texts: In my research, I've got some new data and there should be some mathematical derivations to interpret the results of previous work. Is it appropriate to put this part of content in the Discussion section or in the Result section or even a new single section?


texts: Is there anything that I can do while waiting for the decision on scholarship

texts:
I applied for a PhD degree and has received an offer for it! However, I have to wait until next two months to know whether they give me a scholarship as well. I'm very nervous as the number of scholarships is limited and it's highly unlikely that I can join the programme without it. I am also applying for other universities as well but none of them offer scholarship covering everything for international student like the one I'm waiting for.

Is there anything that I can do while waiting in order to strengthen my application?


texts: What is the actual difference between Graduate and Undergraduate texts?

texts:
Whenever I open a graduate text (on pretty much everything), I'm instantly overwhelmed as most topics are not well motivated, book reads like an encyclopedia and extremely high level topics maybe mixed in with an introduction to a specific topic. Oh, the text also tends to be printed in a horrendous font that does not at all induce eagerness of reading!

Think of Springer series on mathematics if you want to know exactly what I'm referring to.

Why are graduate texts written that way? Why isn't there a plethora of classic texts at the graduate level?

Just out of curiosity.


texts: Letter for journal's editor about the importance of the paper under review

texts: I have sent one of the Ph.D. (2019) chapters to a journal two months ago. Today, I found a preprint (Feb 2021) of one of the strongest key authors of my field. Her preprint talking about a similar topic to mine, which I have done two years ago. I send it to multiples journals. Each journal wastes my time for about 3 to 4 months. She is a famous author and may her paper will be published before mine. What should I do now? Do I need to send a letter to the journal editor telling them about this good point about my project. If so, what should I told them.


texts: How to efficiently (and aesthetically) display an evolving publications list on your webpage?

texts: I'm building a personal website where I'd like to list my publications. Perhaps one of the most efficient ways to do that would be to use or build something that pulls data from an online bib file, and lists entries. I found BibBase, but it has only a few options for display styles, and seems difficult to use if you want something that's also visually pleasing. Short of actually building the html page on your own, what are some common methods that people find useful for this task? How about any websites that you think do this very well?


texts: Can I teach the same course I developed at one university at another university as well?

texts:
University A hired me to teach a course. It paid the costs of preparation (3 months) and financed tranining sessions to enhance my instructing abilities.
University B now asked me to offer the same course there.
Assuming that my contract with University A is mute on this matter, is there anything to consider when one wants to hold the same course at another university? Is it generally allowed (or discredited) to use the very same contents one developed at one university at another one?


texts:
My professor reported me for copying off a past students' programming assignment, which I don't even have access to, for these two lines in the middle:

void write(void *data, int *length)
{
  char *filedata = new char[*length+1]; // the two lines in question
  strcpy(filedata, (char*)data);
  ...
}

I thought these two lines of code are fairly simple, as I have learned them in a previous class. I have to go to a formal hearing. Any thoughts on how I should proceed?


texts: What's useful/important to put in a contract for a research-oriented industry position (in the US)?

texts:
I'm (probably) going back from Academia to Industry after a post-doc. Unlike last time, where I signed a company-standard contract which did not have room for much maneuvering, this time it's a small company with no template and will be their first academically-oriented hire.

I'm not asking so much about the employment conditions aspect of the contract, or about expatriation (in fact, I've asked a separate question about that on expats.SX) - but rather about the nature of the position in terms of doing research, publication / release of code, and other related issues.

What issues, or aspects of the relationship, do you believe it is:

useful
feasible
common/not-unheard-of

to put into such a contract? (I'm asking about the disjunction, not the conjunction, of the above)

Note: I'm in applied Computer Science. You can make your answer more specific to this field or more general.


texts: Is it okay for me to show some other publication's data for data comparison reasons without prior permission if I properly reference/cite their work?

texts:
Suppose publication Smith (2016) had a study that investigated whether professors liked apples, and found that they did.

Now suppose that I wish to have my own study that investigated whether students also liked apples, and to what degree would this be compared to professors.

Would it be necessary for me to ask Smith for permission to show their numbers when I am making the statistical comparison between my data and Smith (2016) data?

If I reference Smith (2016) when presenting my work, do not claim the data on professors to be my own, and use the same inventory of questions (which Smith (2016) themselves used from another source), I would assume that this would not be considered plagiarism and I would not have to receive permission, but I wasn't entirely sure.

In other words, is it okay for me to show some other publication's data for data comparison reasons without prior permission if I properly reference/cite their work?

*This project, as it stands, only has intentions for conference presentations and not publication if that changes anything.


texts: Can PhD students publish papers as sole author without including their supervisor?

texts:
If the supervisor does not actually write anything for or contribute to the paper, can a PhD student submit the paper as a single Author?

Would this be a faux pas and cause a strained relationship with the supervisor? I know they expect their name to be on all papers related to the PhD.

Also, does using their lab mean they have a right to have their name on the paper?


texts:
What kind of research experience is a good or satisfactory research experience for grad school admissions ? There are tons of venues even IEEE has some easy to get conferences which has its name attached to.

So when someone says he has research experience it is very subjective and differs from reading a few papers about ones field to publishing in national level to mediocre international level conferences.

Also there are places where a professor at a respected institution may get his paper rejected.

So I am totally confused which research experience is really a research experience ? How do you set the thresold ?

What happens if I have easy to get >5 IEEE conference papers which are may be unheard or new ones such as 2nd IEEE conf on X ? Will I get an edge over other people with no publications or who does not want to publish at such places ? Should I lean towards this approach ?

Good letters from MIT will be a good indicator but what if you have no such recommender or he is tottaly unknown ?


texts: Students self-assess which exercises they attempted – how can I make this more homogeneous?

texts:
Background

I am organising and conducting the exercises for a graduate course.
The exercises mainly exist to give the students the opportunity to learn by doing.
However, the students also need to participate to some extent to be admitted to a final exam.
Exercises are given out as homework one week before the class.
During the class, students present their solutions to the exercises, which are discussed by other students and me.
We evaluate this as follows (which is mostly standard at my university):

At the beginning of each exercise class, a paper containing student names and the numbers of the exercises is passed around and each student checks those those tasks for which they feel that they can present a reasonable attempt to solve it.
This attempt does not need to be complete or correct; they should just be able to show what they tried and, if they failed, elaborate where they are stuck.
During the exercise class, the student presenting a given task is selected at random from those who checked it.
Tasks are so small that most of them cannot be reasonably divided into subtasks.
(This should reduce the uncertainty how to report when only half of a task was attempted.)
To be admitted to the final exam, a student has to have checked at least half of all tasks.
There is no benefit for students who have checked more exercises.

Mainly, the system seems to be working well:
I haven’t spotted an overly optimistic self-report yet and I currently expect that 0.3 students will fail the exercise criterion.

Actual Question

My biggest issue with this system is that there is a huge variation amongst students regarding how optimistic or pessimistic their self-assessment is.
In particular the system can make life more difficult for pessimistic students.
For example it happened that a student who (legitimately) checked a task and was chosen to present her attempt was stuck at some point, and another student volunteered to help out even though he did not check the task.

Hence I am asking: Is there anything I can do to effect less variability in these self-reports? In particular, I would like to flatten the pessimistic side of the spectrum.

And just because somebody is bound to remark that life is harsh and the pessimistic students need to be more optimistic anyway: Yes, but I may be able to help them learn this.


texts: Student found guilty of plagiarism is also academic at other university

texts:
I am an administrator of a university in U.K.  A student has been found  guilty of plagiarism and is facing the harshest punishment – 0 in the  course and no opportunity  to retake which will get him out of the school.

However, he is also an academic at another university.  Do we need to inform the department  head at his university even though it is a completely separate entity from ours?  The course is different from what the student teaches at the other university.

I am concerned  about the data breach and confidentiality issues.   As academics do we have duty to report this?


texts: Can a publisher publish a manuscript without the authors permission?

texts:
This is a follow on from Is it ethical to withdraw a paper after acceptance in order to resubmit to a better journal?

If a journal is willing to publish your submitted manuscript "as is", can you prevent them? Clearly if they want you to make changes you have the right to say no, but once the manuscript is accepted can you really withdraw it against the publisher's wish? Further, who has the final say on copy edits and type setting?

In my field we electronically sign a copyright transfer when the manuscript is submitted that comes into affect if it is accepted for publication.


texts: When to get rid of undergraduate stuff on CV

texts:
I'm applying to PhD program. I'm my 4th year out of undergrad, I have a masters and am currently midway through my 3rd year at a research org. At this stage, can I get rid of stuff (like summer internships, clubs, etc.) from undergrad on my CV that I submit as part of my application? I guess I should keep the awards, but that might be it.

I was going back and forth about debating a (very mediocre) summer internship from my "relevant experiences" section. Is there any rule of thumb for this?


texts: During review, I found a superior solution. What now?

texts:
I received a journal paper for a review. The paper suggests a solution to an important problem, but the solution is very complicated and has mediocre performance. While reading the paper, I thought of a different solution, which is much simpler and has better performance (to give some scale: their solution is 1 page to write and 5 pages to prove; my solution is 5 lines to write and half a page to prove).

What should I do now?

A. Write my solution in the review, hoping the authors will remember to "thank the anonymous reviewer"?

B. Recommend that the paper published as is, then write a paper of my own with my improved solution?

C. Something else?

EDIT: Before I found the superior solution, I thought of recommending "resubmit with major revision", with the reasons that I mentioned above: your solution is too complicated and its performance is too weak.

However, now I am not sure it is the good course of action. A major revision may take a long time. The authors might even decide to delay or stop working on the paper without telling the editor (or me). Meanwhile, I will have to postpone the publishing of the superior solution for an indefinite amount of time. What do you think?


texts: When to make thesis available for public access?

texts:
I have recently finished my thesis and submitted to both university and national thesis center.

However, it is not online yet (probably there are many thesis pending). Should I wait for the thesis center to make it available or can I just put it to my website?


texts: How to talk to PI about dropping out of graduate school?

texts:
There are a lot of threads about whether people should drop out of grad school, or PIs forcing students to leave. My situation is a little different, some people might call this ungrateful, but I want to ask how I should actually talk to my PI about leaving the lab. How to start the conversation, and do it in the most professional and kindest way.

I'm in the first year of my graduate program, and my PI is extremely nice. Like to the extreme. To the point I've never heard any criticism come out of his mouth. I also thought I loved my project very much upon joining the lab. Everything was off to a great start. However, I have soon realized that this is one of those projects that will likely lead nowhere. I am not Edison, and I don't plan on failing 10,000 times before success. It will break me down. My professor is also not very good at mentoring. Nice, but incompetent in a way. He is a new PI and I'm sure will get better with time. But I feel like I'm his experimental subject, the one that is meant to fail so he can get better at what he does. He does not know how to lead me on, and gives me 100 different directions to try. I'm becoming very unhappy in the lab.

On the other hand, I have recently been offered a job. A good one, one that I can make a career out of. I don't feel that I will ever love this job, but it is the smartest thing I could be doing. However, this means that I have to drop out of my program and leave the lab first. As you can imagine, I do not know how to have that conversation with my PI, just given how nice and encouraging he is. He keeps telling me that I am doing great work, but I am just so tired of the way things are going. He is also a new PI and need prelim data for grants. Which makes me feel worse about this because I feel like I'll be leaving him to the dogs...

So long story short, I haven't completely decided to go through with this, but if I was to, I had a few questions:

How should I start the conversation? I'm actually at a complete loss for what to say
Is there anything I can do to not ruin the relationship? I really respect him as a researcher, just not a mentor, and would hate for him to hate me... Although maybe this is too much to ask for
Am I doing the right thing? If I was leaving a job, I wouldn't think twice about it, but for some reason leaving academia seems like I'm committing a sin...
Any other suggestions for when I have the conversation with him?

Additional info: one thing I forgot to mention is that he is also very busy. So although extremely nice when we do talk, we've barely spoken for the past month with only one actual meeting...


texts: Is it appropriate to discussed a proposed method in the literature review or in methodology chapter?

texts: I need some clarifications on where to put the proposed usability-evaluation method in my thesis. I have tried to improved upon the existing methods and came up with a new one, which will be validated alongside with the existing methods. Is it appropriate to discuss it in literature-review chapter or in research methodology chapter of my PhD thesis?


texts: I submitted my revised paper in elsevier journal. It's been more than 15 days, how much time it takes to give final decision

texts: After submitting the revised manuscript in the Elsevier journal, how much time it takes to give a final decision or minor revision. It's been already more than 15 days. Should I wait or can I enquire with the Elsevier support team? They usually provide the manuscript status.


texts:
I'm doing a PhD in chemistry in a small group of 1 postdoc and 3 other PhDs.

When it comes to writing a manuscript, our advisor leaves for us only marginal part of the work to write such as formulas, derivations and appendices.

Is it common to have this kind of process in such a small group?


texts: Should I include a selection as an alternate in national competition awards on CV?

texts:
I'm applying for postdocs with a PhD in Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies. I've seen some folks include nominations and selection as an alternate for awards on their CV.

I was an alternate this year for a Princeton fellowship and an alternate some years ago for the Association of University Women dissertation fellowship. Do I include these on the CV? I do have letters/e-mails to back this up somewhere in my files...

What about "best grad student paper" nominee at a national conference?

I didn't include these before, but now I'm not sure... What do you think?


texts: Refuted papers: do they belong in a literature review?

texts:
I'm writing a detailed review article (for submission for publication) that aims to survey the various proposed explanations for a particular biological phenomenon. I'm aware of one explanation (that was proposed 20+ years ago), but a number of papers since then have pointed out fatal flaws in its logic. The original paper was published in a respectable journal and has been relatively well cited, since many papers on this phenomenon include some form of survey of the proposed hypotheses. However, it has not received any (published) support, experimental or otherwise.

At what point can we, as researchers in the field, consider the matter closed, and cease to refer to the refuted hypothesis? It seems a waste of space to spend a paragraph detailing one argument, only to spend the next paragraph explaining why it is flawed, and then not referring to it again. On the other hand, does it damage the credibility of my review if I omit one of the hypotheses without any justification?


texts: What happens to NSF funding when someone passes away?

texts:
A young professor at my old university recently passed away. They were still in the process of setting up their lab, taking on graduate students, etc.

What will happen to their NSF funding now? There is no obvious candidate in the department to take it over.


texts: How do you deal with your Rate My Professor ratings?

texts: I recently saw my ratings on RateMyProfessor.com and it's very disheartening to see all the negative reviews from a course for which I worked so hard. Comments like "sh***y professor" are very difficult to accept. How do you all deal with it? Also, how much does it impact one's career? It's taking a toll on my mental health for sure.


texts:
I am writing the Acknowledgements of my thesis and I would like to know if it's necessary to use the official academic titles.
For instance "Thanks Dr.X for his invaluable help in ....", but it could happen that actually Dr.X is a Professor, or he prefers the D.Phil or PhD.
Should I make a little research to be sure that no one will feel "offended"?
Or is there some consensus about this matter?

Thanks in advance.


texts: Would it be appropriate to email a professor about the culture of an undergraduate college before applying?

texts: I will be going to college soon and since I live in an area with few education options, I have very little idea what I would need to do to get into various colleges.  Would it be appropriate to email a professor at a given college and ask them what their program requires/likes to see/what skills most good students have?  What is the culture at their school?  My parents are college professors and I see the ins and outs of academia every single day and I want my college of choice to have certain attributes that are not always obvious from their website.


texts: How do math PhD admission committees view reading courses when your university doesn't offer graduate classes?

texts:
I go to a small liberal arts college most people haven't heard of, but I really want to get a PhD in math from a decent (top 20-ish) school. From what I can tell, many serious PhD applicants have a wealth of graduate courses under their belt. My school only offers the standard undergraduate real analysis and abstract algebra sequence, both of which I've completed. Since I ran out of higher-level math classes to take, I've resorted to doing a few reading courses with some of my professors next semester, which will be the semester I'll be applying to graduate school.

I'll be studying algebraic topology, algebraic number theory, and category theory. How will an admissions committee view this?

I also have other things of note in my applications, like a semester abroad in the Math in Moscow program, and two REUs, one of which was at an ivy league school. At the ivy league REU, I was able to secure a rather strong letter of recommendation.


texts: What guarantee the validity and relevance of "grand" social sciences' theories?

texts:
During my undergraduate years, I took a variety of courses in social sciences, and was exposed to writings by famous thinkers like Freud, Habermas, Foucault, Claude Lévi-Strauss, as well as lesser-known authors such as Lacan, Judith Butler, Erving Goffman, etc.

The majority of them offer some fascinating theories about humans and societies, yet I couldn't help but wondering how much of those theories were, or could be, verified by empirical studies and empirical evidences. I particularly couldn't shake off this concern when the authors go deeper in their analyses, making inferences and drawing conclusions based solely on the theoretical points they've raised previously.

An example of what I'm referring to is the following anecdote, by Althusser (cited in this article):

What I see here is a possible answer to the question being raised. No evidence was cited to support this argument, yet somehow it is treated as a proven theory, with further arguments presumably could be built based on it. The coherence of the argument is also not obvious (i.e. other inferences could be drawn from the same anecdote).

Although there are also empirical studies that were published, some of them I read and was convinced by their arguments, I notice that a large portion of social sciences writings (at least those shown in taught courses at universities) is of this sort.

I guess what I'm trying to ask are:

(1) Am I missing something here?

(2) What justify the method of building arguments utilized in these writing?

(3) Shouldn't taught courses in universities (at least those at the introductory level, aimed at first-years students) make an attempt to answer these questions before starting to explore the grand ideas of those thinkers?


texts: Transfer article to better Physical Review journal

texts:
I submitted a paper to PRA: Rapid Communications. I was asked to resubmit because my supplemental material was too long and contained material that should be in the main text.
In the meantime, however, I got positive community feedback on the preprint and was reminded of the existence of PRX: Quantum. So I wish to transfer my new submission to PRX: Quantum.
My expectation is that PRX: Quantum will be more selective than PRA: Rapid Communications. Would you expect that a direct transfer of my paper from PRA: Rapid Communications to PRX: Quantum will hurt my chances compared to a direct submission to PRX: Quantum?
Remember, the paper has not yet been reviewed and has not been rejected on any substantial ground.
UPDATE: I explained the situation and the paper was transferred to PRX Quantum and is under review.


texts: How to peer-review a conference "Symposium"

texts:
I have to do a review of a "symposium" that will take place in a major conference in the business / management field. The document I recieved for review consists of:

Abstract + Overview of the symposium
Proposed format of the symposium
Relevance to divisions
5 Article summaries, each about 4-5 pages long

I couldn't find any specific information how to do a peer review of a symposium and I only reviewed regular articles before.

My questions is: how should I review this symposium document? Do I need a separate review for each article summary? Do I need to comment on the information prior to the article summaries, i.e. overview of symposium etc.?


texts: Advice with letters of recommendation etiquette

texts:
I'm applying to graduate school and require two letters of recommendation. However, I'm not sure what the best process is for asking for these letters. I plan on asking two or more of my superiors (there's about 5-6 total), and believe that while all of them will be positive, some may have better writing skills.

Should I ask based on my order of preference? Or simply ask all of them to write one, if they're willing and have the time? Or should I send out an e-mail stating my situation and requests? I'd like some advice on how to handle the situation.

Thanks.


texts: Summer Internship - A very well-known Professor

texts:
I want to send an e-mail to a very well-known professor in the field of my interest. I have read most of his papers and I am 90% sure that I like to work under his supervision at least for some months. I am an undergraduate student but being realistic, I hope to be considered a good student in my field and recently, I published a paper in JHEP. My question is:

  The professor has a research group in a French university. I want to let him know I will pay for my costs and I just want to do a 3-month or even more research under his supervision. Since I guess I have good accomplishments in my CV, how I can ask him politely for a summer internship (or a visit, I am not familiar with these names) and potentially guarantee to receive a reply message from him?

Thanks!


texts: I'm required to apply to multiple projects but I'm interested in only one

texts: I'm interested in applying to a Ph.D. position and the guidelines indicate that a given number of different projects (of a range of open positions) should be indicated. I'm interested in one in specific and the other options fall completely outside of my interest or even my specialty. This is required because a potential interview will include members of all the chosen projects, what approach is recommended for completing the list?


texts: How should I stay in touch with the professor with whom I have arranged an internship?

texts: This professor has accepted me for an undergrad research internship in 2017. How should I stay in touch and continue our email conversations for the following months? I did ask her to send me some papers of hers and I read them. Now what should I do to continue to look interested in her research?


texts: Should a translated thesis get a new DOI?

texts: Assuming the original thesis received a DOI to begin with, would it make sense to obtain a new DOI for your own translation of your own thesis, otherwise leaving the content as is, if you published the translation on a preprint server?


texts: Do I need "Introduction" and "Conclusions" parts in my PhD thesis?

texts:
My advisor has asked me to write my thesis in parts. So, basically, my thesis will have three major parts, each of which explains a different piece of work. However, he is asking me to also add a part called "Introduction" and a part called "Conclusions"

I know he is not quite experienced with this type of thesis writing (i.e., writing in parts), so I am not sure if this is the right thing to do. Moreover, he is asking me to add "Introduction" and "Conclusions" chapter to each part (except for the parts with the same names). This is also a little bit strange to me!

So, could someone help on structuring my thesis? This is the overall structure:

Part 1: It consists of three main chapters on topic A.
Part 2: It consists of two main chapters on topic B.
Part 3: It consists of one main chapter on topic C.

I am definitely going to need an introduction somewhere to justify the three parts and how they are relevant to each other and can be placed in the same thesis, however, I do not know where this introduction should be (should it be a chapter somewhere or part?)

EDIT: Here I also mention my advisor's suggested structure for clarity:

Part 1: Introduction (with one chapter called Introduction)
Part 2: topic A (with one chapter called Introduction and another called Conclusions)
Part 3: topic B (with one chapter called Introduction and another called Conclusions)
Part 4: topic C (with one chapter called Introduction and another called Conclusions)
Part 5: Conclusions (with one chapter called Conclusions and another called Future Work)


texts: If my article submission is rejected while my PhD thesis is being examined, do I have to tell the examiners?

texts:
Because I submitted two journals, and my scholarship just about to end which I have just finished and approved by my supervisors.

So, yep. I wonder if it is necessary to tell the examiners of the thesis, about the progress of my journal submission, while the thesis is under their revision.

As I learned throughout this journey, good news about article submission is always on the borderline for me.  So, the news is not necessarily a good one, and I don't know how much the news will impact the examiners'  decision about my thesis.


texts:
I am dealing with this class that somehow became very cynical. We have constant complaints about the pace of the class, people asking literally the same questions over and over, blatant plagiarism, students pretty much insulting the lecturer and staff or laughing (sometimes at others asking questions) and being noisy during lectures etc.

This is especially weird since this is a professional education class. We are talking about people in their 30s on average paying $10k at a top 10 university and just for this one course. So it is not like this is some filler core requirement people are forced to attend against their will. These people were interested in this class before start and something messed up the morale.

We had the same staff --instructor and TAs-- for other cohorts and never had such issues. I am thinking it has to do with the composition of this cohort - one or two know-it-all types had a negative attitude from the beginning and some others somewhat struggling a bit started taking on their attitude. Before we realized this all snowballed into the cohort turning into a classroom of 30+ yr old high schoolers.

We have another 3 months to go and it is getting very exhausting for the staff and for the students still trying. People blatantly slowing down the class is not helping either. The instructor has been trying to talk to the whole class as well as the individual troublemakers along the lines of maintaining professionalism but that is simply having no effect. So the question is, how do we address this to salvage as much as we can and make it to the end of the class without it devolving further?


texts: arXiv submission with PDF and data, preferred submission strategy?

texts:
arXiv does not allow PDF and other file types on the same submission. My (many)coauthors are not tex savvy, and want the paper describing the database to be in PDF format so that their (also not tex savvy) community can access it. The database is 4 files, csv & json, and small, within arXiv size limits.  The coauthors want their preferred word letterhead, which would be a long process to recreate in tex of any flavor.

I see three paths forward:

1) put the paper describing the database into tex format without their letterhead, or reducing it to an image. Be done. Incur an unknown level of coauthor confusion and wrath (they are oddly worked up about this).  I would value easy (converters that work?) solutions in this vein.

2) Have two arXiv submissions: a) the pdf of the paper b) the csv data dictionaries (2) and json databases (2). Reference b in a.

3) Write the arXiv folks asking for an exception. I'm not sure they do this.

What is my preferred submission strategy? Any other path forward? Educating my coauthors sounds slow and hard, so yes, I know it is an option, but I'd rather not.


texts:
I came to the US on 4th of August, 2013 from India on F1 visa as a Master's student. I was 1 day shy of being 24 and eligible for a late registration for Selective Service. But I had no idea that was even a thing back then.

Things happened and I was out of status for a while and my education was incomplete. On February 16th, 2017, I got my green card through marriage. I was 27 years and 6 months then, and not eligible for late registration for Selective Service.

Now, I have gotten admitted back to the college I was originally attending and applied for FAFSA. Today, I am 29 years old today and am ineligible for Selective Service.

My situation:

I have been approved for FAFSA by the federal government.
My college has a pending requirement with regards to my FAFSA: Verify Selective Service registration.

My question:

When I originally came to the US, I was eligible (and required, if I were to seek federal financial assistance) to register for Selective Service. I did not. Now my college requires proof that I've registered for selective service. So I tried registering, but the Selective Service registration website does not let me go past the first screen because my age indicates that I am ineligible for Selective Service.

Could I somehow apply for Selective Service?
Could I email my university and explain to them that I did not know of Selective Service to know I would need it in the future?
Should I just give up trying for FAFSA?

Thank you.


texts: What can I do about my institution taking a long time to correct a mistake in my transcript?

texts:
In January of 2016, I completed a Master's in Library and Information Sciences in Norway.  My transcripts were verified and signed by three universities as it was a joint course in collaboration of three universities.

The transcripts appear to incorrectly list my grades in 4 courses as "Recognized" instead of providing the actual grades.  I didn't gave focus to that grades before because it was signed my the rectors of three universities so I thought may be that is some kind of grade.

Later on when I applied for a job in a company, they refused to grant me the job because of that error in my diplomas.

I then complained to my university about the error. After that, the universities send me temporary grade papers within few days by saying that they are going to send another copy of transcripts within a months as they have to have the transcripts signed by three universities' rectors.

The total process it took 1 year, which had wasted my time. So what shall I do to the universities regarding this issue?


texts: Which PhD program should I choose, a top three program without any guarantee of funding or a top 50 with full funding?

texts: Prospective advisor and project are allocated for each program. They are equally interesting and close to my interest. They are located in beautiful cities. I can become a tutor to cover part of my living expenses. There is a chance of getting funding for 2nd & 3rd years but there is no guarantee.


texts: How Much Weight does a Conference Paper carry compared to a Journal Publication?

texts:
I am working on some stuff for a paper.  I have recently seen an advert for a conference calling for papers and I feel like I currently have enough stuff that I could submit it to this conference and get it published.

However, it looks as if the paper would be published in the 'conference proceedings' as part of a series by Springer.  Does this mean that the publication would only be classed as a 'conference paper' and do conference papers really carry the same weight as journal publications?   (It's worth mentioning that the paper would be peer-reviwed if I sent it for the proceedings of this conference). If not, my idea would be to wait until I have added more to what I am working on and then send it to a journal.

Edit: I am aware that there are other questions asking if a conference paper should be compared to a journal article.  I am asking if in this case the publication can be listed as a journal article as it will be peer-reviewed by experts and published in Communications in Computer and Information Science, so I am wondering if this allows a work-around for me to class it as one of my journal articles.  The link below provides more information: I would like to know if I can list it as a peer-reviewed journal paper or if I will have to call it a conference paper, as these are not the same to me.

https://www.springer.com/series/7899

Second edit: To make it clear the paper would be a physics paper on the subject of quantum mechanics and would only be published in CCIS as it represents a surprising application of a particular piece of computer software.  My issue is that I don't want to see the paper as a novelty item when I have been thinking about and working on the physics going into it for years.  The use of software in it is really just a matter of convenience as there is a bit where it it easier to use software to generate a numerical example illustrating the general theory I have been talking about in a concrete case.

Third edit: Turns out the publication could only be classed as a conference paper so I will add to what I have got and send it to a journal, as I don't regard a conference paper as being equivalent to a journal publication (or at least, not in physics).


texts: Finish my Masters or take a break year before post-bac?

texts:
I am currently a graduate student in communications, with my B.A. in English and Creative Writing. I have been utterly dissatisfied with my graduate experience and have spent most (read: all) of this past year focusing more on my music (teaching private lessons, working with marching bands, and personal practice) than on my graduate studies. I am certain that I want to return for a second bachelor's degree in music education and follow that path.

However, I'm stuck with a conundrum here. I can finish the second year of my Masters and enter post-bac with both degrees, or I could take the next year to work and save up some money to help pay for my second bachelor's. (To give some figures, I currently make about $10,000 a year, which is enough to live but not have any savings. Working locally I could make anywhere from $25-30,000 a year, and the extra $15-20,000 would go directly into savings for the post-bac program.

I'm concerned how much backlash or academic penalty there may be after dropping out of a Masters program, though. Does anybody have a similar or comparable experience that they can share? I just want to take the right path here.

Thank you so much!


texts: Is there a tool like the Open Science Framework that can be run on a private server?

texts: I am very impressed by the Open Science Framework. Unfortunately, for some projects I cannot put any data in a cloud especially if it is not encrypted. Are there similar tools which allow me to keep my data in its present windows like folder organisation but with similar features ? E.g adding files by drag and drop and adding annotations, as well as a wiki, etc. They do not necessarily have to be free. Although I would appreciate an open source project and the possibility to donate.


texts: A professor has offered to send me a hard copy of his new book. Would it be rude to ask for a PDF file instead?

texts:
While working my way through one textbook, I spotted several errors, TeXed them up and emailed to the author of the textbook. He thanked me and asked for my physical address so he could send me a copy of his new textbook (a more advanced one). I was planning to work though his new textbook anyway, since it matches my interests. Yet I'd much prefer a PDF file and not a hard copy. Would it be rude to ask if he could send me a PDF file instead? I don't want to come over as ungrateful, yet I'd make much more use of it if I had a PDF file.

Definitely of relevance here:

He certainly does have a PDF file of the new book since the publisher offers PDF as one of the options (hardcover, softcover, and PDF file),
The PDF file in question can not be 'freely' found on the Internet (although its previous edition can).


texts: Which role should other graduate students serve in a PhD defense?

texts:
In some countries and at certain universities, graduate students are advisory members of the committee during the PhD defense. In other countries like the Netherlands, a PhD defense takes place in public and everyone might ask questions at the end. Therefore, I would like to know:

How should another graduate student serve his/her role as an advisory member of the PhD committee?
What kind of questions should one ask in a public PhD defense?
How should he/she prepare for the defense (other than obviously reading the dissertation)?


texts: How to get to pace in your first research project?

texts:
I'm doing my bachelor's thesis at a foreign university in Northern Europe. I come from a equally strong university in Europe and have always been one of the better students at my own university. The group I'm working in right now is very well known for its work.
Since I started my project there two weeks ago I feel very stressed and progressively stupid though. I work with two master's students (doing their one year degree project) and one PhD student on a big project. They are all very nice and I get good supervision, but I just feel completely incompetent.
I tried to get the adjustments for my machine right for almost two days straight now, came extra early in and stayed extra long, but didn't manage to pull it off yet. After lunch time I asked one of the PhD students for help with one specific issue I was having. He wanted to help me right away, and while answering my question he got the entire thing up and running in 30 minutes, before he rushed to his next meeting.
I disassembled everything and tried reproducing the results from scratch with the new know-how, but still didn't get it to work on my own today. This is very embarrassing, now I will stand there tomorrow morning, once again empty handed.
I feel discouraged by the pace my three fellow students are progressing with their project to be honest. They are much more productive than me. I fear to make a bad impression in comparison to them.
Do you have some tips on how to catch up? Would it be acceptable to go to the lab on the weekends? Should I do that?


texts: Possible to defend myself from plagiarism in draft thesis?

texts:
I recently submitted my latest draft thesis to my advisor. I had been having problems with my advisor because I had found him unhelpful, he would not make it easy for me to ask him questions as he would raise his voice and cut me off, and I was confused by the goals/aims of the project and I feel he has misled me.

I had submitted a few draft theses before that the main advisor read, but the co-advisor did not read any of them. The co-advisor read the latest draft in detail and said I plagiarized. I admit that I didn't consider this constituted plagiarism and thought this was just a draft, I was mostly concerned about whether my ideas made sense and I was sure it would be changed because I knew the main advisor wouldn't like it. The parts they accused was plagiarism was in my previous drafts as well, so because the main advisor didn't mention those were plagiarized, I didn't change those parts. I was just hoping to keep the co-advisor. I also never intended to steal other people's work and claim it as my own.

Do you know if there's a good chance I'll get expelled,  based on your experience with plagiarism in master's draft theses?


texts: Proper way of marking dimensions of a drawing in a paper

texts:
In a paper I am writing, I will give a figure that shows the mechanical dimensions of a object. I was wondering what the right way to reference the dimensions was, since I have seen multiple ways of this being done.

One way I have seen it done often is with parameters in the drawing, and text describing the values (either in the full text of the figure caption). For example:

This way offers you the flexibility to talk about the same values in a equation (for example, "It was found that performance was optimal when R1 = D2/2")

An alternative is to have the dimensions directly in the image. This way the reader can just skim through the figures to have an idea about the dimensions, instead of having to read the paper to know them (which can be useful, as often we might want to quickly scan a paper to see if it is what we are looking for before reading it entirely).

This would look like this:

And finaly one could combine the two, and have it say for example "W1 = 7" in the figure. I don't like this that much as it starts to get very messy and crowded very quickly, and lowers the clarity of the figure.

Is there a ''correct'' way to do it?


texts: Ph.D. in Geophysics while doing an online MS in CS

texts:
Has anyone had experience working on two graduate degrees at once?
The goal being to gain mastery in CS, specifically machine learning so that it can be applied to research problems in the earth sciences.

I'm currently a first year Ph.D. student in geophysics focusing on applying machine learning to massive datasets of satellite imagery. I just got accepted to Georgia Techs Online Masters in Computer Science. I'm trying to decide if I should do it while working on a Ph.D. The CS program is part-time designed for working professionals and is low-cost $6,600.

While I can certainly learn the CS material on my own, I feel a formal credential will be taken more seriously. A tech career would also be a fallback plan, knowing how competitive the academic world is having a plan B is important to me. Any advice is appreciated.


texts: Is Scimago a good way to rank conference impact?

texts:
I have seen that the Scimago Journal Rank make a rank of journals that cover different topics and classified them into quartiles. For what I know conferences also made their proceedings books, but I was dubious if they could be compared agains journals like Scimago does.

I say this because I believe that journals have most ot the time a higher impact than conferences, and compare them side to side (journals and conference proceedings) it is not such a good idea.

The question that I have is if Scimago could be a good way to rank a conference impact, and also if there is another computer science conference ranking that uses the same quartile calculus as Scimago?

Any help?

Thanks


texts: Can I publish an article as a sole author if my supervisor agrees?

texts: I'm currently working in a project that is funded by me and the supervisor doesn't contribute much to my work (he is just directing me slightly if I asked him) and he told me that he doesn't need to publish and I can publish as a sole author if I want. I only have a Master degree, can I publish as a sole author? can some journals accept that? Should I contact a journal to ask? if the journal agrees, so this is will be fine? (By the way my field is Biochemistry)


texts: second on campus interview for TT faculty position (3rd interview total)

texts: I have a question for anyone who might be a department chair or on a search committee. What does it mean if you get invited for a second on-campus interview? I have already been there once for a standard on campus interview. For context, this is for a tenure track assistant professor position in the sciences.


texts:
I'm doing an astrophysics thesis with a lot of programming in Python. I'm currently using gnuplot for my plots, but I wonder if this is actually looking quite professional. Are there other options which look better and are still easy to use?

Here an example of a figure in my thesis:

The vertical line I got with the following command:

set arrow from 4861.3,-1200 to 4861.3,2000 nohead lc 2

I know it reaches out of the figure, but I use this command for all of my script and I know only at the end what the upper and lower boundary of the y-axis will be. Every peak is different.


texts: Is it ok if I write to all professors that are offering Ph.D. positions the same email?

texts: I saw some Ph.D. positions from a particular university. Most of the projects align well with my interest. So before applying, I want to write the professors some queries (e.g. just to know what he is expecting in the candidate or even I am eligible or my profile meeting his expectations or not). Is it ok if I send the same mail to all the professors I want to work with, even when they are from the same department? If they ever come to know any candidate sent the same email to all his colleagues, will it be harmful to the candidate?


texts: Professor deviating from the syllabus mentioned apriori

texts:
I am currently taking a graduate course which is a combination of two subjects and we have two faculty teaching it - call them A and B - one for each subject. Before my classes started, we had an orientation and the syllabi of all the classes were shown to us. In this case, Prof A explained to us the syllabus of both the subjects.
But later, when Prof B started teaching, they have deviated a lot from the syllabus. In particular, the topics that were shown to us in the orientation as the syllabus, were pretty much covered in the first couple of lecture and Prof B taught it to us as "background knowledge" (which we thought was going to be the content of the entire course.) Anecdotally, a lot of students are finding the course difficult due to this reason.
Prof B also hasn't provided us with a syllabus of what he is going to teach and we find out the topics on the day of the lecture.
So my question here is: Would it be appropriate to approach Prof B and let them know that this is not what we were expecting from the course? If so, how do I bring it up without coming off as confrontational? Should I instead talk to Prof A and let them know that the syllabus he presented is different from what is being taught?
[Prof B does us ask us during class if we're understanding the topics, but due to the online nature and it being a fairly large class, people haven't really spoken up.]


texts:
I met a  professor last year through an online search and expressed my interests to his research and his advanced lab technique, in which I lack of experience.

I also asked for a PhD opportunity from him, he says that he has no money or limited funding now, so I agreed to work for 3 months for free. Would be practical that this volunteer experience could lead to a PhD after this 3 months? On one side I am not happy with working for free, as I had employment for 1 year as a research assistant. On the other side, this potential professor appears nice to employees around and keeps his words, and has good tracks of papers.

But am I just wasting of time, what actions should I take to figure this out before too late?

Supplementary information: He said that he was on travel, so I was off for a while. He did not contact me till I found him. Is this normal or just my altitude should be changed? I feel not well, maybe he does not really want me as a fellow at all?

I am really frustrated, should I go further or not, is he just being polite to accept me to practice the techniques in his lab for 3 months? Am I wasting of time to even practice these test methods?


texts: how to incorporate Virtual Reality in a business school setting?

texts:
Business School faculty here. We have some budget to buy electronics. We're thinking of buying a Virtual Reality "thing" and using it somehow.

We can use it for pedagogy, or as a marketing tool, etc. (E.g., it could contain a demonstration of the advantages of a business degree, and we could leave it in our waiting room or take it with us to student recruitment events).

We can't figure out what to buy and how to use it.

Suggestions?


texts: What to do when you discover a mistake in the archived copy of your PhD thesis?

texts:
I've just defended my PhD in mathematics and started a postdoc. While working  on an improvement of one of the results of my thesis, I realized that there are several minor mistakes and a big bug in a proof that invalids a minor result in the thesis (about 3-4 pages out of 110). Unfortunately neither I nor my advisor or referees figured it out the mistake. Though the result is minor, it is announced in the introduction and the manuscript is on-line on an ArXiv-like server, so that I could publish a new version but not cancel the one on-line.

What is the best thing to do? Upload an errata? Upload a "revised" version of the thesis?  Publish a "revised version" of the thesis on my web-page?

Can this damage my future career, making me look not "reliable" as a researcher?


texts: Publisher didn't make change to paper and now the paper still has the error

texts:
I recently published a paper with IEEE. During the publishing stage, I had to provide them the figures named [MyName]FigureX_a, [MyName]FigureX_b etc...

By accident, I got two figures wrong and they were named FigureX_b and FigureX_a instead of FigureX_a and FigureX_b. During publishing, I spotted this error and told them to fix the problem. They did fix it at the time and I approved the changes.

However, when I received the final complete PDF, the error was present once again. In the e-mail, it stated that "Please note this is not the final version of the article and corrections will not be reflected in this PDF". I thought that the change would be reflected in the final version so did not bother to e-mail.

I have just seen the final version on the web-site and the error is still present. This error should be pretty evident to anybody reading the paper. The figure is part of many other subfigures so the inconsistency is apparent. The overall message of the figure is not lost and the results are still the same apart from the order being wrong.

I am unsure what to do. On one hand, I want to contact IEEE and complain. I unfortunately do not have the proofs of the pdfs that were provided for review but I have my correspondence saved. On the other hand, I think the error is minor enough that any reader should understand what happened.

The file that will be on PubMed is correct though. I could in theory submit it to ArXiv with the correct ordering, copyright notices and other information required by IEEE(DOI,PMID etc.).

Does this require any drastic actions?


texts: Asking PI I barely interacted with for letter of rec?

texts:
I'm a rising senior and will be applying to PhD programs this fall. I'm wrapping up a research project I was doing this summer at another school (basically an REU-like program) and the school is at the top of my field. I learned so much this summer and was able to accomplish a lot with my project. I was mentored by staff scientists and basically worked with them the entire summer. The PI of the lab is very hands off and hard to pin down. I met with him once in the beginning of the summer and have a meeting with him this week as I finish up. I was planning on asking him to write me a letter of rec then. The staff scientists said that what will probably end up happening is they write it and he'll sign it/co-sign it, but I need to ask him myself. I'm just a bit nervous/paranoid he'll say no so if anyone has any advice/words of encouragement, I'd appreciate it.

I understand that letters should come from people who know you well and I plan on my other two to be from professors that I am close with at my school. Given that I attend a school where there are limited research opportunities, I consider it to be integral that I get a letter out of this experience that speaks to my capabilities as a researcher. Based on the advice from the career office at this visiting school and other lab members, the letter should be coming from the PI/professor. The scientists I work with will contribute to a strong recommendation - they themselves acknowledge that it just wouldn't be as valuable coming from them. I guess my nervousness has to do more with the fact that here with big labs and big name PI's everyone says this situation/procedure is the norm and coming from a smaller school I'm not as used to it.


texts: How to address the issues of not including technical contribution

texts:
Recently I defended my thesis for a master's degree in computer engineering, and internal reviewers marked it satisfactory, however, they made some comments in my report and presentation, one of them was to include the technical contribution of my research in the thesis report and presentation.
I found this comment very serious, and I couldn't get any idea on how to work around on those issues.
My research was related to some intervention on online learning (here I have used the techniques that are available through literature review) and it is based upon the use of popular psychological theory.
I used statistical methods to analyze the results. I have collected the data through a self-reported survey questionnaire. Results obtained were also somehow satisfactory(findings somehow deviated from the existing findings).
I also develop a tool to visualize the activity of the student interaction in that online learning, and which I consider as one of the contributions.
With all these things done, I am still confused about the problem of identifying my "technical contribution".
My Questions are:
What should I report as my technical contribution? How should I approach myself to identify my technical contribution? Actually, what is considered a technical contribution?
I know I need to consult my supervisor for this, but he will definitely ask the same question to me, and I will not have any answer for that.
Any help would be appreciated and thanks in advance.


texts: Possibility to use PhD Thesis work in another university

texts:
I was a PhD student in a Japanese graduate school until March 2015 when my professor retired. Just before I submitted my thesis and it got rejected by one vote. Indeed there were 30+ voters, of whom only 6 attended my open defense and one of them was a professor who hated my professor. He succeeded in convincing enough people to vote against me. Sadly there are no student council there and the university does not provide any official jury result with the comments about why the thesis got rejected.

Now the situation got worse, some other students of my previous lab also got annoyed by the same professor who now has a majority inside the department. There is also a new rule which forces the candidates to present the thesis to the professors of the department before being able to officially present their thesis to the university. Indeed, the department has to give their agreement before the official submission. Funny thing is that the department where I belonged to is not only controlled by the professor who tries to fail every student who were in my previous lab but also the students are allowed only 30min for the presentation while other departments allow 2h for the same thing. Yes the rules do not forbid that apparently.
Since my departure as a student I could stay in the lab of a professor who was a friend of my previous professor and I published another journal paper. However the department rejected my application because the last paper title was too close to another of my paper and feared a re-submission.
In the meanwhile I was told very lately to write a totally new chapter in my thesis and even later that i would have to get a publication to go with it. I am now waiting for the results of another journal paper to be able to apply again.

But I am now afraid of applying there again. If the professors of the department are so biased that they will do anything so my application can't go though to the official application and if i do not have any official way to defend myself to higher authorities what are my chances to succeed now ? Some professors are too proud and scared to admit the situation as their own students could start to suffer from it as well.

My thesis is completely written, I have published as main author 4 journal papers (2 regular issues and 2 short issues) and 5 conference papers. And a potential 5th journal paper.

TLDR:
Is there a way to not waste all that work and submit my thesis in another university as free candidate or something?
I am also afraid to not have the time and resources for another publication in a journal,  since i am no longer a student,  in case a university absolutely need a paper with one of their professors.


texts: What is the socio-economic argument or historical basis for university tuition fees?

texts:
One of the major differences between Europe (here I am mainly referring to Scandinavia) and Northern America, from an academic viewpoint, is the perspective towards higher education. In Scandinavia there it is generally accepted that anyone despite their financial status should be able to pursue higher education. Elsewhere in Europe I know of systems were the state subsidises a majority of the cost and only a minor portion of education costs are reflected on to the students.

The quality of education and research, and all the top X ratings aside, I personally never really understood the "American" way of looking at education, namely that it is a practically a business. I have noticed this other question on reasons for increasing tuition fees but little to no information behind why they exist.

I came across this comic recently, which seems to be gaining some popularity on the web, where the artist takes up some of the aspects and consequences of the north american perspective towards higher education; subjects that are mentioned are student loan debt, tuition fees and federal spending on education vs military or prisons.

Please note that I the language s/he chooses might be offensive to some and it is not at all my intention to insult anyone or incite a subjective discussion. Based on the culture and traditions in Scandinavia, many find it really hard to understand why it would be useful to have tuition fees, and thus put practically everyone who studies in serious debt by the time they are done with education. Thus, I would like to know:

Is there any reasonable ground (thorough studies on cost to society, overall well-being of people etc) or any indisputable historical origins behind why tuition fees were introduced for higher education?

PS: I realise that the question is on the gray zone on being on-topic or not here on Ac.SE but given good, constructive and factual answers, it would be a good resource to people outside North American system.


texts:
About 3 months ago I emailed a professor asking if there were any postdoc positions open in his lab. The professor emailed back relatively quickly and thanked me for being interested in his lab, but that currently there were no openings available. However, he was waiting to hear back at the end of the year from some funding he had applied for, and that he would keep me posted.

I haven't heard back from him, yet. I understand he's probably busy or maybe forgotten about me, which is why I wanted to email him again and follow-up. I don't know what to say. Mostly because I'm afraid that if he didn't get funded, maybe my email will be like rubbing salt to his wounds. I guess I won't know until I email again. Therefore, what would be the best approach?


texts:
So I founded a company as a PhD student and I want to work on company products over the summer times. Do I take a leave of absence or can I take an internship at my own company during that time?
What's the right way to do this?


texts: How can a senior undergraduate find academic journals in math and computer science?

texts:
I am going to be a senior undergraduate and am looking to really find the area of research that I would like to be engaged in during graduate-school/senior year. I have submitted one conference paper as a collaborating author (currently waiting for the reviewers) in the area of Social Network Analysis (mathematical modeling) and am currently working on a conference paper in Graph Algorithms.

As you might guess, I am double majoring in Math and Computer Science and would like to pursue a graduate degree in applied math. So far (I haven't taken all the undergrad courses yet!) I have enjoyed Algorithms, Real Analysis, Graph Theory and Differential Equations. In the future I am curious to learn more about Stochastic Modeling, Mathematical Logic, Artificial Intelligence, Complex Analysis, Fractals and Abstract Algebra.

Where can I find current research journals about both the topics I have enjoyed and the topics I am curious to learn more about?
Do any journals have mobile apps (IOS, Android, or Windows) in which they can be viewed?
Where can I find unbiased information about the quality and related-data about journals?

EDIT: Do any journals "stream" (RSS feed) to GNU Emacs? or is there any type of package manager that will automatically download the latest publications? For example, I just found this "package/program" available in GNU Emacs. It is a list of AI publications from MIT up until 2005 (why would they stop then?)

Thanks for all the help! I am at least looking for a copy of a physical journal so I can take my eyes off the computer for a little bit! :)


texts: Why do academics tend to be reluctant to ask for help from other academics?

texts:
I've seen situations like the below happen quite a few times.

Alice writes a paper. It's well-received and receives a hundred citations. Bob also works in the area, and he engages a student Charlie to study the paper. Shortly after starting, Charlie tells Bob he couldn't get from equation 10 to equation 11, in fact he thinks the derivation is incorrect. Bob is incredulous (after all the paper is well-received and has a 100 citations) and tells Charlie to check it again. A few weeks later, Charlie tells Bob he still can't get equation 11, and in fact he's increasingly convinced the derivation is wrong because he's tried it in a few different ways and always gets the same result.
Bob starts looking at the paper himself and after another few weeks he also runs out of ideas. Finally they write to Alice asking for details. Alice responds quickly with, "you've made this mistake. After correcting it and making this transformation, equation 11 follows."

The specific details vary, but the core of what happens is the same: Bob and Charlie can't do what Alice has done, but instead of asking Alice for help, they insists on trying it themselves. After weeks of struggling and many tins of coffee, they finally give up and ask Alice, who proceeds to solve the problem very quickly.
The question: why would Bob and Charlie grind away for weeks when help is just an email away? If I managed a team of employees who refused to ask each other for help, especially when someone has already solved the problem, I'd be quite annoyed. After all, time is precious.
I find this especially surprising because virtually every professor I've seen teach encourages their students to ask questions. Instructors tell their students they're welcome to interrupt during class, to approach TAs, or to visit them during office hours. They discourage their students from working without progress for weeks before asking for help, and yet they're reluctant to ask for help themselves. Why?
The only reason I can think of is that Bob and Charlie want to be sure that the results are robust. If Alice made a mistake, then they would not be able to duplicate the results, but if they just ask Alice for help, then they're at risk of making the same mistake. But this doesn't seem like a strong reason: they can ask for help but then critically examine what Alice says.


texts:
I applied to PhD programs for Fall 2018, and am currently evaluating my options. I have narrowed myself down to two options, both good choices with potential advisors who are a good fit, though I prefer one school slightly over the other.

The reason for my post is that I am interested in deferring my admission for a year. My understanding is that graduate schools typically let students do so when the student has a "good reason", i.e. those who want to spend time studying abroad, doing volunteer work, etc. The catch here is that I don't have any particular opportunities I want to pursue, I just want to take a break and work on some mental health issues I have before signing on for a 5-6 year commitment (really even longer considering the time afterwards spent in post-docs, trying to find tenure-track jobs, etc. if I want to try to stay in academia).

I haven't heard of any situations like this, and I'm not sure how the graduate schools will react if I ask. Is it possible that they'd revoke my offer? I've also already spoken to potential advisors, should I let them know? I'd be worried what they might think if they knew I wanted to defer graduate school for this reason.


texts: Should biomedical engineering/ biotech academics aim to start businesses?

texts:
in my relatively short academic career, I've gathered that academic engineering seems to be more about creating ideas than actually iteratively improving a product using engineering methods. In my field, biomedical engineering, I worry that this is not enough because many biomedical ideas require immense funding that usually comes from large companies willing to wait a decade for profits, and thus good ideas are shelved (obviously many layers to this).

Many questions address how academics could make money, or start up companies, but my question is whether it is actually our responsibility to do so in the biomedical and biotech fields?

edit:
my assumption is that starting a business is the only way to get a product to customers. Answers that provide alternative strategies to achieve this ultimate goal are welcome :)


texts: Should I add the "presenter certificate" to the paper presented at a conference?

texts: I have presented a paper at a conference and received a certificate proving that I was a presenter.  The conference does not have an English agenda, so it would not be easy for an application committee to find proof that I was the one who presented it online.  I am now submitting the paper as one of my writing samples for a Ph.D. application.  Should I attach the presenter certificate to the paper, in order to prove to the committee that I was really the one who presented it?


texts: Refering to the data of another study as a source of data for you work?

texts: I was wondering if it's OK to use the data presented in the form of Tables in other publications and cite them as the source of data? Like doing new analyses on these data? Should we ask for permission from the authors or just citing them would be OK?


texts: What does renunciation of scholarship mean?

texts:
I want to know what renunciation of scholarship mean? Is it the same as withdrawing from a scholarship program? Which one is better to quit a scholarship?
Does renunciation of scholarship form enables a person to re apply to a scholarship again?


texts: Is it worthless to cite a paper as X et al. when X is not first author but performed the work?

texts:
This question is perhaps a particular case of this one. I still feel it deserves to live standalone.

I am sure that a published paper with 4 authors--A, B, C, and X--was almost entirely produced by X. X designed the study, gathered the data, analyzed the data, and wrote the paper. A helped X a little bit (sort of supervised X). B and C are listed there because of typical dishonest authorship mafia. At that time, X was a student. X could do very little to oppose adding  those authors in her/his very first paper.

Now, I am writing a paper that references this one. While A et al. paper is correctly displayed in the References, I was thinking to purposely cite the paper as X et al. (year) in the text.

That would be a subtle way to entail that I know what was going on there. I would cite the paper in the way that was supposed to be. Maybe B and C will also get it. That's a sort of nerdish academic subversive behavior, I guess.

Would that be meaningless? In particular, would that damage X citation counts? I do not think so, because the paper is correctly listed in the References. However, I am not sure because of this question.


texts: Any ideas how I could get people to participate in my live Internet application experiment for my thesis?

texts:
I have developed an Internet application that I need people to run across the Internet to collect statistics to see how well the program works.  So far, I have used LinkedIn to reach out to my friends from my university and I started an open group.  I also have a Git page where the program can be downloaded.

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Andrew-Stantons-WSU-Masters-Thesis-6518497?home=&gid=6518497&trk=groups_guest_most_popular-h-logo

https://github.com/acstanton515/ThesisLiveExperiment

I don't think the participation is going to be what I would like, so I need a way to find more users willing to run the program.

Any ideas on how to reach others in academia or elsewhere on a broader level?


texts: What are reasonable alternatives to changing your name for academic publishing when you have a common surname?

texts:
I've recently embarked on my PhD studies (cancer, structural biology) and have yet to publish. Currently, there are some 200 papers in my name and several thousand under my surname. Because of this, I am considering switching my surname to an old, rare, surname in my family, which is only used by one active researcher.

My question is this: are there any reasonable alternatives that does not include legally changing my name? I personally don't mind changing it, but the old surname happens to be "noble", and may come off as quite pretentious. I would be able to change to another, less pretentious, surname, but in terms of rareness, no alternative comes close.

In short, what are my alternatives?


texts:
I am trying to find a way to search for all the citations contained in an article. What I want to do is create a workflow for my research where:

I have a pool of articles that I have already read.
I want to find a new article to read, based on this pool of articles, so I find all the citations of all the read articles and calculate the most cited article, which is the next article I should read (obviously skipping articles that I have already read).

But I have been unable to find a way to automatically download all of the citations of a specific article. Is there no way to do it? even payed?


texts: Is it okay to apply to more than one professors for internship at the same time?

texts:
I am a math undergraduate in my second year. I was thinking of applying to internship but I am confused about this.
1. Is it okay to apply to more than one professors at the same time? If so if I get selected in more than one and I consider only one will that affect my reputation with professor badly? If so how can I avoid it?
2. Will it be okay if I try to apply in two fields of the same
 subjects?
I am kind of inexperienced in this; so any help would be appreciated. :)