texts: What does “resident” mean in title like “resident mathematician”?

texts:
What does resident mean in title like resident mathematician?

And what are the main subjects where resident is attached to a title? For example, does a resident statistician exist? Or a resident medieval historian?

What are the place where the mathematician resides? I think they are not universities but maybe hospitals or museums, am I correct?

For example, from Writing a successful thesis or dissertation: Tips and strategies for students in the social and behavioral sciences by Fred C. Lunenburg and Beverly J. Irby:

  Ideally, commitee members should supplement your chair's expertise. If your study requires complex statistical procedures and your chair is not a statistician, you may want to add to your commitee a faculty member who teaches your department's statistics courses. We call this person a resident statistician.


texts: How to obtain US Bachelor degree based on my old university credentials?

texts:
I learned a math course in a Russian university many years ago. For silly discrimination and other silly reasons I didn't finish it and didn't receive any diploma.
Recently (2020 Oct 27) I have confirmed my education by the US standards: 100.50 semester hours of undergraduate credit, grade Point Average is 3.54 based on a 4-point scale with A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1, F=0.
I want to receive the US Bachelor in mathematics. What can I do? Can I do it without passing any additional courses/exams? How much may it cost?
Note that despite of having no funding and no access to libraries and scientific databases I did a very advanced math research (some of which is peer reviewed and published). Essentially, I am a PhD with lost diploma.


texts: How can I show local universities that I am someone they will want to hire in a few years?

texts:
I've split this question into a general question that I feel applies to many people and specific details for those who are interested.

General question:I have accepted a 2-year teaching/research position in my home state and would like to look for a job in the surrounding area at the end of the time.

My just-finished job search convinced me that having skills is not enough to get a job in mathematics; you have to show the universities that you are someone they want to hire.

  Given two years to work with, what can I do to show local universities that I am someone they would like to hire?

My ideas so far include:

Attending and speaking at local seminars and conferences (for research-oriented schools)
Attending MAA meetings and giving talks on teaching (for teaching schools)
Working together with faculty at these universities on projects.

I'd especially like to hear from those who make hiring decisions on what would make them feel more comfortable hiring a candidate.

Non-essential, specific details
My postdoc is at BYU in Utah, and the schools I am interested in are all the 4-year schools in the area. University of Utah is most likely out of my league. I'm interested in UVU, Dixie State, SUU, USU, U of U (though that's a longshot), Weber State, Westminster College, and staying on at BYU. I'm also interested in nearby schools such as Reno, Colorado State, Northern Arizona University, Colorado School of Mines, ASU and U of A, University of Colorado, etc.

I'm finishing a postdoc at Temple in Philadelphia. I've done reasonably well in research (4 publications in well-known area-specific journals). My teaching record is excellent, with very good letters of recommendation, high student ratings, and a record of being given good classes to teach.

I am genuinely more interested in teaching than research, but I enjoy research enough that I am happy doing it for a good position. I have a research topic in a small new area (finite subdivision rules) that provides an essentially inexhaustible amount of new theorems but may attract less interest as it is off the beaten path.

I have friends at many of these schools, including UVU, SUU, Utah State, and Dixie State.


texts: How to manage the relations between supervisor and institution?

texts:
For a student, the eventual conflict resolution should be facing the supervisor. This already generates a first problem: how can a PhD student explicitly face uncomfortable situations that imply a lack of seriousness and correctness of your supervisor, since you completely depend on him in the present and for the future?

A second problem can be that the student might not trust how the supervisor suggests to overcome some issue or how to develop further the progress of the PhD (not the research itself).

Supposedly, it might be possible to bypass the supervisor by attempting to get some suggestions or information (from the institution) that clarify that the horizon of possibilities is not limited to the options given by the supervisor. Indeed, the supervisor might have designed your professional development (which you don't know and you have never agreed) by creating constraints that do not necessarily exist. Then, it can happen that the institution is forced to necessarily defend the way the supervisor operates, because differently would mean asserting that there is something wrong. Thus, is easy to expect that the institution is going to push you back to the hands of your toxic supervisor.

I'm experiencing this condition as a tennis ball that has to find a way to accommodate the supervisor and institution, without forgetting that I might even want to decide what to do, by having clear the large picture and taking my choices consciously. This is a right that both institution and supervisor have purposely neglected to provide (making me fully dependent on them).

Currently the situation (which is flipped in comparison to my initial story) is that the supervisor wants to clean up some mess he made by helping me to get to the end of the PhD (whatever it is). On the other hand, now the institution seems to be concerned about its correctness. I end up being between the hammer and the anvil and I don't know if I should expect to be defended by one of them or I should push one against the other to solve their own problems, in both cases I don't see a way out.


texts: What is a good way of getting peer feedback on my draft cover letter?

texts:
I am preparing material for the academic job market and I would like to receive feedback from peers on my cover letter.

Additionally to the traditional personal contacts, I have thought about online forums as a possible location, but have not been able to find any that seem good.  I am also not interested in websites that offer consultation from professionals in return for money.

How would you advise I go about getting such feedback?

Unfortunately, not everybody works in big departments or in universities with staff of the human resource management trained for this purpose. Also, it is the end of June: in some countries (in my case Sweden) this means the vacation period is started and it is taken very seriously (vacation=no working activity of any type, besides for doctorate students).


texts: Should I keep my name on a paper in which I have no important contribution?

texts:
Prof. X added me as a coauthor on a paper , although my contribution was minor. I told him so, he insisted and said it was necessary for me (I can't give details). Later my relation with Prof X seriously soured. I asked that he remove my name from the paper: I already have an OK publication record (about 100 citations) and I didn't want to pollute it with an undeserved paper, especially in view of the souring of my relation with Prof X.
I had an essential contribution in all my previous papers. Prof X said it was impossible to remove my name since it was already submitted. I reluctantly accepted. The paper was rejected. Prof X wants to resubmit it to a less prestigious journal. I definitely don't want my name on it. Prof X insists to keep my name, saying that re-submitting the paper without my name might harm his reputation in the community. I can't claim to be white as snow : It's clear that I should never have accepted to have my name on this paper in the first place. I don't want to antagonize him further, but what should I do now ? Is it true that resubmitting without my name can harm his reputation ? Isn't there some way around this ? (My field is Math/Physics/Engineering. I can't give more details).


texts: Does a PhD student need to focus more on working in theory, in order to have a real chance of becoming a professor?

texts:
I have a friend who's doing a STEM PhD at one of the top programs - think e.g. Harvard / Princeton / MIT - and they are getting ready to drop out after the faculty there have told them that they don't have a real chance at academia since their published papers have been "too applied", and that strong work in theory was crucial.  (They're trying to see whether the papers can somehow form a thesis, but they have mentally checked out and are looking forward to having a nice payday in industry.)

I wanted to know whether that is sort of the norm in STEM academia, that to have a real chance at becoming a professor, one should stay away from work that's "too applied", during their PhD years, and try to work on theory.

Is this generally true?


texts: Stance of universities on remote video proctoring of online exams

texts:
Due to coronavirus, many places have been forced to shift to remote online exams.  Have any schools issued guidance about the acceptability of proctoring online exams by requiring students to use a webcam to share a video of themselves taking the exam?  For instance, one could have students join a group video call where teaching assistants can monitor the video stream of students taking the exam.

I could imagine there might be privacy concerns about this practice.  Have any universities either adopted this practice for some of their exams or prohibited this practice?


texts: Want to form independent research group outside university, while working?

texts:
I have just concluded my Master's degree. I am interested in doing independent research  (publish some surveys on topic, create a few basic software prototypes). I am looking forward to form a pseudo-research group/online-space on internet, where I can find serious people for collaboration, to improve my odds for phd.

1) Ideal way of achieving this? Registering the domain name / advertising on job portals in order to scout for people with similar interests?


texts: Can i shift my subject from Chemistry to IT

texts:
I have completed my gradation in leather engineering. But i would like to do M.Sc in Information Technology or Software Engineering or computer science or bio medical engineering or bio engineering.
I am working in software firm as well as freelance software developer. I have one software related publication & other two  environmental chemistry related publication. But now i'm really enjoying software development & i would like to do my M.Sc/PhD in these subject .As i wont like to do anything that actually i don't like. But will university accept me if my would like to shift myself from chemistry background to IT?


texts: What does a university's acceptance rate indicate?

texts:
If the acceptance rate of a university is 90%, does that mean it accepts 90 out of every 100 students that apply?
Does a university's acceptance rate indicate its quality?  Most top universities have low acceptance rates, however some good universities have high acceptance rates.


texts: What to do if one has had an unsuccessful PhD (because of others' fault)?

texts:
I was talking to a friend of mine, and he just feel in a deep depression due to finishing his PhD.

He will be defending in the coming weeks, and there is a high likelihood he will pass.

In his words, he doesn't really feel he has learned anything PhD worthy, he only has one Journal paper and no conference papers (in his area conf papers are not worth much anyway). According to him, one of the postdocs kept his research at bay by denying him access to the machines he need to do experiments (something CMOS related, not really sure what). And in his own words, the same guy basically did the same experiments he was planning and wrote a couple of papers.

Of course he tried to tell his professor, but apparently he couldn't care less.

By now, he just feels that he lost 3 years of his life doing a PhD. And he mentioned that he might sue the Professor/University for this.

I take his word for all of this, and I have no real means to corroborate it to be truth. But it kept me thinking about one thing.

Is a student entitled to sue/demand a reimbursement/etc if he/she feels like the past years have been an utter waste of time?

Is there any mechanism in your universities to do this?

I've heard of similar cases of professors abusing of students in the same way in some US Universities (big/fancy ones by the way)


texts: Postdoctoral (or tenure-track) positions at ETH and knowledge of local language

texts:
At ETH Zurich only undergraduate courses are held in German (graduate courses are in English). There both postdoctoral positions and assistant professorships require a certain teaching load. The job descriptions are fairly detailed, but the following point doesn't seem to be addressed:

  Does the postdoctoral positions (or assistant professorship positions)
  at ETH require knowledge of German to teach classes or carry out any other duty? Does English suffice?

The question can be generalized in the following way:

  Do European universities with English courses normally require professors to
  know the native language of the country?

(Clearly, I realize that a basic knowledge of the local language may be useful for daily life.)


texts: How to approach my supervisor when I've finished the task he assigned early?

texts:
Given that it's a very broad question I'll try to create some context:

I'm in my first year (just started) and at the moment my task as PhD student is closer to learn the techniques and technologies used in the department than to real work. Almost in a weekly basis I receive small tasks which, once completed, are reported and then substituted by a new small task.

However, sometimes the task is completed and no report is due (for whatever the reason) so I'm stuck with no excuse to go to my supervisor's office and no work to do on account of not going to my supervisor's office.

My supervisor is a very busy person and so I have always the feeling I'm intruding when I 'request' (by mail or simply going to his office) to talk to him.

I would like to build some cofidence with my supervisor, but I don't really know how to approach him in the first place. Any tips?

Ps:I was sure someone would've asked this before, but I couldn't find anything so I would like to apologise in advance just in case it has already been asked.


texts: When is the official date a degree is obtained?

texts: I've read that there is a difference between the date that a higher degree committee approves a student for graduation and the actual date of graduation. The first being the date that a student becomes a graduand and the second being the date that a student becomes a graduate. These two dates could be far apart. My question is which of these two dates should be shown next to a degree on a CV or resume? Obviously I would like it to be the first, but that would lead to a discrepancy between the date on the resume and the date on the certificate. Someone suggested I could show both the completion and graduation date on my CV.


texts: Would citations in blogs, public materials, arXiv and magazines increase citation count for the author?

texts:
It is known that references from peer reviewed articles and public domain technical reports can increase the citation counts in Scopus and Google scholar. But does this apply to the works cited in the following?

blogs
publicly available online materials
arXiv
magazines

For instance, if an author X has a peer-reviewed article A and has A cited in each of the above mentioned items, how will his Scopus and Google scholar citation count be affected?


texts: Paying for page charges after a grant ends

texts: Often publications resulting from funded research are published after the grant ends. It seems nowadays more and more publishers are requiring fees (submission fees, page charges, and open access fees). How does one pay for these fees after a grant ends?


texts: After long time without, three review invitations in two weeks. Coincidence, or do editors share lists of helpful reviewer names?

texts:
Being early in my academic career, I don't yet get many paper reviews.  Until recently, I had reviewed two papers in two years, and rejected one invitation to review.  My last review was completed some 10 months ago.

Two weeks ago, I agreed to review a paper.  Since then, I have received two more invitations.  In total, in the past two weeks, I have received as many invitations to review as in the two years prior to that.  All are from different editors, but the latest request is from a journal for which I reviewed 2 weeks ago, and comes 2 days after submitting a review to a different journal.

Although I have not calculated the probability, I guess it is unlikely that the sudden string of reviews is a coincidence.  I have the impression that accepting and quickly submitting a helpful review has caused the additional review invitations.  Which brings me to the question.

Do editors within the same journal typically share with each other names of people who have written helpful reviews in the (recent) past?  How about editors of different journals, that may or may not have the same publisher?


texts: Professor wants to expropriate submitted code for commercial use

texts:
I'm a Computer Science graduate student enrolled in a US University. In a class I'm currently taking, the professor has just given us a strange assignment. The professor works full-time in industry and is teaching classes at the University by night.

He has given us a piece of legacy code from the company where he works, which he doesn't have time to deal with. Our assignment is to optimize this piece of code for him. For full credit, we must obtain a 10% performance increase, but the professor isn't sure that this is even possible. He has also stated that he will take the best solution and use it in his commercial applications at work.

Additionally, the professor has offered cash prizes for the top 4 or 5 students, ranging from $50 - $400.

I have several issues with this:

A successful assignment is going to require something new and/or novel to accomplish it, since the professor isn't sure how to do it himself. I'm not ok with just giving him and his company the copyright and other IP rights to the code I create to do this.
There's no direct educational goal associated with this assignment. He's simply offloading work he doesn't have time for or can't accomplish to his class.
To me, it seems unethical to try to monetarily incentivize the class to perform better at the work.

My questions:

Are my concerns legitimate and should I get my adviser or the department head involved?

Is there some way I can opt out of the assignment and request an alternative assignment to complete, based on my IP concerns?

Update:

I checked my university's IP policy and students do indeed retain all rights to works created without financial backing from the university. Also, it seems other students had similar concerns and got the department involved before I even had a chance to. The department had the professor alter the assignment so that the requirements were more clearly defined and he doesn't stand to gain much from students answers.


texts: How do I get over these (possibly sexist) feelings regarding an underqualified labmate?

texts:
Well, this is kind of embarrassing for me and I am judging myself as well.

I have just started my PhD. And there is another woman who has started in the same lab as me. Over the first week, I found out that she does not know how to program well. She does not understand many basic terms and had no publication before while I had several publications. On top of that, she is being paid several thousand dollars more than me.

Now, why I am judging myself? Because of my gender (man). Before starting my PhD, I used to believe that sexism was mostly created by insecure men.

Over the past weeks I have been having difficult feelings:

Did I not work hard enough for my PhD admission?
Could I be in a better university?
Or, is the system biased toward women?
Am I becoming sexist?

I do not know how to get over this. Any suggestions?


texts: How does Stephen Hawking conduct his research?

texts:
I've recently watched The Theory of Everything and it got me thinking. How does a researcher with a serious physical impediment, such as Stephen Hawking, conduct his research?

Academic life usually involves studying, staying up to date with current literature, attending or giving conferences, teaching some classes, etc. Each of those activities presents serious challenges. For instance, how does he do math? Everything is done in his mind or does he scribble some notes on software? Or maybe in Latex? I'm assuming he has people helping him, too.

I'm not sure if this is on topic here, so I apologize if it's inappropriate.


texts: Is it acceptable to use personal equipment for research?

texts:
I'm a new graduate student in a computational lab, and the workstations provided by the lab I'm in right now are...slightly subpar. Long story short, a lot of it is nearing a decade old, and there doesn't seem to be a push to replace it with new hardware anytime soon. Since our lab tends to work with pretty demanding programs, this creates a major issue.

Over at Workplace SE, the standard advice seems to be to point out the economics of the situation (devs = expensive, time lost = money lost), but I'm not convinced that the same reasoning holds in academia. In addition, from talking to labmates and various administrative staff, it seems that the lab won't have the funding to replace all (or even most) of the machines anytime soon.

Which brings me to a potential solution: I have a decently powerful computer sitting at home. Would it be a good idea for me to spend some of my own money to upgrade it and bring it in to the lab? My advisor is okay with this plan, but I don't know if there's other things I should worry about (e.g. unclear line between personal/lab equipment, or people coming to rely on the machine).

This is somewhat related to this question, but it seemed to be asking specifically about money and a grant application, while I'm more concerned about potential consequences of bringing personal property to the lab and using it for an extended period of time.


texts: Do some universities employ full-time TA in North America?

texts: In my university, which is in Canada, TAs are part-time positions for graduate students as far as I know. So do full-time TAs exist like other faculty members?


texts: Is it a common practice for reviewers to recommend their own papers in the review?

texts: I am reviewing a paper on a topic on which I have published some work previously as an author. While going through this current paper as a reviewer, I felt I could recommend my paper on the similar topic, which addresses a particular point better than in the paper I am reviewing. My question in this regard is whether in such conditions it's a common practice for a reviewer to recommend their own paper?


texts: What is the best "last slide" in a thesis presentation?

texts:
There are some possible options as the last slide of a typical thesis presentation. I've heard of some possibilities:

A question-mark image (as the time to be slaughtered by the referees!),
A Thank You declaration (There are some negative viewpoints about these two options.),
A slide including summary of the presented ideas,
A slide reflecting the presenter's contact info (I think it does not really make sense for a thesis presenter.),
A slide including a quote (I really doubt it's the best way.),
...

What is the best practice to arrange the last slide, then?!


texts: Difference between paper and master thesis presentation

texts:
I am facing my Master thesis presentation (in Europe), and have read the excellent article by Matt Might on technical presentations.

Most of his points seem very logical to me (avoid too much information/formulas per slide, whenever possible simplify, and refer to your written thesis for more info, etc.)

However, I was wondering if there is specific advice compared to the talk of a paper or at a conference for the presentation of a technical (engineering) Master thesis presentation? What are the key differences?

I am tempted, as it will be graded, to "show off" my knowledge by complicating it, and I wouldn't like to follow Matt's advice too much and come off as if I don't understand the math/material.


texts: How much can you 'laymanize' a PhD presentation?

texts:
I am in my first year of a PhD in France. I recently attended a competition of best presentation by PhD students. It was a 15 minutes visual presentation and 7 minutes of questions. After the presentation, one of the members of review committee openly stated the following;

  Since we have an audience from diverse areas of science, mathematics and technology the presentations should have been simple so that a layman can understand. I quote A. Einstein, "if you can't explain it simply you don't understand it well enough."

Even though this communicates an obvious message, I feel layman bear a high level of ambiguity with it. The following questions crops up in my mind.

How much can you laymanize a particular research topic say, from theoretical physics, for example Non local wavefunction collapse?

The topic is chosen as random but for those who don't have exposure in basic quantum mechanics may not understand the technical terms.

Is it advisable to prepare such a presentation in assumption that the audience are completely nescient?

If I oversimplify the presentation, leaving all the technical terms, I highly doubt that there will not be any material for those who actually knows the subject.

One approach is to try to satisfy both the extremes, first explain the technical terms in detail and then move on to subject core which I found is difficult if not impossible to fit into the time limit.


texts: Is academia right approach in order to implement an idea presented in my MSc Thesis?

texts:
On my Master's I had an idea and made the following thesis proposing an new idea in order to offer a more user-friendly Privacy Enchanhing Technology, https://is.gd/YUUFLE .

Hence, in order to implement it, I decided to use it as a basis for a PhD in Japan via a MEXT scholarship. (I also do Japaneese language lessons as well to mitigate any language barrier as well.) But still I have this question:

Is good idea to use the academia and academic environment as a "tool" in order to implement the idea?

In other words instead of making a company that is a financially risky approach, in order to implement the idea of my master thesis, I thought an academic environment is more free-to-express to do so. Also I will consider the project sucessfull if I manage to make the average Joe to use it instead for making a profit of it (but I need some wage as well).

So having said that how do I approach an future supervisor and how I can make my supervisor also a "colaborator" in the project as well? Would just by saying that I have an idea would make any future supervisor unwilling to acept me for a PhD?


texts: Is it appropriate to email a professor with a simpler solution than the one she provided?

texts: I am in a graduate math program in the US, and the professor is teaching via online lectures. The proof she provideed for one of the theorems is a little bit tricky to understand. I think I found a proof that, though is about the same length, I think is much simpler. Could it be considered inappropriate to email the professor out of the blue and give her the proof?


texts: How to get confidence in myself after making several errors?

texts:
I am a PhD student in mathematics. I was always brilliant in my studies. Now, I have a problem consisting in doing wrong things without paying attention.

For example, I was asked to do some computations, and I did and checked but after sending an e-mail to my supervisor, I discovered that it missed other details.

Also, I submitted a paper to two journals and it was rejected, but one of them I selected without asking my supervisor and after hearing this he was so angry. I know, he is right but I tried to be responsible for my work and
each time I tried to work better and give a good result.

I commit many errors in small details and that is why I lost confidence in myself. My supervisor is always blaming me, but he doesn't know that I did all my best. I don't know how to solve this problem and to make me confident in myself? Maybe my problem is essentially the way that I should learn to complete my thesis successfully.


texts: "other spoken languages" in graduate applications

texts:
I am noticing that many graduate applications require a "primary spoken language" and "other spoken language".

For the "other spoken language", do they mean you must be proficient in writing, speaking, and reading? What if you can only do one (and you may not even be great at it...)? Does that count?

EDIT What if I do not know any of the jargons used in my study in that language?


texts: Is it bad to join the editorial board of a journal on Beall’s list?

texts:
These days, many scholarly journals are emerging. Since they are not famous or high impact, they look for less famous scientists to fill their editorial board. This scheme fits many mid-level professors who are satisfied with their routine job, and just need some scientific recognition for official purpose.

However, if you have a big plan for your future, will you join the editorial boards of these journals? When you become a renowned scientist and joined famous journals, will you regret this past decision? Or this is a community service, and we should help new journals too? (Renowned scientists are busy, young scientists should take the job.)
In other words, can serving a low-quality journal as a member of its editorial board be considered as a weak point in your academic career?

I am moreover interested in the case, if a journal is listed on Beall’s list of predatory publishers.


texts: Pros and cons of living in the same building as faculty members, during one's PhD

texts:
What are the pros and cons of living in the same shared apartment building that house faculty members?
Some pros:

It's an opportunity to network with faculty and spend quality time together, outside of coursework and research.  BBQs, coffee, dinners.

We get to know each other more personally, e.g. know each other's families.

I can't think of any cons.


texts: How to reply to a claim that a paper is "obvious" and "not interesting"?

texts:
A month ago I received the referees' comments on a paper: two are positive, but the other one is negative. In particular, there is a very "negative" comment in this report:

  All of the physical effects considered here have been considered before,
  and model equation is an obvious and not especially interesting
  generalization of similar equations elsewhere in the literature.

How can I give an appropriate reply to this comment?


texts: How to search who exactly to cold-email for a research internship?

texts:
I am interested in cold-emailing some professors to ask whether they would be willing to offer a research position to me. However, I am not sure who exactly to email. I have an idea of the sub-fields of economics that I am interested in, and I've tried reading some of the journals in those subfields. However, as an undergraduate, most research methodologies don't make much sense to me (isn't this a universal undergraduate experience?). To be clear, it's not that I don't understand the research at all. Sometimes the choice of a particular statistical model used in a paper makes perfect sense, but at other times, the statistics involved is way too advanced.
I also do not attend a research university, so I cannot email any professors at my own institution (I am pretty sure no professors in the economics department at my university are taking on mentees; I've tried asking!)
So, how should I approach this process? Where should I begin this search? Should I target professors in my home state or who are otherwise geographically close? Should I target those who are tenured, old, and established? Should I target younger professors? What about those at lesser-known universities? My observation was there that there usually are a couple of professors at smaller universities who do some really interesting work and are also somewhat well known in the field. Should I target exclusively these professors? Should I look at recent articles from a field journal and just start emailing authors of those articles that I can understand, to a certain degree, and whose topics I am interested in? And what exactly should I write my email to the professor, given that the research they published was most likely beyond my understanding?
P.S. If this is relevant, the discipline is economics.


texts: How should I pursue my interest in AI and/or machine learning?

texts:
I'm a first-year student at a top 100 university studying computer science. I have looked at all the different fields of software for which I can get into and I am personally most interested in exploring a career in AI and/or machine learning.

Basically, I am wondering what my college studies should look like in order to make my interest a reality. Its obvious that I need to learn computer programming but are there any other less obvious topics which I should study up on? I have heard that I need to know every field of math, quantum mechanics, physics, and a bunch of other stuff, what is the reality of this?

Last question, is graduate school necessary if I want to go into an advanced field like AI? Are there any paths other than graduate school which I can use to get into the career?

Thanks for your help.


texts: Is there a database of every scientist with their scientific interests?

texts:
Is there an open database of every scientist with their scientific interests? For example, I want to find a list of all scientists with their contact details based in the UK, whose scientific interests include, say, databases. I have an idea and I would like to approach some of them with it.

Edit: such database does exist, I used it almost 10 years ago for different reasons, cannot remember its website anymore :(


texts: Is it bad if one of my letters of recommendation talks about research when I am applying for a M.Eng. and not a M.S.?

texts:
Will the committee reviewing the application think: wow he didn't even tell his professor he is going for a non-thesis degree? I ask because I told one of my professors I was going for a masters and did not specify it was an M.Eng. He is likely going to write I could (since I've never done research with him) be a great researcher because of strong work ethic yada yada. He does a lot of research himself and that's why I expect this.

Will This look bad?


texts:
I am creating a list of notations for my thesis and I have difficulties trying to avoid overlapping notations. The main problem comes from indexes notations, for example:

e_{i}, e_{j} with i,j = 1,2,3 when j is already the current density
d_{lambda,mu} where lambda is already the wavelength

Can I leave these overlaps or not? Would there be a way to mark them as integers without over-complicatiing the notations? Should I include these integers in the table of notations?
EDIT
The document Quantities, Units and Symbols in Physical Chemistry from the IUPAC seems to write the notations with the indexes included without  describing the indexes themselves (see page 57, resistivity and conductivity tensors).


texts: Q: What should I do if suitable Professor for my thesis research is completely booked?

texts:
I plan to make Master Thesis with the topic around Energy Storage System and PV, unfortunately the suitable Professor in electric power system does not have time to be my advisor.

I will use Matlab as modelling tools. Should I go find the professor with expertise in Matlab and Math Modelling instead?

Or should I change my topic instead?


texts: Does it look bad if I email multiple professors in the same department at once?

texts:
I'm currently in the process of applying to grad schools, and I'm emailing profs whose work I find interesting. I always read a bit of their work, and then customize both, the email I send them, and the CV I attach. I discuss their work in my email, and slightly change the listed research interests in my CV to match their interests.

Often, I'll find multiple profs in the same school and department whose work I find interesting. I was wondering it its acceptable to email them all at once. Are there any potential consequences to sending out multiple emails + CVs at once to the same department, all containing slightly different research interests and repeatedly claiming I find the profs' work "fascinating"?


texts: Phd interview travel paid by interviewer - Is it bad form to ask to stay for the weekend?

texts:
I have been shortlisted in the Phd application process at a research institution in a neighboring European Country.
I have therefore been invited to go there for a serie of interviews, visits to their laboratories and informal meetings. All of this will last from Tuesday to Friday and the institution is paying for all travel/hotel expenses.

Since I have never visited that city, and the interviews take the whole week, I would enjoy spending the weekend there and flying later on sunday.

In the forms they provided they write explicitly

  Please note that you are expected to arrive on Tuesday and depart on
  Friday

Would it be bad form, or put me in a bad light, if I politely asked to delay the return flight to sunday? Of course I would take care of my accommodation expenses for the extra days.


texts: Is that possible for a journal to publish an article upon accepting but the Author requested for withdrawal with some reasons?

texts:
one may send an article to a journal and the journal accepted it. However, the author do not want to publish his article on this journal for some reason and as soon as the author get message from the journal notified to withdraw the article.
Is that possible for the journal to publish  after the author announced them not to publish (withdraw)?


texts: How can I minimize the damage of my PhD advisor's bad recommendation when applying for industry jobs?

texts:
I did not get along well with my former PhD advisor. I was able to defend and graduate; however, I have learned that my advisor was giving bad recommendation letters. No wonder why all of my postdoctoral applications were unsuccessful even though I have good academic standing. Since we had several intense arguments in the past, I can conclude with confidence that any reference from my advisor would be damaging.
I have decided to go to industry (non-research) not just because of this problem but also because of poor job prospects in academia. Now, I am wondering how I can minimize the damage. I do not know how references work in industry, but I can certainly exclude my advisor in any list throughout a recruitment process. My PhD advisor also has several connections in HR. This can also be damaging if a company background-checks through the university HR department.


texts: In Politecnico di Milano, Does the university wait until the end of the deadline to review all the documents?

texts: I am preparing for applying for a Ph.D. program at the Politecnico di Milano in Italy. I am working on the initial proposal. The 36th call starts on April 26, 2020, through May 29, 2020. I don't know whether the university waits until the deadline to receive all the application forms and then review the documents or they start to review as they receive applications and when they reach their capacity before the deadline, for instance, mid-May, and then they quit the review and ignore the other upcoming documents from the students?


texts: Finding good statistics for computer science matriculation (drop-out) rate

texts:
To satisfy my professional curiosity, I'm trying to find a reliable statistic as to the number of students that declare their major as computer science and graduate with a degree in 6 years.

I was wondering if any organization compiled data on a per-major basis.  I'd like the info partly to satisfy my own curiosity, and possibly use to motivate students (i.e. you made it through a tough class).


texts: When are professors most free during a semester?

texts:
You would think that profs are living the high life when lectures are over and all they have to do is to hand out the exam (in a couple weeks) and grade them. But when I tried to get a hold of the profs, they seem to be busier than ever. One prof even stopped holding office hours all together and handed those duties to the TAs.

What do profs usually do after all lectures has stopped, and in general, when are profs most free in terms of their faculty duties during a semester?


texts: Is a co-advisor a good solution if my advisor is not very familiar with part of my research area?

texts:
I am currently a 4th year PhD student and have no publication so far. I switched project after 1.5 years after realizing I don't want to have a PhD in that topic.

The new project is really interesting for me. I feel much more motivated and believe I have the analytical skills to solve it. The project is composed of two parts: image analysis (A) and machine learning (B). Eventhough my advisor is very knowledgable about the first part, he is not familiar with the other part, which is actually the most important cue to solve the problem.

That results in lacking of general research guidance from him. He would points me to unfruitful direction, and when I present literature's approaches he is not interested in. A metaphor is that like doing programming big project without the knowledge of data structures. Would a co-advisor be the best solution?


texts: Citing a secondary (indirect) quotation in the epigraph

texts:
In my thesis I want to use the following quotation in the epigraph of a chapter:

  It is very difficult to predict — especially the future.

There are many variations of this quote, and the authorship is attributed to many different people. Very often it is assigned to Niels Bohr, and one of the oldest secondary sources I have found dates back to 1971.

How should I cite this secondary quotation in my epigraph?

Something like the following? —Niels Bohr (Mencher, 1971)


texts: Will I be treated differently from funded students if I attend graduate school without full funding?

texts:
I am told, by both a professor at my US undergraduate school and here at Stack Academia (for example, at Implications of being accepted without funding to a computer science PhD in the United States?), that I should not accept an offer from a US graduate school unless I am offered full funding. The reasoning is that if they actually wanted me, they would be paying me. I agree with this.

So my question is, what would be the difference between going to a school with funding and without funding, besides the money? Would I be treated as a second class citizen? And if I was offered full funding, perhaps from a TAship, what would happen if I wanted to pay for myself anyway?

Existing answers, such as at Will self funding a PhD hurt employment chances?, seem to focus on the money and the chance that the applicant is not strong enough for the program. While I also agree with these, I am interested in learning about external factors too.


texts:
This may be the wrong place for this question, but the format here is better. Please advise of a better website if I'm totally off base for this site.

My situation: I hold a Masters of Accountancy and am a licensed CPA. I am lucky in that every job for which I've applied has contacted me for an interview. So here's my dilemma:

My initial second choice brought me in for an interview yesterday and I NAILED it! They actually gave me a standing ovation for my teaching demo, and all but told me I was getting the job (I was told to expect an offer within a couple days). The position is non-tenture track, but the department has a massive overload and so I am not concerned with job security. This is a public university. It's located in a small, rural community with a larger city about an hour away....so I would have to commute.

My initial first choice wants to schedule my campus visit a full 2 weeks from today. It is tenure-track (I am starting a doctoral program in 2020).  The pay would be less for this job, but I would teach EVERY class in accounting because the department is small. Also,  the overall workload would likely be less in the long-run. This is a small, private university much closer to my current location in a city that fits me a bit better culturally (closer to what I live in now).

I also have two more interviews after that, but I am hoping to cancel those as soon as possible.

So I have three questions: 1) How long does the school with which I interviewed realistically expect me to take before I accept or decline their offer? and 2) Would it be inappropriate to request the second interview be moved up?

3) Finally, if I do request the interview be moved up, how candid should I be about my reasoning? I just don't know if the first school is moving at super light speed or not....there's just so much I don't know.

Thank you


texts: Is teaching on YouTube for non-teachers illegal?

texts: I'm planning to start a YouTube channel to help non-Italian speakers learn how to speak Italian. I was wondering if it may be illegal to do so, given I'm not a qualified teacher. Can anybody help? :)


texts:
In our research I had many meetings and discussions regarding our work (i.e., solutions, implementation, related work, etc) with three other researchers. When I wrote the papers, they were also responsible for reviewing the manuscripts and making decisions together about anything related to them (publishing, editing, assessing comments from journal reviewers etc).

These contributors were my coauthors in every paper I wrote for this specific research. They are all researchers, PhDs and teachers in different institutions.

There are still two papers left: one in the process of being published and other brand new. However, one contributor simply stopped contributing. He didn't say that explicitly, but every time I write a new paper version and our reviewing process starts, he either does not respond to e-mails or takes too long to answer or finish his duties. Usually, the reviewing is only partial (e.g. "I couldn't read all the paper, so here is my comments regarding the first two sections").

My question is, even though this person contributed to our overall research and for the papers in the past, should I put his name in the next paper, assuming he is not going to contribute anymore (while the others will)?

How would you deal with this situation?


texts: How much code in a computer science thesis?

texts:
I'm working in software development and plan to start a part-time masters degree.

I've read in some places that a thesis shouldn't have much code and should use pseudo-code instead. Then on other sites I see thesis that seem to center around a newly developed code base. Then other example thesis relating to mechanizations seem to include code, schematics, and 3d designs.

Are some of these examples I'm seeing project streams or can a thesis still include these?


texts:
It seems as though everyone in academia is trying to publish stuff, regardless of whether they actually have something meaningful to say. The journals generate more noise every year.
I understand that papers count for promotion and review, they mostly get counted but... There is room to question the actual motivation to publish.

What is your primary reason for publishing? How much of it is related to making a meaningful contribution to science/knowledge/understanding, and how much is for other reasons/purposes (tenure, CV, fame, pressure, etc.)?


texts: Can I write my PhD thesis based on another student's paper if I'm a co-author?

texts:
My supervisor asked me to write my thesis based upon one paper which I'm co-author on. I was told to take results which were not published and extend the figures. I was also told to include some figures from the paper after I ask the journal for copyright permission, extend the discussion in the paper and insert all of this into my thesis. After all of this, I need to do one more experiment.

Is this usual in science and for a Ph.D.? What precautions should I take in this case?


texts: The reviewers comments are so simple that I can correct them and send them immediately. But the editor says cannot accept the manuscript. Is there any chance that if we justify the comments, there can be acceptance? Can we write to the editor in return?


texts: Is it advisable to contact a professor if I fear failing a graduate-level course?

texts:
I am an international master's student in the US. I am currently finishing my last semester of courses.

This semester has been very tough on my personal life because of some family issues. I also had major unexpected technical difficulties with one of the projects which made it practically impossible for me to finish it in time. As a result, my performance in one of the courses suffered in the second half of the semester (I was doing well in the first half). I just had the final exam and I feel that it went badly. I am now scared that I might fail the course and have to come back again in Fall,  especially because that means I have to move back to the city and spend more money on tuition.

I am confident that I would have done much better on the course had my circumstances been different. I am therefore considering contacting the professor to explain my situation in the hopes that he won't give me a failing grade.

So my question is this: is it advisable to contact my professor in this situation? If so, how can I approach the topic? What should I avoid discussing?

Perhaps I should mention, I don't feel very comfortable with him on a personal level, and he has been generally strict with grading guidelines.


texts: Late withdrawal from all the courses after the census date as I had an accident and will be undergoing surgery

texts: I will be undergoing surgery due to an accident that happened to me 2 months before the start of the term and I have been. The term has nearly ended and I wont be able to sit for final exams as I will be undergoing surgery based on doctors advice.On top of that this injury has been affecting my studies to a great extent.But if I withdraw from courses right now, I will be excluded from the university.I need help regarding this.


texts: Should we keep our referees informed of our job application statuses?

texts: I have heard that it is a good practice or even necessary to ask for our potential referees' permission before we include their contact details in our CVs. Is it also a good practice to keep them informed about which positions we are applying for and the status of each of these applications? Is it good or necessary to update them how each of our application went, whether rejected or invited for an interview, or should we be selective?


texts: How formal should figures in a thesis be?

texts:
I am currently writing my masters thesis. I include in it a screenshot of a webpage, in which I want to point at some components and explain what each of them does. What I did so far is that I draw circles around the components and an arrow from the component to a one word text saying what it is, I intend to go into details under the image.

Is that sort of “labeling” formal enough for a thesis figure? Or is there another presentation that would be more appropriate?


texts: How can a distance education student get a copy of the lecture notes?

texts:
I am a distance education student at a Parisian university, and I am currently preparing for the exam in a research-level mathematics course.

While on-campus students have attended the lectures and presentations of sample problem solutions, distance education students only get incomplete lecture notes in pdf format, sample problems without solutions, and a list of recommended textbooks.

I think I was quite successful studying about 85% of the course this way, but the last one or two lectures and sample problem solutions cover some very advanced material, which is not adequately addressed by the recommended textbooks. I also could not find this material is a sufficiently concentrated form in research articles, and I estimate that it may take thorough reading and understanding of no less than 50 articles and maybe 3 months to properly figure this out by myself.

One of the professors recommended to me that I get a copy of the lecture notes and sample problem solutions from a student that attended the course in person, but when I requested a few email addresses from the secretary, she said she is not authorized to divulge that information. I asked the other professor of this course, but got no reply.
I can't go to a course lecture to locate such students, because the last lecture was some time ago.

I would like some advice on what else to try to obtain the lecture notes.


texts:
I am using mendeley to save papers etc. which have come up during my research. However, I am often having some ideas about problems which are interesting or some links which are worth reading later. I would like to add this to mendeley easily, sth like a workable document.
Is sth like that possible? What are you using for a problem like that?
I appreciate your answer!
Update
I am looking for a way to add general notes, which are not paper related?


texts: What is the proper way of addressing a professor whom I work with?

texts:
I am a graduate student. Some part of my master thesis requires me to contact a professor from another university. In the first email I addressed him as "Dear Professor Smith". He started his reply with, let's say, "Dear Emily".

Does it mean that he also asked me to call him by his first name? He didn't do it explicitly. How should I address him in my next email?

We are going to meet face to face in the foreseeable future. He doesn't teach me.

My question isn't about addressing a professor in the US.  All I want to know is how to be polite if we communicate in Enlish (although this is a mother tongue neither for him nor for me), so my inquiry refers to the English language, not the (English or American) culture.

In other words: did the professor suggest that I we should be on first name basis by addressing me as "Dear Emily" in his email?

The email was sent to me and other members of my group. It started with "Dear Emily and all" and ended with "Cheers, John". The professor is on first name basis with the rest of the group.

Edit: My question is about this particular situation, the email I received (not a general rule), so I don't think this is a duplicate.


texts: Definitions of IEEE RAS review "dimensions"

texts:
When reviewing for the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, you are asked to rate the submission on the following qualities:

Originality of concepts
Theoretical contribution
Technological contribution
Technical soundness
Thoroughness of results
Importance of results
Relevance of applications
Clarity of presentation
Relevance to field

I can't find any guide defining these terms. Some of them are obvious, others less so.

What is the difference between "Relevance to field" and "Relevance of applications"?

What is the difference between "Technical soundness" and "Thoroughness of  results"? It's hard to imagine one without the other.

I feel that the IEEE should define what they mean by these terms.


texts: What are the common guidelines for writing a thesis in European and English-speaking countries?

texts:
Currently I'm a student at one of the russian universities which obviously requires me to write theses and similar academic papers in Russian. Most russian universities (and CIS unis, in my observation) follow locally modefied versions of Soviet thesis structure guidelines. In my writing I regularly rely on English-language papers from JSTORE and the like, but one particular thing I've noticed is that the structure of those papers was, though logical, nontheless depended on a given author, even in cases when authors work and publish their papers in the same uni. In other words, I couldn't track a hint of more or less universal structure across multiple papers. Such practice is very uncommon in post-Soviet countries, as structure here is explicit and tengible (for example, paragraphs within introductory chapter are clearly defined and have comparable composition across the majority of papers in CIS countries).

Back to my main question. Are there any official guidelines which students/researchers are compelled to follow within a solitary uni or a cluster? Can you point out to a resource that can shed light upon academic writing tradition in English-speaking and/or European countries?


texts: Are there yearly announced post-doc positions within Canadian universities

texts:
I want to know if Canadian universities especially in Ontario propose post-doc position for PhD holders (coming from Europe), or any other research positions (associate researcher...)
or maybe they are hidden and one should contact labs to get these ?


texts: Pros and cons of (co-)authoring a reference book in early career?

texts:
I am early in a tenure-track position. I undertook with a publisher to write a reference book a while back and with a light load to start with in my new position, I recently agreed to set a deadline of later this year.

I progressed quickly through some of the core chapters where I knew what I wanted to write.

Now I have a heavier teaching load, preparing course material from scratch week-to-week, and am struggling to cope with my work hours.

But spending all my few spare cycles in the book seems to be carrying a huge opportunity cost. Though my research profile is sufficiently strong for me not to have to worry about journal output for a while, and I'm currently in the "harvest cycle" of a couple of journal papers that are coming through from about a year ago, I feel I am missing opportunities to start collaborations with other faculty members. I want to start on some new directions and target new communities with the help of new colleagues.

Furthermore, I feel like I don't have the bandwidth to bring the quality of the book to the level I would like. Writing the book has thus become a disheartening chore, trying to balance progress and quality. Working odd hours here and there, I can't dedicate myself to it. There are more pressing things to think about while showering in the morning. Every time I go to work on it, it's a cold start.

In this rather excellent answer on an unrelated question, @Pete L. Clark mentioned the following:

  With regard to writing books: one of my most distinguished colleagues, Dino Lorenzini, wrote an excellent and rather successful book near the beginning of his career. He now tells anyone who will listen that junior faculty should not write books. Of course sometimes the heart wants what it wants, but from a strategic perspective I think this is eminently sound, and I say this as someone who may turn around and write some books now that I am solidly into my mid-career.

This prompts me to ask, is it generally the case that writing a book early in one's tenure-track career carries too much of an opportunity cost? My hope is that the book will stand in good stead for my tenure application, and may attract citations in the long term (I believe it is in a good niche), but would I be better off with two-to-three more good journal papers instead (what I estimate the opportunity cost to be)?

Essentially I'm looking for anecdotes on how writing a book helped/hindered early-career (tenure-track) researchers.


texts: What are some metrics to rank conferences?

texts: I have a fair bit of idea by now that journals are ranked by their impact factor, and authors by their citation index, or sometimes h-index. However, similar to this, how are conferences ranked?


texts: Is there common policy in universities about departments or faculty/staff intervening in the case of misconduct related to Title IX?

texts:
My understanding of Title IX is that it is a federal law that requires, among other organizations, universities, to ensure that women are not denied equal opportunities.

In order to ensure compliance with this law, universities create their own policies that they believe tackle relevant misconduct like sexual harassment, stalking, and other related behaviors. However the Title IX office of a university does not attempt to tackle behaviors that fall outside of ensuring compliance with the federal law.

Usually, faculty and staff are required to report or consult with the Title IX office if they become aware of misconduct. I have encountered the belief that once this occurs, faculty/staff are prohibited from engaging on the matter further. I have asked a question on Law Stack Exchange about the legal basis of this belief, but here I want to ask about university policy.

Are there common (or if not, at least notable examples of) policies that prohibit a department, or faculty/staff, from acting on information about misconduct relevant to Title IX further? For example, can a department chair enact sanctions on a perpetrator? Can faculty confront the perpetrator and demand their behavior cease? Can it even be discussed?

Note that again I am not concerned here with the law, but only with university policies.


texts: Post-doc priorities: "Laundry list" vs. "Research trumps all"

texts:
I am a post-doc in the physical sciences and I am finding that people have very different expectations of what a post-doc's priorities should be. Typically people are somewhere between two camps. I call these two extreme views "Laundry list" vs. "Research trumps all".

The "Laundry list" view is that everything matters, and that next to research skills developing soft skills is also very important. Examples of such advice philosophy are the Times Higher Education guide (see here) and the The New Scientist guide (here). Apart from research, there is great emphasis on teaching and mentoring students, practising talks, going to many seminars and networking.

The "Research trumps all" view is that at the post-doc stage, the importance of papers far outweighs everything else. For example,  this interesting guest post on The Professor Is In advises to be very cautious about getting involved in mid-author papers and optional teaching commitments. In the Scientific American blog post "The Awesomest 7-Year Postdoc " (here), the author directly attacks laundry list advice of the above kind and emphasises selectivity in activities, putting research and teaching first. Cal Newport's canon of advice (e.g. this and this post) is generally all about selective focus on research projects and minimizing dissipation (e.g. little email communication, drop bad projects).

I am most interested in career advice for post-docs in the physics, mathematics, computer science, life sciences on a path towards a research oriented academic career. I think it would be very interesting to see what you think and where you place your post-doc priorities on the continuum between "Laundry list" and "Research trumps all".


texts: Possessive case when there are post nominal letters

texts:
If a person's name comes with post nominal letters, e.g., John Smith PhD or Mary Green MD, which of the following is the correct/better way of forming the possessive?

(A): John Smith PhD's student; Mary Green MD's clcinc

(B): student of John Smith PhD; clinic of Mary Green MD

To me, style (A) sounds unnatural. So which is recommended?


texts: Is there any risk in applying for a different graduate program, while already doing a PhD?

texts:
I'm doing a Ph.D. (in Europe) in field X, but my interests have shifted towards a different subject (say Y) over time. I've tried to shift my research to be on interdisciplinary topics crossing the two areas, but it's far from satisfactory for me and still my advisor constantly pushes me towards research projects I'm not really interested in.

Initially, I thought I'll finish the Ph.D. in X, develop some transferrable skills, and then do my postdoc in my area of interest, but my advisor is limiting me to opportunities (collaborators, conferences, projects, etc.) within my old field of interest and I just can't imagine an academic career in X for myself. I want to stay in academia, but join a Y department, which would be impossible without a proper training in Y or substantial research experience and networking with the researchers in that field.

So, I'm now considering applying to grad programs in Y, but I actually have no idea about my chances. I have some interdisciplinary research experience and minor collaborations with researchers in Y (plus self study of course), which is what I'm relying on for my application. I'm also getting recommendation letters from my collaborators working in Y, who are aware of my situation. But, since I don't know whether I'll actually get in or not, I don't want to burn bridges or make my advisor angry or disappointed. After all, my only chance for pursuing my interest if I don't get into the grad programs I like, is to finish my current Ph.D. succesfully and find interdisciplinary research positions (which comes at the risk of being a "research associate" or some sort of "life-long postdoc" and never getting a tenure). My alternative is to finish my Ph.D. in X and then go and do a masters or possibly a second Ph.D. in Y (which is suboptimal, but still allows me to follow my interests), and I don't want to burn bridges for doing that either.

This means I'm applying to grad programs in Y, without telling my current advisor about it. I'm worried the department I'll apply to might (possibly unintentionally and just in a coffee chat at a conference) might reveal this to my advisor or other members of our group, especially because in a few of the departments I'm targeting, there are people who actually collaborate (or have collaborated) with our group. I was wondering whether this is something I should worry about. Are there professors on the the admission committee (for master's programs in Europe)? Am I overthinking this or is there a real chance that this could happen? Would a reviewer ever email my advisor and tell them "this student of yours is telling us they don't want to finish their PhD and want to move to our department and do a master's in Y and then do a PhD in Y!"?!

++ Please note that areas X and Y are traditionally considered completely unrelated, but there are modern interdisciplinary research combining practices of the two. That being said, it's still almost impossible to get hired at a Y department without a formal training in Y (especially if you have a Ph.D. in X, the general attitude in Y communities is that you don't really understand Y).

++++ By grad programs, I mean master's programs (in Europe).


texts: How to ask for a research project fee to an external investigator?

texts:
I'm currently a postdoc, and someone from another institution (a colleague of a colleague; I didn't know them before) contacted me to invite me to collaborate on their project.

While the project seems interesting, I would need to invest my own time outside my normal working hours, so I'm not willing to take it without proper compensation.

Basically, I would like to ask for a fee. The person who contacted me said something a bit ambiguous "we have no money, but we could probably get some". Do you have any advice on how to politely ask for a fee?


texts: How well is "I want to do research at a big company" received during a PhD application?

texts:
Is it somehow "taboo" to mention planning on leaving Academia™ after having finished one's PhD program?-- I've been at a couple of interviews for PhD positions at which the following question was asked (or a variant thereof):

  What do you want to do after getting your PhD?

My answer was:

  I want to either find a dedicated research position at a company big enough to offer such (e.g. Google) and/or work as an independent consultant for different companies.

The follow-up question was always:

  Why do you want to work in industry instead of at university?

In both cases, my answer was:

  Getting a job at uni would be great, but planning my future on getting a tenure-track position is not a good idea and I don't want to spend ten years moving from city to city for temporary/adjunct positions.

Since I'm still looking for a PhD position, my interview skills are not the best; Is this the wrong approach to a question like this?


texts: What is a good scheme to determine percentage contributions to a paper

texts:
Sometimes researchers are asked to define percentage contributions to a paper with more than one author. E.g., usually the supervisor in charge of the project will determine in which percentage each of the researchers who coauthored the study contributed to it (in my institution the supervisor is left out in order to prevent abuse). These percentages can then be used to distribute per-paper publication bonuses or for other (usually administrative) purposes.

Which is a good scheme to fairly determine these percentages, considering the inherent difficulties in numerically quantifying intellectual work? Are there "standard" procedures to do it?


texts: Suspicion that fellow PhD student lets someone else do his job

texts:
I have the definite suspicion, that a fellow PhD student in my department hired someone else on a freelance cloud working platform to do his work. I saw him/her using the website of this platform several times and even found a very specific job posting. Despite the limited details in that posting, I'm 99 % sure that it is from him/her.

How should I behave? Should I confront him/her first, or should I directly go to his/her advisor? How to substantiate my suspicion and be 100 % sure? Should I fake-apply to that posting to get more details?

As asked in the comments: The suspicious job posting is about developing new research and is not related to editing or proof-reading etc. The posting offers several tens of thousands of dollars.

EDIT: I would like to thank you for the very good answers. You've all really helped me deal with this case. All the answers are somehow correct, but I accepted the answer that suggested to me, what I finally did. Our university has confidants/obmbudspersons for unethical academic practices to whom I have reported the suspicion.


texts: I didn't acknowledge someone who helped with my thesis, is this considered plagiarism?

texts:
I received help from a (online) tutor in a technical support capacity in my PhD thesis.

He was paid, and advised on math. notation, implementing a statistical technique (I suggested the technique) and plotting and statistical code to specification.

I did not acknowledge him in the thesis. (I asked about what to do in I didn't acknowledge someone who helped with my thesis, is there anything I can or should do now?)

Does the fact he is not acknowledged constitute plagiarism?


texts: Is the status of postdocs perceived differently in western Europe vs. North-America?

texts:
In a footnote at this answer by on leaving a postdoc early, user Luke Mathieson writes:

  A postdoc in the US has lower status that it does in Europe/Australia/New Zealand/...,

I'm aware that postdocs in the USA typically have lower pay than in (say) Sweden or The Netherlands (I did not look into other countries).  I don't know if pay is quite proportional to status.  In the way postdocs are perceived by others—undergraduates, graduate students, pre-tenure academics, tenured professors—is there a difference in postdoc status in different parts of the world?

I realise this question is somewhat subjective, so I'm looking for either testimonies based on people who have worked as or with postdocs in both western Europe and North America, or in-depth articles exploring this issue.


texts: Current adviser trying to switch me to a different adviser

texts:
I was admitted to the PhD program at the beginning of the Fall semester and I chose this particular school because my current adviser was my first choice. My admission letter states that they will fund me for the duration of my studies.

Now my adviser tells me the funding source he applied for to cover my stipend and tuition did not pan out and he wants me change my adviser to a different professor.

I do not want to change advisers. As I said, I chose my current adviser over several other good choices. Can I refuse his attempts to make me switch advisers?

Thanks

FYI, the school traditionally covers funding where external grants are lacking.


texts: Under what circumstances is there a conflict of interest for a researcher to be a reviewer of a submitted academic paper?

texts:
If I were asked to review a paper,
under what circumstances would I be expected to decline out of a conflict of interest?
Could I review a paper for someone...

I have collaborated with N years ago?
Who I am currently collaborating with, but we have not yet published a paper together?
Who is currently or was once in the same institution as I?


texts: Will low grades on my transcript ruin my chances of getting into an MBA program, even if I retake classes for course forgiveness?

texts: I'm sure this question has been asked frequently. However, I'm an undergrad, currently finished my sophomore first semester. I have gotten Ds (twice currently, not in the same semesters) on my transcripts due to mental health issues and having not withdrawn before the drop deadline. However, I have retaken the first D and plan to retake the other as well under course forgiveness. They won't be factored in my GPA but they will show up on my transcript. I just wanted to know how bad grades on transcript would affect my chances when will applying to MBA programs?


texts: Asking authors to send figures from a paper in as separate pdf files

texts: In my seminar I have to present a paper which has many nice figures. I use LaTeX and would like to insert some of these figures into my presentation and handout. Ideally, I want these figures to be nice (not screenshots), so I am thinking of writing to authors and ask them to send me the figures they used in pdf format. Is it appropriate request?


texts: PhD or postdoc salary in Denmark according to the cost of living. Is it OK?

texts:
I´d like to know if the average salary for a PostDoc and a PhD student is sufficient for a middle income expectations in Denmark.
What I mean for middle income is for the two of us (1 PostDoc and 1 PhD) to rent a 1 bedroom flat, spend in public transport, go to the supermarket without worries and travel on vacations once a year.


texts: Is it normal for PhD students to do much "non research" work?

texts:
Background: At my current institution I haven't even officially started my PhD yet, meaning I am not even enlisted as a PhD student. I have my bachelor’s and master’s already, and this is in Germany so “thesis only”. I also have worked here for a while now during my master’s so I know the institute well and they also know me well, which may be part of the problem as I am not “just a PhD student”.

The problem is that I get buried in all kinds of work like,

writing parts of grant proposals (many, not one or two like other questions mention)
giving popular science talks about our work on any given chance
presenting our work during lab tours for all kinds of guests (which happens often)
writing news articles and marketing material
supervising students and assistants
...

It’s not that I don’t like doing that stuff as much of it helps me to improve my writing, presentation and people skills.

My problem is that there is nearly no time left to actually do research. I just present old stuff or the work of colleagues that is to some degree build upon my old stuff. I feel like I do the work of a postdoc or professor and not the work of someone that hasn’t even started their PhD yet.

So to what degree/amount are the mentioned tasks normal for a student in my stage?


texts: How to cite a retouched image that originally comes from an ebook on archive.org?

texts:
I need to write a citation for an image -- this is not my paper, I'm just advising on the citation.

This image is the one that is being used.

It is an edited version of this image, which came from this book (page 310)

Should I cite the book as the most important and like most stable source of the image, or just do the online image citation? Or, am I capturing the full provenance of an image: a retouched version of an image found online that came from this specific book?

I'm not so concerned with citation format (I'm using Medline), but making sure I think through the citation correctly for this scenario.


texts: What information should I include in a letter of support for a grant?

texts:
What are the key information that should be included in a letter of support on a grant application? What information should I avoid?

I'm a theorist and I am planning to list my expertise and experience in similar problems. But I don't know how to convey that I would actually support the project if funded.


texts:
I have submitted a paper to one of the IEEE journals. I had to choose a Senior Editor.
What is the exact role of the Senior Editor? As far as I know, the Editor-in-Chief assigns an Associate Editor who determines the reviewers but not sure about the role of Senior Editor. [Whom do typically people refer to by just "Editor"?]

Also in my cover letter, by mistake I mentioned the name of my chosen SE instead of the EiC. Should I contact the journal to modify it or just wait for their response?


texts: How to cite a working paper, preprint, or manuscript?

texts:
How I can cite a submitted manuscript which I am not supposed to publicly archive (e.g. on arXiv) because the review process is double-blind (i.e. the manuscript is anonymized and should not be archived in a way that reveals authors' identities) and/or the journal has a restrictive archival policy?
This manuscript may therefore not be assigned a permanent link (like it would have been with biorXiv, arXiv, OSF, some institutional repos, etc.). I am aware of platforms such as Zenodo allowing anonymous archival but these do not necessarily imply a citation format to be used. However, I'd like to share the manuscript among colleagues who might want to refer to it. So, I want to suggest to them a citation format while it's under review.
I found this, suggesting me to do that:

Doe, J., & Smith, A. (2012). A study on the difficulty of getting manuscripts published. Unpublished manuscript, Department of Sociology, The Top University, New York.

where manuscript can be substituted by something like working paper or preprint. See also that SE comment. However, I am not sure whether this is the best way to do it. Any better suggestions?
Thank you.


texts: Do you have any paper academic calendars or planners to recommend?

texts: I wanted to ask if you have any specific paper calendars or planners which cover an academic year (October - September) and which you can recommend for PhD students? Thanks a lot!


texts: Rights of authors who withdraw peer reviewed manuscript due to refusal to transfer copyright

texts:
Many (traditional) journals request copyright transfer upon acceptance.

A group of librarians suggested that authors negotiate the copyright transfer and prepare to walk away if the journal insists on full copyright transfer.

Suppose the authors refused but the journal insisted on the transfer, and therefore the authors decided to publish elsewhere.

Generally, what are authors' and journals rights in such a case?

What happens to the peer review the authors received from the first  journal? Can or should they present it when submitting to another journal?


texts: Is it appropriate for an undergrad student to ask a professor to sign a non-disclosure agreement?

texts:
Allow me to first give some context.  A friend and I have been discussing a business idea involving a technical device that I need some guidance on how to perfect.  My friend just told me he is taking a class with a professor that founded a company with a device similar, but distinctly different from mine, and I would love to talk to him about this during his office hours.  If he is willing to share I would like to ask about how his device works.  I would also like to ask him how to do a few of the things I am struggling with.  Before I tell him all the details of my idea, I would like to somehow protect my idea, since I do not know this professor at all.

So, I am asking all the academics out there, how would you feel if a student asked you to sign a non-disclosure agreement given these circumstances?


texts: How should one decide whether to study logic in a math or philosophy department?

texts:
In particular, besides the more obvious fact that your courses and qualifying exams are going to be in different fields, are there any subtler reasons to prefer one department over another? Some possible refinements of my question are:

Is there a significant difference in resources available to logicians in one department over another? (Perhaps philosophy departments tend to be more well-funded than mathematics departments, or perhaps there are more fellowship opportunities available to students in math departments.)
Are there any significant differences in academic expectations? For instance, are there perhaps greater expectations to publish more frequently when in one department versus the other, or does perhaps one department take its language requirement more seriously than the other?
Related to the previous question, are there any significant cultural differences between the two departments?
Does choice of department have any impact on postgraduate academic job prospects?
Is it possible at all, once you are in one department as a graduate student, to switch to the other?

I ask these as general questions, though here's some information about my personal circumstances if they make any particular answer more apparent:

I am currently a third-year undergraduate math major interested in graduate study in logic. I have the dubious and unsavory distinction of having a departmental GPA lower than my overall GPA, but outside of a course in ethics and a (spectacular) course in philosophical logic, my philosophy-related coursework has tended to focus more on continental philosophy. In short, it is not clear to me that I do better in one field than another (I have done well in all my philosophy/philosophy-related classes, while I have done either spectacularly well or spectacularly horribly in my math classes), and I deeply enjoy learning about both. I have also heard rumors that philosophy graduate admissions tend to be, by virtue of self-selection and small entering class sizes, much more competitive than math graduate admissions, but given my own record, it's not clear that admissions to one department will be easier than admissions to another (though this has little to do with whether one type of program is better than the other).


texts: Ethics of publishing received peer reviews

texts:
What are the ethics of publishing (on the web, etc.) peer reviews received for a paper? Does your answer change if the paper was accepted or rejected?

I am specifically interested in the  "one-shot" case typical of computing science conferences, without rebuttals, where there is no or limited dialogue between an author and the reviewers.

This is quite distinct from Can I publish the reviews I write? as here I am talking about reviews I have received, not those I have written - the reviews' authors retain their anonymity, and presumably the paper would be included alongside those reviews.

Vijay's response below includes a summary of much of the other responses and my comments on those.


texts:
Ghostwriting is when an author writes a work and attributes it to someone else.

Isn't this reverse-plagiarism (someone taking credit for someone else's work, but with permission)?  I'm not sure it happens in academia a lot, but I've seen instances where a professor "ghostwrites" course notes for another professor.  Actually those notes are really bad and it seems like he doesn't want to take the hit of delivering the course himself.  Instead he ghostwrites it for other people.  It seems wrong to me.


texts: Is there any disadvantage to having PhD from a non-main campus?

texts:
What if one pursues a PhD from a university campus which is not the main campus, rather in a different city hundred miles away. The certificate is given by the main campus authority. Is there any discrimination towards the graduates?

As an example, say the campus is ADFA which is a sub campus of UNSW, Which is also known as UNSW Canberra (details). more on this is here.


texts: Should I focus on GPA or publishing (undergraduate)?

texts:
I have high GPA. However, I'm now in my last undergraduate year and I feel attracted to research and publishing research outputs. Should I go ahead with publishing my research? This may negatively affect my GPA a little bit and it takes from my time a lot.
Is it worth sacrificing a little GPA to publish as an undergraduate?


texts: How to ask for more details from a US university professor without being rude if he says I should apply through the university?

texts:
I'm a BSc holder looking for grad. studies. I contacted a professor from a good US university (not Ivy League) about his work and publications which I liked very much. I told him about my research background etc, his answer included the following points:

1- Telling me that I have "a very good background".

2- That I must first be admitted to the university and he can't directly take students.

3- The fact that 1st year is not so research-oriented and he can't say if he will be able to take a new student.

4- Telling me that I should apply.

This I think, isn't a specific case just for me so I'm going to ask here.

Funding is very important for me, I cannot fund my study even for a semester. Where should I go from here and what to ask to make sure of funding my Ph.D. study from the begining? Can I make sure I'll have a RA position before even applying?


texts:
I was a junior academic that was ousted by a HoD to take over my PhD students and collaboration projects.  Previously when I was still in the department, I offered him to co-supervise one of my PhD students, but he declined, citing that his expertise is outside the domain of this work.  He couldn't even pronounce a terminology in the project.
After I left this place, a paper was published in a top journal recently, without including my co-authorship. I was not told about this paper before, but I had discovered it myself on the online domain recently.  This HoD was put as the first corresponding author.  I was informed that he had "tricked" the student into picking him as his supervisor, citing that it was at the recommendation of the Graduate School after discussions with the Head.  This student is paper prolific, so it is no surprise that he published so quickly after I left. I had previously guided this student to target the work at this top journal, but after I left, I had not heard from him for a few months, and he did not send to me the draft of this paper.
The student had published work using a software for which the licensing agreement had expired after I left.  I was the one who introduced the use of this software and purchased the licence several years ago, and guided the student (we had few publications - lower IF - on this topic previously.)  The school did not renew the software licence after I left because it was too expensive for it.  It is quite common, however, to use pirated softwares in this part of the world.
Any suggestions to resolve this?


texts: In Love With My Field...Luke Warm About Academia

texts:
I'm currently facing an existential crisis of sorts with my choice to pursue my academic passions while navigating the demands of an academic system that I don't feel ever catered to what I wanted and let me work at my pace.  I would appreciate community support and input on my possible choice and how to work through some difficult feelings around the options available to me.

My passion for the longest time has been to work in mathematical physics.  I pursued my undergrad in physics, and through some haphazard circumstances, ended up getting into a graduate mathematics program in a small consortium of liberal arts colleges.  In grad school I had the opportunity to pursue subjects I wanted to learn for many years and found a supportive adviser who mentored me in my research.

Midway through grad school, I was faced to make a choice about my research.  For my area of math, there was basically only my adviser I had to work with and no cohort of other grad students who were working on anything remotely similar to me.  My adviser, in her best of intentions, strongly encouraged me to put aside my interest in physics for the more practical/vocational goal of using my efforts for data science and landing a tech job after grad school.  Facing the pressure of not being able to land a job in math or physics, I acquiesced to her suggestions and dragged my feet to complete my PhD in an area of research that's only partially related to my true interests.

Now..., I'm in a position where I have no desire to join the tech industry, and I'm working several part-time adjuncting teaching jobs that together require me to drive great distances in the area I live.

  To get to the point already: I would like to be able to have a tenure-track position at a school other than a community college
  (which I'm inclined to take if offered).  However, in order to
  reasonably do this I would need to dig my roots in an area
  of research that I could publish articles at a steady pace (other than my dissertation I only have one article that was approved and hasn't been published yet).  Is it worth it to
  continue my research in mathematical data science to any capacity to
  help ensure long-term employment at a reputable institution, or is it
  better to continue adjuncting and devote all my time to my true
  passion of mathematical physics, basically "going it alone", studying
  texts and articles myself and building an area of research that is
  satisfying to me on my own terms?


texts: Would it be beneficial for me to transfer to a university with a PhD program instead of continuing to study for a MS?

texts:
Here in the southeastern US (if not elsewhere), it is common for students to be admitted to PhD programs in physics after completing a bachelor's, in other words an MS is not generally required for admission. I finished my undergraduate degree last semester, in the fall, and transferred into the master's program of the same university. My current university does not actually offer a PhD program, and I wouldn't have been able to get admission to either of the PhD programs in the area in the midterm, as they only admit new PhD candidates in the Fall.

My question is, would it be a good idea to attempt to transfer to another university in the Fall of this year so I can start studying for my PhD in earnest, or might I as well finish my master's where I am and then transfer in order to start work fresh on my PhD? Is there any good reason to transfer, or to stay where I am?

Note that I transferred most of the coursework I needed to graduate to the uni I currently attend; this my first semester as a graduate is my third semester attending the university overall.


texts: Is it plagiarism to reuse your own full-text material from a previous conference in a new conference?

texts:
I am a reviewer at a conference. An author submitted a paper, and I searched the   author's previous papers. I found they have one paper with a very similar title accepted  to a conference in 2012. I downloaded the paper, and about 1.5 pages of the 6 page document is exactly the same as the 2012 paper (all words and everything else.) So is that plagiarism?

There is no reference to their own 2012 work. Without paying attention to the rest of paper? Should I drop that or not?

Update:
Yes the paper was accepted and indexed on IEEE web site. and I download the paper from IEEE web site.


texts: Working on multiple research projects as an undergraduate with different professors

texts:
I am currently a sophomore undergraduate Mechanical Engineering major at a mid-sized public university. I know that I really do enjoy research, I love learning, and I love teaching. I am all-but-certain that graduate school is where I want to go after graduation, and so I have been working to gain research experience.

At the end of my freshman year, I began working with my advisor ("Prof A") on non-research-focused design projects (i.e. not the sort of thing that would lead to a publication), as a way to get some experience working under an advisor and to "get my foot in the door". He was highly impressed by my work (specifically the effort and time I put into the work) and gave me more opportunities at the beginning of this school year (fall 2014) to do more work with him on some research-focused projects.

As this year has progressed, Prof A has given me more and more support and has continued to help me gain funding for my own projects, and is the primary reason that I have excelled up to this point. He has certainly become someone who I would consider to be my mentor in many ways.

Despite all of the great opportunities I have received so far, I want to expand my horizons from the narrow topics I have worked on so far in research. Recently, I asked a different professor ("Prof B") to work on his research team, and he offered me a position. I immediately accepted, knowing that his research is something in which I'm highly interested, and something that I could certainly see myself researching in graduate school. I do not plan on letting this new project with Prof B in any way interfere with the work I am doing with Prof A; I simply plan to work on both concurrently. It should be noted that Prof B was fully aware of my work in Prof A's lab, and this played a role in his eagerness to have me on his research team.

When I mentioned my new research position to Prof A, he seemed disappointed in his demeanor (although nothing he said was necessarily disapproving), as though my working in another lab were not appropriate. I had thought that this should be no problem, especially coming from the standpoint that he is not my advisor in the way that a Ph.D. student has an advisor, so there is no obligation, per se, to consult him before taking on new work.

Was I wrong in not going to Prof A for advisement about this new opportunity, considering all he has done for me? Or was I correct that I have the right to go and find other opportunities if I wish?

As a broader question for the future, does the same etiquette apply in graduate school (master's and doctoral)? Or should actions be different in the two different situations?


texts: Applying for (externally-funded) postdoc position: how to follow-up after 1st email?

texts:
I would like to get a postdoc fellowship grant that is addressed to a specific department (in a particular top-tier university). Now I just need to get a professor there to accept to host me.

While I think that my chances of getting the funding are high, I've emailed a professor to ask whether I could work at his lab (with this funding), but got no response after an email a week ago.

I do believe that I'm a good match for the lab and a good candidate to get the fellowship, so... should I call/email this professor to follow-up? Otherwise, is it fine to just email another professor (in the same department)?


texts: How to figure out timing for working on and submitting independent research?

texts:
I am a PhD student in mathematics and have an idea for a general theory, which in a sense is an intermediate case between two opposite ends of well-understood theories. This intermediate case has gained little attention in the literature.

I came up with this idea for a more general theory by studying an explicit example in this intermediate case. The theory includes the two well-understood opposite ends in a trivial way.

I have checked with my supervisor, and he said it was a good idea and "I should write up the details". I have done so, but it has been sitting like this for almost two years. It's very tangential to the research of my supervisor and, as far as I can tell from trying to get his input, he is more interested in this particular example and not in the theory that should be built around it.

I read in "How to protect your unpublished ideas?" that the best thing would be to put this idea on the arXiv and try to submit it as a paper.

I obviously can't ask you here whether my idea is really good. But other than my supervisor, there is no faculty with this area of expertise at my university. I also don't know any other professors well enough to simply write an email asking for an opinion.

Developing the theory in all generality would be time consuming. So I'm wondering which of the three options would be best:

Submit a paper now, co-authored with my supervisor, using just my example and hinting at the more general theory.
Working out the details for some other cases and try to publish alone.
Wait until I have more time to focus on this project (after my PhD).
Put a preliminary version on the arXiv, running the risk that it contains some errors (errors on the order of magnitude of forgetting additional hypotheses, I know it works in a few examples).

In any case, I would confer with my supervisor to see whether it would be okay for me to try to publish something by myself.

I should also say that, for my taste, I'm a little short on papers (I have two short papers in B-grade journals) and I'm looking for a PostDoc soon.


texts: What to do with PhD advisor who does not revise journal manuscript

texts: Say that someone has already spent three years in PhD with an advisor who never revises their drafts for journal submission for a period longer than 8 months given imaginary excuses. However, when it comes to conference papers the advisor has time since conference drafts are short and there is a deadline. I am wondering what should the PhD student do in this situation.