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

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

Yes it is ethical.

The patent will typically be owned by the institute and it will get most of the revenues (this is why they encourage it). The inventors usually get some form of compensation. Revenues from commercialization is partially how your salaries can be payed and could in fact save tax-payers money.

More importantly, developing a new diagnostic or therapy will in the end improve the lives of the general public (and even save lives in many cases). Currently, due to the immense costs involved, the only way to get a new therapy to the public is in a commercial setting.


Recommendation letter by significant other if you worked with them professionally? My significant other (SO) and I are in five years of relationship. We met working in a lab and she already earned her PhD at that time. I was a graduate student. She was the main person I went after my adviser if I had logical questions about my project and helped me the process throughout. We now have two publications together. We worked professionally together for almost three years. She knows my potential both personally and professionally.

I am wondering if it is okay to use a letter of recommendation from her to apply for a PhD program.
Updated: I edited the word "supervisor" as suggested by a commenter. She wasn't an official supervisor but, provided tremendous help with analytical issues. We also stay collaborating on other research projects until today even after we both were out of the lab.

No. If she discloses your relationship in the letter, the reviewer will likely disregard the letter completely, and may question your judgment for having asked her for a letter. If she does not disclose your relationship in the letter, that is a serious enough omission that it could have consequences for you later on (I can't quite tell where you are in your career, but the more senior you are, the more severe these consequences could be).


Acknowledgements in a bachelor thesis: Is it etiquette conform to thank for non thesis related things? As I'm about to finish my bachelor thesis, I'm at writing the acknowledgement section.

How far can I go here in terms of non-thesis-related stuff?
Is there room for humorous acknowledgements (like thanking my coworker for his great taste in music or bad puns), or is that rather something to be left out?

The acknowledgment part is your own part, write what ever you want in humour, fun etc but don't cross the boundaries that might hurt some people feeling. here is a sample from MIT, you can give a read.
http://www.mit.edu/~alvarso/thesis-phd/Acknowledgements.pdf


Sending Mail to Professor When should I send mail to a university professor for a position as a research assistant (RA) or as a teaching assistant (TA)? i.e. after getting successful admission for MS or after applying to the university? If I send mail to the professor for a position as RA or TA after applying to that university, is there any chances to get successful admission confirmation to that university?

This depends on the university and the field. In some fields/places the professor has little say in who is a TA or RA. In others, the professor actually hires the RA directly, especially for grant-funded positions.

Likewise, in some places/fields the professor has little say in the admissions process. In others, he/she has a large influence on who is accepted.

So, depending on your case:

If the professor is directly involved in admissions, contact him/her early.

If the professor isn't involved in admissions, but does hire TAs and Has directly, contact should come after you get admission. You can write earlier to express interest, of course, but not to request (or expect) and action.

If the professor isn't involved in either admissions or funding, you can probably wait until you actually arrive, though expressions of interest can come earlier.

If you send too much to a prof too early in the process it will probably be ignored since they may have no influence and so evaluating it is just wasted time. After you are admitted, it becomes more meaningful to them as well as to yourself.

How and when you get confirmation depends on all of the above as well as the rules of the university. And different fields have different traditions.


Should I send a follow-up email or call again (to potential PhD supervisor)? Sunday: I sent an email to a potential PhD supervisor.
Sunday 4pm: he responded asking me to call him tomorrow .
Monday 11am: I responded yes and asked if there's a preferred time.
Tuesday 1am: he emailed me back asking for my number and said he will try calling me on Tuesday.
Tuesday 8am: I responded with my cell and said there are two hours when I wouldn't be available but otherwise i would be happy to chat anytime.
Tuesday 5pm: still no call. So I sent an email to say I'm available rest of today and tomorrow.
I realized now that when he asked me to call him tomorrow on Sunday, I responded in email on Monday to ask for a time instead of calling on Monday... he was kind to have responded on Tuesday and said he will try calling me. But I still have not heard from him.
Should I email or call him today?

I think it would be better to wait till the end of Wednesday, and then send a follow up email. It could be that he forgot to call or may be quite busy, given the (small) delay in his previous response. For the same reason, calling directly may not be a good idea.
In addition, do check that you did not miss any call or were unreachable at some point during the day. If so, you could mail immediately, apologize, and request to reschedule.
For future reference, it would have been better if you had mentioned your time constraints for the next several days and included your phone number in your first email that you sent on Monday. This would have made the scheduling much easier and the rest of the emails and the confusion after could have been potentially avoided.


How to reference organizing conference symposia / panels on CV? Presentions for papers or posters at conferences are easy to reference, but how do you reference activities such as organizing conference symposia / panels on your CV?

I recommend including a section at the end of your CV entitled "Service", where you list things like conference/panel organization, committee memberships, refereeing activities, and the like.  Initially you may have only one or two items, but the list will grow over time.  As this list grows, organize it into subsections (University service vs Professional service, for example) and subsubsections (editorial boards, program committees, workshop organization, proposal reviews, refereeing, ...).

(I'm assuming that you mean the American Academic CV, which includes everything, and not the UK Professional CV, which is just a two-page sketch.)


Including own published proofs in PhD thesis I'm currently writing my PhD thesis, in a mathematical field in physics. I have published a handful of papers, and the thesis is going to be mostly based on these results. I assume that, even though they are published, I should be including full proofs in the thesis.

I also assume I will effectively need to rewrite these proofs, if only for copyright reasons, having surrendered some of my rights to the journals in which these papers were published, and also for self-plagiarism reasons.

Is there anything I should look out for, and are my assumptions correct?

Regarding copyright: It depends on the agreement you signed when the papers were accepted for publication. All of the agreements I've signed stated that it was OK to include the paper in a thesis.

Regarding self-plagiarism: Talk to your advisor, but typically you include a statement in your thesis that some of the contents are taken from your papers, and include a list of those papers. Then you can include your papers (in whole or in part) without needing to rewrite them. However, unless you're doing a "stapler" or "sandwich" thesis, you'll probably need to do some rewriting just to make the story flow.


Are there any tools for organising literature with tags? So when writing a manuscript I usually go about as follows:
When reading papers on my topic I copy/paste or summarise those parts, which may be relevant for me and collect all these bits in a Word Document. It'll look like this:

Species A grew taller than Species B (Smith et al. 2013)

Growth rate depends on genetics (Miller et al. 2012)

For Species A growth rate did not differ between experiments (Jones et al. 2013)

So basically a list of statements that I then regroup (manually) by topic. However, that last part is quite tedious (and I have to decide on how to group the bits, e.g. by "Species A" or by "growth rate").

So I am looking for a tool (online or downloadable) with which it's possible to collect those text bits, assign tags to each and then select which tag to group by and get the selection of statements.

Are you aware of such a tool?

I use Qiqqa to manage my PDFs when writing research papers. It allows you to highlight text or add notes to the PDFs. You can then tag the notes, and run "reports" which essentially will pull all of the tagged sections from all of the PDFs in your library into a single paper (similar to the Word document you mentioned) so you don't have to do that manually. It will show the original snippet from the paper, any notes you've made regarding that snippet, and the citation for the paper. There's also a neat brainstorm function that will let you visualize papers, tags, or notes and move them around/link them together; I use that to organize papers sometimes.

There is a free version which will let you try out some features, and an affordable pay version that has more enhanced options. There are some helpful how to videos on Youtube that provide a nice sense of functionality and may help you decide if it's the tool you're looking for. I've been using it since I started grad school and it's been tremendously helpful in organizing my academic writing.

http://www.qiqqa.com/67642


Things to do before submitting a manuscript After having written a manuscript and formatted it to the publishers specifications, are there any additional things you do before submitting it (or right after submitting it) that make the review process easier. For example, for journals that I know the approximate time it takes to review, I make a note in my diary to check on the manuscript around that time. I also print out a hard copy and move the digital files into my lab notebook. Are there other things that I should be doing?

Putting together also some advice from the previous answers, here is my suggested checklist:

Run a spellchecker :)
Prepare a cover letter. If the manuscript has a previous history (e.g., it is a modification of a rejected papers; overlaps partially with a conference proceeding), you should state it. Some may want to suggest possible referees in the cover letter; I find it ethically dubious, so I never do it. In case, you may want to suggest referees to avoid. (maybe we should have a separate question on this point).
submit a preprint, either at your institute or on arXiv, or at least think about it. Check the terms of the journal you are submitting to (this is a great resource) to make sure you can; often the submission is the best moment to do it, since the journal can have no reasonable copyright claim on what happened before it.
Even if you don't submit a preprint, make a backup copy of the .tex and .pdf files. If you use source control, tag the latest version as "submitted". This way it will be easier to recover that exact version when the referee report mentions "line 4 on page 2".
Send a copy to your co-authors, for backup and self-archiving.
Relax and celebrate.

You speak about applying the journal style in the manuscript; I suggest not to do it at this point. Referees won't care; it is really needed only after the manuscript is accepted, or if an over-zealous editor asks you to do it. You might spend lots of time without reason, resizing figures and line-breaking formulas that will be dropped after the referee comments.


Is providing an unpublished dataset worthy of coauthorship? I’m working on a paper and I realized I do not have an adequate dataset (for reference, this is in a subfield of machine learning), nor do I have the time to personally go and create one. A colleague and friend of mine offered to collect the data and give it to me, as it would be useful as a benchmark for some of his own experiments later.

In this case, “collecting data” means finding and equipping participants with technology to monitor them perform a simple task for a brief amount of time (5 min).

Since this colleague is a personal friend whom I’ve worked with in the past, I have no qualms about listing him as a coauthor (and will most certainly do so, unless it is unethical for some reason). I am curious as to the general case of whether providing someone with an unpublished dataset is insufficient, sufficient or should guarantee coauthorship. I should emphasise that in my field, data is not something that begets the results but rather serves as a test to determine if a proposed technique or algorithm is well-suited to the task outlined by the data.

To put it simply: is providing data enough of a contribution to warrant coauthorship? Would it be unethical to list someone as a coauthor if they only created the dataset?

The Vancouver protocol gives authorship according to the following criteria:

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
Final approval of the version to be published; AND
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

So collecting data fulfills the first criteria. Therefore, the nice thing to do is to offer a co-authorship for your colleague. It is then up to him or her to decide whether he or she would like participate, which would entail fulfilling the other three criteria as well.

In this case, “collecting data” means finding and equipping participants with technology to monitor them perform a simple task for a brief amount of time (5 min).

Be careful not to underestimate the amount of time needed to recruit participants. The recruiter usually has to write several emails and advertisements, answer phone calls, brief and debrief the participants, prepare and take written informed consents, etc.
In answer to the comment, if your colleague accepts the co-authorship, ask him or her to write about the data collection, participants, motivation and possible limitations of the test, how the results can be interpreted and so on. Machine learning that matters should communicate something back to problem domain. This would be sufficient to fulfill the second Vancouver criteria.
Anyway, some fields have very different conventions, so your mileage may vary.


Searching for remotely working industrial Scholarship For university department Students I am biomedical Engineering student and CEO(chief executive officer) member of one new Medical device manufacturing Company (from third world countries), we have here many Students with no specific purpose and Experience in manufacturing some simple medical devices (such as Dental Vacuum former) with long time surfers and know if the university student of this field can want to do this works they have may problem to solving (like needs to multitasking designing, finding funds, market knowledge and ...).

So Two days ago, One of my University Professors said that there are some Scholarship  via internet which are between industrial or university organization based of their needs that could be done by remotely workers and no need to move from my base country.

Based of my working field and some other concerns (like money and ... !!!), I like to know more about this kind of Scholarship.

Specifically, about how could we create this kind of corporation between those Scholarship Investors and my University Biomedical Engineering Department with some goals like using  developing some of our industrial planes (Like Rehabilitation Exoskeleton designing or Step Climber Wheelchair ...) with sharing them with others organization with multi side benefit agreement? (Creating money for our university, Students and our company and ...)

I have read some answers to post like this:

  One of the hardest parts of remote collaboration is making sure
  everyone is on the same page. Agreeing on work flow in advance is
  critical. To me the most important thing is that everyone has a good
  understanding of the roles and expectations of the individuals. A good
  timeline, that is flexible, is also very useful. Agreeing upon
  software, programming, and writing style issues at the outset is also
  useful.

So thought this kind of works needs to have some more specific requirements and some symmetric searching fields between universities Professors and the second part, So I be happy to hear more about those.

I  know A little about the available platform for this kind of works (like GitHub and git) and eager to know your experiences in this field as well as you suggested measures to establish such partnerships in the absence of them.

I thought I can ask this question here based of this kind of question (What are useful tips and tricks for collaborating remotely?) and thought by myself maybe some university professors or student which involved on this kind of scholarship and hope to ... if this is off topic please advise me to Edit my Question to be more this forum oriented.

I really appreciate your help. Thank you.

@moha_alpha-web.net,
Do you mean Remote base work for Student, like an Intern? Right.
If so, I will like to recommend some website to you whereby you can get a different type of remote job;
Like:
Remotely.com,
outreachy.com,
Landingjob.com,
vanhack.com,

I will like to know if you find any help with this.


How do you actually select colleges for Ph.D. application If I have to pick 5 to 6 colleges to apply for a Ph.D. program, how do I go about it?
If I find the work that a CS professor at let's say UC Davis to be interesting. How do I actually know if I have a realistic chance of getting in? I cannot reach out to the professor and ask him if he will let me be a Ph.D. student in his lab because he hasn't seen my transcripts, read my LORs, or doesn't know me at all. If I write him an email, in all likelihood, he will just ignore my email.
At the same time, I cannot ask my recommenders if I have a chance of being accepted at UC Davis. Because (a) They don't know what the other recommenders will write in their letter. (b) They might not know exactly, what sort of profile gets admitted at UC Davis. (c) It's been 3.5 years since I graduated with a Master's degree and 6 years since I graduated with a Bachelors. People might not even recognize who I am, let alone write me a letter of recommendation.
Applying to colleges costs money. Also, people who write me a LOR, have to upload their LOR to each place where I am applying to. If I am applying to colleges way out of my league, I will be wasting my time as well as the time of the people who would write me a LOR.
So my question is, how do you find colleges that are in your league.

I spoke with a few professors for informational talks and they helped me find professors doing research of interest.  One professor I spoke with, I mentioned my research interests and she gave me a list of all the professors who do that research and their schools.  That ended up being the list of schools I applied to.  The most important thing for acceptance into a PhD program is a professor who wants to work with you (and ideally willing to fund you).  I would say base where you apply on the professor(s) in a program you'd like to work with based on topic AND personality. Also, when reaching out to professors for informational meetings please do some research on them.  I find it frustrating when I have potential students reach out who clearly haven't done a basic review of my research area. When I was applying I would normally check the website out before writing an email and then read the abtracts of 1-3 papers that interested me before I met with them.


PhD interview advice! I have received an invitation to interview for a PhD position and have been asked to present past/current research in a 10 minute presentation. I am currently doing a masters but am more comfortable talking about a past research project - I was wondering if the committee would expect or ask me why I have chosen to not present my current masters research work?
Additionally, I am confused about the amount of raw data to include in my presentation. Do they want to see the big picture rather than the nitty gritty raw data? I don't think it would be possible to include all the data I have collected in 10minutes, would it be acceptable to say "we did X and saw Y, but I haven't shown the data here for the sake of time"?
Additionally, some of the experiments have some design flaws in them, should I acknowledge and explain the flaws and point out what could have been done to get better data or not show these figures and change focus/skim over them?
Thank you!

As a member of my department's graduate admissions committee, I have been participating in a bunch of interviews, just like what you are describing, this very month.  We invite the prospective students to give a brief talk, ten to fifteen minutes, about a project they have done in the past, at the beginning of each interview.
Sometimes, students who are currently in master's programs talk about earlier work they did (usually from their times as undergraduates), rather than their current thesis work.  I don't see anything negative about this, and I don't think the other committee members do either.  So I think you will be fine talking about an earlier project—although don't be surprised if there are some general questions about your more recent work.
The goal of an admissions intervew is to show what you know and your level of familiarity with research.  The faculty interviewers are evaluating the students they talk with for their potential; they are not specifically evaluating their current research work.  Showing a lot of detailed data is not necessary and may even be counterproductive, since it may draw attention away from the big picture of what you are trying to convey—which is that you know your field and will be able to do good research in that field.  If there were problems with your earlier experiments, you can explain that and use that explanation as a way to show that you understand the difficulties that are encountered in research; if you can explain how those problems could be fixed—even if you are not going to be able to implement those fixes yourself—that can be a very good way to demonstrate research competency and maturity.


Likelihood of being admitted to a top 10 CS PhD program? Summary

I'm currently an undergraduate student at a university in the UK that's ranked in the top 10 universities worldwide by both Times Higher Education and QS. I'm in my final year of a 4-year undergraduate program that culminates with a Masters degree in CS.

A brief summary of my academic experience is as follows:

I have a 3.51 GPA (according to the UK-US conversion from https://www.scholaro.com/gpa-calculator) that is the culmination of both coursework and about 24 exams thus far.
In my top 3 exams, I achieved grades over 80% (considered impressive, as 70% is the minimum needed to get a first-class grade) although in 3 exams, I've also achieved grades in the 40-49% region. Although, bear in mind that these exams where I performed extremely poorly, two occurred in my first year and one in my second year.
At the end of my second year, I spent time over the summer working as an undergraduate research assistant in the CS dept. on a project that did not go badly, but also did not result in any published academic papers.
I'm currently starting out my Masters thesis on an exciting project that has the potential to result in a publication depending on how good my work is.

At my university, exams are what make up the bulk of your final grade - followed by your Masters thesis and then your overall coursework average over the 4 years. My exams thus far are actually quite unimpressive, as most people in my cohort are obtaining firsts and the very best are obtaining averages close to (and some even above) 80%. For reference, my average is just over 64%.

Factors that are leading me to seriously question whether I should do a PhD, despite my interest in research:

The aim of undergraduate courses is to imbue students with a basic understanding of fundamental topics, and I have demonstrated quite mediocre performance in a sizeable portion of these courses.
I come from a demographic that is severely underrepresented in STEM and generates a very, very low quantity of total scientific knowledge in STEM. I can count on one hand the number of computer scientists I know about who (1) work in the sub-field of CS that I'm interested in (machine learning), and (2) come from a similar demographic to me. I do not think that I am "special" and given this empirical evidence, it appears to me that people with a background similar to mine may not have the right skill-set to be successful scientists. Note that I cannot explain why this is the case, I'm simply taking a "outside view" of the situation and making inferences based on what I observe (Daniel Kahneman explains the utility of the method here: Daniel Kahneman: Beware the Inside View).
My position, based on my academic performance and research experience thus far, is that I do not currently stand a chance of being a successful scientist in the near future. If I am not a successful scientist, it is unlikely that I will obtain a promising research-oriented job in a country with high scientific output in STEM (e.g. US, UK, Canada, etc.). Consequently, I would likely have to return to my home country - a developing country - where, due to the lack of resources and poor levels of education, I would be unable conduct high-impact STEM research and so my PhD would simply go to waste.

Note that my aim is not simply to "get a PhD", but rather to obtain a high confidence estimate of the likelihood that I would be a successful scientist.

I'm currently in a Computer Science PhD program in Canada, and from my point of view you have a few misconceptions.

Getting into a top school is not necessary to be a successful researcher. Your advisor will have far greater impact on your research output than the choice of school. "Top" schools often have famous professors, who will take on many graduate students and have little time for them individually.
Your demographic does not matter, and it may in fact strengthen your application, if schools have equity programs.
If you manage to get into a grad school, your performance in undergrad isn't necessarily a good indicator of your research abilities. Memorization and exams are  big in undergrad, but hold little weight in grad school. Writing ability, communication skills, and the ability to perform self directed research are far more important.

I would find a school that has a few professors you'd be interested in working with and apply. The worst that happens is you don't get in.


Approach the professors about making the course more "relevant" I'm currently studying Industrial Engineering in Spain, one of the broadest degrees here that includes the subjects of Calculus, Fluid Mechanics, Electronics, Materials and Programming in C, among others.

However, there's one subject, Introduction to Computers, that I think has an outdated course. While this is a personal opinion, I do some extracurricular projects based on robotics (electronics + programming) and I see that there's a huge difference between the subject and what is being used in the industry.

In this subject we are being taught really low level computer operations and iteration, learning how to reinvent a wheel that probably no one of us will ever need to reinvent in our career.

How should I approach the professors about making the course oriented to the current years? I know I will not benefit from it, but at least my fellow mates would. As most courses here, it was probably written 15/20 years ago and hasn't changed much in the time being. Besides that, another related question would be, is teaching outdated material the norm in most universities?

A small example of what I mean: We had a programming exam with the Outdated LibraryTM, in which I decided to write the function map() as found in arduino. This made my code much easier to program/debug and faster to write. Most of the other students don't know something like this is even possible and need to go over each individual operation manually to map the different conversions.

There is always some tension between teaching considerations in computer science and other fast-moving technology fields, and modern practice.

Since the field itself moves so fast, it is not necessarily desirable for a computer science course to really be up-to-date. Even if you taught students up-to-the-minute programming libraries and paradigms in their freshman CS101 course, by the time they graduate, many of these libraries will be outdated anyways. Furthermore, developing new course materials (or updating existing materials) takes a considerable amount of time and effort.

Also, modern programming paradigms are often too complicated to introduce to complete beginners. A deliberate decision is often made to miss out on "up-to-date" in favor of "simple for newbies."

The usual goal, therefore, is to teach students fundamental ideas and concepts that are timeless. The context in which these ideas are taught will probably become outdated pretty quickly. It's understood that students won't use this specific context again, because it'll be obsolete by the time they graduate; the hope is that the ideas stick, so that the students can understand the new programming paradigms they will be expected to learn on their own in the workforce.

For example:

  ASCII is dying, replaced mostly by its vastly more complicated superset, UTF-8. But UTF-8 would be crazy to teach in full, with all its byte-stuffing practices that mean different characters take different numbers of bytes, and all the combining characters and normalisation and so on. ASCII has the fundamental idea of characters-as-numbers, which is a useful (and timeless) principle, even if the exact encoding itself is getting more complicated.

Source: Teaching programming: Modern or Educational?

Having said that,

This seems "stupid" and is demotivating to students who are aware of current practices
In practice, teaching ideas and concepts is more difficult than teaching specific technologies and syntax. So often students miss out on learning the "timeless" ideas - which were really the whole point of the lesson.

In answer to What can you do about it?

You can certainly tell the professor, "I did XYZ as part of my project, and I think it would be interesting to share with the rest of the class." I often supplement my "fundamental" courses with "modern" concepts, and I love when these supplements come from the students themselves!

You can always ask the professor, "How is concept ABC used in practice, today?" I love getting this question from students - it gives me an opening to talk about fun stuff :)

But understand that teaching outdated material is the norm in many cases. There are good reasons for this; there are also good reasons not to do this. It's a difficult balance to strike.


Is it legal to run interviews for an academic job when the post has already being assigned? The normal UK process to hire new academic staff would be:

The position is placed on job adverts, websites, specialized magazines
The curricula and forms from prospective candidates are collected
A filter is applied and a short-list produced
The short-list candidates sit in a workbench for an interview
The position is assigned to the most qualified candidate

I happen to know of a case where the position is already assigned, but the job avert has been published, so it should be open to all candidates. Since the position has already been assigned, steps 2 through 4 are a waste of time and paperwork as other responding candidates will not be seriously considered.

Is this superfluous search process legal?

In many cases, academic institutions will be legally obliged to fill positions according to the procedure you described. This usually requires publishing a call for applications in a suitable medium, and putting together a short list of selected candidates based on qualification for the position and fit to the announcement.

Now there may be the "problem" that the person or group that will select the candidate already has a specific candidate in mind and want to "assign" the position to that candidate. However, simply hiring that candidate without going through the formal process would in fact be illegal. So the typical workaround in this case is to make the announcement so specific that the desired candidate will be the best qualified person for the position. It may be ethically questionable, but I fear it is totally legal.

Still, even for other candidates, this approach seems to be better than allowing the institution to just fill the position without the formal process. Especially if there is a committee deciding on the short list, this may even be different from the group that made up the announcement, and there may be people pushing for candidates they deem more qualified than the originally desired candidate. Chances for other candidates will clearly be rather low, but still higher than zero as in the case without announcement.

As to the question whether it is possible to find out about such a situation in advance, I fear it is not that easy. It works best when one has good contacts to people in the committee, and can ask informally about the situation. Otherwise, a reasonable approach would be to phone a contact given in the announcement and discuss details of the position. In many cases, one should be able to figure out whether the other person is open to applications or not.


Applying to informal call for PhD students My question is about PhD positions in computer science, in EU (non UK) countries. In many cases, websites of research groups/professors advertise PhD positions with something like: "We are constantly looking for talented PhD students to join our group. Feel free to contact me anytime. Include your CV, grades and references.".

My questions are: How early should I apply to such positions, relative to the expected starting date of my PhD studies? How polished should such an application be? Should I prepare all material like letters of recommendation before contacting for such a position?

I suggest you contact them with a letter of interest as soon as you can. You should have a CV and a SoP in good shape, but you probably have a short time to refine it if they show interest. Letters and such can probably be safely delayed for a bit until everyone is serious.

But, since they ask for references, names will probably do for the moment. But you should contact those people so they know that a formal request is forthcoming.

But, if this is an informal sort of thing, rather than a formal application, you can probably ramp up the details as they emerge.

It is a good idea, of course, to keep your CV up to date at all times. It is painful to have to put one together quickly and you are likely to forget some important things.

I'm assuming this is pretty much a universal thing. Not limited to EU. In some places, I think including the EU, applications often start and sometimes end with a PI. So, it isn't wise to be too informal.


How can you get to do a Short Oral Presentation at the International Congress of Mathematicians? I am wondering, how hard or competitive is it to obtain a slot for short oral presentation(20-minute talk) at the International Congress of Mathematicians?

Generally, how many slots are allotted for such presentation?

Short answer:  I don't know, I've never been on an Organizing Committee.

Long answer:  You likely can look at statistics for attendance versus
capacity of venue.  At the last few  International Congresses I have attended, usually there are about 2000 or more from the host country, and anywhere from 1000 to 2000 from other countries.  There are about 20 plenary lectures, about 150 invited lectures,
about 1000 Oral Communications and not quite as many posters.  Also some interesting
prize lectures, roundtables, and a few other items.
(I am doing this from memory.  I don't think attendance has surpassed 5000 lately,
but I won't guarantee it.  I could be off on any of the numbers by a factor of 2, but I don't think so.)

I have submitted abstracts for short communications since 1994, and have had them
accepted in all but one case (and in that case there were facilities for last minute "impromptu" sessions: the organizers kindly let me have a slot for one of those).  My unscientific guess is that the rejection rate is determined mostly by capacity, and that about half the local attendees and more than half of the non-local attendees submit abstracts, which would lead to about 2500 petitions for 2000 slots.  My estimate of the population whose desire to satisfy vanity overcomes their fear of public speaking  would suggest that 2000 petitions are for oral communication, and so roughly half are filled.

FUZZY DATA:  I submitted two abstracts this year, one a week or so before the first deadline and one a few days afterward, possibly after the first and before the extended deadline.  They were given designation numbers below 1900;  this supports my guesstimates.

LESS FUZZY DATA: at this writing, about one month before the 2014 Congress, registrations are pouring in and number near 2900.  There are almost 500 posters accepted and a little over 700 short communications, with some designation  numbers reaching over 2300.  Not substantive, but if the code numbers reflect submissions, this would imply an acceptance rate near 7 out of 24 for oral
presentations, and a little less than half for all presentations.  Off by less than an order of magnitude.


How can an author get assurance that his work will not be stolen by journal staff or reviewers? Suppose some author provides his original research article to a journal for publication. In this way, he is disclosing or revealing his confidential research work to that journal. Now, consider the case that his article gets rejected. So, is it not possible that whoever reviews that article can publish that kind of work and say that it's theirs? Since the original author's work has not been published and he is disclosing his confidential work to somebody, how could the author get assurance that if his article is rejected, his work will not be leaked by the journal staff in any form? What happens if this kind of thing happens?

It is unlikely that a reviewer or other participant in the peer review process will outright steal the work he/she is reviewing and publish it as original work, because it is easy to get caught.

If the "real" author of the work accuses the thief of plagiarism, the editor of the journal can verify that the work was originally submitted by the "real" author before it was published by the rogue reviewer.  (Also see: What to do if a referee plagiarises the result after rejecting a paper?)

If the rogue reviewer is caught, the paper will be retracted (which is damaging to his professional reputation) and there may also be other consequences for the reviewer. See e.g. this recent example.


Can I withdraw from the poster session? I submitted my paper to ICANN2016 conference in which we could choose among the possible options of "poster" and "oral" presentation at the submission time. I submitted for the oral category and received the acceptance notice as a "full paper" to be in the proceedings, but no info on the type of presentation (oral/poster).

Then I registered as they requested to do so before the deadline, but later on, when the conference program become revealed on the website I noticed that I am placed in one of the poster sessions and even in a so "irrelevant" session!

Honestly I become less motivated to participate in the conference as I've heard that the posters are mostly a way the organizers try to compensate the conference expenses (they have 80 posters in the conference). And the chances of getting noticed or getting any useful feedback on my work can be so subtle!
Also not to mention that in the review feedback there was no detail about the review process which could be considered as useful feedback on my work. Just a simple general comment like "the work is so solid, technical and great.."

So I came to a sort of conclusion that I already wasted my publication by submitting it to the conference!

Also I was wondering if I can withdraw from participation and ask my payment back? considering that they didn't mention the type of the presentation in the acceptance notice, and also the fact that I chose the oral presentation in the submission.

This is very, very common. At most conferences, there are simply not enough time slots for everyone to give an oral presentation. Conferences still tend to be way too long most of the time with way too many "less important" presentations between "interesting" ones anyway.
Posters can be a very efficient way of communicating your results and connecting with other researchers important to you. You are not "wasting" your paper by presenting a poster. And you will attend other's presentations and can engage in the discussions. So I don't really agree with your conclusion.

It's understandable that you are disappointed. However, while it is totally up to you, your decision on whether to participate should not depend on a potential resentment of being "rejected" from an oral presentation. Base your decision on whether to go on who you think you might get to know, and who might be there who could benefit from your results. Prepare a great poster. Have handouts ready. Approach people directly, start to network actively.

Whether or not you might receive any money back highly depends on the specific event and the local organizing committee. You can ask. But at this stage I would say it's unlikely.


Is it possible to get into Psychology research after a PhD in HCI (human computer interaction)? I'm very interested in psychology research, especially exploring patterns and reason of behaviour, and mechanisms of human mind. During my PhD, I spent considerable amount of time exploring cognitive and neuropsychology literature, and conducted quite a few behavioural and user studies. I'm very confident of my skills in designing experiments and statistics.

My questions are:

Is it possible to be employed by a psychology department merely with
these skills and knowledge?
Should I rather try other types of jobs
which could compromise between my interest and skills?

A little bit more about my background: I did one-year taught master course in psychology, but both my undergraduate and PhD were in computer science departments.

I've met people who were Computer Science PhDs and actually were part of Psychology departments.

If you did HCI, I think it gets harder to do Psychology, after all is a whole study area by itself, since yours was more specific.

My advice would be to find a laboratory that has both of them, and that way you can get involved in some projects so you can learn other things about psychology

I do not presume to know about the filed, but I'm guessing there are multiple laboratories that might have a psychologist as well as a computer scientists.

Essentially, build up your creed as a Psychologist by going somewhere where there is interaction between the two fields.


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

Let's further assume that you've waited long enough (say, 1 month), tried to give them editor a call, but got no response at all.

Is it the managing editor's (= your) responsibility to replace the editor for the paper? And is it your task to get him/her off the editorial board?  What is the typical in the field of computer science?

Yes, a managing editor (which I'm using as a term synonymous to "editor-in-chief" etc - basically members of the editorial board with more responsibility) can replace the editor assigned to a paper or remove them from the editorial board.

Perhaps the more pertinent question is: if the managing editor doesn't do it, who will?

The editor is not going to remove himself/herself from the editorial board - after all they're already inactive.
The publisher is not likely to do anything without approval from the editorial board. In special circumstances they can, but doing so is a nuclear option that will leave a lot of bad feelings among the remaining editors and is therefore usually avoided.
Obviously the authors and the peer reviewers can't do anything about it.

Therefore the managing editor must do it. Nobody else will.


How to reference/link to an online code repository, whose location may change in the future We are about to publish a paper in PLOS One Computational Biology about an algorithm that we developed. The code will be open-source on GitLab and we want include some obvious way of finding it.

It is suggested here that one should include the link to the code repository directly in the article (ideally the abstract). I think this makes a lot of sense.

However, I am a bit hesitant, because the location of the code might change in the future.

Are there any good ways to work around this? (such as e.g. redirection service, where I could update the URL; perhaps especially for academic work)

Or is there another way of addressing this, such as revising the manuscript (like I said, it is PLOS One).

The first thing to check is whether your institution already has a policy for this. Mine for example maintains both a GitLab instance and a database of software written by research teams. We can use to the first for permanent links, since they are institutional. The second feeds directly into our annual reports.

If there is no policy, but there is an institutional Git service, then it is usually possible to create a repository specifically for your project (if your team doesn't already have one). I recommend creating a specific project, rather than mixing in with your personal project: it costs nothing more, and provides the best long-term stability. You can always update the README for the project or the repository to point to a different one, later on.

If there is neither, then you could create a specific project on gitlab.com (or equivalent). Same recommendation as above: create a specific project to contain the repository (again, unless your team already has one).

You mentioned PLoS Computational Biology so possibly there might be some experimental data or analytical output that you would like to provide. A Git service isn't appropriate for this, even with LFS, but an open archive like Zenodo is an excellent choice.

As a final note, if your project happens to be funded by the EU, then it should already have a data management policy.


Dropping a co-convener from the list? I propose a session every year in an International conference in USA with 3 more co-conveners and maximum 4 are allowed including me. I am thinking to drop one of them in this year and assign a new member in the list. Although I manage everything from writing the proposal until chairing the session, but still I feel awkward to drop anyone from this list. But I have also no other option, as I need to add a new member. Now following two questions are striking me:
1- Because the title and proposal are same as previous years, is it
ethical to drop one who was already a co-convener of the same
session since last 5 years?
2- How to inform the one that you won't
be in the list this year?

Conveners change. After five years, surely change is expected. Dropping one of your co-conveners is a little suspect though, it suggests an individual is at fault. I recommend dropping several co-conveners and having a more radical re-shuffle.

Because the title and proposal are same as previous years, is it ethical to drop one who was already a co-convener of the same session since last 5 years?

Assuming you have no agreement, then, yes, it is ethical to drop and add co-conveners. Journals and conferences typically work this way.

How to inform the one that you won't be in the list this year?

That's been partly answered elsewhere on this site and is partly dependent on your individual circumstances.


How to enhance my use of Google Scholar? I would like to enhance my use of Google Scholar. Specifically, I am looking for functionalities I do not know whether they exist.

Is it possible to "follow" a specific paper? I would like Google Scholar to notice every time some other works quote this paper, as I consider they relate strongly to my Ph.D. dissertation.
Is it possible to get noticed every time specific journals publish papers that include defined keywords in their title or abstract?

I am curious about all the enhanced uses you can have of Google Scholar. If they are extra options, which notably help watching new publication on specific topics, I would be pleased to know them.

No, you cannot follow specific papers or journal-level keywords on Google Scholar; you can only follow researcher profiles.
However, there are other databases that support such a functionality.
Alert for specific keyword-searches in journals
For instance, on Web of Science, you can set an e-mail alert for your search keywords. Using their Advanced Search Options, you can design your keywords such that you only search in specific journals and only in their Abstracts and Titles. After you have done your search, click on Create an alert in the left menu.

The same applies to Scopus where the option is named Set alert:

Alert for specific papers
On Web of Science, click on a search result or publication. On the right-hand side, under the heading 'Citation Network' you can click on Create Citation Alert:

In Scopus, the same function can be found as Set citation alert.

Or on ResearchGate, you can get alerts for citations to specific papers by clicking Follow:


Assessing students in exams with negative points? I've seen that some math teachers design tests which punish errors with negative points.

Why do they assign negative points?  What are some pedagogical reasons why teachers might do this?

Grade that goes below zero doesn't make sense.

What makes you say that?  In some real-world scenarios, thinking you know the answer and being wrong is worse than realizing you don't know.  For example, I'd rather have my doctor or lawyer recognize when something goes beyond their expertise, so I can consult a specialist rather than following mistaken advice.  I imagine the same is true for most professionals, such as engineers.

If not answering at all yields a grade of zero, then it's reasonable to award negative points for a truly bad answer.  (Of course an insightful but flawed answer may still deserve a positive score, just not as high as the correct answer.)

In practice the most common case I've seen negative scores used is multiple choice exams, for the reason given by GeneMachine, but one can make a philosophical case for applying them much more broadly.


My fears and resentment about my supervisor I have now submitted my thesis. My advisor didn't help me at all during this 3 and half years time. My thesis hasn't been read properly and I fear about the outcome. Unfortunately the culture of my school is not something where you can change things but nothing I can do except getting on with it.

I will feel burdened If I see my supervisor's name with my papers the ones I will get out of this PhD. She hasn't contributed anything than only accepting me to do this project. I also worry she has hand on my data and she can use it for her own publication once I get out of the University.

So I would like to ask, Are these just my own fears or is it something I really deal with it? Has it happened with someone else too? What are the strategies I should adopt?
Thanks for help!

Many supervisors do not help their PhD students (I do not have statistics, obviously, but experience from different universities and research areas). These students often feel lost and also unsure about their PhD thesis. At least in Germany it is not uncommon that PhD students who have these kinds of supervisors drop out or take exceptionally long for their PhD.

I think the best you can do in such a situation is to get help from other sides (often difficult), and if this does not work out you should finish as quick (and as good) as possible and leave that particular environment.

It is unlikely that you'll fail if you submitted a proper PhD thesis. It is also unlikely that your supervisor will directly use your data or results if she is not really involved in your research. She might give them to the next PhD student, but you (as a postdoc) will probably be much more experienced so that it is unlikely that this PhD student publishes something you also tried to do.

So, I would not worry too much but look for a better place for your future research.


What is the purpose of using your initials instead of your full name in oral presentations and when is it appropriate I noticed during some conference talks that some presenters use their initials rather than their full names on some presentationn slides. Specifically I noticed this when they show name-labeled photos of their teams or have slides where they highlight key contributors to a broader scientific field.

I'm not sure whether this is a cultural quirk (I did't catch any pattern regarding nationality), a means to draw attention towards your research team (it seems to be more common for team leaders and professors) or just a boastful way of understatement (since everybody knows who "X.X." is).

Additionally, is  doing this appropriate and/or advisable for an (under)grad student and if so, in what context?

The convention in mathematics is to use your last initial during talks when citing your own work. Probably it seems a little vainglorious as well as unnecessary to write out your entire name. There's no reason undergraduate/graduate students shouldn't participate in the same conventions as more experienced researchers.


What should I do about my previous self-plagiarism? I came across the question "Attitudes towards self-plagiarism" on this site, which asks whether it is OK to reuse text from your own papers without quotation formatting. It seems the answer is no. I didn't know this and I have in fact done this in the past, before I even heard the term "self-plagiarism."

Here is the precise situation: I wrote and published paper A. Then I kept working in the same area and I extended the results, so I decided to write paper B two years later. When writing paper B, I started by taking paper A and editing it. Consequently, much of the text in paper B is directly copied from paper A. In particular, many paragraphs in the introduction, related work, and background sections are either identical or lightly edited. There is no indication which sentences are copied and which are not.

Of course, paper B clearly explains the difference between the results of paper B and the results of paper A. In particular, paper B solves an open problem posed in paper A. As far as content goes, there is no problem, in the sense that, if I had rewritten the copied parts, there would be no problem.

When I did this, I didn't know it was considered bad practise. I figured that, since the motivation, related work, and background for both papers is  essentially the same, there was no point in writing paper B from scratch, given that paper A had already covered these things.

What should I do about this (if anything)? I don't think I did anything malicious, but it seems this is not acceptable.

This following response is highly personal and does not claim universality: it is my personal 2 cents, and my opinion is that your approach sounds perfectly fine. You do not claim other people's results as your own and you do not claim previous results of yours as novel.

I do not know where this fashion that one has to rewrite everything from scratch comes from, even unchanged aspects in a new paper. Perhaps it comes from humanities where language and formulation is central. But in technical topics it does - in my personal opinion - not really make sense to reformulate obvious intro sections; as little as it makes sense to rewrite code for which there is a library.

Personally, I like to rewrite even intro material sections because I do not like to bore my readers that have read other papers of mine, and also I sometimes discover novel aspects just by writing. However, as long as above conditions of 1. attribution and 2. clearly delineated novelty are fulfilled, I would not join in a negative judgement about repeated sections.


Letter of Recommendation/Reference Protocols I have a few questions about letters of recommendation for graduate school. I'll include my current situation, as I'm not sure what is relevant and what is not. I'm entering my fourth year of my bachelors in math, but I may stay an extra couple semesters to finish my minor (I also had a small setback, so doing the degree in 4 years wasn't entirely possible). I'll be applying for grad school in math. Here are my questions:

Can you ask a Prof to give a letter of reference to more than one university? For example, lets say that each school I apply to requires 3 letters of reference. Then, if I were to apply to 3 grad schools, would I need 9 distinct professors to ask for letters?
Do I get to see the letters which are sent?
There is one Prof who I've taken a course under, and I did well in his class. During that term, I showed an interest in the material, but I also think he does not like me (well, I'm not sure). This may or may not be the case, but let's say it is. Would it be unwise to ask this person for a letter?

Thanks.

Yes. It's quite typical to ask each prof to write a letter for each school you apply to. Indeed, you almost certainly want to do this. Be sure to take care of all the paperwork beforehand, pre-address envelopes if any applications use snail mail, etc. so he/she doesn't have to.
No.
Hard to say. I'd find someone else in your department (who knows the prof in question) to ask. Good luck!


Is it reasonable to purchase a professionally designed logo/brand for a research group? I have seen a few research groups that have a "stylized" look, including a logo/slide template that is used by the PI and his/her students.  [My particular research area is adjacent to computer graphics, which may explain this.]  I'm told that some groups even pay for a graphic designer to establish a "brand" of sorts.

My own artistic ability is severely limited, so any logo I design will be unattractive at best!

Is it worth spending money on design of these sorts of materials when starting to establish my own research group?  If so, how much?  Which services are the best?  What is a reasonable policy?

I feel like this isn't a good use of research resources, but I understand that a coherent "brand" might help a group in the long run.

Doing this as soon as you start your research group seems a bit premature, but for a somewhat established group, having some sort of corporate identity is actually quite important:

For other researchers, it is just easier to remember the "Developer Liberation Front" than that "software engineering research group led by Emerson". And, like it or not, being remembered is core in having impact.
Internally, having a consistent identity to which all group members mentally subscribe to helps build team spirit. It is easy to get lost in your own PhD project and feel isolated. Having a corporate identity is just one small puzzle piece towards tying all individual theses into a larger context.

  [from O.R. Mapper's comment] a list of opportunities where you think you might realistically be using that logo?

We apply our logo and general identity very widely. We use it on all websites, presentations, posters, and reports coming out of our team. We have printed coffee mugs and t-shirts (when a large part of the team goes to a conference, we sometimes all show up in the same group-themed shirt). We maintain a Facebook site, a Wordpress blog, and a Twitter handle.

  how much [should I spend]? Which services are the best? What is a reasonable policy?

In design, there is a particularly wide range of "professional". Is paying an artistically inclined student a small sum "professional"? Is using the aforementioned Fiverr professional? Or do you only count if at least a 4-digit sum is changing hands?

In this range, for research groups just like for anybody else, the right "price" should be "the cheapest option that still works for you". If you can find somebody who does a nice logo for free or close to free, go for it. If you can make these cheap Web services work well enough, go for it. If you can't produce a nice logo in any other way, use the service of a local designer (it's still better than not having a logo at a certain point).

When you get a guilty conscience about spending research money badly, then keep in mind that even a small 4-digit sum (about the max. I would spend, personally) is in the larger context of a research group budget not a very big deal. One word of warning, though - typically, not all budgets can be used for something like a group logo (e.g., you clearly can't take it out of your travel budget). Make sure that you actually have a budget that allows you to pay for something like this before you spend the money.


Applying for an MPhil or PhD in Computer Science at Cambridge University I am an MSc Computer Science student in UK. I love to study and I would like to apply for a competitive place. I'm interested in Cambridge PhDs, but I have no previous experience in research (except for the BSc Thesis, which I wrote after a 5-months internship in University).

I've found that Cambridge has an advanced degree, called MPhil, which could work as a starting point for a PhD.

Does anyone here know something about MPhils, and their differences with Masters and PhD?
Would it be a reasonable idea to seek for a PhD at Cambridge, spending one year more with a MPhil?

I hope someone can give me some information,
Thanks to all,

C.

The MPhil in Advanced Computer Science is designed as a preparation course for the PhD, so yes, it is absolutely normal to apply for the MPhil with the intention to apply for a PhD while there. Being there also gives you the opportunity to get to know your potential PhD supervisor better. And you can get support from the Computer Lab and your college during the application process.

The degree itself is comparable to a single year of a two year master's programme. I recommend not to just apply "to Cambridge" but to spot the group or even the advisor you would like to work with. The Computer Lab is great for some fields, but not ideal for others, because as any department they cannot have a research group on every subject.


How can we justify basic research funding? Definitions: Basic science is research conducted without immediate applications in mind. It is driven by the "curiosity [...] to expand [humanity's] knowledge, not to create or invent something." Applied science, on the other hand, is conducted to "solve practical problems of the world, rather than acquire knowledge for knowledge's sake," or to "improve the human condition."

Edit (as per JeffE's suggestion): Let us define 'we' as academics, and 'to whom' as questioners ranging from grad students experienced with research, to sponsors familiar with research, and to the general public (friends, family, etc.) in fields outside of research.

Question: How can we justify funding for basic research? In other words, how can we justify maintaining the status quo for (or even increasing) the funding of research without immediate applications?

Why address this question?

Over the past 10 years internationally, funding in both the public and private sectors for basic research has been decreasing. In 2014, Canada cut funding for basic science in 2014* to "place a new emphasis on applied research."

Likewise, Austrian researchers reported in 2011 of a popular opinion in their country "to [avoid investing] in costly basic research when the results of other countries’ basic research are [...] available without charge."

Finally, a 2014 article in Nature reported of basic funding cuts in favour of "a focus on applied research [...] in Argentina, Canada, Denmark, [France], Italy, Portugal, Russia, Senegal, Serbia, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States."

Outside of shaping policy, addressing this question can inspire graduate students who may be doubting the usefulness of their research, create an informative resource for undergrads considering a career in basic research**, and provide meaningful answers when asked by the general public (friends, family, journalists, etc.).

Explanatory footnotes:

*More precisely, the CIHR (Canadian Institute of Health and Research) reduced funding as Canada's "federal funding body for biomedical research." Another source by the CAUT (Canadian Association of University Teachers) reported that "federal support for basic research has slowed significantly over the past six years [2007-2013]."

**Interestingly, researchers of a study in The American Biology Teacher "designed an activity in which students take part in a mock grant panel [for disbursing funds for grant applications]. The results indicated a strong tendency toward student funding of applied medical research at the expense of basic research. Exposure to a few examples of important basic research moderates this tendency."

I split this answer into three sections by the type of source (peer-reviewed literature, Stack Exchange, and miscellaneous). Each source is followed by a quote and/or a short description.
I also included a summary of key takeaways at the end.
The Literature
Woods, N. N., Brooks, L. R. and Norman, G. R. (2005), The value of basic science in clinical diagnosis: creating coherence among signs and symptoms. Medical Education, 39: 107–112. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2929.2004.02036.x
This study investigated the relationship between basic science knowledge and skill in diagnosing relevant diseases. The researchers concluded the study by saying that:

[...] the study has shown that, in comparison with students who
learned conditional probabilities, students provided with a basic
science explanation for diagnostic categories were better able to
accurately diagnose cases after a delay.
A plausible explanation is
that the basic science information, because of its conceptual
coherence, was itself more memorable, and that it also provided a
means to reconstruct the features of individual disease categories
after the initial symptom lists had been forgotten.

Magne, F. (1993). Importance of basic research in applied phycology. Hydrobiologia, 260-261(1), 25-29. doi:10.1007/BF00048999
The section of the abstract below highlights what Magne views as the value of basic research in the applied study of algae (aka phycology).

It is noteworthy that [applied phycology] research can not avoid the
use of knowledge obtained by basic research; applied phycology is
especially indebted to basic research in adopting biotechnologies
which are typically coming from basic research.

Leander, C. A., & Whitton, J. (2010). Bling my research! A mock grant panel activity illustrating the importance of basic research. The American Biology Teacher, 72(5), 308+.
In a classroom activity, the researchers demonstrated the importance of basic research to first-year undergrads. In describing their methods, the researchers said:

First, show the class a photograph of a cancer cell
labeled "GFP." [...] Briefly
mention the leaps in understanding of cancer cell growth and cell
division that GFP has made possible. Introduce the students to [...] Osamu Shimomura, who [...] was hired to simply investigate why a dried jellyfish glowed
green when crushed. The resulting manuscript describing GFP gives no
hint to the future implications of this protein (Shimomura et al.,
1957), a discovery for which he would eventually share the Nobel Prize
in Chemistry in 2008.
Finally, [...] [m]ention the importance of sequencing in understanding
the evolution of HIV. [...] [I]ntroduce them to a profile of John Trela,
Alice Chien, and David Edgar, who discovered Taq polymerase during
basic research investigations. This discovery has earned billions of
dollars in royalties (Fore et al., 2006) yet was the unintentional
result of a basic research investigation into life at high
temperatures (Chien et al., 1976).

http://www.sjsu.edu/people/fred.prochaska/courses/ScWk170/s0/Basic-vs.-Applied-Research.pdf
Dr. George Smoot of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory said:

People cannot foresee the future well enough to predict what's going
to develop from basic research. If we only did applied research, we
would still be making better spears.

Stack Exchange
Asked by biotech on Biology Stack Exchange: "Why is knowledge of bacterial pathogenesis important?"
Chris♦ wrote a brilliant answer in the link above. Below is an excerpt:

The contributions of basic research is the basis for applied research
and drug design. Without them, this wouldn't work. Besides that it is
also the curiosity of humans which drives science - without having any
particular application in mind. These often come much later.

An answer  relevant to this question on Academia Stack Exchange: "How can a researcher improve his contribution to society?"
User eykanal♦ said:

[T]ry to take to heart that basic research is directly useful to
society. Almost all modern pharmacology is based on decades of
fundamental biochemistry and biology research. Materials science is
based on years of basic chemistry and physics research. Basic math
research fuels advances in all types of engineering, from signal
processing to computational work to structural engineering.

In a comment, user Anonymous Mathematician responded:

I think it's important to frame things as eykanal suggests [...]
message should be "basic research is of great value to society in the
long run, and here are some other things I do that have shorter-term
impact", rather than "here are some things I do to make up for the
fact that my research sounds abstract and useless".

https://mathoverflow.net/questions/175847/how-does-one-justify-funding-for-mathematics-research
A sequence of compelling arguments in support of pure mathematics research can be found in the link above on Math Overflow.
Miscellaneous
http://www.icsu.org/publications/icsu-position-statements/value-scientific-research/the-value-of-basic-scientific-research-dec-2004
A statement by the International Council of Science said:

Whilst an exclusive focus on application may have some merit in the
short-term, there are several reasons why neglecting basic research is
seriously flawed in the longer-term:

Basic and applied science are a continuum. They are inter-dependent.
The integration of basic and applied research is crucial to
problem-solving, innovation and product development.

Skilled scientists with a good understanding of the basic theories and practice [are required for the] successful transfer of scientific
knowledge.

Excessive dependency on scientific progress in other countries is
rarely likely to lead to the resolution of local problems. Countries
need to be able to generate their own scientific knowledge and adapt
this to their own local context and needs.

The practice of science is increasingly international and the
research agenda is set by those who participate. A country with no
basic scientific research capacity effectively excludes itself from
having any real influence on the future directions of science.

A secondary source by the AAAS on an MIT report (the link to the primary source appears to be broken) states:

"Basic research is often misunderstood, because it often seems to have
no immediate payoff," the MIT report says. "Yet it was just such
federally funded research into the fundamental working of cells,
intensified beginning with the 'War on Cancer' in 1971, that led over
time to a growing arsenal of sophisticated new anticancer therapies —
19 new drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the
past two years."
It adds, "Do we want similar progress on Alzheimer's, which already
affects five million Americans, more than any single form of cancer?
Then we should expand research in neurobiology, brain chemistry and
the science of aging."

A very similar question to this on Quora asked, "How do you explain the importance of basic/fundamental science to non-scientists?"
The most compelling answer to me by Marc Srour is quoted below:

I assume someone who needs to have the importance of fundamental
science explained to them doesn't care much for the "satisfying
curiosity and thirst for knowledge" aspect of science (which, to me
anyway, is the dominant one), so I jump straight to practicalities.
[...] [Y]ou can't predict the road
that science will take. Even if you try to only do applied sciences,
fundamental research will be needed to develop new tools and
methodologies, or else you'll just be running around in circles and
never getting any new developments.

In extension of Srour's attitude of doing basic research for basic research's sake, I'd like to quote an interpretation of the views of physicist Richard Feynman in a review by Chris Toumey of the University of South Carolina. Here, Toumey wrote:

The reason for [Feynman] doing science is to satisfy a curiosity about nature. [...] Too few people, he complained, understood "the emotions of awe,
wonder, delight and love which are evoked upon learning Nature's
ways…My lament is that a kind of intense beauty that I see given to me
by science, is seen by so few others" (24 October 1967).
In a 1959 television interview, [Feynman said]: "The reason that I do science…is…not the usual
motivation for helping human beings. The main motivation is the
curiosity and interest to find out about the world we're in" (pages
419-420). He easily conceded, of course, that scientists see the
consequences of their work, but he adamantly bracketed their
motivations from the applications of that work which the rest of the
world experiences.

SUMMARY
The following is a bulleted list of key takeaways from the sources above.

Basic science knowledge is linked to better clinical diagnostic skills (aka diagnosing diseases) (Woods et al., 2005).
The investigation of "why a dried jellyfish glowed green when crushed" led to the discovery of GFP (green fluorescent protein), which led to "leaps in understanding [cancer]." Furthermore, "a basic research investigation into life at high temperatures" led to advancements in DNA sequencing. This directly led to further understanding of "the evolution of HIV," earning "billions of dollars in royalties" (Leander & Whitton, 2010).
Basic research is a necessity if we want to meaningfully continue advancements in applied research, especially drug discovery (Chris♦, 2015).
As stated by Stack Exchange user eykanal♦ (2014), "Basic research is directly useful to society. Almost all modern pharmacology is based on decades of fundamental biochemistry and biology research. Materials science is based on years of basic chemistry and physics research. Basic math research fuels advances in all types of engineering."
According to the International Council of Science (2004), "Excessive dependency on scientific progress in other countries is rarely likely to lead to the resolution of local problems." Furthermore, "A country with no basic scientific research capacity effectively excludes itself from having any real influence on the future directions of science."
According to a 2015 MIT report, "Basic research is often misunderstood [...] because it often seems to have no immediate payoff." However, the report contends it has directly led to the development of 19 new anticancer drugs over the past two years.
The report further says, "Do we want similar progress on Alzheimer's, which already affects five million Americans, more than any single form of cancer? Then we should expand research in neurobiology, brain chemistry and the science of aging."
Basic research is beautiful. It's both intrinsically emotionally and intellectually stimulating; basic research for the sake of itself is rewarding unto itself.


How to request a professor who has moved colleges to acknowledge project work? At the end of last semester , I had taken up some research work under a professor of a different department.

Now , I had been updating him with my progress on a weekly basis until my final exams arrived , due to which I was forced to put a hold on the project work.
After my final exams got over, I came to know that the professor has moved colleges.

So, I was thinking of mailing him the progress I have made on the project. Now , the issue is there has been almost a month since he moved colleges but I have anyway been constantly working on the project.

If I manage to get him to acknowledge my work and  get a recommendation from him, it would be pretty neat. So how do I go about framing the email?

If he is personally available (different College, same place) then go see him with an update as usual. If not, then email him with the update as an attachment.

But, in either case, also ask him if he is willing to keep advising you on a less formal basis and tell him that you are continuing work and value his feedback. It may be possible for him to continue or not. If not, ask him if he will write you a letter of recommendation then or later.

Actually, it is pretty simple. "Just ask" is usually the right move in these situations. You don't learn unless you ask.

Welcome to Academia.


When being asked, what's the most harmless way to address my past record of leaving Ph.D. program in a different field? Background

As the title suggest, a year before I'm in the current program I'm in, I left another Ph.D. program in a different field and got a master.

Issues

As for now, I prefer not to talk about it if I don't need to. Most people don't ask and don't care. However sometime a conversation goes certain way where inevitably I have to mention something in the past. For example (X indicates the other person in the conversation),

  X: So do you have a master?

  fmlin: Um, yes, but in a different field.

  X: What was it? Why didn't you continue Ph.D. in that?

or

  X: Where did you go for undergraduate? Did you go to graduate school immediately after you finished undergraduate?

  fmlin: [A short answer indicates I was once in another Ph.D. program but didn't finished]

  X: [Many questions out of curiosity]

The reasons I don't like to discuss my past are

(a). It's a record of dropping out. It sounds bad despite I think I'm not morally wrong.

(b). I believe I was abused by my former advisor and was not treated properly (see my other answers on this site if you want to know some detail). I had confrontations with him, and some other faculties in the same department.

(c). It takes long time to explain (b). and incomplete information on (b). sometime causes people evaluate me negatively.

(d). Discussing these things in the past can never help what I'm doing now.

Questions

So far I only had similar conversations with some fellow students and it's not a big deal. However, sooner or later I'll start meeting potential advisors in my current department. I worry that, if they ask similar questions, these things in the past will make me look bad.

As the title suggest, my question is, if I have to, what's the most harmless way to address my past record of leaving Ph.D. program in a different field? The goal is to not make people suspect I'm a problematic student (and I'm indeed not!) that confronts supervisors for no reason.

Based on the information you provided in the question, I think you should focus on reason (b). You should probably avoid using words like "abuse" or "confrontation", at least in the beginning of the conversation, as they come off as really strong and thus tend to motivate people to question deeper. State that you have had problems with the previous environment (including the adviser and the department) and that it was in the mutual best interest that you continued your career somewhere else. Avoid blaming anyone. If the conversational partner seeks to question further, reveal details to what extent you deem best, but again it is good practice to avoid bad-mouthing your former environment. Stay as objective as possible.

Like you said, most people don't care that much. For those that do care, you can't really stop them from taking it negatively (much as you can't stop anyone from taking anything about you negatively), but you can stay true to yourself, by being honest and objective without bad-mouthing your previous adviser, department, etc.


Suggestions to turn an "accepted, pending revisions" into an "accepted" As far as I understand "accepted pending revisions" is not the same as "submission accepted".

What are some important things to keep in mind while revising the submission in order for it to be finally accepted? Which have been the most useful to you?

When they say that, they send you a list of suggested revisions (or several lists, one from each reviewer).  Just follow those suggestions.  When you send it back, explain which suggestions you followed, and which you did not (and why not).


How to switch from a physics PhD. to complexity theory? Somewhere around the 3rd year of my physics PhD. program I came into this amazing subject of complexity theory. May be a motivating factor was that I was digging in my spare-time into this physics/complexity interface. Anyhow I took up courses in complexity theory and a few associated regions in the CS theory department in my university and I started attending one of the group meetings there and tried to contribute to a project (sadly the project turned out to be very hard and didn't move enough)

But how do I actually go about finding a career in this subject?
Either in academia or industry?

I won't be taken seriously if I make a regular CS PhD. application because my background has no overlap with an usual CS grad student and neither am I interested in CS per se. (like I found the graduate "algorithms" course extremely boring though the mathematical algorithms part was fascinating where they did stuff like LP, SDP, entropy extraction, pseudorandomness etc.)  My interest is complexity theory and its interface with physics : which I see as a fascinating branch of mathematics! (and I do have quite a strong background in mathematics)

I would suggest you to continue studying in your physics Ph.D. program and successfully graduate. However, considering your interest in complexity theory (which I share with you, by the way, though, unfortunately, my math background is more limited than yours), I would advise to find a topic on the intersection of physics and complexity theory (aka complex systems) and write dissertation on that topic. That way will have a nice and flexible general physics education and, at the same time, you will stay motivated (which is extremely important for writing a dissertation) throughout the whole dissertation writing period. As for the complex systems field of study, please see my relevant question on Cross Validated site and references within. Good luck to both of us!


Parameter quantifying the number of publications expected from a good researcher Is there any such notion of parameter that quantifies the number of journal articles someone has to publish to be a good researcher or to obtain his tenure?

For instance, how many publications per year is considered to be a good performance

for a PhD student
for a non-tenured university teacher

in computer science?

Note: I wrote this to answer the original question, which was less specific.

There's no a general answer to this question, because things change a lot by field.

If you want to have an idea of the extreme variability, you can look at this crazy table which reports the Italian minimum requirements to become tenured associate (II fascia) or full professor (I fascia), divided by field.

The third and the sixth columns of the linked tables report the minimum number of journal papers that should have been published in, respectively, the last ten and five years to be able to apply for the two positions. Then there are the number of citations and the h-index.

For instance, someone wanting to apply for a full professor position in mathematical logic is required to have at least 4 papers in the last 10 years, whereas an experimental particle physicist is required to have at least 164 publications if the average number of coauthors is between 501 and 1200.


Do Indian journals represent the quality of Indian universities? Since I published my first paper in a well-respected journal I receive approx. one time per month an invitation to journals such as Global Journal of Engineering Science and Research Management and International Journal of Engineering Sciences and Management Research.

Interestingly, all those "journals" are from India. Furthermore it is obvious that they are only interested in charging you money for publishing your paper: for instance, the "peer-review" process lasts just 2 days, so in fact they publish all the stuff they receive for money.

Nevertheless, since the Editorial Boards of these Journals also consist of Prof. and Dr. from India and most articles are also from people from India (sometimes also Dr.) I am interested if these journals represent the quality of the Indian education system?

Scammers appear in all nations, I'm afraid.  In addition to the Indian predatory publishers, I receive lots of spam from Chinese, German, and American predatory publishers, plus I'm sure from many other nations that just aren't coming to mind.  Just as I wouldn't judge American scholarship from the spam I get from American publishers, or from the diploma mills that operate there, so I would not judge Indian scholarship by the fraudsters of India.  It's just a large nation with an open society and a good information infrastructure, and so a certain fraction of scammers are to be expected.

Now, there are other aspects of the Indian school system which merit concern, but the publishing scams should not be the basis for any opinion that you hold.


Publishing similar/same paper twice? (regarding Economics Letters journal) I've always been under the impression that you're only allowed to publish 1 result in 1 journal. However, Economics Letters states:

  For instance, a theorist could submit to Economics Letters a
  thought-provoking example before the analysis is extended to a general theorem in a fully fledged paper that will go elsewhere. Similarly, an experimentalist or an empirical researcher could submit to Economics Letters some important preliminary results, where perhaps the threshold for robustness, thoroughness or completeness of the analysis is not as high as it would be for a complete paper.

Is this stating that you're allowed to submit early results of paper X to Economics Letters, then improve paper X until paper X is longer and more like a full paper, followed by a submission of paper X to an alternative journal? If it is what they mean, why don't more academics do this to boost their publication count? Economics Letters is actually ranked quite highly.

Taken from the comments as per request

This is fairly common. For example, in CS, one might publish preliminary work at a conference, and then flesh it out for a journal (there's a "30% new material" rule in many journals to cover this situation). But to answer your question, doing this doesn't boost publication count except for very dumb ways of evaluating a publication list. Most people (except university bureaucrats) will list the conference and journal paper as one entity.

Note that it is upto the journal editors of the second venue to decide whether the paper is sufficiently different from the first one. They are free to reject it even if you think the latter paper is a nontrivially expanded version of the first one.


Are contributions to the American Political Science Review labeled "Letter" peer reviewed? I suspect that in general, they are not, but perhaps someone who knows better could clarify.

However, I am looking specifically at the American Political Science Review, where contributions labeled "Letter" are much longer than is typical in other journals. Are these "Letters" peer reviewed?

Yes, they are peer-reviewed.
See also their author instructions:

The American Political Science Review (APSR) publishes letters, or research notes. [...] Although letters are reviewed like manuscripts [my own emphasis], they are shorter, more focused, demonstrate a novel perspective on existing research, and encourage scholarly debate [...].


Another student has been assigned the same MSc thesis as mine (and already defended) I am in a dilemma as to how to approach this issue. Basically, myself and another student were assigned the same thesis topic. Only difference is, I have been doing it part time and she completed her in 2017. We both were liaised by the same co-superviser who has now left the university.

The whole thesis is the same. I do not just want to re-word her thesis, because I actually want to learn something. However at the same time, I have had a lot of busy months at work and because of that I have been lagging behind in my thesis.

She did some simulations and produced some results and discussed it. My simulations are the same as well. So, it is Okay that I replicate the results using my own simulations (even though its the same)? Or do I have to do something completely new? The literature review part is going to be similar as the topic is similar. I personally think, there isn't much I can do differently besides explaining the same results in my own way.

The answer is very simple: ask your current supervisor and be completely transparent with them about the situation. Whatever is acceptable to them is the right answer. Standards for masters theses are much more flexible and inconsistent than for doctoral theses, so, for all practical intents and purposes, whatever your supervisor approves is acceptable. (But this assumes that you are absolutely transparent and do not withhold any information about the situation from them.)

But be sure to email a recapitulation of their response to them and let them reply, confirming that you have understood their resolution correctly. That way, you have an official written record with dates so that there is no forgetfulness or confusion in the future. (In fact, that's a general tip for any important verbal conversation throughout your professional life.)


How my admission would benefit the university? One of the main questions in an admission interview for a master’s would be

  Why do you want to attend this university?

Reading between the lines, this means:

  What makes you and the university perfect for each other?

The benefit of university for the student is clear.

But what benefits does the university gain from the student?

If the student actively participates in and contributes to classes and department events, the university benefits.
If the student works for the university in a lab or as a TA, and does a good job, the university benefits.
If the student publishes interesting, useful, or important work while still a student, it reflects well on the university, and the university benefits.
If the student goes on to do great things after graduating, it reflects well on the university, and the university benefits.


What are the main reasons why academics leave academia? (Looking for references, not personal opinions) Is there any research/study/survey that looked at the main reasons why academics leave academia?

I did read a few articles explaining why some particular academics left academia, but I would like to have some statistics to see what are the most common reasons invoked.

I mostly interested in the computer science field (machine learning) in the US, but curious about other fields and locations as well.

I retired immediately after completing my Ph.D., but would have switched back to industry if I had continued working.

I am much, much happier and more effective doing technical work than teaching or managing. The computer industry has well-established technical tracks that allow career advancement without becoming a manager. The academic world, at least in the USA, seems to require teaching and administrative work from everyone, regardless of individual preferences and talents.


Name of current institution in a paper I'm about to publish a paper with my previous group.

I'm not in a permanent position, and my boss doesn't care if I mention or if I don't mention my current institution in the paper.

For me, a researcher who wishes to have a permanent faculty position, would it be helpful or not at all to do that?

The work should be credited to the institute at which it was done - this is important for citation and publication metrics, and will be pulled out of the metadata of the publication by several services. The author is a separate entity to the institute which employed or supported the author. A subsequent change in affiliation - for contact details, e.g. - should be taken care of in a footnote in the front matter.