Easy proof of a big conjecture based on possibly faulty paper – what to do? I’m a mathematician.

I noted that, by combining some results from the literature (all published) and some little effort, one obtains a proof of a big conjecture (at least in the field; it even has a Wikipedia entry). No mistake was found in my arguments yet, after asking some experts in the field.

In my opinion, it is likely that there is a mistake or at least missing details in (exactly) one of the papers I’m using. This paper seems highly complicated, leaving several details to the reader. So what is the best thing to do? Should I make it public (on Arxiv) or even submit to a journal in the hope that a referee takes care of it?

I don’t really care for having a publication from this or something else, but I’m interested where the mistake is or if it might really be a proof (of course it is not unlikely that I made a mistake somewhere).
Another motivation would be to simply make aware that one gets a proof of the conjecture by combining results from the literature and make people want to check those results from the literature again.

It seems that you have found an easy one-page proof of a very interesting result along the following lines:

  Theorem 1. The results of Papers A, B, C imply Conjecture BIG. Therefore if those papers are correct, then Conjecture BIG is true.

(In the rest of the answer I will assume that your proof is correct since you said it is short and was looked at by experts, but to the extent that you still have doubts, it's obviously advisable to very thoroughly vet the correctness of the proof by going over it yourself and showing it to more people with the relevant expertise.)

Now, normally one would go directly from here to the statement that you've proved Conjecture BIG, but the twist here is that Paper A is complicated and has missing details (hmm, never seen that before...) so you are doubting whether it is correct and are reluctant to declare yourself to have proved Conjecture BIG. However, it's worth pointing out that there's already quite some cause for excitement, since you have already proved the very interesting fact that

  Theorem 2. Either Paper A is incorrect, or Conjecture BIG is true.

Given that Conjecture BIG is, well, big, and Paper A is a published paper, it seems almost certain that this is already a publishable result, and in any event (even if you don't care about publishing) one that the scientific community will be very interested in. Precisely how exciting it is depends of course on whether you can go even further and figure out which of the two scenarios applies, and if so, what you discover, and, in the event that you discover that it is the first scenario (Paper A is incorrect), whether you are able to correct the results of the paper by completing the missing details or by correcting whatever errors it contains.

Now let's discuss what you should do. I see three main options for how to proceed:

You can write up Theorem 2 and its easy proof (along with an explanation of why you are formulating it in such a way rather than simply saying you've proved Conjecture BIG), put it on the arXiv, then submit it to a journal, and let others take it from there.
You can wait before publishing your findings and first of all spend time studying Paper A so that you understand it well enough to determine whether it is correct. While doing so you will also attempt to fill in any missing details. Once you have determined whether the paper is correct, and (if it's not correct) either managed to correct it (by filling in the gaps and/or correcting erroneous reasoning) or failed to correct it, or convinced yourself (e.g. by finding a counterexample) that its results, not just its proofs, are actually false, you will then be in a position to write a paper that contains a proof of one of the following results:

  Theorem 2 (same formulation as above - in the event that your study of Paper A didn't lead you to any meaningful conclusion)

  Theorem 3. One of the results of Paper A is false (because its proof is incorrect, and you have proved that the result is also incorrect).

  Theorem 3'. Conjecture BIG is true (because you have ascertained that Paper A is correct and your initial doubts were misplaced).

  Theorem 3''. Conjecture BIG is true (because Paper A is essentially correct, but has some missing details you've managed to fill in).

  Theorem 3'''. Conjecture BIG is true (because the result of Paper A is correct, although the proof in the original paper has an error in it, which you have managed to correct).

A variant of option 2 above is to recruit professional help in studying Paper A, either privately by approaching someone you know who may be interested in becoming a collaborator, or publicly, for example by posting your thoughts on the paper on MathOverflow.

As for which of these options is the best one, that depends on how difficult it would be for you to try to pursue options 2 and 3, and whether you want to maximize the amount of fame/glory/credit you get from this discovery. The point is that each of Theorems 3, 3', 3'', and 3''' would be a stronger and more interesting result than theorem 2, so if you prove them your discovery would make a bigger splash, and conversely, if you leave them for someone else you are giving up a potentially very useful opportunity for professional credit and possibly (if this interests you) career advancement.

Thus, if you want to publicize your discovery with the least amount of effort and in the least amount of time and don't care about maximizing the credit you get from it, you should pursue option 1. If you are willing to take the time and trouble to look more in depth into Paper A, you should pursue options 2 or 3, with option 3 being a better approach if Paper A is technically too complicated for you to study by yourself. One additional concern in that case is the issue of priority, so if you are worried that someone else may discover your one-page proof while you are busy studying Paper A, you should make sure to document your discovery including relevant dates, show it to a few trusted people, and limit the time you are working on this to a reasonable amount of time (say, no more than 3–6 months).

I should add finally that you have no ethical obligation to determine whether the results of Paper A are correct (emailing the author to ask them their thoughts is certainly a nice thing to do, but you said in the comments that you tried that already and it hasn't led you anywhere). So from an ethical point of view, any of the options I outlined above is completely acceptable.


Are pure mathematicians at U.S. universities expected to win research grants? Are pure mathematicians, e.g., Algebraists, Number Theorists, Geometers, and Topologists, at good U.S. research universities expected to win research grants to fund their work, in order to gain tenure and be promoted?

I see a lot of questions here on Academia SE that talk about the need to win grant-funding, in order to survive in academia, but I'm not sure whether that applies to pure math professors.

At my large R1 state university in the U.S., it might be impossible to get tenure without having an active grant at the time, even with an otherwise excellent record, since mathematics faculty disinterested (or hostile to whatever the specialty or person in question might be) would use this as grounds for doubting the quality. After all, supposedly, all the best people are funded. Supposedly, endorsement by the NSF (or NSA) is an external, objective test of quality. This is certainly a convenient assumption for arguments in certain directions. EDIT: and since a strong super-majority is needed for a "positive" tenure vote, even irrational ranting can sway otherwise uninformed or disinterested people to scuttle the vote.

Issues of external funding are apparently even more identified with research activity by engineers (and experimental scientists), who often dominate the college-wide tenure (and promotion) committees. That is, it is sometimes apparently unimaginable that a person would be doing research without a grant.

Further, at my university, in other hard-science departments, often large grants are allowed to "buy out" faculty from any teaching at all. This is rare in my math department. EDIT: thus, in the minds of some engineers, "teaching" is stigmatized, since in their own depts it's only the disenfranchised who have to do any of it. And then there're the wildly different paper-count standards for experimental science/engineering versus mathematics.

The literal "funding of research" usually is less critical, apart from the expense of travelling to conferences, and extra summer salary.


Can we write a case study by referring our previous work instead of re-writing? I have been writing some papers for a while in computer science. Now when I look at my case study, I found it too long to be as a section in a paper. Instead, i want to write a separate paper for the case study.
I don't want to re-phrase the introduction, related work, the algorithms and our proposed methods etc.
Will it be OR is it permissible to write a pure case study only and referring my previous papers for the details. Of course, i will add some introduction to just let the user know what is going on in this paper and if the reader is interested can refer to other papers. what I have in mind is the flow of paper be like

Abstract

Introduction

Case study parameters

Case study Setup

Case Study working

Case Study Result

Conclusion

also if a reliable source is provided will be much appreciated

Yes you can publish a case study as a (conference) paper and your proposed structure looks reasonable, albeit I have a few comments.

  I don't want to re-phrase the introduction, related work, the algorithms and our proposed methods etc.

You'll clearly need a new introduction. You'll possibly also need a new related work section too (which is missing from your proposed flow). The algorithms and proposed methods can be copy-and-pasted, as long as they are attributed to your previous work, but you might need to revise some of the introductory material to those algorithms and methods.

Since you're in computer science, you have another option: Publish the complete work as a journal paper, rather than a conference paper.


Publishing while working from home independently, what affiliation to give? Currently I do not belong to any institution and work from home.

Now can I put the name of the last university I attended  in place of affiliation in a journal paper?

I have masters degree from Linkoping University, Sweden. Do I need to ask permission in this case ?

Regards,
Umair

Generally speaking, you should not put any institution as your affiliation unless you are currently based there, or did the work while you were based there. In this case, unless you did the research while at Linkoping, you should not give Linkoping as your affiliation.

See, for example, this discussion.

If it helps, it's worth remembering that the "affiliation" is in many ways an "address" - it evolved out of simply giving an address at which you could be contacted, and some journals still refer to it this way. It's not unknown in some fields for independent researchers to give their home address, but it's perhaps more common just to say "independent".

If you have no current affiliation, you can simply say "Independent researcher", or similar, and leave it at that (adding an email address is good, if not asked for elsewhere in the paper).


Alternatives to IMRaD for journal papers IMRaD (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion) seems to be the standard structure of scholarly journal papers.
Are there also alternative standardized paper formats that are known to obtain widespread acceptance among scholarly journals?
(Not counting minor IMRaD-modifications, such as the addition of a "concluding" section after the usual IMRAD-structure.)
The background to my question is the following: I teach academic writing to students from a variety of disciplines, mostly from chemistry, computer science, physics, engineering, but also social scientists and even a few from the humanities. It is quite a mix.  I use IMRaD, and while most students quickly embrace that structure, some students express their concern that IMRaD is not apt to their purposes; usually, by the end of the semester, they do acknowledge, however, that IMRaD eventually helped them. I am nevertheless wondering whether I can accomodate to such students in the future by allowing them to use a paper structure other than IMRaD, but the format should still be one that finds conventional use in the system of science.

I will first list some alternatives I have encountered. I will leave it up to you whether they are true alternatives or just riffs on IMRaD and whether they are actually formalised structures:

Particularly in the life sciences journals request the structure Introduction – Results – Discussion – Methods, where the latter is kind of an appendix. However, this never works as labelled. At the very least, everything about the methods that is relevant to understand the paper is described in the results section, while the methods section contains mostly technical details.

Pure mathematics has Introduction – Definition(s) – Theorem/Lemma – Proof – Definition(s) – Theorem/Lemma – Proof – … (usually without conclusion or similar). This obviously cannot be translated to other fields.

Most simulation papers I know follow the structure Introduction – Model – First Results – Analysis Method – Result – Analysis Method – Result – … – Discussion/Conclusion, but I have never seen it formalised.

I don’t think that there is an alternative to IMRaD as you are looking for:
If you put the elements of IMRaD in any order, it’s obviously this one.
Any deviation from this has to happen on a lower level, such as:

Methods and results alternate, because the reader can only appreciate some methods after the first results.
A short preliminary discussion in the middle of the paper that motivates the second half.
Minor stuff is moved to the appendix.

While all of this may be very justified, it’s also individual and doesn’t lead to a short acronym that can be blindly applied by those who want this kind of thing.
With other words: If you want a rigid recipe that does not contain any conditional clauses or exceptions, it can only be IMRaD.
Now, of course a rigid recipe is the wrong thing to wish for in the first place:
There is no structure that is appropriate for every paper, even if we focus on a single field and exclude such things as method papers, case studies, etc.
Instead, I suggest that you teach IMRaD as a basic recipe that works for many papers and needs to be adapted for others.


Thesis or published papers for PhD application? There are two types of programs (maths - Turkey) that I can apply for MSc : With and without thesis. I agree that writing a thesis is a writing task to learn and important but I can also learn how to write when writing a paper.

But also I believe that writing a thesis (i.e. a book!) is very time consuming and instead I prefer spending that time on producing research papers. My question is that would it better to have published papers than having a thesis in MSc when applying for PhD or quite the reverse, Master-with-thesis program is more valuable for PhD application for a Canadian universities?

This depends on where you are and what are the traditions of the places you would intend to apply to for a doctorate. It would also depend on the field, which you state as mathematics.

However, the advantage of the thesis is that you get some direction in creating it, but probably less direction in the writing of a set of papers.

The other thing is that a thesis comes with a fairly definite end point. You write it, someone reads and approves it and you are done. With papers, it is much less definite as you then depend on getting the papers accepted somewhere. Depending on your field and the publishing venue this can take a long time. There are questions here that suggest that eighteen months in review happens frequently enough to be alarming.

Note that a thesis normally ins't "a book" though in some fields (not likely math) it could be. In the sciences rather than the arts or humanities, it is normally a scientific study of some kind with a written summary of methodology and results. In mathematics the thesis could either be strictly (theoretical) mathematics or an associated philosophy or historical study. If it is a theoretical thesis then you need a suitable problem to work on. Moreover you need to be able to make progress on that problem in some way. Finding a problem can be difficult (hence the advisor) as some are too easy, some are too hard, and some are just right. But you aren't normally expected, as a master's student to come up with your own problem, though this varies by place.

I'm also going to guess that the non-thesis option isn't designed to leave you a lot of time to write independent papers. Normally it would be filled with coursework that has its own (time consuming) requirements. Most places, the thesis option would imply a bit less course work and more "quality time" with an advisor or research group working on some problem or study.

You can be successful with either. You can also be successful if you do the non-thesis option and don't produce any publishable research along the way. Acceptance into a doctoral program can be achieved through a variety of paths, as long as they predict success in scientific/mathematical studies and research.

You don't, in fact, need to prove that you don't actually need the guidance of a doctoral program just to be admitted to it. You aren't there to prove to people that you don't need to be there.

Finally, let me note that scientific/mathematical writing isn't just writing. You need something to write about. That is the research part that needs to precede any writing that explains the methodology and results. If you don't do that, then you have nothing to write about.


Can I consider this email from potential PI as a rejection? I'm a PhD student in the US and am looking for a postdoc position for the next year.
I'm reaching out to a few PIs I've been interested in working with.
There's one PI I'm really interested. This PI is in the field A, while I'm in the field B.
But I saw the potential of common interests and thought that this person would help me gain a new perspective and skills during my postdoc training. I also asked if she would be willing to support grant writing or fellowship application which is due in a month. (I know this is a short deadline, but this is the only fellowship I’d be eligible for and I was desperate..)
The PI replied to my email saying that we share a lot of common research interests, and she has always been interested in my field B and think that my PhD training in field B could contribute to her lab.
However, she wrote that she's not available for co-writing a grant or my application for a postdoctoral fellowship this year (listing other tasks that will keep her busy).
And she mentioned that "with earlier preparation, we could apply for the fellowship next year".
In addition, she suggested an alternative option. She recommended co-writing a grant with an assistant professor in the field B who has been recently hired in their department. Her suggestion is that once the new professor and I secure a grant, she can collaborate with me.
However, the thing is that I'm not super interested in working with the new assistant professor whose research interests don't align with me very well.
My question: Do you think that the PI I contacted is not interested in working with me? Based on my impression from the email, I feel that she's not enthusiastic about having me in her lab even though she said some nice things to be polite. Overall, I think that she doesn't want to invest much (either her time or resources) on getting me involved in her lab. Can I consider her response as a polite rejection?

It depends on what you mean by rejection. It's pretty clear that they are not willing to take you into the lab at this moment, but it's not a firm no. My read is that it's politely interested without being committal. I read it as follows:

The professor gave you specific feedback about your e-mail, suggesting they took the time to actually read what you wrote to them and consider you seriously as a candidate.

The professor says that they'd be interested in putting together a proposal with a longer deadline - this could be honesty on their part that they simply don't have the bandwidth to co-write a proposal with a short deadline.

They also suggest you contact a young faculty in their department. Depending on the department, this new faculty could be in the "orbit" of the bigger name, meaning that the big professor could see this as a way to keep you on the hook even though they don't have the funds to commit to you at this exact moment.

The professor didn't ask you for an interview or any follow-up. This suggests that they don't see it as even a remote possibility that they could take you on at this moment. They're then putting the ball back in your court. If you respond that you'd be interested to work on finding a fellowship with a more distant deadline, they sound like they'd be willing to move to the next step.

Whether you're in a position to wait a year (and probably two, since it will take time for your fellowship proposal to be reviewed), and whether it would be worth it for a shot to work together with this professor is something only you or those with more specific knowledge of your situation can answer. But, if you're interested in following-up, I agree with @henning that a suggestion of a phone call or video chat would be very instructive. Either you will get a good or bad vibe from them on the call, or their reaction to the suggestion ("sorry, i don't have time") will help you clear things up.


How Math Heavy is Graduate Finance This post concerns grad school options.

I am undergraduate math major who is going to complete my studies soon. I am considering finance/financial engineering. How math heavy is the financial math compared to pure math? Is it equally as challenging and tough? I am basically considering to change to finance because pure math is rather challenging for me.

If you need more clarification, mention in comments.

Programs vary; it would be best to look at the specific requirements and prerequisites for the programs you have in mind.

In general, mathematical finance can involve a very considerable amount of pure mathematics.  A big piece is modeling assets via stochastic processes, and to understand those properly requires a firm background in graduate-level real analysis, measure theory, probability theory, and often functional analysis and PDE.  A mathematical finance course may well consist primarily of theorems and proofs, just like a pure math course would.  This is typically even more true at the PhD level than masters.

Of course, I would say that just because mathematics is challenging, that doesn't mean you should avoid it!


Should I admit students who are waitlisted for my class? As an instructor at a large university, you will sooner or later have a waitlist for your class. Is it better (for you) to admit those students into your class or do you better keep the enrollment limit firm?

I favor the latter because it reduces my work, however marginally. What's more, it might improve the attitude of your students towards your class if there is more demand to take your class than you offer.

Is there a different perspective or a refinement of the above?

In my department for lower level courses I have no control over the enrollment of my classes.  For upper levels, it's rare the the capacity maxes out but here's a general way I would look at it from an instructor and/or administrator.

How frequently is the course offered?
There's a huge difference between a course only offered every year or two, and every single semester.
Is the course required for graduation?
If not, there's far less reason to give the override.  If so, why stand in the way of someone's graduation (particularly if they're a senior)?
Are the other sections of the course full?
If the course has multiple sections, why don't they take one of those?  If there is a legitimate reason they can't (a required course at the same time) I might be more inclined, if not, they can take it the other one if they really want it.
Whose student is it?
My department has one to let majors and minors always take the classes, but those who are not in our department will only get it in exigent circumstances (must have course to graduate).  This is because we are penalized if our majors don't graduate on time and we need to always make any marginal spots available first and foremost to them.
Is there a general policy?
Your department may have a policy for this.  If so, use that.

I don't think that there is any benefit to intentionally reducing numbers to increase demand later on.  If your class is required, people will take it because they have to, not because it's popular (your department has created an artificial demand).  If your class is not required, then students will just find a different class and not bother with yours another semester.  The demand for a non-required class only tends to go up if it has the reputation of being easy, fun, relevant to other majors, or some combination thereof.


Why are some graduate schools' students so much more productive? I'm a math PhD student. I've noticed that graduating students in top 5-10 schools, by the time they apply for postdocs, will regularly have several math research papers and several articles in preparation, usually with senior faculty. In contrast, at my (Research I university) PhD program most students will only graduate with 1 publication - their thesis. I came to graduate school with a solid knowledge of the "standard undergraduate math major curriculum" but no graduate courses, and no real idea of which adviser I wanted or what area of math, and I struggled to get to the current state of knowledge in a specific field. Looking back I don't see how it's possible for me to write several good papers during grad school. I just don't understand the phenomenon that I'm observing. I definitely think that I've worked hard. My guess is that most entering math grad students at top schools will have taken math graduate courses and will have already been reading research papers and know which research projects they want to work on - in other words, they are 2-3 years ahead of the game.

Question: Is there something fundamentally different about these top programs, independent of the knowledge, work ethic, etc. of the grad students, that makes creating an impressive publication record easier and/or more efficient? Is there some "secret"? What are the underlying mechanisms that allow students at Stanford or MIT to be so much more impressive on average than a student at a less prestigious place?

The "fundamental difference" that you talk about should arise in three things:

The fact that a student made into the top 5-10 schools implies (not perfectly, of course) that the student has acquired a good amount of knowledge in the field and that he or she works very hard. This means the filtering, and thus a difference arises even before the program could start. It's not hard to assume that someone who gets into a top 10 school has worked harder in life to get there (of course, there are always exceptions). Thus, such a student is bound to be more ambitious, and would not settle for that one thesis at the end of their course.
Even if you're not that ambitious, seeing many peers around you publishing papers may encourage you or add pressure to do exactly the same. In life, we often try to rise up to the standards around us. If you're in a less reputed college with less motivated peers, you might be satisfied with good grades and a thesis. But if you're walking amongst other motivated people, you'd soon feel lesser and try to get on par.
Good schools attract good faculty. It's much easier to write a research paper and publish it with the guidance of a great professor.

We can see that the two principal differences arises without any effort on part of the college or university at all and solely because of the peer group. And that's an important factor in academia as much as it is in the real world.


What's the shortest "acceptable" postdoc length? So, the postdoc is going ok and there might be one or two publications after a few months. However, I've realized that I'd like to move forward and start applying to industry jobs.

Now, my concern is whether having a few-month postdoc in the resume/CV might hurt, and I wonder what would be the minimal "ok" length for a postdoc. I have the feeling that an ultra-short postdoc might seem suspicious to a recruiter (it may look like I was ultra-bad and was kicked out, which is not the case).

While some people would claim "leave the postdoc ASAP, especially if you want to go to industry", I was wondering whether something around 6-8 months is fine..., or maybe I should wait >= 1 year.

If you know that you are not interested in staying in academia, the common advice is indeed to go on the industrial job market as soon as possible.

Every month you stay in a lowly-paid postdoc, if you are not enjoying it and are not building an academic profile, is essentially wasted.

Your question is based on the somewhat suspicious premise that an industrial recruiter cares about how long you stayed in your postdoc, i.e., that your market value goes up by staying in a postdoc. I highly doubt that this is the case, but you can easily evaluate it yourself: go on the job market right now (without quitting your postdoc!) and see if you get offers that you find acceptable. If you do not (for whatever reason), you can still continue your postdoc and improve your market value on the side; if you do, well, quit within an appropriate time frame and start your new life.

Note: this advice is based on the assumption that you can delay the start date of your industrial job by a few months so that you can leave your postdoc in order. In my experience, this is often the case for the kind of jobs that PhD holders tend to look for, but obviously your milage may vary on this.


Best workflow for publication-quality figures with multiple subplots? What’s the best way to create full publication-quality (i.e. vector) figures from multiple subplots, from various sources? For example, I want to include a TIFF microscopy image and an EPS plot exported from Matlab in the same figure. A friend suggested PowerPoint, but it no longer supports EPS plots. Loading and exporting the full figures from Matlab is an option. I haven't used LaTeX – if this is suggested, what packages would be required?

My journal requires figures to be in EPS or TIFF format.

Creating figures with multiple subplots requires a lot of fine tuning that make programmatic approaches (like LaTeX, or R) tricky. It usually makes more sense to do this by hand, since the layout of subplots can change depending on personal preferences and revisions.

A few options:

Inkscape is a good open source tool for making vector graphics, as mentioned
Adobe Illustrator is a common, professional tool for vector graphics
Affinity Designer is a cheaper professional alternative to Illustrator, and works very well with many different file formats, and I've found more intuitive than Illustrator


Internships for PhD students (e.g. in data science or programming) I still have 2-2.5 years of my PhD program, but it want to try my skills in programing, especially in the taste of data science (needless to say, I do it overnight for some hobby projects and I like it a lot).

Moreover, as working in companies may seem as one of the options "what to do after getting PhD", I would be nice to test how does it work for me in practice, and to learn skills, network, etc.

Is there such a thing as internships (e.g. in data science or programming) for PhD students?

If so, where to search for them?

(If it changes anything, I'm doing PhD in EU; but US would be a nice target.)

Yes. Almost every PhD student in my (US computer science) department has at least one summer internship between admission and graduation.  In fact, most PhD students go through multiple internships.

Off the top of my head, I know CS PhD students who have interned at Google (Mountain View, Manhattan, and Shanghai), Facebook, IBM, AT&T, Yahoo, Motorola, Microsoft Research (Redmond, New England, and Bangalore), Disney, Zynga, Los Alamos, Sandia, Argonne, and Livermore.  Most of these places regularly advertise for interns on the web.


Literature for commercialisation of research What are some good books to read for people who have been in academia their entire career (regardless of length of that career) and now want to commercialise something from their research? I am looking for tips for people who have no education in law or business, including patent rights and the business side on how to start a research-company etc.

I understand that it is a broad question, but I hope and think that it could in fact be relevant to more researchers than me.

Starting and running a business is an entirely different skill set from being a professor, one that takes years to learn how to do well.  You also aren't going to be able to put your whole heart into it unless you are planning to quit academia.

If you are at a research university, there is probably some sort of Technology Transfer Office filled with people who would like nothing more than to educate you on this subject.  Good TTOs will also help do matchmaking with the entrepreneurs who come to them looking for technologies to build a business around.  Your university might also have a business school.  If so, there are probably teams of students looking for new business projects and case studies.

In either case, you want to find partners who are on the same wavelength as you and who you can trust.  Commercializing has a mix of business management, finance, marketing, and technological development, and you probably want people involved who are specialists in all of those disciplines.


How do we solve the problem about bad behavior (unfair evaluation) in lab? My undergraduate student told me that he had some problems when he attended the lab session in our department. This lab session is mandatory and one of the components of the course evaluation.

The source of the problem is the lab assistants. They asked him many irrelevant questions about their student union, like the name of the chair, secretary, etc. Unfortunately, he is not a member of this union, so he could not answer. Therefore, they failed him and he has to retake the test.

I want to help my student.

Previously, I considered reporting this case to the chair. However, I remembered that my chair once said that he did not like students who do not join the student union. Hence, I did not report to him.

Do you know the best way to solve this problem with minimum effort?

For further information, the university is located in a developing country in South East Asia.

Note:
The union is a student organization. Historically, the union were the response for the repressive regime. To become a member of the union, the student should attend some orientation activity. Most of the activity is hazing.

From what you have written, it appears that the fundamental problem is that you are dealing with a nakedly corrupt organization. You describe your student as having been failed for blatantly political reasons that have nothing to do with their education.

Such an action is obviously unethical, and should not be tolerated. The key questions that I see, then, are these:

Is there is anybody who you can work with in order to effectively oppose this corruption?
Does your student want to be a test case against corruption?

You describe your chair as being in favor of the current regime. You may wish to discuss in any case, as even if your chair doesn't like students who don't join the union, they may still be opposed to naked abuse of power by union members. If the chair will not act, are there deans or such who might? Are there other faculty members or student organizations who feel the same way as you? What about outside groups that might bring pressure, such as local or international media?

This does sound like an important fight to fight, but also remember that it is not only your fight. If their power is strong and you directly oppose them, the student union may choose to make life very difficult for your student, so before taking any direct action in opposition, it would be important to discuss potential consequences with your student. Since they did not simply take the expedient path and join the union, they may well be willing to fight; equally, however, they may have circumstances that make it problematic for them to do so, and it is not your right to make that choice on their behalf.


Organizing discussion groups in online conference I am organizing a math conference of about 70 people later this summer, and we have decided, in light of COVID-19, to make it an online conference. I would like to have opportunities for small discussion groups, such as naturally happen at coffee breaks, as well as having standard talks.

I am imagining having a wiki area of the conference website where people could indicate what they were interested in talking about when, so that other people could coordinate with them and plan a conference call. Has anyone done something like this? Does anyone have recommendations for software or for other ways to streamline this?

WAGON, the Western Algebraic Geometry ONline conference, had some interesting ideas in this direction. Here is a blogpost from one of the organizers about how it worked. Here is a twitter thread about some of the problems.


How to react to this editor response after a long fruitless review phase? We submitted a paper 26 months ago.  Until now, more than two years have passed, but we have not got any information of our manuscript. Several times we wrote emails to the editorial office and current editors-in-chief   to ask them of about our manuscript but the status of the paper is still under review.

Yesterday, we sent a letter directly to the editor-in-chief to say that:

  We can wait one month more. After this time if we shall not obtain the first reviews then, please, permit us to  withdraw our submission from the journal.

The answer we received was:

  The better think is what you are proposing...

How should we respond to them in this case?

Actually, you don't need their permission to withdraw the paper until you give them the copyright after final acceptance. The paper is yours to do with as you please.

The answer you got is hard to decipher. It makes me question their competence, as does the long time "in review".

Just tell them that you are withdrawing, though you might want to wait out the month that you offered.

Find a better publisher.


What are good methods for determining course instruction workload equivalency? The courses at my university are assigned a number "units" that basically correspond with the number of in-class hours per week, i.e. a 4 unit course is often two 110 minute sessions per week. Different types of courses require different amounts of time for the instructors. Professor teaching distributions are often set by simply stating something like "a regular faculty member must teach 1 four unit course per quarter". The courses in my department vary from 10 students to 300, we may get teaching assistants, and courses are traditional lecture styles, laboratories, project based, etc. It is likely not a good idea to say that 1 four unit course with 10 students requires equivalent time/resources as a 4 unit course with 300 students, but that is what we do. Instructors may not get fair teaching distributions due to this and it also has bearing on merit and promotion cases.

How do other institutions and departments compare courses in terms of instructor workload? I assume there may be ways other than simply the # of hours in class per week (credit/unit measure).

Edit: I'm particularly interested in precise definitions of this measure.

Actually, most universities I've heard about specify either courses or numbers of “contact hours” per week. It is the job of the department chair (or executive officer or equivalent) to make sure everything is properly distributed within the department, so that one faculty member isn’t teaching only 300-student lectures while another faculty is only teaching specialized seminars for 10 students.


A Break after college , following your passion , going on the right path - the implications? Okay, first off let me provide an overview of my educational past:

Just as any kid I went through school, and then high school with an integrated prep course for getting into a top notch college in my country. I should admit, I loved my subjects (physics, chemistry, math and biology). The faculty was great. I showed a lot of enthusiasm and my then teacher appreciated it.

However, naturally at that age I had many obstacles: Peer pressure, very few friends, was bullied, and I was pretty desperate to get into the social atmosphere (The cool group, the small talk, back stabs, etc.)
So, that bad habit stuck on to me (that is, always trying to pretend, so as to be accepted socially). And it has got in the way of my personal life, and behaviorally I feel like I'm really messed up in some way.

I got into the 7th best college in my country. I did not take a bridge year. I was pretty confident about getting into the Electronics and Communications branch, and I did.

I've learned a lot in college, met people with a varied persona, read a lot, and also learned that there can be a wide set of career paths one can choose nowadays.

I have varied interests that I'm good at: Art painting, murals, sketching, fashion design, stitching, singing, acting, impersonating famous scenes from movies, or people in real life (like some of my very comical faculties).

I'm now completing my 3rd year in college and I don't like it here, or at least in this branch. That said, I do like some subjects like DSP, Embedded system design, mechatronics, but I can't  imagine this as my long term career! Everybody around me is talking about and praising this industry: "Oh, the amazing technology", "This wonderful company", "the internship opportunities", etc. I'm so confused, I'm just slipping into something I don't like! And I have a burning desire to try my hand at something in the arts (acting, theatre, and fashion design).

I've hinted about my displeasure with the current state of things to my parents, but I have never told them anything about my "plan" for life.
My parents are overprotective of me. They feel the need to know everything about me. I am pretty open with them about most thing, but it gets annoying when I see my father's hidden dissatisfaction on my refusal to his suggestion about going to the US for MS or for MBA. In addition, when I spend my free time sketching, stitching, or graphic designing, an hour later, artfully, my parents would ask me something like: "Don't you have assignments to do", "don't you have exams in a week", or "how do your friends get 9 point grades?". Sometimes my college faculties say stuff like, "You're so good at this subject, why are your grades just mediocre?" When it comes to my career, it's up to me. I don't like anybody to push me into their version of "secure", "high-paying", but non-adventurous, and routine career.

All hell breaks loose in the house when there is a discussion about "what do you want to do in life?"

Honestly, my parents are not very happy at the thought of me going into the film industry or fashion, and I don't stand up for myself, afraid that I might fail if I go down that path, afraid in the end they were right and I would be the family example of a "ruined career" girl in the relative's gossips.

But this thing has been on my mind for too long, my grades are going up and down. I decided that I would write my GRE, go to the states, join some college. But in the meantime, experiment with my passion, and then when things are right, drop out. There would be no worry about satisfying the expectations of my parents there. I would be independent!

But then, what is the practicality of all this?

Would it be too late, keeping in mind the current state of cut-throat competition?

Would it affect my career, whatever it may be, if I take a gap year or a 6 month gap to travel alone and discover myself and my passions after college?

I've asked this question to a few people, even the college counselor, but everybody says that's a crazy idea!

What should I do ?

Most people who are trying for theater or fashion careers need a "day job" that pays the rent and buys the food unless and until their preferred career takes off. For a lot of them, it is a minimum wage job. You can make it much better paid than that if you play your cards right.

I suggest concentrating on your studies until you have your degree. Look for a day job in your degree field, but in whatever city you can reach that has the best opportunities for the alternative careers you are interested in. Look for a part time film or fashion job that you can work evenings and/or weekends.

Take advantage of having a more highly paid day job to save as much money as you possibly can from the combined income. As your career advances, you may want to do things like moving to a different city without having a new day job already lined up. Having a year or so of minimal expenses in the bank would make that easier.


Am I receiving "good" higher education for graphic design? my name is Asfand and I'm currently in my Junior year at a university in Lahore, Pakistan, studying Graphic Design.
However, I'm not sure if I'm receiving a quality education or not.
All the classes senior to me seem to have a general discontent with the quality of the education, and they all openly admit that university didn't teach them much. We spend 90% of our time just doing assignments (for example, "create a national design policy for your country", "create a piece of design using humour", "create an art piece that represents 'you' [based on surveys that you will design and conduct]")
So we do most of our learning through doing, troubleshooting, and taking online tutorials while in the process of creating our assignments.
There is not as much (if any) basic education as to the etiquettes of design, what makes good design, etc etc (other than some basic knowledge we got in our freshman year). They don't really show us the ropes much or "teach" us, as much as we just learn what we do by making stuff along the way.
My question is, am I asking for too much? Yes we slack off and don't do as much research as we should before delving into our designs/artworks, but should it not be the institutions responsibility to an extent to point you in the right direction and show you the right/wrong, how to actually DO good design, before leaving it up to us to create art? I understand that they may not want to creatively stifle us by putting certain notions into our heads, but at the same time, this feels like very little/no effort is put into it, and we leave with 4 years worth of work experience from assignments, but not a lot of design education

Spend some time exploring Active Learning(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_learning). It sounds a lot like this is what you are seeing. Whether it is good or bad might depend a lot on how much feedback you get from what you do. But doing is a good thing.
If the focus of the program is on creativity, not technology, then this might be a great program. I think that for someone to become a poet they need to spend a lot of time writing poetry, not listening to lectures about it.
But you might want to explore the philosophy behind your program with some trusted faculty member. You might also want to look at the sort of positions that graduates of you program wind up with.
A friend of mine once led an education program that was focused around "studio learning" in which the students did almost nothing be work on projects - from real clients. The faculty was there to guide. It was incredibly innovative.


Professors/Teachers only replying to part of my email I've been a Computer Sciences student for 4 years now, give or take, and my experience with emailing teachers/professors (teachers from now on) has been either of two cases:

they reply to my entire email
they read the last sentence or paragraph and reply to that.

Generally, if a teacher fits in one of those categories, they always respond like that.
However, for me it's quite frustrating to receive an email back (within 5 minutes, an hour, a day) with a reply, to only one point, and then having to mail back with my other questions, removing one question at a time.

To note: my e-mails are always very respectful, neatly written, and without spelling or other mistakes.

What can I do to get a higher percentage-of-questions-answered-per-email response?

Professors are busy and receive a lot of mail (> 100 per day, not counting mass-mailings). It's rational for them to skim past the salutations and introductory parts until the end, where you usually find "the gist". Obviously, this filter is fast but imperfect.

To ensure that you get a response to all of your questions, write very short and very neat emails. Also make it as clear as the day what you want the respondent to do. Finally, don't bother asking questions to which you can simply look up the answer:

  Dear Professor Foo,

  this is about our discussion after the last seminar on FooBar.

  Should I hand in my essay before or after the last session? I couldn't find this on the syllabus.
  I was also wondering if you could recommend a textbook on BarBaz.

  Kind regards

  Foo Baz

There really isn't more you can do. If you still get partial responses, write another mail about only the remaining items (as you do).


Repeated demand for citing a certain paper in the referee report I submitted a paper to a journal and got the referee report. In the first referee report the same surname has been repeated 10 times, and since then the referee has insisted on a discussion about that paper.

I've read the paper, and the paper is dealing with a different subject. It can seldom be considered as relevant. The demand for commenting on that particular work was declined by us and the paper was eventually rejected. Apart from the editors, should there be a way to control this excessive use of the refereeing power?

After putting the paper on the arXiv, the lead author of that paper already contacted me to cite some the related works (of course mostly his works). Interestingly, the citation in question is not even regarded as relevant by the leading author.

Apart from the editors, should there be a way to control this excessive use of the refereeing power?

Straight-forward answer: no. This is what an editor should check for. If (s)he does not care or does not agree with you, your only option is to go for a different journal, with consequently a different editor.

I should also add that, in my experience, few reviewers request their papers to be added willy-nilly. If this reviewer thinks her or his work is missing, you should at least do a thorough check of why (s)he would think so, and then accurately report in your response letter. It seems unsurprising to me that your paper was rejected if your response to "important related work from XYZ is missing" was "we did some high-level searching and it seemed kinda unrelated, so we skipped it". I as an editor would also consider this at least a substantial nudge into "reject" territory.


How do the "proposed research" essays of those who win NSF Fellowships compare with those who don't win NSF Fellowships? I just looked at the research proposals of a few people who failed to win the NSF Fellowship, and they actually scare me a bit.

I know that the NSF cares about Broader Impact a lot, and that is where I might actually be strongest at. But the reviews look at intellectual merit first and foremost, and that's what scares me, since how can you convince the reviewers that your idea has more intellectual merit than a huge number of other very strong applicants?

As someone who reviews graduate applications, both for admissions and for fellowships, I can say that the number of strong applications is really large, and now in many cases is almost certainly larger than the number of fellowships being awarded in most of these competitions. The unfortunate side effect of this, which is obvious here, is that in most cases, you could have an application that is "strong enough" to merit receiving the fellowship, but not get it. Unfortunately, you don't get to do multiple stochastic realizations; you have to deal with the events the one time they unfold.

That said, how do you impress the reviewer? By having a clear sense of what your project is, and being able to talk about coherently and convincingly. The reviewers are looking for good ideas and good people to fund. You need to convince them that you're going to be a good researcher, and you have a good idea to "sell." If you don't think your research is all that amazing, how are you going to convince somebody else about that?


Consequences of unwittingly reinventing an idea Say you have an idea and you can't find any paper or book that explicitly states that idea. You don't know for sure if you're right in assuming that you came up first with that idea so you decide to publish it. What are the consequences if you're wrong and the idea has already been published. Do the reviewers point that out for you before the paper gets published? Is your career over because of that?

To be more specific, I have an idea for constructing iterative formulas for solving systems of nonlinear equations for any convergence rate. I also have an elegant proof for that. The problem is that I have found just one article that explicitly states that idea just for functions of one variable, but doesn't expand on it.( just one paragraph and then continues with something else)

Ignorance is not plagiarism. If you write that "To the best of my knowledge" the algorithm is new, you imply that you researched the matter duly (I would suggest to consult some experts if you are kind of an outsider to the field) and found no prior publication. If such a publication exists, it will not be plagiarism. It may be embarrassing, but not a career killer by any means (see first comment to your question).

However, if you know that a suggestion exists for the one-dimensional case, you should state that: "This algorithm has been previously suggested for the one-dimensional case by XXXX." You can also qualify this statement to better highlight what your work adds: "...but no proof of convergence was offered." or "Here I generalize the algorithm to n dimensions and provide a proof of convergence."


How should I email my graduate advisor if I did not hear anything? I am a graduate student at a University and I am working on academic project under my advisor's guidance. I had emailed two weeks back about my project update (which helps him grade my project hours for the semester as Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory) and the reply was  "Lets talk next week. If you don't hear from me, please call/email me".
I  messaged again after a week to see whether its a convenient time to give  a call, but I did not get any reply.

I waited for quite a time and its been two weeks now. I was also working on couple of other projects and was quite hesitant to message again.  I also thought it is vacation as the semester ended. Now, I am unsure how to write an email.

However, I was given a Satisfactory without any discussion or checking my project, which is still good, as I really made some progress on the project.

Can anyone help me by giving a suggestion on how to handle this situation?

Edit: I have also taken one of my advisor's courses and he is pretty cool. I have never seen him getting angry for anything. Its just that I am confused and blaming my hesitant nature now.

It sounds like he is stressed and a bit disorganized.  Take pity on him and write again.  "How's it going, do you have some time to meet this week?"  Something like that.


When to use a doctoral title Last year, I finished and defended my doctoral thesis in a STEM field, and have continued working as a researcher in academia since. I am proud of my doctoral work, yet I feel somewhat uneasy about flaunting my newly earned title and refrain from doing so in general.

All senior people in my field have doctoral degrees, so it doesn't really signify anything. Besides, often when people use their title it seems like they do it to show they are an authority of sorts (Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz, for instance). In my field of work that doesn't get you very far; if you're full of baloney people will realize in minutes.

I'm also hesitant about signing off e-mails as a Dr.; there's usually some back and forth with suppliers we work with, for instance. We really depend on their technical experience and I wouldn't want to come across as pretentious or elitist.

My basic question is this: in your experience, what are good circumstances to use ones doctoral title?

This may vary by country. I'm in the US, and use mine rather rarely. As you say, senior researchers all have PhDs (or MS + many years' experience), so it's hardly something significant in such contexts. I also don't use it in personal correspondence (e.g., bank paperwork) since that might lead to confusion about being an MD ("real doctor"). So what's left?

CV and other biographical documents
e-mail signature
formal presentations and documents (e.g., grant proposals)
anything related to undergraduate teaching

Note, professors might use "Prof." rather than "Dr." for all of these, particularly in contexts where it is obvious that professors are a subset of doctors.


Writing a paper on a smartphone implementation of previous work Three months ago, I submitted a paper in an IEEE conference. The paper described a method to detect 'X' in images and a method to recover detected 'X' areas.

Now we want to show the performance and results of such an application on an android smartphone. For this, we have implemented the same detection method that we proposed earlier, however, we have also borrowed ideas from some other papers for a different recovery method (the recovery method proposed earlier was computationally expensive).

To summarise, the present work differs from our previous work in following aspects:

First work to demonstrate detection and recovery of 'X' in an
android smartphone.
A new recovery method, but which it is inspired from other's work.

Does it make a good paper for publishing in a conference like: ICPR?

Stepping away from the details of your particular study, what you are more generally asking about is the distinction between studies of theory and of practice.

The first paper you speak of introduces a method and demonstrates that it can work, but does not characterize its performance.  The second paper would then be characterizing its performance in a particular environment of interest.  From a scientific perspective, that is certainly a contribution of new knowledge (even if incremental).

To determine whether it is of sufficient interest to be published, you need to focus on the question of motivation: who will want to know about the performance and why?  What else will they need to know, such that you can create a complete and informative study.  The answers to these questions will depend critically on the precise details of your work and its context.


If interviewing for a postdoc by Skype, how to get a feel for the lab culture? I have recently applied for a postdoc in the USA, and because I am on a different continent any interview that I may be offered will almost certainly be by videoconference. I assume that at postdoc level, nobody is going to offer to pay for an intercontinental visit for a second interview (am I right?).

There is some good advice here on interviewing over Skype, and indeed this is something that I have my own past experience of. Something I've noticed before is that while the formal interview itself can work almost the same way in person or by VC, one misses out on the surrounding interactions - chatter before and after, perhaps walking around the building, and so forth - which helps one to form an impression of the people, the place, and whether one wants to work there.

Are there any ways to get a feel for these intangible aspects of culture and personalities without a visit?

Email people who used to be in the group and ask them for advice.


Does it make sense to pay tuition fees for a PhD degree? Some Ph.D. programs charge tuition fees. Others are competitive.
Does a Ph.D. done by paying tuition fees have the same gravity as a Ph.D. done on stipend when it comes to an academic career?
When does it really make any sense to pursue a Ph.D. by paying tuition fees?

Nobody will ever know. In fact, nobody will likely ever ask you about this.

At the end of the day, for an academic career, what matters is that you have a PhD and have shown an ability to do independent research. Who paid for the PhD never enters these sorts of considerations: You may have been funded on grants and only done research, or you may have been a teaching assistant to get a salary and have tuition paid, or you may have paid for the tuition yourself. It really doesn't matter, and nobody will care. What people do care about are your qualifications.


Can I have the same project as another master's student (same experiments and results) and we both write two different theses? I am currently doing a research thesis with another master's student and we both are designated the same project by the same promotor and we work together through every single experiment that we did.
Is it acceptable for us to use the same results (graphs and images) that we both obtained together and write them in our thesis? The only thing that's different will be the wording in our explanations. However, we have the same overall conclusion and take.
Our supervisor and promotor said it is okay but I hope the scientific integrity committee is going to say the same.

Bring this up to your university and be open about it. Make sure your supervisor knows you are seeking extra guidance. This is very sketchy but not necessarily bad.  If you think about it, some grad work may rely entirely on secondary sources or data collected by others.  The challenging part here is that you have the same project, not just the same data.  Working together on the experiments isn't the problem - I had some masters students work with me on my experiments - writing the same thesis "in your own words" is the problem.
If you are both going to draw the exact same conclusions and do the same analysis, then there is an issue.  You both need to be able to distinguish between your specific contribution and your specific methods.  For instance, just having a data set in common doesn't mean much if you analyze it for property A using method X and your partner looks into property B using method Y.
To be more concrete, you and I might run the same survey, and to save resources we run it with the same participants, but you are looking at socioeconomic status as an indicator of academic success and I am looking at a correlation between socioeconomic status and academic preparedness.  We will look at different things, probably have different literature reviews (at least partially), and definitely make different conclusions.  No worries here.  We'd just acknowledge that the survey was run cooperatively.
The problem is that, during your defense, you have to be able to defend what you personally did.  You can give credit where it's due, but if it turns out that your thesis is only half yours, then giving the degree is going to be difficult.


Acknowledgments in Arxiv preprint I have recently submitted a paper to a journal, with the format required by the journal itself.

Now I am submitting on Arxiv a version of the paper with the same content but a different formatting (not the journal format, just a generic one).

I am wondering: should I keep the acknowledgments in this Arxiv preprint?

Yes, you should keep the acknowledgments. Whatever the acknowledged did to contribute to your paper is independent from the mode of dissemination – except when it clearly isn’t, e.g., when you acknowledge a reviewer whose suggestions improved the journal paper but could not be included in the Arxiv paper due to journal policies.

If an acknowledgment is required by somebody (e.g., by whoever funded your research), this requirement may also apply to publishing a preprint, i.e., you may even be forced to do this.

As for common practice, I have seen many Arxiv papers with acknowledgments and never noticed an acknowledgment being only present in the journal version (but then I never payed attention to this). I never removed acknowledgments for an Arxiv publication.


Criticizing other people's figures on my webpage A few months ago I started collecting papers that contain figures I think convey information in a very efficient manner (i.e., figures that I think are very well illustrated and that should serve as examples of how they should be designed).

Now, because I am a huge data-vis geek, I have been thinking about opening a page on my website in which I talk about how I think figures should be designed and which principles I expect students/coauthors/general public to follow when illustrating data. Consequently, I am inclined towards including some of those amazing figures I have been collecting and talking about them (i.e., why they are efficient and well designed). More controversially, perhaps, is the fact that I also plan to include some figures that I believe were terribly designed and explain in which ways they fail (some of those badly designed figures are actually mine).

While I will seek the adequate rights to post them on my blog (e.g., through RightsLink for Elsevier journals), I would like to hear about the morality of this practice, particularly due to the fact that I will negatively criticize other authors' work.

Is there any moral (or even legal) problem in criticizing other people's figures on my website? Should I expect any sort of retaliation if I decide to do that? I understand that this is largely dependent on the tone I employ, but I will make every effort to be as technical and objective as possible.

I can't even imagine a situation in which criticizing published academic materials on their merits would be wrong or immoral.

How would it be different from criticizing someone's selection of an econometric or statistical model to use on their data?  This happens constantly in academic literature, and in fact is crucial to the process of research.  The way data is conveyed to others through graphs is no less important than model selection, and both can be used to deceive or obscure.

So as long as you cover two bases:

Avoid ad hominem attacks, as you should in all sorts of reviewing, and
Follow any copyright rules the publishers impose,

Not only is there nothing wrong with doing it, I would argue that as an academic and data viz expert, you should do it.  As for someone taking offense at your criticism?  Well, as long as you're professionally criticizing its merits and avoiding problem number 1 from above then it's you who are in the right, and the one taking offense who is in the wrong.


What are the ethical considerations when publishing a cheating technique? Suppose I have devised a way to cheat at cards, exams or any other situation in which secret communication with other people or machines provides unfair advantage. The method is novel and uses original technology and algorithms such that I think they might be worthy of a scientific publication.

The method is not a mathematical trick to solve a game while sticking to the rules, in which case I would see no ethical issue with publishing it. Think more of a method to remotely stream answers of a test directly into the retina without anyone else noticing.

I wonder if it would be unethical to publish this method in an academic journal. I personally feel strongly against cheating at exams, a little less strongly about cheating at cards but still, I wouldn't like to be making cheaters' life easier.

In their book "Beat the Market" Thorp and Kassouf write about why they published their method to edge their stock market investments. While the situation is different since using maths to make money is neither illegal nor unethical, some of their arguments might hold in my case.

In short, they say that they chose to publish their trick because other people will figure it out eventually, so:

They might as well get credit for it.
If everyone knows the technique, it becomes easier to replicate, detect and prevent.
As Syndrome from The Incredibles would say: "When everyone's super, no one will be."

Any other things I should be considering?

Let's ignore the legal aspects of that process since they are boring and off topic.

I can’t really tell you what to do with that vague level of detail, but I can give you an example.

There seems to be a team at the Ben-Gurion University in Israel that regularly comes up with obscure ways to transmit data to devices not connected via any network connection.

Stuff like:

DiskFiltration: Data Exfiltration from Speakerless Air-Gapped Computers via Covert Hard Drive Noise,
SPEAKE(a)R: Turn Speakers to Microphones for Fun and Profit,
and many many more.

The only uses I see for that stuff is to either help malware authors and intelligence agencies or make people aware of this communication channels to increase security.

If your findings are anything like this, I don’t see a problem.

Update
After you clarified it's about a method to remotely stream answers of a test directly into the retina without anyone else noticing:

There are a lot of uses for such a technique which are not related to cheating. Pick some of them as motivation, and then later in your paper describe how this could also be used for cheating. Maybe give hints what some mitigation measures could be.


Is citation required when answering/giving own opinion on case study questions? If I am reading and analyzing a particular case study and then answering its questions, if I am just giving my opinion or a solution, should I 'cite' it? For example, if we are talking about branding and the question is about the power of the brand in the market, if I answer with the following:

'To lead a change in an industry, I think that it really depends on the brand equity and the market concentration factors'. So should I try to 'cite' my opinion? Perhaps someone spoke about this particular point before, but at the same time, I am just giving my view on the matter and the solution to the question.

Cite anything that comes from another source. Whether or not it is "opinion" doesn't matter.

Examples of another source:

Anything created by someone else (whether published or not).
Something created by you, that you have previously published.

Content created by you, which hasn't been made public before, does not need to be cited.  Attribution is via your authorship of the current document.

Update: attribution of your opinion.

If you thought up the opinion yourself you don't need to cite it.
It your opinion was formed based on specific sources, I would say you have an obligation to cite those sources.
If your opinion was informed by others, but you don't know of a specific source, you should make a good effort to find a source and cite it.  The problem here is that there may be a specific source where this opinion originates (even if you aren't aware of it).  Failure to cite would look like plagiarism in that case.  Even if that is not true, providing a citation would always strengthen the document.


How should I interpret an almost-but-not-quite-alphabetical author list? I just noticed a weird aspect about this paper (which was of interest here and recently came up again here). If you look at the author list, it reads

  L. P. Gaffney, P. A. Butler, M. Scheck, A. B. Hayes, F. Wenander, M. Albers, B. Bastin, C. Bauer, A. Blazhev, S. Bönig, N. Bree, J. Cederkäll, T. Chupp, D. Cline, T. E. Cocolios, T. Davinson, H. De Witte, J. Diriken, T. Grahn, A. Herzan, M. Huyse, D. G. Jenkins, D. T. Joss, N. Kesteloot, J. Konki, M. Kowalczyk, Th. Kröll, E. Kwan, R. Lutter, K. Moschner, P. Napiorkowski, J. Pakarinen, M. Pfeiffer, D. Radeck, P. Reiter, K. Reynders, S. V. Rigby, L. M. Robledo, M. Rudigier, S. Sambi, M. Seidlitz, B. Siebeck, T. Stora, P. Thoele, P. Van Duppen, M. J. Vermeulen, M. von Schmid, D. Voulot, N. Warr, K. Wimmer, K. Wrzosek-Lipska, C. Y. Wu and M. Zielinska

In particular, it splits into an initial, non-alphabetic component,

  L. P. Gaffney, P. A. Butler, M. Scheck, A. B. Hayes, F. Wenander

and then an alphabetic list from M. Albers through M. Zielinska.

How should I interpret this authorship convention? What fields is it used in, and to what purpose? My initial reaction would be to assign to the initial component a ranking down in 'importance' more akin to the "first author did most of the work, middle authors supported, and last author sponsored and oversaw the work" convention used in fields with smaller collaborations (at least in physics), but that leaves the alphabetic component in an awkward position, so I'm not sure my interpretation is right.

How should I interpret this authorship convention?

The first (non-alphabetic) authors are likely the main contributors in order of contribution significance as you guessed. Starting from the alphabetic ordering the authors would be those with lesser contributions (but equal to each other).

What fields is it used in, and to what purpose?

I do not know what fields this is specific to, but I would not be surprised if this is a common strategy for papers with many authors irrespective of the field. Ordering a long list of authors with equivalent contributions in some manner simply seems sensible and alphabetic ordering is a simple and common ordering scheme. Unless the publisher has a policy on how this should be handled, alphabetic ordering seems to be a simple go-to strategy.


What author name should I use for publication? I'm soon to be co-author for a paper and I'm not too sure which name I should use for publication (like many previous users here!). I have a legal Chinese name which no-one knows me by but is on official documents (passport, my soon-to-be degree certificaet), and my English name which is what everyone calls me and is in the email I use for my CV. Unfortunately both combinations of my legal and surnames are quite popular when I search them on Google (advice I saw given by others) so I'm at a bit of a lost here of what I should do!
I'd really appreciate any advice/thoughts here thank you !

Whichever name you use on your email or, if applicable, professional membership to the journal.  If a reader contacts NAME and gets a response from OTHER_NAME, it will be a bit jarring and perhaps cause them to wonder if they contacted the correct person.  Similarly, if you are in the journal's system as NAME but your paper uses OTHER_NAME, then that will cause confusion.


Can a roundtable chair not liking my research influence my chances of having a submission accepted? I believe that a roundtable chair at an upcoming conference does not like my research. I would like to submit an abstract in response to the call for papers.

Does the roundtable chair play a part in the selection process, or is it solely the task of the conference committee?

There is no way to anticipate if a roundtable chair will be on the conference's program committee without more information.  Most conferences list their program committee on the conference website.


What is the meaning of "honorable speaker"? I have an email from the 2nd World Congress on Wind & Renewable Energy 2017 as an "Honorable Speaker" .... does that mean presenting a new paper and paying any fees?

There are often emails like these floating around, some look enticing; however, to protect yourself against any potential scam attempt (or worse) - as with any unexpected email from an unknown source, I would advise:

Hover over the email address in the email you received - if it is from 'yahoo', 'gmail' or any other free email service, be wary. Don't reply directly.
Don't open any links and do not open any attachments in the email (should be wary of doing this from unknown emails anyway).
Do a web search and go directly to the conference website (in this case http://windenergy.conferenceseries.com/)
Read the information on the webpage (and the fine print)
Use the contact details there to ask questions if you have any questions (contact details at the bottom of the page)

Reading the conference site, it looks like if that invitation is real, then you will still have to pay for registration etc. and present a paper.  Some conferences send these emails as an advertisement for their conference.

Be wary of 'predatory conferences' - there are many guides to help with that, an example is from the University College Dublin's page Scholarly Communications: Predatory Publishers & Conferences


Undergraduate prerequisites for a Ph.d. in combinatorics I am a double major in mathematics and electrical engineering. Towards the end of my mathematics major, I began to develop an interest in combinatorics (specifically graph theory), and am seriously considering a Ph.D. in the subject.

Having developed the interest late, my senior thesis will be in a different topic (complex ODEs), but I would have completed one course in combinatorics/graph theory (an upper-level undergraduate course using a grad-level text - I expect a strong reference from the professor teaching this course).

The courses I have completed are basically both the undergraduate and graduate-level algebra sequence,  analysis in R and R^n (without a formal introduction to Lebesgue measure), discrete math (for EECS), applied probability, one course in numerical methods, PDEs, applied complex variables, and a "mathematical methods for sciences" course (focusing on special functions, variational calculus, and integral transforms).

I won't have the standard math major courses(i.e,  topology, measure theory, and number theory.) I plan to focus more on applications than theory in my combinatorics Ph.D.

Would additional coursework be necessary for a Ph.D. in combinatorics (specifically graph theory)? (I could potentially delay my degree by a year and spend time as a non-degree student at another university, or complete a non-thesis track master's degree before applying for a masters/Ph.d.). Any advice would be appreciated.

The prerequisites in combinatorics will not be significantly different from the overall prerequisites in the program to which you are applying.  Having taken a combinatorics course would be beneficial, but there is no need to take many of them as an undergraduate.  You mention Budapest Semesters in Mathematics in a comment.  They offer a lot of combinatorics courses, more than some U.S. universities, and there is certainly no expectation that a typical applicant will have completed this many courses.

In your case, I expect the main issue will be whether you are applying to pure or applied math departments, since combinatorics could be located in either.  For pure mathematics, the admissions committee will wonder how many of your courses were based on rigorous proofs (for example, applied complex variables and mathematical methods for sciences courses might not be), so it would be best to be clear about that.

I would recommend applying broadly and seeing what happens.  Even if your coursework is not ideal, you may still be admitted, with the expectation of having to catch up in a few topics.  Ultimately, it depends on how compelling your application is overall, and your transcript will be just one factor.


Should I breach peer-review confidentiality if I suspect misconduct and the editor is not willing to pursue it? I was a peer reviewer for a paper that I did not find credible. The data were archived after the paper was published and show many curious or impossible (non-integer counts for example) patterns. I believe the data to be falsified and/or fabricated. I have been publishing my finding on my blog.

One figure, an ordination, is impossible to replicate. Most of the points are correctly located, but some, mostly outliers, are omitted or moved. Different points are omitted or moved in the two versions in the manuscripts I reviewed and the published version of this figure.

This apparent tampering make the relationships in the data appear much stronger than is justified.

I want to publish my findings, including the two manuscript versions of the figure as the inconsistencies between them and the published strengthens my suspicions of malpractice.

Does my duty to expose malpractice supersede my duty to maintain peer review confidentiality?

I have taken my concerns to the Editor, who is not interested.

That's a tricky question. I will try to give you my humble advice.

First, document every step and be sure that your statements are true. If you have some suspicion, you can also present that, but state that you only have such suspicion.

Second, write again to the editor telling him/her that in good faith you believe the study is fabricated, and it will undermine the journal credibility. If you do that after publication, the damage to the scholarly literature will be even larger.

Third, tell the editor your plan. For instance, you can tell him/her that if he does not act swiftly within 30 days, you will inform, without divulging too much details, of the situation, his/her insitution, as well as the authors' institutions and the publisher.

Fourth, if the above does not work (it should), then proceed and be ready to defend thoroughly your argument.


Recommendation letter from a professor who knows me for a short amount of time I'm going to be applying for a Master's program at the end of this year. The problem is that I need a recommendation letter from my professor who would know me only for 4-6 months. Does that make the letter less credible? I don't want my application to be dismissed on the grounds that the professor doesn't know me very well. For additional info, I will be sending in my application to universities in the US and the UK. How do admission officers look at that?

The problem is that I need a recommendation letter from my professor who would know me only for 4-6 months. Does that make the letter less credible?

Less credible than what?

A letter from someone who doesn't know you as well isn't less credible, but it may be less substantive.  As @jakebeal says, a professor who knows you longer  can write a more substantial letter, all else being equal, simply because they've had time to do more things with you.  Credibility is more a function of the reputation and experience of the letter-writer.  (Are they successful researchers? Do they know the field well? Do they have past experience with students or the caliber your program is looking for?)

But these comparisons only makes sense if you are choosing between two potential references, one of whom knows you longer than the other.  I don't think that's your current dilemma.

You should collect the strongest recommendations you can.  If the strongest recommendations you can find come from professors that you only know for a few months, then that is what you should submit.  Whether some other hypothetical letters might be stronger is irrelevant—you go to war with the army you have.

  I don't want my application to be dismissed on the grounds that the professor doesn't know me very well.

It won't be.

Most graduate programs in the US require multiple recommendation letters, but very few undergraduates have the opportunity, ability, or interest to work directly with multiple faculty for multiple years.  So not surprisingly, a significant majority of recommendation letters are written by faculty who only know the applicants for a few months.  In particular, most of the graduate-school recommendation letters I've written are for students I'd only known for a few months.  This is normal and expected.

What really matters is the substance of the letter, not the duration of your relationship with the writer.


How do professors choose their summer salary? In the United States, most professors are paid by the university on a 9 month basis for teaching (Sep - May). During the summer months a professor is typically paid from their grants and other revenue sources. How is the summer salary chosen? E.g. if a professor is paid 10kUSD/month, can (s)he choose to be paid 20kUSD/month during the summer?

I suppose this could depend on the funding agency.  For the NSF, your summer salary is determined by your academic year salary and you cannot receive more than that, although you could receive less if the program officer cuts that part of your budget.  I believe this is standard for U.S. funding agencies.

This situation is of course not fair to those who hold lower-paying jobs that do not reflect their achievements (but rather state budget priorities).  Like many things in grant funding, there's tremendous bureaucratic inertia and no hope of changing this aspect of the system.


Seeking Your Advice on Preparing for Mathematics Graduate Programs S.E advisers,

I am a rising college junior (five-years tract) in US with a major in mathematics and an aspiring mathematician in the fields of theoretical computing and cryptography.  I apologize for this sudden interruption but I wrote this post to seek your advice on preparing for the mathematics graduate programs; I am currently attracted to the applied mathematics.  Through introduction to the computational biology, I found my true passion and love toward the mathematics, which led me to switch my major from the microbiology to mathematics on the last (Spring) semester.  Since then, I have been taking basic calculus courses and also self-studied the preparatory materials (such as proof-writing) for the abstract mathematics.  I am currently self-studying the abstract algebra (Artin, Dummit/Foote), abstract linear algebra (Hoffman/Kunze), and vector calculus (Lang).  I will be taking the following courses on the Fall:  Vector Calculus-computational, Linear Algebra with introduction to proofs, and either Abstract Algebra I or Mathematical Statistics I.  At the start of August, I will be starting to conduct the supervised undergraduate research on the theoretical computing (abstract and math-heavy) and computer security (more on the programming than mathematics), which I am very excited.

I am curious what are the essential factors for admission into mathematics graduate programs.  Do undergraduate research (such as mine) will be an important factor too?  I know the biology programs strongly require the research experience but I frequently heard that the mathematics programs focus less on the undergraduate research since most undergraduate-level research in mathematics are viewed as less matured than the graduate-level research.  Does Putnam score also play an important factor?  I am interested in preparing for the Putnam Competition as it has many interesting problems on algebra and number theory (topics of my interest) and I have been preparing vigorously with the problem-solving-strategy books as I never participated in any mathematical competition before.  About my current course schedule, should I take the Abstract Algebra I with other courses?  At my university, the AAI hs the pre-requisite of linear algebra, but I was granted a special permission for enrollment since my research advisers strongly recommend me to take the abstract algebra for the theoretical computing and computer security.  I am currently studying the abstract algebra and linear algebra to prepare for the courses and upcoming undergraduate research.

Thank you very much for your time, and I apologize for this long post.  I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

PK

No, undergraduate research is not a very important factor for graduate admissions in mathematics.  It's nice if you have it, and if by any chance you publish a solo author paper in a respectable journal that's fantastic, but that kind of fantastic stuff is done by people who would assured of admissions to top programs anyway.  Since every letter ever written about a math student's undergraduate research is positive, admissions committees just don't get enough information to use in tough admissions choices.

  I am a rising college junior (five-years tract) in US with a major in mathematics and an aspiring mathematician in the fields of theoretical computing and cryptography. I apologize for this sudden interruption but I wrote this post to seek your advice on preparing for the mathematics graduate programs; I am currently attracted to the applied mathematics. Through introduction to the computational biology, I found my true passion and love toward the mathematics,

You have named at least four different fields in one introductory paragraph.  This is a bit disconcerting to a potential admitter.  We might worry that you have not managed to settle down on any one thing for long enough to study it in any depth.  Maybe that worry is totally groundless, but you should do what you can to allay it.

  Does Putnam score also play an important factor? I am interested in preparing for the Putnam Competition as it has many interesting problems on algebra and number theory (topics of my interest) and I have been preparing vigorously with the problem-solving-strategy books as I never participated in any mathematical competition before.

Similar answer to the last one but more extreme.  If you score in the Top XX, that looks good, but it would be very rare for that to be the breakthrough good thing about your application.  Moreover, whereas one must admit that undergraduate research in mathematics is becoming increasingly popular and viewed increasingly seriously over the years, the same cannot be said about the Putnam: if you never take it, no one cares.  If you got a zero every single time, no one cares.  (I took it in my freshman year only, honestly don't remember my score but suspect it might have been in the single digits, and I got into every program I applied to, including the top three.)  I was never excited about contest math so I need to ensure that my own proclivities don't creep into my answer, but quite soberly: studying for the Putnam (or any university math contest) might be fun and it might be educational, but it is not much of an investment in your future.  If you like algebra and number theory, great (OMG! me too) -- study algebra and number theory.  Working Putnam problems would teach you more of that than watching Game of Thrones, but it's still quite indirect.

  About my current course schedule, should I take the Abstract Algebra I with other courses? At my university, the AAI hs the pre-requisite of linear algebra, but I was granted a special permission for enrollment since my research advisers strongly recommend me to take the abstract algebra for the theoretical computing and computer security. I am currently studying the abstract algebra and linear algebra to prepare for the courses and upcoming undergraduate research.

This type of question needs to be answered by someone who is familiar with you and with your department's program.  We're not.  It's exactly the sort of question you should ask your faculty advisor.  If you don't have a faculty advisor yet, no problem: this is an excellent opportunity to get one.

One final comment: based on your writing, I suspect you are not a native speaker of English.  Good English language and writing skills are important for an American PhD program in mathematics: a low enough GRE verbal score can kill an application.  (Conversely, in my program, in order to be competitive for the top drawer internal fellowships you have to have a high "academic index", which is some weighted numerical measure of your GRE quantitative, your GRE verbal and your GPA.  So it's serious.)  Shoring up shaky English skills is more of a priority than studying for the Putnam exam, if you ask me.


How common are shortlist notifications for math postdocs? As the title says, how common is it for mathematics departments (in the US) to notify postdoc applicants when they're shortlisted?

As I'm currently waiting for postdoc offers and haven't got any shortlist notification yet, I want to know if I should start to panic.

It's not common to officially notify applicants that they are on a short list.  If you find out, it will probably be via backchannel communications through your advisor.  That's the best way to gather information, since your advisor's contacts may be more open with him/her than they would be with you, and your advisor can put in a good word for you at the same time.


Should I put future talks on my CV? I am a Ph.D. student in mathematics, and I am currently applying for jobs. There are some talks that I will be giving later this month and the next few months. Should I put future, confirmed talks on my CV? If so, how should I denote that it is an upcoming talk?

I think there is, in principle, nothing wrong for you to put these talks on your CV provided (i) they will really happen, and (ii) it is clear that they are in the future -- so put a (future) date next to them.

As a graduate student applying for jobs, you are in the same situation as all of the other graduate students: your CV is still pretty short. It is fair to add facts to it that will happen in the future (though it is, obviously, not ok to embellish by listing talks that you only may give but that may not in fact really happen).


What to write in a chapter of a book? Recently, I got an invitation from a professor to contribute a chapter in one of his/her upcoming books. I am a novice in this field. I am still a student but simultaneously I do not want to lose this opportunity. I have a few published articles. I am quite confused about the content of the chapter. Can I use my results from the accepted manuscript and add them as chapter content of the book? Is it totally ethical? Kindly help me. Suggestions are most welcome by heart. Thanks a lot.

P.S. Checked their profile. They are some professors in an university but I never met them. And they did not talk about whether its a normal chapter or some proceeding type chapter in the book. And no mention of money also.

Rather than answering the specific question ("What to write in a chapter of a book?") I'm going to suggest that this is an XY Problem. The real first question is whether this is a real book, or if it's a predatory publisher sending out an email blast to random victims. The limited evidence in the question and comments suggests that it may well be a predatory publisher:

The recipient is not a well known researcher
There isn't a clear and well-described topic for the chapter
The recipient doesn't know the putative professors personally

An edit to the question suggests that the authors may be real people, but with the other red flags that are raised I would still be very suspicious. The professors may not be the actual senders of the letter, or they may in turn be victims of a scam.

It's not impossible that this is a real book, but the odds are very much against it. Please be cautious before doing something that may damage your reputation and career.

Edit since in the comments someone is skeptical that there is such a thing as predatory book-chapter scams:

Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Example 4

The claim in the comments is that book chapters can't be predatory because "You can't have a predatory book". These examples show charges for chapters, but also through selling worthless, low-quality books to libraries.

In general these predatory publishers depend on naive people; that includes people who think "You can't have a predatory book".


Courses expected to take before graduation I am applying to PhD programs in pure mathematics and many programs ask for a list of courses that I have taken. Some of them also say that we should include courses expected to be done in winter 2018, so I include a topic course which I plan to do in winter 2018. However, I find it to be an extremely hard course and I might end up not taking it. Will this cause a problem?

The question is asking you to list courses you plan to take. Personally, I would avoid listing a course I didn’t know for sure I was going to take. If you listed a course in your major and then dropped it, it might cause problems later on. I doubt a grad school will complain that you took a course that wasn’t listed.


Should a TA point out a professor's mistake while attending their lecture? I faced the following situation a few days back. I am doing my teaching assistance work under a professor.

I attended one of his classes as a TA during which he was teaching some technically wrong stuff, which he assumed as true. Since most of the class were students of the course, they do not know which statements are correct and hence are not in position to rectify the professor's mistakes.

There are more than five other TAs but no one pointed out the problem. I don't know whether the TAs know what is correct.

I stayed silent and observed whether anyone would point out the mistake but the class ended without anyone realizing the professor's mistake. The reason for my silence is this question.

Is it offensive to the professor to point out such mistakes? My question boils down to: Is it proper etiquette to point out mistakes that a professor makes during their lecture?

It depends on the type of mistake. All mistakes must get fixed to make sure the students don't learn anything wrong. However, how to best fix the mistake depends on the situation.

If it is a small mistake that can be fixed easily (e.g. a missing minus sign) I would recommend bringing it up on the spot. The 'cost' to the teacher and impact on the lecture is minimal but the benefit is potentially significant.

For more serious problems in a derivation/ argument like the one you described I think the cost benefit analysis often comes down in favor of waiting until the end of the lecture and informing the professor then. Then the professor can prepar a correction lecture explaining clearly what the mistake was and what the fix is. Trying to fix a mistake like the one you described on the fly can easily end up in a very chaotic lecture in which nothing is clear anymore and the students get very confused.

In general, don't worry too much about politeness and etiquette but more about what's best for the students. Your job is to be the best teacher!