Tools for data organising and processing Suppose we perform experiments with input parameters (temperature, humidity, processing time...) and collect resulting data (thickness, structure, mech. properties...).

Is there a tool (or set of tools) to organize, process and export data from such experiments?

Key features are:

Structured files decomposition (raw text files).
Basic math operations.
Filter and sort by given parameters (show/export data from samples treated at given temperature and humidity for various times).
Generating tables with given parameters and list of "constants" (table of times, mech. properties and thicknesses and list containing temperature, humidity...).
Vector graphics output and/or output suitable for MATLAB (graph of thickness as function of time).
Automated (or easy-to-create) LaTeX output (report sheet).

If not, any idea, hint or recommendation how to create it is appreciated. Right now I'm thinking of a spreadsheet (Excel) as core database and MATLAB as the processor (filters, sorting, graphics).

I would store data in CSV (i.e. text file with a table, with values separated by commas) rather than XLS files (the first is easier to import from and export to anything). Otherwise many tools will do the job (if you are familiar with MATLAB - why not using it)?

For general data processing and manipulation, Python (with SciPy stack) is capable of everything you mentioned. In particular IPython Notebook is great for data exploration and presentation (you can use code, comments and LaTeX in such notebook - also for reports). For tabular data, use Pandas (R-like DataFrames).

For reports also you can create files in Markdown (with LaTeX), and then convert them to pdf with Pandoc - may be much easier than generation of LaTeX code. (To get you some taste what is Markdown - look at StackEdit.)

And alternative to Python is R, with knitr for report generation. If you are not sure, if to choose R or Python, then for your task R seems to be an easier and better way to start (especially with RStudio as an interface).

For a bigger list and links to tutorials, take a look at a list of software for scientists.


I am a PhD candidate and I have been offered an internship that I want to take. My advisor objects. Should I take it anyway? I am a PhD candidate in computer engineering. I've just finished my 2nd year. I finished all courses and passed the comprehensive exam. Currently working in a nice research project in collaboration with a big company but I haven't published yet.
I applied and got accepted into a one-year-long internship at the same company (20 hours a week) in the very same topic. I see it as a great opportunity because I want to work in the industry after my PhD and the internship fits perfectly with my research and thesis. But my supervisor disagrees with me and doesn't want me to take it. He thinks that it will compromise my PhD and told me if I take it, that will be at my own risk.
What should I consider when making this decision? How should I weigh this opportunity against my supervisor's advice?

Make a decision. Do you want a PhD or not. If you do, then make that the priority. Such opportunities as the internship will probably come along later. The doctorate would probably be harder to restart if you stumble.
Your advisor is giving good advice provided that the PhD is what you want.
Slowing down your research may get you scooped before you complete it, requiring at least a partial restart. Why take a chance.


Can members of the Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study supervise PhD students? There is a faculty member of Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study (a mathematician), whose research is particularly enticing to me. Do faculty members of the IAS take PhD students? If so, should I just contact him directly?

Are you a Princeton graduate student already? If yes, ask someone local about both the rules and whether that person takes students regularly.

If you're at another nearby school (Penn, Rutgers, Columbia, etc.), then usually you also need a local official advisor in addition to an outside advisor.  Again, seek advice from someone local who works in a similar area.

If you're not already enrolled in grad school then don't worry about this yet.  It is very unusual for people to pick an advisor before going to grad school in mathematics.  I certainly wouldn't bother someone at IAS if you haven't gotten into Princeton yet since most people don't get in anyway (eg me).


What to do when students bring me questions related to other courses and subjects? I teach all of the writing courses for one of my college's STEM department. Occasionally, students bring me questions related to their field, e.g. they are doing some project for another course and they want to know what tools I used for a similar real-world project I did before.

If I help the students (which would amount to suggesting some books, tools, Web sites), perhaps the department will feel I am interfering in matters where I should not, as this is not my teaching area.
If I turn away the students, perhaps the department or (students themselves) will feel I am not committed to serving the students.

What is the accepted procedure for such a situation?

There's no shame in saying you're not an expert in their domain specific knowledge.  It's more important to know your limitations than to give advice you're not directly qualified to give.  Direct them to a professor in that specific field.

If you feel you have sufficient experience to give (at least) a starting point, by all means share it with them.  Just always make sure that you are clear about the limitations of your expertise.


Where can I publish corrigenda for a conference paper? I am wondering where I should publish a corrigendum. The paper, which has some wrong numbers in it (nothing major but it still is not correct), has been published in conference proceedings. I don't think a journal would publish a corrigendum for a mere conference article, submitting to the same conference next year does not seem to be the right way to do it either (takes too long, I don't know if they would accept it since there would be not much of a presentation). So I am thinking of a technical report. Would that be a correct way to do it?

If the proceedings is one that was issued by the conference at the same time as the conference (or shortly thereafter), you may be stuck with just publishing it on your website, which is presumably what you meant by a tech report. If the conference was run by a major society, you may at least be able to get the online version of the proceedings updated. You should get in touch with the program chair for the conference at the very least.


Would lackluster grades in Applied math hurt an application for Pure Math PhD programs? The question is pretty much the title. To start off, I'm not really worried about my record in pure mathematics classes/research. However, solely for the purpose of having a career backup I've also picked up a second major in applied math and several CS courses. I generally have little passion for these classes and ended up with a fair share of B's. My overall GPA is still fairly high but I was wondering if these grades would hurt my application to pure math programs and if I should address this in my personal statement.

The GPA is certainly one of the competitive aspects of an application for a graduate program in mathematics (and presumably, in most other academic fields), so anything which brings down your GPA hurts your application some positive amount.  Lackluster grades in applied math and CS are probably going to hurt more than lackluster grades in history and cinema studies.

As is often the case with admissions advice, it's hard to be more precise because the individual admissions committee gets to make up its own mind on how strongly to weight everything.  (And this may not be a bad thing: this is what allows one school of a certain caliber to accept your application while another school of the exact same caliber rejects it.)

For this issue, the structure of the department and university may play a role.  Namely, for undergraduate programs at US colleges and universities (your profile lists you as living in the United States) it is relatively rare for pure math and applied math to be truly separate majors.  In my department for instance applied math is an "area of emphasis" within the math major.  Yet more commonly, there's just one major and students show where they fall on the spectrum by their choice of classes.  If the graduate program to which you're applying is really just a pure math department (again, relatively rare at American universities, though my own graduate program was like this), then they may (perhaps) be used to ignoring or discounting applied math courses. If there's just one math department then admissions faculty who look at your transcript are probably going to view the applied math classes as math classes, and the amount that you will get dinged for your performance will probably be non-negligible.

Now comes the time to say that I find your overall approach curious.  You should not major in a subject for which you have "little passion".  If you know you are not interested in something then the obvious -- a bit narrow-minded, but strategically sound -- plan is to take the minimal number of courses required in that subject but make sure that you do well in them.  (Most often required undergraduate level courses at US universities are not too challenging for the type of students who are going on to graduate study.)  You don't like applied math or CS but you might, as a consolation prize, want a career in them?  This doesn't really scan.  I think it is much better to pursue serious career goals one at a time: if you don't get into graduate school for pure math you can still get a real world job with a major in pure math, and if at that time you discover that necessity has given birth to interest in these other fields: so be it, you can learn more about them then.

You ask whether you should address this in your personal statement.  Perhaps, but since I find your explanation a bit strange I'm not sure what you should write.  Consider providing less pointed information: e.g. you were considering a technical / industrial career until you discovered the depth of your interest in pure mathematics....Yeah, I find it tough to put a good spin on your situation that is faithful to the information given.  So a brief "sorry, these grades are anomalous; what I really like is this and notice how stellar my performance is there" may be the way to go.

Good luck.


Surface plots vs. colour maps There are essentially two ways for plotting three-dimensional data:

Colour maps (or heat maps)¹:

Surface plots:

While surface plots are quite nice to visualise data if you can interactively move the perspective, they often obfuscate aspects of the data if you only have one perspective at hand – as it is mostly the case in papers or presentations. And even if the data is benign for surface plots, I have not yet met an example where it adds anything to the colour map, at least in my opinion. This holds for the case where the two are combined, i.e., the surface is coloured (as in the above example).

As surface plots are still used, even by people who are otherwise making very good plots, I wonder whether I am missing something here. Thus my question is: Given that I have evenly sampled, three-dimensional data and that I can only show one image to visualise it², is there any argument or situation due to which I should use a surface plot instead of a colour map? In both cases, assume optimally chosen plotting parameters, such as the colour scheme or the viewing angle. Also, you can assume that the plot is being used in an academic context, e.g., a paper, presentation or poster. In particular, the audience can be expected to be able to read such a plot and things like fanciness should not be an argument.

¹ This example is just to illustrate the types of plot. I am not asking about how they specifically should be presented.
² And thus, showing a video or multiple perspectives is not an option.

As everything, it depends. Here is a 3d plot of a mass-spectroscopic peak in time and mass to charge:

You can get a pretty good idea of its shape and how important noise is. Also, as it is a wireframe, you can see what is behind. If you want to see several of them I can show you too:

Now the thickness is not so obvious, but still, you get a nice idea of the whole thing. You can immediately see the relative intensities, and patterns like the uppermost corner, where there are several peaks parallel to each other (which is an important feature of my data), with falling intensities.

For the show off, I generated a bigger slice with Blender, that gives a nice feeling of how the data looks like, including the long "ridges", parallel peaks, noise, and profiles:

In this case, I don't care some peaks are covering each other because the exact positioning is quite random. If I do a heatmap I get this:

I can overlay more information, like the red lines on top, but now we have lost track of the relative intensities, actual shapes, and level of noise.

In my case, the 3D works because the position of the peaks is quite random, and the exact shape varies from experiment to experiment. Also, intensities and noise are important, and one needs to keep them in mind. But if you want to plot a function (say, a kernel density), where the exact shape is important, and relative values are not so much, a heatmap or a contour plot are usually a better choice.


Is it acceptable or normal for professors to ask first semester grad students to teach a class? I'm currently pursuing a Master's/PhD integrated program at a university in Korea. It's my first semester, and I along with two other first-semester students are TA'ing for our advisor's undergraduate class.

Our professor is very busy for various reasons. Conferences, events, seminars, etc., and due to this schedule he won't be able to teach three classes in November. He called us into his office and said that "How would you guys like to each teach one of those classes? It's an undergraduate course and so it shouldn't be too hard, plus it'll be great experience."

My response was (almost word for word) "Professor, I'm really flattered that you think so highly of us, but I'm not sure if it would be appropriate for us to teach a class. We're graduate students, but we're still in our first semester. Wouldn't it be better and safer for your reputation if you asked one of the PhD students or research professors, or if you scheduled a separate make-up class instead? I'm mentioning your reputation because many students probably believe that it's inappropriate for relatively inexperienced and less knowledgeable students like us to teach them when they're paying tuition to be taught by experts in the field."

In the end he said he appreciates my feedback but that he'd probably find it difficult to schedule a make-up class, and that "the PhD students and research professors are too busy," also adding that "I want to do you guys a favor by giving this opportunity and experience to you."

Preparing and teaching a class isn't the problem, but I'm just wondering is this normal? I've heard of PhD-level students teaching classes in these situations, but freshmen like us? I'm honestly very concerned.

Whether this is normal, uncommon, or outrageous will differ a lot from university to university. Where I did my PhD (in Austria), this would be standard operating procedure. Where I teach now (in Sweden), it would be uncommon but not really a huge deal as long as the teaching quality remained reasonable*. I am sure there are other universities where this would be unheard-of.

  Preparing and teaching a class isn't the problem, but I'm just wondering is this normal? I've heard of PhD-level students teaching classes in these situations, but freshmen like us? I'm honestly very concerned.

It would help to answer your question if you said what exactly you are concerned about? It sounds like you feel you can prepare the class well (and it also sounds like you don't mind doing so too much), in that case this sounds more like an administrative matter that should not concern you too much - ultimately, it's your professor's problem if your Dean of Studies (or whatever the comparable role in your university is) is unhappy with how exactly your professor decided to organize the teaching in your course.

*There would likely be some questions if the professor in fact delegated three classes in a row, but not because he delegated it to young grad students, more because designated teachers are in fact expected to do all, or at least the vast majority, of their teaching themselves, not just find somebody to do the teaching for them.


Should I inform the journal that I'm the actual first author? It's been about 2 years since I've left academia, partly because of the kind of deeds that I'm about to describe to give a bit of context to the question.

About a month ago I was CCed in an email exchange involving my former PhD supervisor and one of our collaborator, a Post-doc in Mathematics (from now on referred to as the Post-doc). The email said that one of our papers, that we submitted to a journal about 2 years ago (that's right) was finally rejected (better late than never I suppose).

Recently, I have received a letter from the Journal of Functional Analysis that informed me that I have been indicated as a co-author of a publication recently submitted by my former supervisor. It is of course yet another attempt to get the paper published somewhere. Although the fact that the choice of journal is a questionable one (JFA is published by Elsevier, which I would gladly boycott, but this is a whole different matter I won't get into), what startled me was the fact that the Post-doc has been indicated as First Author.

Now, a clarification about the paper is due in order to understand the situation better. Most if not all of the original draft of the paper was written by me, and it pretty much contained most of my research work, which then turned into my PhD thesis together with some later results that I have obtained. There have been times when I got stuck on some points, in which cases a few chats with my supervisor helped overcome the problems. The contributions from the Post-doc towards the final version of the paper are, to say the least, very questionable. One way to summarise them is perhaps with the expression unintentional sabotage. The Post-doc kept changing sentences in the paper because he thought we was improving it. I'm not an English native speaker and nor is the Post-doc, but his English was definitely worse than mine and, as a consequence, I had to spend hours reverting his changes, over and over again. Not to mention his competency with the mathematical content of the paper itself. A good part of the time we spent in meetings to discuss the contents at the board, it was basically me (a PhD student in Pure Math with a degree in Physics at that time) recollecting basic school maths facts (literally) for the sake of the Post-doc who didn't seem to remember them (or know them altogether).

Don't get me wrong on this though. I am in no way implying that there is an voluntary attempt at bad deeds here. Knowing my former supervisor, this is what I think it is going on with the paper submission. Given that I am no longer in academia, it benefits nobody if the paper is submitted with me as first author. Hence it would make more sense to indicate the Post-doc as first author since he is still somehow making his way in the academic world.

Whilst I would totally support this decision in general as very sensible, I find it hard to go by it in this particular case, given the scenario I have described above. By allowing the Post-doc to be first author, my former supervisor is (I believe inadvertently) helping someone to be where he's probably not supposed to be, taking the chance away from someone who is more qualified. You wouldn't believe how many successful applications the Post-doc has had, given his actual knowledge on the subject. The only explanation that I could come up with is that, somehow, people are happy to offer the Post-doc a place at their departments to enjoy of his buffoonery (possibly his only positive aspect).

Now, after this long introduction, here comes the question: Should I notify the journal that I am the actual first author?

I think you've misunderstood the situation.  It appears to me that this is being handled properly by your co-authors, and any action on your part would be inappropriate.

As you've clarified, you and your co-authors are following the usual authorship convention for pure math, which is that authors are listed alphabetically, with the corresponding assumption that all authors contributed equally to the paper.  (Of course, this is often a polite fiction, but you're on board with it now and so it doesn't behoove you to denigrate their contributions.)  You say the alphabetical order here is Postdoc, RecentStudent (that's you), Supervisor.

From the journal's point of view, "first author" just means literally that: whose name should be printed first on the title page?  And since you've decided to use alphabetical order, Postdoc is indeed the "first author" in that sense.  So it is absolutely correct that he's identified as "first author" in the journal's paperwork.  Nobody is playing any funny games here.

Any significance attached to the ordering of the authors, or who comes first, is in the minds of the authors and the readers.  The journal doesn't want to get involved in the question of who is the "primary" author, or who did the most work, and they really don't care.  They just want all the authors to agree on what should go on the title page, and which name should be printed first, second, third, etc.  Any way is fine with them so long as the authors all approve.

If it helps, the submission form for JFA has a section that looks like this:

You click the little arrows to change the order.  Note that "First Author" is automatically attached to whoever is first on the list.

You definitely should not tell the journal that you're the "actual" first author.  They'll interpret this as a sign that you want to be listed first, and thus the authors are not in agreement about what should appear on the title page.  They'll put the whole submission on hold until they can be assured that the three of you have worked it out.  This will greatly annoy your co-authors, especially since it seems to have already been understood that alphabetical order was to be used.

If you really wanted to be listed first (i.e. out of alphabetical order), in principle you could open that discussion with your co-authors, but I think it would reflect poorly on you, especially at this late date.  I don't advise that.  In any case they'd have to agree.  The journal won't settle such disputes for you.

As a side remark, your co-authors really should have asked you before submitting to a new journal.  It sounds like it's not worth making a fuss about it now, but you might ask them politely to involve you in the journal selection process in case it needs to be done again (which is not unlikely; JFA is pretty selective).  They may have assumed that, since you're no longer in academia, you wouldn't really care and would rather not be bothered - not really a valid assumption, but perhaps understandable.  As for the boycott, it's a fine point to bring up in a discussion, but I think most people feel it would be poor form to insist if your co-authors don't feel the same - especially if, as in the Postdoc's case, they're at a career stage where "getting published in the best journal" has to take precedence over idealistic considerations.


Using teaching materials I found on the internet for my own teaching I teach in a university. I want to ask whether it is allowed to use slides or tutorials that I downloaded from the internet in my class. I don't make any modifications to the slide, which I want to show in the class room and distribute to my students. If the slides have the author's name on it, I will leave it there.

Should I ask for permission for using it and distributing it to my students?

Note: I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.  Seek a lawyer's opinion if you need a definitive answer.

Merely finding something on the internet doesn't prove you have the right to use it.

It might be provided free for certain uses, but with restrictions.
It could even be completely illegal (such as stolen content).
Quite commonly, material will be posted without a clear statement of how you can legally use it.  And under most copyright laws, it is presumed that you do not have the right to copy and redistribute material unless that is explicitly granted.

Check the license, if there is one. Some material might be provided with an explicit copyright license, such as one of the Creative Commons licenses.  If so, you can simply check if reusing the material for academic use is allowed.

If there is no official license, but the website has an informal statement allowing the material to be reused, that's a gray area.  Technically, this probably isn't sufficient to grant you a legal basis to use the material.  However, I would probably be happy to proceed on this basis for a low-risk activity like handing out material to students.

If there is no license, seek permission.  Contact the author and get permission in writing.

In either case, clearly attribute the material.  If the author of the material isn't clear, add a statement.  A copyright license, such as Creative Commons licenses mentioned above, may also have specific requirements for attribution, which you should follow.


Taking into account word lengths when writing humanities articles I am currently writing an article that I hope to submit to a specific journal on women’s studies. The journal’s word limit is 6,000 to 9,000 words.

I am still in the planning phase of writing.
How should I organise my writing in light of this?
Do I aim for the lower end of the word count or should I aim for 9,000?

Aim for what you want to say, and then see where you are. Every paper I've ever written was too long in the beginning because I wrote down what I thought was necessary to say. Then you cut to what the limit is, by omitting unnecessary words (the English language has many options for that), critically rethinking whether a sentence is necessary, etc. But that should be the second step: Start by putting down what the paper should be, absent word limits.


When is it most appropriate to transition from first to senior author? I am transitioning from junior to senior researcher status. I have several publications as first author, many as coauthor, and a few as senior (last and corresponding) author.

As people perceive differently the role of authors according to their position, especially when looking briefly at a scholarly paper, I am wondering when it is most appropriate to transition from first to senior author.

Does it depend on biologic age, academic age, ranking, tenure, or what else?

My field of interest is cardiovascular research, but I think that a general answer followed by some details on the main different academic fields would be beneficial for ACADEMIA readership.

I think in most fields in which author order denotes the relative level of contribution, while people talk about the last author as being the "senior" author, this is more of an artifact of the fact that the PI of the group generally makes the least contribution to the work. I have never heard of some one striving to be senior/last author. Rather, the author order simply reflects the order of contribution.

If I have the highest academic rank, am the oldest, been in academia the longest, have a name that comes last alphabetically, and obtained the funding, but contributed the most to the project, I would want first authorship. More often than not what happens is people in my lab do most of the work and I make contributions through guiding the research. This generally leads me to making the smallest contribution and naturally being the last author even though I have the highest academic rank, am the oldest, been in academia the longest, have a name that comes first alphabetically.

A related question is when do you start structuring your research program such that you make more less "first author" like contributions. This tends to happen naturally as your time for research decreases and the number of projects that you are involved in increases. Typically this means you have enough funding for a small team of research assistants, PhD students and Postdocs.


MSc with relation to Cloud I wonder if there are universities having real-world MSc related courses. My focus is to understand cloud technologies and services(especially if it is Amazon). Preferably in UK, but can be actually anywhere around the world. Maybe general or specific like PAAS , SAAS etc. Could you suggest any?

There's an MSc specialising in Networks and Distributed Systems at St Andrews. There's also quite a large group that does cloud computing research and a cloud lab, so you would almost certainly be able to do an MSc project on that topic.


Is there a credit hours requirement for applying to a masters course? I am currently taking an undergraduate degree, and by completion, I would have 112 credit hours accumulated.
This is fine and all if I don't plan to continue my studies or apply to a local university, but I heard some of my seniors getting rejected applying for a master at universities abroad because the credit hours they accumulated were not sufficient, and thus their degree is only acknowledged as a diploma equivalent.

Edit: I am especially interested in universities in US, UK, and Japan, but I am looking for a rather general answer, as in, is it common for universities to reject an application because of credit hours, even though the degree came from an accredited university?

Edit 2: my main concern is, whether I should take extra credits to ensure I won't run into a road block because of difference in the credit hours standard between universities (instead of say, my performance/cgpa/accomplishments).

No.

Since there is no universal standard for what constitutes a "credit hour", imposing a required number of credit hours is simply impossible.  If you have a degree, you have a degree.

On the other hand, which courses you've taken definitely does matter.  For example:

If you're applying for graduate school in computer science at X, but your classes have small overlap with the undergraduate computer science program at X, that raises a red flag.  That gap makes your undergraduate program look weak, or at least that it develops a different set of skills than the grad program at X normally expects.
If you claim in your application that you're interested in (say) artificial intelligence, but you've never taken an artificial intelligence class, that raises a red flag.  How an you claim interest in a field you've never been seriously exposed to?  How can we judge your abilities in a field where we can't see a single grade?

Of course, all this is secondary to your potential for research excellence, as described in specific and credible detail in your statement and in your recommendation letters.

(I'm on the graduate admissions committee in a US CS department.)


Is it recommended/allowable to get a Master's degree that is not directly related to my bachelor's degree? I have a bachelor's degree in English but I am thinking of getting a Master's on distance learning.

It is definitely allowed and even recommended based on your current interests and future ambitions. I did my bachelor's degree in Electronics and Communication. But then I did my Master's degree in Computer science. And I have not regretted my decision on bit.


How feasible is it to go back to BS to get a second degree? I assume it varies from institution to institution, but out of curiosity. If a person graduates, from say computer science, and he wants to go back to his institution after a couple of years of industry work to study a related field like mathematics.
Would that person need to apply from scratch and redo all the work, or would he be allowed to skip some of the courses he has already taken? (in part to avoid grade inflation for retaking courses a second time).
Like in the above example, let's say the person has already taken introductory and medium level courses on linear algebra, algebra and calculus.
Will the person be required to retake all of these course?
Again I know it will be different across institutions but I am wondering on average.

The main thing is to reverse your attitude a little compared to lower-level study.
You are not applying. You are considering employing these people as your paid servants to teach you what you want to learn. You will be paying them in money and in time.
From their side, their desire is to serve their students properly: that is, to give them a good education. They cannot do this if you do not have the background knowledge and skills you need to be able to understand the course. If you are the one sitting at the back of the room counting on his fingers while everyone else is polishing up on Fubini's theorem, it is a waste of your time and therefore of theirs.
Conventionally, their suitability to teach you is measured by the bachelor's course you have taken and the certificate you have stamped on your forehead. From what you have said, you are not conventional. That is fine. Most institutions recognise to some extent that "entry requirements" are convenient measures of suitability but not necessarily the only measures. If an institution is unintelligent enough not to be able to understand that, then it is a clockwork machine, not an institution.
You need to contact the institution in question (or each institution, if more than one). You need to find the right person to talk to to have an exploratory discussion. This is not - and should not be presented as - a clever way of circumventing the requirements.
To give a concrete example: I know someone who failed to get into Oxford to read English and gave up the idea of academic study. Some years later she realised that if she didn't use her brain, it would explode; and that History was her chosen subject. She contacted the best college in Oxford, explained the situation, went and had an exploratory meeting with the tutors, and they said (a) from motivation and intelligence she sounded a perfect fit but (b) to make sure her essay-writing skills had not been forgotten they would require her to take the entrance exam.
Find who the right person is to discuss with. Ringing the secretariat and asking is a good a way as any: they love being asked for advice. When you have your meeting, simply put the case as clearly as you have here.

Is there anything I can do short of going back and being a first-year undergraduate again?
If starting at the masters level requires more skills than I have, then (a) do you have recommendations as to how I can acquire those skills and (b) do you have recommendations as to how I can reassure you that I have acquired those skills?

Adult-to-adult you should have a much more productive conversation than if you approach it as suppliant-to-gatekeeper.


If I notice an error in a figure after manuscript submission, could I be accused of falsification of data during review stage? I have submitted a paper to a reputed journal (computer science; computer vision to be specific). While i was keenly waiting for the reviews, they were getting delayed. So I began working on an extension of the work.

During that I realized that one of the qualitative figures in the submitted paper might be slightly wrong (a few pixels yet noticeable) due to miscalculation while generating the image. However, the final interpretation and the description of it in the paper still would not change. But, when I critically view the image I think the reviewer may conclude that it could be photoshopped. I checked on the journal tracking system that the reviews have been received.
My questions are:

(i) I am ready for a rejection, but could such a mistake may lead to public shaming or ban from future publications?

(ii) Would it be advisable to write to the editor that I have found a mistake in the submitted paper and explain that it does not impact the discussion. Or should I wait and correct them in the next version?

To answer your question, it sounds like the difference is so minor that this wouldn't be considered falsification but just a simple (and minor) mistake on your part.  You said yourself: the difference doesn't change the conclusions.

Addressing the issue is what the editor is for.  Contact them and point out that there was a bug that caused the figure to be generated slightly incorrectly (you are not the first person to have done this).  He/she will evaluate it and likely conclude the same as what you have: it is minor, does not affect the overall conclusions of the work, and will have you update it for final publication.

The reviews are complete but it sounds like you haven't gotten the comments back.  It's likely that any discussion you have with the editor can conclude with you rolling this image in with the reviewer comments.

Don't overthink it.  Everyone involved in this process is human, despite carrying titles like "editor" and "reviewer."  Those folks are in those roles because they have experience and know that these types of things happen.


How to prove that a paper published with a particular English transliteration of my Russian name is mine? My first name is Евгений (it is Russian; the usual transliteration is Yevgeny). I was born in Ukraine in 1990, when it was still in the Soviet Union, where Russian was the official language. I lived there until 2011, when I went to Canada, where I am currently working on a Ph.D in mathematics. The name indicated in my passport is IEVGEN. It has undergone two rounds of changes: first it was translated from Russian into Ukrainian (Евгений => Євген), and then the Ukrainian version was transliterated into English under the transliteration rules that were valid at the time of receiving the passport. If I received the passport under the present rules, it would be spelled as IEVHEN. The issue here is that the sound in the Ukrainian version is something in between of G and H.

I am deeply unhappy with the "name" IEVGEN: it looks odd, it is not pronounced as the Ukrainian version, and it is definitely not how my parents named me.

I really don't want this spelling to appear on my publications, and ideally even on my Ph.D. thesis. Right now I don't know which version I would prefer, but let's consider YEVGENY, which is the closest to the original, and EUGENE, which is the English/French version of the same name. I know that I am the one who decides under which name to be published, but it raises the following question:

If at some point I will need to prove the authorship of a certain publication that bears a name slightly, or significantly different from what is in my documents, will that be a problem?

EDIT: some of the answers suggest me several ways of how to spell my name, and I appreciate them, but it is not what I have asked. My question only had to do with bureaucratic and juridical aspects of the problem.

EDIT 2: The title of the question was changed by an editor to "What author name to list on publications when English translation of Russian name on passport is unsatisfactory?", which is again completely misleading. I am not asking what to put on publication, I am asking about how to prove that the chosen name corresponds to me. So I edited the title back to the original.

As a possible solution if you are still worried about it: Get an ORCID account.

They basically created an ID, a DOI for researchers. If you link your publications to your ORC-ID, you don't need to worry if your name is very common (e.g. John Smith) or if someone misspelled your name.


Is it acceptable in an academic interview to pretend like you derived something, or to explaining where it is from Video in reference: https://youtu.be/dUwN6GI-0EQ after 4:05

In a Cambridge (model) interview, someone was asked to sketch a graph of sin(x)/x. The intention was clearly that they were not to have seen this function before. When watching, I immediately recognised this as sinc(x) (a function sometimes used in electrical engineering). They were then told not to evaluate this function at 0 because it's difficult, however I knew how this could be done. If I was in this position, would it be acceptable to pretend like I could derive everything I knew about this function already to impress the interviewer, or important to say that I have already seen the function before.

I really don't think the interviewer cares one way or another whether you've seen the problem before.  She just wants to know if you can solve it, and to hear how you go about it.

In the video, she does say "the function that I'm going to write down, you've probably not seen before"; but I interpret that as just a way to reassure the student that the problem should be possible to solve whether she has seen the function before or not.  It's so the student doesn't panic or get stuck trying to remember the function, rather than actually trying to solve the problem.

So I don't think there is any point in either pretending the problem is new to you, or in announcing that it's familiar.  Neither will significantly help or hurt you in itself.  If you know how to solve the problem, solve it and move on.

On the other hand, it probably wouldn't be helpful to just draw the graph from memory and say "here it is, done".  The interviewer is almost certainly more interested in having you demonstrate that you understand the concepts and methods used to solve the problem, than in seeing if you know the solution.  So you would be wise to work through the problem methodically, explaining what you are doing and how you know to do it.


Does your final-year GPA matter once you apply for graduate school during your undergradate study? I am a final-year undergraduate student studying Anthropology. And I am willing to apply for graduate school. And I am curious whether one's final-year GPA matters. Because once you apply and receive an offer, you will not have received your grades for the courses you took in your final year.
If it does not matter once you receive an offer, then what about schools that require a minimum GPA in their applications? As an example, if I receive an offer from a graduate program that requires at least a 3.7 GPA, but my GPA drops below that number once I graduate, would that be a problem?
Thanks a lot!

The linked duplicate question answers your query regarding applications in the US. This answer will address the UK situation.
In the UK, if you haven't graduated and got your final mark yet, your offer of a PhD place and funding will almost certainly be conditional on you finishing your degree with a certain grade. They may specify a certain GPA you need to graduate with, or the equivalent UK degree classification. Since the UK system is less finely graded than in the US, the latter scenario gives you more flexibility.
For example, they may state that you must achieve equivalent to a 2:1 (pronounced "two-one", aka upper second class) degree. In the UK this means an average of between 60% and 69%. Let's say your GPA is currently 3.5, which might correspond to 68%*, a high 2:1. However, in your final semester it drops to 3.3, which might now correspond to 64%, a middling 2:1. In this imaginary scenario, your drop in GPA didn't correspond to a drop in UK classification, so you would still meet the offer.
However, if they give you an offer in terms of your GPA (perhaps less likely), asking for you to graduate with a 3.5 and you drop to 3.3, then you have missed the terms of your offer and your place and funding will likely be rescinded.
Related to Jon Custer's comment, it's also important to note that in the UK the average grade tends to be weighted towards the final year, and first year grades almost never count towards the final classification. So doing poorly in your final year certainly looks bad from a UK perspective, as the final year courses are arguably the most important and have the biggest effect on your overall classification. While that may not be true for your own degree, the unconscious bias may still be in the minds of a UK admissions committee.

*Note that I have no idea how GPA would really be converted to a UK classification; likely the university you are applying to will have their own method of conversion that would definitely be worth asking about before you apply.


Medical school admissions vs. STEM PhD admissions in the United States I read an article in the past - I forget the source now, but I believe it was credible - about how American STEM PhD programs (and master's programs) admit a lot of qualified international students, e.g. from China and India, in order to help fill the skills gaps in the U.S., but an interesting phenomenon was that American medical schools don't act in the same way, effectively not admitting international students and preserving the acceptance slots for American students.  If this is indeed true, why is that the case?  Doesn't the United States have a skills gap in medicine and a shortage of medical doctors?

This may have changed but we studied cartels in college and the American Medical Association (AMA) was called a cartel by my professor.

In the US the AMA not only sanctions the medical schools but puts a count on how many students can be accepted. Since there are a limited number of slots competition is more fierce.

There is no external body limiting STEM or other graduate school departments.

STEM and other PhD can get grants as they are producing a product (thesis) that can be (and often is) sponsored.

In medical school the only product is medical training for the student. There is little to no incentive to sponsor a medical degree.


Pay for journal cover image? Wiley journals request payment from authors who want an image to appear on the journal cover.  Is this a common practice followed by many publishers?  Why do authors pay the fee?

It's not that uncommon. Authors pay this charge mostly because they think having a cover image increases their reputation and/or impact. I don't know any study proving this assumption. Please let me know, if there are any.

Nevertheless, if an author wants to have a cover image, I always suggest to negotiate because this significantly decreases the amount of money the author has to pay, see e.g.

  Similar story: Journal (a respected one) offered to use one of our images for their cover page. They wanted $1800. I said I don't have the money. They offered to do it for $900. I said no. In the end they put it on the cover for "free".

Source: Tweet be @rauscherMRI


How to address a mistake in an old paper in a very prestigious scientific journal? A Nature paper published in 2000 currently has around 400 citations, but there is a mistake in the paper and surprisingly, still it gets citations. The mistake affects the result of the paper in a way that half of the arguments in the paper are invalid.

I warned the authors two years ago and they confirmed the mistake. I expected them to put some announcement that there is a mistake in the paper to avoid misleading researchers, but unfortunately they have not done so.

How should we address these situations? Should we send a comment and report it to the editor? Is it rude? Or should we simply dismiss it because it is an old paper?

Some journals accept a type of short correspondence or comment in which objections to some published material can be submitted. If you can articulate your objections in a scientific way suitable for publishing you may try this approach. For example, imagine the original analysis has some error. Reanalyzing the data gives different results and invalidates the previous publication. Conversely in this approach the authors of the original study have the opportunity to reply to your complaints.

An example of this is a commentary published in Nature Genetics, where the authors highlight important deficiencies in the design of the experiments in an earlier publication that can lead to incorrect conclusions. Of course, the authors of the original paper are allowed to respond to the comments.

Correspondences have the advantage that can be very short. I am not sure at this moment if Nature also accepts this format.

If the material that demonstrates the error in the original publication is substantial it may grant an additional publication. This is for example what happened with the paper that demonstrated the divergence between human and mice inflammatory responses, which led to a response paper analyzing the same data, and arriving at the opposite results.


Is it rude to ask the status of an application? I have applied for a PhD position in October 2015. I was not informed about the result since then.

Is it appropriate to send a mail to a member of the hiring committee (with whom I have contacted before applying) to ask about the process? Or should I wait for them to contact me?

The university is in Sweden and I have contacted with the member prior to the application since he is the head of the research group that I intend to work in.

I don't think it is inappropriate nor rude to send them an email. It's your right to be informed with your result as time is passing.


Collaboration tool for students and teachers I'm looking for a tool (web application) similar to Atlassian Confluence but for academic purposes. The main purpose of that is to allow selected teachers and students from different schools collaborate on a project. It should have features like file uploading, to-do lists, calendar, rules assigning etc. Also it should have a possible low price-tag. I'm from Europe so if it could be a European tool that would be great.

I understand you mean "school" as in "before university", so you are working with non professional researchers. In this case, I think the most important bit is to keep it simple, and use tools people know and are familiar with and just work. So,

Mailing list: for group-wide communication. There are tons of free alternatives.
File upload: shared Dropbox folder or ownCloud. With the extra benefit that everybody has a backup of everything, so nothing gets lost.
Everything else: any free wiki.

That should cover all your needs.


It is worth to apply for a postdoc position a few days after the deadline? Is it OK to apply for an advertised postdoc position a few days (not more than one week) after the deadline? It is not an on-line application form, but sending an email with attachments.
Will this application be dismissed? Or more like "Let's see this candidate too". How does such hiring work? Are there any downsides (untrustworthy candidate etc.)?

The obvious question in the mind of the potential employer will be: why were you not able to meet the deadline? I would suggest you have a good reason for this. If it's just that you were disorganised, this will not reflect well on you. While you could take the attitude of "I've got nothing to lose by trying - they can only say no", bear in mind that many fields of academia are quite small communities and you may well end up wanting to apply for another job in the same lab, or collaborate in the future. Therefore, making a good impression is important even outside of trying to get the job. You need to weigh this up against how much you want that particular postdoc.

On the other hand, if you have a good reason for missing the deadline, then you might as well get in touch and see what they say. Sometimes people don't receive enough good quality applications and are delighted to include an extra candidate.

I would agree with @VonBeche's recommendation to call beforehand to ask whether they could accept a late application, before sending the completed forms.


How long do university libraries keep old copies of dissertations? How can I get a copy of a dissertation that I need for my research?

I suspect that that differs from university to university, and country to country, but I would not be surprised if the answer is "for as long as they can preserve the paper". I remember finding the master's thesis of my (fairly old) teacher when I was a high-school student.

On the other hand, it may be the policy of some university / library to digitalize them  (or in the old days, to put them on microfilm) after a given amount of time to save space in the library. This depends on how much money / time they have for that effort, and how much space they have in the library. It is easy to imagine huge differences between universities and countries in these different costs, resulting in different policies.

Regardless, you should expect that people will be able to find your dissertation for as long as you live (and afterwards).


Re-using literature review ideas in another assignment, paper, etc Suppose that I submitted an essay of a literature review for 1 course and I have to prepare a study for another course with similar ideas. My questions:

Can I 'copy' some of the ideas of the literature review of the 1st essay into the 2nd one? How ethical is such a practice?
Generally speaking, suppose that I define x and lists its components in one study, can I reuse the same source in another study since I want to also include the definition of x and its components in this 2nd study? If yes, can one use the same exact words?

The answer to this question is very simple: Fully explain the situation to the teachers of BOTH classes and ask what is acceptable to them. Transparency is the key to avoiding almost all kinds of perceived inappropriate behaviour, and this is definitely such a case. The only right answer in your situation is what both teachers consider acceptable.

Believe it or not, standards of what is or is not plagiarism can sometimes be quite subjective, and in my experience, no area is more subjective than when it comes to questions about multiple submission and repurposing your own previous work (which some people call "self plagiarism", but I hate that term and so I avoid using it--I prefer to describe the behaviour rather than making the ridiculous suggestion that you can plagiarize yourself). What is acceptable to one teacher is unacceptable to another, and not only that, a teacher can change their mind on a situation simply because you take the time to openly explain what's going on.

Often, if you are transparent to both teachers about reusing material across classes, they will let you do it as long as you are very clear to them what is new and original in each submission. (At least, that was my experience in university when I used the same subject for an English paper and a Public Speaking speech, having fully informed both teachers of what I was doing.)


How to write research results when some study participants dropped out? The research (Delphi study) started with NN study participants in Round 1 (gathering demographics). Ten percent of the participants dropped out and did not complete Round 2 or (of course) Round 3.

I'm unsure how to report this.

Do I report the demographic results and then add a note to the Round 2 and Round 3 results ("Note: Of the NN people who completed Round 1, only Nn completed Rounds 2 and 3.")

Or do I remove from the Round 1 results the data gathered from the drop-outs?

Or ... ?

It is a very bad thing to remove people who dropped out from your data set.  The problem is that you do not know whether dropping out is correlated with the effect that you are studying.

For an extreme example, consider a study on the effect of being shot at on soccer ability.  In round 1, people play soccer, then they get shot at randomly with a gun that might or might not hit them, then they play round 2 of soccer, then they get shot at again, and then they play round 3 of soccer.  Of course, anybody who actually gets hit when they are shot will probably drop out.  If you eliminate those people, you will vastly underestimate how badly soccer players are affected by people shooting at them.

This may seem like a rather extreme example, but things very much like it happen frequently in biomedical or psychological studies, just with less obvious causal connections.

Report exactly what happened, and take the missing people into account when you are computing your effect size.  If you need help on the technical aspects of that, you should ask on Cross-Validated.SE.


Is it worthwhile to cite documentaries in personal statements? When writing something to be read and scrutinized by academics, like a personal statement, will academics appreciate, respect, and value references to factual documentaries?

For example, I'd like to write about how a documentary on the criminal justice system motivated my interest in law. I'll also cite books, but words fail to describe the influence of this audiovisual documentary on deciding to study law.

While this may vary somewhat by discipline, I would think that the faculty would be more interested in what you took away from this source of inspiration and how it shaped your perspective/career interests, rather than the actual source itself. (This assumes the documentary is somewhat mainstream and not endorsing fringe ideas that would seem extreme to academics in your field.) Many students and professionals are drawn to study a particular field not because they read a brilliant academic book or paper, but because they read a lay book on the topic or saw a documentary or television program that introduced them to certain issues. These less formal forms of media can be excellent gateways to academic study.

Personally, it was Pete Earley's book "Crazy" that sparked my interest in mental health policy. I referenced this in my graduate school applications, describing how it helped me connect my macro-scale interests in health interventions with my micro-scale interests in the pathology and treatment of severe mental illness. When I interviewed with programs, several faculty discussed this, and they seemed more interested in how I had connected to the ideas in the book then the fact that it wasn't a formal academic text.

Be careful with simply stating that "X had a huge influence on me and made me want to study y or fight injustice"; avoid generic statements. If you feel you are able to clearly state how the documentary impacted your career interests intellectually as well as emotionally, I see no reason not to include it. I also agree with the earlier comment - you might mention the name of the documentary or cite one particularly influential paper, but I'm not sure you need to cite works throughout the statement. (Of course, this may differ by discipline as well).


Information Regarding PhD Admissions Are there universities that offer PhD in Mathematics without GRE or TOEFL in Europe?

I have completed my Masters in Applied Mathematics with a cgpa 8.0. I am keen to pursue research in Mathematics but I am not aware about the same. I would highly appreciate the comments in this regard.

The GRE is generally not used at all in Europe for Master/PhD admissions.

Another thing is TOEFL, if you will be studying in English you usually have to prove that you are proficient with the language, and there are multiple ways to do it. You have to check with particular institutions to what they require, it could be the TOEFL or IELTS or any other test of english, or proof that you have already completed a degree in English, etc.


How to treat dual affiliation in a journal article I am supposed to receive research funds from a Chinese university while I am working for a US university. The issue is that the Chinese university, as a part of contractual requirements, requests fund recipients to place the university name before my current university in the affiliation section of my future publications. I understand that it is common to place my current university as the first affiliation and the Chinese university as the second affiliation. Does this affiliation issue matter legally? Or is it just my choice?

Where did you do the work that the publication is based on? You need to check the affiliation requirements of the publisher, as well as your contractual obligations with the Chinese institution. Maybe write to the journal editor and explain your situation. Most journals state something like "Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done)..." and "If an author has moved since the work described in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, a 'Present address' (or 'Permanent address') may be indicated as a footnote to that author's name. The address at which the author actually did the work must be retained as the main, affiliation address." (emphasis added, from Elsevier archaeology journals, e.g. https://www.elsevier.com/journals/journal-of-archaeological-science/0305-4403/guide-for-authors) and "The primary affiliation for each author should be the institution where the majority of their work was done. If an author has subsequently moved, the current address may also be stated." from Nature Publishing Group (emphasis added). The Chinese institution, which wants to be acknowledged for supporting you, is not legally the primary institutional affiliation for work done in a US institution. You should be wary of misrepresentation, which could violate publishing ethics.


Publishing an idea that came up on a conference? Some weeks ago I went to a conference with some of the leading minds in my field of research. One of the speakers (professor A) mentioned a problem that bothered him and that was unsolved up to that point. After the talk (when most had already left the room to get coffee) professor B mentioned a possible algorithm to A to solve these kind of problems (myself and some others followed the discussion with interest).

Out of interest in the topic and motivated by the prospect of a novel algorithm, I spent some time working on this question myself - combined the suggestion of professor B with some of my own ideas and indeed found an algorithm that solves the problem. I can even proof convergence, error bounds, etc. The suggestion of professor B was enough for a working algorithm, but I think that convergence and correctness proofs are only possible with the addition of my ideas.

The question is how to proceed now. If I had thought of the initial idea myself it would be obvious that I should write it up and get it published. As it stands I obviously have to get in touch with professor B (and professor A?) though.

Is it too presumptuous to propose a collaborative paper to professor B? Should I also contact professor A? I can assume that he at least also worked on the same problem these past few weeks...
I could just mention them in the acknowledgment part of the paper - but that would still feel like I stole their idea.

I could just write them, what my ideas are on the topic - but I would feel more comfortable doing so if they already communicated a will to collaborate with me. As it stands they don't even know I worked on the issue...
On the other hand if I write something along the line of "I have found something. If you are willing to collaborate I will share it with you." it feels somewhat like extortion...

Is there some etiquette how to handle this situation or is it just "first come first serve", and I should see that I get the results published? (OK, the latter is definitely rude - but still...)

You should definitely get in touch with Prof B, but don't propose a collaboration immediately (that would indeed be a little bit presumptuous).

Thank him for his idea during the conference, and tell him some outline of your results (you may want to share the paper if you feel comfortable). And then end the email with something like "given that the origin of the idea was initially yours, I was wondering how you felt about a possible co-authorship? If you feel that this is not possible, would you mind if I put forward your name in the acknowledgments section?"

That way you leave the choice up to him, and he can have an easy way out if he doesn't feel like being a co-author for any reason.

(EDIT: Regarding Prof A, it might be good etiquette to get in touch with him to make sure he's not working on the same stuff, but I don't think it's strictly necessary)


Whether to get different letter of recommendation when supervisor's letter is bad? I've graduated from my previous grad school (psychology) for 2 years and now seriously considering to apply for another graduate school (or professional school at master's level), computer science in particular, for next year's entry. That was also the major of my college degree. I will be applying several Canadian schools now and hope I will be able to start a new life there.

I was extremely uncomfortable when I just got into the psychology graduate school four years ago that I didn't do well at first. Not only due to English being my second language, but also I had absolutely no background in psychology, plus the massive amount of reading filled with weird words drove me absolutely crazy. For this reason, my major advisor had me finish with a master's degree instead of PhD, which I was originally enrolled in. However, he was extremely helpful when I was doing my master's graduation project and thesis. He was helping me day and night with my work that I believe nobody else could ever help his student this much. I ended up finishing my master's level of psychology very well and left with that degree.

When I got in touch with him recently and asked him to write a letter for my next school, he said

  "I will mention that at first you didn't turn out to work very quickly that you had trouble to get what I was asking done. So I had you finish with a master's degree instead of PhD. However, later you learned to work much harder and your final project and program worked very well. If you think the above contents suit you, let me know where I should send the letter."

I don't know for sure if my feeling is correct, but I feel like I will get 100% rejection even from mediocre schools I'm going to apply, if those words appear on the LOR.

Question: should I switch letter?

Concern: I didn't ever think one day in the future I will need to go back to school when I was still doing the psychology program. Thus I was't enthusiastic at all about building my connection with professors so that two other members of my thesis defense committee really don't know me very well.

This is probably the last chance for me to change my fate, I don't want to lose it.

Suggestions please, and any help is much appreciated.

As I see it, the adviser's reply is in order. He openly stated what the contents would be and emphasized the option to choose another letter, if it suits you more, without any implication that that act could be taken in a negative connotation.

Further, the contents seem to align with the story you told here, i.e. you started a PhD, but finished with a master's degree. He states you strengths and weaknesses, which is to be expected. What is more important, he intends to accentuate you growth during your studies. This is a powerful statement from his side. As I see it, his response is objective.

Additionally, given the fact that your adviser was extremely helpful during your graduation ("day and night"), which I understand him to have taken on extra effort to see you graduate, I see no evidence that he would sabotage your attempts.

My opinion is that you should use this adviser as reference, as I seriously doubt that you could get a stronger letter from someone else (unless you neglected to mention that you had other collaborations where you fared better). Although other persons may not say anything bad about you, they can probably say also nothing positive, and luke-warm letters are not good. I would always opt for a strong letter, from someone who knows you and can attest to your journey through grad school. It is nothing unusual to have a bad start, but the fact that you saw it through and earned praise towards the end is a very good thing.

Finally, you should probably menage your expectations. You shouldn't expect that you'll find anyone willing to lie for you in a letter of recommendation. From your post, your adviser is a good guy, so, again, I think you have the best chances going with him. Or, put another way, your adviser said nothing that wasn't true, so this truth might or might not hinder your way into some institution, but that state was not induced by your adviser, he simply reports what he observed.


How much weight do Math PhD programs place on the subject GRE? I am a master's student in mathematics at a relatively unknown university, studying Number Theory. I have completed readings for my master's thesis and will present this in Spring, along with other readings with another advisor. I have 4.0 gpa throughout my time here, and I believe strong recommendation letters. My research goals are pretty focused, and this will show through on my application (probably mostly so in my personal statement, but also in one rec letter).

The only thing that is holding me back is this darn math subject GRE test. I have been so focused on research that I did not study for it! It was very fast, with lots of tricky calculus (the "advanced" topics questions are not actually that hard). I have not received my score, but I believe it will be bad, maybe at best 40 percentile, but I'm just guessing.

So my question: How much weight does math GRE subject test have on my application? Specifically, I'd like to get advice on this from people in pure math on admissions committees (or used to be), since this obviously depends on the university. For instance, how much does it matter for "tier 1", "tier 2", etc. universities (whatever this means)?

I have tried to look up other information on this but little is out there, with the exception of a couple of threads here and there that are not super helpful.

The main reason I ask is that I am spending potentially a lot of money on applications, most of which require this tricky calculus test! But I'd rather not apply and save the money if it won't matter.

I worked in the admissions office of the graduate school of arts and sciences at Harvard University.

While the GRE is important, there are a kaleidoscope of other factors that admissions takes into consideration.

You stated, quite eloquently, what happened, which was that you were so engaged in research that it hurt your study time for the GRE.

Admission officers value applicants who display intellectual curiosity but also honesty.

In your statement of purpose, explain what happened

If you were wanting to get into a top-five university, what about applying as a special student. The GRE is not required, but I must warn you, it is still as competitive as applying as a degree seeking student.

Just a thought, and wishing you all the best in your educational pursuits.


How to link to a Google Scholar entry? I have seen websites with links to specific Google Scholar entries, i.e. for this publication here.

How can you link to a specific entry? It seems like when I click the title of a paper, it either follows the link to the publication or opens a pop-up window with more (and editable) information.

Looking at the website you cited (matt-koehler.com/vita) He is evidently just linking to the cluster page.

Here is how I was able to recreate that sort of link:

Go to your Google Scholar profile. Click on the paper you want to link. The pop-up window you mention will appear. At the bottom of the pop-up, there is a link that says "All X versions" where X is some number. That link will contain the URL you want.


What to do with papers after misconduct allegation was resolved? I was alleged in scientific misconduct in form of authorship abuse. More details are in my previous questions

How to respond to allegations of misconduct in authorship dispute?

Should I put my supervisor as coauthor of a paper?

The good news is that the investigations have ended in the inquiry stage (the dean have informed me by email).

There are several probable reasons why they have stopped:

The article was indeed done with different methodology, which had nothing to do with the approach described in the grant application.
At the interview I have revealed several facts of abuse, namely I was ordered to work on the projects not connected to my funding project.
They are afraid I could become a whistleblower.

After receiving the confirmation from the dean, I immediately informed the editor of the journal. Unfortunately, the editor rejected the manuscript, stating that:

  This is useful information for us, but the question before the journal is not one of personal scientific misconduct, but rather whether the authorship on the paper is the correct one, and whether we should proceed with the external review process, which may lead to its eventual acceptance and publication.

  Based on the information available, we have decided not to go further with the review of your manuscript.  There are still significant concerns being raised about whether the manuscript should have been submitted with its current authorship, and we do not believe there is any clear path to removing these concerns.  The scientific reviews we have received are mixed and would place the manuscript in an unclear position regarding acceptance or rejection based on its content.  These two factors together give us sufficient cause to issue a rejection.  Because the manuscript did not reach the publication stage, no other action is necessary, and we would like to also consider the case closed.

My questions are:

Should I try to resubmit the manuscript as is into some other journal; should I redo all the calculations, reanalyze, and rewrite it first; or should I just abandon it?
I have another manuscript, for which my ex-supervisor sent me an email stating that "he assumed that I was going to publish it by my myself", in spite of the fact that he supported me. This seems to be the evidence that he resigns his authorship. Should I try to publish it also?
Can they reopen the misconduct case if they would like to do that?

If you would like an academic future, you should ask these questions your (former?) PI, and do your best to make up.

Some answers to related earlier questions you asked gave you advice that saw this only from a David taking on Goliath perspective, and wrote what I felt would only further egg you on. With additional information added in the newer questions, however, you really found yourself in the extremely rare case of your PI taking action against you at your own school. It is time to stop acting on guesses and interpretations, with some Internet forum feedback. You need to get a clear answer from that PI, ideally in writing: for 1 and 2, ask if this means he agrees you can go ahead and submit the 2 papers under your single-authored name?

However, that isn't what I would do. 2, at least, could be read as a conciliatory outreach by your PI: I assume you want to publish this by yourself? (...but do tell me that no, you would like to go together).

Even if that is not true, publishing something (anything) with your PI now matters more than a publication by yourself. You write they are "afraid" of you. They are not. Whistleblowers (if you even could blow a whistle) are a nuisance and embarrassment, rarely more; and in the cases in industry I know of (a friend was a fairly high profile one in banking), they eventually only come back to bite the whistler. It may take years and seem differently; but they eventually do.

Justly or not, the whole incident reflects poorly on all participants (a petty adviser; and a student setting off a petty adviser). For an academic future, in all cases I am familiar with you need your adviser's support. You had a falling out; you should try to mend it. The situation will not help the PI to recruit in the near future; and how are you going to get recommendations that matter? You both have an interest in making up: that is what you should focus on. It may be hard, it may be impossible; but it doesn't seem that you have tried, or tried hard enough. It's your life and future, and phyrric victories and a single publication don't matter in the big scheme.

If you really just want to know if you can ignore all this, and publish alone  based on that email and the result of the proceedings: I find it risky, but not very so as there is no way your PI is going through with another case...at least it's extremely unlikely. But I don't think that's what will serve you best.


What is a good etiquette to correct a person using wrong title for me? I currently have a masters degree in an engineering field and I don't currently have any PhD degrees (I may study for a doctorate degree in future). It happens that when I go to conferences or scientific occasions, even in the emails I receive from people; they use a doctor prefix for my name; but I do not have a PhD degree.

What is a good etiquette to deal with such thing? Should I directly tell them that I do not have a doctorate degree? Or should I neglect such a mistake by them and don't do anything?

I think it is unethical not to correct such thing, because the person may still think that I have a PhD degree; and such wrong usage of title should be corrected some way. Once a person used doctor title for my name in an email and I just added a line in my reply to his email, stating that I have a masters degree.

I would say this depends on context. When contacting academics, it is common to assume they all have a doctorate. A mass email (or mail-merged etc.) is therefore likely to use Dr. even for a PhD student on the list, because checking would take much more work. Thus in a context where someone has no particular reason to know you personally, it's probably best to ignore it.

On the other hand, if it's coming from someone who who might reasonably be expected to remember specific information about you as a person, I would be inclined to point it out. Personally I put things like that as a PS to an email, or similar, to try not to make a big deal out of it.

Edit: Another thought on the ethics side. I would agree that you should not allow people to continue acting on the assumption you have a PhD when that is not true. However, in many cases where this arises, it is not that the person specifically believes you have a PhD, but that they are not really thinking about it, or doesn't really care.


Is it important to do a PhD at a different institution than undergrad? I'm currently studying at a good school and I was admitted to do a PhD here. I got into some other good schools for my PhD, but for various reasons (e.g. less of a good research fit, weather, etc.) I feel that my current school would remain the best fit for me for grad school. I feel very, very happy here every day and I am very interested in the research taking place here.

My advisor is pushing me to go somewhere else as he says it will allow me to grow and do better research. Other professors have more of an indifferent view of my choice and said that I can't go wrong when choosing among the schools.

Do you think staying here would be a mistake? Would staying at the same school be viewed as a negative when applying for research positions?

He used a lot of hyperbole which has made the decision seem dramatic.

We do not know this person, but it is possible that this is the professor's way of saying he wants you to change your plan for a reason he does not want to tell you.  Perhaps he thinks the PhD supervisor you are considering at your own institution is not suitable, and he does not want that professor to realise he thinks they are unsuitable.  So he is telling you indirectly.

Reflect on past advice this professor has given you.  Was it reliable?  Was it coded?  Ask more faculty for advice.  What do they tell you?  Ask your potential supervisors' former students what they think about the supervision they received.


How to cite the same reference in a paragraph twice in APA style? Content in the paper:

  This problem can be solved with the application of machine learning
  algorithms. Machine Learning is the process of programming computers
  to optimize a performance criterion using example data or past
  experience (Alpaydin, 2010). .......[some of my own content] A
  learning routing program is able to adapt to the best path by
  monitoring the network traffic (Alpaydin, 2010).

At the beginning of the paragraph, I have cited the author and then I have some content which are compiled by me. Then I am again using an example given by the author which needs to be cited. So, I have cited him again at the end of the paragraph. Can I do this?

Yes, you can. Check out an example from the invaluable APA Style Blog:

  Morin (1988) described two separate but linked epidemics. . . . Morin
  distinguished the HIV (viral) epidemic from the subsequent AIDS
  (disease) epidemic, foreseeing the ultimate convergence of preventing
  the spread of the virus and managing the disease it causes. . . .
  Morin also discussed a third epidemic . . . . This third epidemic is
  as much a part of the pathology of AIDS as the virus itself (Morin,
  1988).

  Socioeconomic status (SES) and chronic diseases rather consistently
  fall on a gradient, where those of relatively lower SES have poorer
  health and are more often afflicted by multiple diseases than those
  above them on the SES ladder (Adler & Stewart, 2010). . . . Adler and
  Stewart (2010) offered a framework to explain the major pathways by
  which SES can influence health outcomes. . . . The model is
  developmental, illustrating individual, social, and structural
  influences on disease over the lifespan (Adler & Stewart, 2010).


I have been sanctioned by my country's Higher Education Commission after being accused of plagiarism. What can I do? I am a professor in a public university and have been accused of plagiarism by an anonymous letter to the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan.

The anonymous letter framed two charges:

It accused four scientists of submitting a plagiarized manuscript in Laser Surgery and Medicine, a prestigious US journal. As a proof the accuser attached an email of rejection on the basis of high similarity index from the editor of the journal addressed to the corresponding author. I have been listed as a co-author, whereas the email of rejection is addressed to seven email addresses.
In second allegation a reference of 2005 of the editor of a Pakistani journal is mentioned. The editor accused the corresponding author of submitting an article which was already published in a journal, i.e. attempted self-plagiarism. The manuscript was not published but the editor declared that the corresponding author and his co-authors were blacklisted from the journal without mentioning the names of co-authors. Unfortunately the corresponding author in both cases is the same person and the co-authors in both cases are unclear.

My name is listed as a co-author by the anonymous letter and I was completely unaware of both the incidents. But HEC has black-listed all four people accused, including me, for two-years.

What can I do?

Your question is weirdly vague on one important question, namely whether you actually are/were a co-author of the two questionable submissions. I am not sure how one can be "alleged" as a co-author - isn't that entirely clear and a completely black-white, yes-no question? Is your name on these papers?

Even if the HEC does not publish the name of the co-authors, you should still know whether you actually were a co-author of this publications or not.

The question "what can I do?" very much depends on your answer to this.

If yes:

You have presumably been sanctioned correctly. Trying to weasel out of your penalties based on formalities will likely only reflect worse on you. Accept the 2-year blacklisting and move on.

If no:

This then should be a clear-cut case of misjudgement, and following the formal appeal procedure whatever it is should definitely work out in favour of you. Your university should support you in this if the case is actually "I was blacklisted for a paper submission that has nothing to do with me".


Should I accept this invitation to conference PC? I have received an e-mail inviting me to join the program committee (PC) of a well-established and renowned conference in computer science.
The e-mail looks genuine, based on the sender address and the links provided to accept the invitation.

However, I do not directly know the guy writing to me (though he seems to be a respectable researcher, after I googled his name), and the e-mail is not tailored at all on my profile: it looks automatically generated, and does not specify at all why they chose me.

Is that normal, or should that ring some bells?

Thanks in advance.

If your alarm bells are ringing, but the offered position is attractive, then there are ways to check it out without causing problems.

Example: The person who's name is on this invite will have contact information outside this particular email. A phone number or email that you don't get from this email, for example, but from their institution or some such. That way, if the email is not legit you are not going through the channel it has provided. Contact that person using that independent contact info. The approach could be something like so:

  Hello well-known-person-running-a-conference. I have received this email inviting me to join the PC for well-known-conference. What would be involved? How much time and effort is expected to be required? What other requirements are there?

Then if the person responds with ready information you can simply decide if the amount of work is acceptable. If they respond with "who are you and how did you get my name?" then possibly the original email is not so legit.


Content for slides of theoretical project I was assigned a project of reading a unit of a textbook for 3 months and I need to present it by making a project report.

Since my mentor didn't ask for any hands-on, I just studied the particular unit in the textbook.

Now, I need to present my report. I am thinking of placing key theorem statements and results from that unit and explain them. Note that all of the members of the panel know that unit very well. But I'm confused yet because if I place all the statements, I can get very few slides(at most 3) and faculty may feel that I did very little work in 3 months. My colleagues are presenting their code and output screenshots etc., instead of theoretical since they did the implementation project.

So what are the contents I need to keep in my report presentation?

Unfortunately, most slide-based presentations have too many slides, not too few. It is very difficult to find a good balance. Of course, it depends on the time set aside for your talk. If it is 20 minutes or so, you may already be fine.

However, an additional slide for each Theorem giving the key ideas from the proof might be useful. It could be a sparse proof outline, or just a statement of what earlier work contributes to the proof.

However, since it sounds like you fellow students have done things that are based on this chapter of the book, it might be even more useful to say something about how this work leads to the more practical things. In other words, not just what are the important theorems, but why they are important to the work that follows. In other words, place that chapter in the context of the larger goals of the group. That will let you add a bit to your presentation and, perhaps, make it more useful.


How to cross-references sections in a thesis? When using cross-references in a thesis for cross-referencing to specific sections, do we have to use section numbers or section names would be fine too?

example:

  As discussed in the Discussion section, ...

vs

  As discussed in section 3.4, ...

If possible, please answer with a citable reference.

I remember reading that both are correct, but know I cannot find it! I think it was in the book "How to write a better thesis?" by Evans, Gruba and Zobel.

Thanks!

Intuitively, it's a matter of taste.  Both are indeed correct.

  As discussed in the Discussion section/Section 3.4

But the former is less usable, because finding the Discussion section is harder than finding Section 3.4, so I strongly advocate the latter.


As a dissertation advisor, how can I best help a "typical" graduate student? I am about to officially become the Ph.D. advisor to a math grad student at a second-tier state school. (He is about to pass his comprehensive exams.)

He is strong, motivated, and talented, but not to such an extent that I wonder why he's in our program and not some top-20 program. He doesn't know precisely what he wants to work on, and will be looking to me for guidance. He hopes to get some kind of academic job afterwards, but hasn't thought about precisely what.

How can I best help him? For example, should I urge him to work on something difficult, technical, and of interest to experts -- or something less exciting to experts, but easier to explain and motivate?

Typically, although not always, our successful graduates don't get offered research postdocs, but do often go on to faculty positions at second-tier liberal arts schools or branch-campus state universities. Assuming he would be happy with such a position (which of course I will ask!), what can I do to maximize the chances for his success?

Let him teach.

Assuming that he decides to make plans for working at a LAC or a branch campus of a state university he will need to be ready to teach the day he starts. So encourage him to take that part of his professional training seriously.

If your soon-to-be student is really going to end up in a small department a very helpful thing is that he can continue his research more or less independently. There is the internet but it is not the same as having half a dozen people working on the same topic just outside your door. This, I feel, is more important to his future than whether or not the topic he decides on has a large or small buy in cost. That being said he will want to have some facet of his research program that can be explained to a general mathematical audience, but this does not have to be all of it.

If all else fails, find a friend of yours or a not-so-recent graduate who teaches at a school like this and ask them what they want to see in a candidate. That should give you a good guide for what outcomes you should work for in your student.


How to highlight the importance of past positions in CV? When addressing the past positions in a resume, although titles somewhat describes the role, they cannot clarify the importance of positions.

For example, listing a past position of department chair indicates administrative duties at department level, but it depends on the department. Definitely, chairing a small department with a few faculty members and annual enrollment of 30 undergraduate students is different from a well-funded department with tens of senior faculty members and several PhD programs. However, if a reader does not know that specific department, the term department chair is the same.

This is even more serious when it comes to differences in terminology. In a university, a faculty can be equal to a department, and somewhere else a faculty can be in the size of a university hosting several large departments. Even terms of mid-level administrative positions in academia do not always have the same meaning: e.g., dean, director, chair, head.

How do you fairly clarify the importance of the job you had?

It is possible to add a description, but as it is not very common, it may cause an impression of overestimation.

If a title or position is unclear, or an institution is possibly not well known, just explain it in a few words:

  Director of Supersonic Operations department (15 researchers) at Small U.
  Time-management officer, Funny Inc. (in charge of scheduling company-wide meetings)
  Information officer, U. of North Virginia (CTO-like position, managing computing resources for 10,000+ students and staff)

Be as concise as possible, but give the reader some idea of the scope of your activities. And if the position is clear or well-known, just don't add any details.


Best way to politely remove someone from paper authorship who planned to contribute but did not? (There is a similar question but not exactly.)

When you write a paper, you need various views. So you invite collaborators and it often works well. But assume that out of 5 invited, for example, one or two, don't contribute to the paper much but are kept on the email thread with updated versions of the manuscript.

How do you politely remove them from the author list (paper) and how do you say that politely in email. Do you just send them a separate email or a general "authorship rules" email to everybody?

Removing people late in the preparation stage of a manuscript is always prone to bad feelings. It is of course unfortunate that this is a fact. This is why it is always a good idea to try to set up some ground rules for authorship (or contributorship). There are many posts under the authorship tag that discusses the Vancouver Protocol which is a set of rules under which authorship/contributorship is determined. I usually provide the link to ICMJE as an example. The basic idea is that to be listed as author you need to fulfil certain criteria. Some have even devised a point system to calculate if a person is worthy of authorship/contributorship.

But, to answer the question when you face the fact. There is no easy answer. You could decide to be strict and simply state that no sufficient contribution has been made (quoting the Vancouver Protocol list). How badly this is received is something only you can evaluate. And, only you can assess if you think it is worth it if the consequences are in some way "high cost". You can also decide to let this one slip through and make sure you have a clear arrangement around the next manuscript you write. I also think it is a good idea to start introducing ideas around authorship/contributorship in your research environment. I am sure many will dislike the topic but you are on safe grounds. Remember, many, maybe I should say more and more, journals request lists of contributorship and provide a basis for evaluating them (usually following the Vancouver Protocol list)


Is it OK to call a professor by his first name when he/she signs emails by only first name? If a professor in a North American country presents his- or herself by his/her first name in email messages, does this mean that students can refer to him/her by his/her first name? Or is this generally not a good idea, unless the professor has explicitly mentioned that he/she can be referred to by first name? I've noticed that most professors, who prefer to be referred to more formally, do not sign their emails with just their first names, but usually initials or first and last name.

If you are a foreigner, then you can just ask. Most academics are used to deal with foreigners and know that such subtle and unwritten rules are hard to know. They recognize that just asking is often the least awkward solution.


Should I give more work out to a student who is not behaving? Today my student was not paying attention to my lesson. He just slacked off and gave a fit. I can't call the administration (It's a private College School). I have asked him nicely several times to comply with what we are doing. But he won't listen and/or do the work. Yet his parents bribe some of his Professors to give him an A. And some Professors actually agree. What should i Do? Give him more work to do? a signature from parents?

Why can you not call the administration? If it's a private school, are they not able to remove students from classes?

If the student is just not paying attention, I'd say you just let him be. It's college. It's his (parents') money. Let it go to waste. Teach the students who are there to learn. Your job as a college professor is not to wipe runny noses of students who do not want to be there. When we focus too much on the students who do not want to participate, we usually end up neglecting the students who do want to be there.

If the student is being disruptive, document and report. What is the administration there for if not to handle such administrative issues?


Is it appropriate to give a student personal advice? More often I am approached by some of my students asking for my take in matters that are personal to them. Truly random matters from politics to relationships.

What ought I do? If I offer the advice they come back for even more, if I fail they plead for an opinion at least.

Which approach should I take when asked for advice?

Bachelor's students can know little about the outside world. Many may not have even done simple things like pay bills. Furthermore, in most countries they have either gone direct from high school to college, or direct to college after 1 year to travel or improve an entrance exam score.

You should lead with a disclaimer, and proceed to tell them at least 2 sides to their problem. Honestly, the advice you give will comprise of things they would not easily or never imagine themselves (in a short timeframe). It's either your advice or the aggregate advice from the internet. You will be one data point, but a credible one. Sometimes just advising (or encouraging) someone to actually bring their issue to the appropriate person is the push they need.

If you are constantly sought out for advice, I think it shows your opinion and life experiences are trusted. Considering the personal matters, I highly doubt the same students are asking more than 1 other professor. Be wise. Share your wisdom.