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Is it a good idea to cite paper from publisher listed in Beall’s list
While writing the literature review for my paper, I found another paper which is closely related to my research. Unfortunately, the paper’s publisher is on Beall’s List. Hence, I wonder if citing the paper will have any negative impact on my paper.

Beall's list tells you where not to publish your own work, not where not to go to read other papers.

As said in the comments: Read the paper and decide on the ground of the content of the paper and not by the reputation of the journal. Don't get me wrong - I do not support predatory or fake journals in any way. But it happens frequently that "quality of the paper" and "quality of the journal" (both understood in a vague sense) do not match. Good journals sometimes publish not-so-good papers and also it may be that the authors of the journal you mention simply were not aware of the listing in Beall's list.

Journals get listed there for various reasons, and there is off course a subjectivity factor. One of Beall's pet peeve is aggressive marketing strategy, which is indeed annoying and suspicious, but has also been frequently used by established publishing groups. Check whether there is a post that describes why this particular journal/publisher is on his list (in this case the post is outdated and does not point out major misconduct).
While the presence of a journal on Beall's list does not in itself mean that the work you read is of bad quality, a lot of the 'journals' listed there have no peer review and no editorial process whatsoever. Most of these 'journals' will publish anything.
Which means that the burden of judging quality is on the reader only, as the other answers pointed out, but also that there are frequent cases of plagiarism. Chance are that the original content has been published somewhere else before, on a preprint server, or a university website as part of a dissertation, or even in a legitimate academic journal. Therefore, if I where you, I would google chunks of the text and make sure that you cite the original version.
Now, from an ethical point of view, a majority of the journals listed by Beall have as business model to pray on the necessity for researchers to have long lists of publications to raise their chances of getting funded or awarded tenure. Citing these, in a way, encourages that sort of behavior, which I personally find harmful to science, dishonest towards funding agencies and taxpayers, and unethical.

@dgraziotin thanks for your comments, I edited my answer accordingly.

@dgraziotin Note that there is an appeals process. However, the appeal has to come from the publisher, and it has to follow the process (not just left as a comment on the blog)


text:
Using "et al." in maths papers
In general, mathematics papers have no first author; instead, authors are listed alphabetically. Therefore, citing “Smith et al.” is at best misleading (it implies that Smith did all the work) and at worst insulting (Zelmanov never does any work!). Basically, all the authors are considered equal but citing “Smith et al.” messes this balance up.
The “et al.” style is made slightly more complex because it means that the “big shot” may come further down the list. For example, Zelmanov is the big name but the paper is Smith, Smythe and Zelmanov, cited as Smith et al. So you don’t realise that it’s a Zelmanov paper.
My question is:

What should be done if a journal changes your citation of Smith, Smythe and Zelmanov [10] to Smith et al. [10], especially when Zelmanov is the big name?

Is the answer simply to ask them to change it back to Smith, Smythe and Zelmanov? I think that changing the citation to “Zelmanov et al.” undermines the equality ethos even more — it is a slap in the face to Smith and Smythe, and anyway how do I not know that Smith won’t win a Fields medal himself one day?
I should say that before today I have never seen this in a maths paper.

Added 2018: This was resolved nicely. I send the copyediting team an email asking if every instance of "et al." could be changed back "especially on line 244 because "et al." here is just a single person!", and if not can I edit the certain bits to remove the names. So they removed each et al. and it appeared online a week later. No hassle (but lots of worry!).

They should either change it back to your original style, or if they refuse, just give the label [10]. There is no justification for elevating some authors over others.

Regarding your second paragraph: in fields with citation orders, big shots almost always come further down the list, since they are almost always the last author.

I don't recall having seen math journals do this.  What journal is this?  Do all the other paper in the journal do this?

@Kimball It is a Springer journal. I searched about in Springer journals for a while and I found one other paper which did this (and then I immediately stopped searching). However, I saw no citations of >2 people before finding this example.

Not all Springer journals have the same formatting guidelines.  You should specifically look for papers in the journal you're publishing in.

@Kimball I did that too - I was mostly just side-stepping your question for fear of...something...

The best thing to do is to is first ask the editor nicely if they will change it back. If they will not, then insist more firmly that they allow you to rewrite the paragraph, at which point you can add the author names in the prose. The editors have a paper they are nearly ready to publish, and so they want to get it off their desk.  I have written a different answer on this subject here: http://academia.stackexchange.com/a/36731/16122

(revision of earlier comment) Actually, I just checked a recent Springer paper of mine (in Math Z), and I noticed they did this to my paper too. I'm sure I disliked this at the time, but then forgot it as there were plenty of things I was unhappy at with Springer's copyediting. Anyway, I guess this is the standard for Springer math, as WillieWong mentions in his answer.  After some thought, I think it may be worthwhile to pushback, as Veblen and Anonymous suggest.  If people keep combating this policy, they may consider changing it.

This is why I changed my last name to A'abanana.

@smci I've rolled back you edit as, although your new title asks a relevant question, this question isn't the question I am specifically asking.

I don't see why this is getting closed as opinion-based. This is quite about the culture of math publishing, and while we may have different opinions on things, we still can produce quality and objective answers.

Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/41759/how-to-cite-papers-where-the-names-are-sorted/41760#41760 You certainly cannot cite it as Zelmanov et al.

@user1729 then please improve the title. It's unclear from the title that this is anything more than an arbitrary stylistic issue; you're asking if it's fair to alphabetically later-named authors and whether people infer contribution from order of appearance in the author-list, in particular for maths.

So you don’t realise that it’s a Zelmanov paper. — It's not a Zelmanov paper.  It's a Smith, Smythe, and Zelmanov paper!

Disagreeing with the other answers here, I advocate that you argue with the publishers and ask them to revert the citation style to what you originally wrote. I have personally succeeded in doing so in exactly the situation you describe.
Of course you should be polite, and only "argue" if the publishers refuse to accommodate an initial non-argumentative request. But do remember that the role of publishers is to take our golden eggs without payment and then sell them back to us at extortionate rates. As such, I think it is perfectly appropriate to put your preferences above those of the publishers. The publishers might refuse in the end, in which case you should just relent, but I don't think you lose anything by pushing an argument to such a refusal.
Typically, I have found journal copyediting staff to be accommodating and helpful when I have requested that they undo changes like this.

I upvoted. Though believe me that arguing with your copy editor is not a good idea. It's much better to explain why you want it. I know this, since I am a copy editor myself :-)

While mathematics is not my area of specialization, I think that in your question you are making a general and IMHO wrong assumption about the importance of the name, appearing in the "et al." construction. Essentially, this construction is used only for the purposes of convenience (brevity for readability) and not for implying the amount or importance of work, performed by any of authors.
When people see the "et al." citation, I am pretty sure that decent scientists immediately refer to the full citation in a reference list in order to obtain full information on all authors of a paper in question. Therefore, I believe that the "problem" that you have described in your question is really an artificial one, which exists only in your imagination (due to the incorrect assumption, mentioned above).

This is not actually my reaction on reading a citation with "et al." in a math paper. My first reaction is "wow, that paper must have at least 5 or 6 authors for the author of this paper to have chosen this way of citing them".

@TobiasKildetoft: to be precise, 6 (at least if you or a journal follow an APA derived style).

@WillieWong I see. I was not actually aware that there was such a convention, it was just my own gut feeling.

@TobiasKildetoft: Well, then all I can say is that your reaction reflects on secondary, less (if any) essential aspect. As I said, I believe that the main role of an "et al." construction is purely of convenience.

Several of the papers I've read in astronomy/astrophysics lately have not only used "First Author, et al." within the main text (and insofar as, unlike math, this is a First=Most Important field, that can be okay), but also in the bibliography (which also failed to provide any of the actual titles).  Bibliography entries will go like: "Zoccali, et al. ApJ 23 106-123, 2013" and that's it.  So looking to the bibliography for full information is precisely useless in some fields, as even if you can explain missing authors (these papers could have a dozen or more), why not even the title?

@WillieWong This convention of "6" is NOT FOLLOWED by most people. What APA considers right is, in my opinion, highly irrelevant.

@zibadawatimmy The primary goal of the bibliography is the contain the necessary information to identify the reference. Not to give credit to particular people.

@yo' to be honest, I couldn't care less about what you or the APA considers right. I don't even claim that the exactly convention of "6" is followed by many, to say nothing of most, people. My comment was very clear, and indisputable if you chose to follow the APA style guide. It is also meant to inject a bit of irrelevant and irreverent precision into the previous comment. So chill out, dude, and stop shouting at me.

@zibadawatimmy I agree this practice is bad but it is so easy now (and implemented in most html version of article) to look the complete info on the web that I don't see a real problem here.

@yo' I agree, but then is the point of the in text citation to get you to the bibliography entry so the reader can identify the reference?

@AleksandrBlekh There's research showing that in fields where alphabetical + 'et al' is used, people earlier in the alphabet get better jobs. That's not purely inconvenience.

@JessicaB That's interesting, even though I suspect that those people get better jobs not because of their position in the co-authors list, but rather because the are/were already more experienced, skilled or occupy higher position in academia hierarchy (e.g., PI), so the former is a consequence of the latter (i.e., reversed cause and effect). Nevertheless, I'm curious to see some of the research you mention, so I'd appreciate if you could share relevant links with me.

Regarding your specific question, the answer is leave it be and don't argue.

Most journals follow some house style guide that has been set in stone for who knows how long. This is not a useful fight to have since you will invariably lose.
Many style guides offer something similar to what the APA guide says, which is that for papers of N or fewer authors (for APA, N = 5), at the first instance of mentioning the paper the full author listing must be included; in the subsequent ones et al. is used. In pure mathematics papers with more than 4 or 5 authors are quite rare (enough that people come up with team names when that happens). So credit usually is given properly (at least at the beginning of the paper).
N.B. since the OP mentioned Springer, I should note that the Springer MathPhys style which applies to most (all?) mathematics journals in the Springer catalog does not follow the same schema as the APA style guide. Experience suggests (since I cannot find it written down somewhere) that for 1 and 2 authors they always show all names, and for 3 and more authors they always abbreviate. My experience also shows however that if you write "the Smith-Smythe-Zeldanov construction [13]" they will not call you on it.
Whether Zelmanov is a big name should have absolutely nothing to do with it; for all you know a lot of the technical insights could have come from Smythe.
If you must show all three names, rewrite the sentence/paragraph so that the appearance of all three names is logical.

In 1989 Smythe [12] showed that all gadgets are widgets. This result was later generalized in his 1993 paper [11], written together with Smith and Zeldanov, which showed that in fact all weak-gadgets (hereon "wadgets") are also widgets.

Of course this formulation puts the emphasis on Smythe, but if "credit" is so important to you you should have a good idea how to phrase things correctly.

Nice answer (+1). However, I have to note that your point on N=5 per APA (and similar for other styles) is shaky, since the full N authors citation should be done only at the initial occurrence. Thus, for all subsequent citations, it boils down to "et al." all over again.

@AleksandrBlekh: for giving credit, is it not enough to have the name appear at least once? I don't think that mentioning the same paper multiple times in my paper means I am giving it "multiples" of credit... // I edited slightly to give more emphasis to that fact you pointed out.

For giving credit there exist a reference list with full listing of all authors (excluding edited volumes). However, my point is that a reader kind of "loses" track of proper credit for all subsequent citations, occurring in multiple different contexts throughout the paper.

@AleksandrBlekh: fair enough. If in-context credit is really important, there are ways to "write around" the house styles.

I disagree with "leave it be and don't argue", for the reasons laid out in the post "Et al is unethical" here: https://sbseminar.wordpress.com/2010/02/21/et-al-is-unethical/

@WillieWong: I agree. However, I'm not sure whether it makes sense and is feasible to "write around", if there are significantly many in-text citations throughout a paper - in that case, I'd say to just rely on the reference list and assume that readers will make efforts to consult it.

@Aleksandr Blekh: the challenge with the reference list is that, although it has enough information to look up the reference, the prose of the paper you are writing is what helps to establish the name that mathematicians use to refer to the results. So if everyone calls the theorem the "Smith et al theorem" then the other authors don't receive that credit at conferences, etc. I don't want to draw out the discussion, so I won't comment more on this thread, but I think this issue is worth keeping in mind. See also http://academia.stackexchange.com/a/36731/16122

@OswaldVeblen: Re: your 1st comment. I'm sorry, but I find the rationale "many readers are never going to get around to looking at the other names" simply ridiculous. It is readers' responsibility to refer to the reference list to obtain full and proper credit. Otherwise, what is the purpose of a reference list? Re: your 2nd comment. I understand your point. However, a scientific artifact, such as a theorem (as opposed to a publication) is usually a product of one-two (max, three) people. Thus, IMHO it is easy to use a Smith-Golden-Circle notation in-text to avoid that problem.

@OswaldVeblen: the question specifically asked "Smith-Smythe-Zeldanov [10]" not "Smith-Smythe-Zeldanov Theorem [10]", so your second comment has a bit of strawman. Regardless, points 2 and 4 of my post already addressed the issues you raised, and gave essentially the same suggestion as you did, except that I recognized (from experience) that on issues of house style copy editors will never budge, so you might as well just skip to the last step directly.

While formally the author order is unimportant, our psychology does not obey such formal rules. In the situation described, after the passage of time we are likely to remember either "paper by Smith et al." or "paper by Zelmanov and someone else".
Existence of publisher's style is mostly irrelevant (at least in my part of mathematics). Practically all the new papers are on arXiv, and so few read the journal version. So, authors' decisions matter.
In my opinion, the real choice is between the following options:

Inclusive, "Smith, Smythe, Zelmanov [25] showed"
Simple, "in [25] it is shown".
Verbose, "Smith, Smythe, Zelmanov [25], building on the previous work of Smythe [26], showed".

If few read the journal version, then perhaps we shouldn't care what the journal changes in copyediting? Since presumably the version on arXiv will be the one reflecting the author's choice.

The term "et alii" (abbreviated "et al.") means "and coworkers" or "and collaborators". It implies no preference who did what. So go with the style as suggested -- it does not imply that you elevate one of the authors over the others, it just abbreviates the list of names.

"It implies no preference" -- unfortunately it does suggest one in ordinary English. If I wrote "John and others" instead of "John, Paul, George and Ringo" then you might wonder why I've chosen not to name the others. You can't conclude with certainty that it's because I think Lennon's the most important Beatle, but it's high on the list of possibilities. But this isn't ordinary English, it's a stylised citation formula, so in some sense it doesn't really matter what "et al" means. It might as well be simple truncation "John, Pa..."

The direct translation is "and others", not "and coworkers". Wolfgang Bangerth is correct in the meaning, however.

How the paper is cited will have nothing to do with the author's impact factor, or any citation tracking number in existence -- only the fact that the paper was cited at all has meaning.  Tenure committees will not care whether you said et al. or listed the authors' names.  Authors will not care, because it really makes no difference.
It is a decision made by the style sheet of the journal you're publishing in.  If you don't care for the style, submit only to journals that reference by superscripted numbers in the text.

Nobody questions bibliometrics here, as far as I see :-) So you are right that it makes no difference for bibliometrics, but it may make a difference for "the real world" :)

Along with the Math field's decision (or consensus) to use alphabetical authorship, comes ramifications.  One would think that if the authors objected, they would rebel an place authorship in different order.  In any case, the revolution should come from the authors, who bought in by publishing the way they did.

You speak like a medical :) The point is that we, mathematicians, couldn't care less about the order in which we appear on papers. Rather than on stupid things like "credit of being first", we care about true cooperation :-)

@yo'  Couldn't agree more.  The point I'm inadequately trying to make is that this is a system set up by mathematicians for a reason, and going out of one's way to undo it with citation style is counter to those goals.

One purpose of the way to shorten author lists is to allow finding the cited work when it is listed in a library catalog, which happens (primarily/only) by first author. Hence knowing the first author is essential in order to find the text - no matter how important whose contribution to the work in question is (a subjective question anyway). Granted, this kind of restriction comes from the time of cardboard catalogs, but the implied citing tradition still stands ...

Not sure how this addresses the question, seems to be more of a comment along the same topic. Am I missing something?

"..but the tradition still stands..." -- well, no, actually, not so much. An OPAC or bibliographic database will generally let you search by any of the listed authors. Librarianship is not stuck in technological limitations from thirty years ago.

@LindaJeanne The fact that H.-D. Ebbinghaus, H.Hermes, F. Hirzebruch, M. Koecher, K.Mainzer, A.Prestel, R. Remmert, "Zahlen" can be found by searching for works by Remmert does not contradict the fact that the tardition of citing the work as as Ebbinghaus et al. Likewise, it is inspired pre-Amazon logistics why bibliographic rules would prefer Berlin; Heidelberg; New York; Tokyo over Springer

Sorry to contradict, but I have published Maths papers with a true, ordered (by contribution) authors list.  This may not always be the case, but this counterexample proves that the assumption that the authors list is always ordered by name only is wrong.
As for the et al. - this is just an abbrevation, not for selecting important authors.  As a general rule for citing (used in many journals), if there are more than 2 authors, you do not list all, just the first and then write et al. in italics.  Sometimes you would use this short citation style in the text, and list the complete author list in the references, like
This has been proven by Smith et al. back in 1975 [8].

[8] AJ Smith, T Southall, EK Forkner and UI Janeson, Why Squirrels cannot Fly, Nature 4(5), September 1975.

As someone who cites, please respect the order given (for whatever reason), do not change it!  This would just confuse people.

You make a good point about the order not always being alphabetical, and I had meant to write my original post to reflect this. I've edited it accordingly.

I have published Maths papers with a true, ordered (by contribution) authors list — So have I.  We broke the ties alphabetically.  And we were all tied.

@JeffE You are proving my point.  Sometimes it works like this, sometimes like that.  It's all good.  I only said that it isn't always done the same way.

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My research work stolen and published as his own by the co-author without my consent
My research paper was stolen by the co-author and published as his own. What do I do? All the  data the paper is based on is my own work. I got it accepted in another journal but now I cannot get it published according to the copyright terms and conditions.

I'm confused by the word "coauthor" here.  Was your paper accepted in another journal with or without the other person's involvement/knowledge/permission?  Are they your coauthor on this paper, on a different paper, or something else?

No permission no prior knowledge of him having submitted my paper to someother journal ...I cannot go against him he is my professor it might have dire consequence to my career

she is not picking my calls and deliberately yes i think she wants to take all the credit for my work . I slogged out day and night to make that. She could have at least mentioned my name

This has happened to me for the very first time and i am really tensed that she knows about me knowing. Its so hard to confront her now. She has lost all my respect

Definitely talk to your department chair.  Find a new advisor, even if it means changing departments.  Your advisor will continue to abuse you until you walk out.

But you didn't answer my question.  When you submitted this work to a journal, did you do it with or without your advisor's knowledge/approval?  Is your advisor a co-author on the other paper?  If so, then the paper without your name is straight-up double submission, which neither journal editor will like.

@JeffE yes i did take the coauthor's approval and he told me not to submit it anywhere else which is not allowed but he did it on his own

@JeffE Walking out is not an option now he is the head of the department where i ll be giving the final viva for this project and its my last few days in college

and getting it published is very important for my grades

Is this high school, college, or phd work? It doesn't change what is wrong or right or how you feel, but has implications for the solution.

its a college project

I mailed the journal where it got accepted that i am not economically stable to publish the paper right now and they agreed to consider it for the subsequent editions ..For the time being i am going to make changes in my paper and then send it back does it seem a good idea?

Out of scope: Why was it needed to steal? Is it her first time? She doesn't know the consequences?

Let me echo scaaahu's excellent advice: Calm down.  Obviously you're scared, and with good reason, but you need to approach the situation calmly and professionally.  Otherwise, even if you are in the right it will be difficult for other people to take your concerns seriously.
Your comments suggest (to me) that the situation is not as straightforward as your initial post describes.  Without considerably more detail about what  happened — which would be inappropriate for you to post here — it's difficult to make specific suggestions.
I think you need to discuss the situation with someone who understands both the politics in your department and the publication culture in your field.  Find another senior faculty member in your department (or in a different department, or in the dean's office) who you can trust to keep confidence.  (Yes, this can be difficult, but ask around.)  Write up a timeline of events in advance, and make copies of documentation for each event in the timeline.  Calmly and carefully describe the situation.  Just present the facts; don't panic, and don't accuse.  (One of the facts is "I'm scared"; that's okay.)  Ask your confidant how to proceed.  Listen to them.
In the best case, this is a simple misunderstanding, and talking to an informed but neutral third party is the best way to convince you to relax.  In the worst case, your department chair is being egregiously unethical, and in particular threatening your chances at graduation, in which case you absolutely need a senior faculty advocate to help you navigate the resulting political mine field.  (Your primary goal in this case should be to graduate and get out, not to optimize your grade or to punish your department chair.)  Most likely, the actual situation is somewhere in between those two extremes.
Good luck.

Thanks @JeffE i am trying my best not to panic but other teachers dun know about it and are forcing me to get this paper published

Do i submit it in the new journal that it got accepted in? i know it is with a risk but all my marks are dependent on it what do i do

My first advice is to calm down.
Your question and your comments sound emotional to me. The more emotional you are, the worse situation you would be in. Since the other party is your prof, the burden of proof is on your shoulder. You need to deal with it carefully.
I am not even sure you have a problem. From what you have said in the question and comments, your prof submitted a paper with only his name on the paper to a journal without your prior knowledge. Then he gave you his approval to submit another paper of probably the same contents to another journal with both your name and his name on it(you said he is the co-author).
The above is what I understood from your question and your comments. If all are true, the issue is his problem, not yours. Because he is the one who did the double submission, not you. All you have to do to clear up this issue is to present evidence which shows that you got his approval before you submitted the paper to the journal.

do i submit the paper to the journal where it got accepted?

@awesomeness, this is the question for the editors of the journal. Would you accept two papers of the same or similar contents if you were the editor?

i know i woudnt like that however what if i did not know it had already gotten published

what do i do then :/

@awesomeness: As I said in my answer, the key is the approval he gave you to submit the paper.

Yes i do need that

@awesomeness, JeffE wrote an excellent answer which said a lot things I didn't know how to say. Please pay attention to it. Good Luck.

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The book suggested for a class has bad reviews, should I use it or another?
I 'm at the start of my second semester of college and I don't have any real practical experience with programming, but I have to take a class on OOP that is usually taught to juniors.
My OOP class teacher recommended "C++: How to program" 4th ed. by Deitel & Deitel as a textbook, which is a book with many horrible things written about it on the internet.
He also cited a couple generic manuals: "C++ primer plus" by S. Prata and "Absolute C++" that have cold reviews if any; plus a book on general theory: "Concepts of programming languages".
As an ultimate reference he suggested "The C++ programming language" which should be a very solid title, but seems to be more aimed towards experienced programmers.
I read the list at The Definitive C++ Book Guide and List and I'm really tempted to just pick up a title from it, maybe "C++ Primer" or "Accelerated C++".

Does anyone have any sensible advice about this kind of situation?
Should I try to study from books that are recognized as faulted by all other sources but my teacher?

Pretty much every widely used book has horrible things written about it on the Internet - I'd suggest you wait to draw your own conclusions.

I once met a guy who worked for mySQL, you know the company with the database that got bought by Sun before it got bought by Oracle. He bemoaned that his Class on SQL in collage was completely unuseful, and that he had to Learn SQL on the job latter. I was then asked how I learned SQL. I mentioned a book I read. It was written by his professor. The implications which he pointed out are applicable. He said, "Everyone learns differently". By the way a reference work along side the text can be helpful with any problems you have.

@NateEldredge http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=c%2B%2B+dietel This book appears to be churned out as soon as fast as humanly possible. C++ itself has not changed drastically in the past decade. Compare to the average C++ textbook: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=c%2B%2B+

You should read the books yourself and make your own professional judgment.  Do not just "pick a title" or base your decisions only on reviews.

@Compass: You really think "C++ itself has not changed drastically in the past decade" !?!!!  Your opinion is close to a decade only, C++ is on its fourth version this decade, including some very significant changes, including a few that affect beginners.  Please note that I'm not defending Deitel, just pointing out that your comment is the opposite of reality.

@BenVoigt Yes, C++ as used in classes such as this one are not normally taught at the C++ 11 level, hence why the 4th edition published in 2002 is still being used.

@JeffE: A beginner doesn't know enough to make a professional judgment, and by the time he's not a beginning, unlearning all the bad habits is going to be quite difficult.

The opinions being expressed here by academics just illustrate how badly out of touch with modern C++ most computer science professors are.  BTW, the Deitel and Deitel text does appear in the deleted answers of the Stack Overflow C++ Book Guide and List linked in the question.  The comments were that people didn't like the style, but no technical objections were raised.  It definitely wasn't on their "never touch this" list, so go ahead and use it.  If you like I can post an answer here containing screenshots.

@BenVoigt: I have to object to your logic.  I see exactly one comment above that says anything about "modern C++", and the person making it doesn't identify as a computer science professor (neither do any of the users who have posted answers).  From this, you are able to draw conclusions about "most computer science professors"?  Also, I would mention that this question shouldn't be read as actually asking for C++ textbook recommendations (which would be off-topic here) but rather general advice on how to select and use a textbook.

@Nate: Well, there's you and Jeff, saying to disregard the opinions of well-known C++ professors such as Stroustrup (yes, C++ was architected by a professor) who is additionally well respected by the community.  There is Compass being completely out of touch.  Kik saying using bad books is ok.  And then the experience of swarms of students coming to Stack Overflow with questions after being badly taught (or during).  And that doesn't even touch on legitimate reasons for being out of touch, such as being the grammar from hell and only getting worse, so terribly suited for type theory research.

@BenVoigt:  Of those who have posted here, only one has a profile identifying himself as a computer science professor (JeffE).  I myself certainly am not.  Neither I nor he nor anyone else said anything about disregarding the opinions of experts such as Stroustrup (I am aware he is a CS professor; I am also aware he is not a god), rather that one should not make a decision based solely on reviews.  I don't think I'll have anything further to say about this.

Deitel's C++ is the book I used for self-study in 9th grade (many years ago). It taught me enough to write a science fair-winning 3D video game, so it can't be that bad. Granted, I mostly just read the first half and got lost in the latter chapters (eg, starting with I/O). At the time I thought it was because I was too young/new, but on retrospect it may have been the book's fault. Anyway, I wouldn't worry too much about it. There's plenty that no beginner book will ever teach you (eg, how to apply OOP to real applications, not to mention mundane things like popular third-party libraries).

@Compass the mention of the 4th edition is a mistake on my part, the suggested edition is the 8th, still one edition before the last one which includes C++11

@maja well now I feel stupid q.q

@Compass you mustn't, it was my typo and the book is very often described as "basically unchanged" between different editions

Honestly, I wouldn't worry about whether the book covers C++11. The C++11 features build on C++98 and I can't imagine trying to understand most C++11 features from the top down as spooky magic rather than learning them from the bottom up as convenient alternatives to tedious details.

@JeffE's suggestion is a good one. I teach a course on programming, which includes C++, and I recommend books by Stroustrup, Dietel and Dietel and the Lippman et al C++ Primer.  The reason I make the recommendation is that different styles suit different students and it is better to buy a book that suits you and that you will actually use.  Personally I like the C++ Primer (although it is more a[n excellent] reference than a primer), but some students really like DIetel & Dietel.  I take a copy for each to the first lecture to allow the students to have a brief look at them.

BTW on my course I dod actually teach some C++11 features, so it is not necessarily safe to assume that a book that covers and earlier standard with be a suitable course text for all C++ courses.  If the teacher specifies C++XX then get a book that covers it.  Personally my favourite was the first edition of Stroustrups book, life was simpler then ;o)

First, note that a course on OOP is probably not the same as a course just on C++. The C++ language was designed by Stroustrup to support the developer in multiple styles of programming, including OO.
C++ today has become such a huge and complex language, moreover one for which which professional programming style has significantly evolved since the 98 standard. For example, its support for and take-up of functional programming has grown significantly.
I'm assuming you want to do well on the course, as opposed to simply learning skills.
Now, it's a long while since I've had a look at Deitel and Deitel, and I can't say I've good memories of it. However, hopefully the book is recommended because does take an approach supporting the OOP of the course and the subset of C++ you are expected to learn on the course. So go ahead and get the book.
Having said that, if you really want to learn C++ itself well enough to be able to use it as a professional, be prepared to buy a few more books and put in a lot more work after you've done this introductory course.

"I'm assuming you want to do well on the course, as opposed to simply learning skills." -- Indeed, skills can be forgotten but grades are forever.

@Praxeolitic this is what sucks about the educational system.

I do feel the other 90% of the answer is quite sound advice.

Especially as a beginner, you should really get the recommended book. It is very likely that the course will follow the book rather closely, and trying to study the same material from a different book is usually not easy if you just started to program. If you think that the recommended text book is really bad, you can always get some other learning material in addition.
Some more explanation if you happen to think "C++ is C++ - it shouldn't matter which book the OP uses to study the same tool". Well, problems arise if the text book the OP studies uses a different didactic concept / ordering of content than the course. For instance, I am teaching Introduction to Programming in Java. Our specific text book introduces OOP notions, such as classes and methods, much earlier than most books. Students that choose to study using different books often end up being extremely confused in class, because their books never mention class hierarchies until half-way through while they are all over the place in in-class examples. Another aspect is that most programming books have their idiosyncrasies in  terms of how code is formatted, how certain basic ideas should be expressed, what "good" and "bad" programming concepts are. Advanced programmers can easily abstract from such idiosyncrasies, but they tend to confuse the heck out of beginners when applied inconsistently.

I guess the need to stick with assignments when required is convincing enough to use the textbook at least as a primary source..

To expand on this: stick with the recommended book until you reach a skill level where you can tell for yourself whether it's a good book. If you don't know the subject well enough to draw your own conclusions, then go with whatever the person teaching you is using, just to be on the same page (pun intended). When you start having your own thoughts about how the book could have expressed something better, or whether their example code is well-written, or anything like that, then that's your sign that you're beginning to understand enough to find a book that works for you.

"It is very likely that the course will follow the book rather closely" - Not necessarily.  Most programming courses I've taken (as well as the one I tutor) recommend a reference for interested students, but teach using their own notes and at their own pace.  It's worth waiting a few weeks to work out if this is the case.

One thing about textbook review is, usually student who don't find the textbook has any problem, or who got good grades, would not care to write a review. People who usually write textbook review are those who failed the course and trying to blame the textbook. Sometime the textbook may be at fault but other times it may not. Also, sometime it depends on the level of the reader. Advance reader may find the book simple while some others may find it difficult. If I were you, I will go to the library or bookstore and read a chapter or two and decide myself.
For instance, my OOP class used premier C++, some of us love it and some of us hate it.
Also, if the professor allows open book exam, you probably would want to have that book.

in this case the bad reviews are form ACCU and other Stackexchange questions.

"People who usually write textbook review are those who failed the course and trying to blame the textbook" [citation needed]. In any case, it should a comment, not an answer (within Stack Exchange standards).

There are two contexts in which a professor will generally point you at a textbooks:

A requirement for a textbook that will be used directly for specific readings and exercises, in which case it is important to use the precise book and (unfortunately) edition, because otherwise you may not have the correct material for assignments on which you will be graded.
A recommendation for a textbook as supplementary material, for you to use on your own for your own edification.

In your case, it sounds like one of the textbooks falls into the first categroy; if so, you should use the same textbook that the rest of the class is using  It also sounds like the other textbooks fall into the second category: your instructor doesn't care how you supplement your background, just that you get sufficient reinforcement to be able to make up for your weakness in the class prerequisites.  You should thus feel free to pick whatever text works best for you in that regard, including things like online tutorials that might not even be textbooks per se.  If you think your instructor is a good teacher, however, you might consider that they may have had good past experiences with this text that causes them to recommend it to you.

in this case the "C++: How to program" book was explicitly presented as the textbook and the other texts as recommendations.

@maja Then I was confused by your question, and it falls into Case 1 instead, and you should use the same textbook that the rest of the class is using.

You should definitely get the course-recommended book, not only because you're going to need it to follow along with the class insturctions, but because you as a beginner will need that tutelage to learn the basics in the first place.
You should follow along with this book for the duration of class.  It may not be good, or it may surprise you, but it will help you with this class and with learning what the professor is trying to teach.

Now, if you are serious about learning the C++ language, and find that the book isn't as helpful as you'd like, then you can invest in another C++-primer or C++ introductory book, after you have taken this class and grown more accustomed to OOP and the C++ language.
In programming, especially collegiate-level programming, you'll find it's important both to know the standard practices and to practice on your own terms in order to grasp a language or coding fundamental properly.  And there's no problem, assuming you have the time, with learning from two books instead of one.
In short
Definitely get the book your professor recommends, and use it during your course, because not doing so will seriously handicap you in this course.  But, if you want to learn more, don't be afraid to pursue other sources.


text:
Experiences with Scientific Research Publishing (SCIRP) journals
Recently I've been receiving an increasing number of invitations to submit papers to several new Open-Access journals published by Scientific Research Publishing (SCIRP).
Has anybody here had any direct interactions with any of their journals? If so, what is your opinion?
I googled around a bit and they do not seem to be an exceedingly serious outfit. Although I have no intention of publishing there, I think this discussion may be useful for others receiving the same, or similar, invitations.

If you stay in the academia, you will get a lot of unsolicited e-mails from shady unknown pay-to-publish journals. Many move them into the same folder as penis enlargement e-mails. (with the due exceptions, of course.)

@eva: Because, in terms of academic research, USA Today is not a serious outfit either.

@eva: It's hard to say.  Even a terrible journal may occasionally publish a worthwhile paper, submitted by someone unaware of the organization's reputation, so we couldn't learn much from one case.  It's also worth noting that USA Today is in no position to judge this work.  They probably received a press release from the authors, decided it sounded interesting, and ran a short article with little or no further investigation.  (One clue is that they write "Alpert said in a statement", where the statement is probably the press release.  Another clue is that they quote nobody but the authors.)

This recent Nature news item would seem to suggest rather strongly that SCIRP is not a serious outfit. Given the ethical improprieties mentioned in that article, staying away from such journals with a ten-foot pole (or longer) seems advisable.

Yes, I  do indeed have some direct experience with them.  I've written about it on my blog.
Summary: The SCIRP journal Advances in Pure Mathematics provisionally accepted a randomly-generated nonsense paper.  This seems a clear indication that their peer-review process is a sham, and that they are essentially a vanity press, and not a "serious outfit" at all.

Scientific Research Publishing is currently listed in Beall's List of Predatory, Open-Access Publishers, so it isn't a good idea to submit papers to their journals.

I think that is a little to strong of advice. Beall's list is the opinion of a single individual (he recently published his method, but I am not convinced of its merit yet). I think it should it should raise concerns about a publisher/journal. but should not be the only reason for not publishing there.

The list had been taken off.

If you have preprints posted on a preprint server or on the arXiv, they will ask you to remove them before reviewing your work. I am unaware of other open access publishers who insist that all prior revisions of a work be removed before the current version is reviewed. Submission to a preprint server such as the arXiv is encouraged by some journals in some fields (e.g., mathematics). Removal from the arXiv is all but impossible after submission. The refereeing process does not strike me as serious, e.g., referees have been known to ask authors to remove citations to personal communications from submitted manuscripts. There is nothing wrong with citing correspondence; disallowing such citations is bizarre, goes against accepted scholarly practice and, at worst, encourages plagiarism.

Removal from the arXiv is all but impossible after submission. — In fact, it is completely impossible, by design.  Even after a paper is withdrawn, past revisions are still available.  See http://arxiv.org/help/withdraw .

As a matter of policy, yes; empirically no--there are cases where the administrators remove papers, but this is unusual.

@I.M.Flaud: When have the administrators removed papers?  I haven't heard of this happening, and it sounds troubling.

@AnonymousMathematician Google for "Carlos Castro Perelman", it is a kinda famous or infamous story. Without checking carefully his work, it looks like a crackpot, so should the arxiv keep or remove his papers?

@NickS: Do you know whether any of his papers have actually been removed after posting?  I did a few searches, and it sounds like he is forbidden to post new papers and some of his old arXiv papers were moved to the "general physics" category, but I didn't see any indication that any of his papers were actually deleted from the arXiv.

It happens even with major publishers that they do not allow citations to personal communications (e.g. Wiley).


text:
Publication statistics per research company
Is there any website or other places that give some publication statistics (e.g. number of published papers, number of citations, etc.) per company? Ideally I would like to have those statistics computed for some time period, e.g. for every year.
Note that I am talking about industrial research organizations here, not publishing companies.

you can use scopus or isi web of science and in affiliation, write the name of the company. that easy

For those voting to close, please tell me what is unclear...

@flow Can you please expand slightly into an answer, so I can vote it up?

To find the number of citations to people at a company, you can use Scopus or Thomson Reuters Web of Science (formerly ISI Web of Knowledge) and, in the affiliation field, write the name of the company.
Example:

Thanks, could you please add a screenshot for Thomson Reuters Web of Science looking for articles by authors from Microsoft?


text:
When should a supervisor be an author?
I understand that in a lot of big-lab fields it is common for the principal investigator to append their name to a paper even if they did not write the paper, design the experiment, or collect data since they spend energy securing funding, and managing the whole lab. What about for small labs?
What are the requirements for a supervisor to be included as an author on a paper, as opposed to just appearing in the acknowledgements? If you are working on your own projects independently of your supervisor, but using funding provided by your supervisor (how does this change when the funding provides resources versus just your salary), are you suppose to add them as authors or just acknowledge the source of funding?

See also the same question on MO: http://mathoverflow.net/questions/57337/when-should-a-supervisor-be-a-co-author

@trav1s Please see the Principal investigator Wiki page.

My university's research ethics policy (rightly!) prohibits this.

I think reviewing the paper and suggesting corrections is enough someone's name to appear as an author. Actually, I think it is the most important part of a submission.

@cagirici By that standard, I should become coauthor on every paper I reviewed.

@ChristianClason I think demanding it is your right. Not only inventing something, but also telling it properly is extremely important. This is what I was taught by my supervisor. "You may have found the time travel. If you can't explain it simple enough, it is basicly a trash."

@cagirici That's why you frequently see Acknowledgments such as "We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers" (or supervisor, or colleague, or random internet stranger) "for comments that improved the presentation." For co-authorship, the intellectual contribution has to be much more substantial. (A useful rule-of-thumb I once heard was that a co-author is someone without whom the paper could not have been written at all.)

@trav1s, a PI (principal investigator) is the person named in a grant as the researcher responsible for the overall conduct of the research, typically a tenured or tenure-track faculty member.  In many science and engineering disciplines where it's impossible to do research without substantial laboratory facilities it has become the norm that the PI is a coauthor on all papers produced under a grant.  In disciplines like mathematics or theoretical computer science, this is less common.

@PiotrMigdal please be aware that the authorship conventions in mathematics are significantly different to many other scientific fields.  Many of the highly-upvoted answers on that MO page would be downright wrong applied to any other field.

Allow me to strongly disagree with eykanal's answer.  There is no universal standard.  You must ask your advisor in advance what her coauthorship policy is.
In theoretical computer science (and mathematics), it is generally considered unethical to list someone as a co-author who has not made a novel and significant intellectual contribution to the paper.  In particular, merely funding the research is not considered an intellectual contribution.  Adding a supervisor's name to a paper to which they have not directly, intellectually contributed is lying.
In practice, writing a good grant proposal requires at least as much intellectual novelty as writing a good paper.  Most of the good ideas that PIs pour into their proposals also appear in papers; as long as those ideas constitute novel intellectual contributions, the PI merits co-authorship.  But that only works once per idea; once an idea has been published, it's no longer novel, by definition.
To be specific and personal:

I am not a coauthor on all of my PhD students' papers.  (Of course, I still report my students' independent work back to NSF as outcomes on whatever grants supported them.  So I still get credit from NSF for having the foresight to fund the student.)  The same is true of all the other theoretical computer science faculty in my department.
My PhD advisor is a co-author on only one of the papers I published as a PhD student.
My PhD advisor doesn't have a single co-authored paper with his advisor.

See also this answer on MathOverflow, which takes the even more extreme view that advisors should not be coauthors on the main paper from a student's PhD thesis, even if they made a substantial intellectual contribution.  (Like Gil Kalai, I think this is a bad rule.)

No -1, because it's a valid answer, but I'll definitely take issue with the "lying" statement. As a grad student, in almost all cases, you did not write the grant, do any preliminary research, and do the necessary background reading. You just did the project itself. By doing all that, your professor definitely contributed to the project. Saying that he has no contribution is simply incorrect.

In my research community, adding a coauthor who made no intellectual contribution to the paper is considered straight-up, black-and-white dishonesty.  Who wrote the proposal Does Not Matter.  If the preliminary research is a novel intellectual contribution to that paper, it merits co-authorship; otherwise, it does not.  Background reading per se is not an intellectual contribution—anyone can read—although figuring out how to apply those prior results to the problem at hand could be.  Most importantly: The publication IS the project.

@eykanal In the case of an independent project (If you are working on your own projects independently of your supervisor), although it is not the most common thing, OP means no preliminary research/reading support. There is a difference between a project proposed by PI on which one is working solo than an independent project.

@JeffE - I guess this is another "it differs from field to field". It appears that the heart of the question is whether writing a proposal counts as an "intellectual contribution" to the research by itself, which (I'm guessing based on the discussion) differs from field to field.

@JeffE: I heard from mathematicians the same rule of thumb, even though it sounded wrong to me.

Perhaps true for theoretical sciences. In experimental biology, there are different standards for co-authorship, apparently (even if it might be unethical). It also depends a lot on the general nature of the academic community in the country.

The following answer is based on my experience in the fields of Neuroscience, Biology, and to a lesser extent, Electrical Engineering.
This is often an unnecessarily touchy subject amongst graduate students. To be clear: As a graduate student, you can expect that your advisor will appear as an author on all of your papers. He is providing your funding, your resources, and (ostensibly) is the Primary Investigator on whatever project you happen to be working on. Even if he does not contribute, you are working on his project, and he wrote the grant for it, not you. There may be situations where you will be the sole author of a paper you published during your graduate career, but those will be unusual circumstances, indeed.
That being said, you can read through the Wikipedia article on the subject, which discusses conflict. This Canadian Medical Association Journal article (thanks, Wikipedia) states that authorship ordering conflicts occurred in over 60% of published papers. To help with things, there's a good chance your university has it's own authorship guidelines (e.g., [1][2]); speak with your department.
Most importantly, speak with your advisor. Clear communication early on can help to stave off future problems, or sometimes communication will alert you to the fact that there may be future problems that you should address early on.

This seems to be the norm in my lab for Computer Science, rather than JeffE's answer. It's good to see that this is the norm some other places before I started to wage a big ethics war. Additional note: my lab has two professors on a tenure track. Perhaps once you have tenure you become more ethical? ;D

This answer is not really helpful for deciding about a specific case of authorship (as the question is asking for) but only reports general observations (“you can expect”, “There may be situations”, …). Also, should you indeed propose that providing funding and resources suffices for authorship, you are contradicting authorship rules from journals in the very fields you are mentioning (e.g., this one) and I am with JeffE.

While I agree with the idealistic answers, one of which is sitting further up in this thread (as in, that's how things should be), I think this is a good real world answer. Although, it may have been nice to explicitly invoke the power structures of a Supervisor-PhDStudent relation (dynamics) too. That's also one of the possible reasons why these kinda' supervisors get co-authorship in all papers of their students :)

There are two reasons that authorship is a difficult area for students:

Power dynamics make students suspicious of being exploited, but
Attribution of ideas is very difficult. Supervisors can spend months or years describing an idea to a student, and when the student finally understands the idea they get the "ah ha!" sensation of discovery and think it's their own.

No one thinks less of you for having your supervisor's name on a paper since everyone knows this is tricky, so I think it makes sense to be generous – at least so long as your supervisor has agreed to have their name on the paper.  If they feel they have made enough of an investment to deserve to have their name associated with your work, then I would give them the benefit of the doubt.  If you can't even trust them on this, why are you taking their academic advice at all?  But if your supervisor has specifically asked that you keep their name off your paper, you should respect that (and be sure that you understand why!)
In general, authorship on any article with any group of people should be agreed well in advance of submission by all involved parties, in writing (email or recorded chat sessions).  The generosity principle works so long as whoever did the most work and the most writing is the first author, and efforts by the team should be made to ensure where possible that that is the same person.

I agree entirely with your first point, but not quite with the second. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Writing them up, embedding them in the existing literature, proving them, validating them and going through all the work to get them published is a whole different ball game. If anybody has an idea but is not willing to go through at least part of the whole process with their students, well, then their idea is worthless.

Pedro, I can see your perspective but I respectfully disagree.  Some ideas have more value than others, both in terms of "legs" (how far will it go? how many publications & extensions can we derive from this work?), uniqueness (how many other people understand the problem well enough to have this idea?), and realised financial value (we have a grant to study this.)  I agree though without the effort you mention nothing will happen – that's why students get an authorship too.

I will address only the last questions (just to add to the other answers):

If you are working on your own projects independently of your supervisor, but using funding provided by your supervisor, are you suppose to add them as authors or just acknowledge the source of funding?

Funding is to be mentioned in acknowledgements, not in co-authors.
However:

In experimental projects often you are supposed to add your supervisor as an author. Actually, I does make sense as setting up lab, collecting equipment and gathering know-how is a (scientific) resource you base on.
Unless it is a completely independent project, you may be expected to add your supervisor (or rather: (s)he may expect you to add him/her) for relatively small contributions, e.g. comments or revisions of the manuscript. But this may be very discipline- and group-dependent (better discuss it with your supervisor in advance).

Honestly, as @eykanal has said, the easiest thing to do with this is to speak with your advisor ahead of time and establish a clear policy you both understand and agree to. You should do this even in cases where there doesn't seem to be any clear conflict, everyone's roles are perfectly predictable, and contributions to the paper seem obvious. It's one of those things, like frequent backups, that spares heartache later.
There are many ways such a policy might be made. Your department or university might have rules, your field might have rules, etc.
Generally speaking however, here are things that have happened in my experience:

Major papers that make heavy use of a lab's resources (including you, a grad student funded by the lab) will likely have your supervisors name on the paper.
More important than does/does not your supervisor's name appear on your papers is (if you field follows the non-alphabetical author ordering scheme) where they appear. They may most often appear in the senior author position, but on a paper where you had a great deal of help and advice from another faculty member? It may be more appropriate to place them in the middle. Again, this should be settled ahead of time.
If its truly an independent effort that doesn't draw from lab resources, it may be appropriate for your supervisor not to be on the paper. But before you press that, consider whether or not it's particularly worth not having them on. Your answer may vary, and if you think you'd benefit particularly from a solo paper, you might wish to bring it up.
While collaborators who provided data, technical expertise, etc. may be appropriate for authorship, if you can, try your hardest to avoid having "co-authors" who are only distantly connected with the paper. I have never, ever had anything but trouble getting things like draft approval or copyright transfer agreements from people with no stake in the paper other than their name buried in the middle of the authorship list.

After some science fraud scandals, the German Science Foundation published ethical rules which also cover this — here I paste the version from Heidelberg University (which is more or less the same as the original). They talk about "substantial role": that still leaves some space to interpretation. However, they specifically exclude just providing funding.

If multiple authors have contributed to research or in writing a scientific report, those persons are to be
  named as co-authors who played a substantial role in

defining the problem, drawing up research plans, conducting research, evaluating or interpreting
  research outcomes, and
drafting or critical review and revision of manuscript content. Co-authorship does not apply to
  persons who merely technically contribute to the collection of data, or who merely provide funding,
  or who merely serve as the head of the department or institution in which the research is carried out.
  Likewise persons who merely read the manuscript without contributing to its content are not
  considered co-authors.

As other said, different fields have different conventions and different labs have different conventions, both on who's an author, and on the author ordering.
The first author is often who did most work; in biology, some grant programs require >=X papers as first author and >= Y paper as last author (senior author).
But some common practices are indeed unfair/unethical.

Also see here for the authorship guidelines of a publisher covering several scientific fields. They also require specific lists of authorship contribution and I do not think they will accept someone whose only contribution was to provide the lab.

You should of course research the norms for your specific field. However, in order to resolve precisely this ambiguity, it is becoming much more common in certain fields to have a section of the paper that actually specifies exactly what the author contributions are. The Cell Press and PLoS journals, among others, actually require the use of a defined vocabulary called the CRediT Taxonomy, first outlined in Brand et al., 2015 [pdf]. Some of the role descriptions include "Supervision", "Project Administration", and "Funding Acquisition" in addition to "Investigation", "Formal Analysis", and others relating more directly to carrying out the research itself. Compared to author order, which is a field-dependent and sometimes low-information indicator, this makes it much more clear why each given author was listed.

The authorship guidelines of my university says " Acquisition of
funding, the collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, by themselves, DO NOT JUSTIFY authorship."
However my supervisor kills me if I do not mention his name as the second author in my papers in which he did not have any  contribution and he even does not know the basics of the work.

[T]he collection of data. What field are you in? In mine - optical spectroscopy (of crystals) - running an experiment can be quite an ordeal, especially if a sample is sensitive to atmospheric oxygen or water vapor. We, therefore, list every member of our group, that helped out with long night shifts at synchrotrons and running measurements, even though this amount only to collection of data.

My field is electrical engineering and collection of data in my field means to get a real-world dataset from a relevant agency.

Since your question included the word "lab" the answer is that the supervisor will be on it, regardless of contribution.
The best justification for this is that labs are expensive, and the supervisor's main job is to keep it running, and they need all the kudos they can get. Labs that go broke are in no position to attract students, so you could say that your supervisor earned their keep before you even started.
Is this fair? No, obviously not. If you are looking for fair, get out of academia.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Research statement ideas got used by interviewing committee
Last year, I applied to a university which is in Europe so a research statement is a crucial part of the application. I was interviewed by two faculty members and then finally got a rejection letter.
In my research statement, I had a particular idea and described a roadmap for it, though I did not get into technical details. But the idea was there and clearly stated. Recently, I came across a publication where the title is the same as my idea (wording is a little bit different) and is co-authored by one of the members of the interview panel.
The publication has technical details which were not part of my research statement.
I believe there is no clear proof here whether my ideas got used or not.
My questions are:

Is this suspicious?
Is this valid and acceptable?

Definitely bad form.

Can you contact the department chair, who is likely to have access to your admission materials? Taking this kind of thing lying down would only encourage this further IMHO...

@TCSGrad very nice thought. But since we are working on very closely related fields, isn't it possible for the faculty member to say he was thinking about it even before I applied. i'm just thinking here :-)

No, but that would serve as a warning flag, even if he got away - the chair would be unlikely to forget, and pass off a second incident as "coincidence"!

@TCSGrad I think you could turn that into an answer.

It's unclear anything would come of reporting to the chair though, since these things are very hard to verify. And why would the chair even take your word for it ?

@Suresh - Well, the chair can (and should IMO) look at the admissions material left with the department - if there's a strong correlation (e.g - the abstract of the paper is lifted from the statement of research he submitted), there's strong evidence of unfair play!

But the OP says "there is no clear proof where whether my ideas got used or not". That in itself warrants some caution.

Ideas are dime a dozen, also being in the same field, it is possible for people to have similar ideas.

Tread carefully. It is very possible that they lifted the idea from you. However, be aware that it is very difficult to prove that unless you have a publication. Also, keep in mind that people are smart - they may have come to the same conclusion independently. Or else, you mentioned a few ideas, and these people are so good they can work them out (extreme case: John von Neumann would do that a lot). It is difficult to prove - but in future, tread carefully with ideas that are worthwhile until you have strong allies on your side. And no, good ideas are not necessarily dime a dozen.

There is of course the possibility that the person you've accused actually had the same idea independently.   It's certainly suspicious, the moreso if when you were interviewed that person did not say "I like your idea and have actually been working on something similar".  I agree with the suggestion that you contact the chair and raise the issue, but be polite and nonconfrontational about it.  If you say "I think this guy stole my idea" it could be less effective than "I came across something similar to what I had proposed ... since Prof X didn't indicate he was working on this, I found it interesting that he published something so similar to what I proposed."
The thing to keep in mind is that it is a very gray area... this person might have come across your idea, forgotten about it, and later decided to pursue this idea without actually being consciously aware the idea came from your proposal.  And, you say much of the work goes beyond what you actually proposed.  So I think the chair should be informed, but I wouldn't expect much to come of it unless he's known as a repeat offender.

I found it interesting that he published something so similar to what I proposed does not sound non-confrontational to me, rather passively aggressive. Which may be a justified response actually.

Contact the department chair, with a well-documented chain of events, and ask him to verify using the admission materials you ahd submitted to the department prior to the interview. Even if the plagiarist got away this time, he would know that he/she could not pull it off again, as people around him/her had gotten to know of this - and no one would want to work with someone who can potentially steal your ideas, right?

The other answers (at this time) all take at face value that plagiarism likely or potentially occurred.
While it may have, before pursuing a line of action predicated on this, I would as dispassionately as possible ask an Occam's Razor question:

Is the timeline -- your application/interview, time to perform the research, time to write it up, peer review, publication -- such that your contributions are likely to have played a significant role?

By all means pursue it if there was likely misbehaviour here. But accusations of plagiarism in the style of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobachevsky_(song) won't win you friends in the field -- or future potential collaborators -- if it turns out your idea was fermenting in many people's minds, and active research programs, for some time. And it depends on field and topic of course, but your statement your interview was "last year" sets off alarm bells for me a bit, because that would be a very short timeline (in my field at least) for something truly significantly influenced by it to show up in print.
Good luck and sympathies regardless!


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What could be the effect of mentioning a student's weakness in the recommendation letter?
I am going to request a letter of recommendation for higher studies (PhD) from one of my faculty (I took two classes and did 3 very good course projects). I have never been good (just above average) in any of his written examinations and has admitted this to him in several discussions. Though in the projects, my score was the highest and I also got praise from him for writing excellent research quality articles for those projects.
I am pretty sure that he would certainly mention my weakness in the letter. I don't think (not really sure) that he has doubt over my research potential. So does that give any negative impression on the reader of such recommendation letter ?
So, if I generalize my question, how does specifying weakness of a candidate affects his chances of admission (if they do) ?

Honesty is the best way. When you admit a student, one of  the things you dread is if you find out someone is not what you thought. The issue is not easy to deal with of course.
If you think someone has a weakness, it should be mentioned. The first thing I think one can do is to point out that it is ones own opinion and possibly also describe the circumstances for why the weakness has become evident. The main point is provide the recipient of the information with as much information as possible to make a well-founded decision. After all, a persons positive traits are easy to describe and it is only the negative that cause problems.
One aspect that weighs heavily is if you would take on the person yourself, and if so, would you then deal with the weakness in some way? Provide possible solutions.
If a candidate has a weakness that you think may affect the persons ability to be considered, you should probably bring it up with the person. This can of course be very difficult and may result in bitter feelings but the question is, are the weaknesses something that can be compensated? If the person does not know about them, then the situation will seem inexplicable when he/she gets a rejection. A constructive discussion may make it possible to elaborate more in a letter to defuse the negative aspects.
In the end, writing negative aspects about a person is very difficult but it is also vital that a letter of recommendation has value. You may not be the only person writing a letter so the picture you provide may be one of many that has to be weighed in at the other end. If the person ends up not being appointed, you cannot take it personally as long as you have tried to provide an as objective appraisal as possible and that includes both positives and negatives. I have included what I sometimes have thought were damaging (but true) comments in letters and found the person was appointed despite them. I have then carefully explained why I think the way I do and tried to see how the negatives could possible be worked around. I have never written a letter where I had to just say, don't employ this person. I have then avoided the task altogether.
So, in summary, be honest, be objective, be constructive, and the opinion will be much valued by whoever reads your letter.

+1 (+2 if I could ;o) it is not doing the candidate a favour for them to get a position that their weaknesses mean they will struggle to flourish in.


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Writing to a reviewer to inform that one is not journal shopping?
I submitted a paper to a reputed journal on behalf of my organization (research publications are not very common here). The double blind reviews were received 8 months later when I had moved on to an entirely different project. Both the reviewers indicated accepting the paper but required huge modifications along with generation of more results. The re-submission date was 10 days after I received the reviews, though the modifications would have easily taken at least two months.
Since, I didn't have access to the resources (server, bandwidth etc.) and none of my co-authors were interested in reworking along with a dismal response from the management for request to reallocate the resources, I tried to do it in my spare time but the paper was automatically withdrawn since 10 days had passed. After a few days, the senior management suddenly enquired the status of the paper and forced me to resubmit to the same journal as is.
Obviously, the paper got rejected within 2 months. Editor didn't gave any comments except that the reviewers are suggesting to reject the paper.
I have the following confusions: (Didn't think they make separate questions)

Should I ask the reviewer what were the reasons for rejection (which I doubt is re-submission without modification if it went to the same reviewer)
Should I explain him that I was not journal shopping and the situation was such that I had to resubmit the paper? (Since I am pretty young and do not want the future papers to be rejected in conferences where same editor comes up).
I have now incorporated the suggested changes and wish to resubmit. Should I now resubmit it to the same journal or to a different journal?

I'll start with some remarks on the past events:

“the re-submission date was 10 days after I received the reviews” — If the reviewers had asked for large modifications, I am convinced you could have asked the editor to allow you more time to resubmit the manuscript (unless it was for a special issue).

“senior management […] forced me to resubmit to the same journal as is” — This is very wrong, and you should have said no (backed up with strong arguments, of course). Resubmitting the same manuscript, unmodified, to the same journal, is ethically borderline. Depending on the exact requirements for submission of the journal, and the information you gave to the editor, it may even be unethical (many journals ask “has this manuscript previously been submitted to this journal?” — if you say yes, the unmodified paper will be flat out rejected, if you say no, you are lying).

Now, regarding your questions:

“Should I ask […] the reasons for rejection?” — You can. I am guessing that the editor somehow didn't realize that it was a resubmission, if it took 2 months for it to get rejected. Thus, you probably got some new referee comments. However, if the editor didn't tell you… maybe the reviewers just flat out recommended rejection, with no comments.

“Should I explain him that I was not journal shopping and the situation was such that I had to resubmit the paper?” — I don't think so, and certainly not in these terms. There is not “situation such that I had to resubmit”: you resubmitted, and the blame of that bad decision lies with you. Pressure explains it, but it doesn't justify it.
If you want to contact the editor, I would do it very differently. Simply apologize to him for the bad decision, explain that it was done under pressure from your organization and you realized only afterwards that it was wrong. Say that you hope it won't be held against you in the future.

“I have now incorporated the suggested changes […] Should I now resubmit it to the same journal?” — I don't see why not… just make sure you carefully explain all the changes made in response to the reviewers, as a regular resubmission, and explain your earlier resubmission (apologize!).

To be honest, I don't think it will leave a bad stain to your name in the future: everybody makes mistakes, especially young researchers who don't yet understand fully the rules. Being honest and upfront in your future interactions with the editor should lead him to form a good opinion of you.

I've always had much longer suggested time frames for re-submitting. Is a 10 day window usual? (Maybe I should just ask that as a question.)


text:
Citing non Academic Books
What is the best way to cite non academic books in papers, for example, if we are writing a paper on economics, and want to say that "Charles Dickens presents a good portrayal of the English society in his book Oliver Twist",
Do we cite it as just another paper:

"Charles Dickens presents a good portrayal of the English society in his book [2]"

Is it enough just to mention it by name:

"Charles Dickens presents a good portrayal of the English society in his book Oliver Twist"

Do we do both?

"Charles Dickens presents a good portrayal of the English society in his book Oliver Twist[2]"

Third option looks nicer, but perhaps there is an unspoken standard.

The third route is the best option, because it does two things at once: it immediately tells the reader which book you're referring to, and the citation will provide information on the specific edition of the book you're working from.
If the book is well known, it doesn't hurt to make the reference explicit. If it isn't, then mentioning the title won't make a huge difference. And it's always a good idea to avoid stilted academic writing, so anything that allows you to avoid writing something like the first example is a good thing.

If you are referring to the book as a whole, providing the title in the text of the article is generally enough. If you are citing a specific portion of the book, then you should report which edition of the book you are working with and cite the appropriate page numbers.


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From academic collaboration to research contract, best practices
We started to collaborate with another research group. We make computational predictions and they evaluate them at the lab, for bioactive compounds. We have not yet established a research agreement, just talked in person, but we would like to establish a research contract with them. This is since in our country (Spain) and given the financial crisis, groups that establish such research contracts are more eligible for further funding from national government than those that publish in Nature or Science. Since we need as many contracts as possible, price is not important, we think we can offer our services for a very small fee. The point is how to convince the other groups that we need to do this not for the money, but for our future. So the question is, what is the best way to propose them a research contract?

The best way is probably to talk very openly with them about your situation and especially what research contracts mean for you. Before you make any suggestions, it would also be good to evaluate the funding situation of your partners, and whether they need your contribution so much for their research that they would be willing to put money in it.
However, most collaborations between academic groups are seen as something that benefits both sides, so it could be seen as a little bit odd that one side pays the other to do something. Still, if your partners have a good funding situation, they might be willing to (co-)fund a PhD student or post-doc in your group, who works specifically on the collaboration project. But I've mostly seen this between groups in the same institution so far, not among different institutions. If your collaborators are in industry, then it will probably be easier.
Another nice way to get such project going would be to apply for joint funding with the other research group, for example within an EU project, and set up a contract how the money from the funded project will be distributed between you and the other group. If your collaborators have good national funding sources, it may also be possible that they apply for funding with the joint project on their own, and outsource the computational part to you.

Yes, I will talk with them openly, therefore. The problem for sharing a PhD or Postdoc; when these two groups work on very different subjects (experimental and computational), it will be difficult to have a multidisciplinar scientists that can do both things. As to apply for joint funding this is a good solution. The problem is when you need funding right now!