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Locating a specific German Ph.D. Dissertation from 1959
I am trying to access the following work online, but I'm having no luck finding it:

Krüger, Dietrich. 1959. "Die Bildersprache des Demosthenes." Ph.D., Classics, Göttingen.

Any idea where I could access it?

I assume you speak german. Might be handy to give their library a call.

Check with the University of Chicago library. They have a PhD thesis online by Branden Kosch which references this thesis so they might have a copy of it. Alternatively, you might try contacting Dr. Kosch through information available here to see if he can help you. Alternatively, you might request a full-text copy from researchgate

Good luck with researchgate. The request will land in some spam box, probably of a dead person, if anywhere. But I like the other ideas.

Wouldn’t it be possible to call the Göttingen library, see if they have it and request scans? Why does it have to be online?

All librarians I've had contact with are good people. I've had librarians send me scans of hundred year old manuscripts within hours of asking them via a polite e-mail. If you contact the Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen and ask nicely, they might send you a scan (I'm not sure how much they are restricted by Covid-19 measures right now though).

Any online resources may be unlikely for a dissertation that old, but there are some possibilities. Try these.
The Classics department at Göttingen.
The university library at Göttingen.
Proquest, which was founded as "University Microfilms", published a lot of dissertations in that era. This may be a longshot for a German dissertation, but it was used by many universities to "publish" dissertations.
The author is unlikely to still be alive, but it is just possible that one of his students is and can provide a copy, or at least an abstract. If you have a citation of the work, the author who cites it may have a copy.
A good research librarian at an academic library can probably help a lot in such a search.

In general,

I'd always expect the university library where the dissertation was done to have at least one exemplar in their archives.
The national library is also supposed to have at least one exemplar of every book published in Germany.

For searching books within Germany, the university libraries of several German Länder have a common online catalgoue (Gemeinsamer Verbundkatalog, GVK), see also https://www.bszgbv.de/ which also include Baden-Württemberg and Saarland.
GVK lists 3 exemplars of the dissertation at the Göttingen University library: https://kxp.k10plus.de/DB=2.1/PPNSET?PPN=146113365
https://www.worldcat.org/ is an online catalogue covering even more libraries from around the globe.

In addition to the references mentioned in the answers (national library, library of the university) I recommend the Karlsruher Virtual Cataloge (Karlsruher Virtueller Katalog, KVK) http://kvk.bibliothek.kit.edu. This cataloge composes all important catalogs of scientific and national libraries in Germany (and optionally also many catalogs of foreign countries).
Searching there for your book results in 5 locations (don't get irritated - some results shown are duplicates):

2 copies in the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek in Leipzig and Frankfurt
1 copy and 1 mircofiche in the library of the Freie Universität Berlin
1 copy in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München
2 copies and 1 microfiche in the Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen

Most of these copies can also be accessed via interlibrary loan.

authors: Bob Jarvis - Слава Україні


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How can a would-be researcher overcome slow comprehension, obsession and poor communication skills?
I m a current master coursework student in engineering major and I’m planning to do a PhD after graduating from this course. I want to know how to become a qualified researcher. There are several shortcomings that I think may stop me making it:

I understand things very slowly. When I read or listen to others, I can’t get the idea very quickly. Sometimes there is even an unexpected blank or distraction in my mind when I’m getting some information and I have to get it again.
I like delving in solving a certain question I’m interested in, but I often get stuck there for a long time until I solve it, which really have a severe negative effect on exams. In addition, this kind of obsession is a short-term effect, rather than perminant one. That’s to say it’s hard for me to stick to one thing for a long period of time as I’m easy to get obsessed in another thing once it appeals to me.
I’m not good at explaining or illustrating my idea to others. They often don’t understand what's my point and I need to explain it several times. The situation is worse in speaking. I often get a blank mind and forget the next point to connect to my current point when I express my idea orally. It’s very hard to organize my idea well when speaking.

Since I have no experience of being a researcher, I want to know if those problems are likely to be a barrier to becoming a qualified researcher? How can I overcome these problems?

As @ff524 mentioned in comments, it's hard to give advice to you after only these few lines, for no reason more than that what you describe as holding you back might equally well be a sign that you share certain characteristics very common among academic researchers.
As to 2), you essentially say that you like digging into a problem until you have a solution that pleases you, while forgetting the world (exam) around you. That ability, or obsession, must be one of the most important for a researcher, whatever the source (it could point to some excessive OCDness). It currently probably leads to you having crack answer to a few exam questions, while none or marginal ones to others, and so might prevent you from ever being a researcher. All it seems to take though is to keep reminding yourself to not obsess: write an answer outline to all questions, and then allow yourself to drill deeper. It's essentially an inability to multi-task, and there is lots of advice online how to address that.
The difficulty to orally communicate you mention in 3) is extremely common among professors. Your ability to speak can be improved in rhetoric classes, but being a poor speaker is often linked to issues such as anxiety too, and so is tricky. Communicating clearly in writing though can be easily improved in self-study. Get yourself a copy of Strunck&White, skip the 4th chapter, and ignore those telling you it's outdated. Zinsser's On Writing Well is even more helpful. It was a real life-changer for me.
Your issue 1) is unclear for someone not knowing you in person as well. You understand slowly. Says who? By comparison to who? Does the person explaining things to you suffer from your issue 3) as well? You might just be too hard on yourself. I had few teachers who truly helped me understand what I had to learn better, so few that all these years later they and what they said stick out in my memory. In terms of comprehending from reading, you seem to say that to truly learn, you need to re-read your books. That isn't too uncommon either. Additionally, from what you say in 2) which might allude to some OCDness or similar, you might be too harsh on yourself in judging when you have "learned" something. To this day, when I read a math book I have to fight feeling that I didn't read it carefully enough if there is any proof in it I couldn't provide on the spot. That's counter-productive.
I hope some of what i wrote actually fits your situation, or at least helps you maybe view it in a different light.

Get yourself a copy of Strunck&White and then throw it in the fire. It's not outdated; it's just bad.

On Writing Well was also bad.

You should consider professional counselling.  At American universities, this is typically free.  The counsellors are experts in these types of problems.

FMI, The research is not as objective-based as commercial corporations, it focuses more on the process, about how a idea is came up and get solved. You can have enough time to find and fix your problem that stop you from becoming a qualified researcher. As far as I know, your first two problems will not likely to become a big trouble to your future research career, while the last problem matters differently depending on which level you want to reach.
Firstly, with regard to slow comprehension, you can take your time to understand things you want to understand. And you don't need to do it in hurry. Secondly, if you get obsessed on any idea, then delve in it and don't worry about anything others until you get there. Lastly, as to poor communication skills, I think that the higher level you want to reach in academic world, the more important it's to have a good communication skill. You need to improve the ability to express your idea well if you want to reach the top level in the academic world, but you can still handle it  without being so good at communication as a normal-level researcher as doing researches also focuses on going deep inside a idea, which, as I think, is not closely relevant to communication skills.

Can you please try to clean up this answer a bit?  It's rather disorganized and hard to read as currently formulated.

I strongly disagree that poor communication skills is not a handicap in research. To quote Patrick Winston: "Your careers will be determined largely by how well you speak, by how well you write, and by the quality of your ideas - in that order"

@ff524, actually I'm a bit ambivalent to this part. On one hand, I know some researchers who are so quiet all day and they talk to others rarely. They just delve in their research alone and they can still handle it. On the other hand, I agree with that communication is very important for researchers, especially those who want to reach the top level in academic world.

I did laugh a bit reading your post. I did really feel that you were talking about me.
I got a Phd in electrical engineering as a foreign student in Japan last March.
I don't think what you describe can hinder you seriously. Being a researcher is mainly a matter of self-discipline. You can already solve problems on your own. You just have to keep "physically" away from distractions. (Just the time to get the requirements for PhD graduation).

I would disagree that being a researcher is mainly about self-discipline: there are many other skills necessary for research as well, and communication with others is very important amongst these.

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How to remove my name from submitted paper
I am a co-author for a manuscript. The corresponding author submitted that to a journal which I do not consider that as a good journal, therefore, I would like to ask him to remove my name as a co-author.
How can I ask him to remove my name ?

Well, you can -- but then what are you going to do? You can't submit the work anywhere else. So there is no gain to your pain.

Perhaps you can send an e-mail, make a phone call, or talk to him in person.

@WolfgangBangerth if the OP considers publishing on that journal a net negative (with respect to not publishing at all) there is something to be gained

Submitting a manuscript without the consent of the co-authors is scientific misconduct.  You colleague needs to be made aware of that, if they are not already. If they are willing to withdraw the submission once they are aware of the potential seriousness of the issue, then that is the simplest resolution. You might also be willing to simply remove yourself from the manuscript in order to get out of the situation, but that is definitely a lesser choice.
If they understand your objection but do not care, then options become much less pleasant.  In order of recommendation, I would suggest:

Contact the journal to withdraw the manuscript. If the journal is honest but just not very highly ranked, then they should be willing to engage with you and your co-author on this, because they will not want to support such misconduct.
If the journal will not act, then you can contact your colleague's supervisor. You don't say if they are a student or a professor, but in any case there will be somebody who has authority over them who has responsibility for dealing with misconduct by your colleague.
Ultimately, if all of these paths fail (e.g., your colleague is happily dealing with a predatory publisher and their department doesn't care), you might just have an embarrassing thing out there with your name on it that you have no control over. In that case, just leave it off your CV and tell anybody who asks you about it that your name was used without your consent.  Don't worry about it too much, though: at that level of misconduct, your name could have been used without you ever being involved. Just like having your credit card stolen, once you've done your due diligence to deal with the situation, it basically ceases to be your problem.

You could speak to them in-person or by phone/video, or you could email them. At the very least, you should explain that you don't wish to listed as a co-author. You could also explain your reasoning.
If you're unable to communicate with your co-author, then you could contact the journal (before a camera version is submitted).
Rather than removing your name, you may wish to withdraw the manuscript from the journal.

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What is the meaning of "Mobility" in applying for postdoc positions
I am going to apply for postdoc position in math. I have been asked for some documents  titled "Previous Mobility" and "Scientific background". I do not know what I can put in Previous Mobility, because I think it is almost the same with scientific background. I appreciate your assistance in this regard.

Does it just refer to previous positions? Only a guess. Maybe you need to ask them.

Does it happen to be in Finland? https://www.aka.fi/en/funding/apply-for-funding/az-index-of-application-guidelines/mobility-academy-researcher-and-research-fellow/

@mkennedy, no it isn,t.

Can you clarify the country? Was this term originally in English? "Previous mobility" sounds strange to my ears. Perhaps a mistranslation of "previous positions"?

@cag51 It is in Norway.

I took a look at about five first postdoc positions at jobbnorge and did not find the word "mobility" there, so maybe it is not standard. I did not look at the application form.
My assumption (I am Finnish, living currently in Norway, so cultural proximity maybe gives me some credibility) is that it means the locations where you have stayed for academic purposes. Since your employment history is already explained elsewhere (I guess), you would want to list any longer research visits to universities you are not employed at and institutes (Poincaré, Mittag-Leffler, etc.). If you had an external stay as a part of your PhD, list that, too.
I do not know about how short a visit you should list or if you should list being an exchange student during you bachelor or master studies.
One motivation is probably to see if the job candidate has been outside Norway on academic purposes. If you are a foreigner, this is not hard. Lots of experience at diverse places or presence at a prestigious institute might be viewed favourably, too, who knows.

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How should I prepare my first PhD interview when I do not know about the research topic?
I'm going to have my first Skype interview with the PhD committee, and I have not yet been told about the research topic. How long should the presentation be? Given that I have not been told about the research topic, how should I incline my presentation? Should I include my CV?

If you've not been told about the topic yet (though that's quite unusual - perhaps you can clarify why) then I would suggest examining the research interests of the department you are applying for. If you know the names of the interviewers, look up their research interest and their most recent papers. Are there any research groups within the department? Check for recent publications and recent (successful) grant applications.
In addition, think about which of these research topics you could most effectively contribute to. If you had to match your expertise and knowledge so far against any of the departmental research interests, where would you fit best and where could you contribute most effectively?
In your presentation I would suggest to demonstrate that you are aware of the research profile of the institution and how you could see yourself contribute to it. Demonstrate and describe your expertise and experience backed up with evidence, and this includes summarising or presenting your CV.

thank you. they have asked to make a presentation of my research wok, lab work expertise and future goals. I am not even sure of m supervisor yet. however i will do as you have suggested.

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Which is more important when applying to grad school (particularly top grad schools): Research or Letters?
While looking around for an answer to this, I have been getting conflicting opinions/answers, so I decided to ask here: Is publishing a great research paper as an undergrad more important than great letters from your professors when applying to grad school?
Another phrasing: If you had only one of these (great research vs. great letters), which scenario would more likely help the graduate application?

If you don't get great letters as a result of your great research, you're probably doing it wrong. Also, you should specify what field you are in, as academia varies.

It's pretty unlikely that you are going to produce "great research" as an undergrad (if you were, what is grad school going to teach you?). More than anything, you get into grad school for your perceived potential. Yes, a little neat paper or project might attest to that, but it's not going to be studied in detail when spending 10-20 minutes on your application. Your letter-writers know you best (or at least you'd hope they do): if they highlight your potential, and have good reputation themselves, this will probably matter more than anything (although some people here will disagree).

@gnometorule Sounds like an answer to me (I'll upvote it).

@Mad: Thanks, but I think the by now posted answer covers the same (or similar) bases. :)

possible duplicate: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/38237/how-does-the-admissions-process-work-for-ph-d-programs-in-the-us-particularly

This is slightly tongue in cheek, but stands up well in my experience.  It really helps if you're in the same party crowd as the professors running the grad program you want to get into.

Letters. But if you want a good letters then you need to do good research.

"Yes."
If you were asked to pick one, really either one is extremely helpful for getting into graduate school. Great letters will speak to your potential as a researcher, and great research shows it fairly concretely - but as has been noted, it may be hard to recognize research quality outside of a particular subfield. In my field however (public health) there are some broad strokes measures of quality that someone can pick out. And if we're talking about publications, that's rare enough in my field to be an unusual entry on someone's CV.
Moreover, I'd suggest that this dichotomy is something that likely won't exist, especially if you do great research. A good letter discussing that research, cementing its contribution in the admission committee's mind and setting it up as "a preview of things to come" should follow pretty naturally.


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When should a college graduate attend a professional academic conference?
When should an undergraduate attend their first professional academic conference if they have nothing to present and traveling isn't cheap? Would while enrolling for a masters degree be a better time? I'm thinking American Stat Association.

surely that depends on what you want to get out of the conference.

If you happen to be in town

Ask one of your professors who attends the conference about this. Ask what you could gain. If the prof is actually going, maybe they could shepherd you around so that you could meet people.
I don't know about the conference, but see if they have things for students, especially such things as a doctoral symposium where you can hear about student work in progress, even if it is a bit beyond where you are.
Aside from the standard program, conferences are a good way to meet people, though for an undergraduate the first one might not be so valuable unless you have a guide.
But long term, building a circle of like minded people, especially potential collaborators, is a major benefit.


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Can a co-author cut the whole paper?
Once upon a time... A paper was submitted to a journal with the consent and knowledge of all co-authors. During the revision process, one of the co-authors (X) demanded co-authorship in the articles of other co-authors (Y and Z). This request was denied, as X did not meet the requirements of co-authorship in those papers. As an answer, X refused to allow the article to go forward, until one of the co-authors (N) being excluded. X explained this decision by questioning the contribution of N to the research. What might be a diplomatic and professional solution, if N and X are both valid co-authors? Can X cut the whole paper?
All characters and other entities appearing in this question are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons or other real-life entities is purely coincidental.

Generally speaking, you can't publish something without the consent of all authors, so yes, it can happen.
This person is behaving badly. Perhaps there is a common authority you can appeal to so that the bad behavior stops. Even a threat to appeal to higher authority might make a difference.
It might be necessary, actually, to abandon the paper if you can't find a solution.
But don't work with this person in the future. If it is a PI/advisor, then you have a different issue, of course, as such people have power that can overwhelm justice. But, to the maximum extent possible, ignore the opinions of this person who is trying to optimize their own record at the expense of others.
But if it is a PI/advisor doing this, say so, and I can supplement this response.

"It might be necessary, actually, to abandon the paper if you can't find a solution." True, but possibly the paper can be rewritten without X's contributions. That depends on how vital those are obviously.


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Graduate Admissions Gender Bias
Both my girlfriend and I (both white) applied to the same PhD programs in mathematics. Most of these schools are AMS Group I and some Group II.
I got denied by a majority of these programs while she got accepted to a majority of them. I sincerely do believe my profile is stronger (see comparison below) so I think there is a definite unfair advantage geared towards females candidates for graduate admissions. Am I able to legally sue some of these schools for gender bias? Why are the admission committees doing this? Shouldn't admission decisions be based on "who is best fit and capable to be doing math research" instead of "who will look best for our department"?
Comparison:

We went to the same college, and have the same math classes except for 5-6 courses that are not math since we knew each other since high school. My GPA is 3.9, 0.2 higher than hers.
My Math GRE subject test score is above 80% while hers is less than 40%.
I have done 3 REUs, coauthored some (over 3) papers while she only did one REU last summer with no publications.

Furthermore, in my school, some of the incoming female PHD students know less math (insufficient preparation) than a typical junior/senior undergraduates, which supports my theory.
Am I the only person thinking this is unfair? Aren't the actions of these admissions committee members jeopardizing the output of their math department by choosing less capable people?

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. Please read this FAQ before posting another comment.

Would you mind explaining some of the terminology that the avarage reader won't have to look them up? Eg AMS geoup, REU, GRE subject test score. GPA is some kind of grade and the higher the better, right?

You don't say: are you both U.S. citizens?  (Some programs may have higher standards for admission of non-citizens.)

Questions: Did you have to write application letters for these schools? Did you have to interview for these positions? I'm not in mathematics, but many fields/departments (may vary across schools) don't actually care about things like GPA and GRE except to mark a mandatory checkbox for the university.

Everyone please avoid any polemic because these will be removed as specified in the question notice. And remember that moderators cannot move comments to chat more than once.

@Allure I pulled it off the HNQ list to reduce the chance of endless debates and polemics (which already started). See also this meta question.

Comments locked. Please take any further discussion about this question to the chatroom or to [meta].

I have had people I know who are senior mathematicians tell me in private conversation that they believe it is right and proper to discriminate in favor of females in mathematics in things like graduate admissions and job hiring. In some cases they essentially admitted (in a circumspect, plausibly-deniable sort of way) to practicing this kind of discrimination themselves.
Based on these anecdotal experiences, I believe it is indeed quite possible that you were discriminated against. It’s also possible that you weren’t; there is simply no way to know for sure. It’s not even clear that there is an objective underlying truth to this question, since the notion of what it means to be discriminated against isn’t scientifically defined.
The people I mentioned are people I respect and believe to be quite sensible, well-intentioned people. Their views seem to be widely held among professional mathematicians in (US, and other countries) academia today, including many people whom I would characterize as very reasonable and moral. On the other hand, many other members of the academic math community disagree and believe that gender based discrimination in math and science is unethical and unfair regardless of which direction it takes place in. So no, you are not the only one, far from it.
I don’t think there is a legal remedy for this issue. Who will you sue? How will you prove that a specific program or person discriminated against you? Besides, the societal debate about affirmative action has been going on for several decades and doesn’t seem about to end. There have been numerous lawsuits with results going both ways. The battle lines move a little, then move the other way. Laws are passed, then get ignored or worked around. At the end of the day, there is simply a wide chasm in our society over the belief in the morality of such actions, and no law or court can change that.
For math specifically, the issue will likely subside in importance over time as the number of successful women mathematicians grows closer to (or reaches parity with) that of men in the profession and a younger generation takes over that doesn’t carry the baggage of the older generation and is baffled by the very notion that it was once believed women could not succeed in mathematics.
I understand that all of this big-picture stuff might offer only small consolation for you in your personal situation. It is reasonable to be upset, but keep in mind that most women also have plenty of things to be upset about, and while two wrongs don’t make a right, statistically speaking, you will probably end up getting just as much of a chance as your girlfriend to prove your worth as a budding mathematician, and you will probably be at least a little bit advantaged over her in other ways that you may not realize.
Life isn’t completely fair for anyone. Go out there and succeed anyway! Good luck!

Can confirm having heard similar things from senior people in astronomy.

Not only do two wrongs a right not make, but a department that allows reverse bias to seep in will damage itself in the long run. I can see that a department will give preference to a very capable woman [or other minority] in favour of a very capable man [or privileged majority], possibly accounting for some minor disadvantages in their development - however, favouring a clearly weaker candidate is doing themselves and the really capable women a disfavour. The latter now will have to fight the view that they got the position by gender rather than ability. Cont'd.

This does not help OP, but perhaps OP is ultimately best served not to go to a place that has so little respect for meritocracy. I say that as someone whose group is regularly joined by (very capable) women and has a large proportion of in an atypical field, because my motto is: "Even the odds and treat everybody according to their individual skill set, not by what bias society may imply about a random group of people who your candidate may fortuitously belong to".

"the issue will likely subside in importance over time as the number of successful women mathematicians grows closer to (or reaches parity with) that of men" assumes that this is in fact possible, and not simply a utopian ideal.  Will parity be reached with the percentage of Africans winning Olympic running events, the percentage of Ashkenazi winning Nobel prizes (overrepresented by a factor of 100), the percentage of male nurses, etc.?

@CaptainEmacs well, rather a lot of departments seem to wish to inflict such (hypothetical) damage to themselves these days, so OP is decidedly not best served by being rejected from all of them. But of course, all these arguments have been rehashed over and over numerous times on this site, in newspaper articles, dinner tables, and pretty much everywhere else. Please let’s not hijack OP’s question to start yet another pointless debate of this type.

@RayButterworth I don’t know, I don’t have a crystal ball. Yes, it’s possible parity will never be reached, and it’s possible the issue will not subside. I am not assuming anything, simply expressing an (admittedly speculative) opinion.

@DanRomik I didn't mean to hijack the discussion. I believe there is an increasing level of  various political agendas driving scientific action (positive discrimination just being one of many of them). I remember politically-driven science from the times of the Eastern Bloc. Even if less prevalent in natural sciences, I personally know people harmed by them. People didn't have a choice then, but they still have a choice now and, as far as that is possible, they should be aware and make conscious use of it. I think this is pertinent to OP's question.

While I mostly agree with this answer, referring to corrective measures as "discrimination" is nonstandard, and is likely to raise eyebrows from those in favor of such corrective measures. The way they see it, there are a lot of implicit biases and obstacles preventing women from succeeding, so taking into account gender is simply correcting for the implicit bias. Is it discrimination to discriminate in favor of the discriminated?

@6005 thanks, glad you mostly agree. Can you point to the specific sentence in my answer that you disapprove of? To clarify, wherever I used “discriminate” and its derivatives, I am referring to the legal sense of actions that violate state and federal laws such as this one. I stand by what I said and don’t think the usage is controversial or nonstandard. Take it easy with those eyebrow muscles.

It is possible you were unfairly rejected. This is not really possible to prove one way or the other, from the information in your post.
Unrelated to that, however, your post shows a lack of understanding for the standard justifications of affirmative action, and why admissions committees sometimes may try to improve the gender balance of their decisions. I would recommed that, regardless of your opinion, you take the time to understand their point of view.
The executive summary of that point of view is that they do not believe they are giving an unfair advantage to women and minority candidates, but rather they believe they are correcting for an unfair advantage that majority (male, white, etc.) candidates already have, that is not always easily measurable.
Once again, you are free to disagree, but you should understand it.
With that in mind, let me present the standard responses to your complaints, from the admissions committees' likely point of view.

Aren't the actions of these admissions committee members jeopardizing the output of their math department by choosing less capable people?

No, because they do not believe they are choosing less capable people. It has been shown in a variety of studies that people (including admissions committees) are implicitly biased against women and minorities. That is, given a female student and a male student (alternatively: a student with a female name and a student with a male name) with the exact same level of ability, people routinely underestimate the female student's ability in STEM compared to the male student's ability.
The admissions committees are trying to correct for that, so it is unsurprising that they choose to admit candidates who you perceive as being less capable and prepared. However, the committee does not see it that way; they think the female students are equally capable and prepared, but are unfairly discriminated against.
Moreover, who is right (you or the admissions committees) is actually an empirical question: are the students they are admitting actually less qualified, or are they actually equally qualified? In theory, given the time to make well-controlled studies and the ability to collect infinite amounts of data, we could resolve this question one way or the other. And there has been a lot of research on it already, although none of it is completely conclusive, and the world is constantly changing, so it is unclear to what extent the past studies apply to today.

Furthermore, in my school, some of the incoming female PHD students know less math (insufficient preparation) than a typical junior/senior undergraduates, which supports my theory.

What makes you believe these students are not as strong? Once again there is a possibility of implicit bias here, since women are often underestimated by their peers. Few people have the capability to act as a "neutral party" and judge someone else independently of whether they look like them, talk like them, or share their personality type. You should consider whether, one way or another, you are biased in some way in your evaluation.

I sincerely do believe my profile is stronger (see comparison below)

I'm not entirely convinced by your comparison. The coursework and grades don't matter too much; the GRE matters a little more, but not a lot. The REU experience does matter. However, we don't have access to the recommendation letters or cover letters, so it's possible that hers were a lot stronger.
Moreover, from the admission committees' likely perspective, your entire comparison is predicated on the idea that you and your girlfriend were given the same opportunity to succeed, and this seems unlikely. Although you are in the same department, men are more often participating in mathematical activites throughout high school and college; this includes, for instance, applying to REUs more often. Supposing that your girlfriend is equally qualified to you, it would be unsurprising (to the committees) that she applied to and participated in fewer REUs.
The admissions committee is likely interested in assessing, not just "how much stuff does this person have on their resume?" but also, "how likely are they to succeed in our program?" And the latter question is, while a lot more difficult to evaluate, clearly more important. From their perspective, they might believe that women have an unfair disadvantage on average when it comes to their resumes, even though they are still likely to succeed given some solid evidence (e.g., prior research experience and solid coursework).
Another way of saying this is that more things padding your resume is not necessarily better than fewer things, which nevertheless point strongly to the candidate being highly qualified.

Shouldn't admission decisions be based on "who is best fit and capable to be doing math research" instead of "who will look best for our department"?

Yes, and the admissions committees believe they are selecting for the former, whereas you believe they are selecting for the latter. They believe that women are underselected and underrepresented despite being highly fit and capable.

+1 The program might also recognize that extreme gender disparities are a problem for many reasons.

The comparison you make is quite compelling, insofar as you both went to the same school, and have conducted similar tests/classes in your respective CVs, and there is no aspect (that you have mentioned) where her record is stronger than yours.  I would recommend you take a careful look to see if there are any aspects of your girlfriend's CV that are superior to your own, and see if it is plausible that these may have affected the results.  Assuming that there is no compelling difference in her favour, this comparison does indeed give rise to a suspicion of sex discrimination, but obviously it is just two data points, so it is not definitive.  Possibly one or more of these universities are engaging in sex discrimination, or maybe they just did not make a very astute comparison of those two applications.

Why are the admission committees doing this? Shouldn't admission decisions be based on "who is best fit and capable to be doing math research" instead of "who will look best for our department"?

If these schools are indeed engaging in discrimination, it is likely that this is a species of "affirmative action", geared towards the goal of increasing the proportion of females in mathematics programs.  Universities have a long history of engaging in affirmative discrimination, and they have generally not been disuaded from this by legal prohibitions to the contrary.  Many universities presently appear to be taking action towards trying to increase the proportion of females in STEM programs, so it is possible that this is what is occurring here (though without more detail, I couldn't say for sure).
Personally, I agree with your view that universities should just hire on merit, and let the chips fall where they may.  However, that philosophy is contrary to the popular wisdom of the university sector, and the administration of most universities do not see things this way.  Within the university sector, and the broader corporate sector, there is a great deal of emphasis on racial and sexual "diversity" in recruitment and retention.  These institutions have been heavily affected by the neo-Marxist academic philosophy of the last sixty years, which holds that disparities in social outcomes are attributable primarily or solely to institutional discrimination against under-represented groups, and thus in need of affirmative correction through positive discrimination.  (And really, if you have already gone through an entire undergraduate university degree and you have not noticed this, you must have been living under a rock.)
If you are correct that you have been discriminated against because you are male then I am very sorry --- that is indeed very unfair.  I am just a lowly academic, and not the Lord-of-All-University-Hiring, but you have my sympathies, for whatever that is worth.

Am I able to legally sue some of these schools for gender bias?

You can sue anyone you like for anything you want, but if you decide to do this you should get legal advice before doing so, since there is no guarantee of success, and an unsuccessful lawsuit can cost you a lot of money.  If you are considering taking legal action over this matter, you should first speak to a lawyer who practices in anti-discrimination law, both to determine the legal rules for sex discrimination in your jurisdiction, and to get advice on whether your evidence of discrimination is compelling.  You should also carefully document everything you can about the application process, and in particular, make sure to document any assurance given by the universities to the effect that they are an "equal opportunity employer" or that they "hire on merit".  Remember that you cannot sue the university sector in general --- you would need to make a case against a particular university, based on their actions.
Please bear in mind that, although anti-discrimination laws provide a broad prohibition of sex discrimination in employment and recruitment decisions, they often contain exemptions for "positive action" or "special measures".  This occurs when an employer discriminates in favour of an under-represented group for a purpose allowed by the statute.  There are legal requirements on this type of discrimination, but it is allowed by law if it follows certain requirements.  However, an employer cannot generally rely on this exemption if they have given a contractual assurrance of hiring solely on merit, or an assurance that they are "equal opportunity".  (Strictly speaking, they might still not be in breach of anti-discrimination law, but they could be sued for breach of contract.)
Whether or not affirmative discrimination in favour of females would be allowed here is complicated, and depends on a number of issues.  Modern universities generally have a high proportion of female students in total, but low proportions in the STEM subjects.  It is a matter of legal controversy whether or not this circumstance allows them to legitimately engage in positive discrimination in favour of females within the STEM subjects.  (Arguably they would only be able to do so if they likewise discriminate in favour of males in subject areas where males are underrepresented.)  You will need to speak to a lawyer in this field to get an idea of the position in your jurisdiction.

Yes, indeed.  There is a general misapprehension on this forum (mostly by people who have no legal training) that any form of discrimination is illegal.  That is not how anti-discrimination law works, particularly when it comes to affirmative action.

The is a degree of randomness to these processes and factors that are unknown or not described in your post. Think of any logistic regression model that you might have seen.  Some proportion of those predicted to be 1 actually are 0 and vice versa. It could be due to an excluded variable but it could be random. Are you both proposing to work with the same faculty and/or on the same topics? If not, you have no idea how many other people were actually focused on the same topics/faculty as you.  You also do not know what the letters said.  You also may find it hard to judge quality of past work. GPA is not the be all and end all for researchers, sometime you might see a lower GPA because a student took more risks that are interesting. It could be that they look at your summer histories in ways that are different than you are.  In the end, if you got into one program that is a good fit that is all you need.

It depends on your local laws of course, but if it can be proven that you were discriminated against because of your gender, there's a good chance it was unlawful.
Related question I asked on the Law StackExchange. The law cited is for Australia, and the relevant section is Section 21, which explicitly prohibits "educational authorities" from refusing or failing to accept your application as a student based on your sex:

(1)  It is unlawful for an educational authority to discriminate against a person on the ground of the person's sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status, marital or relationship status, pregnancy or potential pregnancy, or breastfeeding:
(a)  by refusing or failing to accept the person's application for admission as a student; or
(b)  in the terms or conditions on which it is prepared to admit the person as a student.

Section 30 provides exceptions to when it is lawful to discriminate based on sex, but they're not applicable in your case. The base argument would be that that women are better mathematicians than men, therefore it is preferable to admit women. However, per the answer to the linked question, the way to discriminate is to set a standard mathematics test, and disqualify anyone scoring below a certain mark. Since you scored better than your girlfriend this argument does not work.
That said: how are you going to prove you were discriminated against because of your gender? There're a lot of possible ways the program can defend itself:

It can claim there was some material difference in the applications that led them to favor your girlfriend instead of you, e.g. in the letters of recommendation
It can claim they had two admission pools, one for "standard" applicants and one for under-represented groups, and both groups of applicants were considered against members of that group only (I don't actually know if this is legal)
It can claim that they need to achieve a diverse student body, which necessitates gender-based discrimination

There was a lawsuit about this some time ago, when the group Students for Fair Admissions sued Harvard for discriminating based on race. Final result: the judge ruled in favor of the university.
Suffice to say, it's a minefield out there, and if you are considering legal action, get professional legal advice.

While this material is interesting, I'm afraid I disagree with your assessment of the law here.  In particular, you have not mentioned Section 7D of the Act, which allows educational institutions to take "special measures" to achieve substantive equality between men and women.  That section provides a very broad exemption that is commonly used in cases of affirmative action.

Even if it is established that the university discriminated in favour of women, if they can establish that one of their purposes was to acheive "substantive equality" between men and women, and that has not already been achieved, then their action is deemed not to constitute "discrimination" in the legal sense in Section 5.  As I note in my answer, there is some controversy over whether this is easily established in the university context, but so far the legal system appears to be very accomodating to pro-female discrimination.

Going forward, I would advise that you simply choose your gender status as non-binary or choose the “prefer not to say” option on applications. Academic institutions are moving towards a model of racial and gender equity in programs and unfortunately that means that you might not be considered as valuable to the program because of your sexual orientation, race, or gender (in the name of inclusivity, equity, and diversity of course). By simply identifying on your application that you are male, unless the program is female dominant, you open yourself up to the possibility of judgement based on the gender box you check. This approach might sound problematic or unethical to some, but unless there’s an explicit advantage of stating your preferred gender on an application, nobody really needs to know but you. Besides, gender is fluid and a social construct, you can always change it once you get accepted.

"Prefer not to say" is fine.  Selecting non-binary when you are not would be lying.  Also, in many places the admissions committee will not see what you indicate on the demographics form.  Instead they will infer your gender from other information.

Discrimination is when an under-represented group is excluded from an opportunity.  Nearly everyone agrees that is unfair.
Affirmative action is when an over-represented group is excluded from an opportunity.  This is your situation.  Some people think that affirmative action creates justice because it compensates for unfair discrimination by resulting in a relatively equal outcome.  Other people think that affirmative action is unfair because it is a process that excludes people based on their group.
What is fair or unfair depends on which is more important:  process, or results.  Both views are defensible.


text:
Is it ok to have different decimal places when presenting different data in a paper?
I want to present my data with standard errors. The two might not be in the same order. Can I use different decimal places in one paragraph/paper like the below example? Or should I keep the same decimal places throughout?

The production steadily increased from 3 ± 1 million metric tonnes
(MT) in 2000 to 6 ± 0.4 MT in 2019, with rising net exportation
from 0.2 ± 0.04 MT to 1 ± 0.1 MT  over the same period.

The rule of thumb I learned about presenting measurements and standard deviations in the 1980s:

give the standard deviation with 2 significant digits,
give the mean with decimal places matching the deviation.

[ There might be exceptional, rare situations where you want to give the standard deviation with 3 or more digits, but that's only justified if you can really compute the standard deviation with such accuracy. ]
Examples:

5.83 ± 0.42: okay
325.83 ± 0.42: okay
325.8321 ± 0.0042: okay
325000 ± 4200: okay, two trailing zeros are there just to give the correct magnitude
5.80 ± 0.20: okay, expressing that it's not e.g. 5.84 ± 0.16
5.8 ± 0.2: not okay, can be anything like e.g. 5.84 ± 0.16 or 5.75 ± 0.24 which makes quite a difference
6 ± 0.42: not okay - if 6.00 is meant, that should be stated explicitly
5.831234567 ± 0.419876543: not okay - you'll hardly ever be able to calculate a standard deviation up to 9 digits

I don’t see much sense in giving the observables in a different precision than their confidence intervals:

If you are giving a confidence interval, this is replacing the number of digits as an indicator of accuracy. Thus, you do not need to worry about the number of digits being misinterpreted.

Your confidence intervals actually impose a higher accuracy. For example, take “1 ± 0.1”. Even in the most lenient interpretation, “1” can be anything between 0.95 and 1.5. That’s at least twice your confidence interval! Suppose I repeat your measurement and obtain 1.5 ± 0.1. This would agree with your result, if it is actually 1.4 ± 0.1, but considerably differ if yours is 1.0 ± 0.1. If your presentation doesn’t allow for this comparison, that’s pretty bad.

And just to avoid a misunderstanding: You do not need make different values of the same dimension have the same accuracy if the uncertainty doesn’t call for it. If you present one result as “37 ± 3” and another as “1.23 ± 0.15”, there is nothing wrong with that.
Sidenote: I would usually avoid giving an error as “± 0.1”, because there is a huge margin of inaccuracy in that presentation as well. It can be anything between 0.095 and 0.15, which can be a considerable difference. As a rule of thumb, I give the confidence interval with two significant digits if the first significant digit is 1 or 2, and one digit otherwise. I then give the value with as many digits as the confidence interval.

No. Please be consisten throughout all your paper.
In a comment you state (emphasis is mine):

For instance, 6 ± 0.4 MT actually is 5.8 ± 0.4 MT, or 5.83 ± 0.42 MT

Do not take it personally, this is horrible science. Please stop doing that. Science is already seen by the layman as another form of religion, doing thing with such poor rigour will just enforce that feeling.

got the point! thank you!

Consistency in the number of decimal places is not the issue. On the contrary! The number of decimal places should reflect the accuracy of the measurement. But I do agree with the rest of the answer: changing/manipulating values (even with the best of intentions) is horrible science - this cannot be emphasised enough.

may I ask a following question? if keeping the same decimal places, how many places should I keep? one or two, or three? are there any guidelines? if keeping one, there will be one or two cases like  0.2 ± 0.0 MT, if keeping two, I am still indecisive to change entire hundreds of data in the paper only to let one or two data be shown in full...

Can you elaborate why this is “horrible science”. (Not that I disagree, but right now the only thing substantiating your claims is that others agree with you.)

It is bad because 5.8 +/- 0.4 is not the same as 6 +/- 0.4. The first indicates a confidence interval between 5.4 and and 6.2, the second suggests a value between 5.6 and 6.4. A mean and confidence interval cannot be written down "in any way the author likes": it should be statistically correct, and the paper should also state what confidence intervals are used etc.

@Elizabeth have a look at here for a short sum-up
https://web.lemoyne.edu/giunta/chm151L/scinot.html (Significant Figures: Addition and Subtraction) or here for a general description:
https://www.chemteam.info/SigFigs/SigFigRules.html

@Elizabeth "if keeping one, there will be one or two cases like 0.2 ± 0.0 MT" even not following correctly the significant figures rules, that already tells you that keeping one is very wrong.

At first glance, this looked a bit weird to me, and I had to think about it. I presume that your measurements do not support more decimal places. It would help if you mentioned this restriction. If you measurements support more decimal places, it would look better if you use the same number of decimal places in both. Of course, I was educated in Germany and customs there are a bit different than in the US. For example, I was taught that 5 is different from 5.0 because the latter shows the precision to which measurements were made.

Hi tschwarz, my measurements can support more decimal places. For instance, 6 ± 0.4 MT  actually is 5.8 ± 0.4 MT, or 5.83 ± 0.42 MT. But I just find the latter two are too detailed for the context of the paper, as the decimal part won't change the conclusion. Most readers would only be interested in the integer part, but I have to present the decimal part to show the precision of my measurement.

@Elizabeth For me, there is a large difference between "5.83 ± 0.42" and "6 ± 0.4". Even if you presume it's not interesting for your readers to know more than just the magnitude of the results, you should also think about other people referring to your work who want to know the data in more detail. Furthermore, it's about academic rigour.

I am not sure that being from Germany is relevant, but sure enough in a scientific context I read 5 as anything between 4.5 and 5.5 (extremes not included).
I dream the day that economy and the likes will be science, and not just some number to underpin arbitrary political choices (either in the communist or in the liberal world)

In the US, I have been criticized by co-authors when I write 10.0 instead of 10. In the German system, 10.0 means up to an accuracy of plus or minus 0.05.

In any case, I support the consensus. 5.8 pm 0.4 is correct (or using two digits).

Statistics is not different between Germany and the US. It is more likely that your US co-authors were ill-informed.

They are actually very well respected. They also tell me that the sign of multiplication is an x instead of a cdot. ;)


text:
Funding in mathematics from large companies as undergraduate
I am currently a second year mathematics undergraduate and will be undertaking a research placement (in topology/decision problems in group theory) at a maths faculty in England this coming summer.
My supervisor has asked that I apply for research grants. Currently I have the potential to be funded (at least partially) by the maths faculty, and also the London Mathematical Society (LMS). To be safe though I would like to apply to as many places as possible.
I have heard of large company funding research in mathematics so perhaps I should just email large companies and ask them if they are willing to help fund my project? Has anyone heard of success of this before?
Are there any other kinds of funding sources I have not mentioned above?

Normally when a large company wants to fund research, they'll fund research groups instead of students.  So, with regards to private funding, your best bet would've been finding a supervisor who has it already.

Charitable funding from large companies seems unlikely
In the US, only about 4% of scholarship dollars come from private sources.

Here is the breakdown of sources of college grants: federal government (44 percent), colleges (36 percent), state governments (9 percent), employers (7 percent), and private scholarships (4 percent).
-"7 Things You Need to Know About Private Scholarships", U.S. News (2011-02-01)

So, you're in the UK and asking about summer research funding, but it seems likely that the same trend would apply: that not much of the funding would come from corporations.
The big problem's that there doesn't seem to be a reason why they'd do it.  Even if a company wants to give its money away to research, it seems like they'd target medical research or something else with near-term applications.
You may want to think out an argument for your research
In general, the problem's that capital's a finite resource; people could just as easily put their economic power toward medical research or their own interests.  So, why should anyone want to give you money?
This isn't rhetorical or to make you feel bad!  Rather, it's an important life question that we all have to ask.  And if you can find a good answer to it - one that isn't biased by your own personal wants, but rather is objectively compelling - then that'll give you a basis for pursuing sponsors.

"Even if a company wants to give its money away to research, it seems like they'd target medical research or something else with near-term applications." Actually, I'd expect them to overwhelmingly target things they feel would be commercially useful to them.

You could see if these guys have any funding available The Institute of Mathematics and its Applications I doubt emailing large companies is going to work.


text:
What is the job market like in terms of research positions in the industry for continuous optimizers?
I know that PhDs in continuous optimization do find research positions at Amazon, Facebook, and Google. But that's just a few places, and I'm hoping to get a more comprehensive view of the research opportunities in industry. Are they more/less in number than academia jobs (such as postdocs, tenure-track positions)? How difficult/easy is it to get those jobs compared to postdocs and tenure-track positions?


text:
What does Chicago Manual of Style say about publisher names?
Sometimes books published by Eerdmans are misnamed in citations as “Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company” or “William B. Eerdmans”, or just “Eerdmans”. What is the correct citation style according to the Chicago Manual of Style? Is there a general rule? Like “WB Eerdmans” use just plain “Eerdmans”. For Baker Publishing Group use “Baker”. For Zondervan Publishing House use “Zondervan”. Would that be an incorrect way of doing citations?

The 16th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style says, in relevant parts,

Publisher's name
14.139 Preferred form of publisher's name. The publisher's name may be given either in full (e.g., as printed on the title page of the book) or in a somewhat abbreviated form. The shorter forms are preferred in most bibliographies (see 14.140). The form should, however, reflect the publisher's name at the date of publication, not the current name if the name has changed. Most publishers' names at the time of publication can be double-checked through any number of reputable sources, including the catalogs of the Library of Congress, WorldCat, and the Books in Print resources available through R. R. Bowker (see bibliog. 4.5).
14.140 Abbreviations and omissible parts of a publisher's name. In notes and bibliography, an initial The is omitted from a publisher's name, as are such abbreviations as Inc., Ltd., or S.A. following a name. Co., & Co., Publishing Co., and the like are also omitted. Such corporate features of a publisher's name—often subject to many changes over the years—are far less important in leading a reader to the source consulted than the publication date, and attempting to include them will invariably lead to inconsistencies. A given name or initials preceding a family name, however, may be retained, as may terms such as Sons, Brothers, and so forth. Books is usually retained (Basic Books, Riverhead Books). The word Press can sometimes be omitted (for example, Pergamon Press and Ecco Press can be abbreviated to Pergamon and Ecco, but Free Press and New Press—whose names might be confusing without Press—must be given in full.) Press should not be omitted from the name of a university press because the university itself may issue publications independent of its press. The word University may be abbreviated to Univ. if done consistently.

Not surprisingly, the manual recognizes that it's more important a reader can find the cited work than it is to have a fully standardized way of writing the publisher's name. The William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company may well have used multiple names over the years, so it isn't obvious they were misnamed in the citations you list.

For Baker Publishing Group use “Baker”. For Zondervan Publishing House use “Zondervan”. Would that be an incorrect way of doing citations?

"Publishing Group" and "Publishing House" both seem comparable with "Publishing Co.", so I believe they could be omitted. But I'd check that there isn't another publisher named "Baker" first.


text:
What should I do if I suspect one of the journal reviews I got is AI-generated?
I’ve submitted a paper to a reputable journal and received two reviews asking for a revision. One of the reviews is on-topic and helpful. The other, however, I suspect was generated by an AI based on the abstract only. I don’t want to debate the decision (the second reviewer is fair), but I wonder if I should mention my suspicions to the journal editor.
Should I? I doubt I can prove the use of AI. All I have is a strong suspicion. Plus, I don’t want to hurt my article. Yet, using AI for generating (not merely styling) reviews seems like such a bad practice that maybe it’s worth letting the editor know.
My suspicions are based on several things:

First, the style is off. The review consists only of very long questions like:

In terms of the paper's stated goal of contributing to the literature, how well does it provide [contribution mentioned in abstract] for [use-case mentioned in abstract]?

There are no suggestions, no feedback, and no statements. It’s only broad questions suspiciously rephrasing each line of the abstract (and heavily re-using entire phrases from it).

Second, the list of suggested articles is strange and includes existing papers (only names) from irrelevant fields.

Third, out of curiosity, I've run the text via several online AI-detection tools, and all of them conclude it’s AI (which I am aware is not a valid proof on its own).

To clarify some points, have you gone back and glanced over the entire review? Have you attempted to check into any of the suggested articles that, at surface-level, don't make sense? More or less, have you done due diligence to assert your suspicion? In my opinion, you should be treating this as if you're about to accuse the reviewer of misconduct.

Anecdotally, I've found that many people are using AI as a super spell checker, running whatever they wrote through AI to make the writing better. Assuming good faith, that might not necessarily mean the reviewer is asking AI to review.

@DavidS Yes. My suspicions are based on the entire review, not some selected sentences. I've checked that all articles exist, then quickly went through 3 out of 6, but I don't see how they can be relevant. If there is a higher wisdom in those links, I don't see it. As for accusations, I don't know what kind of due diligence I'm supposed to do. All I have is a suspicion and no fail-proof method to prove or disprove Al-use.

@PasserBy I don't mind Al being used for styling, grammar checking (I'm surely guilty of that), and even expanding ideas into a text (within reason). But this review doesn't read like Al-edited. My feeling is it was written entirely by Al with minimal human involvement. However, again, I have no proof.

Apart from any other consideration, I think it's worth considering the apparent reviewer's motive. Specifically, was he being paid even a nominal fee for doing the work, or in some way accumulating credit for advice given and (gratefully) received?

This just happened to me.  Still debating how to respond, as some AI generated feedback was good.  Warning signs were 30 sentences but none of them referenced a specific section/figure from my paper, it missed the use of synonyms ("reproducibility" vs "recreate the experiments"), so it suggested including them.  AI detector tools have large confidence it was written by AI

I think you should contact the editor with basically the same content as your post here: explain why you think the review could be AI generated, including the limitations of each point of evidence. I think most editors see their job as letting reviewers guide their decision rather than reviewing the reviews, so I would start from the assumption that the editor would not have considered checking the reviews for suspicion of gen AI.
Explain why you think this is concerning, which I think at minimum would include the integrity of the peer review process (you and your colleagues are expecting papers to be reviewed by humans, not AI) and the protection of your intellectual property (having an AI review your paper involves inserting your work into a 3rd party tool which may incorporate it into the training data and is a definite breach of the confidentiality that reviewers are sworn to). I would check the journal's website to see if they have an explicit statement about use of AI in peer review; if so, you can refer to that as well. I think you can do this all in one sentence to not appear to lecture the editor.
Finally, make clear that you're not protesting the decision for a revision and plan to work on revising and resubmitting your paper. I'd include a note thanking the editor and the reviewers for their time.
From there, let the editor decide what should be done next; it's their call, your only duty here is to raise their awareness. It's possible they'll want to bring in another reviewer. It's also possible they'll decide it's okay. At that point you'll have to decide whether you're satisfied with their effort and whether that affects your opinion of the journal as an appropriate place to submit your work.

Yes (YESSS!), editors should be made aware of this so that appropriate policies can be developed. It goes beyond the concerns of a particular author or paper and requires deep thought.

Thank you! I've checked peer-reviewing guidelines, but it says nothing about explicitly prohibiting Al-use for reviewers. At least not at first glance. Though, implicitly, it can be tied to copyrights (as you mentioned). However, I found that the journal has an ethics team. Do you think it's better to ask them instead of the editor?

@pintor Not too surprising, this genAI stuff is still pretty new and publishing moves slowly, and I agree with you that it's likely already covered by standard confidentiality policies even if not explicit. I'd start by working with the editor. You might possibly ask the editor if this is something the ethics team could help out with, but I'm guessing they exist more as a check on the editorial team when editors run amok (or, cynically, they just exist to quash ethical complaints). Going to them directly may be seen as an accusation against the editor, which you don't intend to make.

While I agree with the first, third, and fourth paragraph, I feel your recommendations in the second one might be overdoing it. It feels like lecturing the editor on something they should know. I would only go to these length if the editor doesn’t see a problem with an AI-generated review.

@Wrzlprmft They certainly will have to be mindful about the phrasing, though second paragraph has a very important point. Depending on the AI tool (allegedly) used, users consent to the input becoming a part of the datapool. Therefore, even if the paper has no rules regarding AI use, confidentiality still might have been breached. From my point of view, that is the top possible problem and should be highlighted accordingly.

The IP/confidentiality concerns depend a lot on what AI tool they are allegedly using and how they are using it.  Some companies allow at least paying users to opt out of any submitted data being used to train anything, and there are now open source models that can run on a home computer while offering roughly the response quality that ChatGPT offered at launch (for instance Mistral-7B, Starling-7B). I would focus completely on the quality of the reviews being abysmally low, suggesting that the reviewer did no mental work when they reviewed.

@Polytropos that's absolutely true, it depends on the AI tool. Though there's a difference between a lazy review and a lazy review that not only appears OK at a glance but also the reviewer possibly disregarded confidentiality. It's technically not against any rules to give a barely useful review, though a valid concern and a reviewer can grow. It's a different level of disregard for scientific integrity to possibly expose someone's IP in the name of laziness while parading as a sincere reviewer and therefore should be handled differently.

@Wrzlprmft I added a note that I think this can be done in a single sentence, which I do not think will come off as lecturing. I think it's there more to reinforce that OP is concerned about the general problem of AI reviews rather than griping about this specific review.

@Polytropos Whatever agreements the user has made with the AI tool, they have not made those agreements with the journal or the author. It's not up to the reviewer to decide what is an appropriate use of the author's property, they've been given the paper to review confidentially. They don't get to decide that sharing with a given AI tool is okay because that AI tool promised to be confidential about it, too, any more than you get to decide to share someone's secret with anyone you want as long as they promise they won't tell.

@BryanKrause This line of reasoning seems weird to me. There are a number of pieces of software a reviewer might use that involve license agreements that journals and authors never had any input on, including things as commonplace as PDF readers, printer drivers and virus scanners, but also things like cloud storage and VPN services, that more clearly involve third-parties. In principle, there is even the agreement with the ISP or public wifi used to download the manuscript in the first place. If the risk of confidentiality breaches is not a factor, then where should the line be drawn?

@Anyon That's a good point, though many journals already avoid things like sending manuscripts via email to keep out some of those third parties. PDF readers and printer drivers don't typically send content outside of someone's local computer/network though I suppose they could be manipulated to do so. I guess I may be especially suspicious of AI companies given the loose opinions about data ownership they have expressed including the idea that training any data they can access through the internet is fair use.

@BryanKrause: OP thinks the review was based on the abstract, which is often shared without confidentiality (e.g. subreviewer asks, maybe even via gmail, which in your security model means trusting Alphabet). Also, under your view, would using local models be fine as nothing leaves that computer? I think even without training opt-out, I would disagree that this is much less of a breach of ethics than copy/pasting GPT-4 output. On the other hand, if GPT-5 produced actually good reviews, I think I would support its use in peer review. It would reduce the problem of poor human reviews.

@Polytropos ChatGPT is incapable of understanding so it's incapable of reviewing a paper. Copyediting is not peer review. Word salad is not peer review.

@BryanKrause Capabilities of future models are hard to predict. I would hard disagree that GPT-4 output is, for the most part, word salad, but agree that the capabilities to perform reliable, meaningful peer review of scientific papers are not there as yet. But even now, there is likely a nontrivial time limit (maybe 20 minutes in CompSci?) where a well-prompted GPT-4 will on average produce a more informative review of a paper than an expert, if we assume that reviewer expertise and paper topic are not a total match. The question how much that will grow near future is totally empirical.

All this hoping the editor is not some AI algorithm itself ;)

@Polytropos Anyone who is using an artificial time limit like that to compare to an expert review is measuring the wrong thing. ChatGPT is not capable of peer review, full stop.

@BryanKrause Once the time limit gets into the order of days, it will at least for some disciplines be the right thing to think about. In my field, I don't think reviewers spend more than a working day or two reviewing each paper on average (we publish in conferences, so there is a hard time limit on reviews anyway).

The Committee on Publication Ethics and related organizations are developing reporting and investigational best practices for this (COPE). It may be considered misconduct according to the policies of the journal, and if not disclosed, it most likely is and should be investigated by the editors. If they do not take your report seriously, I would question the integrity of the journal--see related material on predatory publishing.
In addition to reporting this to your editor for investigation, as @Bryan Krause stated above (+1 to everything he said), I would familiarize yourself with the work of the committee on this topic, as they are monitoring these issues closely and developing best practices and even formal guidelines on handling investigations.
COPE also provide significant resources to editors who may actually be less versed in dealing with these issues themselves, so it couldn't hurt to share that information with your editors if they need a bit of guidance.
COPE. 2023. Where next in Peer Review? Part II. https://publicationethics.org/news/where-next-peer-review-part-1.

I have been a journal editor for 20 years, and I would not pass on this review to the author. Definitely alert the journal.

Edit in response to discussions here.
I think my answer is wrong. @BryanKrause and @Buffy and @leonos are right. The OP should contact the editor immediately.
Leaving this post up so the back and forth is visible.

Interesting puzzle.
Since the (possibly AI prepared) review is generally positive, treat it as if it were legitimate. Since the reviewer asks for no changes you need not argue about whether they are appropriate. If any of the suggested references are in fact relevant, include them.
After the paper is accepted you could contact the editor to voice your suspicions, with whatever supporting evidence you have.

Edit after reading @BryanKrause's answer.
Clearly you will revise your manuscript in response to the good suggestions from the unquestionably legitimate review. If you think the work would benefit from a second good review then you should tell the editor now about your suspicions.

@leonos Perhaps. My thought was that the ethics of the situation did not require the OP to risk losing the chance to publish by possible antagonizing the editor. There are plenty of lazy referees out there. I hope the OP will report back here when the dust has settled.

@leonos You're right. See my edit.

I suspect one of the journal reviews I got is Al-generated
I wonder if I should mention my suspicions to the journal editor.

I don't think that's a relevant criterion.
Whether the review is useful is a more important criterion.
You could focus on the lack of constructive feedback or how the comments seemed to closely align with your abstract without offering substantial insights or suggestions for improvement.
Expressing gratitude for the helpful feedback from one reviewer while politely pointing out the absence of actionable feedback from the other might prompt the editor to consider the nature of the review.

Strongly disagree; it's highly relevant, for the reasons I point out in my answer.

I don't disagree with the notion that an AI reviewer could feasibly give useful feedback on a paper. But no matter how you spin, it is not peer review - a journal claiming their articles are peer reviewed when they are not is a common fraud tactic of predatory journals. Not good company to be among.

@leonos I agree, and the "at this stage" is important.


text:
Is it inappropriate to ask department staff for syllabi previously used for courses I am to teach in upcoming year?
I've been hired to teach two courses as an adjunct professor in the US (my first time teaching). I would like to review syllabi previously used for these courses, simply to inform my thinking on these courses. Is this an inappropriate request? It is likely I would ask the department head's administrative assistant for these documents. (As far as I can tell, they are not available online.)

Perfectly reasonable. The syllabus is a public document. When I was at universstiday it was all in the annual Handbook.

As my boss told me on the day I started work, only an amateur starts every task from the beginning

Can you give a reason why that might be inappropriate?

It's definitely appropriate - it would actually be inappropriate not to request/view these materials before designing your course, particularly as you are new to teaching and it can be hard to pitch at the right level. Consistency between this course and previous versions is valuable for students (gauging content, difficulty, expected attainment) and other professors (who may assume knowledge from this course in further study).

Actually, it is quite appropriate. You could also ask for a list of the professors who previously taught the course. You could then ask them if they are willing to share materials to help bootstrap the course.
In fact, the administrative assistant might not have easy access directly, partly due to the pandemic. But the professors would normally retain their materials.
You might also find recent course information online if each course has a website or if professors have websites with course material.

In fact it would seem somewhat inappropriate to not review previous syllabi

+1 Moreover, it would be inappropriate for the person you ask to say no (unless they don't have them).

To make it more explicit, sometimes the department may expect the course to cover the same material as previous years, especially if it's a prerequisite to other courses.

For what it's worth, my daughter did her undergraduate work in the same department that I did mine (32 years earlier).  When she headed off to school, I dug around and found some of my first year notes that I'd squirrelled away in boxes.  It happened that the calendars of the two years lined up perfectly - the result of which was that her first day of class was the same day and date as mine.  In one of the classes, she looked at my notes after the first day - it was the same course.  She did that periodically during the semester.  Each day covered the same material in roughly the same way!

@Flydog57 far be it for me to suggest the later professors updated little from what you provided... But I have seen that happen!

@Flydog57 I don't think that's possible. Identical fall calendars can happen 33 years apart, but not 32.

The department I did PhD work in kept all course syllabi on file going back years and years. Admin staff just pointed us to the drawers and let us photcopy whatever past syllabi we wanted. I'm surprised to realize that this isn't the norm.

The first thing I did when asked to teach already existing courses was to ask the previous lecturers for copies of syllabi, teaching materials, exams, tutorials....
Probably depends a little on office politics, but I was just handed everything in a nice manner and took over from there.

To be honest, the second thing I have done when teaching already existing courses was to drop most of the previous syllabus and build my own thing (unless badly stressed for time). It turns out that teaching is a very personal activity, where it is actually quite hard to fit in somebody else's way of understanding or explaining a specific subject. So, while it is very useful to get a feel for what has been done, it also turns out that you're likely to end up rebuilding the whole course anyway (unless you're standing in for just a year, maybe).

It is completely appropriate, and can be valuable in the context of the greater curriculum.  When I used to teach classes, I would ask the previous lecturer for the syllabus.  Most importantly, I would also speak to whomever is teaching a follow-on class to see if there's something that should be added or removed based on the changes to the general curriculum.
As an example, I was teaching a sophomore electrical engineering course as an introduction to analog circuits.  I ended up spending a week on the actual device physics because students were going to be required to have either device physics or analog design as a follow-on.

I do the adjunct hiring for my community college department, and we have a certain set of problems that we see repeatedly. One is people teaching a course at the wrong intellectual level (usually too low). Another is not assigning enough work or not giving enough feedback. I would not want a newly hired person to go to an administrative assistant, get a syllabus from one of those people, and then replicate that.
I suggest  that you start by talking to the person who hired you and who will be making the decision on whether to rehire you later. Say that you're interested in seeing what people have done in the past when they did a good job of teaching this course. If you said that to me, I would respond by handing you a sample syllabus and also telling you in writing about my expectations. (Well, actually, I would have done those things without your having to ask.)

In the one department I have taught in, it was stated that you have to run the course along similar lines to previous/other instructors (some courses run w/ multiple sections so they need consistency). So absolutely, ask for the existing syllabi. And good luck with your first teaches!

You should also check to see what classes have your class as a pre-requisite.  You want to ensure your students are prepared for what follows.

With regard to prerequisites or certifications, the responsibility falls on the department to inform the instructor about content that must be covered. The instructor is not responsible to assure anything further than that such content is covered.

@JeffreyJWeimer, while that seems like something that ought to be true, it doesn't seem like something that's likely to be true at most universities and is probably up to most departments or colleges to decide how to handle. I'd at least ask my department. "Is this a required course? What are the required elements? Is there a sample or recent syllabus? Etc." If this course is a prereq. for something else, I'd want to see its syllabus, too, or talk to a prior instructor.

@JimM Nuances perhaps but, I would take out the "You should ..." and "You want to ..." directives in favor of "You can also ..." and "This can help you better prepare your students for what follows".

A possibility to consider in addition to the other answers:  there may be a syllabus template, and you may be required to use it.  So yes, ask for existing documents.


text:
How to demonstrate the ability to represent your university at international meetings? (postdoc application form)
I was applying for a postdoc position and I came across this sentence in the online supporting statement.

Ability to represent X University and the consortium at national and
international meetings related to the project.

I really don't know to answer this without being a bit repetitive. Does this mean I should talk about my past presentations at international conferences? Because I have already talked about this before. I was also a member of the organizing committee of many scientific events, but this highlights my ability to work collaboratively within a team. Any ideas?

International conferences are good. Better is if you can state that you actually represented projects at consortia. Not necessarily a must, a stand-in might suffice.

I'm only using 1 sections to respond to these paragraphs. Besides to this online supporting statement, they're also asking for a covering letter that should highlight the same skills. It's a bit too much tbh..

Your ideas about what is being asked seem to be correct. But rather than being repetitive, perhaps it is enough to just refactor the entire application, moving some statements from other sections into this one.
But the section need not be long if you say something like "As I wrote in my SoP, my experience and commitment to ..."
Don't leave it blank, of course, in case someone is mostly just interested in that section, but don't be boring. Think of the application as a whole and not as just a bunch of parts.

Thank for your answer. I have been looking at this section for more than 2hrs cause I know that being boring and repetitive could be a trap I need to pay attention to..


text:
Advice about letters of recommendation for Phd application
I'm a relatively old student (29F) Currently applying for PhD positions in ecology, mainly in Europe.
Many applications encourage adding 3 letters of recommendation. I have two solid ones related to my MSc thesis topic. I'm on the fence about what to add as a third reference. I worked as a research assistant in various projects. Most of the time, I worked alongside PhD students. They know me well and could write informative statements. The profs who are running the projects haven't really worked with me, even though I was officially hired by them.
My question is: Should I go for a general letter from a prof who doesn't know me, or go for a statement from A PhD student who can write better, more informative things about how I work? How important are the letters anyway?

I wouldn't consider you as relatively old: I had several PhD students who started their PhD about your age (and I started mine at 28, almost 29). Given that in Europe one usually start their PhD after the master's degree, if one decides to work to sustain their studies or has personal issues (or whatever), they will likely start their PhD in their thirties.