text:
Has anyone heard of the "Central Library of Medicine Foundation"?
I recently got a request for an article I'm a coauthor on, which reads:

Dear Dr. NAME REMOVED:
My name is Victoria Hornos and I am contacting you on behalf of the
  Central Library of Medicine Foundation.  Dr. SANTIAGO ATEHORTUA has
  contacted us asking for a reprint that you wrote. He is a Terapia
  Intensiva and Dr. is in need of your article as Dr. is making a
  research on this subjet .
JOURNAL NAME 2013;XX(YY):ZZZZ-ZZ On the Reasons Why This Is Clearly A
  Paper That Needs To Be Read, Cited, And Manifest Itself In Fame And
  Fortune For the Authors.
If my request is possible, please send it to the following e-mail
  address or by fax so I can send him or another doctor on the same
  situation the article.
Thanks very much in advance for your response.
E-mail: victoria.hornos@fbcm.md Fax: (+34 91) 133 30 81 Post Address:
  B1638 CAA Central Library of Medicine Foundation. Zufriategui 627 8º
  (D4D7) - Vicente Lopez Buenos Aires Argentina
Sincerely yours,  Victoria Hornos

I'm not really clear on the legality of this request. I know many people are fine with sending PDFs to particular people, but this sounds like sending it to a clearing house, and that makes me a little nervous. Beyond that, I'm not the corresponding author, 'fbcm.md' doesn't resolve to a webpage, and well...this feels like many, many scam journal requests, but this time as a paper request.
Has anyone encountered this? Thoughts?

After googling for the Central Library of Medicine Foundation, I found the following post on the University of Muenster site (note I used Google Translate to translate the piece from German to English):

Recently, faculty members have received many article requests from a
  "Central Library of Medicine Foundation", which was apparently
  acting on behalf of South American doctors.
While researchers are usually happy to accommodate private, direct inquiries
  from colleagues, there is naturally some skepticism, since we do not
  know if this service costs the requesting physician or how much
  the "Central Library of Medicine Foundation" receives.
After some inquiries with South American and Spanish-speaking
  colleagues the following picture emerges: the website www.rima.org (The
  "Central Library of Medicine Foundation" aka "Fundación Biblioteca
  Central de Medicina" aka "Red Informática de Medicina Avanzada" (RIMA))
  is a non-library organization based in Buenos Aires that offers physicians
  and researchers to get an article for a given fee (the exact amount is unknown). RIMA neither
  buys the article from the publisher nor copies it from a local library (which
  presumably cannot afford journals), but services the requests by directly
  forwarding them to the authors, in many cases, Münster faculty members.
  This probably the name "Central Library of Medicine Foundation" is
  used to simulate the unselfish non-profit library.
Everyone must of course know how to handle it themselves. To send a
  reprint by email costs only a push of a button and it helps indeed
  ultimately a colleague who is certainly not as well supplied with
  magazines as oneself. On the other hand, you will be benefiting a commercial (?)
  intermediary organization, which may not help you,
  either. But maybe it is just a clever business idea of 10 unemployed
  Argentine doctors, to help them earn a living. . . .

So it seems that this Central Library of Medicine Foundation is a business that charges a fee to its clients for obtaining a paper, via you. Although this is probably not really legal or moral, this fee is probably lower than what, say, Elsevier is asking for the same paper. I think this situation makes a good argument for open-access journals.

I appreciate the translation work :)

"After some inquiries with South American and Spanish-speaking colleagues the following picture:" A missing "emerged" at the end, perhaps?

I've cleaned up the Google translation to make it sound like actual English.

Received a similar solicitation from the same person. She says she is in Argentina, the country code to her phone number is for Spain, and the webpage is a Moldova domain.
This all seems a bit dodgy.
I'd prefer to help colleagues out as much as possible...I certainly have no problem sending a PDF to an individual upon request. But this seems to be a (possibly for-profit) enterprise and I'm certain it would violate the copyright of the publisher.

I just received a similar request, but this time it was from a person named "Silvia Alderico" at the same institution as above. This whole enterprise does not seem legitimate. Normally, a researcher contacts you directly and asks for the paper, or their institution pays for the paper directly. If you have a desire to fill the request legally, most journals allow you to post a version of your paper: usually the final version you submitted to the journal that was accepted for publication (double-spaced word document or PDF, with figures and tables at the end).

The Central Library of Medicine Foundation is a legally supported organization
The Central Library of Medicine Foundation (CLMF) is an institution of public good with transparent proceedings and a non-profit foundation. It was founded in the last century.
The CLMF has developed multiple systems to assist health professionals in clinical decision-making based on best available medical evidence. All its services are free of charge.
Our institution is independent from Governmental and political interests as well as from commercial interests of the pharmaceutical industry. It is supported by donations and sponsorships of private companies from Argentina as well as other countries.
All members of the Foundation's advisory board, of which I am the general director, are unpaid honorary positions.
The Foundation purchases from publishers a large quantity of subscriptions to the best journals in each specialty and a limited number of copies of articles from these journals are provided to medical investigators by request. In a few exceptional instances, when a physician asks for a reprint that we don't have in our library, the CLMF contacts the authors directly for a copy and then forwards it to the requesting doctor at no cost. This service does not have any profit-making or commercial purpose. Additionally, as a proof of our transparent procedures, our institutional data such as the name of the foundation and the postal and email address are always included in the request letters submitted to authors.
Under no circumstances a reprint sent to us by an author is reproduced or distributed in any way on a larger scale and in no way do we profit from this occasional service. In the same way, it is also important to note that the above mentioned procedure of reprint request to authors is really unusual and of little significance compared to the rest of the CLMF services and activities aimed at promoting continuing professional development.
The Central Library of Medicine Foundation is supported by the most recognized scientific societies of Argentina as well as the Pan American Health Organization, regional office of the World Health Organization (WHO).
We´ve created the “RIMA Award for Excellence in the Medical Scientific Update" to recognize the work of the doctors that keep updated and to improve the quality of their clinical practice.
Among the numerous awards and honors received by the Foundation for its work to support the Continuing  Professional Development, is the "Sadosky Award for Argentine intelligence " given by the president of the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) of Argentina.
Rather than being a group of unemployed doctors who makes profit by commercializing copies of medical articles, we are an organization, which expends considerable efforts to meet the continuing professional development physicians’ requirements, despite our limited economic resources.
We believe that it would have been more appropriate to contact us to clarify any question before posting comments that could jeopardize our institutional reputation and public image without any real foundation.
Our organizational culture is centered around strong values such as innovation, respect, honesty, excellence and independence. We are very proud of what we do to contribute to a better quality of patient care.

Could you provide some references besides your own self-assertion?

I have to agree with @jakebeal... without any external links from the source agencies you list supporting your assertions, this reads very much like a self-promotion post.

[needs citation] Cannot evaluate objectively without them.

While this provides a partial answer as to what CLMF is, it does not really answer, what to me is the critical issue, of how it can be legal for authors to send a personal reprint of a non open access article to a foundation like CLMF.

I do not see any comments that could be considered as jeopardising your institutional reputation. Please flag any comments you think are in appropriate and we will take a closer look. I have also alerted a member of the SE team, but feel free to contact them yourself with the contact us link at the bottom of the page.


text:
How to "cultivate" a postdoc position during PhD program?
Imagine you're a PhD student, and you found a research group, in another university, that you'd like to join for a PostDoc period.
You want to join that group because you really like their subjects, and their projects, and/or for other reasons. You just dediced you would like to join them.
Now, what could you do during your PhD to augment the probabilities to reach this objective?
You might say: just relax, make an awesome work, and then, when you're ending your doctoral period, contact that group PI and ask to be hired (we already discussed how to cope with this phase).
Okay, but, is there something you could do during your PhD before that moment?
What could you do?
Keep up-to-date on their scientific papers?
Email them? About what?
Visit their lab?
Thanks a lot

Take some work they have done and build on it in an interesting and useful way.

You want to establish substantial professional contact with the head of your target group long before your doctoral period is about to end.  They need to know who you are already when your postdoc application crosses their desk.  It is never too early to start.  Here are a few suggestions.

Ask your advisor to invite the head of the group to give a talk in your department.  Meet with them one-on-one.  Ask about the possibility of a short visit to their lab to give a reciprocal talk.  (Prerequisite: Have something compelling to talk about; be a good speaker.)
Ask about the possibility of summer internships.  (Prerequisite: Be a good candidate for a summer internship.)
Ask your advisor to suggest a one-semester student swap.  (Prerequisite: Be someone that the other person would want to hire as an RA.)  More generally: Convince your advisor to collaborate with the other group.
Ask the head of the group to be an external member of your dissertation committee.  Ask at least two years before your defense. (Prerequisite: Have a thesis topic that they will care about.)
Talk to the head of the group and/or his students at conferences.  Join them for lunch, or dinner, or coffee, or beer, or whatever.  (Prerequisite: Be an interesting human being.  Know a few good places to get lunch/dinner/coffee/beer/whatever.)
Don't put all your eggs in one basket.  Cultivate multiple colleagues.  Some may develop into future employers, others into future research collaborators, still others into letter-writers, still others into mentors,  perhaps a few into friends, and most into nothing.  (Prerequisite: Know more than one person.)
Most importantly, don't think of this process primarily as "cultivating a postdoc position".  Think of it as cultivating a research community.  People will notice if your motivations are mercenary, if only subconsciously.

@JeffE Thanx for your answer, very interestin' (as usual!). For what concerns summer internships, in the continental Europe we don't have standards procedures for them, like maybe you have in the Usa. Anyway, this might be a good way to approach another research group. Maybe this is a query for another Academia question, but what d'you precisely intend for "summer internship" in the Northern American university context?

@DavideChicco.it: I don't think there is a standard here in the US either.  Students in my group have had both formal internships at companies (Google, Yahoo, Disney) and national labs (Argonne, Sandia, Los Alamos) and informal "internships" in other CS departments, which were really more like visitng RAships.  Some of these were through formal internship programs; others were completely ad hoc.

Is this really true? Do they only hire people they already know?

I would strongly recommend speaking with your advisor as a first step. He may be able to initiate collaboration between you and the researcher running the other lab while you're still performing your PhD work, allowing you to kill two birds with one stone.
If this is impractical for any reason, I would recommend reaching that, as soon as you think you have a strong enough knowledge base to be able to demonstrate expertise in your field, you should reach out to the professor at the second lab and express your interest. Research grants often take many months, and demonstrating your interest in his work at an early stage may give the professor more interest in writing a grant in which you could participate. Note that I would definitely recommend waiting until you can impress the professor with your knowledge. Postdocs are hired to get stuff done. While it's true you still are a PhD student, you're essentially applying for a position as a postdoc, and if you're not an expert (or close to one) in your field, he will likely be wary about bringing you in to your lab.
This last reason is why people typically wait until they're pretty far along, if not outright finished, with their graduate work before looking for postdoc positions.

Thanks, nice answer. Actually, one has only one first impression opportunity, so it's advisable not to waste it. (ps: in Italian, for "to kill two birds with one stone", we use the sentence "to take to pigeons with one broad bean", with the same meaning... ;-)

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

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

sort: votes


text:
How does the US National Science Foundation (NSF) research funding system work?
Sometimes here on Academia I read messages referring to American National Science Foundation (NSF), "the USA agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering" (page on Wikipedia).
In this question and this question we discussed about NSF postdoctoral funding possibilities. Since I am in the European Union, I don't know very much about NSF.

How does NSF funding system work?
How does NSF postdoctoral funding program work? Does it fund only American citizens or anyone that wants to work as a researcher in the US?

Many thanks!

Could you be more specific about what you mean by "work"?  Are you asking about the mechanics of submitting a proposal, how proposals are selected for funding, how the agency itself is funded, or something else?  (Or all of the above?)

@JeffE All the system procedure for somebody that wants to get funded, for example for a PostDoctoral fellowship (or for other kind of programs). Which are all the steps from zero to having a NSF fellowship.

I think your first bulleted question is subsumed by the second one, unless you actually want to know about research grant funding for PIs.

@Suresh Actually the bullets were not inserted by me... ;-)

I'm most familiar with the NSF mathematical sciences research postdoctoral fellowship, which I was lucky enough to get 15 years ago.  The application process is described in detail in NSF's formal solicitation, but here's an executive summary:

Unlike most other NSF funding, this program is limited to US citizens and permanent residents.  (NSF's regular research grants formally fund the institution, not the PI, so non-American PIs can win grants; on the other hand, NSF's graduate research fellowship has a similar citizenship requirement.)  There was a parallel program for international postdocs for several years, but it seems to have been retired.
Applicants must be within two years of their PhD and must have no previous US federal grant funding.  In practice, this means each applicant can apply at most three times: once just before graduating and twice after.  Applicants do not need an academic affiliation when they apply.  (Again, the fellowship funds the applicant, not the institution.)
The application itself requires a bunch of NSF boilerplate, but the main content is an abbreviated (3-5 page) research proposal, a one-page project summary, and four recommendation letters (submitted separately by their authors).  As usual for NSF, the proposal absolutely must contain a paragraph explicitly labeled Intellectual Merit and another paragraph explicitly labeled Broader Impact.
Applicants also need an agreement from a sponsoring scientist/mentor/advisor.  The sponsor separately submits a statement describing their proposed mentorship role, research opportunities available in the hosting department, and promised infrastructure (office, computer support, libraries, specialized equipment, etc.).  The sponsor cannot also write a recommendation letter.
All applications are submitted electronically through NSF's FastLane web site.  Considering how much FastLane has to handle (basically everything NSF does), it works amazingly well.
The applications are reviewed by a panel of mathematical scientists (or more likely by multiple panels, given the number of applications).  Panelists are invited by the program director, but in my experience, NSF program directors are happy to hear from volunteers!
Each panel recommends and ranks a subset of the applications they review.  Standard NSF practice is to fund all applications strongly recommended by the panel, and some applications with weaker recommendations, depending on available funds and other criteria.  (NSF is deliberately vague about these other criteria, but gender, ethnic, and geographic diversity are likely guesses.)
Applications for fellowships to begin in Fall 2013 are due October 19, 2012.  Yes, this is really early.  Winners are usually notified in February and announced on the NSF web site soon thereafter.  All applicants receive a summary of their panel reviews.
The total award amount is $150,000, distributed over a two-year period.  Most of that is salary, but about $30,000 is set aside for stuff like equipment, travel, and benefits from the host institution.  Frustratingly, fellows are neither employees of the hosting institution, employees of NSF, nor formally self-employed; the US Treasury Department simply injects $5000 into your bank account every month.  So good luck with taxes!
Fellows need to submit progress reports once per year and a final report when the fellowship ends.

One thing that does not appear to apply for this Fellowship, but applies for many I've seen: The applicant needs to not be in a field that has heavy coverage by NIH grants - so no PhD/MD types at Medical Schools, or those of us in Schools of Public Health.

@EpiGrad Yup, I read it on the Wikipedia page: "[...] in all the non-medical fields [...]"

@JeffE Many thanks for your answer, very clear. I've visited again the website and read it very carefully: it seems to me that no NSF funding opportunity is available for non Usa citizens. D'you confirm?

@DavideChicco.it As far as I know, all NSF postdoc fellowships are limited to US citizens and permanent residents.  But regular NSF grants don't have that limitation — PIs can have any citizenship as long as they work for a US institution.

Does the Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral NSF fellowship require any reference letters? It seems it doesn't, and just needs an agreement from a sponsoring scientist at an institution. Is this right?

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
How to quote or summarise text from a reference that includes citations in Harvard Style?
I am very much confused on referencing a paragraph and have tried to find an answer on YouTube but that didn't help!
So here is my question:

The lines from an article (author = aaa bbb) says: (example)

Birmingham is a beautiful city as it sits in middle of the country
  (ABC, 2010), has people from a lot cultures (DEF, 2012), has nice food
  (GHI, 2011) and etc (FGH, 2013).

Now can I reference it like this?

BBB (2014) highlights that birmingham is a beautiful city as it sits
  in middle of the country (ABC, 2010), has people from a lot cultures
  (DEF, 2012), has nice food (GHI, 2011) and etc (FGH, 2013).

Or can I just copy paste the original text as it already contains the references?

You have two options.  The first option is to quote the paragraph and include all it's citations.  But you must include these cited works in your own bibliography.
The second option is to quote the paragraph and omit it's embedded citations. But you should add this note at the end of the quotation: "[citations from original have been omitted]"
Using your example, option 1 looks like this:

As described by BBB (2014): "Birmingham is a beautiful city as it sits in middle of the country (ABC 2010), has people from a lot cultures (DEF 2012), has nice food (GHI 2011) and etc (FGH 2013)."
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ABC (2010), ...
BBB (2014), ...
DEF (2012), ...
GHI (2011), ...
FGH (2013), ...

Option 2 looks like this:

As described by BBB (2014): "Birmingham is a beautiful city as it sits in middle of the country, has people from a lot cultures, has nice food and etc." [citations from original omitted]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BBB (2014), ...

The preferred choice depends on the purpose of your writing, including the formality, the nature of the material you are quoting, and the reader.  Generally, choose option 1 if you are writing formally (in a dissertation or journal article) and if the citations in the original are very important to your reader.  Choose option 2 of omitting the citations improves readability and none of the embedded citations are relevant or important to your reader or your purposes.


text:
Style in citing two authors in the same sentence
I have a sentence with two concepts and two quotations from two different authors. It goes like this

Some is true because of concept one, that is "quotation one",
  and concept two, that is "quotation two".

Concept one and two are both from Author A while quotation one and two are from Author B.
What would be an elegant way to cite both authors at the end of the sentence making sure:

The reader will be able to attribute each concept/citation to the write author,
The reader will be able to understand which work (and from which page) the quotation is from

I'm assuming doing 4 citations is out of the question ? Why is it important to add a citation only at the end of the sentence ?

...Author A's concept one and concept two [A], which Author B respectively describes as "Quotation one" and "Quotation two" [B]....

First off, citing papers is not about giving credit to first authors, it is about making literature traceable to readers. This is a key part of scientific writing, providing sources. The format for citations is of course focussing on first authors who may, or may not, be the main contributor (remember that author order varies between disciplines). A secondary aspect is the fact that many evaluations of academic status is based on authorship and as such authors may not be credited as much as they should. This is, however, not the reason for why we reference the way we do. So, from this perspective, I do not see why you necessarily need to emphasize the name of someone other than the first or second author (I am now thinking Harvard-style references where two-author papers have both names listed in the in-text reference).
If there is a scientifically based reason for highlighting the originator, one could write

Concepts One and Two (reference to B) were first developed by A [then I would argue some form of explanation of why this distinction is scientifically important should follow or be included]

or

A originated the concept one and two (Reference to B) [then I would argue some form of explanation of why this distinction is scientifically important should follow or be included]

Note that this would seemingly take away the importance of B, which in many reference systems would look strange and implicate something may not be right with the articles. I therefore think it is wise to clarify why you feel the work of A is such that it requires highlighting. Clearly, I cannot judge the case since all details are unavailable. As a side point, reviewers will likely pick up on any inconsistencies and ask for clarification in a case such as this, unless the reasons for the formatting is either clear from your writing or well known in the community.

If this is suppose to be a research paper, one can cite both the authors in Chronological manner.
In your case "concept one" is from Author A and "quotation one" is from Author B and those are repeating in the same order, so citing them as \cite{A, B} will work fine.

How would you indicate the page for the quotation from the work of author B?

If that is the case you can mention page no. of the concepts in references and name of the authors with quotation.

In some referencing styles, when you cite multiple references in one \cite{} they are ordered according to some rule other than chronology (e.g. numerical order).

If the reference is at the end of the sentence and you don't have any other clue in the sentence, then the only connection is the order of appearance in the citation, e.g. [A, B], which means that the first quotation is from A and the second from B.
I would suggest using citations in the sentence and not only at is end. E.g.

From [A] the first is true because [..] and from [B] the second is [...]

[A] is not a noun.

@JeffE if [A] is referring to the reference number such as [1], in IEEE at least, it can be a noun.  http://www.ieee.org/documents/ieeecitationref.pdf

@JeffE exactly as user1938197 mentions. In addition, even with other reference styles the above example is valid because in text you are referring to the citation, e.g. "From citation [A]" which is "abbreviated" as "From [A]".


text:
The correct & acceptable phrase to indicate that some papers are very likely to be accepted
I have several papers that are resubmitted to journals with minor revisions.
I feel they are very much likely to be accepted by the time my actual Ph.D. viva takes place in one month.
But I need to submit my PhD thesis now. I do not want to list those papers as simply "under review". I want to indicate they are very likely to be accepted, as they are resubmitted only with minor revisions.
What is the correct and polite phrase to say the state of these papers?
If you are an examiner, would you be unhappy to see that I indicate some papers are likely to be accepted?

What about "Minor revision requested"? I would be somewhat unhappy if you just told me that those papers are "likely to be accepted" without a good reason why you think so, but saying that you received a "Minor Revision" in the last reviewing round is generally understood as "basically accepted".

Why has this post been voted as "too broad"? I do not see anything odd with the question.

Random error exists throughout the peer review process.  Play it safe and simply note the stage of the review process without qualifying it further.

Stating the status of manuscripts in a thesis should not be an issue. The best way is to phrase their status as expressed by the journal. We see this all the time from "submitted to", "under review in" to "revised with major/minor revision". You cannot state that they are likely to be accepted since that is not your decision and stranger things have happened.
What has to be remembered is that even a paper that has been published can be discussed and criticised so the above information just means to an examiner that someone else, impartial, has possibly commented on the manuscript or that a journal has found it worthy of review.
I would guess most examiners would see a status as additional "evidence" for a basic acceptable quality of the work but would not necessarily affect their judgement, which is personal anyway.


text:
Emailing professors regarding funding for PhD after getting accepted?
I have been accepted as a doctoral student (aerospace engineering, US). The email I received suggested that I get in touch with the faculty of my interest to discuss funding and research. I did try contacting two of the professors but have not heard back.
Do you have any suggestion on how to reach out to professors for funding?
The university is my top choice and I have two more professors whose research really connects with what I want to do.

Does this answer your question? How should I phrase an important question that I need to ask a professor?

Easy.
Include a greeting of choice and then something along the lines of "My name is X and I am a recently admitted student to the X PhD program."
Next, make sure you show in a material way how you are interested in their work. Ask a couple questions about their recent publications or briefly indicate to them your research interests (be as specific as possible) and how you think you could be a good fit for their program. Ask for a meeting to better understand what they are currently working on.
Then you could ask if they are planning to take on another graduate student in the autumn. If they don't have funding to do so, they will usually tell you right away. Often it is still worth meeting them, since they might end up on your committee.
The thing here is to show concrete understanding of their work and that you are a possible match, but keep it short. Leave the rest for a subsequent in person or zoom meeting. Presumably, if this is the structure of the program (admit first, then find a lab), they are expecting this type of email. Keep in mind that it is spring break right now for many institutions and you are unlikely to get a response during spring break week.

Potential graduate advisors get many, many emails from prospective graduate students, so it is not surprising you may not have heard back after contacting them just once.
I would suggest following up with an additional email after two weeks. Don't feel bad about following up as the worst they can say is "no, I'm not taking any students" and then at least you have an answer and you won't keep bugging them!
I would also suggest trying to contact them in a method other than email as emails can get buried in a busy inbox. Some of the best advice I got when applying to grad school (in my field you typically have to reach out and connect with potential advisors and ask about funding before applying, so I did this part first) was to send actual SNAIL MAIL letters to professors. I was told by several of these professors that I ended up connecting with that that made me stand out. You could also try calling and leaving a voicemail if they have a phone number listed on their university landing page.

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


text:
Making my advisor publish manuscript
I gave a manuscript to my advisor while ago but he doesn't read it, what is the best action to do cause I need to publish it fast?

Why do you need to publish it fast ? is there a conference deadline ? or a journal final version deadline ? or something else ?

This is one of the positive proportion of questions asked here that makes me wish we had a Talk to your advisor! banner as a site feature.  How about you take the time and effort it would require to explain the particulars of your situation to a bunch of random internet academics and use that to have a discussion with your advisor: why hasn't he read your paper?  Does he intend to read it soon?  Does he understand and agree that you need to "publish it fast"?  If you have this conversation and run into a specific wall, then maybe we have something to talk about here.

I have to publish it, because other people are publishing around it! He is telling me we are going to submit it soon. I have to graduate and there is a chance people will publish similar work. I cant publish on my own, he funded the project.
I sent him many drafts!! Nothing works, talking, sending email,... He says we ll do it and just postpones... I dont want to do anything bad to relationship!

How long ago was a while ago, to be precise?

I dont want to do anything bad to relationship — If asking your advisor to do his job is going to damage your relationship, your relationship is already damaged beyond repair.

@JeffE, I think what the OP means might damage relationship is to publish on her own.

@Katekalle Could you expand your question? Is it a paper with your advisor, or without? How long did you wait? How does he respond to reminders?

Since, you are near your graduation, that means not only you know whether your research results are publishable or not but where to publish those results as well. Consequently, similar to what Suresh suggests, one of your problems is not only to publish those results but publishing them on a suitable venue which is a) close to your area of interest b) it is a high-profile journal of conference c) your paper has a lot of chances to be actually accepted. So, it is part of your job to actually find such a venue to stress the urgency of your publishing those results.
In this sense, have you checked the nearby CFPs (call for proposals) for related conferences or journals? Perhaps your advisor plans to submit your paper to an event which is 2-3 months from now and is already confident enough for your draft, so there is no immediate hurry to do the final changes now. Many advisors are very busy and allocation for their various tasks is done according to their deadlines, so perhaps this is the reason he has postponed providing feedback. If you have found an alternative venue for publishing those results with a closer deadline, it will be easier for you to convince him to check your manuscript ASAP.
But in the end, we are just random Internet strangers and the most proper solution is (as others have suggested) to TALK TO YOUR ADVISOR.

If talking to your advisor doesn't work, I would suggest emailing your advisor with the draft, saying that you plan to submit it to XXX on such-and-such a date and that you would be grateful for any feedback he or she can provide you before then.
As mentioned by amirg, you might also run it by the head of your lab, if that's the standard in your field.  (It's not in mine: computer science.)

@ espertus; @amirg; @ RoboKaren; @Pete L. Clark; @Suresh; I have to publish it, because other people are publishing around it! He is telling me we are going to submit it soon. I have to graduate and there is a chance people will publish similar work. I cant publish on my own, he funded the project.
I sent him many drafts!! Nothing works, talking, sending email,... He says we ll do it and just postpones... I dont want to do anything bad to relationship!

I would talk to your department head. Something is not going well in your department.

Original Answer: If you are submitting to a journal, you do not have to have your advisor's approval (unless you are using his dataset or it is coming out of his lab). If it is based on your own research findings, publish it as single-author.
Editorial Note: You did not indicate your discipline. As state in the original response, this answer is only applicable for disciplines where your research is independent of your advisor's research, lab, or research grants.

Be very careful, though, if you follow this advise, for you might needlessly damage your relationship. If you are a part of a lab, the lab head has contributed to the science the very least by getting the funds and probably by suggesting the line of research. There are many sad stories on this website alone where going single author, even when partially substantiated, have lead to probes into research integrity and other unfortunate incidents.

Oops, responded on wrong comment.That's why I added the disclaimer bit to not do this if you are in a joint lab project.

This is not a good advice. Especially when the OP is near graduation. For example: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21710/how-to-respond-to-allegations-of-misconduct-in-authorship-dispute

I agree that this is terrible advise. Look over the question linked by Alexandros for the possible outcomes of the "ignore the advisor" approach. (-1)


text:
Are lower case sub-headings a common formatting convention?
I recently presented a poster at an undergraduate research conference, and they are now soliciting write-ups for the conference proceedings. I was surprised at their formatting guidelines, specifically the requirement that all sub-headings be lower case. Ex.:
1. Main Heading
  1.1 this is a secondary heading
    1.1.2 this is a tertiary heading

I have never seen this convention. I've always thought the preferred style for sub-headings is to either use the same capitalization format as for main headings, or capitalize the first letter of the first word.
I find this all-lower case format to be unprofessional-looking, and was wondering: is this a common convention, and if so, what is the underlying rationale?

I have never in my academic life seen this convention: I have always seen lower-level sub-headings follow exactly the same convention as higher-level headings.
Do what they tell you to do (the world has lots of strange Official Requirements for Our Unique And Special Snowflake Publication Venue), but I wouldn't worry about it for anywhere else in life.

The basic rule for all publications is to follow the guide-lines to the point. In this case it seems that the conference is expecting what used to be called "camera-ready" manuscripts, i.e. manuscripts that are "published" as is and not going through additional formatting by the conference organisation. With journals, the guidelines usually concern the formatting of a manuscript which later undergoes additional formatting before being published.
In any case, just follow the guidelines to the point. You would be surprised by how many fail to do so and you may even end up putting a smile on the recipients face.


text:
Why isn't literature search a waste of time if centralized documentation is a better alternative?
I am asking this question regarding to the documents (thesis, research papers, and publications) that contain original, novel work.
Before starting to write a research paper/ thesis, searching for a problem statement, submitting to a journal, staring research work for Ph.D., etc., every researcher has to do a proper literature search. It is a well-known fact that literature search is mandatory for every professional researcher.
There is a finite number of existing disciplines and each discipline has a finite number of existing topics to research and to publish upon. Why is there no centralized mechanism to document the research that has happened till the previous year? If the discipline or topic is totally new anyway there is no need for the literature search.
If there is such a mechanism, then there is almost no chance for rediscoveries and there is no need to search for the whole literature that is randomly distributed across the Internet, paid journals, libraries, etc.

Are there a finite number of questions?

Questions may be infinite, but documentation of research at a frequent basis will avoid literature search for all researchers in that particular topic.

Then if the question changes, the references used become more, or less, relevant...

The point in literature research is not to compile bibliographic information but to READ the relevant papers and understand what the current state of the art is.

@Karl: That's what the question is about. Why don't we have a better way of accessing that information than reading hundreds of individually authored and individually structured, partly overlapping papers?

@O.R.Mapper We have that, it's called "textbooks", or "wikipedia". ;-)

@Karl: Exactly, that's a part of an answer I was going to write later today, but feel free to be faster, if you wish to elaborate.

@Karl We have that, it's called "textbooks", or "wikipedia". - that is often one better way, and one worse way. (YMMV on which is which, of course).

How will you know what you don't know without looking at what's known but not already known to you?

Who decides what goes in the centralized repository?

"Each discipline has a finite number of existing topics to research and to publish upon": citation needed.

These central repositories exists - they are called a (digital) library. What we typically mean with "doing literature review" is going into one or more digital libraries and retrieving all information on the subject. Given how heterogenous research questions, approaches, and scientific results are, it seems fundamentally impossible to provide much more structured information than that across disciplines. That said, for some fields (notably medicine, as I understand it), more fine-grained repository structures have emerged, which allow researchers to query for specific data sets etc.

"If the discipline or topic is totally new, anyway there is no need for the literature search." : But how do you know your totally new topic on hypermetabolic quiver systems isn't the same thing as what Prof. X's work called totally supernormal inverted forms?
For example, I am a mathematician. I was recently leading a group of students in studying Paley graphs, which are defined on elements of finite fields. There are all of the obvious papers on Paley graphs to look at, of course; but then there are also papers that concern large families of graphs that may or may not include the Paley graphs. Then there are papers on finite fields that don't mention graph theory at all, but really describe Paley graphs. Or papers in finite geometry that are really talking about Paley graphs using slightly different language.
So unless this repository actually included all of the results of every single paper ever written in full, I'm not sure it would provide much use. Of course, there are only a finite number of results in a finite number of topics that have been published about, so this is theoretically possible. Even then, looking through this repository would be not much different than what is usually called a literature search.

The Annual Reviews series of journals have some of the highest impact factors across the board, so I wouldn't go so far as to say "I'm not sure it would provide much use".

"But how do you know your totally new topic on hypermetabolic quiver systems isn't the same thing as what Prof. X's work called totally supernormal inverted forms?" - you might not, even with literature search. I'd even consider "same thing published twice with different terminology" as a good example of a flaw in our current approach to literature search. I think the cited claim about new topics can much better be refuted with a question like "But how do you know your totally new topic on hypermetabolic quiver systems accurately represents  without measuring it with the ...

... methods proven to work based upon ?"

@Allure Possibly. But that series does not have a title in math (it does have one instatistics though).

I agree literature search in its current form, by reading loads of free-form documents with large overlaps1 to extract the relevant bits and pieces is not efficient.
Let's first look at your individual statements:

I agree with the assessment that

There is a finite number of existing disciplines and each discipline has a finite number of existing topics to research and to publish upon.

though I consider it quite theoretical: We are probably far from knowing all disciplines that will ever be relevant, thus it's not like a "map" where we could check which areas are still blank.
The claim

If the discipline or topic is totally new anyway there is no need for the literature search.

strikes me as questionable, though. "Totally new" topics do not emerge out of nowhere, they result from unexpected findings in existing disciplines that pave the way for what can be called a new topic.

Now, a "central repository" across all fields (because, also based upon what I wrote about "new topics", they are all linked in some way) would indeed be helpful, but is not yet feasible for two reasons:

Doing and maintaining it would be a tremendous effort. Do not get me wrong, it would be much less of an effort than the net effort of all the researchers around the globe individually reading all those original papers, but as long as there is no good worldwide system to compensate those involved for the effort (and I don't really see one for now), the decentralized approach of everyone just individually publishing their source documents and leaving most of the "linking" of source documents for further use up to everyone on their own2 looks like the only achievable solution.
Our technology is not far enough yet. The topic of formalizing knowledge is still in its early stages (when compared to the task of representing complex knowledge on arbitrary topics), and without that, any plan to summarize, juxtapose, and link papers can only be implemented by humans reading natural language text and, at best, producing condensed natural language text that may bring different results into a uniform scheme. Automatization of that process is not yet feasible, leading back to point one.

1: Note that I am referring to the text here, not just the novel findings or results. The results should indeed be overlap-free, but the text describing them is only a part of a paper beside e.g. problem statements or summaries of related work.
2: Except for some comparably localized efforts including survey papers, textbooks, encyclopediae, and similar.

There is such a repository - see the Wikipedia article on Annual Reviews.


text:
Can I edit my paper after submission if I discover additional literature?
While writing my paper, I was unaware of the existence of a sequence and I named the sequence (say X). Later I found that the same sequence is already known with some other name (say Y). Currently if my paper is under review, then can I change to Y according to the literature and resend? Or is it okay to continue with the name X I sent?
Note that the novelty of the paper does not completely rely on the sequence used.

you will have a chance to correct this after the review.

@wonderich Please do not answer in comments as it bypasses the stackexchange system. For your comment: Could you please provide an answer including the information as to why you think they should?

What is "sequence" in this context? Something mathematical?

@Peter: A sequence is something mathematical, yes -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequence -- and that is presumably what is meant in the context of this question.

From what you have written regarding the sequence name, it sounds like this it only a question of nomenclature and doesn't substantively affect either your results or the novelty of these results.
If this is indeed the case, then it can easily be amended at revision. Pretty much every meaningful peer review process on a significant article will end up requesting at least minor revisions, since reviewers will generally contribute useful perspective and few manuscripts are without at least some typos.
If there is a major impact (presumably on novelty), it is a whole different story.  Depending on how large the impact, you might either still want to wait until revision (e.g., if it's going to replace a couple of paragraphs with a citation) or you might even want to withdraw and resubmit a new version of the manuscript (e.g., if it results in dropping an entire section). Even if you need to do something so extreme, however, I would not worry overmuch about consequences: any good editor will respect (and likely appreciate) such a decision.

Withdrawal is probably a last resort. It's certainly something you should discuss with the editor before doing. if the paper is just withdrawn, it's likely that the referees' work so far is wasted. On at least one occasion, I've received a revised version of the paper mid-way through reviewing it, along with a description of what had changed, which was very local in scope and didn't affect anything I'd already gone through.

+1 and I'll add that in the unlikely event the paper is accepted without review, you can write to the editor then and say you need to make this change. It sounds like the change is non-controversial (i.e. doesn't need to be peer reviewed), so you can even make the change during the production process.

I agree with the other two answers (by Buffy and jakebeal), but I would also add another possibility that I've seen people make use of.  First, note that I don't understand how important this change is, so I'm not necessarily saying you should use this approach — just that it's a possibility.
You can contact the editors even while the paper is out for review to mention that you'll need to make this change.  From what you say, it sounds like they'll probably just tell you to wait until you get the paper back to do revisions.  It's also possible that they'll forward that information to the reviewer, which may preempt an issue the reviewer planned to raise.
Again, I can't judge whether or not this is the right approach for you, but it has happened to me that the editors of a journal contacted me while I was reviewing a paper to pass along important information from the authors, and it helped with the process.  In any case, you really should correct this at some point before publication, for the sake of academic integrity.

Generally speaking the version submitted to a journal or conference is not the version published as it will go through review. However, the nature of the change can affect things. In the worst case, the paper has a predecessor that makes its publication moot, or even invalidates the conclusion. But in the usual case you can make such changes. However, the extent of the changes may make it necessary to have it reviewed again. That is easier for a journal to do than a conference, which has harder deadlines.

The way to handle this is to add a note - either as a footnote or in the body of the text - indicating that the sequence has a different name elsewhere, and include appropriate reference in an updated bibliography.  Of course this assumes the referee will not herself/himself point out that fact in the report.
At the time of resubmission (if some changes are required) or when you next contact the editorial office, indicate clearly for the benefit of the editor (and possibly also the referee) that you have added bibliographic entries and why, and that you have added some text (and indicate where) to clarify the issue.
A well written note explaining how this doesn't affect the novelty of your work should do it but, if the referee is unaware of the said reference and the paper is accepted without further review, the editor can always go back to the referee if she/he feels this compromises the integrity of the manuscript.


text:
Should I convince my advisor that thesis work is not finished yet?
I am a third-year Ph.D. student in computer science. I have finished all course requirements and I work full-time as a software engineer at a FAANG company. I am doing my best trying to balance time between work and school. But today I had a meeting with my advisor and he said by the end of summer he expects me to wrap up all my thesis work.
Basically, I did

One year of study the research material and taking graduate-level courses to study the problem
One year of research to understand the problem and come up with the solution
One year of solving the problem, coding, and showing my method worked

What is remaining is writing a paper and defense.
My advisor is very strict and I am kind of surprised he said that. I don't feel like I have accomplished anything yet and there is more to the problem. Should I try to explain the work is not finished yet? Or maybe he is getting tired of me and wants to focus on other problems.

In some countries (including France) the PhD delays are very strict, and defined by law. If the PhD is funded by some HorizonEurope or Horizon2020 project, the delays are imperative.

And delays for submitting a paper to any CS conference are also very strict. At last, every PhD defense has some future work section and a lot of CS conference papers have one too. BTW, I would be happy to read your paper draft -if it is written in English- in PDF - in relation to the RefPerSys project. If you want to, please email me at basile@starynkevitch.net

It's hard to guess what your advisor is thinking. You should ask him to clarify. To me, it sounds like you have done enough to start writing up, but as @BasileStarynkevitch says this depends on the policies of your advisor, university and funding body.

Also do not forget, there is the (small) chance that somebody else publishes the same approach. This is not a huge risk, but if you delay by a year it adds unecessary risk.

What did you sign up to and how is that different from what your advisor is now demanding?

Working full-time as both a software engineer and a Ph.D. student is unsustainable. If writing a thesis based upon the results you have is likely to suffice (speak to fellow students, read theses of prior students, speak to your advisor), I'd suggest you take that route. Reduce your workload to something more sustainable. Your thesis needn't be your best work; your thesis need only get you a PhD. Graduate, pursue the next step.

Agreed.  I worked full time during my engineering PhD.  It was unpleasant and took forever.  I read the OP and was instantly envious for how quickly they might get through it.  Take it and run!!!!

I'm in the same position, my advisor is telling me I have to extend, so being told you have to finish implies to me that the advisor is happy with the progress and thinks it's sufficient to defend. That seems like a far less worse outcome than being told you need to request an extension because full time work is interferring with your progress.

Perhaps you are forgetting that the goal of earning a PhD is to get it finished and move on. Well, no, there are other goals, of course, but you seem to have completed them. But certainly the goal is not to make a career of being a student.
I think that the professor is giving you good advice and that you have done enough by their standards, and that of the institution, that you should just write it up and move on. Your third bullet point certainly suggest that.
As for "work yet to do", it is really a good thing to leave a PhD program with ideas for future research and publications. You don't have to stop, assuming that your employment permits it. And your life will probably get a bit simpler for a while if you have only one "job".
I think you should take the advice and move on in your career. I'd have given the same advice as your advisor in this situation. And it wouldn't be that I was "tired of you". Not at all.

I think you could improve this answer by removing the first two sentences.  The goal of ... is to get it finished and move on fits for any goal because that is the definition of a goal.  The last sentence ("The goal is not to make a career of being a student.") is strong.

It's still a useful reminder, because when tackling any goal it's possible to lose sight of the target

While I'm from a different field, the situation of handling work with PhD is similar. I'm making some assumptions based on that similarity, feel free to reject them if they are invalid.
Possibly you feel that the PhD is your last chance to tackle an important research problem and make significant contributions. Possibly you enjoy the academic nature of the course and would like it to go on a little longer. As others have shared, these need not end with the program. Rather, the program is aimed at giving you some tools and directions to further refine the work that you'll do subsequently (whether that includes basic, applied or developmental research).
An advisor who wants you to finish early is arguably better than one who wants you to finish later than you would like to. It may be a good idea to discuss your progress and immediate work plan with the advisor, get their suggestions and perspectives and make an honest assessment of whether you have enough results to defend the thesis.
If you do, you're in an excellent position, good luck!

Yah, been there, done that.  Write the thesis (BTW, that is NOT trivial and much good additional work comes from the writing), defend and then get onto doing more good work, Herr Docktor.
If you were planning on an academic career, I might agree with holding off.  In academia, your productivity is measured in papers after you earn your Ph.D so getting in more research first allows you to blitz articles as soon as you defend.
But in industry, you use your credentials as a lever.  "AB.D" is not a credential and too easily bestowed while you are working.


text:
I didn't hear back after a postdoc interview. Can I set a deadline for a response?
I was invited for an interview for a postdoc position at a research institution in another country. At the end, the panel told me that the HR will reach out early next week. I didn't hear back from the HR and decided to follow up the next week, in which the HR told me that "the panel are yet to confirm their decision" and I should expect an update in the next three days maximum.
Today was the last day of that deadline. The issue is that in a few weeks from now, I might start other activities in other universities (teaching and research on another project). I didn't confirm anything until I receive a response for that postdoc position. Can I follow up again and told them that I might have another engagement next week?
I am afraid that this might backfire, because they're asking me to wait and this gives me the impression that I'm plan B or something.

Of course you can ask, and of course it may backfire. Which job do you want? When would the other one start (given in another country do you need to travel during Covid, need a work visa, ...) and could it be after your engagement ends?

I want the postdoc, it offers a lot of opportunities for me, but as you can guess, it's very tricky in COVID times, and that alone might be a rejection factor for me. The other one is teaching for one semestre (4 - 6 months) and research for 1 year (I might need to sign a contract).

You can set whatever deadlines or other conditions you like, but it should be obvious that you can't enforce them, so they are meaningless.  (And don't forget that an organization may have a simple way to deal with people who keep pestering them: every new communication automatically sends your application to the back of the queue of work they are processing.)

I just informed them about my current situation.

You should let them know that you have other opportunities at other universities that you need to respond to, and what those deadlines are.
If they can, they will try to avoid the situation where they can not hire you because you have been forced to agree to another job. That does not mean they can.
Generally speaking, people being informed is good.  Setting deadlines that look arbitrary is not.

Thank you for your response. So, perhaps a gentle email where I inform them about the other opportunities without focusing much about the deadlines but also expressing my interest on the postdoc might not backfire?

But don't lie to them about "other opportunities". And, you might also lessen your chances with some people: "Oh, they have another offer, no reason to press on".

@Buffy I will wait a day or two before sending the email. There is no need for me to lie.

@Buffy While there might be the occasional supervisor who would think "Oh, they have another offer, no reason to press on," there will be far more supervisors that see the other offer as a positive. Other people wanting you can confirm your value. If I was the supervisor, and you were candidate B and close to candidate A, I would be more interested, and I would mention to candidate A, "You are my first choice, but there is another qualified candidate who I need to inform by X date of your decision". Don't give the supervisor ultimatums, or lie, but do inform them of deadlines for other offers.

I have sent the email this morning (without creating any urgency). They've appreciated the update which they forwarded it to the Hiring Team. They said that I should expect another email with their response by the end of the day.

This is missing a direct answer to the title question.

Maybe you are plan B, but I think that setting a deadline for them is more likely to backfire than help. The easy thing for them to do is to withdraw your name from consideration - especially if you aren't the top candidate.
Don't give up other opportunities and make your own decisions on what you think best for your career, but I urge patience here. They may have entirely different reasons for delay.

Yes, best option is just wait and not keep my hopes high. It is most likely that they're in the middle of negotiation with candidate A or perhaps they're waiting for his/her decision given that they gave me two deadlines..

I've been the 2nd choice for at least 2-3 jobs. Because I didn't set any ultimatums they called me back when their first choice didn't work out. This includes when the first choice even starts and ends up not working out immediately.

You can't and shouldn't try to "set a deadline".  Instead, just let them know gently..."I am getting other offers and need to decide soon".  Also, "I am very interested in this position, but may need to accept another one, if your offer is delayed too long".  Given the market imbalance, I don't think competing INTERVIEWS are important or compelling. However, other OFFERS obviously are.  And you are being responsible to let them know you may become off the market to them.
Realistically, you're probably not getting contacted because you are not high on their list.
But there is some chance they are just slow or bureaucratic.  So, yeah...reach out gently to inform/check with them.  But it should be more in the mode of letting them know you are in demand.  Not "setting a deadline".  Of course, if you have an exploding offer from someone else, let them know.  But again, you are not "setting a deadline".  Just letting them know when the great candidate might become unavailable.
My experience in hiring/getting hired is that this is generally positive...to let people know that you are in demand.  "Speculation drives the market."  But be gentle and smooth about it.

I've had interviews that didn't appear to go anywhere, even after a few calls, so I gave up. Several silent months went by and I eventually got hired. You can never tell when there will be an internal candidate that gets preference, but enters their resume late and needs to go through a full process before a decision is made.


text:
How much do soft skills matter for admission decision?
By reading the very intersting question Priority of application materials for admission decision about which material is most important to be admitted as PhD candidate, or PostDoc or researcher, in a university, I started wondering on how and how much soft skills count, for the same objective.
As you know, besides academic degrees, grades, publications, reference letters, technical skills, project proposals, and etc., there are also soft skills that are considered by talent scouts to choose who engage.
For soft skills, I mean competence like:

public speaking
active listening
ability to manage relationships
ability to show interest

In scientific admission procedures, e.g. for PhD or PostDoc admission, how much do soft skills count?

For a graduate student, soft skills matter only in as much as they pertain to good writing and to having good interview skills (if interviews are conducted).
If you write a poor statement of purpose with an otherwise solid application, it can severely hurt your chances of admission. Similarly, in a department that does interviews, a good interview can significantly improve your chances—raising you from "on the bubble" to "admit." Of course, the converse could be true—if you come off as arrogant or incompetent in your interview, that can completely kill your chances at admission.
However, those are skills that can be worked on via practice, and most universities offer workshops and training on how to improve writing and handle job interviews. Students should take advantage of those opportunities when they're available.


text:
Are all postdoc jobs advertised?
I recently had a postdoc interview (at a research institution) in which I wasn't selected. After receiving the interview outcome, I decided to directly email the panel a few weeks later asking for a feedback. One of the professors replied and invited me for a chat the following week. He said that he has other opportunities that are a good fit for my profile. I know that he's talking about the university where he's working and not the research intuition where I met him (with the panel).
The issue, is that I checked the university's website and I didn't find any job postings. Can a PI hire a postdoctoral researcher without first advertising the job?

This probably depends on local law. In some places all (or almost all) positions need to be advertised. But for "short term" employment it might be different.

Perhaps the opening isn’t posted yet, but they plan to? Your availability may push the issue higher on his priority list...

Hey @JonCuster, actually I have another postdoc interview in that week and I feel confident about it.  I don't know if I should mention that or not..

Can a PI hire a postdoctoral researcher without first advertising the job? I see a lot of speculative answers here that aren’t backed up by anything. Unless you get an authoritative answer backed up by credible supporting evidence, you should assume that the answer is “yes”, as this is a safer course of action, risks nothing and avoid the risk of missing out on a career opportunity if you dismiss this professor’s overtures out of a misguided assumption that he can have no positions available since you didn’t see any jobs advertised.

No, most of them are not.

n=1: I am a postdoc and my position was not advertised.

is this really specific to postdocs? or even academia?

There are few things that are true for all of anything in life.

A job has been advertised, you (and some other people) responded to that ad. It simply turns out that the employer might have two positions to fill, rather than just one...

I must say I am kinda surprised by the question. In all countries I know, there are quite a lot of corruption/unmoralic things in politics, government "companies", companies, university, whatever. How could a student who probably had collected a lot of live experience assume positions are "always" advertised?  This is not critics to the OP, I am really just wondering in what region such a person grew up.

Are all postdoc jobs advertised?

No.  Advertising is a good idea, though.

Can a PI hire a postdoctoral researcher without first advertising the job?

Practices vary widely from "never" to "whenever they have the money."  Advertising is less likely if the hire is already affiliated with the university.

In most research-intensive countries and Universities, all academic jobs should be advertised. For many countries this is also a condition for issuing a visa for a candidate, if they need it.
However, the meaning of "advertise" vary considerably: from publishing an advert on a well-known website like mathjobs or jobs.ac.uk, to pinning an A6 paper advert in a corner of a local announcement board. It all depends on the rules and customs of each particular organisation, and in some places there rules bend more than in others.

Thank you for your answer. I certainly need a visa. This means the job should be advertised for a month I guess. He's probably going to tell me that he's going to open a position in the near future or something.

Visa requirements vary by country - do check what your personal situation is!

I can think of quite a few “research intensive” countries where this is not the case, especially for postdoctoral positions.

@mmeent I will appreciate examples - I am not familiar with all the countries in the world, and I am curious to know what you mean.

@DmitrySavostyanov I am not sure what you mean by "research-intensive", but the USA, Japan might be a few examples where many post-doc positions are not advertised, especially not on the website of the university. Also, visa requirements for post-doc jobs definitely not require advertisement.

I knew that USA visa rules are different than what UK currently has. But it surprises me that USA funders do not require posts to be advertised. What stops dishonest PI's from hiring their relatives and students of their friends at the old boys club?

Is a postdoc really an academic job though? For me that start with a lecturer/assistent prof. A postdoc is an ordinary researcher, often without any teaching load whatsoever.

@VladimirF In my experience postdocs often have a substantial teaching load (although usually less than a professor). I'd personally consider any position from phD student upwards an "academic job".

@DenisNardin Well I also did some help with teaching at my postdoc - even when not required.  But we certainly did not call it an academic position. Those really start with a lecturership or tenure-track positions for me.

@VladimirF It might vary with disciplines and countries, I can only talk about my experience and the experience of people I know. I was actually lucky to get a teaching-free position as my first postdoc, but that was the exception, very much not the rule (my current postdoc position has 5h per week of teaching)

That's very interesting. In north Africa, it is expected of a PhD student to have (or assist in) do teaching activities, it's actually encouraged.

In the US, and presumably some other countries, there are laws and regulations in place designed to prevent discrimination and bias in the hiring process.  One manifestation is that jobs get posted in a large proportion of cases, though not always widely.
Some postdoc positions arise out of situational opportunity.  In such cases, the job is often created and then posted using language like "strong candidate identified".

No.  Not all jobs are posted either.  I do even not think there is an expectation that all positions are advertised.  Then what exactly do you mean by “posted”?
Every year I receive 10s of unsolicited emails from people asking if I have a postdoc position open.  Clearly, these people do not expect me to post positions, else they would wait until I advertise.  Since clearly these people are just going through mailing lists sending CVs almost randomly, they expect 1000s of people to possibly have unadvertised positions.
Even when positions are posted, they are not posted everywhere: the mere fact that not all sites have the same postings is proof of that.  Indeed it may not make much sense to post broadly as you might anticipate there are sufficiently many local or regional candidates qualified for the position.  There might be language barriers or other factors that very legitimately restrict the pool of candidates.
Hiring rules vary by institutions, but rule #1 of a PI who has someone in mind is to craft an ad (if required) that meet the local requirements while guaranteeing the preferred candidate is selected.

The very practical aspect of this is: Even if required by law, it could be that these positions are advertised but already filled. Signs of this are:

overly specific requirements

sometimes the publication period may be very small

In my experience in the US, it is not legally possible to hire a postdoc without advertising for the position, though as people point out, there is nothing to stop people from deciding before the position is advertised who they’d like to hire, and doing the advertisement in a pro forma way.  I was kind of shocked to discover when I moved to Canada that this is not the case here.  At least at my university, if you have the right grant funding to hire a postdoc, you can just do so without needing to provide any evidence to the university of having advertised the position or done any due diligence in your search.  My understanding is that this is because postdocs, as a temporary position, are treated differently under employment discrimination law here (postdocs at Canadian universities have a weird status where the university considers them more like students than employees, or at least in a weird gray zone).

"In my experience in the US, it is not legally possible to hire a postdoc without advertising for the position"  This is not generally true.

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


text:
Can we consider the Stack Exchange Q & A process to be research? And can we refer to it on our cv/resume, etc. especially for admission & funding?
I have seen a definition of research in the Cambridge Dictionary. It says:
a detailed study of a subject, especially in order to discover (new) information or reach a (new) understanding:
Here we see that two news things are created 1) Information 2) Understanding
So I am bit confused. Can we also consider this Stack Exchange process of posting question and answers as research, especially in domains like scientific and technical domains like Stack Overflow and electrical engineering domains, etc.?
I am not talking about the very basic level questions that are being asked here because there solutions/answer are already obvious to many. Instead I am talking about the case of a bit advanced level questions.
Actually, I am very much interested in learning new knowledge, but I don't have any publications. But I have posted many many questions on Stack Exchange.
I want to apply for MS (Masters) admission and funding in European and US universities. Can I refer my potential supervisor to my questions of Stack Exchange, in order to improve chances of my application confirmation/approval?

"So i am bit confused" You confusion stems from the assumption that the Cambridge Dictionary reflects what academicians mean by "research". It doesn't, at least if you interpret "new" as "new to you" rather than "new relative to the sum total of human knowledge". (I assume that your questions at Stack Exchange didn't advance the frontier of human knowledge.) For example, plenty of parents research vaccines in the sense outlined by the Cambridge Dictionary, but that doesn't mean that this counts as research experience in the sense that admission committees understand it.

@AdamPřenosil The first example under that dictionary's definition is "scientific/medical research," and most of the other examples are about academic research too. So "new" is not meant in the way you suggest. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/research

Here is a related question I asked https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/182664/is-it-ethical-to-get-some-help-from-stack-exchange-for-my-research-as-a-phd-stud . Elements of the answer to your question can be found there :)

I agree with most everything in here, but just want to mention that problems/questions posted on the SE network have led to original research and papers, so it is not 100% binary, but it's pretty close. The mere act of engaging in the SE network does not count as research though.

No. In academia, research refers to a process whose goal is the creation of new knowledge - new for everyone, not just for you. The Stack Exchange questions that you are posting seem (by my cursory examination) aimed at improving your own knowledge and understanding of various subjects. While it is nice that you like learning and are using Stack Exchange for that purpose, this is not research. It also does not show anything about you that isn’t also true (in a readily apparent way) of 99% of grad school applicants. So mentioning this in your CV adds nothing in my opinion.
To be clear, some Stack Exchange posts contain genuinely new knowledge that would qualify as research. I have seen many such posts on MathOverflow for example, but they were all authored by professional mathematicians. Still, if you ever create that kind of knowledge, it would be worth mentioning.

And furthermore, if you ever create that kind of knowledge on Stack Exchange, then  publish it in a peer-reviewed journal and get real credit for research.

@GEdgar I dimly remember reading a MathOverflow post that later got turned into published research by the author(s) - although how that works with copyright and so on given that it was already published I have no idea.

@Voo I can't speak to anything about academic publishing, but every SO/MO post is licensed by it's author under some form of CC BY-SA.  So the author still retains the copyright to the post and can do whatever they want with the content, but anyone else can also build on it if credit is given.  Assuming that their journal paper is more than just a copy/paste of the SO post, it'd be its own copyrightable work.

@Bobson In general most scientific journals want some rather exclusive license agreements in my experience, which I'd think clash with creative commons.

See https://meta.mathoverflow.net/q/617/454 for a listing of such published papers that started in MathOverflow.

@Voo Another example from Theoretical Computer Science Stack Exchange.

Contribution to SE is professional service, not research
Posting questions and answers on SE ---whilst a valuable professional service--- is not considered to be academic research.  Questions and answers on SE are not peer-reviewed and do not usually involve the level of detailed study of a subject or novel contribution to a subject that would be accepted as academic research.  Occasionally one will encounter answers on technical forums in SE that have some useful novel insight that might serve as the basis for an academic paper, but that would usually require much more development and a peer-review process before being counted towards research in an academic CV.
While the contribution of questions and answers on SE is not academic research, most universities will count substantial contributions on SE as professional service.  Usually this would require posting high-quality answers rather than just posting questions, and a sustained contribution with relevant indicators of esteem (e.g., a high "reputation" metric, "people reached", etc.) would show that the contribution is substantial.  For this reason, if you have made a substantial contribution to a relevant forum, and can show evidence of that through relevant metrics, it is acceptable to refer to such contributions on your CV or mention them in applications for admission or a funding application where relevant.  This would be listed as a form of professional service rather than research.  As to how this is perceived, that will differ according to who is reading your application --- some will consider this irrelevant and some will consider it something of value.  As with anything you list on your CV, the main thing is to make a judgment about whether the item you are listing is of sufficient value to warrant inclusion.
For your particular case your own contribution to SE is relatively small (based on your present metrics) but you are only applying to a Masters program, so expectations for professional service would not be large.  Your contribution of questions might act as an indicator of a modest amount of professional service and it could potentially illustrate your curiosity and interest in the discipline.  High-quality answers are generally better than questions at illustrating existing knowledge, but high-quality questions can also be a valuable professional service.  Speaking only for myself, I would not be put off by an applicant with your contribution listing this on their CV or resume, though it would be unlikely to move the needle.  If you decide to list your contributions, do not list them as academic research, since that would be perceived negatively; instead list them as professional service and keep your contribution in perspective.

Thanks alot for your detailed and courteous advise. If comfortable, Can you please elaborate/explain"Speaking only for myself, I would not be put off by an applicant with your contribution listing this on their CV or resume, though it would be unlikely to move the needle much"

I see questions in the OP's profile significantly predominating over answers. Zero answers in top three sites. Not sure how questions amount to service worth mentioning.

@engr: Well, as George points out, you have a lot of questions but no answers on your top three sites.  You have one "famous question" with 10k+ views on the signal processing site.  That question is useful, and a very modest professional service (so I disagree with George slightly here), but it is not all that much in the scheme of things.  At best your questions probably demonstrate curiosity in this field rather than a substantial amount of existing knowledge.  Also, some might potentially read your questions as indicating even more of a lack of knowledge than if you had no postings.

Well, that depends on whether having this knowledge is being expected. Curiosity is good, bugging people online as a predominant way of "problem solving" is not. Quite a bit of nuance here. I would likely treat SE postings as a hobby in the context of a CV, unless the contributions are substantial enough for it to be called "public service". It also fits the narrative naturally if the committee happens to ask about the applicant's activities beyond the presented work.

1 I was recently involved in a hiring decision for a research/software engineer position in academia. The applicant listed their SO profile (in a section for links, along with their personal webpage and GitHub - which I think is better place then "service") and and the fact they gathered non-trivial reputation by answering questions here was certainly a plus, though not a huge deal.

One could describe this particular type of service as "outreach" as well.

Put it under Hobbies
Having an active SE account indicates you have a genuine interest on the topic. This is good to hear for admissions and should be included on your  CV.
On its own however, SE is not research. It can of course be used for research purposes, to contact people in your field, and ask questions related to a research project. But in that case you should put the project itself on the CV and not just your SE account.
I will add that an applicant with many good answers on their account looks better than an applicant with many questions. This suggests they are not only interested, but are also able to communicate well with others.


text:
What is the upper age limit for a master's degree program in Germany?
I have a bachelor in electronics engineering, and I am 32 years old. I belong to a South Asian country and I want to apply for a master's degree program in Germany. But am I agewise eligible?
I have tried to explore different master's degree programs on https://www.daad.de/en/, but I couldn't find any information about an age limit.

Other than funding issues, some countries are reluctant to issue student visas to older applicants.

The question is tagged funding, but the text does not mention this. Is funding (from the university / German government) a requirement for you?

There is no age limit for studying in Germany. In fact, it is not that uncommon for students to be as old as you (or even significantly older) when starting or continuing with university. A C1 language level might often be a requirement, though.
EDIT: As the question is tagged "funding" (which I did not notice when first answering), I want to add: on the DAAD website, there is some information on requirements for scholarships. They state that in most cases, there is no age limit for scholarships either, but in some cases there is a maximum amount of time that is allowed to have passed since the last degree (e.g. maximum of 5 years after the completion of the BA at the time of application).

There are quite a large number of Masters in many subjects taught in English, as well, if German is a problem

He's asking about FUNDING though, i.e. scholarships. A lot of them do have age limits.

The question is tagged funding, but funding and scholarships aren't mentioned in the body or title.

As an example, the "information systems" master at the Technical University of Munich is completely in English - no C1 German language level necessary.

Note that Germany has wide-reaching anti-age-discrimination laws which I believe (IANAL) would apply to all funding opportunities as well as the masters itself.

@JackAidley I believe that you can sue your way into a study program (people have already sucessfully done that), but not into funding, as this is not universally available in the first place (only to a select few).

Definitely no age limit for most places - we have students in their 50s.


text:
Is it OK to add extra paragraph to a paper during the proof stage?
My math paper recently got accepted and I was told that I will be sent a proof soon. It's just four lines I want to add.. is it OK to add it to my paper? It's additional explanation of something, and I would tell the editor about it.
But is it commonly done or done at all?

Ask the editor in charge of your article.

Related: What corrections can you make on galley proofs?

In general no. There may be some circumstance when it can be necessary but the proofing stage is too late for any substantial changes. The manuscript should be published in the form it has been accepted and it is an authors responsibility to provide a final version of the manuscript which ideally should not require any changes once type-set and provided in the form of a proof. Changes that are acceptable are changes that do not in any way change the science of the paper.
If  any major changes are done to the paper at proofing, the editor will likely decide whether or not these are permissible. What would happen if anyone tries to push substantial changes altering the core science of the paper probably varies, but in the worst case the paper might have to undergo new review.

It is not uncommon to make some changes to articles while they are in press.  However, there are a couple of things you should be aware of.  First, you ought to contact the editor, to find out whether there is time to insert anything.  After a certain point, the publication schedule will probably not permit any changes.  After that point, the editor may be willing to delay your paper until a later issue, or they may not.
The second thing, which is more specific to mathematics, is that the editor may not want to make any change that involves the actual mathematics without sending the article back to the referee(s).  Mathematics journals have good reason to be very picky that every symbol and argument that appears in a final publication has been subject to the proper peer review.  Additional background or explanatory material will probably be fine, but any change to how you calculate or prove something may not be possible without additional refereeing.

I think your first sentence is wrong. It's definitely uncommon, although there are exceptions.

In general, whenever scientist is exposed to their paper, they tend to improve sth:). However, it definitely delays publication and proof stage is to check that no errors were introduced to the content, NOT for changing the content


text:
When should I send thank you letter or email to my thesis committee members?
When is the proper time to send a thank you email to the committee members? After the defense or after getting the certificate confirmation from the registrar office? To me saying thank you after defense is such a nice gesture. I just had a long conversation and question-answer session and everything is still so fresh in the mind of the members! But I would like to know about your suggestion (and probably would like to go with that too!).

After the defense will be fine since by then the committee members have completed their job. What happens between that and when you have the final paper work done is irrelevant. Pointing at the discussion you have just had and finishing with a few personal comments/reflections will be fine. But, do not overdo it since long and talkative mails can be either too long to read or in the worst case seem constructed. So be yourself and be happy for what you have achieved ( I take it you will or have passed?)


text:
When you find endorsement in an arXiv, is it certain to get the research published?
I read some questions on this platform and found that arXiv does not review research as in one of the questions here. Does this mean that the only obstacle to publishing the paper is endorsement only

Posting on arXiv is not publishing. You need to submit the paper to a journal and go through peer review to be published.

@astronat I know of course

Not exactly.  There is a moderation process to weed out fakery and nonsense. It isn’t a full review though.

And as a preprint service, at least some of us don't consider uploading to arxiv as 'publishing'...

no, you 'acquire' copyright when you create the document.

If somebody hacks your computer and steals your unpublished great American novel and proceeds to publish it, well, they have violated your copyright and will be found liable. You take a (film) picture and have not developed it yet - you own the copyright regardless.

@DanRomik, a poor choice of words, I'll admit. But putting something on arXiv is publishing by the most common definition of the word  (making generally available). It also supports a claim of priority (potentially) and gives you a way to defend against copyright infringement. That was my intention.


text:
How to improve quality of figures after reviewers have mentioned it?
The paper we are working on was accepted and we got a comment saying "Quality of Figures could be improved".
All the figures that are given have been exported from matplotlib and have all the standard labels with different color schemes and have attached the sample as well.

So what do I do? make it more pretty? or use a different package?
Note - This is just a sample, and the real one has a set of 6 plots big enough to fit in almost half a page

Not my area.  Why does it look blurry?

Who said "Quality of Figures could be improved"? The editor, a reviewer, someone on the production team? Different people probably have different concerns, it might be something as simple as it needs to be exported in a higher dpi to meet journal requirements, or may be issues with clarity of labels or colour maps, or something more conceptual. (For example, for me, the labels are opaque and lack units or similar, but as I don't know your field maybe they're well understood in context.)

The "time" labels are inconsistent, and you probably need to increase the resolution.

I agree with the reviewer and with @Louic

The figure aught to be pixelated at the level the underlying data is pixelated.  Do not listen to anyone who tells you to smooth it.

The axis labels should all be written out in full, with correct capitalization, and units.  The tic marks should point out of the boxes so that they do not cover up the data.

There is no reason to use a different package. Plenty of room to improve the figure using matplotlib.

In addition to other comments, I would probably increase the font size, spell out "latitude" and "longitude", add units to all labels, and include tick and axis labels for the top panel. Also, is there any reason not to fill in the last panel on the bottom right by showing another time step?

If you decide to interpolate to increase the resolution, make sure to write down exactly what you did and to what extent you think you can trust the interpolation. Probably better not to do this though.

It should not be necessary to interpolate to increase the resolution. Simply making the image larger so that it ends up at 600dpi when printed should suffice. You should also check if the colour-scheme is suitable for the colour-blind.

Did the reviewers explain what exactly they want improved?

The illustration you provide seems like a standard plot that can be seen in most journals. That said, it can certainly be improved; many journals do not seem to care what they publish. What is acceptable also varies from person to person. There are however some standards that should be followed and your figure fall short on a few points. Many of the comments made to your post outline some of the improvements and I will also reiterate them here.

A figure should be understandable when shown without its figure caption. Your figure falls short of this. By understandable I do not mean the deep scientific significance of what is shown but to understand what is shown. This is a point made by Tufte (2001) and is a good guideline for finishing any figure.
Axis labels should include units. You have latitude and longitude which would be in degrees. The color scale is more problematic because I do not understand what it should be showing, units would obviously help.
Axis labels should start with capital letters so Lat/Lon or Latitude/Longitude.
The heading of the subplots containg a time stamp should be consistent. The ISO standard for date/time is yyyy-mm-dd HH:MM:SS. So I would suggest using this consistently or (which might be better for a more general audience) use an unambiguous date and time format such as "dd month, yyyy, HHMM hrs" (e.g. 29 April, 2022, 1200 hrs). The problem with date and time is that almost every country has their own standard.
The third diagram in the top row has no x-axis label and tick labels
The number of tick labels could be reduced so that the axes are not overloaded with information. Every second label can be removed while keeping the tick marks
The resolution of the coloured fields should reflect the resolution of the data shown in the fields. If the data is as  coarse as it looks in the figure, then that is how it should be shown.
Figures must be made to work in their final size in the publication. Submitting vector based formats avoids many problems. When exporting to a bitmap one should consider the necessary resolution (in dpi) to make the illustration sharp in its final size. A figure such as yours that include bitmap fields should follow the same guidelines but obviously the fields in your subfigures will not change in apparent resolution as was stated in the previous point.
The data is latitude/longitude based running from c. 10 degrees N(?) to c. 80 degrees N(?). The width of the space between longitude lines will obviously decrease from S to N so that a square representation is not strictly correct. The plots are better representing reality if they are shown in some cartographic projection. This is clearly something many will ignore and maybe not even consider but it is one aspect to consider.
Any graphing package or software is not perfect. It is always  useful to learn to use for example the open source Inkscape to edit standard output from plotting packages or software to optimse your graphics before publication.

Considering the colour scale I cannot see anything wrong. Aspects to consider regarding choice of colour scale include what is standard (if any), what may make sense depending on what is shown and what can be read by someone with colour blindness.
So there are several aspects that can be improved or at least considered. At the same time providing a comment such as the one you appear to have received without any exemplification of what to do is quite useless on behalf of the reviewer/editor.
Reference
Tufte, E.R. 2001. The visual display of quantitative information. Second Edition. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.

The figures now are just a blob of colors with poor titles and bloated aspect. If you are an expert on the exact topic of your publication, you would be able to find the secret message hidden inside. So there is almost no advantage between having that figure and having a table showing the raw data: a figure serves exactly the opposite scope, make evident the messagge hidden behind data.
First) the colors. Why on Earth you have this mild but oversaturated range of colors if your scale is going symmetrically from +value to -value? these figures are figures that are hard to read, while figures should be popping out. There is simmetry, please have a strong contrast without saturation, no one sane of mind will look at your data in black and white, so you can use something like the RdBu scale (Red for positive, Blue for negative, white for zero)
Second) the colors. Why the colorscale is continuous, while the data seems not (yes, spatial discretization may play a role ... but what about resoultion of the measurments?)? and the scale truncated but not limited going from +32 to -32 ... please, use values readable from humans, like +30 to -30. Base 8 is nice, but leave it to your DAC sensors.
Third) the colors. They carry an overload of information, but what you want to show is "something". Please add some isolines in your plot (it is easy to do if the colorscale is a slightly desaturated RdBu instead of this very saturated colormap). And if the isolines have a label, plus dashed if negative and continuos if positive, you are good to go for the 1% of the world still printing papers and accessing papers only in black&white.
Fourth: the title must be in a standard format, whatever standard your peers are using, then please avoid writing "time": either it is obvious that it is a timestamp, or you have to find another format of timestamp. Do not strive making your best to be as concise as possible. Just be concise.
Fifth (bonus) if you use a lighter colormap, you can plot the grid with some dashed lines, to improve readability.
Example of colormap:
 (taken from here, please note that all the text in this figure is bad, that the grid is not plotted but at least colormap and isolines are what would make much better your figures)