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What to do about a dubious competing publication in the same journal I'm submitting to?
Before submitting my  predictions paper, I spotted a paper with alternative methods for the same predictions. It appeared two weeks ago online-first in the same journal I'm submitting to.
Digging into it, I found several  issues. To validate  predictions, the authors cherry-picked empirical results from the same table of another paper. The  results' type and time period, clear from the table, were not the ones assumed for the predictions, which essentially invalidates comparison.
The paper's code is on GitHub, but not the  scripts  for input  filtering; so no reproducing the results. The  model  stated in the paper is commented out, and the one in the code is  trained on both training  and validation sets, contrary to practice and the paper.
If assessed fairly, the predictions would be rather less impressive. And it is  hard to tell how they were actually obtained.
Q1: What should I do about these issues?
There are similar  questions, such as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
However, the usual answers  ---  to move softly and slowly, or just park it --- is probably not the way to go: a flawed paper on  public health in a major  journal can have  consequences.
I've  doubts about emailing the authors as I'm not sure how honest their mistakes were and why   they would  respond. (Surely, authors would  triple-check this type of papers? Literally, "we publish; you  perish".)
I guess I could  open  code-related issues on GitHub, and see whether the authors engage. At least people using their   code might take   notice.
Q2: How should I proceed with the  submission?
This journal is  the best place for this  research, and for many reasons I'd like to submit  as soon as possible.
The reviewers  would probably request me to compare  predictions with that paper's, which is fair, but not in the circumstances.
Shall I just submit  without mentioning the other paper?
Or should I attach a diplomatic letter  describing the issues?
I don't think the original reviewers are  at  fault: the issues are
hard to spot without manually cross-checking numbers and references and digging into the code base.
Still, would it be wise to make some requests, so that  my paper be  reviewed fairly?

My suggestion would be to submit your paper without additional comment. Making comments initially will only slow down the process. If you are asked about your view of the other paper by an editor or reviewer then respond at that time.
At most, point out that you come to different conclusions than the other paper and believe your methodology to be superior, resulting in better predictions.
But submitting your work will get it into the review process.

Caveat: Note that there is quite a lot of "opinion" in this answer and a weighing of likely outcomes. It is the editor of the journal who's opinion carries weight here. Other "solutions" might work. I suggested the above to get the quickest feedback. Or at least get appropriate questions asked early to help guide later actions.

Thanks, that makes sense. Maybe I won't even refer to them in my paper, if two weeks is short enough for not including new references?

Also, should I engage with the authors, and/or open GitHub issues?

I would wait, myself, until I had some third party feedback.

My suggestion would be to prepare your paper for publication ASAP, which you would have done anyway.
You raise a very good point about correcting the record, especially when it comes to public health. In your situation I would distill the disagreement between your results and theirs into as few words as possible -- one sentence for the biggest difference in results and one sentence for the biggest flaws in methodology -- and then stick it in the appropriate place in your paper. For example:

Kaufman (1924) predicts that widgetitis will only infect one American a year, while our models project anywhere between 2000-4000 widgetitis deaths annually instead. We attribute this significant discrepancy to Kaufman's likely inaccurate estimate of population densities and demographics at the county, state, and national level, as well as improper training procedures of the HAL9000 neural network, which we discuss in the Supplementary Information.

Then include a brief summary of your own replication findings in the Supplementary Information. The best cure to a wrong study is to make your study infinitely more citeable -- putting a lengthy critique in the SI probably doesn't help, right as it may be. You could set up a GitHub Page (or even Code Ocean page) presenting your counter-analysis in more detail and then link to that.
If you follow this course, you can request to the editors to not ask Kaufman (in this case) to review your paper, since there would be a natural conflict of interest.
I don't know about norms in your field, but in my field I would almost certainly email the authors to let them know that I was about to raise issues with their paper in mine. You can easily send off that email and then continue working on the paper; if they respond, you can continue discussing with them as needed, and if they don't, it's on the record that you tried to discuss this matter more collegially.


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Allegation of Academic Misconduct
I completed my dissertation a few weeks ago, and submitted it the night before it was due and thus did not check it on turnitin etc for similarity reports. However, on Friday night I received an e-mail basically saying that my work was being 'withheld' from marking as a result of an 'allegation of academic misconduct'. They did not tell me what this allegation was, and all that was attached to this e-mail was the University's general statement of academic misconduct and what it can entail, and a letter addressed to me saying the exact same as the e-mail.
I looked on turnitin, and there is a similarity report of 39%, though it is entirely just the reference list at the end, and the ethics clearance documents (which take up about half the page count and had been previously submitted in order to have them checked months ago).
I was wondering if anyone had any experience with this sort of thing; for example, if it was automatic due to the high similarity score? They said that I won't know the verdict until I either get summoned to a discussion to essentially fight my case, or I get given my grade back, which is making me increasingly anxious as I do not know what the allegation would be for, if not for the similarity score (and since it's been three weeks since I submitted it, I would assume it would have been flagged up for that automatically before this.)
Any kind of help/reassurance is greatly appreciated.

I don't think there's much we can say. Either you plagiarized and you should worry, or you didn't and shouldn't. You should never be submitting your own work to a plagiarism checker. Either you plagiarized and the checker may or may not show it, or you didn't plagiarize and you already know that.

Does this answer your question? What to do when wrongfully accused of cheating?

I think that you should know if you plagiarised something. Being not the case, unless you have misbehaved in some other circumstances, I think you should relax. The flow of actions taken by the university seems to me unfair as for more information could have been provided to you, already. At least on which area you are alleged of misconduct. Also, these things I keep reading on SE are new to me. I guess in some environment plagiarism in thesis should have been the norm, otherwise I don't understand.

See also What to do if accused of cheating/misconduct at university?.

Firstly, "the verdict" should be something that happens after you have had a chance to hear the allegations and respond, not prior to you being summoned.  In any half-decent university misconduct process, there is no need for the student to guess in advance what the alleged misconduct might be; if the matter proceeds then you will be informed (in writing) of the nature of the alleged misconduct at an appropriate time, and you will then have a chance to respond after reading the allegation against you and having time to digest it.  Until then, you are not required to do anything.  Stay calm, and don't try to pre-empt the process by guessing --- for more advice, see detailed advice on dealing with misconduct allegations.

source: Stack Exchange

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

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Non- Conference Panel Presentation?
I'm part of a panel presentation for some undergrad students who are part of a multi-institutional summer scholarship program. The panel is about paths through grad school in our field (I'm a PhD student).
Would you put this on a CV somewhere, or is that really padding out the CV? I'm in Social Science.

I gave about a dozen talks in various seminar series while a graduate student. These were valuable practice in giving presentations and eventually my thesis defense presentation mirrored some of these talks.
None of these went on my CV. If you have more involvement in this program than just sitting on one panel maybe you could list it as mentorship activity but I would not list it as an academic talk about your research.

Great, thank you. This was my suspicion, but I wanted some confirmation. I'm a fellow with this organization, so I suppose that is sufficient CV recognition.

The last paragraph is especially valuable. Mentorship is a valuable attribute and practice for any academic.

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


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Correct way to cite a book in a thesis
I ask you this question that will seem trivial but having no experience in this regard and not having found specific information I do not know what to do.
I am writing my master's thesis in Computer Engineering, and sometimes I use short concepts (for example a 10-word sentence) reworking it and adding concepts different from those of a book mentioned in the biography.
My doubt is the following, in the biography can I also insert the books that I have read to deepen the subject without having used the concept of the book within the thesis but which have been useful to me anyway?

You can only put a book or paper in the bibliography if you have cited it in the text, either via a quote or by citing its argument[s], theory/ies, etc.
If it's just generally deepened your understanding and you do not quote it or cite its argument[s] it cannot be included in the bibliography. That said, in such a case it can be very easy to work in a citation from it anyway, even if it's just a few words.


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Is a Masters year 1 in France the equivalent of a UK Masters?
I am currently in the final year of my undergrad degree in the UK. I would love to do a year-long master's in France. I have realised their masters are two years long.
Would it be worthwhile doing the first year of a master's in France and would that be the equivalent to gaining a Master's in the UK or would I need to complete both years?

Why not just do the full two years in France?

Masters in France generally last 2 years, with courses the first 1.5 year, and a research project in a lab the last half year.  In many fields, the research project is often the starting point for a PhD.


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Staying in the PhD program after I told them I'm leaving
I am a first-year PhD student, and as the title suggests, I've told my department that I'll be leaving the program this summer (that is in one month), but now there's a situation that I have a reason to change my mind. To do so however, I would need to have some discussions with a potential advisor, as well as the department. I was wondering who I should contact first. In addition to the context, which I explain below, the subtlety is in the process for changing my status back to what it was, because now my department assumes I'm leaving and stopped doing some of the procedures they do for other students in the cohort. So, to decide that I'm staying, I would need to get an approval from my potential advisor that he could indeed be my advisor, and get the approval from my department that I could stay and that they allow me to work with that advisor, who is in a different department, but within the same division of the university.
So my question is how should I proceed with this? Should I first ask my department if this is at all possible, or should I first talk to the potential advisor? I think this order might matter, given the short time I have left, the fact that me staying here is critically dependent on this particular arrangement to work, that I would need to decline a different PhD offer I've already accepted (see the explanation below about that), and the whole context below.
I would much appreciate some comments on advice on the question above, and also any suggestions or comments on any point you think I might be missing, or on the potential costs of doing or not doing such a change of plan at this stage.
Two possibly important points: 1. The country is the US. 2. I have followed through with all the requirements so far and would be in good standing to proceed to the second year if I was staying. The main deviation from the PhD timeline is that other students have made advisor-advisee arrangements, but since I told them I'm leaving, I haven't. The arrangements were finalized very recently, but the process started a while ago, so I don't know if it is too late already for that or not.

Here is the context if you would like to know more:
Why I was/am leaving the current program and starting a different program: I plan to go down a path that would be impossible to follow without at least some outside of department advising. My department was in principle ok with that, but the other department where the faculty I was interested in working with is in was not. Meanwhile, I already had a PhD offer to go pursue my area of interest at a different university (starting from first year again). So it seemed reasonable to take that offer. (My area of interest is quite different from the field of my current department, but the work is somewhat interdisciplinary, so if I could find an advisor, it wouldn't be too unreasonable to do the research I like as a PhD from my current department)
That's despite the fact that staying in my current department was my strong preference, for multiple reasons, if I had some reasonable hope that I could have the career trajectory I like to have.
What has changed: I found out that a professor whose work I'd been following for quite some time has moved to my current university from where he was before, and he's also in a new department, which has much closer relationships with my current department. That means the bureaucracy, the administrative matters, funding, etc. are unlikely to become an issue (unlike the case with the other faculty I wanted to work with), as long as the professor accepts to work with me.
Why I hesitate and care about the order that I contact the professor or my department: First, I have already bothered my department way too much (including a whole series of troubles I made for them that are unrelated to this). Second, I would need to talk to the professor I'd like to work with and see what he thinks about my plan and working with me before I can decide for sure if I want to work with him. On the other hand, I'm already way past the decision point; I have already accepted a PhD offer from elsewhere, and regarding my leaving, it seems like that ship has sailed. I know I'm going to embarrass myself by bringing up the possibility of this change of decision, so I don't want to burn bridges, make a fool of myself, and disappoint everyone, if at the end of the day there's no point in doing this. I'd appreciate some insider insight on this since I don't know where departments often stand in this type of situation, and how strictly they have to follow the April 15th agreement (if at all, given that it's not between two PhD offers, but between a department I was already in and a PhD offer).

I would talk to your potential advisor first, since their buy-in is essential to your plan.
If I were involved in the administration of your department and you brought to my desk that you'd like to change your mind and stay to work with Dr. Newprof, I'd be puzzled if I found out you hadn't run it by them first and send you to speak to them before sorting out anything on the administrative side.
I think it's a bit of a red flag that your commitments are so weak and you are breaking first one and now a second, but that doesn't really impact the question of who to ask first in this situation, it's just something you may want to be more mindful of in the future. It's fine to make changes when things aren't working out but there is also some expectation when you commit to something to put a full, honest effort into it.
That said, departments want to have productive pairings between students and faculty. It's good for their statistics if students that matriculate actually finish their degrees. If a faculty member wants to work with you I would expect they'd do what they can to keep you there, unless they have made their own commitments that make this impossible (like if they have limited funding already allocated to other students based on a plan that you'd be leaving).


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Can I use only one of my two last names for publishing?
I have 2 last names due to my hispanic background. Soon, I will have to think about my very first publication (field: Medicine/Psychology). Could I use only the first last name for my publishing or will I get into legal trouble with that?
My goal is to avoid hassles after marriage, since we are planning to fuse our last names. So, assumed that my maiden name is A. Smith Miller, after marriage I'd be called A. Smith-Johnson, and my publishing name would be A. Smith.
Is that possible, or is it mandatory to use the entire last name for publishing?

See also https://orcid.org/.

Perhaps use both names and stick to them. They should point to you better than Smith only.

Read: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/78507/how-to-prove-that-a-paper-published-with-a-particular-english-transliteration-of/78516 . Get an ORCID account and you get a "researcher ID", hassles avoided. AFAIK you can publish with the name "Sunflower" as far as everyone is concerned. The main point of having a name is for people to know who the author is, and ultimately the author has a say on what name they want to be called, there is no passport check for publishing.

This question is a slightly different situation from the duplicate, but if you look at the accepted answer there I think it's pretty clear that it answers this version of the question as well.  Welcome to academia.SE, this is a good question even though I voted to close as duplicate.

You can use any name you like for publishing - even a pseudonym. You are wise to consider the future so that publishing will always be under the same name, simplifying searches and keeping the maintenance of your reputation simple.
In some ways, keeping a birth name as your official "professional name" is the simplest for most people.
And people who are active in more than one field, might want to use different names in those fields, just as novelists often do.

It is perfectly legal and possible. In fact, many people face a dilemma when changing names due to marriage or any other reasons (e.g. some people change names when immigrating). I personally know people still publishing under their maiden name (which is legally not their name anymore), just because they started to publish before getting married and want to maintain their "academic identity".
So go ahead and use only one of your names. The only thing to consider is: maybe there are several other A. Smiths (even in your discipline), but no A. Smith Miller. If that would be the case, you might consider publishing as A. Smith Miller anyway and just keep publishing under your maiden name to avoid confusions.

You can use whatever name you want. If you want to publish papers as Ms Hamster, that's fine too.

I agree with the other answers that it's a good idea to already think about what name you will use in the long term, and to strive for consistency - and that there are no "rules" you could break here.
I would propose yet another possibility: since it sounds like your marriage is already planned for certain, you could already use the name you will legally use afterwards. That way, there will be no confusion between your "publishing" and your "normal" name.
Of course, if the wedding gets canceled, you are stuck with a publication under a name you may not want to be reminded of. You will be the best judge of that.
Alternatively, either push back the publication, or pull forward the wedding. You could also submit under one name and take the decision under what name the final publication appears later in the publishing stage - any editor will understand a late change under these circumstances.
(Fun fact: my wife and I married right before she published her first papers, exactly for name consistency.)

Honestly I'd caution against tying your professional name to your future spouse's name.  It's great when it works out, but the hassle if it doesn't is thoroughly unnecessary

As the other answers pointed out, it is good to think what name you will use for your publications. You should try to stick to that name also for presentations and other official uses. People might get confused otherwise. I know a very well known person, how publishes with his first name, but writes emails and gives takes with a kind of nickname. I know several persons who were excited to attend a talk by him, were disappointed that he was a different person as the first name did not match - and they did not realize that it was him using his nickname.
It could happen that people don't find your academic page, hesitate to contact you, if they cannot find your "publishing name".

There are no laws dictating the names you can or cannot publish under. Your choice doesn't even need to have any relationship with any name you have or had in the past. If you want to sign your articles as "The Physcho Boss", you will struggle with your reputation, but not with a court of law.

I dont see any legal issues. As an example, Shalosh B. Ekhad has over 10 publications to its name, and Ekhad is a made-up last name.
Well, the entire name is made-up.

As someone who has a complicated name by non-French standards, please make sure to use something simple, without à or ñ. Sooner or later they will be rendered as "Maerrorana" and you will cry. Yes, you will get an erratum but it is too late. Been there, done that.
Maybe today there are fancy ways to link an ID to a name but still, I would go for "Anita Manana" instead of "Anitiestrella Mañanà" if you refer to yourself as "Anita" in the everyday life.
And use that version everywhere, insist at the university your full name is "Anita Manana" on papers, publications, email and whatnot.


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Is it appropriate for an advisor to add a student's name (who has no contribution) to a paper because of his nationality
I'm a PhD student working in the USA. My advisor has funding from a foreign (say Country X) agency. I worked on a problem that was proposed by the agency. However, I am not using their data. I am about to publish my findings. However, my advisor wants to add another one of his student's name to the co-authors, despite him having absolutely no contribution. This student is a native of Country X. My advisor's argument is that he does not want to upset the agency, hence wants to add this student to the author list.
Is it possible that such a discriminatory clause would exist as terms of funding. One piece of information the makes me super suspicious is that earlier, another PhD student (not from Country X) worked on the same problem and my advisor did not raise such a concern.
I also strongly suspect that my advisor is quite partial to students from Country X, due to prior instances where he tries to involve them in everyone else's projects and looks for avenues to add their name to those projects.
What makes it even more strange is that my advisor is not from Country X, although I am not sure if he has other personal ties.

Perhaps simply trying to curry favor to get funding rather than actually being partial to?

No, it isn't appropriate and is a form of academic misconduct. Those listed as authors need to have made some significant contribution to the ideas in a paper.
But this stuff happens. Too frequently.
Your advisor's motives don't matter. It is misconduct. However, your relationship to your advisor does matter and if opposing this will poison the relationship you need to act cautiously so as not to jeopardize your own career.

Of course this is inappropriate.
It may also be happening without the knowledge or consent of the sponsoring agency, i.e. it may just be your advisor's perception that they would be pleased if they were to see a familiar name on the paper.
However, I don't recommend you cause a ruckus over this. It's not a big deal, it happens a lot of places, and nobody is actually getting hurt here, except maybe Veritas.


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Applying to a full time lecturer post in the UK in a psychology related field
I am a non-European applying from outside of the UK. I need to come up with realistic external funding ideas for the next three years. I have a good idea of what kind of research I would like to do but there is no definite plan. Any resources to consider for funding are greatly appreciated.

I'm from a physical science field in the UK, so things could vary in different faculties.
From my experience, new faculty at research intensive UK universities are usually required to apply for a New Investigator Grant during their first 3 years as part of their probation. Hiring committees will therefore be looking to see that you have plans which have a realistic chance of winning such an award. It's important that your plans for this award have an appropriate scope. You can find information about the ESRC New Investigator Grant here: https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/esrc-new-investigator-grant/
That is probably the most important one to mention. But mentioning other plausible pathways to funding is also helpful. Depending on exactly what your research interests are, a few other popular UK funders which may be relevant are:

Wellcome Trust
Leverhulme Trust
Royal Society

If you have experience with EU grants such as Horizon Europe (which the UK remains a part of despite brexit), this would be worth mentioning. But I get the impression applying for such grants is not common/expected from junior academics. If you are working in Clinical psychology then you would probably need to look for more medical related funding, in particular through the MRC, which I am not very familiar with.
UK academia is very interested in the impact of research due to the Research Excellence Framework. If you can show how your research has/does/will generate impact this will be to your advantage.

Your answer was very helpful. Thank you!

The first place to look will be UKRI (UK Research and Innovation), and the funding bodies within it that relate to different subject areas. There is also some charity funding available, the website 'Research Professional' is a pretty good resource.

Thank you so much. Will do.

Specifically psychology could sit within the ESRC or MRC councils (which are part of UKRI), depending on the parts of psychology you are interested in.  You should also take a look at the leverhulme trust and the european funding council. Research professional is a useful resource, but I believe that it is not free.

The URKI funding bodies you mentioned are RCs (Research Councils) -- and you need to find the one with the right remit. (the ones suggested by Iain Sudbery seem like good places to start)

Thank you so much for these helpful comments!


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Is the rediscovery of a result of a published paper from a different source plagiarism?
Is the rediscovery of a mathematical formula using a different method to the result of a different paper than the one that published the formula earlier considerable as plagiarism or unethical in some way?

Does the rediscover know about the previous method? Do they cite it and recognize it's existence?

Yes. The result was proven using modular arithmetic in the published paper while the rediscovery was derived using progressions and it was cited.

The term "rediscovery" would imply, as far as my understanding goes, that the person who "rediscovered" a result didn't actually know it already from the earlier paper. In your posting this is unclear. It seems you are just asking about giving a different proof for an already known result.

A result was given in a paper and it was extended by the author and result of this extension turned out be a result of a published paper. The method used in the extension is distinct from the method used in the published paper.
Will the presentation of the extension as a result of its own be considered as plagiarism?

Okay, so in what way are the author(s) of the rediscovery taking credit for the ideas of others as if they are their own without properly attributing them to the original source (plagiarism)?

The published paper is present in the references but the published result which the author rediscovered using a different method wasn't mentioned to already exist in that published paper.

They cite that paper without acknowledging it also shows the same thing they show? What do they cite it for?

It was cited for a different result.

No, rediscovery isn't plagiarism. It is fairly common. Using a different methodology to arrive at a known result isn't plagiarism and is valued, especially in some fields like math.
Plagiarism is wrongly attributing ideas to yourself. If the result is known and one cites that original source, then providing a different way to arrive at it is a valued part of academic research.
The key, however, is citation when the source is known.
Some things get rediscovered by people who don't actually know that the result is known and try to publish without citation, since they don't know any such. That isn't plagiarism either. Plagiarism requires knowledge of the source but not citing it. It might "look like" plagiarism to a more knowledgeable observer but isn't, technically. To be published, such things, if noticed, would probably require a rewrite to give a fuller context than what was originally presented.
And, some things, once known, are actually lost and then rediscovered. That is less likely in the modern, connected, age, of course.

So if a result was already found and published and presented again by author using the very same method as his/her own, it qualifies as plagiarism but if the result was reached through a different method and by extending a result outside of the published paper, it does not?

You miss the point, I think. Plagiarism is misappropriation. And, just as important, plagiarism is about ideas. If you knowingly claim that the ideas of others are your own then it is plagiarism. If you don't know then it isn't (though you probably should have known). If you cite the original then it isn't. If you repeat old work exactly, then it isn't likely publishable. It isn't being new that avoids plagiarism, it is citation of what is known that avoids it. If I claim to have discovered the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus it is plagiarism. If I cite, but provide a new proof it is fine.


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How specific should I be when describing a program I wrote in python for my research paper
I am currently in the process of writing a research paper about linguistics. I wrote a program in python in order to be able to sift through the data and sort it out in a meaningful way (not statistically just take a bunch of words in a word document and create an excel with all the words in them).
In my methods section, should I include an in depth explanation of the code I used to be able to reorganize the data? how specific should I be in my explanation? Should I include the code I wrote as an appendix?
Thanks for your help:)

What do other papers in linguistics do?

How long is your code?

If your program just reads a word document and creates a spreadsheet just say you wrote a program to do that. You can offer to provide the code to anyone who asks.

How much of the novel part of your research depends on new ideas in the code you developed? For example: did you need to solve an unsolved problem in your field to develop your code? Or did you automate a routine task that is not very central to the main point of your work? In the former case you could easily write a paper just about the code and the algorithm behind it, in the latter case it could be a sentence that is mentioned in passing as a detail. The key principle here is that your paper should tell the story of your novel contribution to the field, and not get sidetracked.

This seems like a "content of research" question.

Unless I’m missing something, this sounds like everyday data munging. You might just say custom scripts were used to convert the original text to a spreadsheet. Explain simply what sort of information was created or captured.

Who do you think will be interested in reading your paper, mostly linguists or mostly programmers? It is very much relevant for the answer.

Thanks everyone for the reply’s!
The code is definitely not Novel and there is nothing in the research itself that’s important in the code.

In the method section, you can describe your code in broad terms to convey the most essential aspects.
In addition, to ensure transparency and reproducibility, you should make your code publicly available. If the code is brief enough, you can publish it in an appendix. If it is longer or scattered around multiple files, you could upload it in a repository (such as Zenodo) and link to it.
(And no, it would not be sufficient to state that the code is available "on request". Often, this is simply not the case a few years after the research project.)

I honestly didn't know what Zenodo was until a couple of days ago, and then I noticed it mentioned in quick succession. It seems like a great general idea for all collecting all sorts of research materials. I would say that making a github repo for your implementation has become a standard in computer science (and we deal with a lot of code), as this allows future maintenance and good version control. Fortunately, it seems that Zenodo actually supports linking from github :)

Interesting! I’ve never heard of Zenado and will definitely look into it. Adding the code in the appendix is a good idea but I believe it’s a bit too long… since the code is such a small part of the paper itself I believe it isn’t needed based on other answers

Actually, as you describe it here, there is nothing very interesting or new about your code. The fact that it is in Python isn't relevant. It is also the sort of thing that you can do with a few lines of unix-like code and the concept has been around since the 60's (at least).
Given that, I think a very brief description is all that is needed. It may seem like magic to someone in linguistics, but it is a standard elementary programming problem.
Use your words on the interesting linguistics relevant things in the paper, not the program.

Depending on the content of the paper, It could be very relevant how the code works (in detail). Quoting OP, the phrase "just take a bunch of words" is definitely not what you want in the paper. How are words defined? Separated by spaces? dashes? other symbols? Were any words excluded? Why? Was a stemmer used? Should one be used? Do numbers count as words? How are accents and emojis handled? What about spelling-errors or documents that are partly in a different language? If the "data reorganisation" is important for the result, these details could be relevant.

@Louic, the unix toolset is designed to handle all of that. I don't see any thing unique here. Especially as described by the OP.

It is relevant which parts of the "unix toolset" were used, and why. Especially if OP reimplemented existing functionality on their own.

It's not the (lack of) originality that suggests the code should be published or at least described well, but the (linguitstic) methodological choices implicit in the code and the reproducibility.

@henning, if I run the same (deterministic) code on the same data then I expect the same results. That would prove nothing. Reproducibility is better served with an independently developed selection process.

@Buffy it doesn't prove anything but it makes the choices transparent. But I feel were talking at past each other.


text:
Off holiday time, as a Ph.D. student, would it be convenient to ask for few days rest
I feel a bit tired and even exhausted of the work i am doing, would it be convenient to ask my Ph.D. advisor for few resting days to full up some energy and return more productive ?
Thanks

No. How dare you even think about it

Yea, Alright, thanks, i will ask him then.

@k99731 http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2010/06/22/something-deeply-wrong-with-chemistry/

@k99731 Yep,  Allure is right. It's not obvious this is a joke, Greta.

it's pretty obvious for most of us, regardless of what they are doing in their california

In my opinion, regularly spaced vacation time, however it is spent, is critical to productivity, especially in intellectual pursuits.
You should definitely take a break if you need one. Hopefully your advisor is a reasonable person and grants your request - if not, it's their fault for being insane, not yours for asking.

You shouldn't be worried about asking your advisor for vacation time. If you're hired as a research assistant, then chances are you have some number of annual leave a year. You can use those. Departments tend to be rather lax at enforcing these, and nobody counts; nobody is likely to object to "a few days" off.


text:
Are burnouts during Ph.Ds common among students?
My supervisor assigns to me many tasks a week and wants them finished in a short period of time, it's been a while now and i feel a bit exhausted. Is this scenario common amongst CS PhDs in the US ?

You can’t work for years on much of anything without burnout at some point.

Either they test you (in which case, you go with it), or this is how it is going to stay for the next years (in which case you have to take a decision; this style is not for everyone).

Do you feel "a bit exhausted" or are you concerned you might suffer from burnout?

@henning both!!

Having a lot of work is common. Feeling overwhelmed and stressed is common. Should these be acceptable? Entirely up to you.
Time management and resource allocation are some of the biggest skills you will perfect during the PhD. Hopefully you can chat openly with your advisor about your concerns and discuss what an acceptable amount of work to accomplish is. If you are new, your advisor is also learning how much they can push you and what your strengths and weaknesses are. If you are later in your PhD, this advisor/student relationship should develop into more of a collaboration with the advisor providing more oversight and guidance than goals and deadlines (although many will still do that).
It's also a HUGE learning journey, meaning there are weeks when you will have no results to show, but SHOULD have learned a lot and can more intelligently speak about some aspect of your work/field.

"Should these be acceptable? Entirely up to you."
So much pain in such an attitude. Please do not take it personally: I know the burden of setting the system this way is not on you.
And please, think about the consistency of these feelings with "the biggest skills you will perfect during the PhD, Time management and resource allocation": it means to me that a PhD is doing an idiotic amount of work, to learn to manage (actually stretch) resources ...


text:
How long does it take to get a green card as a US faculty?
I'm European and I'm about to accept a tenure-track position in the US where I will come up for tenure review after 2 years (i.e. get tenure after 3), as I have already spent a number of years in a comparable position.
While negotiating, I was warned that I must obtain permanent residency in the US before they can grant me tenure, but they couldn't tell me whether the 3 years of my initial contract will be sufficient time for doing so. Apparently, this 3 years can't be extended unless I get tenure, so I better manage to obtain a green card within 3 years.
This somewhat conflicts with what my US-based colleagues assured me, namely that the process of getting permanent residency is quite straightforward for professors.
My question:
How long did it take for you (or your colleague) to get permanent residency through the "Outstanding professors or researchers" (EB-1B) category?

Are you married? If not, would you be willing to marry an American citizen? Not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that'd make things easier.

For the last person my department intended to hire, we tried to get him a green card (rather than a work visa) before he even arrived.  This was expected to delay his arrival by about six months, assuming all went smoothly.  However, things did not go smoothly.  COVID happened, delaying the process seemingly indefinitely.

I'm mildly surprised that your hiring institution somehow puts the responsibility for getting the green card on you. If the institution (even just your department) exerts themselves by a pretty standard amount, things will be expedited. The apparent comment that you have to expedite something to enable their continued consideration of you sounds to me irrespondible or passive-aggressive. Sort of like asking your kid how they expect to pay for college... :)

@nick012000: yep already married :)

@paulgarrett: I should mention that this came up when discussing by how many years they would reduce the tenure-track duration. They would have preferred if I was on the full 6-years track, but since I already had some experience, they eventually agreed to reduce it to 3 years. Before doing so, they "warned" me about getting the green card on time, perhaps in hopes of scaring me into accepting the full 6 years... ;)

Have a look at this page. I’m totally not an expert on this subject, but as it seems to be illegal for US employers to discriminate against an employee based on their immigration status, I’m wondering how this university can legally condition the tenure on getting permanent residency. You might want to consult a lawyer or ask about this on law.se (and/or ask the people who “warned” you - it’s possible they are mistaken).

It takes less than 2 years in average to get a green card. If the University does not help, you should hire a lawyer. It takes several thousands dollars to do that, but this is money well spent. But most Universities have immigration lawyers and they help.

Do you have any reference to support the “less than 2 years on average” claim? It may be correct, but I don’t think OP or other people should take your word for it. Also, OP asked about a specific route to obtaining a green card (EB-1B), so this statistic, even if correct, may not be indicative of that particular situation.

@DanRomik: I have been in the country for 30 years and I know the situation. The EB-1B status takes a few months, the rest is less than 1 year. This is the standard path.  There are horrible exceptions, though, but for Europeans, I do not know  those.

At my institution (the University of California), I believe that one can still go through the process of being judged for tenure and what happens is that if one does not have permanent residency at the time of promotion they are instead put on as an "Acting Associate Professor" for a two-year period. They would then become a tenured "Associate Professor" at the end of that time, assuming the greencard has come through.
It's worth checking whether your university has a similar policy, as that would seem to solve your main problem.
Your university may have an immigration lawyer who will work with you to file everything. If not, be sure to hire one. It's a complicated process but can be quite smooth with competent lawyers.


text:
How do you approach being on the fence between research and industry at the end of your PhD?
I've got a little less than a year left in my PhD and I intend to search for a job this fall/winter. The question is to where should I direct my efforts -- academia/research or industry? At the very least, I've narrowed it down to either a US national lab postdoc or an industry job. My field is condensed matter physics but I want to get into quantum hardware. I just don't know if I can get an industry job there without some postdoc experience.
Pros and cons of the national lab postdoc:

Pros

Extra time to tailor and adjust my career path
Temporary 2 year segment
Opportunity to move into a staff scientist position
Independent study experience in quantum hardware that would bolster my resume
I'd be a shoe-in with my existing collaboration

Cons

Feeling stuck in a different form of the academia rat race
Temporary 2 year segment
Lower pay with potentially longer hours
Sometimes frustrating work with no end in sight

Pros and cons of an industry job:

Pros

Higher pay, better working hours?
More living location choices
No need to worry about funding a project

Cons

Less independence
Feels like a bigger job commitment than a postdoc
I don't have a good network of people in industry
Challenging to find something I'm qualified for while still intellectually stimulating

I'm sure I have incorrect assumptions about some of these. What is a mindful way to approach the next step after a PhD if you're on the fence like I am, and how can I make the right choice?

Unclear on how different the salary would be - national labs pay much better than university postdocs. Hours will be similar. All have funding considerations.

The decision you ultimately make probably depends not only on the general job characteristics which you have listed, but also the specific characteristics of any job offers you receive. In other words, if the only postdoc offer you receive is in a location you don't like, you may prefer to work in industry.
My advice is to apply for both types of jobs, and then evaluate or compare the actual job offers that you receive. If you only receive postdoc offers, then that may be the default choice. If you have both industry and postdoc offers, you can decide between them based on the specifics of salary, location, and what you would be working on.

Should I be transparent about vacillating between the two in interviews?

There's no need to, and it would probably not help you. Every hiring committee assumes that interviewees are interviewing elsewhere. Hiring committees also want to hire someone who will take the job, and stating that you are vacillating is also stating that you're not sure whether you want the job you're interviewing for.

That's why I thought it might make me a better candidate if I just picked one or the other. Makes sense not to draw attention to it if it turns out I'm applying to both.

Your decision depends on your own values, talent, and temperament. Industry probably does pay higher. The stress can be off the charts when layoffs come and you've settled into a community, so there's that. But you're right about not having to hunt for funding in the same way as you do in academic research. An advantage many people in industry find is that, perhaps unexpectedly, there can be pretty diverse opportunities. You might discover in a few years that you're well-suited to running a group of junior scientists.
Everything changes. Neither academia nor industry are the same as when some of us started all those years ago. It'll be the same for you.

You make another good point about diverse opportunities. I do enjoy the capability to change up my work and responsibilities from time to time.

Best of luck! With an environment of diversity comes, potentially, opportunities to discover and develop those sides of yourself you really can’t afford to in your early career.


text:
What is your advice on reaching out to an external mentor to judge a research idea I am working on?
I am working on a research idea and my advisor is not helping much, he is leaving me on my own. I thought a conversation with someone knowledgeable in the field would be good or even a collaboration. As an international master's student, how do I approach external professors that don't know me in such a case but, without much awkwardness or me looking needy?
I thought of the following:

Introducing myself.
Tell them I am doing research on topic X for ex "optimization" and I have an idea that I am working on and would love to hear about others' perspectives on it.
Ask if they know someone who I can reach out to who might be interested in discussing this idea.
Thank them.

What do you think? and what are the things that I should never put in an email to them?

It's not the question you asked, but here goes anyway. If you can't talk to your advisor about this, then you have another problem. See if you can solve that problem.

If the idea is good, the person you sent it to may work on it, and publish it first.    This has happened many times.  Search other questions on this forum.

Put yourself in the shoes of the person that you are writing to. Because you selected someone important, X (the person that you selected) will be busy and receive a certain number of emails. Each email takes out a certain amount of time from X's schedule. Some of these emails are from people that want something such as a way to study under X, even though a close reading will show that they actually do not know what X is interested in. Some of these emails will ask for help in reviewing, ... X will probably have given up trying to answer all of these emails and will only have a single glance at the email.
You are a stranger to X, so if you write a long nice email, it is still quite possible that X will not even answer you because X has not read your email. You are also asking a lot. X has Ph.D. students on their own and X might be struggling to find time for them. Trying to think about somebody else to mentor you is also difficult, as X does not want to impose on their academic friends.
It is much better to set up a connection through some mutual acquaintance.
See, your real problem is that you do not feel helped by your advisor and you do not seem to think that you could ask your advisor to find you someone to discuss your idea. But you presumably take classes or attend lectures at your institution. If you approach someone personally, they are more likely to at least listen to your request. Someone else on the faculty might have a connection to X and if your email comes with a recommendation of someone else, then your email will have passed through the initial screening.
If you have to use email, the best strategy to get your email even read is to have the other person emotionally involved. If X has written on your topic and your idea plays off on of X's papers, then you can use this as a starting point: "I read your paper and I am wondering whether this idea of mine would not expand on your idea". This makes it clear that there is something in it for X.
**TLTR:**In short, you need to get X's attention and you need to make any type of mentoring worth-while for X. Email is going to be a difficult medium. But your real problem is your relationship with your advisor, and that is your problem and not X's problem.

Unfortunately, the advisor is the best person to connect you with someone else; someone in their circle of collaboration. This might be possible as long as the advisor isn't hostile.

Let me add a bit to the answer of Thomas Schwarz. First, I'll repeat the comment that your advisor is the best person to connect you with someone else, assuming you think it is wise to ask.
If that is impossible, perhaps there is another faculty member you trust who can either help or can put you in touch with one of their contacts. An email from a professor won't be ignored where one from a student might be.
But, and thinking of other questions you've asked here, this is one of the reasons you want to go to conferences as a young scholar. There will be people there who can likely help you and might be willing. Even your poster session is a good place to grab people who seem especially interested in your poster and ask if they have a few moments for some back-and-forth over coffee or whatever.
Or, go to a talk by someone close to your academic specialty and stay afterwards for a chat. Ask for advice. Ask for permission to contact them after the conference ends.
But as the linked answer suggests, blind emails are too easily ignored.
Long term, build yourself a circle of collaborators. A good start is to get yourself connected to that of your advisor. You don't have to plan to write papers with everyone in your circle, but you want a bunch of people you can talk to.


text:
Virtual conference speaker made it awkward due to the small number of attendees. Should I (the organizer) send them an email apologizing?
Organized a virtual conference and invited lots of top-tier speakers. The number of registrants was around 115, and the event got lots of attention on social media. The strange thing is that the average number of those who showed up per session was 10 sometimes 6. The speakers were disappointed and it was really awkward. They gave the lectures/talks half-heartedly and I got the impression that everyone thought that they are the only ones who got the lowest number of attendees compared to others.
Now as an organizer. Should I express that to them? and how?

Was registration free? Were the sessions in parallel?

Free. Not in parallel. Spread over 3 days.

Given that it was free and that it was virtual, a lot of registrants might not have really been committed to attending, so having only a small fraction of them show up does not seem very strange (but this is not an answer to your question).

Sadly, many people register for conferences simply so that they can put it on their resumes and do not attend any talks.

Yes, send an apology and revise your conference process accordingly
Firstly, thank-you for your hard work in organising an academic conference.  Academics appreciate the hard work done by staff in setting up these events, even if they don't go as planned.  The fact that you have worked hard to arrange a conference, arrange invitations for speakers, etc., reflects very well on you, so you needn't worry about being perceived negatively.
Now to the substance of your question.  Having low numbers of attendees to talks is an inefficient use of time and academic resources.  Consequently, you should consider revising your process in the conference to try to avoid this result in future.  It sounds like you have a good number of overall registrants to your conference, and I also note from your comments that you did not hold sessions in parallel.  This suggests that you had low engagement per session, which is common for virtual conferences, particularly when registration is free.  Nevertheless, it might still indicate that the conference was too long or that there were insufficient opportunities for audience discussion/socialising between sessions.  Try to get some information on engagement levels from other virtual conferences and see if there is anything you could be doing better to increase engagement.
The fact that you did not hold sessions in parallel means that each speaker had a full timeslot, without any competition from other speakers, so I think that demonstrates that you were respectful of the value of their time.  (Had you held parallel sessions and got this result then that would be much worse!)  Nevertheless, it is worth emailing the speakers with an apology, as you propose.  Let them know that you are disappointed with the low attendance at the individual talks, that this was a surprise to you given the solid number of registrants, and that you are going to review your process for the conference in future to try to increase engagement.  The speakers will probably feel a bit disappointed that they put in a lot of work to prepare a talk and had so few people listen to their talk, and finding out that you share that disappointment (and are looking into ways to fix it) will give them some confidence that this is not the norm.  If the speakers do not receive anything from you about the issue then they will assume that this is normal for the events you organise, and that you are comfortable having talks with so few attendees, which will make them less inclined to speak at your conferences in future.

It is very awkward, I hope this doesn't reflect badly on me. I really worked so hard and was not expecting this at all.

I don't think it reflects badly on you.  You gave each speaker a full slot, so that is fine.  We are all aware of how hard conference organisers work to get things up and running, so I doubt anyone will be too harsh on this outcome.

In fact, I would say that organising a conference reflects very well on you, even if it doesn't go as planned.  If you were to follow up with an apology for the low attendance, it will reflect even better on you.  In any case, thank-you for all your hard work putting together an academic conference.  I have updated my answer to reflect the good work you have done.


text:
My poster didn't win the "best poster award", is it desperate to ask the committee about an evaluation of my poster quality?
My poster didn't win the "best poster award" at a top conference in mathematics, is it desperate/impolite to ask the committee about an evaluation of my poster's quality?
I don't want to seem needy but, I want feedback so as to know what to improve.

Certainly don't ask all of the committee members. Maybe you can get some ideas by comparing your poster to the one that won.

You probably already know this, but just to make sure: If you ask for feedback and someone is generous enough to give it to you, accept everything they say at face value and thank them, but do not, under any circumstances, defend you poster or start to argue about the things they say. (Asking for clarification is fine, though, if used sparingly.)

Bear in mind that many times the judges won't even remember your poster at this point! There was probably some scoring sheet and someone might still have some numbers... but I would expect that very limited feedback can be given after some time has passed. I'd expect you're better off asking someone else for feedback at this point.

I think the question would come across as a lot needy if you were interested in feedback independently of the goal of "winning the best poster award". It would be rare for a conference to hand out 50 best poster awards even if, by some objective measure, all 50 posters are equally "good". That would somewhat undermine the point of a "best X award", a part of which is not so much the pure evaluation, but rather some "gamification" of the venue. With that said, which poster is considered "best" can also boil down to factors you have little control over - maybe your research topic is just not ...

... the "one hot topic" that everyone (or at least the poster session organizers) are all excited about this year. Or maybe your particular research has produced exactly four or exactly eight key points, while the "perfect poster" (including thoughts about layout and presentation) would need six key points.

At some conferences all posters are evaluated and all participants receive some feedback.
If you've received none it's likely that there is none to send you. You could politely ask the organizers if that's the case. Don't mention that yours didn't win.
You've now asked two questions about conference posters. I think you should prepare and submit them, as often as it fits your work and travel schedule, for the experience you gain creating them and the feedback you get from folks who meet you in front of your poster. Don't worry about prizes or formal responses.

No, it’s neither impolite nor desperate. In the eyes of any reasonable person I don’t think it will imply anything negative about you at all. There is a possibility however that the committee won’t have much feedback to give you, other than that your poster was simply not as impressive as that of the person who was given the best poster award.
If the committee members are in a charitable mood they might be willing to invest time to give you a detailed critique of your poster, but the point is that doing that takes a lot more time than just deciding whether your poster deserves the best poster award, so technically would fall outside of the scope of the committee role they took on themselves.
As another suggestion, you can of course also ask a trusted friend or mentor for this kind of feedback on your poster.

While you can certainly ask, I'd like to suggest a slightly different approach for the future:
When presenting the poster, ask people who are interested in your poster (or pass by) for suggestions how to improve/critique. Often, you'll anyways get suggestions on the subject matter when discussing the poster with a visitor, and you may easily get suggestions on the presentation side of things as well in this fashion.

In my experience, the committee members devote a substantial amount of time*  - but also are asked to judge/compare a large number of posters. Discussing a detailed critique with the poster author means yet increasing this amount of work, and it would be fair that not only you but all poster authors get such a critique if they ask.
Btw, sometimes poster judges are assigned a subset of posters, e.g. according to expertise, and then give scores from which the winning poster is determined - so a particular member you approach may not have evaluated your poster. However, I'd expect that they are able to do so - but then many other attendees would be able to as well. Hence the advise to talk to people who are interested in your poster or at least in the general topic.
*They have to evaluate all posters they are assigned to during the poster presentation time. In consequence, they may even skip/miss discussing posters they are interested in in detail with the author (e.g. since there are more posters to evaluate, or the interesting poster is not eligible and thus not part of the evaluation, or it is not in their share of posters to evaluate)
Being part of the poster committee is something I do as professional duty, but it is not a particularly enjoyable duty to me because it does cost me time that is particularly valuable to me: time that otherwise could go into discussing in depth a very few posters that I'm particularly interested in, or time that could go into talking in-person with colleagues (without poster) whom I meet only occasionally at such a conference.

You are missing the point for a best poster award. Most researches try to give a talk about their research, depending on the conference this comes with a publication in the conference's proceedings. If the research is of low general interest, does not match the conference topic, or describes the idea of ongoing research, it is degraded to a poster.
Having a poster can be thankless: You wait for people interested in you poster, but you pay the full conference fee and traveling costs. The best poster awards upvalue the poster session, as at least the members of the best poster award committee will check for your poster - and it might actually motivate a couple of poster presenters to create a good poster.
I think you should not concentrate on improving your poster skills too much. In a not too distant future you will write papers and give conference talks which require different skills. (posters train you to formulate your research question, preparing nice graphs, that remain undoubtedly useful)
Try to max the outcome of a poster session for your research: You might get tips for related papers or where other people struggled in the past with similar approaches.
This might depend on the field.

I disagree that the OP has "missed the point" about the best poster award, perhaps instead you have? A best poster award can be a notable item on a budding researcher's CV and some folks really chase it aggressively. Awards on CVs can have some modicum of impact on where one actually ends up in the "not too distant future" and winning is just plain fun for some folks.

Not universally true, in some areas and conferences, poster sessions are a dedicated track to which one can make dedicated submissions.  These cases are also more likely to be the ones that have "best poster awards".


text:
Are PhD studies in molecular science possible following revoked RN license due to drug use (fired, but no criminal charges)
I have a former nursing student who "gave up" his RN license due to drug use (not being sober).  He has been sober for 20 months, but can't get his license for another 2 years of proven sobriety.
This young man is an actual genius, was accepted to medical school and invited to apply by several medical schools due to his 98 percentile MCAT...when he told them about his RN license, medical school admission was retracted.
He could get his PhD in Molecular Science (human metabolic studies), but he believes he would not be accepted anywhere due to his past big mistake due to background checks and he is honest (transparent about his mistake).

If this former student was in a patient care position when he "gave up" his license, I can't imagine any reputable institution taking him on in a situation where he might again be responsible for patient care.

What country?  Attitudes vary from "don't care" to "execution."

@BobBrown Patient care is often irrelevant to "molecular science."

@AnonymousPhysicist True, but also potentially relevant... depending...

Yes, can you clarify what is meant by "human metabolic studies"? There's a huge difference between chemical or statistical analysis vs. positions where you have to interact with human subjects. There's also the question of motivation -- does the student "really" want to be a doctor/nurse, or a researcher?

I have no domain-specific expertise here, so take this answer with a grain of salt. But broadly speaking, having been fired from one’s job at some point in your life is not an obstacle to getting into a STEM graduate program in the US (and I’m sure most countries). I’m not aware that it’s even required to report such things in your application anywhere. And I’m not aware that PhD programs do background checks on their applicants. No program that I am familiar with does.
So yes, a job in health care involving care of patients may be more problematic, but at least a science PhD seems well within the realm of possibility.

I'm sure it will come up unless you mean to lie. It's a rather unusual change and I can't see the interviewer not asking why they left their previous field.


text:
How do I diplomatically tell my collaborators that I've accepted a different postdoc position?
I wrote a 20+ page postdoc grant last year and was rejected, but decided to revise and re-apply with the same collaborators. I am probably days away from it being ready to re-submit, with slightly better odds this time around. In total it's gone through maybe 4-5 months of work with multiple drafts making the rounds among myself, the PI, and 2 other collaborators. However, I just got a postdoc offer that is too good to turn down (funded position at the perfect balance between learning new skills in a new system while flowing naturally from my PhD work). I know I will accept this new offer, so how do I contact my collaborators on the grant we were writing to turn them down? The timing is awkward as hell. Should I just submit it (since it's nearly ready) and then once the new offer is finalized (signed contracts, etc) tell them? Or, tell them now and propose that we sit on the proposal for 2-3 years to submit around when the first postdoc ends? I don't want to burn any bridges as the grant collaborators are also important names in the field and I'd like to keep future collaboration possibilities open.

Just to be clear, did you ever tell these collaborators that you were applying for other positions? Of course they should understand your desire to move on to a post-doc.

A postdoc by very nature of the position is someone who will move on. Any reasonable collaborators will understand. Any chance to rewrite your role in the grant as more generic, so that you can still co-submit a joint grant and hire a 3rd person?

I had the same thought as @Roland. If you manage to get the proposal accepted as a PhD student grant, you will get additional manpower for the project, everybody gets a PhD student to co-supervise, and it's a total win-win situation.

You haven't got a postdoc offer yet and won't have one until you receive a contract.

I certainly wouldn't recommend sitting on the project for a number of years. Science moves on and so do the participants.
But, even if you have to take a different, lesser, role, you can probably move forward with the project.
I don't know if  you need a "diplomatic" response, just an honest one. If you can stay connected with the project, if even as the "idea" person, it should be fine. But you will need to make a commitment that you will do "something" for the project even though you will be busy with the new duties. Collaboration with people from different institutions is normally a good thing.

The most diplomatic approach I see would be to tell your current collaborators that you are taking another position, but that they should feel free to move forward on the grant on their own, either by finding a new postdoc to fund with the proposal, or to morph the grant into something where one of them acts as PI, so their effort in helping you polish/shape the grant isn't lost.
Of course they might be willing to wait a few years for you to get around to working on the project with them again, but I doubt it. First, science moves on and someone could beat you to the punch or the proposal may simply be less relevant in 2-3 years. Second, who knows whether you will come back to them in 2-3 years?
If the research you're proposing is still a match with your new lab, and you think a productive collaboration could be formed between the two locations with you acting as the bridge, that's another great option. However, it would require substantial commitment from both labs, and you would likely need to work a substantial amount of overtime to get everything off the ground in addition to making adequate progress on the project your new boss is hiring you to undertake. Whether that's worth it to you depends on your confidence in the project, your collaborators, and other situation-specific variables.
If you decide to go that route, I would discuss it first with your current collaborators. They are the ones with the most invested in the project at this point, and they're the ones who should get to decide where, when, and how to move forward with or without you. Since the proposal is privilged information, only take the proposal to your new boss if your current collaborators have all signed off.


text:
How to view similar articles from a Zotero collection?
Recently I moved from Mendeley to Zotero. In Mendeley I liked that once in a while they sent me article recommendations based on my library. I would like to know how I could manage to achieve something similar with my Zotero library / collection.
Similar questions:
Tool that suggests references based on a given bibliography, Export Zotero library into Google Scholar

I am fairly certain that Zotero does not have such a feature and has no plans to include it. Here is an older discussion on the topic: https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/71940/mendeley-suggestions.
However, if this feature is very useful to you, then I suggest the following workaround: use Zotero from here on as your reference manager, but keep Mendeley on the side (free no storage plan) for its recommendations service. The key to this solution is enabling Zotero integration from within Mendeley. I hope this option is still active, but here are the instructions on how to activate it: https://sites.google.com/a/mendeley.com/mendeley-training/home/learn/organize/switching-from/zotero

Open up Mendeley Desktop and go to Tools > Options (or Mendeley Desktop > Preferences if you're on a Mac)
Select the Zotero / CiteULike tab. From here, just enable the checkbox for Zotero integration.
Mendeley Desktop will attempt to automatically locate your Zotero database. You can choose to use an alternate Zotero database if
desired.
Once you've clicked Apply, all of your existing documents from Zotero
will be imported into Mendeley Desktop, and any future items you add
to Zotero should find their way into Mendeley Desktop automatically.

So, once you have set this up, you should be able to use Zotero as normal, and then your Mendeley account should still keep on sending you recommendations as before.
By the way, I am a long-time Zotero user. I have tried Mendeley, but have never found any compelling reason to switch. Since I do not have Mendeley installed to test the solution I proposed, please confirm in a comment if it works for you.

Nice work around! Though I'm having some problems to automatically synchronize my Zotero library to Mendeley. Instead, because I have in Zotero the files attached as links in a folder, I will import the files in Mendeley with the option of Watched folder.


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Should I find my advisor for letter of recommendation if I obtained a low grade in thesis?
I am a master student in Germany. My thesis obtain 3.0 in German grade, which is a low grade I think. My original plan is to find my advisor to write the letter of recommendation for my application to PhD. But will my advisor recommend me, or write something bad in the letter? Should I find my advisor for the letter?

We cannot know what your advisor might write in such a letter, only they themselves can. Why not talk to them about it?

In most subjects, a 3.0 is a very low grade. Admitting someone with a 3.0 in their MSc dissertation to a PhD is something I'd only consider in rare circumstances (I'm doing PhD admissions in CS at a UK university). The expected way for me to learn about these special circumstances is through the reference letters.
Thus, most likely it doesn't matter anyway. If your bad performance in the dissertation was due to matters beyond your control, a well-crafted letter by your advisor might give you a chance. If the problem was in the person of your advisor, you'd need a well-established academic who knows your advisor well-enough (but doesnt like them) to explain this.

In your understanding, what is the 3.0 out of?

@YemonChoi It's not really "out of" anything. The grades in Germany range from a 4 (barely passing) to a 1 (excellent). Individual grades often can take also .3 and .7 intermediate values. Final grades are weighted averages of the individual grades, hence anything in 0.1 increments between 4.0 and 1.0 is possible.


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Should I mention results that have not been peer-reviewed in my application?
I am a master student trying to pursue PhD in mathematics. I have submitted an article to some journal, the result is about something is true. Now I want to mention the result in my personal statement by stating something like "I am able to prove that X is true". One thing I worry that the result has not been peer-reviewed yet. Should I mention it?

You may have different mileage depending on the result you're referring to - claiming to have proven P=NP without any peer review, for example, will have you come off as a crackpot, while an incremental finding in a relatively unstudied problem might be more reasonable.

Have you shared a draft of your article with an advisor or someone else who is writing your letters?  What do they think?  Would a letter writer be able to confirm they believe your result?

@AlexanderWoo Unfortunately no, but I guess I will approach them once more

It is good to have a "Work in progress" section in the CV. That is the place for such things. I you are only at the beginning of a project, just give it a descriptive name like "Exploration of ..." and put it in such a section.
That might be enough unless you intend to follow up on it during study and then it can also be mentioned in the SoP as one of your goals.


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Withdraw a manuscript then submit a revised version
I wrote a manuscript and submitted it to a journal. One day I realize there is a critical mistake in the manuscript, so I revised my manuscript. Now I don't know if I can submit a revised manuscript to the journal, so I decided to withdraw my current manuscript and submit the revised manuscript to the same journal, is it appropriate to do this?

Yes it's appropriate, and it's better to get this done ASAP (especially before they invite reviewers).
A good editorial management system should flag your manuscript as a duplicate, so the journal staff will be paying attention, but you could add in your cover letter that you've corrected a critical mistake.


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Can the editor be the referee at the same time?
According to what I know, the standard procedure of reviewing an article is the editor to skim the article first, then find the referee(s), then the referees review the article, write the report, and the editor decides to accept the article or not.
I am curious, can the editor themselves be the referee at the same time? What are the reasons if such thing happens? Or it never happens?

Definitely.  In the worst case, I've had an editor pretend to be a referee and ask me to cite his papers.  This is a big name (prolific) professor -- one has to wonder how he became 'big'.

As an editor who’s been asked to do this, I posted a comment on that earlier thread.


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Should I mention unfinished master work in my CV in order to show I have research experience?
I am going to apply a mathematics PhD in US or Canada. I am doing a master right now and I have quit a master degree before, which was a research-based degree in theoretical physics. In my CV or resume, should I include my unfinished master degree in order to show I have related research experience? I don't know if research experience in different field also count. One drawback I can think of is committee may think that I don't have the ability to finish my work.

Generally speaking it is best to show everything. You need to account for the time spent on the earlier MS. You may have a perfectly good reason for quitting, which you can give if asked.
If you failed out of the earlier one or were terminated it makes it harder to explain, but your new major, especially if pure math is sufficiently different from physics that it is, otherwise, unlikely to hurt.
But having a gap that can't be explained raises questions also, that might hurt.
Your letters of recommendation and your statement of purpose will need to be strong enough to convince readers of your seriousness, as is true of all candidates.


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How many different(but overlapping) master degree can one have?
Take an example, if I have a master in mathematical physics, can I have master of physics or master in mathematics?
To make the the question more applicable to other, the question is, how many different master one could have, with the contents of the degree highly overlapping?
(Another example is master in information engineering and master of information science, etc)

But why? _____

The average American lives for 72ish years.  The average masters degree takes about 2 years to complete.  If you start earning masters degree at a rate of one ever two years, starting at age 22 (the typical age of completion for a bachelors degree, assuming that one completes high school at age 18 and takes 4 years on a bachelors degree), then one could earn about 25 masters degrees.

There are no regulations preventing you from having as many as you like. But admissions committees will use the fact that you have a related degree and possibly downgrade the application so that the slot can be given to someone else. That isn't guaranteed, of course.
But at a certain point one wonders why you would want to do this. Lifelong perpetual students aren't looked at especially favorably. Especially when institutions are government funded to some extent.
And, if you want to continue your education, why not consider a doctorate in a related field instead. There is little benefit (some) if your CV shows multiple masters.
An exception might be if you were interested in industry and one of the masters program was very narrow and applied to the industry sector you want to work in.

Let me add that many master programms do (have to) admit everybody with a relvant bachelor degree without any committee.


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Can acing the upper level course compensate background of no basic course in graduate application
I am an international master student in Germany who wants to apply graduate schools in US or Canada. I have an unconventional background, I want to study mathematics but I don't have courses of basic analysis and abstract algebra. Due to language problem, I can't take the course in my university. Now if I get good grades in upper lever (graduate) mathematics courses, can it compensate that I don't have basic courses?
Would it be a big disadvantage in Phd application?

Are you planning to take the mathematics subject GRE?

Do you satisfy the entry requirements of the graduate schools to which you want to apply?

@mmeent Yes, this is required for most school

@user2768 Some of them do not state explicitly the background requirement,some of them said it is not ideal.

@Ken.Wong Doesn't that give you an answer?

@user2768 So you mean some school rejected me already, but does this hold for other school,which I (seem to) satisfy their entry requirement?

@Ken.Wong No. As you've said: Some [schools] said it is not ideal [to not have courses of basic analysis and abstract algebra]. You have your answer: It isn't ideal.

It would look slightly odd, but good grades in advanced courses would generally be seen as sufficient to show that you understand the material. In the end, graduate admission committees aren't so much interested in knowing how you acquired necessary background knowledge than knowing that you have it. How that is demonstrated is secondary, and acing upper level courses is certainly one acceptable way to do so.


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Should I reserve some results before my PhD
I am a mastering student. I want to pursue PhD and I have already submitted 3 articles to journals. Now I have some results about something. Should I wait until my PhD to publish?
Here is the pros. If my project get completely stuck, I can at least (try to) convince my advisor working on my already finished project, which I already have the results. Also, if unlucky I have no publication in my PhD, I can publish the reserved works to increase my chances to get a postdoc. Also, publish right now does not really increase my chance of getting PhD-It take long time for peer review,and the application deadline are closed. Also if I am correct, the importance of first three publication will make me a "star" already, so I don't have to publish now. Furthermore, unlike research ideas, the result itself won't get better over time.
The cons, of course, is that someone already obtained the same results and published it. And I can't think of any.
So, the question is, what is the cons for my situation? and should I publish it now?

This depends, at least somewhat, on how "hot" your field is and how likely it is that others are working on the same question(s) or are likely to in the next couple of years. The downside is that you could get scooped if you hold back. Or worse, someone publishes something that actually independently extends what you have done, subsuming it.
In some obscure areas of math and those that aren't being aggressively pursued this is less likely. My own original field was like that.
If you have good results, I'd suggest publishing them, especially if it something that can potentially be pursued and extended later. Again, in math, it is possible to make some changes in definitions (defining new ideas) and developing work in that new context.
It is good to finish your doctorate with a notebook full of problem ideas that you might be able to work on in the future so that you don't need to "start over" from scratch with research problems. And also good to have a good CV so that you get the opportunity to pursue them.
The job market in academia, if that is your goal, is pretty difficult at the moment. Having a deep CV is a big asset.


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Is it appropriate to upload student's project to social media?
At my university, there is a lecturer who uploaded a student's final year project to his own social media account and criticized that student's English level. I am wondering, is it appropriate for that lecturer to do that? Should that lecturer be punished?

Was the student identified?

I think so, this happened long ago.

Probably too late for punishment, then. Are you interested in a general answer?

@Buffy Yes, I would like a general answer.

What jurisdiction is this in? In my country, this may be a violation of law if the student did not provide consent for their work to be made public.

It is not appropriate, I would think if there were a complaint to the university, if he still worked there it would be pursued.  A submitted assignment belongs to the university and he would not have had authorisation from the university to share it like this. As others said, jurisdiction effects the law as well.

@shoover It happened in Hong Kong. I am not sure if students own the right of their works.

Student work can, ethically, if suitably anonymized, be used for some purposes. But I worry about using social media. If the purpose were to somehow embarrass the student it would clearly be wrong and, hopefully, subject to sanction.
But, excerpts from student work can be used (anonymized) with an educational purpose to instruct others, students or other instructors.
It is difficult to think of social media, unless in closed/private groups, as being an appropriate venue for this, however. An investigation might be needed to determine if ethical boundaries were breached.
And, it is more than an issue of etiquette, but one of ethics. Criticism of student work should be shared with that student only unless precautions are taken to protect their privacy and reputation.

I agree with your answer and gave you a thumbs-up.  Who owns the copyright to student assignment work? Say a student submits an essay. Is there a copyright problem in addition to the concerns identified here? I tend to stretch in the direction of protecting copyright.

@BillOnne, I doubt that has been settled sufficiently. Creative works are (most places) automatically covered by copyright. So, the question is whether student assignments are creative. But it is a consideration. I think there are issues when work is done under the direction of another.


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Bad grade in thesis, a paper submitted, can this help?
I am a master student, wish to apply pure math PhD. I receive a bad grade in my thesis. My undergrad major is not the field I want to apply. The only thing I got is I have a submitted paper in mathematics(being the only author). Can this help my application? If the paper are published, do I still got chance to get any PhD offer?

Applying to a pure math Ph.D. program with a different undergrad major is fine.  But it will be better if your undergrad studies include the important undergrad math courses.  (Abstract algebra, real analysis, linear algebra ...)

Yes, it will help as it is a positive indicator of research interest and success.
But it is impossible to say whether you have a chance or not. Only by going through the application process can you learn that.
Some places can be pretty sophisticated about interpreting "bad" grades for the thesis. If top marks are rare at your institution, that may be known.
If you apply, make a broad search for a position. Don't choose only high or only low ranked institutions. In the US your application will be judged by a committee. Other places by a professor that you need to communicate with. In the US, the undergraduate degree can be in a different field.
There are lots of variables, but if you don't apply, you don't get accepted.


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Do professors in pure mathematics hire non-PhD research assistant?
I believe in some fields like physics or other experimental science, hiring a student without PhD degree as a research assistant is common. In pure mathematics, do professors have the need to hire non-PhD students as their research assistants?

Pure maths departments hire teaching assistants and depending on the university these may or may not be PhD-students. They help with teaching or grading of classes though, there is no research involved in these positions.

Could you please clarify if you mean "research assistants who are students that have not yet received a PhD" or "research assistants who are not on a path to receive a PhD"? The phrase "non-PhD" is unfortunately a bit ambiguous.

@RLH I mean the latter. More precisely, I mean a position that is involving a research job, but not a PhD position, nor required the applicant to hold a Doctor degree.

In pure Mathematics, there is less need for research assistants. The typical jobs of an RA such as conducting experiments, wrangling data sets, doing literary search, are not there. Research in pure Mathematics tends to be very specialized. In some research areas like algebraic number theory or algebraic geometry, you can spend years just to get to the current margin of research. A professor in those areas needs to groom students in order to work with them. There are some exceptions, such as graph theory or combinatorics, where it is in general easier to understand a research question. I got my Ph.D. in non-associative algebra and I would never have been able to use a non-Ph.D. research assistant. Maybe if I would have been interested in working in computer algebra, I could have used a non-Ph.D. research assistant.
Also, funding in pure Mathematics is very restricted. NSF grants in pure Mathematics tend to not contain funding for research assistants that are NOT Ph.D. candidates, but this is the case for other disciplines as well. Undergraduate research is a different subject. A professor in pure Mathematics will have to think of something that undergraduates actually can do, and it would typically not be in their main line of work.
TLTR: My experience suggests that there is no need for research assistants in pure Mathematics.

Even coming from an area of math that borders the applied, I think the only part of my research work that does not either require a PhD or would normally grant you one once you've done it for a while, would be typesetting and the more basic parts of proofreading. And while I would sometimes love to outsource a bit of that, this would be less of a research assistant's and more of a secretarial job and there is never really any additional funding for those.

In pure mathematics, student employees don't usually "help" their advisors do the adviser's research. They generally do their own but on a topic of interest to the advisor, perhaps extending their work. Applied math is potentially different.
But RA isn't a globally defined term. A university, even an undergraduate university could use it as a title for an arrangement in which the student does some research and gets some stipend. Thus it is a term for a certain kind of funding that has few external duties beyond research.
So, in that sense, a student other than a PhD student might get such an award. But not in every institution. And, the funding might be entirely internal to a department. Perhaps a really good student has a really severe financial constraint (poor as dirt). A department might be able to do some things while giving a student opportunities. Rare, but possible. And it would probably be the department that "hired" the student (gave the grant), not a professor.


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I have some (possibly) original results and advisor cannot help, how should I proceed?
I am a master student in mathematics. I developed a new notion and did calculations for some examples. I believe it is original because I can't find it in literature. Now I want to publish my results, but I don't know if they are publishable or not. I have already asked my advisor but he said he doesn't have the ability to supervise me in that field. Should I just find an expert to talk with? The question is I don't have relations between any experts and me. Because of pandemic, it is also not a good idea to find them personally, so the only remaining idea will be cold email them. But it does not seems a good idea as well, so what should I do?

You posted this question four years ago. I'm curious: what did you do, to what effect?

Cold emails are very common in this situation, and not at all a bad idea. Indeed, I know of many cold emails that have turned into coauthored papers.

Adding to the answer from @user3482749 .
Be careful and professional in the (cold) email. Try to state what you found clearly early on. If you can refer to a paper written by the recipient, do. Many cold emails are of the "I solved the Collatz conjecture" variety and quickly end up in the trash. You don't want yours to be prematurely assigned to that category.
I have tossed many cold emails from cranks. But one led to a joint paper.