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Look for a second advisor while on the first, any advice?
Due to incompatibility with my current advisor, I am currently looking for other advisor on his back. Any advice? I am so scared that what if he discovers that I'm looking around. Now I have tried to set up new email account so I can deny everything if things get ugly. Any people have the same experience, can you share your trick with me please? It is pretty much a very dangerous covert mission.

Have you considered having a heart-to-heart talk with your adviser? If the relationship is not working for you, it's likely not working for your adviser either. Not all people are compatible with each other.

its all too late now as I have made the first "contact" through an email to another advisor today. I just want to know any trick I can be successful in this transition. Thx!

Are both of them in the same department? If not, do they know each other? What have you mentioned to the prospective advisor?

"It is pretty much a very dangerous covert mission.". No. it's something that happens all the time.

See, the problem you look for advisors in the same department is that they can know each other quite well so I wonder how difficult it can be to switch within the same department?

Now I have set up new email account so I can deny everything if things get ugly. That seems a bit over the top. You had a fallout with your advisor – you're not the first. There is potential for hard feelings to hinder your progress – it's time to accept that. I don't think you help yourself by being "covert". Will others be more likely to take you on if you're begging for secrecy and using clandestine email accounts? I don't think so. You want a trick? Try acting like a mature adult, accept that this may not be all your advisor's fault, and recognize you probably have some culpability.

Sure, I will invite my new advisor and current advisor to a dinner tomorrow.

@user10694 - Of course you don't go around campus with a bullhorn, and I understand the need to walk on eggshells. But sneaking around too much can backfire on you; it may hint that there is something more sinister than is really there. If I were a potential new advisor, I wouldn't be too keen on taking on a new student who was going through such drastic measures to keep everything hush, so he could lie about it later. I am so scared that what if he discovers that I'm looking around... He's going to find out eventually, right? When will you put on your big-boy pants and deal with it?

Now I have tried to set up new email account so I can deny everything if things get ugly. — Get out.  Get help.  No matter how bad things are with your current advisor, you will be far better off in the long run being open and honest.  Of course anyone you court as your new advisor is going to talk to your old advisor before they agree to work with you.  Your apparent paranoia is going to destroy any chances of a working relationship with anyone.  I sincerely recommend taking a leave of absence and seeking professional counseling.

It is impossible to openly talk to my advisor, he will deny everything you said like it's all in your mind.

I don't see anything dangerous or necessarily covert about looking for another advisor, and I'm puzzled by things like using a new e-mail account you can deny was yours.  (Are you planning to make contact under a fake name?  Pretend someone was impersonating you if your current advisor finds out?)
You don't need to be nearly so worried.  It's completely reasonable to switch advisors, and I know plenty of people who have done it without any trouble at all.  You don't owe your current advisor anything, and there are no good grounds for anyone to object.
Of course you could cause offense if you are tactless.  Don't tell your advisor "I'm switching because I'd prefer a competent advisor."  But there are plenty of reasonable excuses.  For example, you could say your interests are developing in ways that are a better fit for an advisor with a somewhat different specialization.
Fair or not, your advisor is probably not happy to be working with you either and may actually be relieved when you switch.  In comments on other questions you have expressed a fear that your advisor will badmouth you to other potential advisors.  That's possible, but you could also run into the opposite phenomenon: sometimes an advisor who is frustrated with a student will try to convince other faculty to take on the role of advisor, since then the student will be someone else's problem.  (The less cynical version is that the student may get along better with an advisor with a different personality.)
I'd recommend keeping two things in mind:

You seem very interested in criticizing your advisor.  Now is not a good time for that, whether it's addressed to your advisor or to a potential replacement.
You seem worried that you are doing something underhanded.  If you act nervous and suspicious, people may suspect you are up to no good.  Looking for a new advisor is not doing anything wrong, and you may get a better reaction if you treat it straightforwardly and calmly.

Thanks for your advice. Thinking about changing advisor has been on my mind for two years but I just don't have the guts to act on to it until now. I have asked around my friends, family and they just told me all kind of reason not do it. I realized that if I'm not doing it, I'm not learning anything from this lab (my advisor pretty much prevent me from working on any experiment) and I am just wasting my time here. I regret that I joined this lab and should really act on to it sooner.

Due to incompatibility with my current advisor, I am currently looking for other advisor on his back.

Did you mean "behind his back"? That's okay, people usually don't tell their advisor (or employer, in the business world) when they're looking for another one to switch to.

Any advice? I am so scared that what if he discovers that I'm looking around.

If he finds out and confronts you about it just tell him that you don't feel like you are able to contribute to the research that he does.

Now I have tried to set up new email account so I can deny everything if things get ugly. [...] It is pretty much a very dangerous covert mission.

Nope, that's just paranoid.

Any people have the same experience, can you share your trick with me please?

I switched, after a year with my first advisor. The work he was having me do didn't interest me at all, and to be honest, I wasn't doing it as well as I probably could (lack of motivation reduces work quality).
I simply asked about the department for who was looking for graduate students (like I did in the first year to find this advisor in the first place). I didn't tell my current advisor, but I also didn't take any paranoid measures like switching email accounts. I used my official university account for everything. After finding a new advisor, he contacted the old advisor, making sure everyone is good with the switching arrangement, I finished up my semester of work (up to the end of the contract of the funded project) with the old advisor, I had a meeting where I gave an overview of the work to the person who will take it over and answered some questions, and then I started working with the new advisor.
At the end, everyone was fine. I'm even collaborating with the old advisor a little on some research right now.

It is better to have a single supervisor than two. Because every time you show some work, there will be two advices and many revisions to your papers,thesis.
Unless you know the professors thoroughly, don't consider having two supervisors.

I think this is a much too simplistic answer to a complicated issue: getting twice as much advice and twice as much revisions sounds like a good thing rather than a bad thing, but there are drawbacks to have more than one advisor.  My first PhD student had a second advisor, and although it made things more complicated for him at times, I think that overall it worked out very well for him.  Anyway, I think the OP is contemplating switching advisors, not getting another one.

I agree with Pete regarding advantages, but only when 2 advisors are compatible with each other. Getting advise from both of them will be very helpful in research but this slows you down when their thinking angle diverges.


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Frustration in getting admission into PhD Computer Science, with background MSc Geospatial Science & BTech Computer Science
Am presently really frustrated in getting a supervisor and admission into PhD Computer Science in any University in Europe or US. I recently graduated with MSc Geospatial Science with distinction (cgpa 4.8/5) and I have Bachelors in Computer Science. Ever since I finished my masters have been seeking a PhD admission in computer science in any average schools in europe or US, but all to no avail. I have 3 research papers in top international journal, I even had a research proposal of likely topic relating to Mobile Computing & Mobile GIS, and i seriously think the frustration is weighing me down, please is there something am not doing right or there is any other method of getting a supervisor apart from contacting them through email.

Maybe you could describe in a few words how you have tried to get into PhD positions so far. What did your email contain?

The email contains information about my educational details, specialization and request to supervise my PhD research, and also my CV and likely research proposal.

Welcome to AC.SE. You have told us about yourself, but you haven't told us about how you have been identifying potential supervisors and contacting them. Given the information you have provided, I don't see how we can answer the question.

Apply for a PhD in GeoSciences instead.

So you want to choose your own PhD subject…. But universities will only have funding in place for subjects they have chosen…..

At all decent universities. Ph.D. admission is competitive. Apply following the official procedures to a dozen universities. Make sure your application file really is complete and on time at each. You will not be admitted based on contacting faculty informally.

This is true for US/Canadian/UK universities. PhD positions in continental Europe work very differently.

no this is not true for all US universities. While contacting a professor won't get you in, having a professor interested in you can help increase your chances if that professor informs the admissions committee to look out for your application. At some places this will help more than others.

source: Stack Exchange

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How to choose a generalist repository and what risks should I be aware of?
I am trying to choose between these different generalist repositories:

Zenodo
Open Science Framework
Figshare (or Dyrad??)
Harvard dataverse
General cloud services
...

Figshare has a nice comparison of them (
https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.751546.v1), but I was looking for some guidelines to help me to choose the best one that I might have ignored. For instance, many European Projects require to use Zenodo so maybe is better to get acquainted with it, however, Open Science Framework seems to offer a better way to organize the projects but it seems there is no doi to the files uploaded. Is there any guideline or anything I should be aware of before choosing to put my dataset in a generalist repository?
Content I would like to share
I would like to use a generalist repository because I would like to share all my outputs. This might consist of code, dataset but also figures, drawings and some times I share also some piece of hardware design (e.g. step files for 3D printing the adapters, sensor net, some PCB design).

You might want to specify what kind of content you would be using the repository for.

Consider what license you want to publish your outputs under.

@Anyon yes, and regarding this are there any differences between these generalists repository?

@GM Last time I checked Zenodo offered a wider range of licenses than Figshare, but if the one you want is covered it might not matter much. I don't know how your other options compare in this regard.

I haven't used any of these resources myself but hopefully the following points can help you in your decision:
This kind of repository and the open science trend in general are pretty recent. This is why it's a bit difficult to evaluate and compare the different options, there's not enough hindsight yet. This is also why, in my opinion, the main risk is that the platform you choose would become obsolete or disappear in the future. So to be safe you might want to choose a platform which allows you to export your stuff easily.
Another important point you should consider is the policy of your institution: the outcomes produced as part of your academic job can be subject to IP restrictions. So it might be a good idea to check with your local IP or legal office what kind of license they allow/recommend and whether there is any IP disclosure process in place.
It's also worth mentioning that there are a few more generic options for sharing outputs: for instance Github, Google Drive, and of course the good old personal webpage (most universities let you create one under their website).

Actually, I am using Google Drive and I wanted to put it in the list it has some feature that are missing the others, I'll edit the question now

You can find repositories that assign DOIs to datasets in the Repository Finder Tool.
You can filters those that actually meet the criteria of the Enabling FAIR Data.
edit: Full disclosure, I work at DataCite as a developer, and participated in the development of the repository finder.

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


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Which are the best journals for letters in mathematics (bordering with mathematical physics)?
Although in mathematics the letters, i.e., really short articles, just a few pages long, are perhaps less common than in the other fields (see e.g. the comments by Pete L. Clark under his answer to this question), sometimes such a letter really is the best way to communicate the result. It is also quite clear that for this very reason (that the letters are quite uncommon), such letters are not likely, save for some very exceptional situations, to be a good fit for the top pure math journals like the Annals, Inventiones, JAMS, etc.
Apparently in earlier times the best place for publishing letters in mathematics was the French journal Comptes Rendus. This journal still exists but I am not quite sure whether it is the place for letters in mathematics anymore.
Another option that comes to mind could perhaps be the math section of the PNAS but again I am not quite sure how this journal is actually standing with the pure math community, especially outside the US.
There should certainly be other worthy alternatives, so I look forward to the answers pointing them out as well as discussing the journals mentioned above.
QUESTION: What are the best (in terms of standing in the math community and being widely read by mathematicians) journals, or perhaps sections of mathematical or even multidisciplinary journals, for letters in mathematics nowadays?
P.S. I am specifically interested in the journals which would tolerate the papers which are on the border of mathematics and mathematical physics (just to clarify, this refers to the subject matter rather than, say, lacking in rigor). The Letters in Mathematical Physics and Nonlinearity appear to be a bit too niche, I would prefer more broad-scope alternatives.

P.P.S. This question is an outgrow of the discussion in comments to the Pete L. Clark's answer to
http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17050/acknowledging-the-discussion-with-someone-in-the-paper-but-excluding-this-person/17092

Why not just publish these on your blog+arXiv? Why is the journal necessary for short letters?

@Vahid: Quite the contrary: I hope that other experts in the field will make my doubts go away. It's also quite possible that there exists some community consensus on the math letter journals and I just happened to be unaware of it.

@Kallus: would you please care to expand why do you think this is the journal for letters in math?

Mathematical Research Letters is one option I have come across in my reading. A cursory look suggests it has a fair deal of mathematical physics.

@Kallus: thanks, will check them out again. However, listing any further alternatives (ideally with some comments on them) is still very welcome.

@Vahid: I have also asked some specific questions about PNAS and Comptes Rendus and I hope people will share their opinions on them.

In my experience, mathematicians tend to call such short articles "notes" rather than "letters".  Also, my impression is that Comptes Rendus, while it did publish some very short self-contained papers, was mostly intended for announcements of results for which complete proofs would later be published elsewhere.

@Nate: Thanks, this trend explains a lot :)  By the way, how about "communications"? Are they the same as letters or notes, or something in between the letters and the regular papers?

@Kallus: how would you compare MRL vs PNAS vs CR?

@just-learning: How would I compare them? I would browse some of their recent issues to get a feel for the kind of papers they publish.

@Kallus: Sorry, I wasn't clear enough. By "compare" I meant "compare in terms of their standing in math community" (or "compare in your eyes", if you like). But anyway I'll use your advice too, thanks.

@just-learning: I don't have a clear sense of what a "communication" would be.  We don't use this word much.  It may appear in some journal titles but I wouldn't have a clear sense of what such a journal expects without looking at its aims-and-scope and what they've published.

The sense in which I've seen "communication" in math journals is that some journals have, after the byline, a "communicated by X" line, which means that X was the handling editor.

@Nate and Pete: Thanks for the remarks on "communication".

There are a few cases of pairs of companion journals, whose main difference is the length of the papers.  For example, Proceedings of the AMS/Transactions of the AMS, or Electronic Journal of Probability/Electronic Communications in Probability.  As those two examples illustrate, there's no universal way of signaling in the journal name which is which.

As Pete L. Clark, I do not quite know what a letter is: short papers are usually quite similar to regular paper, only shorter and usually called notes.
Concerning the venue suitable for short articles, there are quite a few. First, you should now that most journal could accept short papers, but certainly you have more chance to get accepted in a journal specifically targeted toward short paper (except if you solve a known problem or reprove a notoriously difficult theorem, in which case no reviewer can use the length of the paper to argue it does not have much merit). Let me give my impressions on the journal that come to mind (to remind that this is from a biased perspective, I will often refer to the French mathematical community), limiting to journals that to not claim being restricted to a subfield -so called generalist journals.

CRAS (Comptes-Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences, Paris): this journal publishes both research announcements and complete short papers. The announcement part is less and less relevant, but I do not know whether it is less present now. Sadly, while CRAS published top-notch papers, it cannot afford to be very selective anymore. It also suffers from the research announcement role: French hiring committees often blankly dismiss CRAS papers, partially because they may be only announcements.
PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, USA): this journal is not very well-known from French mathematicians, but publishes some quite good papers. I think it has a particular taste, but I cannot find the word to describe it. Beware that even if it has a page limit, the format is very dense so articles are not necessarily that short overall.
PAMS (Proceedings of the American Mathematical society): this journal is explicitly for short papers, but the page limit recently moved from 10 to 15 (AMS format). As far as I can judge it is selective, and sometimes publishes excellent papers. It is reasonably well regarded, benefiting from the sisterhood of Transactions AMS.
Bul. LMS (Bulletin of the London Mathematical society): this journal is the LMS counterpart to PAMS, and is somewhat similar (although a little less known and considered, maybe). Since the LMS series has three journals (Bulletin, Journal and Proceedings in increasing order of paper size) instead of two for the AMS, I guess that the average Bulletin paper is somewhat shorter than the average PAMS paper, but the different format makes it difficult to judge.
AMM (American Mathematical Monthly): this journal is well-known and extremely selective. It publishes papers of general interest, of varying length. The notes are typically a few pages long. It is even possible to publish mathematical facts of a few lines, in a grayed box. Since it is considered somewhat recreational, publishing in the Monthly gives less weight to a CV than its harsh selectivity would do for any other journal.
Elemente Math. (Elemente der Mathematik): this is a Swiss cousin to AMM, much less known and much less selective.
MRL (Mathematical Research Letters): this does barely belong to the category of note-publishing journals: it does not usually published paper more than 30 pages, but the average paper there is not a note as far as I can judge.

Could you please at least hint a bit (perhaps in the comments) on the taste of PNAS? That's very intriguing as after looking at their math section I was not able to figure this taste out.

@just-learning: I do not know many PNAS papers, but I would expect PNAS to publish papers that could have been sent to Nature or Science, but would not because these journals are not very open to maths: papers with a link to other science, or some appeal to a wider audience. One example which makes me think that way (but I may be overweighting it) is http://www.pnas.org/content/109/19/7218.short

Thanks again. This rings very true to me as the appeal to a  broader audience is certainly characteristic of PNAS (I think it can be found in their Aims and Scope), and they do not shy away from the multidisciplinary papers too.

@Benoit: I did a little copyediting in your answer.  If that is unwelcome, please feel free to roll it back and let me know.

I think this is a good question because I don't really know what "letters" means in the world of mathematical publishing.  While I have a paper published in Math Research Letters, I am having trouble pointing to a single way in which that paper is different from any of my other papers: it is slightly short (12 pages) but I have several other papers which are shorter, it contains complete proofs, the syle is not especially conversational or different from the norm...
With regard to Comptes Rendus: it still exists, and it is still a very high quality journal, so far as I know.  I do not have a CR paper, and I wish I did, but setting aside the limitations of my own research achievements I am not sure exactly what papers to submit to this excellent and highly French journal.  My understanding though is that it is roughly analogous to Proceedings of the AMS but of higher quality (or better taste?).  For instance I have a PAMS paper and think that would be in the right ballpark of CR but that I would be lucky to get it published there.
It was suggested in the comments that the publications in CR are more like research announcements.  I don't think that's true.  They're short, punchy and written in a somewhat telegraphic style, but they certainly do include proofs.  Quite recently I had the occasion to go to the actual library and pull off the shelf a CR paper.  It was lovely, and short enough so that I transcribed (and translated, but big whoop: mathematical French is so easy that I can do it) it in its entirety on my notepad.  (If you're interested, it is Guy Terjanian's first paper, referred to here...and as I learned slightly to my chagrin, one could regard the research contribution of this note of mine as being a fleshing out of a mild Alon-style generalization of Terjanian's argument.  Actually there is another theorem he proves in that paper as well which is more interesting.  To me this is a CR paper par excellence: a small but perfectly polished gem.)
I also think that Enseignement Mathematique is somewhere in this constellation of journals: more apparently elementary than CR, less laconic, but still high quality work which is somehow in "good taste".   And note that the title of the journal would lead you to think that it publishes expository papers, but I don't think that's really the case.
After all this, let me come back to where I started:I am not sure what a "letter" is in this context, other than a short paper which is high quality and is written in a relatively laconic way.  I have, unfortunately, zero expertise with physics, including the substantial portions of mathematics that overlap with physics.  Maybe the concept of a letter is better understood by that portion of the mathematical community?
Added at the end: okay, let's see how MRL describes itself:

Dedicated to rapid publication of complete papers of original research in all areas of mathematics. Expository papers and research announcements of exceptional interest are also occasionally published. High standards are applied in evaluating submissions; the entire editorial board must approve the acceptance of any paper.

Thus there is some kind of vestigial connection with abbreviated papers, expository work and research announcements, but by and large it is no longer what that journal is about.  I think this is rather typical.
Added: Since I was specifically asked to comment on PNAS, and I am a little gun-shy about leaving things in comments at the moment (see the meta site for more on this...), I will add the following non-answer answer: I have very little direct experience with PNAS.  I tried to think of a single paper that was published in that journal and I came up with Milnor's "Eigenvalues of the Laplace operator on certain manifolds", a famous one page note.  Based on that one paper (!!) I will guess that PNAS is like CR but for laconic treatments of even more important results.  (I will also guess that most of their papers are more than one page long...)

Thanks a lot for a very informative answer. If possible, I'd be happy to learn how'd you compare CR vs pure math section of PNAS. Many thanks in advance.

Browsing a few of CR's recent papers, I stand by my comment: some papers are self-contained with short elegant proofs, some give proof sketches but omit details that would normally be expected in a full paper, and some just have a sentence or two giving the main idea of the proof.  The latter are more in the way of announcements, and in those cases one usually expects a complete proof to be published later in another journal.

@Nate: Okay, thanks, that's good to know.  I should say that I have probably read on the order of a dozen CR papers.  It does happen to be the case that none of these have been research announcements though.  I wonder if this is field-dependent.  Since you already looked, I wonder if you could tell me whether you found any research announcements in the areas of algebra and number theory?

See for example http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.crma.2013.07.016, whose last line is "The proofs of the results of this Note will be published in detail elsewhere."  But it does seem like there may be fewer than in, say, analysis.  (Actually, a brief skim seemed to show disproportionately few total papers in either area.)

@Nate: thanks again for your time.  This type of information is rarely definitive but always interesting.

By the way: I just realized that the way I come across CR papers almost certainly biases me against seeing research announcements.  I don't have a subscription or page through whole issues: I get directed there from other papers.  It's much less likely that I would get directed to a research announcement.  Actually, I'm not sure I understand the point of a research announcement in 2014 (or 2013).  Maybe there's a question there as well...

@PeteL.Clark: Thanks for the comment on PNAS.

My experience of CR agrees with Nate's.  In functional analysis CR has published quite a few research announcements in recent years.  (I suspect this is a result of others following the practice of a couple field leaders.)  I also agree with Pete, though, in saying I'm not sure I understand the point of a research announcement in the modern world.

FWIW, I had to look through more than a year's worth of CR papers to find a number theory paper that only sketched a proof (it was roughly the 20th such paper I looked at).  Finally I found this one:http://www.sciencedirect.com.proxy-remote.galib.uga.edu/science/article/pii/S1631073X11003578.

@PeteL.Clark: Just in case, here is the direct link to the paper you mention in the last comment (your link appears to ask one one for some Galileo password): http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1631073X11003578

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My code is published as original work by a different group. What should I do?
I've found some code that I've posted online that has a BSD license published in a supplementary material of a different group in a high impact journal. The authors have replaced the name on the license with one of the co-author's names and added a header on my code. They weren't too careful and didn't delete my name and email some lines below that header.  I've contacted the corresponding author that promised me that he'll contact the publisher to correct it and nothing has happened in the past 3 months or so.
What would you do?
EDIT - Update.... It took 6 months from the moment I contacted the authors, and 3 months after I contacted the publisher to issue a Correction\Corrigendum that gave me credit for my code.*

Contact PubPeer, RetractionWatch

Since it is a clear case of intentional plagiarism, I don't think you should discuss anything with the authors - you should report it to the journal.

Whether your code was under BSD license or a closed-source license is irrelevant from the fact that it is plagiarism. Copyright violation has nothing to do with plagiarism.

This seems to be a clear case of plagiarism, and potentially a copyright violation.
The BSD license contains a line "Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer". If that was included in your Original code, then it seems that this was breached by the article authors.
But even in the case that this line was not included, then it seems to be still a case of plagiarism, as they are passing your work as theirs.
Contact the editor (or editorial office) of the journal. Provide them with a description of what happened (basically as you described in your question).
Also provide links to your originally online published source code. If you can, add proof of when you published it there (e.g. log files).
It would not hurt to also keep a copy of their present version of the source code they published, just in case it 'vanishes' from the internet and you want to show (e.g. to the editor/publisher) how they plagiarized you.

is it plagiarism really? this is not the entire paper, this is a piece of code that the research used as a tool to obtain results. for some reason they published that code in their supp. material and put their name on it...

I've anyway contacted the editor... let's see what happens

@bla: taking your code and putting their own name on is very clearly plagiarism.

They claim other people's work as their own (by putting their name on), not making clear what is their own contribution viz. the original authors (perhaps they edited the code, but if it is based on yours, they have to make clear what they did). It's plagiarism, no ifs no buts.

@bla In addition to the steps in this answer, I would strongly urge you to carefully document all your actions and all the circumstances in this case, and if possible to do so via third-party witnesses. (E.g. can the code be seen through the Wayback Machine?.) It may also be acceptable to inform the scientific directors of the authors' institutions about this case - a serious institution should take this as good cause to start an investigation.

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Is it possible to apply for a second masters degree in a different field of study? (different department)
Specifically, is it possible to apply for a second masters degree in MS&E (management science and engineering) or statistics (MS in statistics) after a masters degree in computer science?
How will my application be treated compared to other applicants? (with a bachelors degree)

I recommend that people usually shouldn't go masters hopping unless they have tons of money to spare. Computer Science is close enough to the fields you mention that if you self study those fields you can get jobs designed for people with an MS in statistics and MS&E. But to answer your question masters programs are cash cows you will be let in if the admissions committee feels you can successfully finish their program.

It's always possible to apply, whether you will be accepted is a different matter. The best thing to do is to speak to the academic who is the programme director (or similar title), explain that you are interested in applying for the course and see what they say. They will know what the general rules are as well as being able to provide specific guidance. The fact that your current masters degree is in a related subject (different department, but probably the same faculty) means it should be considered relevant.
I applied for a MA in Classics & Ancient History after getting a BSc in Computer Science, and then went back to do an MPhil in Computer Science, so it is possible to move subjects.

I do not know about your school, but in my school, the title of your degree doesn't really matter much PROVIDING THAT YOU HAVE SUFFICIENT ACADEMIC BACKGROUND in the discipline that you are interested in. For instance, if I am a BSc in Statistics grad, and if I have taken significant number of Computing Science courses, then given that my GPA is high enough, I will be admitted to the Computing Science department for their MSc program.


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How should you address academic colleagues in the United States? Is the "Prof" title necessary?
I've recently been hired as an assistant professor and will be starting this fall.  As I'm beginning to be included on departmental e-mail and in certain decisions, I'm starting to interact (at least via e-mail) with my colleagues.  How should I address them?  As a graduate student and postdoc, I've always addressed faculty as Prof. X unless I was already very familiar with them or unless they've told me to do otherwise.  Is it strange to continue to do this as a professor?  I don't want to be disrespectful, but at the same time it feels a little stuffy to continually refer to everyone as Prof. X until they suggest I do otherwise.

I'm in America.

Wait... As a postdoc you still used titles and last names? Seriously?

Not with my a advisor or profs I've known a long time, but generally, yeah.  It seemed a bit formal but I was always taught it was "respectful".  Now, however, I'm beginning to think it may be too much.

At least in the US, it would be a little strange to refer to your colleagues by anything other than their first names, unless they indicate otherwise. OTOH, you could always refer to them as Prof. X, and if they correct you, you could deflect by saying that you're getting used to thinking of yourself as one :)

@StrongBad: No, this is a very different question. How you address your colleagues is a very different issue than addressing a random academic in an email.

@aeismail not if you always use their first name. Given the OP hasn't started yet, the future colleagues are somewhat like random academics.

@StrongBad: The difference here is that they're not going to remain random academics.

@ObviouslyAnon if you don't think the question is a duplicate, or that the other answers don't answer your question, please consider editing the question to highlight what you think is different. I am sure you can get support to reopen the question.

I don't consider this a duplicate for exactly the same reason @aeismail suggests.  I'm not asking how to address a professor at another university, with whom I may have little or no other contact, in an e-mail (though that question is independently useful).  Rather I'm asking how I should address members of my home department and institution, with whom I'll be working frequently.  My intuition was that the prior on using their first names is strong (this seems correct) --- even stronger than for communicating with peers of a similar rank across institutions.

In the US, you generally address colleagues of a similar status by their first names—so your fellow faculty members would definitely be addressed informally. This would of course extend to collaborators and acquaintances in other departments.
I think the only exception to this would be in the case of formal communications—an official memorandum or letter from a faculty member to someone in the university administration, for instance. But otherwise, in any oral or informal written correspondence, I'd stick to first names.
(In other countries, follow the appropriate local traditions, as they may be very different from US standards.)


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How to get list of journals in a discipline within a specified range of impact factors?
I am looking for journals about A with impact factor between X and Y. Is there any way to find that on IEEE web site?

InCites (from Thomson-Reuters)  can handle this kind of search.

If you want to use only IEEE websites, probably you should manually go to each journal's homepage, e.g., here's IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory's page http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=18 and it shows its impact factor right there. If you want some sort of list, this seems to be the closest you can get: http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/journmag/journalcitations.html Of course, it's a lot easier if you have access to JCR or other similar service. If Eiganfactor/article influence score is ok, this will help http://www.eigenfactor.org/

Web of Science Journal Citation Reports provides lists of journals on a topic along with a range of citation-based metrics, including impact factor. It's straight forward to sort such lists by impact factor and then extract journals within a range.
Many universities have subscriptions to Web of Science Journal Citation Reports. So check out your university library.


text:
How to obtain number of publications by year on a given subject?
Does anyone know of a good way to obtain data on the number of publications per year on a given subject? Scholar has an option to sort search results by date, but there does not seem to be an automated way of generating a report. In the worst case I will write a script that extracts the data I need, but perhaps someone knows of another system that offers such a facility? Thank you.

Scholar only tracks publications that are available online (either freely or through one of Google's subscriptions). This is only a fraction of actual publications.

Additionally, it seems very difficult to define good, automatically trackable borders for what papers are "on a given subject" and which belong to different subjects.

As to what's on a given topic, I'm happy with papers that mention the exact phrase. I'm going to go on the Web of Science, do a keyword search and run a script on the results.

Google has the overwhelming majority of "articles" published in peer-reviewed journals, so I would not argue that it is missing much, unless you are interested in conference abstracts and such.

ISI Journal Citation Reports
ISI Journal citation reports might give you some useful information (your university may have a subscription).
It allows you to browse citation reports by subject category (i.e., discipline).  It includes things like impact factor, total counted citations, total articles in the focal year.
You can then click "view journal summary list" which will give you an overview.
For example, here is sample output for psychology in the 2013 JCR:

Of course, this only includes articles in journals indexed by ISI.
Publish or Perish Software
More generally, you might want to check out Publish or Perish. It is free software for Windows and OSX that provides a way of searching Google Scholar particularly suited to bibliometric analysis.

dimensions.ai automatically generates a plot of such information when you search for papers on it. I've found it very useful myself.
(I know this is an old question, but I'm adding this answer just in case someone comes across it.)

I don't know of a solution for arbitrary field and subject; I suspect none exists at present.  But in mathematics, you could at least easily check how many publications there are each year in a given AMS subject classification.
For instance, this search result shows that 23 papers were published on Enumeration in graph theory in 2005.  Note: you may need a subscription to access that link.


text:
What costs should be covered when inviting a university professor from another country to attend your university?
What costs should be covered when inviting a university professor from another country to visit your university?
For example, imagine you wanted to invite a university professor from Harvard to a European university.

2 close votes and no comments?

I've given it an edit to make it a bit more useful. That said, it would be useful to further clarify what kind of visit the question pertains to (e.g., short stay, long stay). Does the academic want to come anyway? or are you paying them to come in addition to their expenses?

I am not sure why people want to close this question. A comment would certainly be helpful here.

I don't think this question has any absolute answer. This depends on the professor (a "famous" speaker for a large public event will be a different issue than a "regular" professor that comes to give a talk for the students and faculty of the university), the host institution (a professor might be happy to go and give a talk at ETH Zurich, and maybe less so to travel to an unknown university), how long the trip is, and whether there are some pre-existing relations (i.e., whether the inviting professor is already friends with or at least an academic acquaintance of the speaker).
Minimally, it is standard that all costs of the speaker are covered, including (sometimes) business class airfare and a nice hotel for the duration of the trip. If the invited talk happens as part of a conference, the conference fee or entry should be waived for the speaker. Further, it is customary at least in my field to give the speaker a small (local) present, such as a bottle of good regional wine, as a sign of appreciation directly after the talk.
Whether the speaker asks for money on top of this depends on all the things above, but this seems to be relatively unusual in my field. The only persons that actually get paid in money to come and give a talk are well-known public figures, like Tim Berners-Lee. I have recently had the honour to listen to a talk of Don Knuth, and rumor has it that not even Knuth was asking for direct payment.

While there might not be a request for payment, some universities and seminar series offer an honorarium for the speakers (on the order of a few hundred dollars or Euros). I think it is also not standard to expect to pay business class airfare—and many universities will not allow this.

Yes, in the U.S. it has been required to travel "coach"... but with the ever-shrinking ever-deteriorating air travel conditions, this may have to change unless only physically very small people travel.

@aeismail Maybe you should not "expect" business class, but at least in my field it is certainly not uncommon that invited speakers for larger events get paid business class.


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Is it possible for a high school student with no academic qualifications to publish a research paper?
I am a bachelor student at the second year of studies (Physics), but I'm an independent programmer since many more years.
Now, I have some data about an algorithm I've done and I would like to present the results on a research paper - I have a high level of understanding of the theory behind, and some background of theoretical computer science. Is it "reasonable" to write a paper with no titles at all (high school) and without the name of my university maybe?
I don't know whether include it or not, since the topic is not related to what I study there.

Sure, why not?  Nobody in theoretical computer science cares where you work, how old you are, or what color your hair is.  But do run your paper past a local expert before submitting it anywhere.  As in any other community, there are social norms that must be followed.

I will, thanks. And I had also this doubt, WHERE should I publish it then..?

@Novalink: That's something your "local expert" should advise you on. We have no idea what the subject of your algorithm is, or how strong the paper is, so any recommendation you received here would be purely conjectural.

You are right, of course I will ask for improvements to someone more expert than me before publishing, thanks.

You should definitely write it up. There are plenty of good reasons for doing so and no downside. Writing a paper is a good exercise for future paper and report writing, and while you are doing it you are likely to think of new ideas about your research. You will also have to search for similar work that might be suitable for references and you may find something useful there too.
You should also put the paper online somewhere so that it is preserved and available to others who may find it useful. If there is data and/or code that goes with the paper you can use figshare for example. It does not matter if there is not much response to your work, that is common when authors have no background and does not mean it is not good. Someone may pick up on it later when you don't expect it.
You might also want to try to publish in a peer-review journal if you think it is sufficiently original and useful. That might require you to write it up in a specific format such at LaTeX. Again that is all good experience. You will have a much better chance of acceptance in a journal if you can use your university affiliation but you will have to make it clear that you are an undergraduate there to avoid problems and it might be best to check with your tutor. If you search around you may find a suitable journal that is specifically set up to accept work from undergraduates. If you can get it accepted it would look good on your CV whatever you plan to do in the future.
The only circumstance that would make it unwise to publish your work would be if the algorithm is original and of high commercial value and/or patentable in which case you would have to follow a different route to protect your intellectual property. However that is a rare situation.

Thank You. Definitely You gave me some hints. One more thing then, I would like it to be published from the beginning (my aim is to gather feedback about my writing and my ideas mostly, and yes write some original literature), so which networks do you suggest for publishing, peer-reviewed or not? I have already a very good academic english and I write in LaTeX everything science-related (also all my lab reports).

It depends what you write. Perhaps you should write it as a preprint and then seek advice on where to publish. Obviously you can search for undergraduate journals and there are plenty of Google hits, so that is one way to go.

My academic advisor certainly seems to think that this would be possible! I have researched and written about several subjects that are outside my major, and though none have (Yet!) been published, none of my professors or advisors seem to think it strange that I might have knowledge and interests outside my major, nor do they doubt that I am capable of producing quality work in those areas.
However, you may wish to find a professor in CS, and ask them to read and critique your paper. You will benefit from their academic experience, and their input makes it more likely that you can succeed in publishing a paper in an area outside your major.
Edit: Seek your advisor's input on this. If you plan to sink a large number of hours into a project outside your main research focus, s/he may not be altogether happy about that. This caveat may not apply in your case, since you are still in the undergraduate phase, but may be more of an issue later.

yes. I've had experience with grant reviewers noting things like a modest publication history all in all if the paper is good, the work is sound and you meet the editors guidelines and format the paper correctly for the journal...it should and will be published. Be extra cautious to acknowledge everyone especially those who loaned you or allowed you resources. I've seen personalities "smirk" at non-traditional success. You will be under more scrutiny most likely but I'm the end the end good science will prevail.

Do you mean journal editors? The statement that you've had peer reviewers do so is troubling in most disciplines since the review process is single or double blind. Either way the focus should be the content not the prior credentials held.

@virmaior Every journal is different but most in my experience have an editor with ultimate authority who almost always follow the direction of the reviewers of your paper. When u submit a paper it gets routed to a few people (reviewers) who have published material related to your field and in that journal. they critique the manuscript and send their recommendation to the editor. The editors help you correct the format and proof the paper merely, usually.

yes, but you stated that your peer reviewers noted your modest publication history while looking at your paper ... which would be impossible when the blind review process is used.

@virmaior No, that would only be impossible if the review was double blind, which is not always the case.


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When there are multiple ISBNs, which should be reported in a reference list?
Which ISBN number should I use in my literature list?
I have for example used a book about Design Patterns for my thesis. But I found that books have two ISBN numbers. Which is prefered to use?
This is an example from a book I used as reference:
Print ISBN:978-0-596-00712-6 | ISBN 10:0-596-00712-4

ISBN numbers for a specific book vary between countries/regions and is thus not altogether very useful in international publications. When referencing a book, it is not customary to list ISBN-numbers, partly for the reason just stated. Instead you should be able to find a doi (digital object identifier) number, at least if the book is relatively new. There is otherwise no general rules about including such numbers in reference lists. With books the fields that must (or at least should be included are author(s)/editor(s), year of publication, title, publisher and place for the publisher (City).

Note that you can encode an ISBN into a DOI, so this could be a concern even for DOIs.

ISBN numbers for a specific book vary between countries/regions - Does this matter? As long as an ISBN uniquely identifies the exact book you used, it helps. Or are you saying that this is not the case across regions, i.e. two different books might have the same ISBN?

Many books have two ISBN numbers for each edition, and that's what's happening in the case you've cited. There are now two formats of ISBN, one with 13 digits and one with 10 digits. ISBN 10 is the older format. Since 2007, books have had both. The last digit in each case is the check(sum) digit, calculated from a hash of the previous digits.
The ISBN 13 is created from:

the digits 978
the first 9 digits of the ISBN 10 code
the recalculated check digit

That's what's going on in your case, and you can cite either the ISBN-13 or the ISBN-10.
It's also the case that different editions of a book have different ISBNs. That's not what's going on in your case. But when that is the case, you use the ISBN of the exact edition you've been using: that way, the content and page numbers should tally up, for anyone who follows up your ISBN and page number citation to see the original in context.


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How important are physics and other non-math courses for admission into a math PhD?
I am a second year math major, and I intend to do my PhD from a top math school. Until now, I haven't taken any university level physics course. Somewhere in this site, I saw someone writing that courses related to theoretical physics (heavily loaded with mathematics) are also very important besides the regular math courses. So, my question is: How important are the physics courses? Or any other courses?

Math grad programs do not look at physics courses on the transcript, or think in those terms.
The point is that higher-level (not formulaic) physics courses can be beneficial to math people by providing other inputs for intuition. A common obstacle is that the higher-level physics courses do speak in terms of the lower-level ones, which are often quite alien to/from any sensible mathematical world-view.
But if one skips over those "immediate" things, one can find that there are "physcial imperatives" mandating mathematical "facts"... which might not be obvious on "purely mathematical" grounds.
The grandest example is "Green's functions" ... about which volumes can be written... An immediate point is that the idea is wonderful, is necessary, even if one cannot justify it. Green got the idea pre-1850, and it was completely understood in "rigorous" terms by L. Schwartz in 1950. Not easy, ...
That is, understanding other (very serious) inputs to mathematics is obviously helpful.

They might if you say you're planning to do research in one of a very few specific fields where physics is relevant. But in general, they don't.

Indeed, as @PeterShor notes, if a student's proposed specialization explicitly claims to bear on specific issues in physics... well, ignorance of physics wouldn't be sensible.

Indeed, one of my tutors accidentally became involved in theoretical physics once, or at least his name did. He's a topologist/geometer and he constructed the first examples of manifolds with certain properties that it turned out some string theorists had been looking for. I don't think his prior level of exposure to physics really mattered, he said the fact his work had application came as a surprise. Had he intended to do something significant in physics then knowing some physics might have made that more likely!

A possible benefit of non-math course(s) in the resume of a PhD applicant in math, is the fact that it shows that he has a wide research perspective and is eager to study different areas. That is definitely a huge plus for a grad student as one of the major sources of creativity, is bringing in ideas from areas that are sometimes totally irrelevant to the area under study. There are a lot of instances of innovations in for example Agile software engineering that came from manufacturing.
Though, as others mentioned, most universities should not care much. But if you target top universities, then you must know that they do receive a lot of good applicants. And this might be something that make your application stand out!
just my 2 cents..

In addition to "math" courses, a good math major should take courses in "related" areas; i.e. subjects that either use a lot of math, or contribute a lot of applications to math. Two of those subjects are physics and computer science.
Someone studying advanced calculus will do well to learn physics concepts such as gravity, charge and flux, as used in say, Newton's or Maxwell's equations. These offer the basis of gradients, divergences Gauss and Stoke's Theorems, and others. Likewise, a good computer science course might use mathematical topics such as recursion, graph theory, or various forms of logic. You might also consider Economics (specifically econometrics) courses that cover optimization and systems of equations as well as more advanced applications using partial differential equations.
Just avoid the kinds of courses sometimes referred to as "physics for poets" (algebraic applications only), or "programming for data processors" (elementary programming devoid of advanced mathematical concepts).

Make sure to have a decent overall GPA. Personally, even though physics uses a lot of mathematics, I would recommend that you take a more basic conceptual physics course, to understand the physics itself and learn it for its own sake. That way you will be better to appreciate the physics. If you are really passionate about math, then take math-related electives. That would show your commitment to the major. Maybe even do math-related research if that is your bent. Treat the physics courses as important, but do not worry if you are not doing as well in them as in your math courses. Because you are a math major, they will pay more attention to your major courses, but don't let yourself be discouraged.


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Graduate school admission with a degree in a different field
Can I be admitted to graduate school in a different field from my degree?  Specific cases include:

If I've taken plenty of advanced courses in field X in the process of completing a degree in another field, can I apply to graduate school in X?
What if I haven't taken many courses in X, but I have acquired a good grasp of X through self-study or working in a related field?
What if I've never studied X, but I have done very well in an unrelated field?  Could I be admitted to graduate school in X on the basis of general intellectual promise, and then make up the missing background after enrollment?

Note that this question is an attempt to provide a comprehensive answer, to avoid the need for a profusion of field-specific questions on this topic (see the associated meta question). Please feel free to edit the question or answer to improve them.

LImited usefulness.  It's kind of like asking about similarities between two unspecified languages.  You would really need to know what the two languages are, or what the previous field and the new field are.

@aparente001 This question is an attempt to cover the main cases in a way that allows people to self-assess. This site gets lots of questions of this form which are typically very difficult to provide good general answers to, since they depend closely on the particulars of the poster's background and intended program.

Overlap between fields influences how much additional background is required.  E.g., a physics major might need to take half a dozen additional math classes to be adequately prepared for pure math grad school, while an English major might need to take nine or ten.  But this doesn't change the fundamentals of "have you acquired most or all of the necessary background?" and "can you demonstrate that you've acquired it?".  It just shifts where your starting point is.

So you're planning to refer people here in future, to save having to write many similar answers over and over again?

Exactly (see here for the background that led to this question).  Recently we've been closing various questions of the form "can I apply to grad school in X with a degree in Y?" while referring them to a general discussion of how admissions works, and this question is intended to give a more specific and useful referral.  It can't cover everything, but a lot of these questions seem to come down to the issues discussed here.

Graduate programs care far more about your background and preparation than about which field is listed on your degree.  Even if the application requirements list a degree in X as a prerequisite, the department will very likely make an exception if you have a degree in another field but can demonstrate that your background is equivalent.  How likely this is depends on which of the three cases listed above you are in:

Extensive formal study of X puts you in good shape.  You should discuss this issue in your statement of purpose and make sure your letters of recommendation address it.  Letters from people in field X who say your background is appropriate would be more convincing than letters from those in other fields.
The overall strategy is the same as in the previous case, but you'll have to work harder to make a compelling argument for admission.  It's certainly possible to get admitted, but the rest of your application will have to be convincing enough to make up for not having courses in X on your transcript.  When you request letters of recommendation from faculty in field X, you should specifically ask whether they are prepared to endorse your background as sufficient for admission (to avoid getting letters along the lines of "this applicant is smart and hard working, but I don't know much about their background and preparation"), and you should strategize with them about how you can present your background in the best possible light.
It's unlikely that you can be admitted at this point, for two reasons.  One is that many people think they would like to study a field that's new to them, only to discover that it's more difficult or less interesting than they had expected.  The other reason is that time in graduate school is a limited resource, and it's inefficient to use it to study prerequisites.  You would generally be allowed to fill in a few gaps in your background, but not to begin studying the field from scratch.  Instead, if you want to change fields you can begin by taking individual courses at a local university.  It's also sometimes possible to enroll in post-baccalaureate programs aimed at helping people change fields (but the availability of such programs varies, depending on the field and location).

There is a notable exception to #3, and that is the handful of fields where there is no meaningful pre-graduate coursework in those fields. For example, there are vanishingly few undergraduate programs in epidemiology, and as such there is very little expectation that you have taken specific coursework, and nearly the entire admitted graduate class will be "switchers" of some form or another. In these cases, what is likely most helpful is to be able to articulate how your present program and course of study has led you to be interested in, and prepared for, further coursework in that field.

I've added a note about 3 for some fields near and dear to my heart where the otherwise excellent answer is less applicable.

I would like to add to the other answers the fact that the ease with which you can jump to a different field in graduate school depends on the nature of your new field. One factor to consider is how interdisciplinary your new field is. Some traditional fields, such as mathematics, physics, and to a lesser extent chemistry, have a fairly strict hierarchy in that you must take certain courses in certain order so as to understand the field. Thus it would be more difficult to convince the admission committee that you are a good fit if you have very little formal training in the field. On the other hand, fields such as biophysics, neuroscience, etc., are very interdisciplinary. Neuroscience programs, for example, will usually be happy to admit majors from math, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology and computer science, to just list a few. In this case, even if your official major is not neuroscience, your chance is not significantly worse than someone who does have a major in neuroscience (this of course also depends on your other credentials such as relevant research experience).
Another factor to consider is the structure of the Ph.D. programs in your country and in your new field. In some cases, such as biology or many European countries, you are required to select an advisor from the very beginning of the program, whereas other programs, such as in mathematics in the US, you do not have such requirements and you are admitted into the program first and select your advisor only one or two years later. In fields that require you to pick an advisor from the beginning, having a different undergrad major may be less disadvantageous if, for example, you personally know (or your advisor personally knows) the professor that you will want to work with. Alternatively, you may be better off applying to programs that do not require a specific advisor if you do not have a specific commitment in the new field.

authors: 原来的我吉他弹唱视频人山人海_闫欢个人资料五十步笑百步


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Title Page for PhD Interview Presentation
Background information: I am currently applying for various PhD programs in Mathematics. For some of them, I have to give a short presentation regarding the research proposal, which I have submitted for the application.
Now, I am currently a research assistant in the university where I did my master's degree in order to continue my work until I can start my PhD. However, my PhD applications are for other universities in slightly different topics.
My question(s):

I usually include my affiliation as well as the name and the logo of
my university on the title page, because it looks more prefessional.
Should I also do this for the PhD interview? On one hand, the
application has nothing to do with my university and currenct
academic position (I mean, I do not present anything regarding my
research, just the project on which I intend to work as a PhD
student), but on the other hand it is the place where I am currently
affilated to.
Secondly, should I include the name of my intended supervisor on the title page? For the application, it was not required to specify
your preferred supervisor, however, I am already in touch with some
professors and the proposals are the results of my discussions with them (the proposal are not binding, just required for the applications).
So, should I add a line on the title page like "intended to work
under the guidance of Prof. John/Jane Doe"? (The professors are in each case not in the committee)

(1) is OK, since you are currently working there.
(2) seems to me to be a bit presumptuous since the person you are naming has not yet accepted you. The committee will ask you about who you want to work with anyway and hopefully, your advisor in spe has already indicated this to the committee.


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Applying for postdoctoral fellowships: priorities?
I am going to graduate with a PhD in applied math/CS in early fall (I am studying in Europe). Due to various factors, there are not too many places that would fit my previous research well enough for me not to basically have to switch fields or at least work in a research group that knows nothing about what I do. I want to mainly choose a host based on their research interests (which should mostly align with mine) and the contributions I could expect to make in a collaboration. With this in mind, there are two hosts in the US, two in Israel, and two in Japan who I am considering and where I have reasonable chances to get in either via fellowship or directly with the PI. However, there are obviously more factors I should consider, but I have too little experience to order my priorities. For example, how important is prestige of the university? The hosts in Japan are in two of the smaller and less famous universities, even though they're well respected in my field and I'd have an advantage as I know Japanese, and have many acquaintances in the area. I also like that Japan is safe and don't mind the long hours. Meanwhile, the hosts in the US are at highly prestigious universities (both Ivy League) - but try as I might, I have little enthusiasm for both places, considering I've visited there before (not the hosts though) and didn't feel comfortable.  The two PIs in Israel are the ones I know the least about (their research is slightly less close to my current one), though they seem to be quite big shots. I've just heard mixed reviews of life in Israel regarding safety etc, plus my Hebrew is pretty bad and would need a serious upgrade if I want to communicate more.
My question is now how to weigh things like personal preference for a location against prestige/networking in the geographical area. If I do stick with academia, I definitely want to give myself the best chance possible, and naturally expect to have to make sacrifices for it, but considering my not-so-great PhD experience, I want to do a postdoc somewhere that appeals to me beyond prestige.

Given the state of the job market in many fields you should just apply for all of them, since it's nowhere near guaranteed you'll get any offers (this may not be true for some areas of CS at the moment).

Yeah, that's the plan anyway. My advisor is just discouraging me from attempting to go to Japan, which has been making me somewhat insecure about the whole thing (it's the most likely to succeed too from what people are telling me).

This is a highly personal question. Judging from your post you already have a pretty good understanding of the non-personal factors, but how to weigh them against personal ones such as crime or local culture is I for us to do. That's necessarily your call!

The main reasons I can think of to do a postdoc are

Continuing your research work, expanding your academic portfolio
Getting good reference letters from leaders in your field.
Expand your domain knowledge - if you are interested in a new field, a postdoc with a relevant host is an excellent way of familiarizing yourself with it.
Practice your academic faculty skills: mentoring students, writing grants etc.

I have listed these in the order of their importance (in my mind), but yours may be different.
With these considerations in mind, ask yourself which position would best facilitate these goals and what you'd need to do in order to achieve them.
From my experience, language barriers are not a major issue in Israel: most adult Israelis (especially those in the age range of 18-40, and definitely all in academia) can speak English fairly well.


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Should the desire to go back to one's country after graduation be written in the statement of purpose?
I wish to apply to public universities in the US for a PhD in the near future and at this point I am drafting my statement of purpose.
Having been exposed to how research (majority of which is public and funded by the government) is done in my country (India) from an early age and having worked in some of these research organizations myself, I was considering including a desire to be an active part of the academic community (in what capacity, I don't think I can be sure at this point) in India and possibly working to contribute to it as one of my motivations for gaining a PhD.
Given that I wish to apply majorly to public research universities (majorly funded by the governments, as I understand it) in the US, will it be perceived as not being in the interests of the university to accept a student who is keen on returning to his country following his education? Does this kind of a thing matter during the admissions procedure? Should I be thinking along these lines? How is marginal patriotism this kind of a motivation perceived in a statement of purpose?

I will be sure to mention those but I was of thinking that I would add some more philosophical motivation as well. But I will rethink that now.

This probably depends strongly on your field of study.

@GabrielC.Drummond-Cole Why do you say so? Can you please elaborate on that?

I don't think "patriotism" is the correct word here.

At least State Department would be happy to read that if they see it :)

For example, if you were studying political science, anthropology, or social theory, having a strong engagement with the discipline's issues with regard to your home country might be seen as giving you focus, bringing more diverse perspectives to your cohort, and giving the discipline more representatives outside the US.

On the other hand, physical chemistry or aeronautical engineering programs would likely not care about those factors. Maybe something somewhere in the middle is environmental engineering, where India presumably faces different challenges than the US.

@GabrielC.Drummond-Cole if you were studying political science, anthropology, or social theory  If an Indian wants to study social theory about India, he probably would stay in India to study it. Going to US to study India social theory and then go back to India sounds very strange to me.

Maybe we have a different understanding of what "social theory" means in this context.

@GabrielC.Drummond-Cole My point  is about social theory about India not just social theory.

I don't know much about India but I know someone who moved from Japan to the US to study Japanese folklore. I think this kind of thing might have many sources --- the draw of a marquee university (potentially including a US state school), a lack of resources of various sorts at home, a strong and well-rounded department, who knows? But I think it's more common than you seem to.

I can't imagine this making a difference at all. Why would anyone think that accepting a promising student who wants to return to their home country after graduating would not be in the best interests of the department?  Once you finish your thesis, you're going to leave; why should we care which country to leave for?

As has already been mentioned, having an intention to return to your home country is critical to getting a student visa.

Depending on your wording (and to a lesser extent on your discipline), I do not think this is problematic at all. Most public universities in the US are not directly concerned with the monetary investment in their students.
Rather, they are concerned with attracting motivated, high-quality graduate students along with an undergraduate student body that contains (and serves) many students from the state but also includes students from diverse backgrounds and with different life experiences.
You do not say in your question whether you are pursuing a graduate or undergraduate degree, but I think in either case it's fine. Having a plan to return to your home country is totally understandable, and speaks to both your motivation and long-term planning.
Furthermore, admissions committees understand that while you have this plan now, that things can happen over the course of years and that you plans you outline in your statement of purpose may change.
As multiple comments and answers indicate, this should not be the main focus of your statement of purpose and does not need to be belabored.
I agree with the comment that "patriotism" is not quite the right word for your preferences, and I think using that word (or some others) would seem strange or inappropriate in your statement, but in general, expressing a desire to eventually apply the skills you will be learning in your home country should not be a problem.

TL; DR. You do not know where you would like to be after finishing your PhD.
You make several assumptions that may or not hold true.
First assumption. You will finish the PhD. As everyone in this forum knows, finishing a PhD is a long and hard process. Not everyone makes it through.
Second Assumption. You will get a job in your home country, after getting a PhD. This is even worse. The market for PhD holders is very competitive. This is why after the PhD, people may go to several countries for doing postdocs, before getting (if they will ever get) a tenure position somewhere. You cannot plan this beforehand.
Third Assumption. You will still want to go to your home country after your PhD. People change and the 3-7 years required for finishing a PhD is a long time. People may meet their significant other, get married, have kids or change their minds where or what they want to be. You cannot possibly predict how this will turn out for you.
Bottomline. In professional documents, like the SOP, provide all the necessary information you are required to provide and nothing more. Your political preferences, your religion or your love for your country is personal information and you should keep it that way. Be professional and only provide the scientific information and aspirations that is relevant to the university you apply to. Everything else, keep it to yourself.

In my experience many application guidelines specifically request that the statement of purpose include something about the student's overall career goals.  It is a statement of purpose after all.  There is definitely a lot of hyperbole that goes into writing many aspects of the statement, but if you left out anything about why you intend to get a PhD there wouldn't be much left in the SOP.

@BrenBarn - This is the basis of an effective Answer (which I would vote up).


text:
Should I inform the journal that I'm the actual first author?
It's been about 2 years since I've left academia, partly because of the kind of deeds that I'm about to describe to give a bit of context to the question.
About a month ago I was CCed in an email exchange involving my former PhD supervisor and one of our collaborator, a Post-doc in Mathematics (from now on referred to as the Post-doc). The email said that one of our papers, that we submitted to a journal about 2 years ago (that's right) was finally rejected (better late than never I suppose).
Recently, I have received a letter from the Journal of Functional Analysis that informed me that I have been indicated as a co-author of a publication recently submitted by my former supervisor. It is of course yet another attempt to get the paper published somewhere. Although the fact that the choice of journal is a questionable one (JFA is published by Elsevier, which I would gladly boycott, but this is a whole different matter I won't get into), what startled me was the fact that the Post-doc has been indicated as First Author.
Now, a clarification about the paper is due in order to understand the situation better. Most if not all of the original draft of the paper was written by me, and it pretty much contained most of my research work, which then turned into my PhD thesis together with some later results that I have obtained. There have been times when I got stuck on some points, in which cases a few chats with my supervisor helped overcome the problems. The contributions from the Post-doc towards the final version of the paper are, to say the least, very questionable. One way to summarise them is perhaps with the expression unintentional sabotage. The Post-doc kept changing sentences in the paper because he thought we was improving it. I'm not an English native speaker and nor is the Post-doc, but his English was definitely worse than mine and, as a consequence, I had to spend hours reverting his changes, over and over again. Not to mention his competency with the mathematical content of the paper itself. A good part of the time we spent in meetings to discuss the contents at the board, it was basically me (a PhD student in Pure Math with a degree in Physics at that time) recollecting basic school maths facts (literally) for the sake of the Post-doc who didn't seem to remember them (or know them altogether).
Don't get me wrong on this though. I am in no way implying that there is an voluntary attempt at bad deeds here. Knowing my former supervisor, this is what I think it is going on with the paper submission. Given that I am no longer in academia, it benefits nobody if the paper is submitted with me as first author. Hence it would make more sense to indicate the Post-doc as first author since he is still somehow making his way in the academic world.
Whilst I would totally support this decision in general as very sensible, I find it hard to go by it in this particular case, given the scenario I have described above. By allowing the Post-doc to be first author, my former supervisor is (I believe inadvertently) helping someone to be where he's probably not supposed to be, taking the chance away from someone who is more qualified. You wouldn't believe how many successful applications the Post-doc has had, given his actual knowledge on the subject. The only explanation that I could come up with is that, somehow, people are happy to offer the Post-doc a place at their departments to enjoy of his buffoonery (possibly his only positive aspect).
Now, after this long introduction, here comes the question: Should I notify the journal that I am the actual first author?

Authors in mathematics are almost always listed alphabetically. Is that the case here?

It is, and the Post-doc would figure out first. Perhaps I should have mentioned in the OP that the journal in question asks for a First Author explicitly.

Sorry, I'm still confused.  Whose name actually comes first alphabetically, yours or Postdoc's?  Are there any co-authors besides you and Postdoc?  Perhaps you can clarify exactly what author ordering you think should be used, and what Postdoc is proposing that is different.  (And as a side comment, the question would be more concise if you left out all the stuff about Postdoc being an idiot.  You were unimpressed with his contributions, we get it.)

The alphabetical order is: postdoc's name, my name, supervisor's name. The names appear in alphabetical order on the paper, but the journal explicitly asks for a first author. Currently, the postdoc has been indicated as first author.

I see.  Are you sure this isn't just a misunderstanding?  My experience with math journals is that they always ask for "first author", "second author", etc.  But if the authors want alphabetical order, then you're expected to put the alphabetical first author in the "first author" blank, and so on.  If so then Postdoc is doing it exactly right.  And even if that's not what the journal intends, it could be an honest mistake on Postdoc's part.

Having never submitted a paper with JFA myself, I don't know whether you would have to enter each author separately (hence the distinction between first, second, third, ... which would reflect the alphabetical order), or if you would need to provide a list of author and then indicate the first author explicitly. The link that was sent to me in a generated email seemed to indicate that an author was specifically designated as first author. Unfortunately, I cannot find anything useful online regarding the submission process with this particular journal.

It might be informative to go through a dummy submission and see what the form looks like.  I haven't submitted a multi-author paper to JFA myself, but again, my experience is that to a journal, "first author" just means "who should be listed first", nothing more.  It's up to the authors to decide on their own who gets listed first, whether it be alphabetical or something else.

@NateEldredge and OP, there is no need for a dummy submission. Just look at the latest issues of the journal. In the couple of issues I looked at, all authors were listed alphabetically. I believe this confirms that the journal has no concept of a “first author” as it is understood in other parts of academia.

I'd be more annoyed, insulted, and worried about what is going on by the fact that it appears from the description that the submitting author(s) did not contact all authors before hitting the 'send' button to submit to a new journal.

You may want to return to Academia in the future so the fact that you are now working otherwise shouldn't carry a lot of weight.
You may not want to burn bridges on this. I'd actually suggest that you contact your PhD supervisor and ask for clarification. You may get an interesting reply that solves the problem or pushes you to seek a solution with the editors. I don't think that a journal will like to adjudicate a conflict and might respond by simply rejecting the paper doing no one any good. Try the most collegial approach at first and see what you learn.
If the core of your dissertation is published elsewhere, your work should stand on its own whether or not this paper is published as is or not. If it isn't yet published, then you should attend to that, of course.

Thanks for your answer. It sounds very sensible to me. My PhD thesis is deposited with the University and contains more than what's currently in the paper. In fact, further, more general results are already published in a paper of which I'm the sole author.

And does this current paper that's causing the issue, cite your thesis and especially your sole-author paper? I would say it certainly should.

I think you've misunderstood the situation.  It appears to me that this is being handled properly by your co-authors, and any action on your part would be inappropriate.
As you've clarified, you and your co-authors are following the usual authorship convention for pure math, which is that authors are listed alphabetically, with the corresponding assumption that all authors contributed equally to the paper.  (Of course, this is often a polite fiction, but you're on board with it now and so it doesn't behoove you to denigrate their contributions.)  You say the alphabetical order here is Postdoc, RecentStudent (that's you), Supervisor.
From the journal's point of view, "first author" just means literally that: whose name should be printed first on the title page?  And since you've decided to use alphabetical order, Postdoc is indeed the "first author" in that sense.  So it is absolutely correct that he's identified as "first author" in the journal's paperwork.  Nobody is playing any funny games here.
Any significance attached to the ordering of the authors, or who comes first, is in the minds of the authors and the readers.  The journal doesn't want to get involved in the question of who is the "primary" author, or who did the most work, and they really don't care.  They just want all the authors to agree on what should go on the title page, and which name should be printed first, second, third, etc.  Any way is fine with them so long as the authors all approve.
If it helps, the submission form for JFA has a section that looks like this:

You click the little arrows to change the order.  Note that "First Author" is automatically attached to whoever is first on the list.
You definitely should not tell the journal that you're the "actual" first author.  They'll interpret this as a sign that you want to be listed first, and thus the authors are not in agreement about what should appear on the title page.  They'll put the whole submission on hold until they can be assured that the three of you have worked it out.  This will greatly annoy your co-authors, especially since it seems to have already been understood that alphabetical order was to be used.
If you really wanted to be listed first (i.e. out of alphabetical order), in principle you could open that discussion with your co-authors, but I think it would reflect poorly on you, especially at this late date.  I don't advise that.  In any case they'd have to agree.  The journal won't settle such disputes for you.
As a side remark, your co-authors really should have asked you before submitting to a new journal.  It sounds like it's not worth making a fuss about it now, but you might ask them politely to involve you in the journal selection process in case it needs to be done again (which is not unlikely; JFA is pretty selective).  They may have assumed that, since you're no longer in academia, you wouldn't really care and would rather not be bothered - not really a valid assumption, but perhaps understandable.  As for the boycott, it's a fine point to bring up in a discussion, but I think most people feel it would be poor form to insist if your co-authors don't feel the same - especially if, as in the Postdoc's case, they're at a career stage where "getting published in the best journal" has to take precedence over idealistic considerations.

@Phoenix87: No, the order in this form should match the order specified in the paper itself.  I thought you said that the desired order was alphabetical.  In that case, Postdoc should appear first in the paper's source and also first on this form.  Did I misunderstand you?

@Phoenix87: I don't think your interpretation is correct.  The journal does not have any way to specify an "actual first author".  The form is to allow you the freedom to have the authors listed in a different order than alphabetical, if that is what the authors have decided.  Alphabetical order is widely followed in math, but it isn't mandatory, and if the authors choose something else the journal will allow it.

I think your last comment is based on your interpretation of "First Author" in this context. One cannot be sure until one sees it written somewhere on, e.g., the website of the journal. In fact, my interpretation of "First Author" is different.

@Phoenix87: indeed your interpretations are different, but Nate Eldredge's interpretation is entirely standard for pure mathematics (and various other fields). I don't see why you think anything is different here. I took a random sample of some recently published articles in the journal, and I see nothing in any of them that indicates "First Author". They show a list of authors (in alphabetical order) and designate one of them as Corresponding Author.

In case it helps, I have published in JFA (though a solo paper); I know people who have published multi-author papers there; and I'm personally acquainted with some of the editors.  I've never had any indication that their policies around authorship are anything other than the standard.  And the standard is so standard in mathematics that I would expect any deviation to be widely known.

@Phoenix87 I'll add my voice to that of Nate and James. I mean no offense, but someone needs to say it explicitly: it looks very much like you are misinformed about publishing norms in math. Moreover, you seem strangely resistant to having those norms clarified to you by professional mathematicians with many publications to their name. Once again: "first author" means "author who is listed first", nothing more or less. If the authors are listed alphabetically, then the "first author" (or "actual first author", if you insist - that means exactly the same) is the one who is alphabetically first.

... And as for your beef with academia and its "funny games": I'm sorry if you had a bad experience in your PhD. Certainly not everything is perfect in academia and all sorts of weird things do happen, and if you are suspicious of your supervisor's intentions, that may well be justified given your experiences. But this has nothing to do with the issue at hand involving your question about the first author. The answer Nate gave is correct, and your skepticism on this particular issue is simply misguided. Anyway, good luck with the journal submission!

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

If it is you who obtained the central data and wrote the manuscript, there is no doubt that you should be the first author.
I think before you contact the journal, it is better to first talk with your former supervisor about your concern.

This is simply not correct in pure math.

I really do not understand, why the people made the most contribution is not eligible to be listed as the first author. When citing it, it is always First Author et al..

in my limited experience, most articles in math have few authors (two, sometimes three) and generally citations include all of them. I don't recall seeing the "et al." abbreviation in math.

@wdxueren In my experience, most citations in math are of the form "[12]", and when you go to item number 12 in the bibliography all authors are written down explicitly in alphabetical order, be they one or ten.

Also, in math there is the unspoken assumption that all authors have always contributed equally to the paper. Unrealistic as it might be, this is the 'default assumption' in math. Certainly everyone is expected to have read and approved every single word in the paper.

@DenisNardin I don’t think that’s an unspoken assumption - indeed if it were it would be unrealistic and often dramatically false. Rather, the unspoken assumptions are that 1) each author contributed enough to merit coauthorship, and 2) unless explicitly stated otherwise, the author order is alphabetical and carries no information about the relative contributions of the different authors.

@DenisNardin TBH it is always hard to judge contribution in mathematics, that's why probably we use this unspoken assumption... The nature of the math "beast" is that if one person finds 99% of a proof to a theorem, it is typically completely useless without the missing 1%. So, in some sense the 99% and the 1% alone are both worth the same: nothing. It is only together that they become something...

@wdxueren As a mathematician I never understood this obsession for people to be listed as first author. It leads to too many discussions and politics just to satisfy some ego :)

@DanRomik Fair, I guess that a more accurate representation of the feeling I have would be that the true contribution of each coauthor is unquantifiable. Like, if two people discuss at the blackboard and one babbles with the chalk for one hour and the other only rarely asks pointed questions, which contributed more to the resulting theorem? I don't know, and on some level I don't care.

@Nick S, yeah, I see it works different in Math, but in other field, first author publications are crucial for one to get hired. Many positions require at least three first author papers. SO it is so much more than "satisfy some ego"

@Denis yes, I suppose it is because of such feelings that mathematicians decided (wisely) not to play the authorship order game that the rest of academia plays. Nonetheless, often the relative contributions of the authors are in fact quantifiable. I find it disingenuous when some mathematicians become angry or upset when they are asked to detail this information (for example when being reviewed for a promotion) and hide behind the “all authors contributed equally” meme. I suspect this is due either to insecurity or wanting to protect junior coauthors who didn’t actually contribute very much.

@DenisNardin ... In any case I do agree that a lot of the time the contributions are difficult or impossible to quantify, and believe that the obsession some people/institutions have with trying to estimate such things is harmful and unhealthy (similarly to the obsession with bibliometrics in general).