text:
Is it a bad idea to go from EE undergrad to CS(ML/AI) PhD?
I know questions regarding whether its possible to go from EE undergrad to CS have been answered previously, so please bear with me as I have a few distinct questions. I'm a Junior at a mid-tier state school and I've taken quite a few CS courses (such as data structures, discrete math, programming methodologies and principles, and software development).
I've been doing some reading online and I've come to find that ML/AI(esp. Computer Vision) is something that really piques my interest. I am not sure that I have the proper probability and statistics skills required to pursue a CS PhD with a focus in ML/AI.
NOTE: (I do have a solid background in other math: Multi-variate Calculus, DiffEq, LinearAlg, multi-dimensional signal spaces,etc.)

Do you think that it would be feasible for me to actually gain acceptance into a PhD program with this focus without any research experience in ML/AI or even CS in general?
I have previous academic research experience(5 months) in EE(Semiconductors) as well as a high GPA(3.9+) and should have solid letters of recommendation. What kind of disadvantages could I face?
Would you recommend doing some self-studying of ML/AI in place of continuing my current research in EE? (I'd love to do research in ML/AI but my university doesn't have research opportunities in the area for undergrads).
How can I approach finding well-reputed groups/institutions in this area?

Thanks, I really appreciate any input or advice that you may have.

Regarding point 2, are there other universities nearby with ML groups? You could get in touch with faculty there and ask if they are willing to supervise you remotely.

CS publishes quite a lot at conferences. Try looking at people/groups who attend major conferences like ICCV.  Read the papers and see if you understand the work.

I think yes, it is feasible. On a purely technical side, regulations vary across countries and universities. At my university they consider eligible all applicants with previous education in "computer science and engineering". The rest undergo "additional examination", which in practice means that they check whether their actual transcripts overlap enough with our CS curriculum to be considered equivalent.
Computer science is an umbrella term, so it is a really diverse area. Even if you narrow it down to "machine learning", it still doesn't help much to identify your stronger and weaker points. There is machine learning in natural language processing, in computer vision, in human behavior analysis, etc., with different requirements.
Since you mentioned computer vision, I think your math background is really handy. What many such candidates lack is coding skills and general experience in dealing with programming environments. Sometimes we have to glue together a bunch of "experimental" (buggy and poorly documented) libraries and make them work. When something goes wrong, people get startled with cryptic printouts and endless error messages, as they don't even know where to begin to untangle this mess. At least, this is what I feel sometimes as I have to take personal care of the tech issues...

Sorry no comments on the "best groups", but personally I think you should approach the question the other way round. Go to Google scholar and search for papers with keywords of your interest. Read the ones you like, see who cites them and which papers they cite. Just follow the links in both directions, gather enough papers to understand (a) who is cited more often and (b) what kind of research you personally like -- after all, your personal interest in a particular type of project should matter most. And this is how you approach people: by showing genuine interest in their projects and knowledge of their publications.

You will be fine.  EE and CS are very closely allied disciplines, so  much so that at many schools, they're the same department.  Here at Michigan, e.g., computer science and electrical engineering are subdepartments of a single EECS department.  I teach in CS part but, like a number of my colleagues in CS, my degrees are in EE.  This is very common.
You also are likely well-prepared to pursue interests in ML, vision and AI, all of which tend to require more linear algebra than statistics.

In general, EEs are better at math than CS so you will probably be fine.  I would not worry about prob/stat.  Can pick up a course if needed.  Is easier than diffyQs, etc.
More of a question will be coding ability, interest, and experience.  Go code some things.  (Note, I'm not telling you to take a course.)


text:
Do I have "the right" as a grad student to take a class just for fun?
I'm currently doing a PhD in computational biology, but I have other interests like music and ceramics, and I'm lucky enough to be at a university with excellent programs in both. I've wanted to take a course in either of these fields for the 3 semesters so far I've been here, but my advisor won't approve and sign off on them. I have a free slot this spring and I really want to take a course just for fun, and to learn from the world-renowned instructors. I've tried negotiating about just taking an evening class, or having my work for him improve since I'll be happier overall, but he's just stuck on "this isn't your field". Who's being unreasonable here?

Is there a reason you would have to officially register for or enroll in the class?  Would the instructor be willing to have you audit unofficially?

Are you paying tuition yourself, or is it being paid by a dept. fellowship, research grant, or similar?

When I was a materials science grad student, courses in any related field were pretty much fair game (engineering, math, and sciences). Outside of STEM, not at all. Why? All the STEM areas knew that they generally had about as many students taking courses outside of their home departments as 'foreign' students taking courses inside their departments, so they basically declared it all a wash on paying tuition. But, for an engineering student to take a course in the music department required a real transfer of money to the music department. That was where the problem was. So no music classes.

@AlexanderWoo Auditing is often a good option, but something like ceramics is likely to require hands-on work with materials & equipment that need to be paid for.

Just turn up for the class. Don't register; just sit-in. Afterwards, explain to the instructor that you're studying a PhD in computational biology and that you have a personal interest in the course. You won't get credit, but you're fulfilling a personal interest, not an academic requirement.

I'll add: it might depend a little on the inherent costs of the course and whether the instructor would mind / have extra costs because of you.  If the course really has no costs on a per pupil basis, and no physical seat limit, the instructor is likely to be happy to have a student who is there because they want to be.  Talk to the instructor.

I don't like this answer. I find it rude to show up in a class where the institution is requiring everyone else present to pay to be present. If you want to audit a course, contact the professor teaching the course first: they may or may not be okay with you attending as an "unofficial"/unregistered auditor. Don't be sneaky about it, it reflects poorly on you.

It's also likely against school policy and an instructor who permits unenrolled attendance (where students could reasonably audit) faces political issues. This is because for every enrolled student, credit or not, the department gets a slice of the tuition money pot. Every unenrolled student means the department is losing out on thousands of dollars of funding they are otherwise entitled to. (Likewise, when you enroll, your department and advisor are losing out on their slice of your tuition payments)

@BryanKrause This isn't about auditing and I'd answer differently if it were. It isn't about being sneaky nor about deceptive, I recommend speaking to the instructor. This is a practical solution that avoids wasting anyone's time. It is a solution that is recommended by departments I've worked at and is typical amongst students.

@user2768 Just sitting in is called auditing, whether officially or unofficially. University education is expensive, the other people in that course or their agents are paying a lot for them to be there. Your department might allow it but I wouldn't suggest assuming it is typical.

@BryanKrause It is actually the mechanism recommended to students who were unsure on what classes to take. It is used between institutions. So, it is typical. At least, between those institutes. (Your definition of audit seems to be limited to North America.)

Do I have "the right" as a grad student to take a class just for fun?

I think phrasing the question as you did is slightly the wrong way of looking at the situation. It is more correct to say that you have the right to be treated with respect by your advisor. This includes having the advisor recognize that you are an intelligent human being with many dreams, hopes, ambitions, and a rich set of interests that go far beyond “doing research in computational biology”, and that the years you are now spending at a university community with leading experts in so many fascinating areas of human knowledge are an amazing and unique opportunity for you to pursue those interests and grow and develop as a person.
To be honest, I feel sorry for your advisor for being so short-sighted and narrow-minded that he cannot understand why taking these classes is important to you. It does not sound like he is treating you with the respect you deserve, and by failing to respect you I think he is also failing to respect himself and to be the decent person that I assume he wants to be and might believe himself to be.
Finally, your question reminds me of a part of Steve Jobs’ 2005 commencement address at Stanford. Talking about his days as a college dropout taking random classes to pursue his eclectic interests, he says:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this.[...]
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But 10 years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backward 10 years later.

I know this doesn’t help with the practical question of what you should do, which others have commented about, but I thought I’d offer my take on the philosophical aspect of your question. Keep dreaming, and good luck!

There isn't an absolute answer to the question: the rights and responsibilities of a student vary between universities, and are probably set out in writing somewhere. At my university, any student could attend lectures in almost any subject (practical labs and medicine are the exceptions that I can recall), although etiquette was to ask permission from the lecturer in advance.
Without seeing the regulations for your university, we can make some inferences.

Do I have “the right” as a grad student to take a class just for fun?

I think you answer that question yourself:

my advisor won't approve and sign off on them.

If you need approval from your supervisor, then you don't have the (unrestricted) right.

However, the body asks a different question to the title:

Who's being unreasonable here?

To answer that, you have to get at why you need your advisor to approve and sign off.
Are the courses you take assessed to determine your progress? If so, your advisor is being reasonable: unless you can show how studying music or ceramics will improve your understanding of biology, the course would skew the assessment.
Do the courses need to be paid for? If so, who's paying?
If it comes down to thinking that you should be thinking about biology 24/7 then the advisor is being unreasonable, but the need to obtain approval hints at a good reason.

Ask the graduate program director in your department, or some other department administrator.  Ask in general terms, with neutral language.  That is, avoid terms such as "unreasonable" and avoid finger pointing.
If the answer is "It's perfectly all right, and it's none of the advisor's business, as long as the student strikes a good work-life balance," then go ahead and describe your difficulty.  I expect you could get a department signature.  (Avoid unnecessary conflict, and don't tell your advisor you made an end run around him.)
If I were the department administrator, I would sign your form with alacrity, and say

I'm glad you've found a rewarding hobby.

I once took courses that were not directly in my field.  I think it is appropriate but I would just listen to your advisor -- it's easier in the long run.  Perhaps take some courses / participate in events at a place like a church, the Y, student groups or clubs, etc.
NOTE:  At some places, they expect grad school to be your ENTIRE life, so this is not unexpected, though perhaps not fair.  My advisor wasn't like that.

If you are a graduate student with tuition remission, you aren't paying your tuition, someone else is, and generally people paying for things for you get some say in how that money is spent. That 'someone else' is probably not your advisor, it could be a government agency for example. This is the not the same as "I want to pay to take a cooking class at night and my advisor won't let me"

True, but under some registrations, one pays the same whether one is taking an 18 credit load or a 9 credit load, so it depends on the particular situation.

That may be, but that's not how the university accounting works behind the scenes. Even if you cost the same amount, the way that money is distributed across departments is going to be weighted according to your credit load. If you are an engineering student taking mostly classes in the engineering department and then you add one in music, that's money the engineering department expected to come back to themselves that is now going somewhere else. Additionally, if that money was from a govt source earmarked for your engineering education it might be against their rules.

I'm pretty sure my advisor wouldn't have approved it if it was against the rules, but it was a long time ago -- I got my Ph. D. more than 25 years ago, and I think this was a few years before that (probably 4)

Well, maybe you are both being unreasonable. Do you have the "right"? Of course you do. Do you have the right to do it while committing to your current degree program. Perhaps, or not. That would depend on the rules in place at your institution as well as the wishes of your advisor.
I'm just going to guess that the advisor is concerned that you will not spend sufficient effort on the tasks associated with the degree if you take something extraneous. That may be a legitimate concert. It would be especially important if you are doing joint lab work with others.
It is normally a bad idea to go against your advisor's wishes. He has some say in your future and you want him to be happy to support you now and in the future. After you finish you can do as you please, of course.
You could also, take a course from a different institution. That would add to your load, of course and the advisor might still object if he learns of it, based on your level of commitment.
Perhaps the advisor is telling you something important about his view of your progress and what you need to do to succeed in comp-bio. Think about it.

Think about it — Better yet, ask your advisor about it directly. If your advisor wants to tell you something important, they should use their words.

@JeffE, actually, I meant only to think about the consequences of doing things that might distract you from your research and the things you need to do to succeed.

The consequences of doing things that might distract someone from their research are clear only in retrospect, but typically, one of those consequences is sanity.

Do you have to formally ask your advisor for approval as a result of actual rules? If not, I would just take the course and not mention it to your advisor. It's like any other extra-curricular thing you might do but not mention to your advisor, like, I don't know, joining a tennis team.

Generally, "just do it behind your advisor's back" isn't great advice, especially if the advisor is not of the understanding / reasonable type.

This needs to be balanced against being obsequious, though; one needs to be an independent researcher and contributor from a professional point of view; one is just learning to live in the 'real' (post-undergrad) world too at this point, too. In general, I agree it's hard to make blanket statements though because profs vary wildly from potentially criminal-levels of stalking-based micromanagement on the one side, to not being debatably even still living on the other.

I like @user2768's suggestion to merely turn up though, more than even my answer here. Since formal credit won't matter for this course anyway, it's pretty much the correct approach.

The OP references that the advisor "won't sign off on it", which heavily implies that he does need the advisor's approval, and so taking it without approval is not really an option.

@cag51 possibly. In my opinion, it's equally likely that he merely feels that he needs his advisors approval, even if he does not according to written program rules. I agree that it's possible, however, that it is required according to program rules. This is due to direct experience of the former scenario during my Ph.D.

And regardless, it's not clear what's meant by 'right.' Rights given by the university? By the governmental constitution? By a higher power? By a sense of normative justice? Dan Romik's answer above is excellent at interpreting it as that last option.

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text:
Reviewer comments are in complete contrast about research article
Recently my research article has been reviewed after first round of revision and has been sent back to me by editor. In addition, editor has written in a very clear manner that a thorough response and revision will make my paper eligible for second round of revision otherwise it would be a waste of time.
In the light of reviewer's comments, one reviewer has completely recommended the paper and didn't ask for any change but what surprised me the most was other reviewer comments as he hasn't recommended my article for publication. both reviewer comments are complete in contrast with each other.  for example, if first reviewer is telling that research article has explicitly stated its significance the other reviewer has stated that it is missing significance.
my question is, can i email editor to change this reviewer and request him to look for other reviewer although editor had told me before the reviewer in my field are not much in number. or just simply withdraw my paper from this journal?

This is an awkward situation that I've seen before. Has the editor actually said what they would like changed in the revision? Because when one reviewer says "great, accept" and the other says "reject", sometimes an editor tries to "comprimise" by asking for major revisions... but nobody has asked for any revisions, so the authors have no idea what to change.... (in this case all one can really do is ask the editor)

No editor hasn't mention any thing to revise, he has only asked me to perform through revision in accordance with the 2nd reviewer comments. However, 2nd reviewer has written in detail and mention headings in my article that required amendments. and these amendements are in complete contrast with the 1st reviewer. for example 1st reviewer has written: The purpose or purported significance of the article is explicitly stated. 2nd reviewer: The significance of the article was found missing. Justify?.

ah, so you do at least know what reviewer 2 wants! In the example you gave, different people do get different things from a text. So approaching this in good faith, you could decide "things were a bit unclear, so only one of two reviewers understood the purpose" and work to clarify.

Asking for a change of reviewer is unlikely to succeed. If the editor asked you to revise on the strength of Reviewer Two's comments, it's pretty likely that they found those criticisms credible, and they will probably have severe doubts about publishing without addressing those criticisms one way or another.
I think most people who've gone through the publication process have received some "wrong" comments from reviewers. I've certainly had my share, and it's frustrating, especially when Reviewer One got what I was saying but Reviewer Two misunderstood.
The first instinct on receiving that kind of response is to challenge the review: Reviewer 2 is ignorant and they've misunderstood my work, can we just ignore them? But the editor probably doesn't believe that Reviewer 2 is ignorant, or they wouldn't have chosen them. And if Reviewer 2 misunderstood my paper... it's quite likely that other readers will too.
Usually it's better to take misguided feedback as a warning that I haven't communicated things as clearly as I wanted to, and address this by improving the explanation. Often this can be achieved by taking the points that I want to make to Reviewer Two, and just working them into the paper instead.
For example, in a comment on another answer, you wrote:

he lacks the understanding of the approach/methodology which i have adopted for the study. he is asking me to include results in quantitative form which is impossible as my research was policy based and i can provide references of many other studies that have used the same approach and performed qualitative research

My response to this might be to add some text to the introduction of the paper, e.g.:

Although it would be highly desirable to examine quantitative results, this is generally impossible because [discuss reasons]. Hence, prior research on this topic has instead taken a qualitative approach[spam citations here], which we follow in this paper.

Then note this change in your response to the review. Hopefully this will appease Reviewer Two. If not, then at least the editor can see that you have addressed these criticisms, and it's quite likely that you have made your paper more useful for readers who may not be familiar with the field.

Since it was the editor that said you need a thorough "response", I think you need to revise. It sounds like s/he is trusting the second reviewer. Think especially about the significance. It may be that it is there, but you didn't state it clearly enough.
I doubt that the editor will respond favorably to such an email. Just re-think your  paper and do a revision. You don't need to explicitly change it for any particular reviewer comment, but you need to consider what the reviewer has said and how you can improve it if possible.
It may just be that one of the reviewer (either one) has missed something, but you don't really know which.

Your case is not unprecedented. This might happen. I think there are two options:
1) The editor knows that if you prepare a careful rebuttal / revision of the paper, this might potentially convince the second reviewer. Reviewers sometime sound very negative, but they can be eventually convinced. Keep also in mind that in addition to free comment, the reviewer also gave ratings. So, the editor might know better than you whether it is dead end or not. For example, when you review a paper some journals ask whether the paper will improved by revision. So, reviewer 2 might have indicated that.
2) The editor did not think very carefully, and just returned you a paper after 50/50 score. In such case, you might prepare the revision but this will not help and the reviewer 2 will continue be negative. Possibly, you will convince him/her in some points, but not in others. So, you will get another review round. Maybe one more etc.
Asking to replace reviewer might not be very appropriate, in case that the review sounded professionally. If you can convince the editor that the reviewer lacks understanding, then it might work better.
The bottom line: if the journal is not that good and you do not are to send the paper to another journal OR it is a lot of effort to prepare the revision, I think you can first write to the editor asking whether revision worth the effort and whether it is possible to replace this reviewer. If this journal is important for you, then prepare revision & rebuttal the best you can and hope that the reviewer will change his mind.

what i understand from reviewer no.2 comments, he lacks the understanding of the approach/methodology which i have adopted for the study. he is asking me to include results in quantitative form which is impossible as my research was policy based and i can provide references of many other studies that have used the same approach and performed qualitative research. that 's why i am thinking to convince editor of taking third party opinion.

Maybe in rebuttal you can explain all this and the reviewer will agree. If the revision is not too time consuming, you may submit the revision with a detail rebuttal and also write the editor that while you explained everything in the rebuttal, you still have concerns regarding the competence of the reviewer. So, the editor might decide to replace him.

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professor interfering in postdoc offer from another professor
I am an Indian student in the United States and I am a Lawful Permanent Resident (Green Card). After my PhD in STEM (computer science), I had a postdoc offer from a professor in a new university (I'll call him Prof. A).
I'm really looking forward to start that project, as it totally fit my skills and expertise.
Another professor, Prof. B, stepped in proposing to be a second advisor. Prof. A and B and their colleagues met many times to figure out a co-advised project.
After a while, Prof. B proposed to work only with him, saying that my citizenship would be an issue to get a tenured position and work in the same research field as Prof. A's (due to sensitive information-->clearance). I turned down Prof. B's offer because I want to work with A.
After some days, I met Prof. A, and he seemed to be almost convinced by Prof. B that it is in my best interest to go on with Prof. B, for the same reason as above.
What Prof. B is forgetting (or, most likely, pretending to) is that in a year I will apply for US Citizenship and that I will be a Citizen by the end of the postdoc. I had to be very insistent on this to re-convince A to hire me again. He still accepted to hire me, but I've seen him somewhat doubtful (he was always so enthusiast about me).
Two questions:
1) Is Prof. B's behavior ethical?
2) Is it legal to talk on my behalf about my alleged "best interest", without informing me and without my consent?
3) Should I cut B out?
As stated above, the country is the USA.
Thank you all.
AS

Very unethical behavior. I would just let know Prof A. about process because many natives don't know procedures for obtaining citizenship

"my citizenship would be an issue to get a tenured position in Prof. A's group"  This part does not make sense to me.  In the USA tenured positions are not in somebody's group.

I'm really having trouble understanding what's going on here.  This is a postdoc, what does it have anything to do with tenured positions?  Why would the groups be different with respect to immigration?  I just don't understand the question.

@Noah Snyder does "clearance" say something?

I suspect there are details that you are unaware of.  One charitable interpretation of these events is that ProfB is looking out for ProfA's welfare.  It's possible (if only remotely) that hiring a non-citizen postdoc may put constraints on ProfA's research or funding that endanger ProfA's future tenure or promotion case, especially if national security issues are at play.  Or maybe ProfB is just a nosy jerk.

@JeffE I'm not sure this is the case as they are not even in the same university. I had a very short collaboration with B and they came to know each other when B recommended me to A (I don't get why to interfere if he recommended me in the first place). National security is not really in the loop. I don't need any clearance in my postdoc, but if I will in the future it won't be a big deal (confidential clearances are usually more than enough).

Oh, and B is not American!

Prof. A's (due to sensitive information-->clearance)

CyberGuy, I am really not convinced that there is bad or malevolent intent by either Professor A or B but Professor B's discouragement resulting in Professor A to withdraw his offer does seem unethical and patronizing.
The security clearance issue is significant though, in Australia, there is a difference between a citizen working on sensitive material compared a permanent resident or a visa holder, and I would imagine it is similar in America. The fact that you are about to apply for citizenship may not be appreciated by Professor B. Professor B overly forceful because he may be worried that you would pigeon-hole yourself into a narrow field and become unable to work if your citizenship is delayed. Professor B may have your best intentions when he advocated for you to work in a field that is still viable without citizenship, which is his field. I do not think that that is morally wrong, he seems to concerned about your long term employability (but unfortunately minimizing your passions and interests). However, Professor B's lack of responsibility for taking responsibility for Professor A to withdraw his offer seems unethical and wrong. But Professor B may not be aware of the seriousness of Professor's A withdrawal of the offer.
Why did Professor B insert himself into your negotiations? Professor B may be interested in collaborating with Professor A as well, the same way as you were keen to work with Professor A. You must also be an impressive candidate for Professor B to have been interested in working with you and wanting you to work with him alone. Now that you have an offer from Professor A, it may worthwhile clarifying how your skills and expertise fits better with Professor A and that you are soon to apply for citizenship. Professor A's lack of enthusiasm may improve if Professor B understands the situation better and their concerns are clarified. You may also be able to return to work with Professor B if you are unable to get security clearance at a later stage if you are able to smooth things over between them.
Other things that would clearly be unethical would be if Professor B misrepresented your Green Card status and implied that citizenship is not achievable for you. If Professor B misrepresented you as being more enthusiastic for his work instead of Professor A than that would be quite unethical. Also if Professor B lies and misrepresents the Green card or citizenship process to Professor A as a way of pouching you for himself. I am not sure that is the case and they both genuinely seem to want the best for you. I hope Professor B apologizes for the impact of his behaviour and your distress and he turns around support you in your decision CyberGuy.

CyberGuy is a grown adult and does not need anyone advocating on their behalf without their consent. Prof. B took the liberty of doing so and is violating several ethical norms in my opinion.

Definitely a reasonable interpretation of events Spark. I am just proposing a more generous interpretation and clarified the ethics and gave examples of what I would consider unethical.

Yes, I do think you are right though. The more I read the events, the more the interaction between Professor B and A was unethical. It was unethical for Professor B to discourage and not support Professor A's offer. That was quite unethical. I will edit my answer.

Professor B’s behavior sounds highly unethical.
The only consideration one should make during such deliberations is your fit as a researcher. What you plan on doing after, what your long term visa plans are (except of course in cases where you wouldn’t be able to legally work in the USA, which isn’t the case for you), or anything else should not be discussed at all. In fact, Professor B might be engaging in outright illegal discrimination by doing so.
If you can secure a postdoc with A with no repercussions from B is a different matter. It depends on both their standing in the community, and their personalities. I personally wouldn’t feel comfortable working with B after this, but perhaps you are more forgiving. It could very well be a simple miscommunication that could be cleared up over a cup of coffee.

I am also not very prone to have him around. A misunderstanding may happen but I had in the first place the impression that is a "bossy" type.

You need to spend a significant amount of time with this person in a close working relationship. If it doesn’t feel like a good fit- just don’t go for it


text:
How can I oppose my advisor granting gift authorship to a collaborator?
I am a masters' student. I have written an article, which was part of my thesis. This was my first article. After I handed it over to my professor, it was highly commended. My professor was not the least involved in writing the paper. He just gave me the idea, which I am sure was his.
But after a while I realized that my professor had given my paper to a colleague for submission. This corresponding author is my professor’s old student, who now teaches at another university. I never ever met him. My professor confirmed this. I am listed as a co-author of the submitted paper. As far as I know, they haven't changed the content. Meanwhile, my article has been approved by the referees and has reached the revision stage.
This is a theft. How can I tell the journal that this article was written by me alone and that nobody other than me and my professor should be authors? Can my reporting to the journal prevent this theft? As I have heard, where I live, such behaviors are commonplace. I am looking for a way to stop these acts.
Appendix:
After talking to advizor about it he
told me my paper was in trouble (while my paper was highly praised by him). I asked: Why didn't he tell me to correct my paper myself? (He didn't answer) And finally he said my article was rejected. (While I have seen on the Journal site the referees agree with my article and the article has reached the revision stage.)

Answers in comments have been and requests for clarifications that have been addressed have been moved to chat. Please read this FAQ before posting another comment.

What was the order of the authors? The symbol indicating the corresponding author is usually less relevant than the oder. (However, in my group we always publish in alphabetic order)

My advisor, corresponding author and I.

Can you say what country you are located in? It doesn't really matter, but I'm curious.

Sadly, I'm going to give you advice that you will find unsatisfying as would many others. It can be dangerous to your future career to push too hard against an advisor who is behaving badly but has power over you and your future.
No matter what you do, you aren't going to change "the system." You might be able to force an editor to correct authorship to your liking, but it could be at the cost of poor, even negative, recommendations from the advisor and others in his sphere.
Make it your goal to graduate successfully and move on to another position in which you have some control over your future. This is what you lack at the moment, so I advise not making it worse. Don't think of this one paper as the only one you will ever write or that your whole future depends on it. Especially don't think that your whole future depends on getting sole authorship for this paper. You could win that battle and lose the war.
As we see in other questions here, students get stuck in such situations all too often. But the system doesn't change when it is dysfunctional and has a lot of momentum. Find a way to look to the long term and not the short. In particular, that means getting a good letter of recommendation, even if you have to bite your tongue.
Sorry that this feels wrong. But you have little power and no authority to change it.

+1 Also, the "corresponding author" is just the person who handles the communication with the editor. There's no status involved in being, or not being, the corresponding author.

I sincerely appreciate your advice. Yes you are right. I use them.

@mhwombat Agreed about corresponding authors... importantly a masters student would rarely be a corresponding author in my field because they likely wouldn't even be at the same institution by the time a manuscript is published... Though order might matter, depending on field.

What a defeatist answer. Let the OP decide for themselves how much they value recommendations from such a corrupt advisor, or whether they even want to continue with the advisor.

I also see these kind of questions often and I understand what and why you are saying. But as long as the taken action is not changing anything, this dysfunctional system will never loose its momentum. Maybe at somepoint we will reach a boiling point and this will escalate in something like #metoo. I really understand why you are saying this and this is good adivce for this person, but this will put another person in this position in the future...

@curiousdannii You do realize, this is a question and answer site and Buffys opinion was implicitly solicited, right?

@KamiKaze You talk about counter-movement: well, it exists. As with such revolutions, they are not likely to be more fair than the conditions they battle. I know a case of a student telling their adviser they hadn't contributed and would not deserve to be included as coauthor. I happen to know that adviser and they are people of highest integrity. I would be very surprised if they would expect to coauthor without merit. Being of high integrity, they let the student go their own way. Years later, the student came back and agreed to copublish understanding their supervisor's contribution.

@curiousdannii, in many cases changing advisors would be the best action, but it seemed to me to be too late for that in this case.

@KamiKaze, while I would like a better world, let me note that in the #metoo situation, women who spoke up were either completely ignored or beaten down or already had a some social power that they could bring to bear against the people engaged in improper behavior. I can't predict a bottom up revolution in academia for two reasons. First, while bad things occur, they aren't universal and second, the people at the bottom don't have the opportunity for collective action, being both dispersed and also more concerned with their own studies. But, we hope that they behave better when they (more)

finish their studies and take on a supervisory role of their own. At that point they will have the power to act. But first, they need to survive. In battle, the vanguard often dies.

Your opinions are highly appreciated, Dear Buffy. I sincerely thank you. And I will definitely use them.

The corresponding author thing varies quite a bit between fields. For my field, the * indicates which sucker got stuck dealing with endless reformatting requests. For my wife's, it's basically "co-senior" author.

As well-intentioned as your advice is, it is this very attitude that allows such behaviour to continue being tolerated. Sometimes you have to rebel, an academic career at the price of keeping to undermine you ethics is not worth it

Downvoted because you're essentially suggesting that people should just accept the abuse and stay quiet.

@Parrotmaster - Focusing on the authorship list of one's first article of lifetime so much that it becomes their last article of lifetime is being compared to a suicide. This answer suggests to accept a costly-to-prove loss and to move out of the abusive power relationship as quickly as possible.

Yes I agree with make it your goal to move onto another institution where you are treated fairly.

I would start by asking your professor, in a non-confrontational way, why he did this. Perhaps there is some reason that is not obvious to us. Maybe he felt that the paper had a better chance of being published if this third person was involved. (Not saying that he was right to do this, just that he may have had some reason.) You might say something like this:

Professor X, as you know, I'm pretty new to academic publishing, and I'm trying to understand the process better. I was under the impression that only people who contributed to the research should be listed as authors. I'm curious why Joe Smith was added as an author. Did he make a contribution I don't know about?

If you think you may publish more papers with this professor, discuss your expectations about authorship with him and come to an agreement.
EDIT: Several people have suggested that the phrasing above is still too confrontational. I think they have a point, but I'm not sure we can come up with a phrasing that everyone is happy with. So I suggest that the OP read the comments below for ideas on how to phrase this.

That second paragraph doesn't sound at all non-confrontational to me.

@DawoodibnKareem It is direct, but probably the strongest polite request that could be tried.

+1 Second paragraph is good but better, I think, without the last line.

The suggested text is confrontational. It could perhaps be improved as "Professor X, as you know, I'm pretty new to academic publishing, and I'm trying to understand the process better. Can you help me understand Joe Smith's involvement?"

Perhaps replace the closing two sentences with I'm curious as to why Joe Smith was added as an author.

The last sentence of the suggested text is clearly a rhetorical question meaning "I believe the contribution is zero." Deleting that would make it rather less confrontational.

I am a bit surprised by all these indirect answers. To my opinion you have the right to know. Therefore, write a short email (if it is a common way to communicate in your group), you can combine with other points too.

Just a naive question - what exactly was A.B's contribution to this
  paper?

It could be that the idea of the whole work belonged to that person.

Nothing, exact nothing. As mentioned before, the idea had come from my advisor. I worked alone on the paper. I don't know where comes from A.B. I asked advisor as @mhwombat soggested.

He told me my paper was in trouble (while my paper was highly praised by him). I asked: Why didn't he tell me to correct my paper myself? (He didn't answer) And finally he said my article was rejected. (While I have seen on the Journal site the referees agree with my article and the article has reached the revision stage.)

@Roja Based on that additional information, I would talk to someone else at your university (department chair, ombudsman, etc) about the situation.

@Roja The sentence in the yellow box is not a question to you, but a proposed form of email.

@Roja If you ask such questions, try to get the answers in writing (at least as an email). That way you could later reference them, if there was an arbiter involved and it turns out the paper was in fact accepted.

I'm surprised nobody said this, but if you're certain you're being treated unfairly*, you should at least take a look around and see if you can get a better advisor. Of course you should make sure this is doable before you burn any bridges, but pretending it's fine will only make it worse: as time passes it will only be harder for you to change the advisor, and as long as your career depends on them, there likely will be more "favours" you'll have to do down the road.
(*)

one thing you should check is how publishing works in your field, perhaps it's customary to add someone on the author's list to get published in the right journal. I'm not saying that's ethically impeccable, but your adviser woudn't be the one to blame
another aspect is to be sure the new co-author was really not involved. For instance, how do you know the idea your adviser gave you to work on didn't originate from that person?

It's too late to change the advisor.

@Roja Then you'll have to finish your thesis with this one, but I'd say in your last year you should already be looking for a new place to continue your career. Best of luck!

I'm looking for it. thank you

I sympathize with your situation, and indeed, in the immediate term if your professional career depends on the goodwill of your advisor, I wouldn't advise getting too confrontational at this point.
All of this said, however, there is a great service you could do to the community: If and when you become a faculty member, make sure you hold up the highest standards in publishing and in particular, managing authorship. I think that in the long term, that's the only way to improve the system.

This is exactly the decision I have for the future. I will never forget, and one day when I have the power to confront, I will do my best to improve the system.

-1 for suggesting OP keep their mouth shut about this while other students of OP's adviser, and that co-author, continue to suffer the same form of plagiaristic abuse.

@einpoklum: I never suggested that the OP keep their mouth shut. All situations like these are complex ones involving human relations and it is impossible to give an objective answer of the sorts "always speak up" or "always keep shut". That is why I advised against getting too confrontational. There is a long road between the two extremes of keeping shut and being confrontational, including for example, mature conversations that maintain mutual respect and decorum. If you think that every injustice that humankind has ever experienced can be fixed by "speaking out", you are sadly mistaken.

Probably one of the biggest problems with academia is that there is no HR department, and your advisor holds a disproportionate amount of power.  Especially in the flat American system, where one can become a PI by just 30 years old.
This being said, I think your best bet is to just let your advisor do what they want, and then get out of his lab as quickly as possible.

I quite agree with you

As i stated before, i disagree with the sentiment of the last sentence. There might be a valid reason. Without talking to the Prof. i wouldn't do anything. Maybe the reason is so good, maybe not. But "get out of there" might be the worst decision in some case.
So No, don't "just let him do what he wants and get out" rather "discuss the problem with the persons involved and decide then what you do." That's the grown up way. Thats the way a HR department would handle the situation btw.

@sango: I have spoken to adviers. I suggest you read my comment in response to Yarchik. Sometimes talking is ineffective when the answer is just a lie.

@sango the PI also needs to decide to act like a grownup, or else you just lose.  An HR department acts like an impartial 3rd party, and if things go poorly they can make sure you are protected from unfair future treatment.  Sometimes managing relationships is about knowing when not to say anything.

I think there is a misunderstanding and you should understand what a "corresponding author" is. While it could be the PI, it could also be someone who is simply assigned the administrative duty of getting the paper published correctly and handling all the correspondence. As this is your first published paper the advisor may simply have chosen someone with experience.
Personally, my advice would be to say "I noticed that you made X the corresponding author. I would like to learn more about what is involved in getting a paper published so that I can be the corresponding author on my next paper"
https://www.editage.com/insights/5-pre-submission-tips-for-corresponding-authors

No misunderstanding. Please read my comments in the other answers for more complete information.


text:
Citing multiple parts of one website APA
I'm writing a small research paper (University of Applied Sciences, Bachelor level) where I cite and reference some information from a company's website.
I currently have the specific pages of the website from which I pull the different citations/references individually mentionned in my bibliography like so:

Company Name (sd). page name. Consulted on September 05, 2019, from the website of Company Name: https://www.company_name.com/specific_page
Company Name (sd). _ different page name_. Consulted on September 05, 2019, from the website of Company Name: https://www.company_name.com/anoter_specific_page

However, in the text of the paper, whenever I cite or reference the information of the website, if I follow the APA style I'll have something like:

A direct quote of the company (Company Name)

Which, as far as I can tell is the correct way to reference the bibliography. However, within the text, all different pages I reference get the same in-line attribution, specifically:

relevant quote (Company Name)

Is there a better/different way of handling this while adhering to the APA style guide?
For example, should I just add the website as a whole to the bibliography and specify the specific page in-line like so:

Bibliography
Company Name (sd). Consulted on September 05, 2019, from the website of Company Name: https://www.company_name.com/

and then in the text itself:

A direct quote of the company (Company Name, website_page_name)

The APA Style blog is very helpful in these matters. https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2016/11/writing-website-in-text-citations-and-references.html

Per the blog, you can append the year with a letter, i.e. (Foo, 2019a) and (Foo, 2019b).

@Compass do I add the letter to the bibliography as well?

@FMashiro yes, otherwise it wouldn't correlate with anything.


text:
How to reject an advisor for master's thessis?
(I could not find the same question. If this has been asked before please let me know.)
I wrote an e-mail to a professor to be his student and he responded with his area of interests. Then I wrote for further information but he did not respond for couple of days. So I contacted another advisor and we agreed to work together.
Few hours later the first advisor replied saying he could give me something to work.
How can I let him know that I agreed to work with another professor? Did I do a mistake by not waiting more for his response and contacting other advisor?
Thank you.

A simple note of thanks, but that you have made another arrangement, is enough. Only the future will tell whether you made a mistake or not.
Don't worry about it. The professor will be fine. There is nothing insulting or unusual about what you've done.

Thank you Professor. Maybe he gets dozens of e-mails like this and will not care much as much as I do, right?

Probably. And he is busy enough that it's no problem. Just don't forget to say thanks. Note that a lot of people contact professors in parallel, rather than one after another, so the time isn't really an issue.


text:
What is the nature of a study?
If one is asked to elaborate the nature of a study, like, for example, political science, or political theory, sociology, or a study on any other subject, what should he/she elaborate on? What should a report or an essay on the nature of a study include? Thank you.

Think about the sorts of unanswered questions that you think are worth exploring. Then generalize a bit.

@Buffy could you please add more details to your answer?

The "nature" of a study or a piece of research is the sorts of questions that it sets out to answer. If you accept that research is about the unknown, then the researcher wants to explore that and, hopefully shed light. Ideally, research results in definite answers to important questions, but it might not be able to get that definitive, especially in human subjects such as those you name.
But the nature of a political study, for example, might involve a comparison of electoral systems and how they might evolve over time. Or it might involve defense against the rise of dictatorship. Likewise comparisons between the effectiveness of parliamentary systems vs other democratic forms is possible. And even the definition of "effectiveness" might be open to study in such a field of research.
The nature of a particular study could be quite narrow, such as the reasons for some outcomes in British elections in one specific year as compared to a year a few years earlier and why different parties got different results.
And, of course, if it is "research" then the researcher is looking to draw conclusions and to find evidence for, as well as against, those conclusions. That is what separates it from, say, journalism or speculative writing.


text:
How to persuade my supervisor to write a recommendation letter for P.h.D in the US?
I am currently a MS student at EE department at my final year pursing my thesis. I could not publish any of my works yet however I am willing to submit one journal paper for publishing at the end of the next December. In addition, I have an excellent GPA at my bachelor study ( > 3.70/4.00) and a current 4.00/4.00 GPA in MS program.  Moreover, I have an assistantship experience.
I want to get accepted in a fully-funded Ph.D program in the US or Canada for the next year, I have researched some universities requirements which I meet. And I asked my supervisor politely to be ready to write me a recommendation letter when I start applying to the universities. He said to me that he can do so, but he totally does NOT advise me to apply now, but be more 'realistic' and apply for the next year since I have no work published yet. He said that I have a very low chance to get accepted, but I find such reason of not applying unreasonable. When people apply to the Green Card, they have also a very low chance of getting accepted, and I am not sure of this low chance's percentage; is it 5% 10% or 35%? He said that I have to E-mail professors working in these universities to have a Ph.D position, but they most probably will not answer my mails due to my empty published research budget. I asked him if writing about my intended paper topic briefly in the 'Statement of Purpose' will help me in this situation, but he said that he does not think so.
All in all, he is a person that I respect a lot and very experienced instructor in his work area as well as helping his own students to go for top-univiersities in US & Europe. But, I think that I either need to persuade him to write a recommendation letter or being more clear with me. Frankly, I am also afraid of arguing further with him since he is considered to be my boss,leading to undesired consequences.
What should I do? BTW: the universities in the US/Canada ask for three recommendation letters which means that I have to be in contact with two more professors as well. I also consider and accept doing my Ph.D in a top-university in Europe, but English-speaking country is my first priority. Unfortunately, applying to US/Canada in the next year will make me wait one more year to start the program. This might not be bad if I gain a real industry work experience at the same time? But forcing my conditions is what I don't like.

Do you have a compelling reason not to wait?

Currently, there is a GRE exemption due to the pandemic period in US universities. Moreover, I am not sure about when my research paper will get accepted. We are aiming  a powerful journal such as IEEE Transaction, but who guarantees its acceptance after may be 6-7 months? I am worried that this wait could have no meaning.

B.T.W: I am currently an integrated Ph. D student, and unofficial MS student. I will transfer my program to MS in the next semester, the reason is that my research group project was canceled due to conditions out my control. Do you think this may also make me not to apply now ?

Your adviser doesn’t seem to have said he won’t write you a letter, just recommended that you wait a year to maybe get a publication. Or so I understand. If that’s the case you could just ask him again, tell him that you appreciate his advice and that yes, a publication would make your application stronger, but that you’d still love to try now. I’d think he will shrug and write you a letter.

@gnometorule  I see, this what I may ask again. But what I wonder why he strongly advised not to apply in the first place, do you think that he has/could have different plan for me? I don't think that writing a recommendation letter is that exhausting. And I don't want to have negative image when I probably ask again for the recommendation letter in Spring or Summer, neither formed by him or by other professors being 'Not accepted' at the first time applying.

@control: My best guess would be that he has your best interests at heart, and just shared that what you already have + a publication would be a stronger application. I wasn’t there and don’t know him, your relationship with him, and your circumstances. Generally, I’d try to not interpret others actions and words too much. Just tell him friendly and calmly what you would like, as long as he agrees that you at least have some chance this year as well.


text:
Changing PhD/ collab PhD with a different department
I've started a phd in fluid dynamics. I always wanted one in general relativity or quantum field theory really, I got interviews for that (many really) but none where successful, I got into fluid dynamics straight away so after waiting around I thought I should crack on and maybe it's meant to be. I do not hate my PhD, but I do not love it either. Whereas if it was general relativity or quantum field theory I think I would really really enjoy it. I am now around 8 months in. I enquired about a phd in cosmology/gravity theories a while back, more out of curiosity, and I received this advice back from the professor at a different university. I had not thought of this idea probably cause I thought the other departments would not be interested in the slightest. I am currently in the engineering department. Does his feedback seem infeasible or is it worth a shot? (I am not sure right now if I will apply for cosmology/gravitational phd in a month or so, when application time begins to peak, if I see the right project..part of me still really wants to, part of me thinks I may as well stick to what I've invested time and work into)
FEEDBACK:
I can’t really suggest what’s best, except to discuss your current situation and your ambitions with
your supervisory team. XXX YOUR UNI XXX has some world-class activity in computational cosmology, and it may
be possible for some sort of collaborative project to be worked out. If you’re 4 months in (and what an extraordinary 4 months)
then there is still plenty of time for things to develop
(ofc i am now 8 months in not 4)
Re. my current funding:
have two assigned supervisors. the scholarship is from the engineering department, not the maths or physics, so I doubt that would be able to directly switched over. However the main supervisor had full control over this scholarship (he was awarded it when he arrived at the university ), so if he agreed on a intersection with a supervisor within the maths/physics department it may be possible. But I also dont want to pee off my current supervisors, if they would not like to grant permission for such a thing, in particular say.

Can you clean this up and make your specific question clear? In particular, the title of your post has no question mark.

okay not qft astrophyiscs and fluid dynamics then. if there is 0 change i stay with my current supervisor then it's not possible as it is his funding.

well what would you guess from such a title, one would obviously guess they're asking if it's possible. do we have to be so anal with the formalities?


text:
Undergraduate student academic CV
I am an undergraduate student and I am writing my CV which I am going to send to my professor for a position as a junior researcher. My questions are:

How should I present my education (including the bachelor that I am going to finish in a year) ?
I am currently doing my thesis which I am going to finish in 6 months. How should I present it given that I haven't finished it yet ?

This is how I usually see students present education and work in progress:

Bachelor of Science, expected December 2019
University of State
Major: Physics

Senior Thesis: "Reflection of bivariate light distributions" (Expected completion July 2019).
Major GPA 3.78/4.00

Minor: Greek History

Using the "expected" tag is usually an indicator that the work/degree is not yet completed, but is in progress. If the project lead has further questions he/she can ask you about your work in more detail. They likely are perfectly aware that you have not completed everything for the degree. People apply for jobs all the time under the premise of expected education/projects.

As a post grad (BSc) not currently in an advanced degree program I can only say what my approach would be. Firstly id listen with all ears to Vladhagen, being personally experienced in the revirw of such documents.
But as for my humble opinion, id just be straight up. Describe succinctly/briefly the topic/title of the thesis, maybe include some of the thought processes that led to the substance of the paper, (the addition of an expected time of completion is not something id have thought of but is an excellent idea).
Depending on how descriptive/well understood the content of your degree is i might include a list of the relevant modules/classes that show your specialist studies. For example i did a Natural Sciences degree (a vague descriptor im sure you'd agree), however it was a molecular/cellular bio and classical chem double major, so after year one there was no geology, no whole life bio, no evolution, no physics (except that involved in physical chemistry etc) so it was necessary to specify the detail of what i actually had been educated in.
Hope that gives you something to think about.


text:
How to approach a problem if I am new in the field?
I recently came across a problem related to image recognition in Deep Learning. One fine morning, I was struck with the idea that possibly I could do something about it if I merged GANs with CNNs. As of now, I only know what these networks are capable of.
Now how should I go about this? Should I first pick a standard book (say Ian Goodfellow's Deep Learning) and read it from cover to cover? Or should I straightaway read some research articles, identify areas I am weak in, and then dig deep into those very areas from standard texts.
In other words, is it better to complete everything I can get my hands on before starting to work on this idea? Or should I start on it and fill the gaps as they come by.
P.S. My background in courses in statistical learning, probability, and calculus ensures I can completely understand the math behind the above stated topics.

A discussion to have with your advisor?

@Solar Mike: Thank you for your comment. I would definitely have discussed, but I don't have an advisor in my college or someone who directs undergraduates in Deep Learning; they aren't specialised in it.  So unfortunately, they tell me they would not be able to help me out in this case.

I generally start by looking for and reading review articles in the field. If, when I try to read the review articles, I find that I don't have enough background in the basics to understand the review papers then I will look for a broader overview such as a book. Even then, I will usually try to read selected chapters closely relevant to the topic of interest before resorting to reading a book cover to cover.

@Matt Thanks for your comment. After all the answers and your comment, I too feel now it will be more productive to follow the approach you have suggested. Thanks!

I am still learning, but this is how a few advisors taught me how to approach my field.
First, look for a recent structured literature review of the filed and taxonomies. They give you a good starting point as all relevant paper (hopefully anyway) are listed there, and this gives you a perfect index to learn about the filed. Of cause, if there is none, you could be the first to create one ;).
Then its time to read a lot, create a stack of all relevant paper — Mark of any references that look to help and add them to the stack. Keep going and once your stack starts to shrink more than it grows you should have a grasp about the filed.
In order to do this in a reasonable time you do not have to read every paper deeply. Try to get the idea, and try to fit them into your understanding of the filed. Only read paper deeply that help you further your research question, other just skim.
Other tested methods include: Ask your advisor and other colleagues in around you, they might have looked into it already and can point you to relevant material.

Thanks for your answer. This stack technique feels cool to me. I'll give it a try in my next literature search process.

Other early answers here have focused more on how to learn the field. This will be a bit different. There is, in my opinion, no reason to wait before trying out your research ideas. You will probably never stop waiting if you take that too far. But working blind is likely to lead to dead ends and you need to recognize (or get advice) when you are going down a blind alley.
So, it might be a better path to take a blended approach. Start out by spending some of your time (say 10 - 20%) working on your problem and the rest learning the field and reflecting back on the problem based on what you learn. Over time increase the research portion as you gain experience and spend less on reading the literature.
I doubt that such "research attempts" will be wasted even if they are unsuccessful. You will learn a lot about what doesn't work, at least.
I think that too many students wait too long to start working on meaningful problems. Of course, it is helpful to have an advisor to guide you initially on what is meaningful and what approaches might be tried (or have already be exhausted). If you have ideas, you should spend a bit of time on them, but be critical in your self analysis of what you have, not jumping to conclusions.
But you probably also would benefit from advice. If you don't have a formal advisor then you may still be able to bounce ideas off of a faculty member or other researcher in the field. Practice with feedback is a great way to learn.

I think that too many students wait too long to start working on meaningful problems  This was my major concern that led me to write this post. Thanks for your answer. I'll look for possible feedback sources.

You are actually asking the question that most new grad students ask: how do I find, understand, and make an impact on a relevant problem in my chosen field of study?  Most grad students are new to "the" field in some way.  For instance, you say you have a background in stats etc, so you aren't totally new to the field, you are just new to the specific sub-problem.  This gives you a big advantage over someone coming in from a totally unrelated field, like zoology :-P
tawalaya's answer is great and is the basics of how to conduct a solid literature review.  The basic underlying idea is you focus on learning as much as possible so that you are no longer new to the field. I'd like to add on to it with a few caveats:

In your literature review, pay special attention to whether or not your solution counts as a contribution to the field or an application of it.  This will in large part depend on which field you choose to make an impact in.  Is the field deep learning?  Image recognition?  CNNs?  What is a contribution in one field might be just a basic application in another.  For instance, if you are trying to make an impact in deep learning but your contribution is just "I put these two nets together and look at how good they solve a specific problem", it's unlikely you'll make an impact.  However, if your chosen field is image recognition and you prove theoretically that your network has properties that solve a known problem, it might be a big impact.
Watch out for people who have thought of this before.  The unfortunate problem of academic research is that if you thought of it probably someone else has, too.  Look far and wide to see if your specific solution, or something so similar to it to make no difference, has already been published or studied and cast aside.  It's possible that the idea you think will work is actually no better than another, simpler idea.  It's also possible that someone did a similar piece of work to your own and their paper just wasn't impactful enough to draw attention.  This might happen because it's not interesting enough or because they published in a low-tier journal.
Be careful about merging techniques.  In much of academic research, simply putting two things together and seeing what happens is not sufficient.  You should look for how to prove that these two specific things, when put together, are demonstrably better.  In your example, why, specifically, should GANs and CNNs be merged to solve this problem?  Why not two other things?  Why not additional things?  How will you know that your network is better?

Ultimately, you're going to have to do more than just learn the field.  You'll need to learn to distinguish and sell the value of your research to experienced researchers in the field.

Thanks for your answer. It was really helpful. I'll keep these points in mind.

Can you please explain what you meant when you said merging the nets to make a contribution in Deep Learning is unlikely to make an impact, while the same theoretical proof that such a merger solves a problem might be a big impact in Image recognition. Are you trying to discuss about the idea of narrowing the focus of study in a research problem- the more focussed the research problem is, the better it is.

Basically what I mean is that it's not a contribution to just put two things together and see what happens.  That's just an application.  Doing research in many fields might involve putting two new things together, but in order to get published you'll need to explain why, specifically and theoretically, this was a good idea.  You usually need to prove that these two things, and not some other two arbitrary things, will for sure improve performance and that no one has ever thought of it before.  Otherwise it's just playing with software


text:
Can someone clarify Hamming's notion of important problems in relation to modern academia?
I was reading the transcripts of a seminar by Dr. Richard W. Hamming. In this, Hamming goes on to say the following statements:
Explaining why one guy was successful while the others weren't as much successful.

I have never heard the names of any of the other fellows at that table
  mentioned in science and scientific circles. They were unable to ask
  themselves, "What are the important problems in my field?" If you
  do not work on an important problem, it's unlikely you'll do important
  work. But the average scientist does routine safe work almost all
  the time and so he (or she) doesn't produce much. It's that simple. If
  you want to do great work, you clearly must work on important
  problems, and you should have an idea. Most great scientists know
  many important problems. They have something between 10 and 20
  important problems for which they are looking for an attack. And when
  they see a new idea come up, one hears them say "Well that bears on
  this problem."

Now my question is:  If I ask myself the question, What are the important problems in my field?, how should I expect to get an answer to this. Is it by deeply diving into literature and finding loopholes that exist. And even if I do find something worth working upon, how do I know it's an important problem of the field or a trivial subset of some other large problem?
I am sorry but I am unable to get myself a clear picture of what exactly is meant here. Will anyone please help me out with ideas.
Many thanks.

Well, yes, it is about delving deeply into a research area, and finding ways to push the boundary of knowledge.  I would think of it as follows: if only I have X, then I can do Y, where Y is a very significant outcome; e.g., teleportation or infinite energy.   X could be a widget/idea/concept/info.  I would venture to say that X is what Hamming wants us to focus on.  Shannon wanted X to get Y (error free transmissions), and he proved the properties (X) by which Y can happen.

Hamming also said that "it's not the consequence that makes a problem important, it is that you have a reasonable attack".

For some fields overview papers are published. These can bring you on the right track. Also a chat with a professor in the field should help to identify the important problems.

I'd say that asking "how do I know it's an important problem of the field or a trivial subset of some other large problem" is a sign that you don't understand your field deeply yet. The question "What are the important problems in my field?" is a hard one, intended for senior researchers. The peers of Hamming could answer that question; invited talks sometimes propose answers to that; a principal investigator needs an answer to write a good grant proposal; but I think that most researchers publishing in some field don't actually have a solid answer to this, only a likely flawed opinion.

@Peteris Yes, you are right. I am just starting out, beginning by reading articles in Deep Learning. My motive to read this seminar ( and others like it ) is to get an understanding from other people's experiences about the general process and practices in research. And here I came across this statement, so posted it out here to see what the community thinks it to be

What are the important problems in my field?, how should I expect to get an answer to this. Is it by deeply diving into literature and finding loopholes that exist. And even if I do find something worth working upon, how do I know it's an important problem of the field or a trivial subset of some other large problem?

I would interpret this statement not so much as trying to look for "loopholes" in the literature, more as trying to identify what the core problems are that are holding back further advancement in your field, and what would need to change in order for them to become tractable. This requires you to deeply understand the existing work, so as to learn what exactly needs to change for your field to really jump forward.
However, I should warn you - Hamming’s approach is certainly a high-risk-high-reward one. If you implement this, you will almost certainly have to invest quite some work detailling and understanding a large number of difficult problems that you will in all likelihood make no progress on during your lifetime. Really important problems invariably don't have a straight-forward solution (or, in many cases, no solution at all), so even if you bring yourself into the best position to attack them in the right circumstances, there is little guarantee that these circumstances ever come to pass (or that you are the first to recognize if some recent development in the field makes one of "your" open problems tractable). That said, if you manage to address even one really big, important problem, your impact will indeed be higher than what you can achieve in decades of incremental research.

I suspect the OP simply wanted to say "holes" (as in "gaps in knowledge") rather than "loopholes".

@WolfgangBangerth Yes surely I meant gaps in knowledge. Am sorry for the confusing statement.

Hey, worst case scenario, he might be able to get a meta-analysis paper out of his analysis of the problems his field is facing! ;)

Not everyone is a Richard Hamming or a John Tukey.  They did what they did because they were brilliant.  It's not like everyone can become them just by deciding to work on something different.
My advice is to keep a notebook and write down ideas.  Occasionally do things like putting them in Excel and organizing them into categories (including multiple tags).
Personally, I WOULD find some safe work to do.  That you know delivers results and that you can spend time on and get rewards from.  Try to at least work up to, and around more fundamental ideas.  But it is also good to "grind your pigments", not just jump to painting Mona Lisas.

+1 just for the first paragraph.  The OP's quote is pure survivorship bias and nothing else.  The big-time names got there almost entirely by being fortunate enough to be ridiculously intelligent (among already ridiculously intelligent people) and well-motivated.  Everyone else got where they are by achieving to the greatest extent of their abilities.  Not because they simply "did it wrong" or didn't pull themselves up by the bootstraps. That's wildly insulting.

@zibadawatimmy To be fair, the quote only talks about nessecary conditions for a great researcher, not sufficient ones. I'm sure Hamming realised that actually solving these problems requires significant abilities.

@zibadawatimmy This was exactly what I originally wanted to answer as well. Survivorship bias is an important concept to keep in mind whenever listening to talks of or getting advice by excessively successful people.

I wholly agree with the first sentence, but not the second. Hamming and Tukey were brilliant, but a significant factor in their sucess is the luck of being active when their fields were young. Brilliance is neither necessary nor sufficient for success. Someone else would have rediscovered Hamming codes and FFTs if they hadn’t.

@JeffE I guess, a less fancy way to express your way to fame would be "try to get in on the ground floor on the next big thing" (of course nobody can really tell what the next big thing is going to be - and this is where survivor bias will strike again).

@zibadawatimmy is it really more insulting to be labeled as someone who simply didn't take big enough risks in research versus your theory of inferior cognitive ability?

@xLeitix Or even more simply: “Work hard, and get lucky.”

@ASimpleAlgorithm It would be possible to take it that way, though I think that's an unhealthy mindset.  Beyond maybe a limited influence from things like diet and exercise, we can't control how intelligent we intrinsically are. It's plain reality that we can't all be the smartest guy around, and that some people are just plain better than we are at the things we do. And there's nothing wrong with that at all.

@zibadawa timmy: Thanks for your insights on survivorship bias. I didn't know about this. I'll be more careful of that when I read/listen to talks in the future. Also, while I concur with your statement about intrinsic intelligence, I would wish to make a point on ASimpleAlgorithm' s comment. How does anyone know they aren't intrinsically intelligent enough to solve something, without giving it a try? Can't Hamming's point be interpreted this way that irrespective of failure or success, that some people just never gave a try. I would love to hear your opinion on this.

The important problems in each field are different, of course. Some of them are well known and well publicized. In CS, "Does P = NP" is one of those problems that every advanced student is introduced to. The same will be true of such problems in other fields. However, one of the reasons that such problems are important and well known is that they are very hard and that lots of people have tried and failed to solve them. There is normally a rich literature on such long-standing problems. But you aren't likely to solve them yourself. Some may even not be solvable at all.
Other problems are important, but unknown. They won't be known to be important until they are solved and the solutions are found to open up new lines of thought and inquiry. These are often solved purely by serendipity. Someone has an "interesting" thought and explores it. That leads to other interesting thoughts. If this work becomes known it may be post facto treated as important.
But a solo researcher is pretty unlikely to be the one to solve such problems, though it can happen.
Collaboration is the key
Important problems are most often solved by people who are not only able, and well trained, but also connected to other such people. In a research group, whether co-located or not, there are a tremendous number of ideas floating around and discussed. Some of these problems are big problems and some of them are just "interesting looking" areas of inquiry that haven't yet been mined for results. If you can get connected, somehow, to such a group then you will learn about those big, but not well-known, problems that might be worth attacking.
This is why research seminars at large departments are so valuable. People with a somewhat different viewpoint than your own can make suggestions, some of which can bear fruit. Doctoral dissertations often come from such seminars and some of them are important work on important problems, whether they provide a complete solution or not.
So, if there is advice to give here, my advice would be to look, first, for "interesting ideas" not important problems. Many of the important problems aren't known to be such so looking for them directly isn't fruitful. But find a group to work with and look at a lot of ideas. Some of them will, hopefully, turn out to be interesting. Hamming didn't work alone, of course.
And yes, what is "interesting" varies by field and with time.

While I think guest's answer is relevant, here is a counterpoint.
It is true that not everyone will be able to solve outstanding problems in one's field. However, (imo) a recipe for bad science is to specialize to the extreme and keep working on a narrow set of problems, interesting only to a tiny community that doesn't exchange ideas with the rest of the field.
Here's how to know if a problem is important : talk with other people in your field, see what interests them. Everyone has their own backgrounds and their own interests, but the more attention a problem draws, the more important it is.
The amount of literature is also relevant: if there are a lot of publications from well-established people all around the world on a certain topic, then it's interesting (at least to people from your field). If the only people publishing papers about it are 2 guys in an obscure university, who are only referenced by each other, and who wrote 15 papers on the same topic all published in the same journal, it's probably not a serious topic.
So in conclusion, for most people it may be unrealistic to want to only work on major problems. BUT it doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to tackle (reasonnably easier) problems that are of interest to your community, instead of focusing too much on "what you know you can do".


text:
What is the difference between graphical abstract and graphical table of contents?
I was curious about Wiley's manuscript submission process. It says to upload an image and graphical abstract for the graphical table of contents. In the drop-down menu of file uploads, there are three options- image, graphical abstract, and graphical table of contents.
Can anyone clarify what exactly are these three things that need to be uploaded? I quote the instructions from the publishers themselves:

you must upload a graphic to be included in the online table of
  contents and a statement outlining the paper’s novelty with the
  original manuscript. The graphic should be .tiff or .eps format and be
  uploaded to the Graphical Table of Content. The novelty statement should include the paper title, the authors’ names (with the corresponding author indicated by an asterisk), and no more than 80 words or 3 sentences of text summarizing the paper’s novelty.

Have you looked at recent papers published by the journal? What have other authors done?

@avid The question is about the submission form, not the content of the submission.

If you upload the required image and text, the journal staff will figure it out and it will be fine.

Image:  This is the TIFF or EPS file.
Graphical abstract:  This is the text.
Graphical table of contents:  This appears to be an error.  Perhaps you can upload a file containing both the image and text in this category, but there is no need to do that.

The graphical table of contents is what they do using the various image/graphical abstracts. It is the content of the journal not that of an individual paper.


text:
How and from where to get feedback for my preprint?
I have worked upon a project that estimates the wind power generation potential in India using simulation techniques and polynomial regression. I have written the first draft. However, everyone in my college told me that they can't review these domains as they have no knowledge about them.
From where can I get feedback on this preprint? Can anyone reading this suggest me how to improve this?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Link to the article

If you submit it somewhere, you will get feedback in the form of reviews.

@Thomas: Maybe.  Or you may get a desk reject, which is basically one bit of feedback, and not very useful in improving the work.

Try to get someone who can give you general feedback, even if not an expert in the field (is the paper logical, easy to read, well written, etc.)
Also, where is this publication aimed?  What journal?  My quick take is a lower level "energy resources" type journal.
My quick reactions:

English is good (better than many science papers from East Asians).
Paper is readable, not contorted by academese.  (This is helpful in general but especially if you have a multidisciplinary topic or something with public policy implications.)  That said, you should tighten up some things like the "and so on".
I would not use an angled pie chart.  It screams novice PowerPoint user trying to look cool.  Use a flat pie chart instead.
In addition, this is not vital, but I would urge to try to organize the chart better.  For instance use different shades of blue or grey for the fossil fuels.  Shades of green for renewable (and if you can split to biomass, hydro, and WIND) that would be good.  I guess you can leave nuclear since it is not really renewable or fossil fuel.  Maybe yellow or lavender or red or black (like the radioactive colors).  Think about how you organize the slices also.  Probably the fossil fuel first (clockwise), with the slices in size order.  Have renewables last, with slices in size order (maybe emphasize wind with a bold, perhaps).  Nuclear can be in between the two. It is sort of in between the two in concept anyways (extraction based so not renewable but very long lived with waste reprocessing).  Also zero carbon but some other non-green aspects.   This is not necessary.  But just nice for graphs to be easily read to extract info (not scanning each sector with eye darting all over page).
I doubt the 24% renewables. Too high.  Check some other sources, please.
Add a graphic (and discussion) in the intro showing rate of growth of Indian electrical demand.  I was under the impression that population has been growing and also country being electrified.  You want a graphic with some decent time scope.  Maybe 1950 to 2050.  Check the Shell and BP yearly energy documents (there may even be one).  Failing that, I bet there is some India specific study that has this.  Want to show "been growing a lot".  Expected to grow more.
The resource exhaustion graph (figure 2) is laughable (sorry).  Predicting fossil fuel exhaustion is very difficult because we find more and get better tools to extract it.  Actually predicting peak coal/gas/oil is very difficult.  Your graph is way too pessimistic.  See the history of the R/P ratio for instance.  We are at about 50 years right now and it has actually grown since the 1970s (pure exhaustion would mean we had already run out, but we actually have more reserves now than we did before, even more reserves versus annual demand).
These issues in the introduction are not critical to your paper (which is on estimating wind potential in India).  But if you put stuff out that is wrong, it is distracting.  I would edit the length down (for a publication, but OK for a thesis).  But in any case, tighten up the logic.
I don't know much CFD or other computer simulation so I can't comment much  on them.  (I won't have even detected obvious issues because I just didn't weed through it.)  Get a general MechE or computer science person to look at it.
Also consider having an economist (or resource economist) look at the simulations.  Not for the economics per se but just the logic of the modeling.  They do a lot of modeling and can opine on your overall approach and communication. Then have them look at the whole paper.  They are probably more the audience than CFD crowd.
Towards the beginning of the technical (2) section, you talk about 'setting up a turbine'.  Reads like you physically built a turbine or test device.  Do you mean simulated?
Consider to add a block diagram for the sections of the project.  It's not that complicated and your explanation goes through it OK.  But it will just help guide the reader.
There seems to be something "off" in your conclusions and intro.  I thought we were going to get an overall estimate of wind production for India but it seems like it is restricted to one area.  And I don't readily see how you extrapolate that to country-wide results (considering wind variation and land use availability).  I suspect this would be a much bigger project than you planned.  But just make it clear to the reader that you're not delivering that.  Confused me.  You can still use some of the country-wide needs and have some final comments on implications.  As motivation.  But make it a little bit more clear, you have a much smaller scope.
The conclusion seems a little too strong to me.  I would water it down a bit.  You haven't really done a full country study so I don't see how you can much such a strong stance.  I would make the conclusion more about the method ("CFD can be used to model windmill potential" or the like).
Maybe say "Initial indications from this study suggest that wind power can grow in India but will be challenged to supply the countries large electrical needs.  However, a deeper study, including economics, land use issues, and wind variation by locations would be required to quantify how much wind can help."
[Even this may be too strong.  Might be wiser to just say "expanded use of CFD similuations can be a valuable part of a multidisciplinary effort to truly determine the medium term potential for wind power in India.  Such an effort would need to also incorporate added wind data, land use availability and input on economics and regulations, as well as compatibility with the Indian power grid.]

Thank you for your review. It was really helpful.