text:
Can you reference a book if the author forbids it? Or maybe I have misunderstood the legal part of the book?
I would like to reference thoughts from a book, which would be a legal and normal thing to do, but there is a part on the first page of the book which makes me confused. Maybe the author forbids even to reference the book and I need written permission for that?
This was the legal text:

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America. For information on obtaining permission for use of material in this work, please submit a written request to...

Are you proposing to quote parts of the book (including them verbatim), to give a reference to them (e.g.. the name of the book, author, chapter/section/page numbers), and/or to mention them (describing them briefly in your own words)?

I don't believe an author can just print any binding agreement in a book. This is rather a reminder of the laws that already exist in given country. This differs from e.g. software which often requires the user to accept some license prior to use. I think this question should be asked on law stack exchange site if you want a more detailed answer.

Actually, that is fairly standard copyright boilerplate. All it really means is that the normal copyright rules and restrictions apply. The same would be true, almost everywhere, even without the notice.
But "fair use" will still apply as usual and you can quote small sections of it with citation just as you would from any other book.
If anything, the notice also says that the author might be willing to give you a license for more if given some reason. But you will find nearly the same wording in novels and other books by commercial publishers.
Treat it like any other work.

I'm currently reading a mystery novel for relaxation. It has nearly that precise wording on the copyright page.

fair use only applies for certain legal systems and countries

@Sebastian, US is specified, actually.

Even if it is printed in the United States, it does not mean it is also cited there.

@Sebastian: That's mostly because everybody is American, and can't be bothered to dig up a citation to Article 10, paragraph (1) of the Berne Convention, which expressly provides for an international right to make short quotations within reason. Nearly every country on Earth is a signatory of that treaty.

A shorter answer than Buffy's is this:
The text you quote is about using parts of the book -- that is, making copies and distributing them to students, or using figures from the book in your own publications. It doesn't say anything about citing the book. That is something nobody can prohibit you from doing because you are not infringing on anyone's rights by doing so.
So rest assured that citing the book is both legal and the right thing to do.

"Citing" can also by synonymous for "quoting", and this would definitely mean copying a part of the book. But if the part is small enough, then this shouldn't be a problem under any reasonable jurisdiction.


text:
Can I recommend to a journal that an entire research group not be used as reviewers for my paper?
I have recently — and prematurely — interrupted a work relationship with a research institution, due to a series of professional/scientific  disagreements. Considering that these disagreements were mostly due to a serious lack of organization from my supervisors, I felt righteous to leave with just a 14-day notice and before they could find a replacement for the project.
Of course, this has not reflected well on who hired me, and it surely brought some aversion from my former colleagues and supervisors.
It recently happened that I received a terrible review to one of my submitted papers, which led to rejection even if the other referees were recommending publication.
To put it shortly, this review was casting doubts that I was trying to re-publish old material of mine, selling it as new just by adding small new features. Without going into details, this is completely false on any ground. There is no reference to that research in any of my previous publications, at all.
Moreover, the tone of the reviewer was clearly hostile and aggressive, in total opposition with the positive comments and cordiality that I received from the other two referees.
This is making me think that the reviewer was a former colleague and that his/her review was deliberately in bad faith.
Questions:

Is it possible/acceptable to discourage any reviewer from that research group?

If yes, how? I do not remember all the email addresses and names of the group members so I cannot simply use the submission form. State it in the cover letter? Send a separate note to the editor?

Mind that, although my field is narrow, reviewers can easily be found somewhere else.

"I do not remember all the email addresses and names of the group members so I cannot simply use the submission form." -- surely you can get this information online though?

It’s a large group of a national lab. Chances are close to zero.

Just say that owing to recent troubles you would like to avoid referees from that group working at that lab/University. Add this politely to the cover letter,you don't need to give details but provides the editor with the feeling that those problems were of personal and or organisational nature and not a scientific debate.

As an aside, you leaving as you did will not reflect poorly on anybody there unless you are the third or fourth person to do so. Should anyone even think about it, they will likely put the blame on you, fair or not. Just the way it is.

@JonCuster OP may not have been hired by the PI, so if they were hired by someone junior, and their choice left shortly after being hired, I can see that causing annoyance between people in the group directed at the hirer. It can take a loooong time to get someone hired by a university (like six months from conception to starting) so losing all that would be frustrating.

@John Custer, that’s exactly how Azor Ahai -him- said. The person who hired me actually arrived there later than me (I was a student when he arrived). And the whole project was not progressing for missing/incomplete experiments that were not depending on me at all (even if I wanted, I was not security-cleared up to that level). I was basically staring at a screen. And I had no way to predict it when I was hired.

@John Custer, moreover, those experiments should have been ready before the pandemics, so covid was not even an excuse. It definitely reflected bad on them.

As you may already be aware, you generally have the option of noting who shouldn't be reached out to be a reviewer when submitting a manuscript for consideration of publication. If the manuscript management service doesn't have an option, then yes, you can mention it in the cover letter or directly to the managing editorial team.
It's generally fine and acceptable to list specific individuals and groups/labs if you anticipate some form of conflict that would jeopardize objectivity. That being said, if you don't know all the email addresses or names of the group members, and can only mention the lab itself, then it would be difficult for the editor to properly skirt around this issue.
Some editors may know the members in the group (assuming they're in the same field) and be able to avoid these people; some editors may go out of their way to look through their reviewer list and pick out those that have no publicly stated affiliation with the lab; or some editors may not bother with the extra effort if you didn't include it during the submission.
The best option, I think, would be to mention this specific lab whenever possible and let the editor handle it from there. If you receive a targeted review of hostile nature (like the one you described) and you suspect that this reviewer has a personal vendetta against you, then you can always follow up with the editor expressing your concerns after the review. Many (not all) editors are aware of the politics in academia and are understanding of situations where reviewers may act unethically.

Are reviews not double blinded?  I would think that hiding the author information would be valuable for objectivity for all kinds of reasons.

@StevenGubkin:  Double-blind reviewing is not universal across many fields.  In my field (physics) double-blind would be unusual.  Some discussion of why this is can be found on this question.

I think double-blinding is not generally going to stop someone from identifying research done by another person who recently left the same research group.

@kaya3 is correct, that was my situation.

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Difference between special issues and regular ones
What is the difference between special issues and regular ones from the scientific journal publication point of view?

Different journals may put different meaning into "special issue". It could mean that papers have been invited around a certain theme, it could mean papers come from a workshop or from symposia, or that the journal has decided to gather papers around a specific topic for some reason. The point is that a special issues differ from regular issues in that the papers constitute a collection around a theme or coming from a specific group of authors or event. Such issues can either be a decision by the journal or a request from a group of scientists to publish around "their" proposed theme. There may be additional cases, but these are the ones I am familiar with within my field.

So papers accepted to be published in special issues have the same magnitude of quality as those published in regular ones?

Generally speaking that should be the case.

@PeterJansson hmm.. but how do the journal editors make sure that accepted submissions in the special issue are of the same quality of regular submissions to the journal? if they keep it up for the guest editors.. they might not guarantee the same quality, would they?

In my field (theoretical computer science), the best papers at a particular conference often get invited to a special issue of a journal. The editor of the special issue is typically one of the conference chairs, but the papers still go through the regular peer-review process of the journal, and are held to the same standards.

Okay, my paper has been peer-reviewed twice, the first one at an international congress and the second by the journal publisher!

In addition to publishing selected papers in conferences (as mentioned by @Mangara), a publisher can announce a special issue journal to concentrate on a particular set of fields which may be a subset of its overall scope.
One main point to note is that special issues have an additional advantage that they are time-bound. That is the dates for first review result, acceptance/rejection, and publication, are all scheduled. Although sometimes, the dates may be subjected to change, this is in contrast to regular journals where the time-frame may not always be estimated.

In my experience, special issues may take a long time to be published because they wait until all invited papers went through the review process etcetera, thus one delay causes the whole special issue to be delayed.

It can vary.  I have seen special issues for (1) conference, (2) theme, (3) some famous professors birthday/retirement.
In general it really doesn't matter in terms of citations, just do a full cite including issue number and the like.  Nobody will notice/care about if it was special or normal.  It will still get cited, abstracted, held by libraries the same way.
Sometimes the reviewing can be a little easier on special issues (they tend to have a hard time filling the issue).  It's also possible that a slightly less notable paper might make it through (more "datapoint science").  Again, it's not a huge impact and shouldn't worry you, but just sharing my impression.
(Partial overlap with previous answers)

Regular issue is what is published monthly or a quarter as per the schedule of the journal publication. Special Issue is for special events like conferences, seminars or some theme. enter link description here

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How do I get my committee to agree on a defense date?
I am doing my master's in Canada and my grant has already ended (7 months ago). I am paying my tuition fee and my expenses from my part-time job and my savings. My supervisor agreed that I should have my defense. We did all the paper work (this process took 2.5 months). We set up a poll system for a defense date and asked committee members to vote for their availability.
I created the poll system last week, it took them 3 days to vote, in the end, they did not agree on a date based on their availability. I noticed they pretend that they are very busy, and not willing to make some compromises.
My visa is going to expire, I have no grants from school, I do not want to pay extra tuition fees as I have been waiting for this process for 2.5 months. I need to have my defense soon, I have things to do for the next weeks. Their behavior makes me very stressed. How do I make them vote for the following week? They are very jealous people who pretend that they do not have 2 hours in the following week.
How should I tell these things in an email? since my prof sent them an email, they did not take it seriously.

Talk to the head/chair? Get someone else to intervene on your behalf.

my prof sent them an email, they still did not take it seriously.

In my experience most people qualified to sit on a committee are very busy; I don't know why you assume they "pretend". Keep in mind that there's a huge difference between one person having 2 hours free next week and several people having 2 hours free next week at the same time as each other.

A defense is usually scheduled long in advance. While it is not your fault that this needs to be done in a hurry, it is understandable (to a certain extent) that they lack a sense of urgency. The need for a quick solution needs to be communicated to them more vividly, and your professor should really be driving this.

Does everyone need to be there, or can the commitee be short by one person? Could they send a replacement? Usually these things are written down somewhere.

As they approach mid-career, people's schedules often go through a "phase change" from "easy to find time" to "nearly impossible to find time".    It's essentially an application of percolation theory to the graph of scheduling constraints.

"I noticed they pretend that they are very busy". Well with that attitude I can see why they'd not be willing to go to extra lengths to accommodate you.

Can you defend short one committee member, who perhaps reads and submits comments and questions from the written thesis?

@Voo if this is being done online (no flights, accommodation etc.) which is the norm (at the moment) because of Covid, sparing a few hours for someone who has been waiting months and cannot move on with their life until this is concluded does not seem that great an ask. On the other hand, if it is being done online, the Visa expiry should not matter so much.

@Stumbler Ah I remember the good old days where having several hours of a workday available by default was the norm. Sadly after a few years you'll have to start using blocking appointments just so that you can eat lunch in half an hour without being disturbed. Students (and young professionals) simply haven't experienced this so have a hard time understanding that no this is not malicious..

My visa is going to expire

You need to elevate this outside of "academic" circle and into administrative. Talk to the following people:

student adviser (member of your department)
international students office
department chair

These are people who are professionally interested in you succeeding and helping you with paperwork / regulations. If your official status and other bureaucracy gets in the way of the academics (defense) they should help.

Do not use the following kind of language or even have the attitude of blaming your professors without evidence. You don't know their schedules and most likely they are not doing this out of spite:

They are very jealous people who pretend that they do not have 2 hours in the following week.

You can try what aaaaa recommends and escalate the issue. Depending on your department structure this may or may not work (it probably wouldn't in our department).
What you can and should do in that case is (1) directly talking to the involved people (phone call, checking in at their office, or at the very least a personal email), and for this to work to (2) change your mindset and expectations around this matter.
That the paperwork took 2.5 months to complete isn't the fault or problem of your committee (unless they explicitly blocked it), and it might not even be outrageously long. Answering a poll within 3 days isn't particularly slow either. Hoping that a committee consisting of multiple professors would have a free slot that works for all of them in the next week was a tall order to start with - it's not surprising that the outcome of this poll is that no slot works for everybody. And, without knowing your department processes, it still feels something went badly wrong in your planning that you are a week away from when you hope to defend without a specific defense date agreed by everybody (since that's normally one of the first things you do when you start arranging your defense, i.e., months ahead of the actual defense).
Most people are willing to work with students who are in a difficult situation and move some appointments around, but certainly not if you approach them with a mindset that they are "jealous", that it's inconceivable that they indeed find it difficult to agree on a multi-hour slot on very short notice, and that they are morally obligated to bend their work to your needs. If you are polite and show understanding that you are asking for a lot, I am convinced you will see that people are a lot more willing to help you make things work. That said, "next week" is almost always going to be a struggle - it may be more realistic to plan for two or three weeks in the future, or whenever is the next time slot that people can make work with some goodwill.

I'm really really impressed OP got a group of professors to answer a scheduling poll within 3 days. That's lightning fast.

A few years ago, I had the same problem and I couldn't get an agreement on a date. I used a simple trick in the poll I sent to my busy defense committee members, and it worked.
Usually, students ask committee members to check the dates and hours they are available for the defense. I did the opposite and asked each of them to check the dates and hours they are not available.
It looks like silly and you might think the committee members would just swap the check boxes. However, I noticed a significant difference in the poll answers. When you ask for availability, they only choose the best dates and hours in their comfort. When you ask for the opposite, they take a look at their calendars and check the conflicting dates and hours. You'd be surprised with the results.

Probably too late in this case, but interesting. Maybe this should be the standard.

You gave them a poll and they voted. You chose dates that do not align with their calendars. I don't see the issue... You simply need to offer more dates.

I noticed they pretend that they are very busy, and not willing to make some compromises.

If you have proof that they are pretending to be busy, then raise a formal complaint of negligence with the university. Otherwise, you are just assuming something that may not be true. I, for instance, am assuming that you understand what proofs and assumptions are if you intend to receive a PhD...
In the absence of proof, you should ask a more general question of availability... Like are there certain times or day, certain days of the week, or certain days that it is not possible? If there really is an underlying conflict, then probably you will be allowed to change the people on the committee. This is typically the student's responsibility.
If I were you, I would be careful about how you proceed. Professors are indeed very busy people. It seems to be that you are asking them to drop everything and do what you want. Furthermore, you are trying to make them look foolish and petty. How do you think it will play out during the defence if you try to make am ass of them now? You do realize that it is not a foregone conclusion that you pass..?
I understand that there are time constraints on your side. Those are really your problems though. In hindsight, it would have been wise to reserve some Save-the-date options months ago if you knew that you had such time constraints.

The next-to-last paragraph here is one of the more important things said so far in response to the question. But the last isn't helpful. Time still runs one way AFAIK.

Hold on a minute here...  The paperwork took 2.5 months to do... we don't have all the details but (at least where I work) the committee members would know that a thesis defence was forthcoming (either via the student, the supervisor, or the graduate chair), else there must have been serious miscommunications.  So it's a bit much to suggest it's the problem of the student.

In Germany, I am aware of several people (3+) that waited 2.5 months on paperwork. Committee members were not informed by the university. That is solely the responsibly or the student.

@ZeroTheHero: In the systems I know, it certainly wouldn’t be only the fault of the student — the advisor, at least, seen the crunch coming and acted to forestall it.  But it often is the student who’s primarily expected to co-ordinate the scheduling, and so even if others are jointly responsible for the situation, the student is often the one who can most easily find a solution.

@bremen_matt well… the best part of this site is that you learn something every day.

If your visa is soon to expire, can you go back to your home country and have the defence via video call?
I had my PhD defence a couple of months ago via zoom, it worked out fine. I believe my university is doing all of them online at the moment due to the pandemic

Sadly, this may be the only solution possible, but it can also fail and leave you with no degree, so beware.

One might, possibly, also return as a tourist for a few days to do the defense.

@Buffy Is that allowed by Canadian visa regulations? From all I know I'd imagine that would violate the tourist visa limitations.

@Voo I doubt it, actually. One isn't "working". And I doubt anyone would care, or even know. Some tourist visits (to some countries from some others) don't require a visa.

@Buffy I know some countries are very strict about visa regulations. Some may deem failing to comply with the regulations as a criminal offense (misdemeanor?) and this could impact the validity of the degree. I don't know if that could be seen as "illegal immigration", but if it is there are chances that the degree could be withdrawn on ethical grounds (maybe years down the road). IANAL, I'm just guessing, but better safe than sorry. Regulations can be really crazy sometimes (despite the country; each has it's amount of craziness). The OP should get legal advice before doing that.

There's generally no reason to pretend to be a tourist: for most countries, the short term business visa and the tourist visa are identical.

I travelled all over Europe + Australia + Canada for conferences and never needed any (prearranged) visa (for a US citizen). The only visa I ever needed to arrange was for China. And that was wasn't a professional trip.

@Buffy If you are a US citizen, you own one of the most powerful passports in the world. I have a similar privilege as well, but many of my friends do not, and they need to plan their conference traveling a lot more in advance in order to deal with visa issues. I assume the OP is in a similar situation.

@Buffy To put numbers to Denis argument: My Austrian passport let's me visit 189 countries visa-free, your American 187 countries. Someone with an Indian passport is down to 58 and an Afghan passport gets you into a whopping 26 countries without visa. But yes it depends on each country. Canada doesn't make a difference between a tourist and business visa so this should be fine (if they can get one) - but immigration law can be pretty complex. For example people have been detained by immigration and sent back home because they were trying to visit a conference in the US on a tourist visa.

Working with your committee is like trying to herd cats.
One strategy is to set an early, inconvenient time and you may suddenly get replies from everyone. A sympathetic member of my committee suggested this and it worked.
Subject: Thesis Defense for @AVA123 Scheduled

Tentative date for @AVAs thesis defense has been scheduled for Monday,
April 1 at 8 AM in conference room Romeo. If you cannot make this date and
time, please suggest alternate date(s) and time(s) when you are
available.

I suspect that this would be badly received by many if sent by a student.

I wouldn't try this unless you get buy in from at least one person on the committee.

If your thesis director agrees it’s time to defend, then the other members of the committee will have accommodate your schedule.  You have done the common courtesy of asking for availabilities, so someone else needs to take the bullhorn and get the message across to these busy people else the department or graduate school should be able to find substitutes and proceed.
I do not know of departments or people not (in the end) accommodating the candidate, although it may at times seem like you or your thesis director are trying to push a rope.

I agree that this is what should happen. But it isn't happening. How is this an answer?

Wait what? In what university can a supervisor (who is after all just a normal professor) decide the time schedules of some other professor? I've never heard of this and it seems incredibly strange. Sure people will try to accommodate students but it's not as if there's some kind of law that requires them to drop everything to agree to an incredibly short term meeting.

@Voo The department or the School of graduate studies should be able to schedule the defence so the majority of the committee is present, and appoint additional members to replace those who cannot be. In what university does a single committee member hold veto over the graduation of a student because this professor is too busy to attend a thesis defence?

@Zero In all universities I know it's the student's responsibility to organize the meeting with an understanding that obviously everybody tries their best to make it work. Not accepting an incredibly short term meeting request is not the same as vetoing graduation. Do you also expect a professor to cut short their vacation if they happened to not be at work next week?

@Voo, actually I would expect a department head or dean to put some appropriate, but, perhaps, not subtle, pressure on people to get this done. Professors like to feel princely, but actually aren't. I think the whole situation is fraught, of course with a downside to every path, but the administration should have a hand here.

@Buffy Absolutely, that's the best way to resolve this. But that's very different from the thesis supervisor applying that pressure or there being some regulation that requires that kind of immediacy. Given the usual timelines in these things the onus is on the student to explain the urgency and not simply assume everybody's going to jump when they say so.

@Voo I not sure I ever implied the thesis director or the student should apply pressure.  That would be the job of a higher-up.  Moreover, I realize that not all schedules can be accommodated, hence the power (with the department chair or head, with a Dean somewhere) to sub in someone else in cases where there is an unresolvable scheduling conflict.   Never mind holidays: people do get sick (or die) or whatever other valid reason they may have.


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What to write in 'Related Work' in an application oriented thesis? (data science / computer science)
I am writing my masters thesis at a company. The thesis is about customer segmentation. One research contribution of the thesis was to propose a way to validate the found clusters in an unsupervised setting.
That being said, to find clusters, I followed a very standard process. From raw data, I made a feature table, did some data pre-processing, dimension reduction and then clustering. I did not have to do any literature review for that.
Also for the cluster validation, me and my supervisor kind of came up with the method.
Now that I am writing my thesis, I don't have anything to write in this 'Related Work' chapter. Or it seems to me like that way. There has been some customer segmentation related work done at the company before, but there is not any scientific work. Can I mention those works?

Did you do a literature review? That would be the place to look for "related work."

From the question I see at least three opportunities where including a discussion on related work would be useful.

One research contribution of the thesis was to propose a way to validate the found clusters in an unsupervised setting.

In order to qualify the proposed method as a research contribution, it would be very useful to include other existing methods on cluster validation and describe why they do not meet your needs.

From raw data, I made a feature table, did some data pre-processing, dimension reduction and then clustering.

While you might consider such process as standard and thus not requiring any literature review, it will be useful to include a description of the "standard" machine learning lifecycle* and the theory behind the methods applied in each step. This will help demonstrate you have mastery of the materials.

There has been some customer segmentation related work done at the company before, but there is not any scientific work.

While previous approaches may not be scientific, they are nonetheless approaches. Presumably, the project you are doing is providing some extra value to your stakeholders and thus it will be a useful discussion on how is it doing so.

* Spoiler alert: A "standard" machine learning lifecycle is less standardised than you think.

Lots of thanks for your answer. It helped me when writing :)

I do not think it was good, but it will do. I think.

It is common to feel like you have nothing to say in the "Related Work" section of your thesis. After all, you are writing about your own original research. However, it is still important to situate your work in the broader context of existing knowledge. In this case, you can mention the customer segmentation work that has been done at your company. While this work may not be scientific, it will still be helpful for readers to see how your work fits into the larger landscape. Additionally, you can use this section to discuss any related work that you have found in your literature review. By situating your work in the broader context, you can help readers to understand its significance and contribution.


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Is it preferable to list the limitations of the presented method in the paper?
I don't remember I have seen authors (in CS) explicityl listing the limitations of their approaches. Most of the cases, the approach is presented as complete solution of the addressed problem*. Authors (including myself)  usually mention in future work a potential solution of another problem (specifically, a higher level of the problem* being discussed).
Obviously, every method has limitations on the addressed problem. Is it preferable to list the limitations of the method? as I believe the authors are the most knowledgable people about their approach. Also, does "listing the limitations" hurt the acceptance chances of the paper? (I don't think I would be influenced by the fact that they are listed when I review papers, but not sure how other reviewers would react)

Actually, in every field, limitations should be mentioned. Otherwise the paper gives an incomplete account of what is known and what is not.
But that assumes that the author(s) recognize the limitations and that may not be an easy thing to do in some fields. In some situations, however, the limitations may be obvious to the reader, and thus are omitted. Some limitations might be trivial, though I'm having trouble coming up with a quick example of that. And, in statistical studies, the limitations are well known from the methodology used; sample size and such.
But including limitations should not negatively affect the likelihood of acceptance. Quite the opposite, I think. A reviewer, noticing an unstated, but important, limitation would be likely to comment on it and suggest an update.


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As a research assistant professor funded by a NIH grant, can I accept a new job before the grant expires?
I am a senior postdoc in a American university. My PI and myself have written a NIH grant that extends some of the work I have done. If awarded, it will have money to support me for next 3 years (starting Dec 2023).
However, I am actively also pursuing non-academic sources of income because of financial constraints. If I find a lucrative job (say 1 or 2 years into the grant), I will be inclined to take it.
Basically, at this point, I am simply interested in the grant so that it can fund me for the next 1-2 years while I look for good jobs/opportunities to transition out.
Now what happens to the grant money if I leave? Will my PI be in trouble if I leave ? Will NIH have issues that I am leaving midway?

Postdocs leaving is an expected event. Encouraged even. The money gets used to support someone else, the PI will not be in trouble...

Research administrator here.  The short and sweet answer is that this happens all the time and is expected, but there are multiple paths that can be taken depending on how essential you are to the research and how much involvement you want in the future on the project.  Please note that "essential" is meant in terms of the sponsored programs concept "change in scope". Despite how many researchers may feel, any trainee-type position (students, postdocs) is generally included on grants as completely interchangeable, unnamed people.  This means you leaving does not change the scope of the project.  I am going to cover a few other scenarios for the sake of a complete answer, and then give you a bit of advice on how you make your final exit.
If you were written into the grant as senior/key personnel, and a commitment was made for you, the usual way to handle this departure would be via a "subaward at no additional cost", with an award set up at your new institution.  It would cost your PI money to issue this subaward to your new institution -- the "no additional cost" means no additional cost to the sponsor.  The idea here, is that you would note that you changed institutions and the costs assigned to you now need to move to a new location and this is not a change in scope, just an administrative change.  You would reduce the amount of money available to your PI by the amount you are transferring to the new institution, plus any indirect costs associated with the subcontract as required by your institution's indirect cost rate agreement.
The main sticking point here is that you would need to argue that you specifically are important enough to go through the hassle of the subaward.  I will say in managing grants for 15 years, I have worked with more than 70 PIs, and I have never seen someone do this for a postdoc.  We replace the postdoc, and we submit a new proposal with the postdoc in their new position.  This allows the postdoc to be named as a proper Co-I/Co-PI and write the proposal as an equal.  It also skips a huge amount of paperwork.
In the case where you are written in as senior/key personnel and want out of the project, your PI would have to notify the sponsor that there is disengagement of a PI, and then the institution has to decide if they want to find a replacement PI or if they have to change the scope of the project.  This is usually done very rarely, but it happens.  I had a case where an Assistant Prof took a job in industry after a few years (in Robotics).  He ended up staying as Co-PI on our grants as they finished out, but we had to adjust a lot of budgets/effort commitment with the sponsor.  He became an "unfunded collaborator" and the funds were rebudgeted.  On projects he was on by himself, they were all terminated early.
One note of etiquette for you -- your PI's research administrator is probably looking at costs on a regular basis, running projections based on existing and expected costs, and providing advice based on these variables. If you depart early, it can impact the ability to get the next increment of funding, depending on the sponsor (e.g., NIH and DOD can be this way) and the overall level of spending.  If you sense you are getting close to the end, ensure that the PI knows to hire a successor to overlap briefly with you or that the gap between you will be small.  Just last month, one of my PIs had a postdoc say he won't renew in September after just one year in the position.  If we had known that in January, we would have hired a replacement.  Now we have to wait another year to hire someone, and this puts us in an awkward spot with our funding.  Needless to say, this hurt my PI deeply, and he has told me that he will not forget this.  Be thoughtful in giving notice, and you may find a very smooth transition.  These transitions are stressful enough for PIs without ill-timed surprises.  Even if you do not require this PI to get you through an academic career, there is no reason to burn bridges.  They expect you to leave, be thoughtful about the exit.  They may remember and help you when you need it in the future.

Thanks for this thoughtful and well-written answer.

Also, I am not a "co-PI" in the grant. The grant is built on my work but my PI is the one who wrote it and its in his name
So in some sense, it makes it easier.

All sorts of options for situations exist, and are usually some sort of negotiation between the funding organizations and representatives of the universities involved (at least when we're talking about a faculty member moving-- postdocs have some other issues, which I'll get to eventually).
First, faculty members switch universities all the time, and try (usually successfully) to take their grants with them.  The research contracts are almost always to the University, not to the investigators, who are just employees of the contract holders.
You might ask "why would a university awarded a research contract be willing to let it move to another university?"  Well, there are a few reasons.  The original holder, given that the key employee will no longer be there, may no longer be able to fulfill the contract without them.  Also, sometimes faculty move out of a university, sometimes they move in.  The receiving university will find that if they oppose letting grant money travel with exiting employees, that other universities will oppose grants moving to that receiving university.  It may also tick off portfolio managers at the funding institutions.
Let's kick the complexity up a notch.  Let's say Prof A, the primary grant holder, has a collaboration with Prof B at the same university on this hypothetical grant.  What happens if Prof B moves?  Well, lots of things can happen.  If Prof B is done with their share of the research, simply removing prof B from subsequent years of the grant is certainly an option.  If prof B is important, and the research needs to continue, the grant can often be modified such that the original uni cuts an annual check to the new uni to cover research expenditures under the grant.  If Prof B's contributions are huge, the grant may need to be modified to convert some of the ongoing funds to more of a consortium arrangement.  You find out what the funding institution wants to do by talking to them.  Universities usually have staff capable of initiating these conversations with the funders.
the issues are similar if Prof A moves.
Now, what about postdoc funding.  The devil here is all in the details, and depends heavily on the details of the grant.  If the postdoc is simply an employee on a PI's grant, the PI may simply choose to hire a new postdoc, and cut out the original postdoc.  This seems most like your case to me, but I can certainly be wrong.  Would you be "key personnel" on the grant, or would you be a co-Investigator?  If you're the former, chances are lower that the money would follow you.
If the grant is a development grant for the postdoc, the funding institution may well demand that the money follow the postdoc.  There are probably dozens of other situations and in-betweens here, but without knowing more details, real answers are difficult.

With NIH, per the Grants Policy Statement, the disengagement of Key Personnel could force a change in scope and require prior approval.  It also matters if they are listed as a PI on the NOA.  I just want to be clear that senior/key personnel is the level that formal commitments to the sponsor generally begins -- not Co-I/Co-PI.
https://grants.nih.gov/grants/policy/nihgps/HTML5/section_8/8.1.2_prior_approval_requirements.htm


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Realistic chance to get internship through workshop paper at big conference (ACL) in Canada as a foreigner (CompSci)?
I am finishing my undergraduate studies soon (CompSci) and am currently writing a paper. I am still deciding whether to submit it to a smaller conference or to a workshop at a big conference. (I don't think it's enough for the big conferences themselves).
One option is to submit it to a workshop, which is at the ACL conference in Toronto. I would like to work in Canada for several months. As a European and a graduate student it is difficult to get a regular work visa, but through an internship it should be theoretically possible.
I have read that at such a big conference there are also many recruiters.
My background with a single workshop paper is probably not very interesting there in general, but still I wonder if I would have realistic chances to get an internship opportunity in Canada through going to this conference?

How do you propose this would work?

Realistically, I think the chances are low. People are mostly focused on other things at conferences. And even with the recruiters there will be competition for any available slots, not all of which will be for internships.
I'd suggest that you focus on more productive options. A workshop paper is good on a CV, of course, and you can use the attendance to meet people and look for collaborative relationships, but you should not put too much of your hopes into this. Certainly, nothing is guaranteed.
In the US, at least, you can apply for graduate study, perhaps even a doctorate, with a bachelors. This is more likely to be fruitful and the workshop paper will be a plus in that quest.
The competition at a "smaller" conference might not be less than at a bigger one, though. Sometimes a small but highly focused conference will have a lot of competition.


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Feel like I should have gotten authorship or at least an acknowledgement
A few years ago, some colleagues from institution A (where I also work) developed a certain technique. They tested it experimentally, it worked and gave good results. They wrote it up and got it published, but it lacked a rigorous mathematical analysis of errors, etc.
I took an interest in this, and thought of an improved technique that in theory should give excellent results, significantly better than the original one. Testing it experimentally would require a lot of effort and time, so I decided to perform some mathematical and computational analysis and simulation to make sure my hunch about improved performance was correct. The analysis techniques I used by themselves are not novel, but still, they thoroughly considered every source of error/bias in this technique, resulting in dozens of pages of algebra, CAS (Computer Algebra System) scripts and simulations in specialized software. All of this confirmed that performance should indeed improve. I loaded all these documents into a shared folder, accessible by my colleagues.
Then, my colleagues decided to proceed with building the experimental apparatus. Soon afterwards, I left temporarily for institution B, so I lost close contact with my colleagues of institution A (although we still talk from time to time, just much less than before). However, I will return to institution A in the future. I learned that they did try building the apparatus using my improved technique, but were unable to solve some problems that showed up along the way, so they don't have any results based on this technique yet.
Today I stumbled across a recently published paper by these colleagues -- to be clear, they didn't alert me to it or anything, I found out about this 100% on my own. Skimming over this paper, my understanding is that they basically took their old technique, made a few cursory improvements to some weak points, and most importantly, included a thorough analysis of this technique which, despite having only skimmed over the paper, I am fairly certain is a direct adaptation of the work I did. This was published in a high impact factor journal and I am fairly certain it wouldn't have been accepted without this thorough analysis. Moreover, all the documentation that I left for them, although specific to the improved technique, would be easily adapted to this old technique. My colleagues never asked me to coauthor the paper and didn't thank or otherwise acknowledge my work. Also, I never even learned this paper was being written or got published, even though I spoke to one of the coauthors (about unrelated subjects) a few times in the timeframe this paper was being written -- while I may be wrong, I get the feeling they were trying to hide its existence from me.
To make a long story short, I feel like this paper getting published owes a lot to the use of my analysis techniques applied to their old technique. As such, I feel they should have contacted me and offered me authorship. Am I wrong in thinking this?
For those who agree that there was at least some degree of fault here: what are some possible ways of addressing this with my colleagues? I do not intend to make a mess out of this (by e.g. contacting the editor of the journal and demanding credit), since we will remain colleagues and I don't think anything good would come of this long-term for all involved, and perhaps even our institution. On the other hand, I'd like to make it clear to them this was wrong, that it may affect my inclination to collaborate with them in the future, and that should we collaborate, I may not be so inclined to let this slip if it happens again.

How many years ago?  Why did not you not publish your work in the interim?  Was it because the error analysis was not novel, and thus not worthy of publication?  The claim that “ they don't have any results based on this technique” is contradicted by the statement that they “ included a thorough analysis of this technique which … I am fairly certain is a direct adaptation of the work I did. “

"How many years ago?" I developed the analysis about 3 years ago. "Why did not you not publish your work in the interim?" I was hoping they would build the experimental apparatus, that it would give the expected results, and thus a paper could be published with experimental results and their analysis -- I felt the analysis alone, without experimental results to back it up, was not publishable. But, as stated, they faced problems building the apparatus, so the results didn't materialize.

@ZeroTheHero regarding the supposed contradiction: the first statement refers to the improved technique I thought of, whose experimental apparatus faced problems and didn't yield experimental results. The second statement regards their old technique amended with cursory improvements (which therefore is different from the improved technique I thought of). However, they took my analysis of the former, changed a few parameters to adapt to the latter, and published it. The analysis was IMO pivotal in getting the paper published in a high-impact journal.

I cannot see how you can be a co-author as you did not participate in data analysis or the experiment itself.  I would personally have likely acknowledged your contribution as a reference to a “private contribution” or in the text somewhere, even if your work was only inspirational, but without the specifics of the situation and hearing the other side of the story it’s a not a clean call.  After all, the standard way to get credit for a technical improvement in data acquisition or analysis is to publish the method…

It's complicated, I think.
If I understand the situation correctly, they performed a theoretical analysis of the old technique inspired by/closely following the pattern of your theoretical analysis of the new technique. I don't quite see providing a pattern like that to be grounds for coauthorship on its own. On the other hand, it may have been the polite thing to invite you to collaborate on the theoretical analysis early on, to give you the opportunity to contribute a bit more.
However, had your analysis been published, it seems clear that they ought to have cited it for inspiration. Since they had access to the draft, I consider the obligation to cite still in place (if there is no tradition of citing personal communications, acknowledgements would have been a decent substitute).

"If I understand the situation correctly, they performed a theoretical analysis of the old technique inspired by/closely following the pattern of your theoretical analysis of the new technique." Exactly. Let me stress that this analysis was IMO pivotal to getting the paper published on the chosen (high-impact) journal. Just publishing the results, without explaining how and why the technique works, would have gotten the paper rejected in any high-impact journal.

Hmm, you claim to know a lot about mechanics of publishing in every high-impact journal. Even for a fairly small amount of them, it is a very bold claim. Are you sure you are on the same page with every EiC when it comes to what is important for the acceptance of a publication and what is not? Would you care less if it was a low-impact journal? If so, why?

@Lodinn perhaps my claim was unfounded, and for that I apologize. Allow me to clarify. Looking at the results themselves, the improvements on this new paper are somewhat minor, and IMO the analysis itself helps pinpoint what parameters to tune to achieve these improvements. It's been my experience from previous submissions that a strong result gets you well on the way to publishing in high-impact journals, but mild/minor results require other novelties, such as the rigorous and thorough analysis that is at the core of this question.

@athrowawayaccount All I'm saying is that their perspective may be much different, and you have basically no way of knowing who's in the right. More pragmatically, I would just move on, it is fairly hard to salvage this acknowledgement now. You could treat it as a favor and leverage it accordingly or choose a retaliation path (just don't actively badmouth them, providing the opinion on your previous experiences when inquired is more in line with typical workplace politics). You should have gotten an acknowledgement I think, but where does that knowledge get you?


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How to search for C++ on Web of Science?
Is there a way to search for the exact keyword "C++" (i.e. the programming language) in the Web of Science database? Unfortunately, by default the ++ signs are ignored and I get millions of results.
On Scopus, it is possible by including the search term in curly brackets: {C++} but this does not help here.

Welcome to Academica SE! You should probably edit your question and move your Scopus comment directly into the question, as it might give people some clues to help answer you.

Did you try the words "C-plus-plus"?

@paulgarrett Great comment, thank you! It seems to work for the titles and keywords, but not for the abstracts.


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Is it realistic to submit a grant proposal in which the only budget item is one person’s salary?
We are preparing an NSF grant application for which the only budget item is the salary of a senior software developer.
The team consists of:

The PI, a professor (whose time involvement will be very small)
a senior software developer who will do 95+% of the work. This person is on "soft money", i.e. their position depends on grant funding.

There are no other significant expenses associated with the project: maybe a few small resources totaling a few thousand dollars. It's an established project that is heavily used by academics and we know exactly what we need to do.
My question is whether this proposed budget will be seen as greedy or too simplistic, reducing the chance that our proposal will succeed.

Does your university claim a percentage of each grant to cover the costs of managing them?  Many (most?)do.

You ask "is it weird?", which is entirely subjective and not very meaningful.  Do you mean to ask "will this hurt my chances of getting funded?"  Or something else?  I suggest you edit it to ask what you really want to know.

@Buffy yes you are right, I didn't mention the 10% indirect costs. (We are applying through a nonprofit and using the de minimis rate for organizations without a federally negotiated rate.)

@DanielHatton Health insurance and retirement benefits are fringe costs, which are part of the budget. The 10% is indirect cost, which is on top of everything else and does, as you say, pay for buildings, electricity, internet, etc. You are right that 10% is not going to cover these costs, but if a nonprofit wants to charge only 10% for these costs, that is their prerogative.

NSF has multiple directorates and each have their own conventions. My experience as a funded PI and reviewer for the NSF is with my two "home" directorates in engineering and mathematical and physical sciences.
Within the context of my experience, what you describe would be a red flag, and I would certainly rank you quite low on a panel review. The reasons are that one of the main focal points of NSF funding is that it is intertwined with education and training. Typically, and through my conversations with program managers over the years, there is a strong preference towards funding graduate students, even over postdocs.
What is your educational/training component? Why should you even be funded if you are paying another expert to do most of the work outside of the traditional context of training in academia? This would certainly rank far lower at panel compared to another proposal that had all the traditional hallmarks of student training, outreach, education, etc...
There are other agencies where the budget, and such a request would be more fitting. Of course I could be completely wrong. So best to follow up with your program manager anyway.

I would phrase your need not directly as some academic project but rather as a need for equipment. The software engineer is not doing research and there is no education aspect as explained in the answer by R1NaNo. Rather you need a certain gadget as a means to perform your actual research. Once you have it you may also be able to use it to train students. Your gadget just happens to be non-physical because it is a piece of software. Lab scientists frequently have need of expensive pieces of machinery, so there are funding sources for that so I would recommend to look at it from that direction and then see what funding sources are available to you.

In many cases now days a software component is integral to the use/operation of any device or system - even to the extent of reprogramming it for various special modified uses , is this the case in this instance?

This is not a bad answer in principle, but granting agencies that have programs for infrastructure would usually not be willing to fund salaries rather than the purchase of physical equipment (maybe a piece of software to be bought from a vendor rather than developed in-house, although I would bet that even that wouldn't fall under their guidelines)

@BenBolker Disagree. NSF Major Research Instrumentation Program "An MRI award supports the acquisition of a multi-user research instrument that is commercially available... or for the personnel costs and equipment that are required for the development of an instrument with new capabilities, thereby advancing instrumentation capabilities and enhancing expertise for instrument design and fabrication at academic institutions." In fields like astrophysics and HEP, instrument design is a subfield unto itself.

OK, that's good. Do you know if it would also apply to software development? (i.e. could software be counted as an "instrument"?)

I don't know much about NSF, but I would probably raise issues under the discussion of budgetary concerns if I were on an NIH study section and saw this budget.
My concerns would be that the only major employee on the grant isn't a university employee, making this sound more like a subcontract to me.  If the developer is independent, I'd really argue that this should be considered a subcontract.
Think of it this way -- 95% of the grant budget is leaving the university!!  How is it possible to manage a grant under that circumstance.  Why would the grant need to go to the university?

Where does it say the developer isn't a university employee?

It is not right (won't say it "weird") that you didn't budget for overhead. If the grant goes to any university, they have a specific percentage (say 50%) for overhead.
Go to a grant officer at the university and ask for directions! Also, that person can help you with the format, depending on funding agency the format of the application may vary.
If you spend for example $150k in direct cost, any funding agency understands that an additional $70k will be going to overhead.
Also, once you move in the project, you will determine that you need a server / cloud computing / design services / testing etc. These are direct costs too. Try an anticipatory exercise and make a more detailed budget.


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Why do most published papers hit the maximum page limit exactly?
Most published papers have a number of pages equals to the maximum page limit of their corresponding conference! Is there an unwritten rule that makes authors enforce this? Should aspiring researchers do this to get their work published?
I can understand cutting down an original long draft to hit the limit, but what if the work is actually short? Should authors still seek to hit the maximum page limit?
Edit: Some answers below suggest that this is just a side effect and not intentional. Here, I provide quotes that suggest otherwise, that it's a goal that researchers might work for.
The following list of quotes are from this question: Is it a good idea to submit paper which is shorter than conference's page limit

"I have seen papers rejected because it was shorter than the maximum
allowed pages. But this was not the only reason...", accepted answer

"But if the page limit is 12 pages, I see no problem for accepting a
high-quality 11-page paper.", accepted answer

"One page short out of two pages or one page short out of 25? If the
standard paper is pretty short, then it might matter more than if the
standard paper is very long.", a comment rated 6

here is a quote of a comment on another similar question:

"just to add that submitting a full-length paper that's significantly
under a page limit is, in my experience, extremely rare and will not
look good to reviewers (unless your paper is somehow exceptional!)"

When refereeing papers for conferences (in computer science), I've always been glad to see papers shorter than the maximum length.

Related: Why are all these papers exactly 10 pages long?

All papers unconstrained by length will have some distribution spread out over all semi-reasonable number of pages. If you then say "We only accept papers with a maximum of N", while leaving authors free to change the number of pages from the original by editing, then of course there's going to be bunching at N, as many papers which are naturally N+M pages are edited down to N pages to fit in the "not longer than N" requirement. There will, also, be authors that edit to add more pages to reach N, as they may have had it under N due to other considerations, or they just want to say more.

"If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter." attributed to Mark Twain, Blaise Pascal, and others.

To be honest, I haven't noticed this, nor ever used the maximum page length as a goal. But it is harder, as the quote suggests, to say what you need to say properly in few words. So, assuming you are correct, I'd guess it is that people write a draft, notice that it is too long and then work to shorten it with not too much effort. I'd think that would be more common than finding you have a shorter draft and padding it in some way. The latter would probably be noticed by reviewers.
Another factor might be that revisions suggested by reviewers are more likely to increase than decrease the length of a paper.
And, some newer, inexperienced scholars, might think it an advantage to fill up the available space, though, again, I don't have evidence of this explicitly.
Some professional associations have different venues for short and for long papers, actually.

Yeah, my first drafts are almost always several pages over the limit. Then I have to go back and figure out what I didn't really need to say. And then, invariably, some reviewer will say, well why didn't you mention...

Authors want to make the maximal impression in terms of the perceived importance of the paper, and that means cramming as much content into the paper as possible. The general philosophy is that “more is better”.
As an example, if a paper contains N results and takes up 9 pages, and there is a possibility to make it a paper with N+1 results that takes up 10 pages, then most authors will be of the opinion that the version of the paper with N+1 results will be a more competitive paper for a conference that allows papers with 10 pages. After all, even reviewers who don’t care about the additional N+1-th result will still base their review on the first N results. They almost certainly won’t take off any points for the paper having one more page and one more not-so-interesting result if the page limit hasn’t been exceeded.

Should aspiring researchers do this to get their work published?

It depends what you’re aiming for. If you are trying to maximize the chance of the paper getting accepted, and can’t be sure whether a shorter paper that doesn’t hit the page limit is good enough, then yes, probably making it longer is a good idea. At least, if this is achieved by actually adding content of some useful substance rather than through artificially inflating the length in silly ways without adding anything useful.
If you are confident that the quality of your shorter paper is already good enough to get accepted, then you should simply try to write the best paper that you can that makes the best long-term impact. Sometimes this can mean leaving the paper shorter (and therefore more focused and attractive to a wider range of readers).
If you are not confident the shorter paper is good enough to get accepted, but don’t have anything useful to add to make it long, then leave it short. It may not be ideal but it’s better than padding it with useless content just to make it appear longer.

I thought about that, but also, that many authors would rather have more (more, more, more) papers than they would fewer long papers with more results. The psychology is complex and varies from person to person, of course.

@Buffy Adding to one paper is relatively easy, though, it's not as if every result is transferrable to its own independent paper.

I'm not sure about this. I prefer papers that make a single conceptual point well, rather than including everything and the kitchen sink. That might require multiple results (proofs, experiments, etc) but I would find it hard to positively review a paper that felt like things were added willy-nilly to reach the page limit.

@BryanKrause, there are other options, of course, than splitting off each result. That is also frowned on.

@Buffy good point. To clarify, the "more is better" principle isn't universal, but applies to relatively short conference papers (10-15 pages) when you already have an amount of content that is close to the page limit, as in my example of comparing a 9-page paper to a 10-page paper with a bit more content. Of course, the extra content needs to be related to what you already have. If you have two completely unrelated papers of 5 pages each that you can submit to the conference, no one would suggest it's a good idea to turn them into a single 10-page paper.

@Buffy so in the sort of situations I'm thinking of (and that OP is asking about), the idea that you are trading off the paper being longer for being able to publish fewer papers doesn't really apply IMO. But anyway, good that you pointed this issue out. In a broader context your observation is correct, and there is some sweet spot that each researcher will look for balancing length of papers, conceptual focus of each paper, and the length of each paper being neither too short nor too long. So in that setting the calculation is indeed more complex.

I'd personally recommend to use space that you have to discuss your results in more depth and explain, motivate, interpret them better rather than adding results. Also I advise against adding results that do not organically belong together with what you already have. In fact everybody who has to read it likes a shorter paper (unless space is used to improve the reading experience).

@Buffy To me, this is the most convincing answer. However, it's a bit sad, probably it's different from venue to venue. I updated the question to support this answer

It must be simply because the page limit is small in these conferences that you are talking about. If the page limit was 25 or 30, papers would not hit it so often.
If the work can be explained in an even smaller number of pages, obviously authors should not pad out the paper to make it up to the maximum number of pages.

(Sorry, I missed that you had already pointed out this situation in the question. Unless there's an objection, I'll leave my answer here for anyone who (like me apparently) reads too quickly.)
I can offer three data points, for the three published papers I worked on in computer science.
In each case, once we had an idea of what we intended to write about, we started by just writing the paper without any regard for page limits. In fact, in all three cases we didn't know for sure which conference we were going to submit to when we started writing. We got our theorems down, all the necessary intermediate results, all their proofs, and all the motivation and interconnective sections—all in full detail. Without fail, we wound up with a paper that was much too long to submit to any conference.
Once we had that paper, we made a copy and began the work of stripping away everything that could be lost. Arguments were simplified, prose shortened, notation tightened up. Sometimes entire proofs were moved to appendices (published separately) and replaced with proofs sketches.
So it was no coincidence that our papers hit the exact page limit for whatever venue we eventually submitted to—the slog of trimming content stopped the moment the last line of our works cited section fit on the last allowed page in whatever template the conference supplied. If further revisions made the paper any shorter than that, it was pure coincidence.
We published the full versions of the papers as PDFs on our department website, and for at least one we made another copy to whittle down for a journal submission.

You aim for the highest you can succeed in and more pages allowed means more complex topics  can be covered in detail. Thus, if your paper is shorter you typically either won't have a complex topic or provide less details than another paper that hits the page limit. At least in high quality journals that means that papers with a lower page count are less likely to make it into the category that would allow them a higher page count - cause that category is probably having a high competition and other papers that use the full page count either have topics with more impact or provide more detail for a topic with similar impact.
On most projects there is way more to tell than fits into a paper, so you need to chip off the least important bits until you have an essence that fits into a paper category. If a paper is submitted below the page limit, that can give the impression that the topic isn't all that interesting if it can be completely covered in less than the allowed pages (or it might need more work and rather fit a short paper, demonstration, poster session or the like).
That being said there are exceptions of impactful work that can be described perfectly well in lower than usual pages, but this seems rare. Conversely I've never seen someone struggle to fill the pages of a paper submission when they had a topic that did fit the category (people might struggle and then realize that they rather should do a lightning talk or the like first on the other hand).


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Best app/note-taking platform to keep Computer Science notes?
The Situation
I am a 3rd year CS student currently on break after my finals. I was recently looking back through the notes I took for the past 2 years and they are all over the place, some on paper, some on my iPad, a few on apple notes, notion, etc. and I wanted to organize all of them. Note, all of them are only for the CS classes and not other math/elective classes so there are a few specific things that need attention

Code Integration - There will not just be notes but, program files containing associated code for that topic. I would prefer if I can keep those files separately along with a 'notes' file for reference. This will also allow me to run the programs in future easily
Math Equations - Due to there occasionally being some math heavy concepts, I want to be able to use something like LaTex to write those equations
Typed Notes - I want the notes to be typed rather than hand written since that's a lot faster

The Problem
I'm struggling to decide upon the best platform to keep all my notes. Here's what I've considered so far along with the drawbacks

Microsoft Word (Writing equations is cumbersome and no proper formatting/syntax highlighting for code, also not aesthetically pleasing) - apple notes, one note have more or less the same problems.
GoodNotes (I can type the notes and write the equations but, my handwriting is really bad)
Notion (all good but If I upload the program files on it, I would have to download the file locally and then run it making the process a bit slow and I reference past codes very often.)
LaTex (absolutely love the compiled pdfs but the whole process takes a lot of time, adjusting images, margins, tables, etc. and once my pages start increasing, the compile time starts annoying me)

The Solution ??
I have finally decided upon using a separate markdown (plain .md or maybe Obisidian but I have never tried it) file for my notes due to the following reasons- locally stored, quick compile times, use latex directly, aesthetically okay.
What do you all think? Is there a better way to approach this? Any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Frame challenge - seems like a lot of work for perhaps little to no benefit either in the rest of your undergraduate or anywhere beyond. Taking notes was important for me, but I never used them to study from during the course or later. I kept them for a while, but dumped them all after realizing that I had not looked at them in years.

I agree to some extent, I have never really referenced any of my notes for my Math classes again nor will I in the future. However, I feel some of the courses in CS are pretty solid like- Machine learning (stats, regression, clustering, p-values, search algorithms, ...), DSA, Data Science (cleaning data, creating pipelines, visualizations, ...), etc.

Fair enough. I still refer to textbooks I used 40 years ago since, well, they were clear, well written, and have an index in the back…

For me LaTeX is the way to go. You need to establish your own workflow and setup to do it efficiently which is a lot of boilerplate work at first. After that it can be really smootth.
An honorable mention for an answer to a question like this I would give to Gilles Castel who wrote a few blog posts about this topic in which he neatly outlined how he takes notes in LaTeX very efficently even during lectures. There is also a video out there.

Markdown might be a good option, or any other that you are familiar with and don't need to struggle with. However:
Any technical solution can fail you in one or more of several ways. If a company is responsible for the features and future of some product they might obsolete it. Google is fairly famous for dropping interesting tools as there is little financial incentive for them to keep supporting it. A future version of the operating system on your computer might not support it. Cloud based solutions can fail for this reason or for technical glitches that lose information.
The media in which you store things can become obsolete. I have tons of 3.5 inch floppy disks. I actually have a reader, but the media deteriorates in time. So, you need to back up your back ups to newer media.
Let's assume that you might possibly want those notes in 40 years. That was my situation. Paper notes, if properly stored and cared for can last. The paper should be fairly good quality, but even cheap paper will last for that long if you keep it dry and away from fire.
So, I suggest that whatever you use to capture the notes, use paper as part of your backup system.
It is also useful to summarize notes from any format on index cards, a few of which can be carried with you for review. It is much simpler to pull out 20 index cards and annotate them on a bus than it is to drag out a laptop. That review is also part of learning. Thinking that having captured notes in some format means that you "know" it is a misconception. Review, comparison, revision are all required. Non technical solutions may be superior in some respects than the fanciest, most feature rich, technical ones.
Caveat: Yes, I'm old, but I'm also fairly tech savvy and have seen it all (or much of it anyway).
I'll also note that many (many) years ago a fellow undergraduate student learned shorthand for note taking. He was in a non-technical subject and computers that could be carried around didn't exist. But he was also the top graduate in our class. He is also the one that taught me the index card trick.
You want effective solutions. Efficiency is less important.

I love the suggestions and paper notes are great but the time it takes to write them is just painful. I can agree that with new products coming literally every other day, some might become obsolete which is why I was opting for plain markdown files, seems like a pretty future-proof option to me.
Thank you for your insights and tips!

While I agree that future accessibility is important, I think for something as small in storage size as a set of notes, keeping the files themselves around is a non-issue for anybody with a proper backup strategy. The important question is if there still is a program around to read them.

First, separate the actions of taking notes versus reviewing notes versus storing notes versus processing notes. You may want three different classes of applications, one class to take notes, one to store them, and one to review/process them. Alternatively, the latter two classes of actions (store and review/process) can often be combined into one application, and the first action to take notes can be left to a dedicated "note taking" application that performs according to the need to allow fast yet coherent input.
Any options on taking text notes must be future proof. You will not want to struggle later to find a way to open content that you stored in an application that is no longer supported. The extreme extrapolation of this restriction typically means storing as vanilla ASCII text (although UNICODE will not go away in anyone's foreseeable lifetime). Markdown is an option to flavor the text when viewing it, while rtf is acceptable but can be cumbersome. Finally, LaTeX is designed as a tool to take text to printing, and the overhead when taking notes can be overkill. Markdown allows LaTeX, and this compromise can be leveraged nicely to allow you to type rapidly when you want just text input yet polish up later with LaTeX math when you want to see equations in a structured way for reading/reviewing modes. Be aware that markdown has various dialects, and one flavor of markdown may not translate to another.
The options to take notes also must not distort the original content. For images, this guideline argues to prefer PNG or PDF format to JPEG.
How you choose after considering the above is a matter of personal preference. As you explore, set a goal to have a workflow with the lowest friction. As one recommendation, don't fall for the one-app-to-rule-them-all guideline just because using more than one app gives added "friction". By example, I've not known a case where a multi-use app does as well as at allowing easy, intuitive note taking compared to a dedicated app for note taking. Also, whether you need to factor in using a multi-platform approach (iPadOS, iPhoneOS, Windows, macOS) can define or limit your options for applications.

What do you all think [about using markdown]? Is there a better way to approach this? Any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

I think you have settled on a reasonable and future-proof way to take and store typed text notes based on your needs. What remains is to choose applications for capturing images, coding, programming, or other equivalent actions. Finally, you may want to take some time to test various applications that allow you to assemble and process your collections of documents and notes. Applications in this category include Notion, OneNote, Obsidian, DevonThink, Roam, Typora, and others.

Best platform to keep ... notes?

My best applications for note taking and processing are tied to my two computer platforms (macOS and iPadOS). They meet two criteria: intuitive to use and effective to apply for the demand (take notes or process notes). The first criteria is a user-interface demand and the second is a workflow demand. I reached my choices on best applications to take or process notes through a process of elimination. When I find that an application is aesthetically cumbersome (ugly) to appreciate, or when I find that the application requires more steps to complete a given task compared to other applications, I eventually stop using that application.
In short, rather than asking in hopes that others will tell you what the best platform / application is, invert this question. What are your criteria to define best note taking and best note processing? Using those criteria and your limitations to the computer platform you use (Windows, macOS, iPadOS ...), test various applications. Finally, appreciate that the answer can (and likely will) change over time. Your platforms and applications will evolve, and your appreciation of what defines best for you will evolve.
All this being said, regardless of specific platform and applications, I hope my posting gives you an appreciation of how to approach the choices that you face in the best overall ways possible to meet your needs. When you want to explore more about this topic, search through the wealth of postings about it on general discussion forums things as outliner software (dot com) or (mac) power users (dot com) as well as on the blog/forum groups for the specific applications that interest you (e.g. obsidian dot md).

This is very helpful!
However, I wrongly said 'platform', what I meant was the best app/note-taking platform that would make my life easier in organizing CS notes.

I've updated to include some notes on applications.

I recently started using Joplin, which allows you to organize notes hierarchically, supports Math and code inline, and allows you to attach files. It also synchronizes over multiple devices and is open source.

I'm usually a bit hesitant to try new software since trends can change quickly with new products, but I'll definitely check it out and see if it fits my needs.


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Why do some schools not allow part-time students in some programs?
My friend Josh is 40 years old and unemployed. I might suggest that he goes back to school, to get a bachelor's degree. I might like to suggest that he apply to Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), since it's a good school which is reasonably close to him.  Unfortunately, many programs there only accept full-time students.  If you don't graduate within a set time limit (usually eight years), you might possibly get kicked out of the school. Because of this I think of suggesting other schools that are otherwise not as good a fit.
My question
Why do some schools not allow part-time students in some programs?  Is it because they're worried that a program could close down sometime in the future?
I admit that it would be slow and expensive to close down a part-time program in the usual way.  But, if that's the concern, perhaps the school could give all new applicants some warning like this:  "We do accept part-time students.  But part-time programs may close down unexpectedly and without much warning.  If this happens, you may need to find some other school to transfer to."

Undergraduate admissions are off topic here too.

This is like asking why don’t all restaurants serve burgers and fries. Different institutions have different goals.

@AzorAhai-him-:  I'm not 100% sure that this is really an admissions question.

The page you linked to says that part-time students generally have 14 years to complete a full undergraduate degree. If a  degree has a lot of course sequences (2 or more courses that must be taken in order) or a lot of interlinked dependencies, that could make it very difficult to accomplish in part-time status.

A good part time program is more than just the full time program with some changes to the rules to allow part time students to take longer. A full time student can be expected to available for class any reasonable hour in the week. For part time students that is typically not the case, leading to more evening classes and a larger online component. Also exercises, exams, and the like often need to be redesigned to accommodate the needs of part time students. So there are costs to offering a good part time program, and whenever there are costs, there is a trade off to be made.


text:
Is a PhD visitor considered as a visiting scholar?
It is common for PhD students (at least in Europe) to spend some months in a different institution. Can this be later included on CV as visiting scholar?
It seems the definition varies depending on the University.
Harvard considers professors as visiting scholars and the others as visiting researchers.
UChicago considers professors as VISITING PROFESSORS and the others as visiting scholars.
Wikipedia says that a visiting scholar is a "scholar (fine, but what is the definition of SCHOLAR?) that is visiting a different institution.
How do people put this on CV usually?

Since it is so common, why would it be advantageous to spend the space on a CV for that?

@JonCuster (devils' advocate role here) It is commno, but it is still a learning experience . Follolwing your logic, why would it be advantageos to spend some lines describing your PhD on your cv?

@EarlGrey - one includes what would be relevant to the job you are applying for with the CV. What one actually did at the other campus, not what you were called (or called yourself) is the important bit. "Collaborated with Group A to demonstrate a novel underwater basket weaving pattern that yields higher basket strengths" is useful information. "I was a visiting scholar extraordinaire at the University of Big Name" is not.

AFAIU, a 'visiting scholar' would be expected to teach rather than act as a student.

@JonCuster ok, in this I agree, I think OP have issues with how to introduce what you described, rather than boasting "big role in big uni".

At least in my field (Europe, Physics), what you're describing would be listed as "Visiting Student" on a CV. The only exception I can think of is if you won some notable position/title/fellowship for the stay that comes with its own name (like @Buffy said).

It isn't proper in academia to make up titles that weren't awarded. If you work at a place and they give you a title then you can use it. In general, titles are awarded by others, not assumed by individuals. You aren't a knight unless the Queen (or King) makes you so.
But a line in a CV to describe your role is fine if it won't be assumed to be a title. Sadly "visiting scholar" or, especially, "Visiting Scholar" does sound like a conferred title. Saying you spent a year studying and researching at institution X has a different sense. But if X gives you that title you can use it.


text:
Is it wise to upload all the publshed research works to the Standard Paper Repository of Turnitin?
My organization is using Turnitin software and I am the Administrator. Will it be a wise decision to upload all our published research works to the Standard Paper Repository of the software in order to avoid plagiarising of them in the future?

Related https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/38385/potential-issues-with-uploading-copyrighted-material-to-turnitin

I thought that all publicly published research works were already in Turnitin?

You should get legal advice regarding the consequences, and the intellectual property, legal or ethical issues that may arise from uploading your research, or student work, to their database.
The Turnitin blog seems to indicate that whatever documents you upload to the Standard Paper Repository will be further used (capitalized) to serve other customers:

Opting to store papers in the standard paper repository contributes to report accuracy around the world; this is because papers submitted to your assignment will be added to our global database, allowing future submissions to any institution to match against your students' papers.

Several concerns have surfaced about these practices:

"Turnitin: If you're a student, all your intellectual property might belong to us"
"Anti Turnitin manifesto calls for resistance to some technology"
et cetera...


text:
Should I ask the program coordinator regarding an offered PhD TAship for 11 months?
I have been offered a Ph.D. position in the USA where the offer says 'the admission comes with an 11 month per year teaching assistantship that carries a $2,000/month stipend, health insurance, and a scholarship to cover your tuition. My question is why do they mention 11 months? Does that mean that I will not get payed for the 12th month? I am an international student so I am very confused about the offer. Should I ask the program coordinator regarding this?

It is likely that it means that duties will extend for up to 11 months. But most places like to spread the payouts over 12 months as it eases the bookkeeping process somewhat.
But yes, you can ask.
Likewise health insurance is most likely to extend over 12 months if the award continues.
In the US, however, every university sets its own policies to some extent, so you need to ask.
It may be that 11 months (rather than 9) is to satisfy the visa people. I don't know the regulations for that, however.


text:
How does a Professor contact another professor regarding a PhD student?
I sent my CV to a Professor regarding a PhD position. He asked me to send the name of three referees. I could have sent him the names, but here is an issue.
I have worked in Germany for 2 years as a research assistant and then I moved to my home country and worked here for almost 4 years and published papers in reputed journals. Logically I think I should include the names of my current supervisors or the supervisors I have published works with.
But the professor (I am applying to) is originally from Germany, currently residing in Canada. He asked me to include three referees from Germany.
Is there any specific reason that he asked specifically for references from that country? Also, how do professors usually communicate? Do they call or send emails? Are they more comfortable if they are from the same country?

We aren't in a position to address the question of why this professor made this specific request. However, on a more general level:
You don't specify where your home country is; let's suppose it's Ruritania. Why wouldn't a professor want references from your Ruritanian colleagues?

Reference-writing culture and purpose differs around the world. In US/Canada/Northern Europe/etc, an academic reference is expected to be a fairly detailed appraisal of your strengths and performance. Unfortunately referees from some parts of the world do not appreciate this, and submit attestations about a candidate's personal character or family circumstances. This damages their application, as there are effectively no meaningful references. Perhaps the professor knows, or fears, that Ruritanian professors do not write helpful letters.
Good references usually include information about how the writer perceives the candidate relative to others: "One of the most innovative researchers I have ever worked with", "Consistently ranking in the top 5 in her undergraduate class", etc. Of course, this is only meaningful if the reader is familiar with the comparators. If I have never encountered anyone else from Ruritania, how do I interpret such statements? I simply have no point of reference.
The concept of academic references relies on the fact that the writer stands to damage their professional reputation if they recommend someone who turns out to be a flop. For this to be a meaningful cost, the writer's professional circle has to intersect sufficiently with the recipient's professional circle. If nobody I know has any Ruritanian connections, why shouldn't a Ruritanian professor lie through his teeth in order to get rid of a troublesome postdoc?
Edited to add: The way in which academia operates varies around the globe. It is conceivable that the characteristics that are desirable in the Ruritanian system are undesireable somewhere else. Again, it is helpful to understand the perspective from which referees are writing.

As for communication, most academics prefer to communicate (at least initially) by email. However, a phonecall may sometimes be made for references, to allow transfer of information without generating any paper trail.