text:
Why do some departments not offer master's degrees anymore?
I am a bachelor's student currently in my junior year; and I am looking for a graduate program in mathematics, in either UCLA, or UC Berkeley.
However, both websites say they only admit PhD applicants, and no longer master's applications, and this worries me a bit.
Does that only mean that the master's applications are closed as of this year, and that they will open again during fall?
I'm just a bit unfamiliar with the American system!

Actually, I think this isn't very common. But you can contact the graduate director at each institution if you need the reasons. It may be a temporary situation, but more likely they just had insufficient demand  or insufficient funding.

I touched up your post a little bit, I would suggest adding a link to UCB!

@Buffy From the site: "The Department of Mathematics no longer accepts applications for the Master's in Mathematics Program. If you are interested in graduate study at Cal please apply for the Applied Math or Math PhD program. The MA application is only available to current Ph.D. students at Berkeley interested in a simultaneous MA in Mathematics.  "
Perhaps it could be a signal of prestige or standing? What do you think?

Also, this is very common in research-oriented programs. I do not know the reasons well enough to explain, though.

@GrayLiterature perhaps that comment should be an original question.

@GrayLiterature, I think those sorts of places don't need to be much concerned with prestige. My best guess is as I stated in the comment: lack of sufficient demand or lack of funding. Fewer programs implies more intense focus, perhaps.

Alright, thank you guys for the answer. I guess I'll email the graduate service to ask for the reasons. Maybe the situation is temporary (fingers crossed)


text:
How can I cite multiple geo-locational data used from Google maps?
I am preparing my journal paper for submission. For the data analysis in this paper, I utilized geo-positional coordinates of all the convenience stores locations in my study area (approximately 90 stores, i.e., 90 set of coordinates). This coordinate dataset for the 90 store locations was obtained from searching on Google maps. I would like to know how to cite where I collected/retrieved this data. Given that it is over 90 stores, how would I go about doing this? Any insights would be appreciated. Cheers.
Edit: Please see the 'Example' under section 'APA 7th Edition' here.
You can see in their example that this a single citation for map directions between two places. In my case the information I am extracting from Google maps are 90 individual place locations/GPS coordinates. Would it then call for a citation for each? (Of course not, as this would be ridiculous, I am simply looking for the most appropiate way to cite the 90 locations in a combined way).

Just cite Google Maps.

There are two separate issues here:

How do you cite the website that was used to obtain this data?
How do you cite (or rather, include a reference to) the actual data that you used for analysis?

1. How do you cite the website that was used to obtain this data?
Here, you can just cite the website URL (maps.google.com). Don't bother trying to cite the extended URL including the search term you used, unless it is really necessary; it would be more natural to just describe how the data was obtained in words. You can use something like the following:

To obtain the data, the Google Maps website [1] was visited on April 12, 2020 from [[approximate location]], and the search text [[search text]] was used to collect the geo-positional coordinates for 90 convenience stores in the area.

Then the citation [1] should look something like:

Google, Inc. Google Maps. URL maps.google.com, retrieved April 12, 2020

The exact format is not so important as long as the source is clear to the reader. If you are looking for more detailed advice on how to format citations for website URLs, see this question (or alternatively, this question).
2. How do you cite (or rather, include a reference to) the actual data that you used for analysis?
It would be most helpful to put together a repository of the raw data that you obtained, for example on Github or Pastebin, though you can also include it in an "appendix" to the article if this is an option. Regardless, you can add in your paper a comment (or footnote) such as

The raw data that we obtained in this way is available at [[URL or appendix]].

Appreciate your feedback.Please see my Edit to the question and feel free to add more detail to your answer if you see fit, Cheers.

@user121 I think my answer still applies: you should just have one citation, maps.google.com. I don't see why you want to make a citation which combines the individual locations. Remember that citations are for the reader. If the reader wants info about all the locations you used, they should consult your data, not your citations list. Thus you should provide your data separately from the citation.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
What part of mathematics deals with what makes a 'valid' idea 'mathematical', and if 'mathematical', 'interesting'?
Mathematicians don't seem to have a consensus on which questions are mathematical, and which ones are interesting but sometimes one pronounces with an air of authority on a question or solution or unfamiliar new method. So what exactly is the training that mathematicians have had that allows them to be so sure about their answers?
What would be a valid way for a mathematician to prove or at least demonstrate or argue that a question or technically valid solution is not interesting or not mathematical.

In my opinion, a mathematically interesting question is one to which the answer will uncover something new about the world, some new truth (or a better approximation to the truth) or new insight. That should be the goal of any scientific (and perhaps also artistic) endeavour.

This question is closely related, and possibly a duplicate.

If you need to ask the question about a particular piece of work, then it probably isn't.

With experience and depth come an appreciation of certain kinds of problems. But we don't all find the same things interesting. Turns out, though, there are some things that interest few of us, we're human.

a question is mathematically interesting if there are >1 professional mathematicians who agree that it is interesting.

Why is the question on '-6'?

@MatthewChristopherBartsh why do you keep asking why your questions have the score they do? The answer is the same every time. It is the number of upvotes minus the number of downvotes.

@astronat Okay, but the question asks what training mathematicians get in order to tell if a question, answer, or method is interesting.

@astronat For example, is or was positional notation an interesting mathematical idea? How about the idea of reading out the numerals without mentioning the powers, like we do with zip codes? How about the idea of putting commas before each group of three digits? How about the idea of dropping the 'and' and saying 'one hundred one'?

@MatthewChristopherBartsh I'm not a mathematician but to be blunt with you, no. How does that help me gain new insight into the world? It's not maths, it's more like semantics and most (all?) mathematicians have much bigger fish to fry. It's like asking if I find the alphabet interesting. I'd much rather read a novel.

@astronat What about when positional notation was rarely or never used by mathematicians? I'm assuming 'it' refers to positional notation.

As a first approximation, a piece of mathematics is interesting if it suggests some method for solving the Langlands conjectures.  (j/k, but with a grain of truth).

As to this alleged lack of consensus as to what is, and what is not, mathematical, I'd like to see some concrete examples. At this point, I doubt I'll understand what you're actually talking about without those.

@MichaelHardy For example, is the question of how to pronounce binary numbers an interesting mathematical question?

@MatthewChristopherBartsh : How something should be pronounced is not a math problem. Do you know of something specific about how to pronounce such things that relies on a novel, or other, mathematical idea?

@MichaelHardy
I have heard about Stern (1958, Science 128(3324):594-596), and McFeely (1959, Math. Teach. 52(5):356-357)? But I have been unable to look at either paper due to covid-19. There is also this from your humble correspondent: https://bartshmatthew.medium.com/how-a-math-teacher-should-pronounce-a-binary-number-1c41773df52f?source=your_stories_page-------------------------------------

ok, The Stern paper seems to be essentially about a system of mathematical notation. But if you just say "how to pronounce" or the like, without further context, people probably won't understand that.

@MichaelHardy There must be some mistake. The Joshua Stern paper I am referring to is about a new way to pronounce binary. Can you give me a link to what you found?

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

It is your job to convince others that your work is interesting, not their job to prove it is not.

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


text:
CV formatting and writing software?
Is LaTex everyone's go to for writing a professional CV? Or are there other niche tools/packages that you use to format and write it? i.e. something like a WYSIWG graphical editor with preset formatting, but specifically for CVs. Ideally, something that enforces a strong separation between content and style, so that you can easily swap out styles for the same content

You have to be a bit careful what you wish for.  The extreme of this are systems like Digital Measures, where you enter all your accomplishments into a form and a CV is generated automatically.  Unfortunately, the requirement to handle all possible types of CV entry means that it handles none of them well, and the generated CV is basically unusable.

LaTeX is flexible enough to format something pretty much however you want, so why not use it? If you learn how to create your own templates and .sty files it also becomes easy to change the style while maintaining the content.

Thanks for the responses, I guess you are right, I was looking for a "free lunch". If I want a good looking CV, and have it be customisable and portable, then I'll have to probably bite the bullet and make it myself with Latex.


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Publish as a book, then request a journal for peer review or reverse
I am planning to publish my research as a book containing parts as a biography, then is it possible later to request a journal to peer review the research? or can publish as a peer review in a journal, then publish as a book?

What is in it for the journal? The work is already published.

I want to send it to the journal to peer review the paper, it's more for me.

Right - so why should a journal provide you with a service that they get no return on?

That is right, thanks for your input

No, journals want to publish new research, stuff that hasn't been shared before.

Thanks, Staniss, can you do the reverse, can publish as a peer review in a journal, then publish as a book

First the journal, then the book is also unlikely. You normally give up your copyright when you publish in a journal. Sometimes arrangements can be made, but it isn't a common thing.

Thank you Buffy

@Buffy: That depends. A lot of journals offer open access options, often for a substantial fee, where the authors retain full copyright, and merely grant the journal a license to distribute the paper. In such cases, subsequent publication as a book is generally possible.

In some fields it is totally standard to publish your work as journal articles first, and later publish it in expanded form as a book.  Nobody does that in my field, though.


text:
Undergrad research supervisors want me to write conference paper I have no interest in
I have been doing undergrad research advised by a comp sci professor and a civil-engineering professor. I am a comp sci major.
To perform this research, we needed to do a tricky modification to a dataset provided by the civil-eng prof. This modification was not the point of the research, but because we needed it, I have spent the last month or so dedicated to this. To be sure- I was not interested in this modification or its application outside of our original research goal. I did this work as a means to an end, so we could finally work on the part I was interested in.
Now that this algo is written and working however, my advisors (even the comp sci one) really want me to apply this in a different way than originally planned and write a conference paper on the results of that. This application is not related to comp sci, so they essentially want me to write a civil engineering paper on my own.
When they asked me to do this, it sounded like a quick thing to do, so I said sure. Not only is it not quick, however, it's so boring. I can't focus on this work, and the thought of writing about this sounds like torture.
What should I do about this? I would like to just refocus, but I'm not sure if this is a normal thing within research ("by-the-way" papers).

Actually, it isn't obvious you should tell them no. But you need to ask for help in it. You can say you have no interest, of course, but it is unlikely to get you where you need to go. Asking how you can make it more interesting might help, though.

Are they paying you?  Are you getting course credit?  Did you tell them your priorities?

Note: this answer assumes that you might be considering pursuing research after your undergrad, by applying to PhD programs.
You have to balance two things here:

The value of an academic publication.
Pursuing your own research interests and career goals.

Firstly, it is important not to underestimate (1). Publications are academic gold. It doesn't usually matter so much that the area of the publication is the same as your interests. If you apply to computer science programs you would be able to list that you have this publication; you might be surprised that even though it is not in computer science it is still likely to look extremely good. Roughly speaking, I would guess that it is at least 50% to 75% as good as a publication in your area of interest.
Why does a publication look so good? It tells admissions committees: This candidate knows how to do research, and is successful at it. They have already worked with a professor in a research group. They are able to see a project through to completion, and they know how to write. Notice that the area of the publication is irrelevant for all of these factors.
However, you cannot ignore (2) either. Research flourishes only when you are passionate about it. In the long run, you need to pursue research that matches your interests and particularly that is true when you are interested in computer science, not civil engineering.
With that in mind, I would suggest you make a compromise. It is highly in your interest to see this published with your name on it, but you also want to minimize the time that you spend on it. So you can reach out to your collaborators (professors) and say that you had underestimated the amount of work this would involve, and you don't have enough time or experience in this area to write the entire paper, when you are more interested in pursuing computer science research. However, you would be happy to work on it a certain amount. For example, it would be wise to set aside a week or two to work on it, particularly if there is no one else who an write it. But set a limit up front; if this is going to require a month or two of your time, then it is no longer worth it.
If you do end up writing the whole paper, you should make it clear that you are not interested in any follow-up work. You just want to follow this idea through to publication, and then you can move on to your own interests.

Is the OP intersted in academia? How do you know?

@user111388 I am assuming not that they are interested in academia but that they are interested in going for further research, e.g. in a PhD towards an industry research position. But you are right that I should clarify that, since they didn't mention it. (I guess I assumed because they are posting on academia SE)

@user111388 Updated the answer.

Thank you!!!!!!


text:
How, if I should at all, to explain a really bad academic year in PhD application?
At the beginning of Covid, more specifically the year 2020-2021, I did a 1-year master's program in math but I have received very bad grades. I was very distracted by the illness of two of my keen relatives, who both passed away that year and struck me pretty hard. I had to run between hospitals and my home to take care of them and really had no time to study or do any research. Eventually I barely passed the exams but had really low grades in all my courses.
I know this doesn't represent my true academic potential because I have received a first class honor for math during my undergrad at the same institution which is top in the country, and a 3.9ish gpa in my current (second) math master's program in the US (of course, my application to PhD that year also didn't go well) with much more solid research experiences and (I think) strong letters. I have seen some past posts where people advise that do not talk at all about the weakness/bad grades. Should I explain in my case? If so, how should I do it? Do I include it in my SoP or in an extra document?

I don't see anything wrong including a quick sentence somewhere saying something along the lines of "a passing in my family + covid pandemic negatively impact my grades 2020-21, but as you can see with 2nd math master program, my grades quickly improved".


text:
How can a book's copyright year be in the future?
I recently noticed that in the book "Investing for Dummies" by Eric Tyson, the copyright is listed for 2021, even if at the time of making this post the year is still 2020. How is this possible? How can a copyright year be in the future?
Copyright and Publishing information for the book

Well, the 2021 models of cars are out now, so why not books?

The second listed answer does answer my question, yes. Unfortunately, I only looked at the top answer to that question, which seemed confusing to me, especially as it stated that "[t]he date shown is more than likely the date that they received confirmation of the copyright registration from the office." On seeing that answer, I thought: how can the US copyright office confirm a registration in the future? The second answer, as well as the answer to the question I accepted, seems to answer my question more directly, however. Thanks!

As I understand it, anything published after a certain date, possibly in September, gets the following year's date. It is merely a convention. I don't know if it started with publishing textbooks or not, but that would make a bit of sense. The academic year starts in September in many places.
The convention may only apply to certain kinds of books and only in certain places, but the practice is long standing.
Copyright is very long now, but back when it was shorter an extra year meant something. And publishing late in the year would, in essence, be giving up a year of protection.


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How will several Cs and one F affect my chances of gettting into a PhD program?
I'm a junior chemical engineering major who is interested in getting a PhD in chemical engineering. However, my grades in nearly all of my chemical engineering courses have been about a C and I've also made a D in one of my chemical  engineering courses. I've made Cs in one of intro chemical engineering courses focusing on mass and energy balances as well as statics,quantitative methods, and physical chemistry. I've made a D and have to retake my Properties of Materials class. Ive made As and Bs in Im planning on retaking some of these classes to improve my grades but I'm  still worried about how these grades will be precieved by a graduate admissions committee in the long run. How badly do these grades affect my chances to get into a PhD program? Do I have a chance at this point? What should someone in my situation do going forward to become a more competitive applicant for graduate school?

It will be pretty hard. In the US it might not be impossible, but you would need other things to show your knowledge and potential. Pretty steep climb.

You've made As and Bs in what? I think you forgot to type some words

Which country are you in.


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Chances at Going to a Math Grad School with 3.5 Math GPA
I am a 3rd year at UChicago, and I'd really like to try and get a math PhD. Currently I have a 3.75 GPA (3.5 Math GPA—but if you remove the one B I got during CoVid that goes up to a 3.6). I've taken Real Analysis, Linear Algebra, Algebra, and Topology and got B+/A- in them. I expect to have taken a few more higher math electives (i.e. Measure Theory, ODEs, etc.) and 3 grad classes. I've also done an REU and some (3-5) reading programs in all sorts of fields with my specialty being in Geometry and Topology. I think I'll have decent recs.
What kinds of PhD programs could I realistically get into? Now I'd really like to go to a school like UMich, NYU, UChicago (again), Northwestern, CUNY, Brown, Cornell, CUNY etc. Would any (and if so which) be possible?
Also, I consider myself Agender. Would this hurt/help me in anyway in my application? I don't know any non-cis mathematicians so I figured I'd just ask that here.

The first part of the question is a Shopping question (or duplicate with what Brian posted), which is off-topic. And the second part is a totally different question that should be asked separately.

In a normal year you would be likely to get into most of those.  This year universities have less money, so nobody's predictions are useful.


text:
Masters in Math degrees without requiring bachelor's in math
I did a Bachelor's in Economics, having taken several modules in statistics and econometrics and 1 in math. Now I'm very keen to do a masters in math or applied math, with the possibility to further studies in research, but am not sure which universities would admit me into their program given that most of their websites state they require a Bachelor's in math.
I am currently contacting various program administrators in different universities in the US, Europe and Singapore, but would very much appreciate help that anyone can give to help me in my search.
Does anybody know of any programs that are willing to admit students without math bachelor's, with the possibility of taking some bridging courses during/prior to the Master's program?

Most places in the US. The less competitive the easier.

In the US another term that may be good to look for is a Post-Bac program in Math (though some are more aimed at people looking to do a PhD program after so you'll need to do research on the individual programs)

@GageMartin I see, thanks for this suggestion. So far I have not come across a Post-Bac program, is this common in the US?

@FourierFlux Oh I see. I'm considering university of colorado, washington, illinois. Would you consider these competitive, or mid range?

(US perspective) You might want to carefully reread the requirements for some of the universities, as I suspect many include something like "or the equivalent coursework background". I've known plenty of people who got undergraduate degrees in physics, philosophy, and even more remote areas who later went into math (and the other direction also). I seriously doubt it's a math degree that's desired, but rather convincing evidence that you have the appropriate background and potential to succeed in the program, and having a degree is simply the most common way to show this.

If you want to study applied mathematics, maybe consider one of the several "industrial mathematics" masters programs, such as Master of Science in Industrial Mathematics at Michigan State University (admission requirements). I recall posting a list of several such programs once, but it must have been in a Stack Exchange comment (which google doesn't find) rather than a Stack Exchange answer, but you can probably find several yourself by googling.

It certainly isn't unusual, you can see a (probably not exhaustive) list of some programs here https://mathalliance.org/our-partners/post-baccalaureate-programs/

This is, typically, very difficult without taking courses in real analysis, numerical analysis, differential equations, and other applied mathematics topics that you won’t get in a traditional economics program.
Your chances would be, frankly, very low without proper preparation from mathematics undergraduate courses. I did an economic major with a math minor, and I am still upgrading a few courses here and there to go into an applied math PhD, but this would be similar to a masters degree because of the pre-requisites.
Take a year or two, get the background, and then you would be much more competitive. Perhaps you can illuminate what math courses, particularly, you’ve taken.

The question is specifically asking about a Master's level program but your answer seems to be in reference to a PhD program

Edited slightly. I believe my argument still stands for a masters degree as well. There are just so many pre-requisite courses that, if you did not take as a minor or for ones own education, that you’d be nearly beat out by everybody in the applicant pool with the prerequisites.

@GrayLiterature Thanks for your frankness. I only took 1 math course that is more like an introduction to calculus with several theorems such as green's theorem, l'hopital's rule, but did not take the courses on linear algebra and real analysis etc. I graduated 2 years ago. Right now I am taking an Udemy course on linear algebra, and asking my home university if I can take several math courses. The annoying thing is the administration and rigidity in the types of courses permitted for alumni to enrol in. What are you doing right now to upgrade your courses?

@Hazel Lim: You should include your course work and other math-related background in your question. I just wrote a comment that would probably have been different (or not written at all) if I had known that your background was so little. The people I was talking about from other fields had rather strong backgrounds in math --- they simply didn't major in math for some reason (didn't want to take the capstone math course, didn't take a required physics course needed for math but not for philosophy, etc.).

I would not waste your time and effort with Udemy for mathematics. What you need is a credit on your transcript from an accredited institution. That said, there are online universities (again, need to be careful here) that offer modules for self-learning equivalent to what you get in a course, but you’re very much on your own. If this is something you want to do, you’d be best to speak with an advisor on the optimal path forward based upon geography, needs, etc


text:
Does grant funding search occur before, during or after search for a faculty position?
I am nearing the end of my Ph.D. at a R1 University in the United States. My degree is geography, though the research I do focuses on public health, epidemiology, and ecology. I have 7 publications, including 3 first-author publications, with another first-author publication in review. This is not including any publications that are a direct result of my Ph.D. research, which may be 3-5 publications and should come over the next few years or so.
I am unclear about the priorities for job hunting. Ideally, I would like to find a tenure-track assistant professor position without having to do a postdoc, though that is becoming increasingly rare.
Presumably acquiring grant funding and having a successful history of grant funding makes an applicant more competitive. With this in mind, should a nearly complete Ph.D. Candidate spend time searching for grant funding in addition to job hunting, or should they focus on getting a good postdoc? Further, if a tenure-track position is gained, does the grant funding search generally begin after that point?
EDIT: Added context about my field of research and degree, as well as publication history.

Whether or not you can get an R1 TT faculty job without a postdoc very much depends on your field. Would you mind elaborating?

@WolfgangBangerth Thanks, I made an edit to make this more clear.

Have you asked your advisor and senior coauthors for advice?

"This is not including any publications that are a direct result of my Ph.D. research, which may be 3-5 publications and should come over the next few years or so." Being blunt: no one cares about these future publications, as long as they are future they are inexistent (so you are inflating your cv) or even worse just an annoying burden, your future employer is expecting and maybe tolerating you will have some 1-2 additional paper to finish, not that you will spend the next 2 years in additional working on these 3-5 publications resulting from your PhD.

@EarlGrey Fair, I guess I should expect at least 2 more publications before starting job applications.

Your priorities for job hunting should include both exploring postdoctoral opportunities and searching for tenure-track assistant professor positions. While the preference is to secure a tenure-track position directly, it's important to be aware that such positions without a postdoc are becoming less common in academia.
Acquiring grant funding and demonstrating a successful track record in securing grants will indeed enhance your competitiveness as an applicant. This is not, however, expected for a tenure-track faculty position application as it is typically very hard, and thus rare. Yet, it is a plus. The search for grant funding typically begins after securing the faculty position.
It is worth noting that some faculty positions may require applicants to prioritize teaching and mentoring. Therefore, it's essential to carefully review the specific requirements and expectations of each position you apply for.
Ultimately, balancing your time and efforts between improving your publication and teaching/mentoring profile and pursuing grant funding should be based on your individual career goals, the competitiveness of the job market in your field, and the availability of funding opportunities aligned with your research interests. My expertise and experience are in the field of engineering.

One thing I can add is that I have designed a course that includes coding laboratory assignments. Presumably useful?

Absolutely. You should include it in your teaching statement and talk about it during interviews.

Most funding you would receive needs an institutional "home." And it is generally rather cumbersome (some would say a giant pain in the neck) to move funding between institutions. I would recommend that if you are applying for any grants right now, you do so in partnership with someone who already has a stable position and who would be the primary PI.
On the job search, it is usually sufficient at this stage to have a very good idea of what you plan to apply for vs. having already applied for it. They want to see you have a research plan, and this includes having a funding plan.

Thank you. This is something I did not know. I find the whole process difficult and confusing - my work is carried (in part) on a grant right now, so it seems that a new institution would want me to have grant funding to continue the work prior to hiring me. That's just my thought.

With this in mind, should a nearly complete Ph.D. Candidate spend time
searching for grant funding in addition to job hunting, or should they
focus on getting a good postdoc?

If you want to stay in academia, chances are that you need to find your own money.
Research grants are a scarce resource. Available postdoc positions even scarcer.
Applying to postdoc positions come with a small time/financial overhead (preparing the CV, preparing the cover letter, a couple of interviews, often some component of the trip to the interview is paid) and a lot of frustration (few positions being open, far and apart).
Writing a research proposal come with a huge time overhead (preparing the CV, preparing the reference letters, preparing the research project, preparing all the formalities) but then it is your project, so the reward is immensely bigger. And the frustration is big but a bit smaller in comparison to applying to postdoc positions, every time you learn a little bit more about the relevant comunity your research may have an impact, as well as about your research and yourself.
Learning how to write a research grant can be an immensely useful skill that can be re-used in many aspects of your professional life. It is probably the only skill worthwhile of your unpaid time during your PhD and Postdoc. Since you already have at least one publication (i.e. you can prove "I can publish my research"), writing research proposals is way more valuable for you than doing research for free (with extra hours, working during holidays, etcetc the general "acceptable" science working conditions) to publish something with your professor/supervisor as a co-author (whatever your relation is with them, cna be marvellous or horrible, it does not matter).
--------------Disclaimer--------------
At the higher ideal and ethical level, I do not support the huge waste of human and brain time involved in 100 researchers writing 100 proposals to have only 10 of them accepted.
Unfortunately the R1 system OP is aiming at is a supporting column of this system, better be safe in knowing how it works rather than being sorry. I hope GPTChat-based proposal writing codes will hijack completely the system, letting bright CVs and bright ideas shine, without much wasting time in the cumbersome bureacuracies of applying for grants/research funds, often applying for not-for-profit foundations which are simply big boxes used to avoid paying taxes and giving back peanuts to society.

Agree 100%. The amount of time I have spent on my DDRI is unbelievable, and seems like a huge waste of time given the small amount of money it garners.


text:
How to find a reputable open access journal?
I found few open access journals that show quite good quality articles. However, I have been advised that open access journals may be predatory. When I searched websites, I was surprised that all lists are "possibly" predatory journals. I tried to figure out why these lists are "possibly" predatory. One of the answers is that the websites claiming predatory publishers attempt to avoid judicial consequences. On the other hand, I also found that editors from the conventional publishers could have conflict of interests with competing open access publishers. I am completely puzzled and do not know if these lists of "possibly" predatory journals are due to conflict of interests or due to commercial interest of the open access journals. I want to publish my research paper timely and do not know if I should choose an open access journal. And, if yes, then how to find a reputable open access journal? Please advise.

Use a journal that is indexed in the DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals).
The DOAJ has a certain quality check regarding the journals' trustworthiness, and it thoroughly reviews journals marked as 'questionable' by users (see, for instance, their FAQ).

Thank you for the DOAJ! I will read it carefully.


text:
How much is the relevance of a synthetic benchmark?
Often researchers verify their proposed algorithm or techniques using standard benchmarks. My question is related to performance of a benchmark application.
If a researcher propose a new performance optimization or analysis technique optimizing based on a particular factor, is it enough to only use a synthetic benchmark for verification. If instead a standard benchmark application is used its performance may be subjected to multiple factors. It will be difficult to argue that improvement is only due to the particular factor, the researcher optimized for.
Let me give an example. Often a synthetic benchmark is used in synchronization lock related research. Psuedocode of benchmark:
In every thread
For N times // where N is in millions
       //do something in the non-critical section part
       acquire a lock
          // do something in the critical section
       release a lock

Such a benchmark has been used in some notable paper's of the field. But now most of the research use some applications that uses the lock.
The problem is, it is difficult to individually identify and quantify each factor that affect a benchmark lock-sensitive application performance. Despite the application being lock-sensitive there are a host of other factor that affect the application performance. It would be easier to do for a synthetic benchmark, where a researcher can limit the code.
How convincing an argument in a research paper is if it is solely based on analysis on synthetic benchmarks?

Why not run experiments on both?

It is easier to explain results as synthetic benchmark is focused on particular factor. Extracting contribution of the particular factor in the benchmark application run is difficult. So it will be difficult to justify results.

@ajit Ease of explaining results is an argument for using a synthetic benchmark in the first place, but not an argument in favor of not using realistic benchmarks. A realistic benchmark supports conclusions about the real-world applicability of your work, which is an important quality of research.

Having just a synthetic benchmark is generally weaker than having a realistic benchmark, but better than nothing.
There some more considerations to be taken into account.
First, quality considerations: Is the design rationale of the benchmark clearly communicated? Was there any effort made to reflect realistic cases? Was the benchmark designed with input from multiple, independent experts (ideally different authors than the author of the paper, due to researcher bias)? Have independent experts been consulted to validate the benchmark? Is the benchmark publicly available and well-documented?
Second, historical considerations: Has the benchmark recently been used in other research? The more widely a benchmark is used, the better, since it will allow an easy comparison between different works.

Who can be considered as the independent expert?

@ajit First of all, it's better if the benchmark was developed by other persons than the author of the paper. Then, it's good if the benchmark is developed by a group of people who don't usually work together (like a PI and his PhD students etc.).

Synthetic benchmark are often simple, like in the question. You don't require much of an expertise to  develop them. Will it suffice to cite some old(few decade) seminal papers where it was used? Or given it simplicity it would not be prudent to cite, just use them.

@ajit If it's an established benchmark in the field, that is a good thing. But since it's decades old, it's possible that the field has produced some improved methods for benchmarking. So, it would be your job to read up the current literature in the field and understand their benchmarking standards.


text:
Are student research assistants included in papers as contributor for their work?
I was a B.Sc. student research assistant for programming in a Neuroscience Lab in Germany. My Job was to code experiments, manage the data gathered and to write/modify the scripts to evalute these datasets. I was employed for the work of a PhD. student but I have simply became the programmer guy of the whole Lab and made diverse scripts and experiments for many people in the Lab. People were really happy with my work and everything was working fine.
I quitted the job because my PhD. advisor refused to write me as a contributor even though I worked there for 18 months. Also I wasn't learning new stuff, so I wanted to get into a new Lab, that can challenge me to learn new things. I told them, that I quit because I want to find a new job which fits my future working field better. We have currently no problems with my advisor or any other person in the Lab.
But after I quit, I asked for a Recommendation Letter from my advisor, with the expectation that he will ask Professor to write it. But instead he sent me an e-mail telling that he will write it himself.
My concern is, after spending 18 months in a Lab with a work on around 15 different projects, 5 different papers and for 10 people, I get no contribution and get only a recommendation letter from a PhD. student, which has no weight in Academia. For the new Institutes, this may look like I was a bad student research assistant, who was almost useless.
My question is am I right with my concerns? Do I have to contact Prof. for my contributions and a Recommendation Letter without telling it to my advisor? I have simply no experience in this field, but I want do a PhD. degree in future and I am worried that, this kind of thing might be a waste of time for me or even worse, a bad impact for my future.
Thank You!

I think you are using the word citation incorrectly. What I think you mean is formal acknowledgement. Papers get cited, and through them, their authors. But papers can contain acknowledgements for non-author contributors.

It's confusing to under stand the "bottom line" of what you're asking.

@Buffy thank you for pointing that out, I edited it now, what I meant was contribution.

@6005 I edited it now, sorry for selecting wrong word. My bottom line is, after working for 18 months in a lab, I will get no contributions for my work in projects and I only get a recommendation letter from a PhD. student. I think I deserve at least a good recommendation letter from Prof. after my work. Am I expecting too much? I

Since you contributed to multiple projects, that fact should be stated in your letters of recommendation. If one letter writer has enough information to make your multiple contributions clear, that's fine, but if not then you may want to get several letters about your contributions to several projects --- not necessarily a letter for every project, but enough so that readers will get the idea.

The standards for who is a co-author differ by field, and maybe by location. In some fields everyone who has any contribution at all gets listed as a co-author. In others only one person or the main contributors to the actual concepts presented. So, it is impossible to judge in your case without knowing more about the specific academic culture.
But as a minimum you should probably be acknowledged in some statement within the paper itself.
I'm guessing that in your case the professor isn't being mean or unethical, but the field is just such that "authorship" has a specific meaning that may not apply to you. If you work pretty much under the direction of someone else, then you may not actually "deserve" co-authorship.
I'll note, however, that there are papers in some fields, such as high energy physics, in which the list of authors is longer than the paper itself.
But note that this is a very controversial subject.
The other issue of who writes your letter of recommendation is separate. In general if you have had little contact with the professor then they know little of your work and can hardly make a prediction about your future success. The PhD student might actually be better, provided that the letter is properly written. As a minimum, the professor should review and approve the letter (IMO). It is also possible that this is field dependent and thus it may be that whoever reads your LoR will be in the same field and understand the conventions. Math might be quite different from biochemistry, for example.

To respond to your comment, I suggest that if there is a dispute among lab members about whether you should be a co-author, that you let them resolve it on your behalf. If the other PhD student carries the ball for you it is more likely to be successful than if you do it alone.

The things is, I only spoke to my own advisor about co-authoring. My professor doesn't know about it. Also another PhD. student mentioned, that I have to be included as a co-author in papers for my great work. But I thought it might be mean to tell Professor that my advisor refused me as a co-author and I deserve it.

And about the recommendation letter, I am a computer engineering student and you are a CS Prof. as I see in your profile. My advisor(PhD.) sent me a recommendation letter ,which he prepared for another intern student, so I can write my own and he can edit it. There was only his name at the end of it. So I think he will make the same for me by not mentioning Prof. in the letter. What would you think about an application with a  recommendation letter, written only from a PhD. student after 18 months of work?Should I take it? I can't find a way to tell "I want a letter from Prof., not from you"

Just opinion, but you should take it. A letter from both may be the best outcome. But you probably have other suitable letter writers as well.

Maybe I can ask him to include Professor's name in the letter too. You mean the other PhD. students from the lab as letter writers?

Actually no, professors from other courses.


text:
Covid gap year and grad school admissions
I'm a sophomore at a public university in the U.S. I'm thinking of taking a year off before my junior year, but I'm worried I'll have to explain the gap in my transcript when I apply to math grad school down the road. How concerned do I need to be about this?
The real reason I don't want to "go back" to school in the fall is that an online experience doesn't appeal to me at all. My home environment is a bit difficult and I think I'll have a miserable year overall. I expect I can still get decent grades, but I'd much rather have had four good years on campus, even if that means I have to graduate a year late.
Essentially, I'd like an answer to tell me how admission committees usually view gaps in transcripts and try to give me an idea of how this might play out for someone who voluntarily leaves college for a year because of classes being online. Some more specific questions that have crossed my mind are the following:

Do application forms explicitly ask you to address gaps in your transcript? If not, is there an expectation that applicants will explain these anyway?
Will an explanation like "I didn't want to take classes online for a year" fly? While my home environment is also a factor here, I would be really embarrassed to bring that up in an application.
How important is it that I have something to put on my resumé for the coming year? What I'd really like to do is a lot of reading on my own in math. But if it's something that would make a significant difference to my application, I could try to find work instead. (I don't really expect I'll get anything beyond a typical low-wage unskilled position, assuming it's even possible to find jobs. Failing that, would volunteering be taken seriously?)
Would expectations of progress in math be higher for someone who has a year-long gap in his transcript and has therefore had five years to graduate?

If it makes a difference, right now my impression is that I could probably be competitive for a spot at a top-ten school.
If it's felt that my question doesn't fit with the site rules, I'd appreciate advice on how to improve it.

Taking a gap year (voluntarily) really isn’t a big deal, especially during a global pandemic. Graduate committees around the world will acknowledge that Covid-19 has had tremendous impacts on students. If you’re taking the time off anyways, take a MOOC, prepare for courses you anticipate you’d take, get work experience (it’s always valuable, even if it’s not a highly skilled job). In one sentence, explaining you took time off because you wanted to invest your money for the course in-person would be as good as any reason to take a year off.

Based on your post, however, it seems like you have financial support from your parents to have the freedom to do what you’d like to in the gap year. If you’re passionate about math, then keep doing more math.

@GrayLiterature Thanks for your response. Yes, I'll be in reasonable financial shape to stay home for 8-12 months.

If your home life is creating difficulties for you, then I would expect (admittedly with ignorance of the details) taking a gap year would make that worse, not better.  The sooner you graduate, the sooner you have economic tools to improve your home life.  This isn't the easiest time to find a job, either.

With the COVID pandemic affecting a lot of ways of life, graduate department adcoms are more likely to be understanding of certain abnormalities in transcripts and such when they review them, at least in the immediate upcoming cycles.  These can include having to take classes P/F, as some schools have switched to that grading model as a result of having to go entirely online.  In general also, I don't believe that taking over four years to finish undergrad will be a liability either; even in normal circumstances, things can happen that graduate department adcoms will also understand, such as major changes, having to retake classes after a dismal year, etc.
That said, you will have a gap in your CV come application time, hence the term "gap year."  While you could take a break and "do nothing," a better use of the gap year/semester would be, as you said, to find work or attempt to do a (preferably research) internship.  Most are in the summer, but there are a few, especially in industry, that will take on students for the regular semester.  You mentioned your home environment is difficult, so especially if the pandemic situation improves enough, why not take the time to try and gain experience that could be relevant come time to apply to graduate programs?  If anything, do something that you could brag about to adcoms or your friends rather than spend the semester doing nothing.
Overall though, I do feel that taking a gap semester/year could be beneficial in this case.  Especially if you have just gone through a relatively stressful semester, you could use a longer break before going back into school.

Thanks for this answer. In my case, "doing nothing" wouldn't really be doing nothing, of course. It's just that it wouldn't appear on my CV. I've read elsewhere that in math, the most important factor tends to be evidence of being able to do well in advanced coursework, while research experience is considered less important, work experience even less so. (I probably don't have enough programming skills to find a research  internship in the private sector, so I'm not really sure what math-relevant research opportunities would be open to me if I'm not enrolled in university.)

What I'd really like here is the take of someone who has experience with math admissions specifically about how big a problem a gap in the resumé would be. I'm looking at this solely from the perspective of how big a minus it would be in admissions rather than how I can do something demonstrably useful with my life. That's because I already know that having time to do more reading is what will help me in terms of my actual knowledge and skill in math, and this in turn may become evident in the following two years. I feel I can handle self-led reading better at home than course requirements.

Even then, research experience would be beneficial if you are applying to MS and especially PhD programs.  If you are doing a gap year/semester, you most likely will be able to take the advanced coursework, you're just postponing it.  If you feel reading will help you cement your research interests during this gap, more power to you.

Students take gap years for many reasons:
A « special » holiday
To earn some money
To volunteer Woof etc
So a gap year based on a Covid decision is just one of many and this is not an exhaustive list.
Your acceptance for a program will not be based on the use of the gap year but your grades and your attitude ie what you bring.
Best of luck.

At downvoters: comments make improvements to answers possible...

Do you think this advice is as applicable in the U.S. as it is in Europe?


text:
Is staring into the cover sheet of the exam paper and looking at the second page considered cheating?
Whenever I receive an exam paper, I usually stare at the cover page. I use the word "stare" instead of just "see" because the cover page is translucent and I could faintly see the page behind if my eyes focused on the paper. I am able to read part of the questions by doing so, although most of the words are still obscured by the text on the cover page.
The thing is, I'm not sure if this counts as cheating. By "staring", I obtain some knowledge of the questions before the paper begins (albeit only partially), which may be counted as unfair. However, this is done merely by looking at the question paper which all candidates do before the exam begins. It seems virtually impossible to detect and in some cases is unavoidable. I have seen no academic policies regarding this; most papers I receive only instruct candidates not to open the paper before the exam begins.
I don't know if I'm simply overthinking this or if it is a genuine ethical issue. I abide by all examination regulations, and never thought of this as "cheating" or disallowed until recently. I would definitely appreciate it if someone could help me out here - I've been fretting over this for days. Thanks in advance!

ask your instructor

Not an answer regarding your ethical question, but try to focus on a) the information and formal requirements usually written on the cover and b) on whatever your instructor might say or write down on the blackboard! The partial information can potentially confuse or alarm you.

Your institution should use better quality paper!

Tempest in a teapot. If you can do this, so can everyone. Don't worry about it. Your eyes are made for seeing. If there is a problem it is caused by your prof providing temptations. However, if you are Superman with X-ray vision, it might constitute an unfair advantage.

I don't know if I'm simply overthinking this or if it is a genuine ethical issue.

You're overthinking this. You are complying with all instructions, and I presume are not even intentionally exploiting any loopholes. To the extent that simply looking at the cover page allows you to guess the subject of the first question, that is a defect (if it can even be called that) of the exam.
A good exercise to test for ethics is to consider what the reaction be if you were publicly known to have "stared at" the cover sheet. Can you imagine anyone at a disciplinary board doing anything other than laughing at the triviality of the "offense"?
Whether you should attempt to avoid seeing through the cover sheet or whether it is "fair game" is perhaps a more complex question -- however, I suggest you find more significant matters to spend your mental energies on.

What if I intentionally do it though? I did it believing it was not cheating and that it was technically allowed, but now I’m not so sure.

"I suggest you find more significant matters to spend your mental energies on." This sentence alone should be an accepted answer.

Didn’t realise the discussion for this still continued after February. Anyway, I have to mark this answer as correct because I consulted with the examination board who confirmed that it is not considered cheating.

It's a matter of spirit and letter of the instructions.
According to the letter of instructions, you are not supposed to open the first page before instructed. This, you follow.
According to the spirit of the instructions your prof wants to have a unique starting time for the exam across the students being examined. This, you violate (or try to) by intentionally trying to see what the questions are.
Now, if you chance to see something once, it is not your fault if you utilise this, as an exception. You can not unknow. But you are basically taking explicit advantage of the weakness in the exam - you essentially try to hack the system by prying through the sheet.
A good exercise to test for ethics is to ask what would happen if your technique becomes commonplace (for more information, see Kant's philosophy).
Of course, the response could be that the examiners really print one extra empty page to be placed between the cover sheet and the questions to prevent this. So, hundreds of extra empty sheets would be printed, just to prevent one of the many possible cheating strategies, yours.
Note that, once your strategy becomes commonplace, mere instructions not to peek will not help; you may be sufficiently "lawful" to follow explicit instructions, but others may not be - the intermediate sheet will become unavoidable.
Your hack has affected (here, in a wasteful way) how exams are being carried out in the future. Note that your hack has in no way demonstrated your ability to cope with the material.
It would be different if, for instance, you would just find an extreme shortcut to solve a problem.
Another, much more interesting ethical question would arise if, say, for an exam about cybersecurity, a candidate would break into the lecturer's secure computer and steal the answers - after all, they demonstrated proficiency in the topic of the lecture, even if not precisely according to the marking scheme.

Calling this a "cheating strategy" or "hacking the system" seems a bit much -- the gain obtained from seeing through the cover sheet is limited to the topic (not even the full text) of the first question -- this is a minimal gain, it is an opportunity available to all students (albeit not all at the same time), and it is entirely unlike hacking into the lecturer's computer.

@cag51 It's a strong word, but I use it on purpose. It is not very sophisticated or rewarding hacking, but OP says: "whenever I receive an exam paper, I usually stare at the cover page" - they intentionally and systematically try to subvert a weakness of the system (here the physical weakness of transparency of the first sheet) to gain an advantage. "Hacking" makes clear that there is a deliberate attempt at gaining information that is clearly not intended to be available to them. Of course, in the narrow technical sense, this is exaggerated, but I used it to emphasise the point.

For it to be hacking, in any sense, OP would have to have some "neat trick" that a typical exam taker wouldn't have and a typical instructor couldn't be expected to guard against. For example, if the professor accidentally e-mailed him the exam in advance, he may have an ethical obligation (if not a statutory obligation) to not look or to inform the instructor. Looking at the cover page, or even "staring at" the cover page, doesn't rise to this level. But fine, I have my own answer with my own opinion, just wanted to state why I disagreed :-)

@cag51 Since your response below is more on the "laissez faire" side, it's not clear to me whether you disagree on the choice of word "hacking" or whether OP's trick is ok or not. The word "hacking" implies to you some sophistication; which is perfectly reasonable - however, in my view, hacking can be per se quite trivial (like some "magic tricks", once known), but a not entirely obvious technique to achieve additional access. If it is my general response you disagree with - well, OP asks the question because he sees ethical problems and I explain why he may be right.

I only commented because to me your language ("cheating" and "hacking") and the analogy about computer hacking seemed way, way too much for this sort-of-okay, dubious-at-worst "trick", wondered whether you really thought such language was called for. Seems that you do, so okay.... Peace!

Yeah, it's cheating.
Whether you slide the page or not is irrelevant.  You are deliberately accessing extra information.  It's not inadvertent since you stare hard and long to try to read through and get extra info early.
Might as well lean back in your chair to peek at cards. Or look at someone else's test while they take it. Doesn't matter if the steps to prevent it are not ironclad.  You know you aren't supposed to look at the questions early.  But you do it. You are starting the test early by looking at the questions early.
Blatant cheat.  At VMI, they would drum you out (literally).  Heck, trying to justify it would add equivocation on top.

There is a big difference between accidentally and unavoidably seeing a question, and taking an intentional and avoidable action such as staring.

I think the difference is that if the prof knew you were staring at your neighbor's answers, she would fail you; if she knew you were "staring" at the cover page (in a non-obnoxious way), she wouldn't care. Of course, I don't know anything about VMI, maybe they would care there....

Of course it is cheating. Just because you physically can do something does not mean that it is allowed. Because that's all there is to it, right? Your question is, "I can do this, therefore I think it is not cheating, is it?"
Now let's dissect your question.

By "staring", I obtain some knowledge of the questions before the paper begins (albeit only partially), which may be counted as unfair.

You should have stopped there. You are sugarcoating this. It is unfair. Have you thought about students with visual impairments? Or have you just thought about yourself?

However, this is done merely by looking at the question paper which all candidates do before the exam begins.

So? Even if the technique for cheating is simple, it's still cheating. Even if everyone is technically able to do it, it's still cheating. If I give my students an assignment to do at home, they are all technically able to go online and plagiarize something.

It seems virtually impossible to detect and in some cases is unavoidable.

Are ethics determined by whether you can get caught? Can I commit murder if I am 100% sure that I will not get caught? A surgeon can easily "slip" and kill someone, without anyone knowing better if they are good, and there is no way to avoid it. Do surgeons have a license to kill?
This is a bullshit excuse. You're better than this.
(And since I know the kind of people who frequent this website: no, I am not comparing cheating to murder. I am giving an example that proves that, obviously, "I won't get caught" does not let you off the hook, ethically.)

I have seen no academic policies regarding this; most papers I receive only instruct candidates not to open the paper before the exam begins.

It is almost certain that your university has a global policy that says cheating is forbidden. They do not need to list every single way that a student could cheat for this particular way to be forbidden. What counts is the end result. Have you purposefully obtained an unfair advantage? Yes. Therefore it's cheating. End of story.
Imagine if the policy written on the paper had been to keep your phone in your pocket, not explicitly "the use of your phone is forbidden", for some reason. Imagine you had an old-fashioned phone with a physical keyboard and a phone that vibrated in Morse code to read out SMS you receive. Do you think you could successfully argue that you have not violated the policy if you start sending questions to an outside party? After all, you have followed the policy to the letter, and everybody could technically do it...
But it's still wrong! And it falls under the global policy about cheating. What's written on the exam paper is just a reminder about a particular aspect of this global cheating policy. It doesn't mean that anything unwritten is fair game.

I've been fretting over this for days.

Perhaps this could have been an alarm signal for you. Continue to fret over this. And try to think if you are committing other unethical acts. You're a university student, not a child anymore. You're supposed to know right from wrong. Act like it, or one day, you will find yourself on the wrong end of the law. Having a "gotcha" attitude is a surefire recipe for trouble.

And for the other answer who suggested that the disciplinary board will laugh at the triviality of the offense: do you live your life only considering what you will be punished for? Shame on you.

RE the last paragraph -- the point is not that OP could get away with it, the point is that the offense is too TRIVIAL for anyone to waste time with. If it is an offense at all, which I doubt. I honestly can't believe we're still discussing this nonsense concern.

By the way, profanity is not allowed on SE sites.

Having set exam paper, marked them, invigilated exams and run a large graduate school at a prestigious uni I can confidently say:
Don't worry about it.
If you prepared for the exam, like, at all, then whatever you might be able to glean through the (cheap-*ss thin, apparently) paper will be pretty much what you were already expecting.
Having said that... I did in fact worry a bit about matters such as this, and so we put a lot of text on the cover sheet (this text we called the rubric, that might be a UK thing) making sure that any leak through was scrambled.


text:
applying after bachelor's degree which factor is the most important for top 10
I am a student willing to apply for top 10 universities(MIT, Stanford, etc).
I have recently graduated with a bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering field with GPA 4.5/5.
I have read about important factors for applying and I found out that these factors are the most important factors ( from most important to least important)

GPA
Recommendation Letters
GRE Scores
Research/Getting Papers Published
Industry Internships
Being a TA

(Main Question) I want to how much GPA is important for example a person with GPA 4.8 is far more likely to be accepted than me or not. for example, students with GPA above 4.5 are all the same.
and my second doubt is about the rank of papers. If you publish a paper in famous journals is it that much unimportant to them?
what about doing something extraordinary. I am developing an AI program that is really professional and I am writing a paper related to this program. I want to know how much these sorts of activities are important for them.

You are not going to find some detailed regression equation with parameters for each of our six factors.  Actually you have done a decent job to list these and I figure the order is roughly correct.  (although some of them may function a bit more like a floor than just a linear factor).
Given that, my impression is that the 4.5 (like a 3.5 for 4.0 normal grading schemes) is fine.  The key thing to understand is that applying to top research grad schools is a bit different than applying to top undergrad programs.  The odds are more in your favor, now.  And they are more about getting good candidates to do the work than about perfect little cherubs trying to be Harvard undergrads.  Of course higher is better.  But I don't think 3.5 is an issue if you are good at science.  I would let them know the class rank if you come from a school with tougher grading standards.  Also the major GPA, if it helps you.
Journal published at is not really so critical at all.  After all we are at the 4th level factor.  And I suspect much lower than first 3.  It's nice that you published at all, but lots of good people haven't.  Add onto that likely not being first author, or even if you were, probably significant support from others.  All of it to mean that a fancy journal won't save you from bad records on first 3 (grades, letters, GRE) which will be seen as evidence of aptitude and conscientiousness.

P.s. Of course if you are concerned you are not as competitive, apply to several good schools (more than if you were competitive).  Also, while I think you are right to target a top school--it does matter--it is maybe not quite as important the "ranking" as in MBA schools.  I would consider to look at top 30 also and have a safety school or two, especially if you can find a reason for one that appeals to you (location, scientist, etc.)

I think it's useful for this question to step back and think about it from first principles.
What a top graduate program wants in a graduate student is high likelihood of becoming a leading researcher in the field.  There are some exceptions, but for most applicants at most leading departments, this is the only consideration.
The problem with putting this forward as a criterion is that no one can predict the future.  You really don't know whether you're going to become a leading researcher, and neither do the people reading your application.  Everyone is trying to make their best guess based on the information available.
At this point, someone is going to ask for a data-based solution, but the problem is that there really isn't that much data.  There aren't that many leading researchers, the factors that make leading researchers likely change quite a bit over time, so the kinds of people that did well twenty years ago might not do so well now, and the variables probably interact with each other in complicated, nonlinear ways that are hard to tease apart statistically without large amounts of data.
This means graduate admissions boils down to a committee of people reading applications and making their best judgement as to who is most likely to become a leading researcher.  You can now ask the psychological (or maybe sociological) question about what factors professors on admissions committees think correlate with probability of becoming a leading researcher, but there seems to be quite high variability between individuals, and you don't know who is sitting on admissions committees that year.
Given how difficult it is to determine how all these proxy measures work, I think it's best to believe that admissions committees will get it right and look at what they're really trying to measure - your probability of becoming a leading researcher - with the caveats that you should consider the judgement of other people you trust to have an informed opinion (your current professors) and that your own judgement is highly likely to be biased by imposter syndrome and or the Dunning-Kruger effect.

I'll go out on a limb here and suggest that all of it is just as important as the rest of it and all is just as unimportant. I don't think that admissions committees work the way you may think. It isn't a matter of filling in numbers on some sort of spreadsheet.
Universities in general, and the best ones included, are looking holistically at a candidates record and other statements to look for evidence of success. They are also trying to balance, in an imperfect world, the credentials and statements of the large number of people in a very competitive applicant pool.
Everything you list will be considered and "more is better" here as you know. But, given that the pool is so competitive, it might be nothing more than a simple statement in a statement of purpose that puts one candidate over the top.
That said, negative evidence can work against you, but that is more to help the committee whittle the pool down to manageable size so that they spend time on those most likely to succeed at that institution.
Some parts of it are less "rational" than others. If one of your recommenders is well known to the committee, their words may carry more weight. If some previous student from your institution has done well at the institution that alone can be a big factor if the recommender makes comparisons between you.
Everyone need to make their own case for admission and for the likelihood of success. The competition is broad and deep. Make your case.

and could you please my last question? doing something extraordinary ( for example developing an industrial application is helpful or not)

Certainly. Everything positive is helpful. But no single thing is a "slam dunk". Build a complete profile.


text:
my supervisors put me as a last author
my supervisors put me as last author in an article submitted to a journal. I had written the majority of the paper and even if it's not my idea, but it's my thesis subject. My supervisor who proposed the idea and corrects the article wants to become the first author and the one who doesn't do anything   wants us to take turns publishing (once me the first author, once him once the other supervisor). I stressed because i'm the one who needs the publications and not them who already have a job

What is your question?

There is not nearly enough information to say. You should state your field, and also give more details about who did what. Authorship does not mean just writing the manuscript (or even the code)! The intellectual contribution is what counts. But just throwing out an idea doesn't necessarily rise to the level of an intellectual contribution either -- I have many ideas, but only publish the ones that I make progress on.

I really begin to realize how much easier student's life would be if all fields adopted math's alphabetical listing for authors.

It is very rare that success comes from fighting your supervisor.

Buffy no sense i am not fighting anyone

@JonCuster I really like how we do it in the biological sciences: first author is the student who did the work, last author is the senior author who supervised the project. There is little to no incentive for senior authors to have anything but last author positions.

@BryanKrause - that is generally how it is in my field as well, but we sure seem to get a lot of questions about author position anyways from seemingly similar situations. As a mentor of mine pointed out long ago, credit is not a thermodynamically conserved quantity - there is plenty to go around if the work is good.

@JonCuster True, although I think the first step of ensuring no direct conflict between supervisors and their students resolves the vast majority of argument, leaving just a few edge cases. Since papers often end up known by the "First Author, year" shorthand used in referencing, I don't find alphabetical authorship to be entirely benign either.

@BryanKrause - Agreed. As is usual with most problems involving people, there is no rigorous, unambiguous, and universally agreed 'solution'...

@JonCuster Yet another way the mathematicians have simplified things compared to the rest of us ;)

I tend to look at the titles of the authors - the one with the least probably wrote it...


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Do you always need to show statistical significance of results in a paper?
Is it enough to discuss a higher mean in one set of results than another without statistical significance (as long as you are clear that significance wasn't tested)? Can this, in your experience, result in rejection by peer-reviewers?

This is something that I never understood. There is a huge number of papers in which errors treatment is simply neglected. Chemistry, material science, applied physics, etc. Including my papers except for some simple regressions or variability windows. Not that I feel we should do different. I guess it depends on the context. Or on the hypothesis to test / compare.

Of course I can't speak for EVERY journal in the world. Who knows?!? But in principle, a difference in means, without further statistical analysis is 'meaningless'. You are applying a transformation that hides the variance of the underlying data, so it is impossible to interpret if the differences observed are likely due to a different mean of the samples, or due to simply random variation.
In addition, I would argue that if the journal does allow you to publish a difference in means without further analysis, you still shouldn't do it--and probably find a different journal to publish in.

It is a good idea to avoid meaningless "Null Ritual" statistical tests that give the appearance of statistical rigor, but are often deeply misleading.  For instance, there is no point in performing a test for zero-difference between things that you know a-priori cannot reasonably be expected to be the same.  For example, a test for zero difference in the proportion of journal paper abstracts that express an acceptance of anthropogenic climate change, versus the proportion when judged on the basis of the whole paper, tells you nothing whatsoever.  A non-significant result only tells us that the sample is too small to reveal what we already know.  The space in the abstract is too small to include a statement of whether anthropogenic climate change is happening, unless that is the specific purpose of the paper.    However there is more room in the body of the paper, so it is more likely to contain such a statement in providing context for the findings.  So we would expect the proportion to be somewhat higher in the latter sample.  It certainly does not cast any doubt on the usefulness of the survey of abstracts (in case you are wondering, yes, this is a real example).
If the difference is too small to be of any practical significance, I'd argue that there is no point in performing a test for statistical significance either.
If you are going to claim that X is different to Y based on some data, then you need to perform a test of statistical significance.  However, I'd argue that it doesn't necessarily need to have a significant result for the paper to be worth publishing, providing the conclusions are suitably circumspect (the method/reasoning may be of sufficient interest, even if the results are inconclusive).  The main purpose of statistical significance tests is to enforce a degree of self-skepticism on the part of the researcher, and not much more than that.  It is most useful when it give a non-signifiant result.

It depends on the situation.
If the mean of one result is obviously much higher than another one, then there is no need to provide statistical significance at least from my point of view.
If the mean is the same or very close to each other, then there is definitely a need to provide statistical significance.

I agree. I guess depending on the field this is not very welcomed. But I am speaking of facts, like saying the boiling point of X is Y. I am really puzzled myself although I proceed by feeling.

If it is obvious though, why not perform the test anyway and say "obviously the difference is statistically significant at the X level of significance".  Best not to give hostages to fortune with peer review ;o)

'obviously much higher' is a completely meaningless point if the underlying data is unknown. Maybe it's higher because there are a bunch of NA values? Maybe it's higher because there is a small number of samples with huge variance? There is no absolute need to run a statistical test, but at the very least there needs to be a representation of the underlying data/variance and not just two means with one being 'obviously much higher'.

"if" is doing a lot of work there.  If the underlying data is unknown, then nothing is obvious, but in that case @LGDGODV's  reasonable suggestion doesn't apply anyway.  If I give a comparison of the mean radius of stars and that of rocky planets, then it is obvious that the difference is going to be statistically significant, and it would be a waste of time performing a test of an entirely uncontensious statement.  As I point out in my answer to the question, "null ritual" NHSTs can be misleading as well.


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Is it always necessary to mathematically define an existing algorithm (which can easily be researched elsewhere) in a paper?
I'm writing a paper which explores a new forecasting method. I compare the results with those of an existing algorithm as a baseline. Plenty of literature already exists on the existing algorithm, and the definitions for the new forecasting method already make the paper very math-heavy. Being in-depth mathematical definitions of the existing algorithm can easily be found, is it necessary to define it mathematically in the paper? Would it suffice to clearly describe what it does in English? Adding math for the existing algorithm on top of the math for the new one adds significant complexity for the reader. On the other hand, readers who want the full definition may have to research elsewhere which could lessen the appeal of the paper to peer reviewers. Any thoughts?

Why not just cite a paper which has a concise mathematical description of the algorithm? "We compare our algorithm A to algorithm X as described in (Foobar, 1970), ..."

Necessary?  No.  I've seen papers that don't even clearly describe their own new algorithms and don't provide any code.  But I am usually not a fan of such papers.

"...which could lessen the appeal of the paper to peer reviewers."  What about the appeal of the paper to any other ordinary readers?  Do you expect no one to read your paper other than the peer reviewers?  What does peer review have to do with the question, anyway?

In my experience, most of the times, when someone tries to "clearly describe in English" what an algorithm does avoiding mathematical notation, the result is not as clear as intended. Ask yourself if that is the case also for your description.
Math exists precisely because it makes it clear and unambiguous to speak about combinatorial concepts.

I downvoted. I think you make a good point but it does not answer the question that was asked.

You need to cite the earlier method, making it easy for readers to find the details if needed. But you also need to satisfy reviewers and editors before your paper can be published. Or, for course work, satisfy the professor that your work is complete.
But other than that, the structure and content of your work is up to you. Make a decision about how you think it should be written and then do that. If complaints follow (reviewers...) make the needed changes to satisfy their concerns.
But, for the headline question, no it probably isn't necessary to completely define the earlier work unless yours can't be understood without it.

If you are comparing to published results of an existing method, then you are fine to cite the paper and provide a brief description.
However, if you are producing the results yourself, then you need to describe the exact algorithm you ran. This is because you will probably claim better results than that method (else why would you be publishing?), and I in my role as the reviewer will be skeptical of your claim. My first question will be why you did not compare directly against published results and instead ran the algorithm yourself. I will assume that since you didn't describe the algorithm you ran, you likely don't understand it fully yourselves and have misimplemented it. Finally, as you said "Being in-depth mathematical definitions of the existing algorithm can easily be found" --- multiple definitions of many algorithms can be found, typically not all equivalent. Reviewing, I will assume that you'll have picked the one variation that performs most poorly on the example you are presenting.
And, frankly, if the algorithm description isn't even in the appendix of the document, and I do have to look up another paper to understand your baseline, you'll have annoyed me and I'll be less likely to give you a favourable review.

At least in my discipline (economics-econometrics) the solution is called "On-line Supplementary material".
It is submitted together with the paper, as a separate file and not part of the page count of the paper, but subject to peer-review.
If the paper is accepted for publication, this "Supplementary material" is posted on-line only, on the journal's website. It won't appear in the printed version (apart from an alert that "additional on-line material exists for this article").
It usually includes long mathematical derivations (i.e things for a Technical Appendix that are too long to attach to the main text of the paper), but also the details of some subsection of the paper that it is only summarized in the main text. For example a bag of simulations whose detailed tables are included in the Supplement, and only the main conclusion is reported in the main text.
So you can include all this additional math of the competing algorithm to such a file.
You may want to check with the journal that they do this.


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Can a paper be rejected for only detailing an algorithm mathematically and not programmatically (via pseudocode)?
Imagine you are a peer reviewer presented with a paper that states an algorithm was implemented in python to test an analytical process on large datasets. The details of how the algorithmic process are detailed extensively via mathematical denotation and formulas, but no actual pseudocode or programming examples are shown. Would you consider the paper to be incomplete, or would the mathematical examples suffice (provided they are robust enough and don't withhold any information whatsoever)?

I expect it depends on the requirements of the journal that the paper is submitted to.

Entirely depends on the target venue (journal or conference) and the preferences and expectations of their reviewers. In a programming-focused venue, you might not get the reviewer feedback "rejected due to lack of pseudocode", but reviewers might struggle to understand your algorithm and therefore give less favorable reviews.

You could add in a footnote the URL of some implementation e.g. on http://github.com/

In theoretical computer science (I cannot speak for other fields) it is very common not to give pseudocode, but only a high-level description of the algorithm. Your paper should always explain your ideas as clearly as possible, and as an author it is your job to select the most suitable presentation. This does not necessarily need to be pseudocode. Painstakingly presenting every little implementation detail may not add much to the paper and instead distract the reader. If you think foregoing pseudocode results in a better paper, by all means do so (unless the journal you are submitting to specifically requires it).
If your paper presents an implementation in Python, I would expect the source code to be publicly available somewhere and referenced in the paper.


text:
Do peer reviewers generally care about alphabetical order of variables in a paper?
I am wondering if some peer reviewers may nitpick about the choice of variables in a math-heavy paper, namely whether they follow alphabetical order throughout the succession of the presentation of concepts. For example, variable N may be defined, variable K may be subsequently defined in a way that depends on N, and finally variable A may represent a final result based on an operation. Could a very particular peer reviewer suggest a revision or rejection simply based on the naming of variables in this way? has anyone ever experienced this or similar?

I've never seen it done.  The main complains are usually related to consistency in the styling of variables.

Near duplicate of https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/148027/whats-involved-in-reviewing-an-article/148045

@AnonymousPhysicist that question ("what's involved in reviewing an article") seems very remotely connected to this one.  Did you cut-and-paste the wrong link ... ? Or am I missing your reasoning?

@BenBolker The other question is "How do you peer review?"  This question is "How do you peer review the alphtabetical order of variables?"  The answers to the other question say the answer to this question is "Don't."

@AnonymousPhysicist: I'm not convinced. The answers to the other question don't even mention "notation" anywhere. (Yes, you could answer that question with some stuff about what to pay attention to [or not] as far as notation in mathematical papers, but no-one did (e.g. is notation coherent? If there's a lot of notation, is there a table summarizing it? I sometimes comment as an editor about whether displayed equations should be inline or vice versa, although that belongs at most in the "minor/stylistic comments" section of a review)

Hi @Cassiel, it might help us to know why you're asking. Are you (a) a reviewer who wants to know whether you can recommend rejection or revision for this reason; (b) an author who has received such a rejection/revision and wants to know if it's fair; or (c) other? It won't affect the overall answer, but might affect the details that people choose to present.

Let a be the number of math-heavy papers I have read that use an alphabetical order to introduce all their variables.  Let b be the total number of math-heavy papers I have read.  Let c = b - a be the number of math-heavy papers I have read that did not use said ordering.  Then c = b.

Hmmm, having trouble with the math here. Either you didn't read your own post (a math heavy paper) or you have a counterexample. ;-)

Not sure I'd call those three lines a math-heavy paper!  You think I can get away with adding it to my publication list?  ;-)

Works for me. But I'm so old I can't do simple arithmetic anymore. So, best check with your department head.

My a is probably zero just like yours, but I"m not sure. If I read a paper in which the variables were introduced in alphabetical order, I might not have noticed that peculiarity.

Good one! Seems like going with an alphabetical ordering instead of trying to use the most memorable letters available (initial letters where applicable) requires significant backtracking on the reader's side, even when only 3 variables are involved in 3 lines of text.

Such rejection is very unlikely to happen and [if happens] would certainly be due to field-specific established conventions and not particularly because of the [non]alphabetic order.
To avoid that, try using the common variable conventions for the field. For example: i vs j for complex unity (square root of -1), or use i, j, k primarily for indices in programming-related fields, or use calligraphic R and C for the field of real and complex numbers, respectively, etc. Reading well-received papers from your field and asking for feedback from your advisor and\or more mature co-authors would allow learning about such conventions.
With all that said, a common reviewer's argument for revision\rejection that "the paper uses unnecessarily unusual, unjustified, uncommon, and cumbersome notation" is a totally valid one. Again, the case of a simply non-alphabetical order does not apply here. Therefore, this potential review response is not applicable to the situation as it is described in the question.

This is unclear.  Are you claiming there is a field where the answer is "yes?"

@AnonymousPhysicist, no. I don't believe I ever wrote such a thing. Which part of the answer hinted at that in your opinion?

I'm confused. Where does your quote here ("the paper uses [bad] notation") come from? I don't see it in the question, nor do I see any indication that the question has been edited. Are you suggesting this as an argument that a reviewer might make?

@BenBolker added a bit of clarification on that matter.

"would certainly be very field-specific"  But overall,  I am confused by your answer.

@AnonymousPhysicist, the sentence continues as "and not particularly because of the alphabetic order".

Yes, and the sentence continues to be grammatically ambiguous.  What is field specific and what is not because of alphabetical order?  The rest is no more comprehensible.

@AnonymousPhysicist did my edit make it more clear now?

No.  It does not.

@AnonymousPhysicist I am sorry to hear that. I tried my best.

It is certainly not that a reviewer will suggest a revision based on the non-alphabetical order of introduced variables. However, if you have a long list of dependencies between your variables and no particular naming scheme that allows the reader to see that there are no vicious cycles in the definitions, it may become extremely hard to check the proof and the reviewer may indicate it together with a suggestion to introduce some explicit logic in naming that would guarantee that we do not define $A$ in terms of $B$, $B$ in terms of $C$,..., $Z$ in terms of $A$.
There is also another way to convince the reader that everything is OK even if you have piled up the inequalities between the randomly named parameters in some crazy order in various technical lemmas. It is to make an explicit assignment in the end (say, as functions of a single large parameter $L$: $A=L^{10}$, $B=L^{-3}\log^2L$, etc.) and leave it to the reader to check that all the conditions are met for this choice (it should be a trivial exercise; otherwise you need to do it yourself). I personally prefer it whenever possible. Otherwise I try to introduce some naming convention or just list the order of dependencies in the beginning explicitly so that the reader can easily refer to it any time.
The general principle is that "everything that simplifies the work and spares the time of the reader is good even if it increases the time and complicates the work of the author" (because the hope is that your paper will be read by more than one person; otherwise what's the point of going public with it?).

Let a force a act on a particle of mass b, giving rise to an acceleration c. These are related by Newton's second law, a = bc. By special relativity, the particle's rest mass is associated with an energy d, a relation involving the speed of light e. This relation is given by Einstein's famous formula d = be2. Etc.
Accept or reject?


text:
For most journals, do peer reviewers expect common notions such as arithmetic mean to be formally defined?
If making use of standard statistical notions such as arithmetic mean, do peer reviewers still expect to see a formal definition such as μ = ( Σ Xi ) / N, or is the notion so common that it'd be redundant to define it this way?

Before you learn to write, you learn to read. Surely if you're writing a paper for a math journal you've hopefully read papers in math journals. What do those papers do?

Thanks, did not say it was for a math journal though. Would you formally define the arithmetic mean for a neuroscience study, for instance? Or would that be perceived as redundant and boring?

In my experience people don't write formal anything outside of math (broadly interpreted) journals.

A paper should have all relevant information for reproducing its derivations. You need to define all symbols. If you talk about an average, perhaps it is clear, but if there is any possibility of ambiguity, you need to resolve it. E.g. variance estimators could be biased or unbiased. Etc.

You do not need to define common "notions" such as the mean.
You do need to define common symbols, such as "μ", because they are common symbols for more than one thing.
These are just broad guidelines.  Each research community has its own practices.  If unsure, avoid ambiguity.

Statistical journals (and other journals that commonly use statistical results) would not usually require you to define the arithmetic mean of the sample values (called the "sample mean").  However, mu is not the standard symbol for the sample mean.  The standard symbol for the mean of data values labelled with x is an x with a bar over it (and possibly a subscript N if you need to keep track of sample size).  The Greek letter mu is usually used for the mean parameter for the underlying probability distribution, which is a different thing.


text:
What does the Editor-in-chief do with the Associate editor recommendation? How much is him/her involved?
I am aware about the typical workflow of a journal. Still, I am very curious about the "last steps" before an article is accepted. Let's assume one successfully passed peer review and the associate editor is inclined to suggest "accept" to the editor-in-chief?

What does happen then?
Does the editor-in-chief really read the article and in which situation does the editor-in-chief not follow the recommendations of the associate editor?
How does it work for high-throughput journals (I am not talking about MDPI ...) that receive large amounts of submissions and accept articles on a daily basis?

Any insights are highly appreciated!

Related: Does the Editor-in-Chief of a journal usually follow the advice and recommendations of the associate editor/senior editor?

@ Anyon Thank you so much for sharing this particular link. I was wondering whether the EiC in fact checks every single submission?

From my experience as a peer reviewer and knowing an editor in chief, it appears the editor in chief does nothing relating to the journal.

High-throughput journals may have multiple editors "under" the editor in chief, and each such editor will have multiple associate editors. Thus, the workload for every single editor (and AE) is more manageable. For instance, I am an AE for the International Journal of Forecasting, which operates on this model. In 2023 (see the annual report), it had six editors (plus the editor in chief) and 53 associate editors (plus two book review editors), to handle 809 submissions. At the end of 2023, there were 174 manuscripts under review or in revision.
The editor will typically have already read the manuscript before sending it out to the AE, since they may desk reject before it ever reaches an AE. One hopes they still remember it when the reviews come in multiple weeks or months later... if not, they can always re-read the manuscript. And of course, the editor is the decision maker, and is not bound by the AE's or the reviewers' recommendations.

in which situation does the EiC not follow the recommendations of the AE?

(Substitute "editor" for "EiC" here.) This will depend very much on the editor in question, and on the particular situation. If the reviews do not match their impression of the manuscript, or if the AE's recommendation does not seem to make sense for some other reason, or if the editor believes this particular paper works will in conjunction with some other paper in the works, which neither the AE nor the reviewers have visibility on, or in a host of other situations, they may decide to go against the AE's recommendations.

Can't speak for every editor-in-chief, but I can say that based on my observations as a member of a journal staff:

The editor-in-chief typically does not check papers very deeply. Not surprising, since once you get to >1 paper a day, it's not realistic to do so.
The editor-in-chief usually follows the recommendations of the AE. The exception is if there are strong reject reviews remaining and the AE is choosing to accept anyway. The editor-in-chief can choose to overrule the AE, in which case their decision is the final one.