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Should I do a PhD in Sound and Music Computing?
I have recently applied to two PhD programs (in Europe) under professors working in the area of Sound and Music Computing (SMC). Both programs are very well regarded in this area.
SMC covers topics such as:

Music information retrieval
Computational musicology
Algorithmic composition / performance
Sentiment and expression modelling in music
Computational approaches to music cognition
Audio signal processing

This is not a complete list. I find the field very interesting.
However, would the industry want to hire someone with a PhD in SMC? Let's say Google (just as an example), which is known to hire many PhDs. Would they be interested in someone with a PhD in SMC, or would they restrict themselves to machine learning / web / search PhDs? And yes... I'm sure that Yamaha would love to hire an SMC PhD, but would I be restricting my options to only a small subset of the industry?
What about academia? How would they look upon an applicant to the assistant professor position who has a PhD in this area? Would they simply reject him saying "Sorry, but we don't do research in your area...", since it is true that most CS departments don't do active research in SMC? Again, would I be restricting my options to only a small subset of universities?
Secondly, how easy / hard is it to switch fields AFTER doing a PhD in it? I may like SMC enough to work on it for 5 years (and get a PhD) but I MAY not want to work on it for a lifetime. In industry or academia, could I switch to something else when (and if) I want to?
One researcher told me that I should only consider pursuing my interest in SMC after I have already established myself in some other, more fundamental, area of CS, like algorithms or AI. Do you agree?
This thread should be useful to anyone considering a PhD in a specialized or maybe even an obscure area.

SMC sounds like a very interesting but somewhat narrow specialization.  Since it's not likely that an expert will appear to answer this question, here are some comments:
One key question regarding career paths is how bad you would feel if they fell through.  For example, suppose you got a Ph.D. in SMC, tried and failed to get an academic job in this area, and ended up getting a job in industry that was relevant but didn't really require the full Ph.D.  Would you regret having started on this path, or would you be happy to have had a chance to study something exciting and to have developed expertise that might still serve you well in the future?  If you would regret it, then you need to think very carefully about the job market, but if your personality could handle this situation, then this path could be a wise choice.
The big danger with unusual fields is that few people will be specifically looking to hire in this area.  You may get lucky and find someone who is, but you may need to create your own opportunities.  If you have an outgoing personality and are good at networking and making connections, then there will be less risk.
In academia, you'll run into two difficulties.  One is that no CS program will need to have this area represented, so you'll have to make a stronger case for why you would be a great hire.  The other problem is that if a school is open to SMC, then they may already have someone in this area, and it's a narrow enough field that making multiple hires could be a very tough sell.  So you would be looking for the schools that are interested, but not so interested that they have already hired someone.  Of course, it's far from impossible, but some other branches of CS may be a little easier.
As for switching areas, it can certainly be done.  You may run into a little resistance, depending on what you were originally hired to do.  (This could be a serious issue in industry, and even in academia your colleagues may be counting on you to teach the introductory course in your old field.)
If you are equally interested in and talented at algorithms and SMC, then it's probably a little safer to start with algorithms.  However, if only one of them will make you happy and inspire you to do your best work, then that one would be the better choice.

Thanks for the reply. In the situation you mention "Happy to have had a chance to study something exciting and to have developed expertise that might still serve you well in the future" would describe my stance almost exactly, I think. About creating my own opportunities, I'm not the most outgoing of people, and I probably will not be good at that. Thanks for outlining the difficulties I may face - I'll keep them in mind.

Every PhD is necessarily specialized, but along the way you must obtain different depths of knowledge from different fields.
So rather than selling yourself as someone researching Sound and Music Computing, you should mold yourself as someone doing, for example, Machine Learning with a focus on Sound and Music applications. This way, when you have finished your PhD doing what you love, you will still have skills that some department will be willing to hire you for. If you know machine learning, then you'll be able to teach machine learning courses. You'll be able to adapt that knowledge to solve other problems that may have similarities at some abstract level to Sound and Music, perhaps because they involve temporal streams of almost repeating data points.
When publishing, you will need to try to publish in top quality, general conferences or journals, rather than publishing everything in smaller, Sound and Music specific events. Naturally, the small events may provide you with good feedback and exposure within your community, but the larger events are what count when people are looking at your CV.
I think that it is very important to study what you find interesting, but do not overspecialized yourself into a tiny niche.

Thanks for the reply. Regarding your point about publishing: Lets say I'm applying machine learning to SMC. Would machine learning journals accept my work, even if it is of high quality? I was thinking that they wouldn't - because it's not original research in machine learning itself (the core of the subject), but research in one specific application. In that case, wouldn't I be restricted to publishing only SMC journals, since that's the work I'm doing?

I think they would. Naturally, you'd need to sell it as generic work that is applicable outside of the area you have applied it in. (I cannot say for sure, as I'm not a machine learning person.) Almost every piece of research fits this description. It is something specific, within a general area. I'd just do what you want to do, but keep aware of the potential consequences if you limit the scope of your knowledge and publications.

exactly .. it s all about marketing! +1

I think it would be fine.  How would it be that much different from someone in EE, physics, or CS who does a general degree in their topic and then a project on acoustics?  Even then, they would not be restricted to acoustic jobs but could do a lot of things in signal processing, spectral analysis, sonar, speech processing, NSA crap, even geophysics perhaps, later.
Yeah, you don't get a general grad degree but in some ways get even more breadth (acoustics plus computing).  It sounds like a really cool program.  Get to do all that cool acoustics and never have to do graduate physics E&M with teh Jackson.

SMC is not a narrow field. You listed some topics, but in reality this area can cover anything from speech recognition (machine learning, signal processing, etc) to art installation design, covering architecture, musical instruments, computer architecture, virtual reality and hearing aid design along the way.
Have a clear idea of both what interests you, and what career path you might want before you apply though. I took my master's in this field in an attempt to find a new career path. It opened so many doors that I am now frozen trying to decide which way to go.

The OP is getting near retirement now...


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Value of a degree from an unknown univeristy

Possible Duplicate:
University rank/stature - How much does it affect one’s career post-Ph.D?

I graduated with a Bacholars from a top university and did quite well, however, I was recommended to a professor in an unknown (read as not highly ranked) university for a PhD program. I had certainly not heard of the university before, and I don't believe that it has much of a reputation. It is not a new university by any means (established 1800s).
Is a degree from such an University likely to add value to me? Also, how do I know whether this is a step in the right direction (before I take it)?
Edit: I am considering it because the research that is performed by the professor there interests me.

The age of a university means nothing for its rank in various disciplines. Most of the top public institutions in the US were founded in the 1800s.

This does seems to be an exact duplicate to the question mentioned by @JukkaSuomela. The answers there cover this scenario.

Your publication record at the end is what will count most.

Hi Dave, could you please elaborate on your answer, this is my first time hearing about a "publication record"

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In a tenure-track position application; Is it appropriate to ask for recommendation letter from a professor for whom I only served as a TA?
When applying for a tenure-track academic position in the US right after my PhD (in the US too), is it a good idea to ask for a letter of recommendation from a professor in my graduate school with whom I took a class where I got good grades while showing a strong interest (genuine interest), then later on served as a TA for that class?
I haven't done any research project with him though, but we get along well: he is one of the professors I appreciate the most both intellectually and personally, I would have chosen him without any doubt as advisor if I was in his area. He is well-respected in his field (say in the top 20, if you want some ranking). His area of research is a bit different from mine but useful for my research: he works on database management systems while I do machine learning, so there are some very interesting connections such as large-scale machine learning / data analysis (~aka. "big data"), query optimization, etc.

maybe the fact you get along with him, and his rank affects your thinking? maybe you are looking for a reason to ask for a recommendation letter from him although you feel as if he does not have strong basis to give one? maybe just maybe... senior SE members who are members of committees can answer better this question

@WolfgangKuehne Yes, I don't know whether teaching-only interactions without any research is enough to have a recommendation letter for an academic position that the members of the selection committee might find useful. I mentioned my relationship with the professor as well as his place in the research community in case that would influence the answers.

You TAed for the class, so he should be able to speak to your teaching abilities. I've never been on a tenure-track hiring committee, but that's got to be a component of their needs.

It depends on the school. At a SLAC (small liberal arts college), the hiring committee members will pay more attention to teaching experience and may be more willing to be impressed by a Big Name®.
At a R1, faculty are not only inoculated against Big Names®, but they have enough experience with individual Big Names® to read between the lines of otherwise blandly positive letters with hermeneutic vigor.
I've been repeatedly surprised by my senior colleagues discussing letters from other Big Names® with "he only wrote two pages of song and praise? He must not have liked that person" or of a fairly damning letter with, "she's a grouch. The fact that she wrote at all means that this person is brilliant." Context is important.
A letter that spoke only of your teaching and not of your research would be seen as faint praise in this milieu.
Note that I'm in the humanistic social sciences at an R1. Your mileage may vary.
TL;DR: save the references from this person for SLACs where the praise for your teaching ability will be seen as a strong positive.
Also note that at larger R1s, we are familiar with the difference in writing styles between American (where everything is excessively effusive) and European/Asian letters (where a strong letter of recommendation reads: "Jon Smith was a member of my lab from 2005/10/1 to 2012/5/1. His work was perfectively adequate with no complaints. Sincerely, XX"). Smaller institutions may not have that experience and in those circumstances, you may ask one of your American letter writers to include a short paragraph noting that European counterparts thought highly of you but that might not show up in the letters in the hyperbolic form we are used to in the United States.

+1. This is pretty much everything I had to say on the matter, except better.

The SLAC where I teach does not seem to be impresssed by "big names." What matters more is a letter writer that has seen the candidate teach and can write convincingly about why they would be successful at a good SLAC. Letters from other SLAC professors are especially helpful (I hate to admit this).

Having a recommendation letter that addresses your teaching ability and experience is useful if the search committee cares about teaching.  Many advertisements specifically ask for at least one recommendation letter that addresses teaching, and I frequently see such letters when I look at applicant's files.  Thus I don't think it would be unusual at all for you to have a letter of recommendation from your TA supervisor even though you haven't taken classes or worked on research with that person.

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Is there an advantage in including quotes from teaching evaluations in a teaching statement?
For context, I am a mathematics PhD student, and I am writing up my teaching statement. In looking up examples of teaching statements, I saw that one of them included quotes from students from teaching evaluations. I thought it was a nice touch.
I am merely a graduate student and I don't have the perspective of someone on a hiring committee.
Would it be to my advantage to include quotes from my teaching evaluations?

You want to provide whatever evidence you can that you're a good teacher, and that things you've tried worked well.  So, yes, as long as they're in support of what you're trying to get across.

To be clear, you are talking about the teaching statement you make as part of an application for a tenure-track position?

I would consider student comments in teaching statements as "standard optional": they are not required, and probably the majority of teaching statements do not include them, but a substantial minority do and it is certainly quite reasonable to do so.  Here are some things to keep in mind:

Your teaching statement is your chance to convey your philosophy of teaching and, in so doing, show yourself to be a clear thinker, competent writer and to possess fluency in English (assuming that you are applying to a job where English is spoken).  Including too many quotes by other people in a short statement works against this.  I am a wordy person, but for me I think a teaching statement should be at least two pages long.  If you have a 1.5 page teaching statement and a third of it is quotes, then I worry that you're using the quotes to evade the short essay you've been asked to write.  Succeeding in an academic job is a lot harder than succeeding in writing a two-page essay, so that doesn't inspire my confidence.
The positive side of the last comment is that it would be much better not to just include quotes in a pile at the end but rather to use them to illustrate points about your own teaching.  Drawing an explicit moral from each quote would not be overdoing it.
Including quotes in your own teaching statement is a bit like including quotes on the back of a book saying how good it is.  These quotes can be part of a successful sales pitch, but let's be real: they are cherry-picked.  (If you're not cherry-picking the very best quotes, you're losing ground to everyone else who is. In particular, think ten times before including a quote that has the slightest hint of negativity or even measured praise about your teaching.  Saying something negative about yourself in application materials is a black belt level sacrifice throw.)  The idea that you fundamentally gain legitimacy from a teaching statement by including the students' own words is a dubious one to the jaded eye.  Most of the eyes reading your application will be highly jaded.
Consider feeding the quotes (especially if you have more than one or two) to a faculty member who can put them in a teaching letter.  It is harder to write good teaching letters than good teaching statements.  Along with cold, hard statistics about your teaching (but be careful about introducing negativity, as above), including quotes from students is a good way to personalize the letter.  (Saying that Ms. X is clear, attentive and well-liked by students only fills up so much space, and almost everyone else is saying it too.)


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Should I include written evaluations (from courses I took) in my transcript as part of the job application materials?
I did my undergraduate and graduate degrees at a university that includes course evaluations as part of the transcript. My evaluations from my professors and instructors generally are good to excellent.
I am applying for jobs right now, and some ask for graduate and undergraduate transcripts. I can order two kinds of transcripts, one with evaluations, and one without.
Would it be beneficial for me to include my evaluations with the transcripts in my job applications materials?
It would be attached in the same file as my transcript, not attached as a separate file.
For reference, my undergrad/grad transcripts with grades and records is composed of four pages. The evaluations are an extra 14 pages.

When I read this question's original title, I thought it was about evaluations of courses you had taught (written by the students in the course).  So I've edited the title to clarify this.

I assume that by course evaluations, this is a narrative faculty evaluation of your performance in a class that you are taking -- and not the case where you are TAing or teaching a course and your students are evaluating you.
You can include it but undergraduate and graduate grades are very peripheral to most academic job applications -- except for entry level and post-docs when we have little else to evaluate you by. Even then, their use is fairly deprecated. You're not going to be taking classes, you're going to be teaching them.
Include them  just to be complete.

If your course evaluations range from good to excellent and there is nothing harmful in them, including them can only be helpful.
In the worst (and probably more likely case) people will simply not read the additional 10 pages of transcript. This is, of course, exactly where you would be if you didn't send them in the first place.
A thick application file is not a problem. Just remember that it falls on you to help narrate and explain what you include. For example, if there are a few choice quotes from the evaluations, you might want to call those out in your application front-matter.

It won't make any difference.
No-one outside of HR will look at your transcripts at all, and HR will only look for whatever hard qualifications the job requires: bachelors/masters/PhD, what field it's in, very rarely even that you have specific coursework. It's possible that they will check your GPA if there's some recruitment incentive tied to it.
No-one will read your evaluations. That may feel like a waste, since it took up a good chunk of your life, but your transcript's contents really just don't matter outside academia. It's very important that you have a transcript, but in practice it acts like an especially elaborate version of a diploma.


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Can i submit a revised version of a retracted paper to another journal
One of my paper was retracted die to honest error (statistical error). is it possible to submit the revised version of the paper to another journal for consideration of publication. Thank you

Of course! If you couldn't submit the revised paper elsewhere, it would be dead to the world - never to be published - which is not a desirable outcome if your paper contains new results.

I think it somewhat depends on why the paper was retracted.

@DmitrySavostyanov the OP said it's an honest error + it's been revised, so I assume the problem's been corrected.

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How to write an apology letter for a professor?
A couple of months ago, I defended my Master's thesis and got graduated. One of the referees, a professor of mine with a history of verbal contentions between us, did me an overt injustice and despite all my efforts, attacked me with her unfair judgement. I got angry and sent her an e-mail the other day, one could say explicitly offensive and disrespectful, implying her lack of knowledge and her biased criticisms. I also commented on her wasting too much time in social networks, rather than doing academic research.
I may have gone too far obviously for I heard she burst into tears after reading the e-mail, and has notified almost all other professors about it.
As a professor, do you still believe I have a chance to apologize the lady and ask for her forgiveness? If in her shoes, would you expect an apology e-mail or you'd prefer no more words from the arrogant student? If yes, what would you prefer to hear in the regret letter? And do you evaluate my reaction as provocative?

do you evaluate my reaction as provocative -- hard to say no, given that everything we know about it is your description which says implying her lack of knowledge and her biased criticisms. I also commented on her wasting too much time in social networks, rather than doing academic research.

This question seems more appropriate for Interpersonal skills SE. If there are some academia-specific details (other than the professor being an academic) that justify it being posted here, please include those in the question.

I thought this community is a better place to discuss my inquiry, for I'm curious to see it from a professor's perspective; how they'd handle it and ways to fix my mistake.

Strongly related question: How should I phrase an important question that I need to ask a professor?

I am not a full professor yet. But I have met many. In my opinion the best you can do is to leave this matter alone. This person mistreated you and got a normal response. The fact that she is spreading it around means she is now keen at killing your career in retaliation, which is also the typical professoral response. This person now wants you to pay. Apologising will communicate you are desperate which will further stimulate her actions. If your objective is to  make it stop, don't make it like it can really affect you. Soon the professor will realise self-inflicted damage of spreading this.

@Scientist please post your comment as an answer, since it is an answer and not a comment.

@NajibIdrissi Shame on me! I regret what I did now.

This question appears to either be of the boat programming variety, or a duplicate of the "How to phrase an email" question, as noted above. Voting to close.

@Scientist Professors are human, too. They do have emotions. While a well-experienced professor is probably used to a lot, especially young/inexperienced professors can be emotionally vulnerable to attacks. Frankly, a student that accuses a professor of not knowing their stuff better be brilliant. And really, commenting on other people's social media usage is never appropriate unless one is their parent or spouse, direct tutor or really good friend. That being said, a sincere and unconditional apology can work wonders (no "if it had been offensive"-apology!).

@CaptainEmacs - Thanks for your comment. I was beginning to wonder about academia (best to let it go???) When did it become appropriate, professional behavior to send someone an inappropriate email and ignore the fallout? I had thought "never"...

@NajibIdrissi "seeking moral support from her colleagues (and probable friends)" -- spreading a personal email to almost all other professor in one's department doesn't sound quite like that to me. That is, by definition, a defamation campaign. No need to think too much whenever there is a technical name for actions.

@CaptainEmacs There are two points there: (i) the attacks; (ii) the apology. On (i) you should mind that the person attacked in response to a superior's repeated aggression; that sounded a lot like moral harassment. What followed was a defamation campaign looks like extra harrassment. (ii) I took the core of OP's question here is not whether an apology letter would be morally fitting, but whether the professor would grant the OP forgiveness. If by that the OP believes an apology letter would stop the harassment my advice is that it will probably make it much worse.

@NajibIdrissi The reason this is a comment is because I do not feel qualified to answer as the OP asked professors directly. Likely most (full) professors will answer here more according with your views.

one could say... implying... I also commented on... I may have gone too far... do you evaluate my reaction as provocative?...

Perhaps you're being a bit lenient on yourself?
I think the only right thing to do is to apologize, in person, and own your awful (truly awful!) behavior. You didn't perhaps offend and disrespect her, you absolutely offended and disrespected her. In my opinion, you were completely out of line (and unprofessional to boot.) Regardless of the opinion of others (including my own), I think you need to deal head on with this problem you have of lashing out at others for (real or perceived) slights. Part of dealing with a problem behavior is dealing with the consequences.
People are more likely to forgive an offense if the offender has actually apologized and asked for forgiveness. Though she may continue to harbor some residual ill-will towards you (and deservedly so), it will show the community to whom she belongs that you at least tried to do the civilized thing after exhibiting such poor judgement. Also, it will likely stop her from continuing to bad-mouth you if you have apologized appropriately. It doesn't sound good to the listener if she complains bitterly about you, then ends with, "...and then he apologized appropriately."
Don't send a letter or an email. Have the courage to do it in person, and to allow her the opportunity to tell you what you probably need to hear. It might also help you to read about real apologies lest you continue in the vein which started this.
However, if you want her continued ill-will and bad-mouthing to follow you around the start of your career (it may or may not hurt you, you never know), do nothing, or better yet, continue to ignore the better angels of your nature, and tell people she had it coming to her.

I guess that's the only right thing to do. Thanks for letting me know how terribly I've misbehaved.

Hey, guess what? She responded and her kind words just made me blush to the roots of my hair. I had no idea she was such a nice and reasonable person. I might have misjudged her way out of proportion and am not sure if I can ever find the courage to confront her and look into her eyes again. Boy I'm a terrible judge!

@ye9ane Good to hear! Did she finally apologize for attacking you before? (I understand it happened several times.)

I had made a big deal out of it tbh. I thought the lady was intended to degrade my research efforts and bring me into disrepute in front of everyone. But I was simply being paranoid and delusional.
I didn't deserve an apology of course, but to my surprise she didn't hold the slightest grudge against my words, and even asked me to begin a mutual collaboration with her. She's a kind lady really. It was all my fault.

@ye9ane - Wow! "...but to my surprise she didn't hold the slightest grudge against my words... kind lady..." That's wonderful to hear! So happy for you that it worked out well.

@ye9ane -- that's nice to hear. Now go back and read through all of your emails, the question above, and your comments before you got her response. And think about where you went wrong and you ought to change how you think about the people in your life.

OK, let's take this apart:

"One of the referees, a professor of mine with a history of verbal contentions between us, did me an overt injustice and despite all my efforts, attacked me with her unfair judgement." You may be short in your description, but she's a professor and so presumably knows her field. Have you had a moment of introspection in which you have considered that, just possibly, she may have been right? I mean, it's an exam and it's her job to find out how much you know. I have been to my fair share of exams in which the student simply did not know very much. On the face of it, the questions the students then tend to get from professors may sound harsh and are occasionally blunt ("I would have really liked it if you had known the answer to this -- it's second year undergraduate material"), but they're not factually wrong and certainly not "overt injustice" or "unfair judgment".
"I got angry and sent her an e-mail the other day, one could say explicitly offensive and disrespectful, implying her lack of knowledge and her biased criticisms." So you're saying that she's a professor but does not know very much, and on top of that is biased. Any reasonable outside observer would certainly say that (i) you're out of line here, (ii) that you're offensive, (iii) that you're almost certainly wrong.
"I also commented on her wasting too much time in social networks, rather than doing academic research." So you're saying here that she's not only unqualified (see above) but also not doing her job. If she's a professor, you're probably wrong on this -- first, how would you even evaluate how much she is or should be working; second, she may spend the occasional minute on social media (heck, I'm doing that too right now!), but she may be making up for it by working late at night or on weekends (of look, I'm doing that too!); and third, this is most definitely not your business.
"I heard she burst into tears after reading the e-mail, and has notified almost all other professors about it." So someone was completely and unnecessarily awful to her and she went to her peers and friends to talk about this.
"A couple of months ago, I defended my Master's thesis [...] I got angry and sent her an e-mail the other day." So you've been harboring a grudge for several weeks and finally lost your temper?

As others have pointed out in comments, this question may as well have been asked in the Interpersonal Skills forum, but since you're already here: Can you see how completely inappropriate your original email was? If you can't, then you definitely have a blind spot in your interactions with other people that you need to work on.
Now, about what to do: I suspect that there is really not all that much you can do, and there is really nobody other than yourself you can blame for this. But if you want to try: Be an upright person, take responsibility for having made a mistake, and go apologize in person and with sincere contriteness and regret. The last half-sentence is important.

I've not been holding a grudge against her for several weeks, actually the opposite, I was filled with a constant feeling of guilt, for I sent her the e-mail right after the defense day. But I thought it's OK to blame the teacher on her poor judgment, or otherwise they'll never doubt the rightfulness of their decisions, which is by the way, full of flaws.
I still believe she did me injustice, on purpose, to dispraise my efforts and discourage me. But I sent her an apology e-mail anyways, letting her think that I take all the blame.

@ye9ane - I sincerely wish you could read your own words with clear eyes. There is so much blame of others (was her judgement truly poor? Have others on the committee/your advisor acknowledged that you were wronged by this person?), and so little acknowledgement of your own flaws, though your question obviously contains some awareness of your behavior however reserved it may be. Read the above answer again. It's helpful and kinder than mine was. Congrats on getting your masters. Now go be a mencsh! You'll be happier for it.

@ye9ane For the record here, I do not support your attitude of being openly rude to others, be it over email or what. As you have seen, you've given a weapon to an abuser of which this person made immediate use. The guilt from reacting against open abuse is another tool which is typically exploited by the abuser. "I still believe she did me injustice, on purpose, to dispraise my efforts and discourage me."  -- And I believe she will do it again. As I believe your apologies email will not circulate around, to which a sweet reply may have been written in sarcasm. Let us hope we're both wrong...

@Scientist - "...you've given a weapon to an abuser..."  Is planting seeds of (your) suspicion/doubt/paranoia something you think will help the OP professionally? Assuming that people are in general a decent lot is often the right course.

@anongoodnurse Recognising moral harassment can be useful to anyone.

I would venture the guess that if your attitude is that "it's OK to blame the teacher on her poor judgment, or otherwise they'll never doubt the rightfulness of their decisions, which is by the way, full of flaws. I still believe she did me injustice, on purpose, to dispraise my efforts and discourage me" -- then you're wrong 90% of the time. That's just not how people behave. But this attitude is how people react who don't want to admit their own flaws.

I'd say the same for the assumptions underlying @Scientist's comment.


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Does previous participation in Google Summer of Code help when applying for a Master's program?
Does participation in Google Summer Of Code help when applying for a Master's program ? Irrespective of the fact whether your project is directly related to the area for which you are applying or not.

In what field? Computer science? Archeology?

@chmullig Computer Science, Robotics

Now on Quora [I didnt post it there!]

Applying to Masters Program does not really depend on one single factor but a variety of factors.
The above sentence is very important before we move on to the answer. The decision on your admit depends on your application as a package and will be evaluated in its entirety. If your are a local student and then you attend Google Summer Of Code as part of the general trend of your location, then its obvious that most of the people from your school would have done so as well. In that case, what factors in is your school an its culture.
But say, if your are an international student and from a non-reputed institution, then the grad schools does not really know a lot about your institution, but then what matters is how you have excelled in your institution. Are you an student, who just want to finish of your course work or wanting to do beyond something? Here what you have done matters a lot.
Now the school where you are applying counts in as well. Some programs in a school would need a certain kind of attitude to survive. So it all boils down to how you project your resume, SOP (statement of Purpose) and how can good you have come up with what you have?
So most of grad schools know students dont have the luxury of doing all things needed for a program, but will seek to know how the applicant has fared in his life.
So it does matter a lot unless you did study in school where just most of them would have done something beyond just academics or apply to a program where you expect to see a lot of these performers apply too.
Just highlight them in way that is appealing to the school. Like 'I am 2 of 100 people in my school who participated in Goodle Summer of Code'. Strike it like its still hot.
Source: Personal Experience/Opinion when applying.
I did focus on highlighting things I did and my other folks in college did not..


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Acceptance in a conference
If a paper has 3 weak accepts (in all evaluations, a weak accept in each evaluation),  will it be published in the conference? If this is the case, what is the difference if it has 2 weak accepts and a strong accept or 3 strong accepts?

I've added the CS tag here, because I don't think this question is relevant to conferences outside of CS.

This largely depends on the conference. The way that conferences usually work (at least in my field for computer science - subdiscipline software engineering or human-computer interaction) is that once the reviews come in, the program committee meets and then discusses which papers will be accepted and which ones are rejected. This often comes down to how many papers there are, how many they can accept (subject to things including a mandatory acceptance rate, how big the conference can be, etc) and what other papers are like (if your conference has very few "strong accepts" that year then weak accept is pretty good).
Usually, a paper with few "strong accepts" could end up around the "middle" of the pack are more likely to be held up for discussion where they have a chance for rejection. Most PCs won't extensively discuss a paper where all of the reviewers say "strong accept".
So, we don't know if it'll be published in the conference. However, in general, the more strong accepts a paper gets, the more likely the paper will be accepted.

Note: My answer is computer science and specifically HCI relevant.
This depends on the conference, the discipline and the conference committee. There are variables which determine the acceptance of a paper in a conference.
A paper with three weak accepts may be rejected if there are stronger papers out there or if the committee feels that another paper which describes something really new must be given an opportunity to be presented.
A paper with three strong accepts is most likely to be accepted because this means that there is an almost unanimous consent among the reviewers and the paper is most likely very strong and very relevant to the subject matter.
A paper with any such combinations in between the previously described examples may or may not be accepted depending on various factors. Ultimately, the decision is upto the organizing committee. For instance, I have seen papers in CHI be rejected finally with three 3.0 scores (borderline accepts) but seen papers with one 4.0, one 3.0 and one 2.0 get accepted finally after the revisions were made.
Therefore, ultimately, my first sentence remains valid. It depends on a bunch of factors most of which are out of your direct control. The only thing which you can control is the revision of the paper.


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How to take advantage of scientific international association membership for career?
In the last decades, many international scientific associations have been created. Organizations such as AAAS, IEEE, ACM, involve thousands of scientists and professors that have similar scientific backgrounds and objectives.
However, besides technical and resource taks (such as providing documentation, articles, books, and organizing conferences) their aim is to push scientists closer, and let them connect with each other and network.
Concerning this last point, I've always wondered: yes, but how?
I'm member of several scientific societies, and I think I should take more advantage of my membership to connect with other scientists.
But, anyway, except for conferences where we meet in person, how could I use my membership to get more connections?
How would you do?
What's your experience?
Are you member of some scientific associations? How do you take advantage of your membership in professional connections?
Many thanks!

Do you get your answer from this answers?

In my experience, the only role that membership in professional societies plays in connecting researchers is slightly lower registration fees for conferences.  That's it.  Conferences and workshops in my field are organized almost entirely by volunteers form the research community.  Some are affiliated with professional societies (specifically, ACM, SIAM, and IEEE), but some aren't, and the success of a conference or workshop in bringing colleagues together appears to be independent of any sponsoring organization.  But since I'm an ACM member, my registration fees for ACM conferences are slightly lower, so I'm slightly more likely to go.
Other that that, I got nothin'.

In case of ACM and IEEE, a membership also provides you with access to their digital libraries (depending on the plan). Indeed, if you are (student/faculty/researcher) member of any good university/research lab you have already pursued free access to that stuff...

The best way to take advantage of memberships in professional societies—beyond attending conferences—is helping to organize them. This will get you in touch with the other people in your field who are at an early-career phase. (Older faculty typically don't need to, or are higher up on the food chain.) Organizing sessions is also a good way to learn your specialty better, and to keep abreast of who's working on what.
In the long run, it can also bolster your career by providing you with "synergistic" (or "service") activities that show you to be a good member of the research community, which is important for getting job offers and promotions.

@aiesmail Thanks, aieismail. What d'you mean with "synergistic" (or "service") activities? Extra courses, extra academic educational activities?

I'm not sure this really answers the question.  Many conferences and workshops are organized without professional society affiliation.

@DavideChicco.it: I meant activities that provide benefit to the community beyond the university: organizing conferences and workshops, sponsoring educational events for younger students and the community, editor and referee work for journals, and so on.

@JeffE: I was referring to the meetings that are run by conferences. This tends to be applicable for the "overarching" science organizations (AIChE, ACS, APS, MRS, SIAM, etc.), as well as more focused groups (Society of Rheology or Biophysical Society, for instance).

I will say though that early in your academic career (and you shouldn't really get involved in such activities BEFORE you have a PhD), you have to seriously weigh doing such organizational work against the corresponding amount of time spent working at your research. It's good to maybe do one or two things, but I wouldn't recommend spending a lot of time on it.

Obviously research is more important. But how to take advantage of a society subscription?

I'm not really sure there is much to take advantage of :)

In addition to all that was mentioned before, as a student member of some of these associations (experience with the ACM), you may apply for some travel funding... that will enable you to attend a (or some) conference(s) - in case your university/project doen't give you enough money to do that (I personally know about several cases)- ,  and then you have the opportunity to keep in touch with your peers. It should be good, to a certain extent, for your carrer. Maybe in a simple conference you can meet the guy you've referenced for a couple of time (that doesn't answer your emails... lol), and talk to him about your research projects/ideas, receive some (good) feedback, and so on...


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How to mention colleagues from work in my thesis
Right now I am writing a thesis in a Russian university on data mining to obtain bachelor degree. The thesis is related to my job field and I use an inner implementation of an algorithm to process some data. My supervisor is ok with using his code. I will cite the original paper that describes the algorithm, but how do I mention the supervisor in my thesis. Can I just say mention them during presentation as people who helped me?

Acknowledge those who should be acknowledged by name and for what they have contributed. A supervisor should be acknowledged for being a supervisor, a person providing code for providing code and referencing a paper published on a code or whatever you use should of course be in the reference list. It sounds as if one person fits all three bills and then you should simply cite the paper and acknowledge the person in the acknowledgement for being supervisor and providing code. You also find that there are more personal reasons to thank the person as well. It is not uncommon that supervisors receive acknowledgements for other guidance during the work. But only what is deserved should be mentioned. You can certainly build in an acknowledgement to your supervisor during the talk, either in the beginning, when you mention the code  or at the end. You could also stick the reference into the presentation when you present the code. It is always customary to acknowledge the supervisor anyway and whether you do it at the beginning or end is a matter of tradition or style.


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Will people translate obscure books for free?
This question arises out of this question here. Basically, I was hoping that someone could help me find an English translation of a 1722 work by Nicolas de la Mare, titled Traité de la Police or "Treatise on the Police". A commenter stated they could find no such copy, and recommended another intriguing book, Grundsätze der Policey-Wissenschaften or "Principles of Policey Sciences" (that is what the webpage gives me, I'm pretty sure "Police Sciences" would be also be an accurate translation) written sometime before 1756 in German. The commenter remarks that there was a Spanish translation but that they were unable to find an English one.
So, I wanted to know how much translation services were. I found a Spanish-to-English book translation service that advertised $30 a page on their website. Volume 1 of Traité de la Police is 1,000 pages long, while Grundsätze der Policey-Wissenschaften is about 400 pages. That would be $120,000 for the former four volume set, assuming that each volume has 1,000 pages, and $12,000 for the latter book. Both of those figures are laughably out of the question for me; the former, hysterically so.
Now, I really do feel these are important books, in an untold part of the story of the development of policing large cities. In addition, I know if I spoke multiple languages, and I came across an important book in one language that has NEVER been translated to my other known language, translating it would be something I would do for fun. But, don't translators get to copyright and sell their translations (if they're translating a work in the public domain)? So, it would seem there would be a financial motive to translate important past works. Of course, you could never be certain, after all, if it hasn't been translated in all these years, how important is the book? Still, the fact that I could make ANY money off of doing an activity so fascinating and that I genuinely enjoy doing would be icing on the cake.
So, all of this made me wonder, is there some movement, website, or group who volunteer their translation abilities to important historical works? Or, is there any place I could suggest to translators that they translate a specific book, even if they then make money off it? Like, is there any way I could suggest to publishers that they do a translation of a certain work?
Just to be clear, I am reasonably certain that neither of these books discuss police forces in any way similar to modern forces. "Policing" is just how they kept order; however, these are the differences I am interested in. Thanks for any help or suggestions.

I would think that Google Translate would do a fair job on non-scientific works (no special symbols or terminology). And scanning software can do a good job of producing an electronic version to which you can apply GT.

This reads like you imagine "open-source movement" is a synonym for "people who do free work for me". In fact, in the case you describe (where probably one person will ever read the produced work) copyright is probably a non-factor so far as monetary incentives go.

This is besides the point, but I had a quick look because I was interested in whether "Policey" in the title is "police". I don't think so, reading the first few pages, it seems more to be general administration. Also, https://www.dwds.de/wb/Polizei says that the modern meaning of German "Polizei" (police) is from around 1800, and the book is older.

You could invest $1,200 into a good amount of language classes

"I know if I spoke multiple languages, and I came across an important book in one language that has NEVER been translated to my other known language, translating it would be something I would do for fun." That's very easy to say if you don't speak multiple languages.

I speak 3 languages. I am not sure if I'd be up for translating those books, even if you paid me 120.000$....

I was not meaning that they would do it for free. I was thinking they could copyright and sell their work. And, I guess I have to ask a question about the difficulty of translating works? It seems this is much more difficult task than I first believed.

Back in the Harry Potter release days there was an "open source" community translating the book into Russian. But interest in a book on the history of policing is probably 10000x lower than interest in Harry Potter.

How is this about Academia, as opposed to Language or… uh… Translation?

I'm pretty sure "open-source translation" would refer to open-source code that can automatically translate things, not to translator communities working to translate important works, nor to services that connect translators with people who want to have things translated. The only definition of "open-source" I know of is "source code that is made freely available". Maybe the term you were looking for was "crowdsourced" or "free"?

You learning the language of the book will be vastly less effort than someone knowledgeable would have to expend translating it. I recommend you to just learn the language.

I'm sure there is a lot of secondary literature on those books, written in modern language instead of 18th-century's.

You say:

In addition, I know if I spoke multiple languages, and I came across an important book in one language that has NEVER been translated to my other known language, translating it would be something I would do for fun.

It seems that you are seriously underestimating the effort involved in translating over a thousand pages (maybe several thousand pages?) of text from one language to another. It's a massive undertaking which could take years of focused work even if one has all the required skills. Note that "speaking multiple languages" does not give one anywhere near enough competence and expertise to translate a specialized 300-year-old text. The only people competent enough to do the task are by definition experts already well-aware of the book who don't need you to bring it to their attention.
If you want to make a translation happen, the main obstacle for you isn't going to be money, it's going to be convincing an expert to devote a massive chunk of their life to translating the book. This isn't going to happen just because someone on the internet suggested it to them.

that's why crowdsourcing would be a great idea as long you find a community of people who are interested in the book.

Exactly this. Translation is hard to begin with, and for specialized texts you essentially need to already be an expert on the subject area already to be able to produce a good translation.

If you crowdsource this, you're bound to get a massive set of inconsistencies, especially with old books where meanings might have changed. Is "Policey" to be translated as "policy" (older meaning) or "police" (newer meaning)? If your book is from the time when the meanings separated, it's probably hard to tell which word to use depending on context even for a single translator; synchronizing many of them is an impossible task.

you could well try running the book through a computer translation program and then putting it on a wiki for anyone to edit. Probably nobody will be interested enough to edit, but Wikipedia does manage to exist, after all

"It seems that you are seriously underestimating the effort involved in translating over a thousand pages" The $30 value provides an order of magnitude estimate - probably at least an hour per page, which makes the 1,000 page book a half year project.

There is a good reason such books are rarely if ever translated; there is almost no one who will want to read the translation.  Doing a reasonably good translation is a lot of work; there is a reason why it costs so much.
Laypersons will almost never care to read such books.
The vast majority of scholars will know the original language well enough to read the book (which is much less familiarity with the language than is needed to carry a conversation).  Even in mathematics (my field), where relatively little is lost in translation, most books in French and German, even those still in current use as references, have never been translated.  Most mathematicians in the relevant areas know enough French or German to read them, since some knowledge of at least one of these languages is usually part of secondary education in most English-speaking countries (as well as other European countries). Furthermore, (especially for French) there is enough work available only in these languages (including some current research) to make learning the language well enough to read worthwhile.  (In the 1980s and 1990s, there was an organized effort to translate much of the mathematics research written in Russian into English, since learning Russian is much harder for the average (native or not) English speaker than learning French or German or Italian.)
In the rest of the humanities or in the humanistic social sciences (such as history or sociology, including police studies), reading the original is even more important, since much research focuses on careful interpretation of texts, and relying on a translation runs the risk that you end up studying an artifact of the translation rather than anything actually written in the original.  No one who uses a text in a common European language without the ability to read (if somewhat slowly and laboriously) the original would be taken seriously.

"some knowledge of at least one of these languages is usually part of secondary education in most English-speaking countries": I can't think of a single English speaking country that regularly teaches other languages as part of secondary education, what countries are you referring to?

@terdon It's part of the National Curriculum in England: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-languages-progammes-of-study/national-curriculum-in-england-languages-progammes-of-study

@kaya3 wow, that's surprising. Doesn't seem to work very well then, I guess. Thanks.

I'd be very dubious that a high school basic course in a language ("jack and susan run up the hill" stuff) would be of any use in understanding technical material.  And I had such an education.

@StephenG-HelpUkraine - Yes you would still need a dictionary of technical terms to understand technical material.  However, with a basic course you won't be confused by the grammatical structure of the language and won't have to look up basic words (like articles).  The goal is not fluency in the language; the goal is being able to slowly read an article with aids.

@terdon Every single US-American I encounted in academia learned at least one foreign language in high school. It may not be mandatory but it is offered essentially everywhere and has been long enough to at least cover everyone still in the workforce. People in academia tend to have a lot more than the bare minimum high school degree, including in areas completely out of their field of research.

... will know the original language well enough to read the book (which is much less familiarity with the language than is needed to carry a conversation) - While I agree this is true in math, at least among Western European languages, I'm not sure this is true I'm not convinced this is true in many fields.  Though I do agree that the language skills needed for reading a 300-year-old technical work are different than modern conversational skills.

@StephenG-HelpUkraine - my high school French was sufficient to wade through a few French language physics papers from the 1950’s many moons ago. Just takes time.

@terdon As you can imagine, French education is pretty common in Canada as well.

Since others have already addressed the misconceptions in your post regarding open source versus free work and the difficulty of translation, I’ll try to give a bit of information regarding the question in your title specifically: Is there an open-source translation movement?
Open-source software is typically translated by volunteers in a similar manner to what you describe: people who find value in a certain work and see a need to make it available in more languages decide to donate their time and skills to localizing it (or, typically, parts of it). This is done on a variety of platforms and the process, from calls for translators to the translation work itself all the way to implementing those translations in the software, can vary greatly.
Another example that comes to mind is volunteer localization of various storytelling media such as comics, cartoons and movies in the form of subtitling or image editing. This is typically not done in a legal manner, but by fans or enthusiasts that take it upon themselves to make those works available in other languages, which involves redistributing the altered work without authorization. It does however also happen legally, and one particularly interesting example of that is David Revoy’s fully open-source and crowd-localized webcomic Pepper & Carrot. Whether done legally or not, there is certainly a will to share in those communities and the work is often done collaboratively and "in the open".
A similar thing exists for video games, where I believe it is more frequent for those volunteers to ask and obtain the publisher’s permission to produce translations, in which case the publisher or developer will then provide a framework and handle the work of implementing the translations in the game, and own legal rights to the resulting work. Sometimes it goes the other way, with a developer asking for its community’s help by crowd-sourcing translations.
The main difference between those examples is that localizations of free software are normally just as free/permissive as the software itself, whereas fan translations are either illicit or specifically donated to the copyright owner, and therefore not in the public domain or, as you put it, "open source". Again, Pepper & Carrot serves as an interesting counter-example here due to its licensing.
More broadly, it is also not unusual to see calls for volunteers on translator job boards, mostly emanating from non-profit organizations and religious groups. Translators Without Borders and Doctors Without Borders come to mind, as well as the United Nations. I don’t know if I would necessarily call it a movement, but TWB in particular mentions "a global community of over 80,000 translators and language specialists", so there are definitely many translators who do donate some of their time to volunteer work, but it always comes down to motivation. Volunteering is, after all, a luxury.
You mentioned that if you "came across an important book in one language that has NEVER been translated to my other known language, translating it would be something I would do for fun". That is not wrong per se; talking from experience, I’ve translated someone’s biography for practice and because I wanted a relative to read it in our native language. But it’s a lot of work and there are a lot of books out there that are equally deserving, so how much time do you have and how do you choose?
The challenge in your case would be to find someone who is as passionate about the subject as you are AND has the skill and time required. If not for the age of this particular book and its 3,700 pages (all four volumes combined), I would say that finding volunteers in a community interested in the subject matter to review and edit a machine translation, focusing on accuracy alone, would likely be achievable. However, I doubt you will find an MT engine that performs well with scans of 18th-century French and enough people with enough motivation to undertake something of that scale, even if it’s "just" editing.
As for "[suggesting] to publishers that they do a translation of a certain work", I suppose there is no harm in asking publishers who specialize in historical works, but again they may lack the motivation to do so if there is no reason to believe it would see enough sales to offset the costs of both translation and printing/distribution. Perhaps a more likely avenue would be to find history and/or linguistics students or graduates who would have an interest in studying and translating those books as part of some research program, and applicable grants that would cover their living expenses as they do so.

Both Project Gutenberg and the English Wikisource (as well as certain Wikisources) accept user translated works. Neither seem to have built up a significant community of translators, with the translated works being chosen and done by individual translators. (There's something of translation communities around the Bible on both the English Wikisource and Conservapedia; the goals of both those groups seem quite different from yours, though.)
As for your works, though, just getting them transcribed would be an issue. Distributed Proofreaders for Project Gutenberg would in theory transcribe them, as would the French and German Wikisources, but depending on volunteer labor, it would likely take years. (Transcription on the appropriate native Wikisource is a requirement before translation on the English Wikisource.) For translation, David Wyllie is the most prolific translator for Project Gutenberg; he has translated Metamorphosis, Bambi, The Trial and Siddhartha, all books that are very popular but had no freely available translation, and all together maybe as long as your one German book. Looking through the English Wikisource, there are no complete user translations this long, and most of it is popular material, like Ovid or the Tao Te Ching.
Project Gutenberg has digitized over 60,000 books, and has yet to get to these.  A transcription is so much easier than a translation that even with an active translation community, I'd be surprised to see these translated any time soon.

What do you mean by transcription?

@Oliver882 Producing a quality electronic text from.

There is a translation app/website called DeepL which worked quite well the one time I used it—MUCH better than Google Translate.
https://www.deepl.com/

I agree it's better, and free, but it's not open-source...

@Glorfindel Not sure what the point is here. Google Translate is not open source either.

@doneal24 the author is asking for open source movements but this answer seems to disregard that entirely. It might be a reply to this comment?

Last time I tried, deepl gave more or less the same result as Google translating a text from English into another language.

@Ocean the "more or less" can be a huge difference...


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Should the editor's name be included in a rebuttal letter?
To make things simple, I am asking whether the rebuttal letter is starting with

Dear Editor and Reviewers

or

Dear Reviewers

One thing to do is to write two documents:

a short letter to the Editor, summarizing your rebuttal in a few sentences;
a detailed Answer to Reviewers, including line-by-line response to all comments and suggestions of the Referees.

Note that the Editor not necessarily has enough time to read through all the detailed response him/her-self, but the presence of this document re-assures that the discussion between Authors and Referees is going in the right direction. If you experience problems addressing Referees' questions, or disagree with them significantly, you should mention this in the letter to the Editor.

The traditional review process is a communication between the editor, who have solicited reviewers to obtain critical peer review of the manuscript, and the author. As such you should respond to the editor and provide a response to the review comments by the reviewers. It is not likely the reviewers will see your response unless they agreed to re-review your revised version of the manuscript.
Open review processes are gaining ground where the entire review process is open to the public. The Open Access publisher Copernicus has such a system where anyone can leave comments to the authors. The handling editor will also appoint official reviewers who's reviews will be posted publicly. In such a system the response to the reviewers (official reviewers as well as other who have left comments will also be posted publicly. In such a case the letter can be directed both to the editor and the reviewers since at least part of the review process has the form of a public discussion (Copernicus also calls their manuscript "Discussions".
So in the traditional sense all communications will be with the editor but in the case of public discussion format review processes, the letter can be directed also to reviewers.

Generally you address all letters to the editor (she/he is the contact person!) and if any part of your letter is relevant to a review, than you address them, too. In practice generally t means that in the main header I address on the editor, and when I answer the reviewers, I address them there.

I usually address the editor since I don't ever communicate with the reviewers. However, I thank them for the report in the first sentence of the letter. I think that this corresponds well to the way how reports are written, because they are impersonal as well (they don't begin with Dear authors).
However, In my opinion, while one should keep a good level of politeness, your paper won't be treated any better or worse if you write Dear Editor and Reviewers or just Dear Editor.


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What credit does inclusion in "Who is Who" book add to the researchers and academicians?
This question has two intents. Firstly sharing an email I received, as an academician, with other academicians and also clarification on the contents of this email and the way it works.
I have received the following email.

Dear XYZ,
I am the editor-in-chief of Who's Who in the World® and I have received your name through a private nomination process. I'm writing to ask if you would provide us with information about your personal and professional accomplishments for possible inclusion in the forthcoming 33rd Edition.
  Inclusion in Who's Who in the World is a sign of true success. The book is a global reference source relied upon by universities, libraries, corporations, and governments around the world.
Like LinkedIn, Wikipedia, and Facebook, it costs you nothing to be included in Who's Who in the World. But unlike those resources, our books only contain biographies that meet our rigorous selection criteria (see below). Also, our books are available both online and in print and are used by the world's most respected institutions. So among other things, Who's Who in the World provides all the benefits of high quality networking. Many people put this recognition on their résumés or CVs.
Please click this link to the Who's Who in the World Biography Submission Form and you will be taken to our password-protected site. The submission process takes only a few minutes, and the benefits of being included are significant.
Deadline: February 23, 2015 Congratulations on being nominated!
Sincerely,
Fred Marks
  Editor-in-Chief, Who's Who in the World®

I googled this message and found some other people are getting it. I further drilled down and found that my email is allegedly given to them by Thomson Reuters (from the Thomson connect website that is the sender of the above email). So, I assume I am not the only one and will not be the last. I assume many of you academician and researchers will receive the same email so I thought it is good to raise the concern here since I found no other discussion elsewhere.
The email is being sent from
Who's Who Selection Committee
and the reply-to field shows    Who's Who Selection Committee
The email is Signed By "thomsonreuters-authorconnect.com" (suggests that my email is being given to them by Thomson Reuters).
The company behind this email is called
￼￼￼￼￼￼￼￼Marquis Who is Who, Publisher of Who’s Who in America® since 1899
Here are my concern:

How much is this website credible? Does anyone (including academic employers) give credit to those listed there (email says, inclusion in Who's Who in the World is a sign of true success. The book is a global reference source relied upon by universities, libraries, corporations, and governments around the world).
Registering into the system needs to fill a form that contains almost every single piece of information about me, including my parents, education, work, wife, certification, political/social activities and many more which is quite scary to me. How can individuals rely on this particular website and share their information. Does inclusion in this particular website gives so much credit that people lose privacy?

Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/26798/how-can-i-tell-if-an-honor-society-is-legitimate (maybe it's not exactly the same, but I am not sure whether there is any difference between these honour societies and what you mentioned)

To make it very clear, this sounds like somewhat more sophisticated spam to me and my instinct would be to ignore the mail.

The Marquis Hall of Lame

my reply:  "Dear Fred, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"

These things are pure bull-diddle. This particular volume is published by News Communications, Inc, and is one of a family of similarly-named publications, including Who's Who in America, Who's Who of American Women, Who's Who in Science and Engineering, Who's Who in American Politics, etc. They make money by getting the schlumps who are listed to buy the book so they can show that they're listed. Woot. In my opinion it's meaningless (and I should know - back in 1975 I was listed in Who's Who Among American High School Students! :-)

No wonder ;) that is these IT and connectivity days they struggle in finding client by sending email here and there.

@Espanta has it right. Even 20 years ago some reporters, committees, etc would look to Who's Who for information. Not now.  It is not a scam in the sense of dishonesty.  They will forthrightly ask you to buy hundreds of items with your name printed in them or glued onto them.

+1 Colin for 'glued onto them' - usually on the first page to massage the ego of the person.

Its a SCAM......RUN AS FAST AS AS YOU CAN ...

I once got one of these (not this particular one, but there are many like it) and gave it to my mom.  Something for her to put on the shelf next to copies of my books which she cannot understand.  But that's about all it is good for.

How much is this website credible? Does anyone (including academic employers) give credit to those listed there (email says, inclusion in Who's Who in the World is a sign of true success. The book is a global reference source relied upon by universities, libraries, corporations, and governments around the world).

I will restrict to "academic employers" -- that is the part of you question which is on-topic for this site.  Answer: no academic employer I know will give you any credit for this. Having this "distinction" on your CV would, in the context of seeking an academic job, be only negative: not very negative, but it would make you look slightly naive.  The gist of this prior answer of mine (thanks to @xLeitix for calling attention to the question) certainly does apply here and explains this in more detail.

Registering into the system needs to fill a form that contains almost every single piece of information about me, including my parents, education, work, wife, certification, political/social activities and many more which is quite scary to me. How can individuals rely on this particular website and share their information. Does inclusion in this particular website gives so much credit that people lose privacy?

To the best of my knowledge, this is not a phishing scam, as you seem to be worried about.  What they want to do is print books, which have lots of names together with information about those names.  The more information you provide, the more material for potential inclusion they have.  Some people actually take the length of their entry in these books as a point of pride (I seem to recall, well over 20 years ago, Harlan Ellison boasting that his entry in one of these things was longer than Ronald Reagan's, or something like that).  This is not a new millennium thing.  Go back 30 or more years, before the days of prevalent identity theft, and look at their request with those more innocent eyes.  None of the information you listed is truly sensitive or confidential; it's just very detailed biographical information.
Of course, my answer to the first point renders the answer to the second point academic, but I wanted to be fair to them.  One more thing: for academics, I disagree completely with what they say about wikipedia: it has quite stringent inclusion criteria, and wikipedia is a "global reference" source in the sense that organizations like this one have been dreaming about for the better part of a century but has never quite come to pass.  It is also a free reference source, which is a key point that I hope that any academic would appreciate and value.

"for academics, [Wikipedia] has quite stringent inclusion criteria". Indeed.  The criteria are at WP:PROF. I used to be fairly active in Wikipedia page deletion discussions and it was fairly common for a run-of-the mill academic's entry to be deleted for failing to meet these criteria.  (At least a few a month.)

When you mentioned Harlan Ellison I asked myself "Who's that?" Since I do not own a copy of Who's Who in  Whatever, I found an answer quickly by a web search leading me to Wikipedia. And Ronald Reagan has a longer entry than him there.

They are trying to sell their books and associated vanity products. They know that their primary market for it, is people included in it.
Personally, I'd take an academic's inclusion in it to be a possible indication of gullibility.
If you've got the time, the Forbes article on the Marquis Who's Who series, "Hall of Lame", is worth a read.

These things are essentially a vanity publishing scam.  Being included typically means that you have $100 to burn and poor consumer skills.  Don't touch it with a 10 foot pole.

This sounds to me like a scam. Check out the actual e-mail address. Does this correspond with Marquis' Who's Who? My bet is that it does not. Marquis could not care less who you are. I have been in Who's Who in America for the past five years. For the first four years, I received everything in writing via mail. Only this past year did I receive anything via e-mail. You have been scammed. As an academic, you should know to check your sources; in this case, the e-mail address.
Forbes' critique of 1999 was accurate. Later, they reversed their evaluation after the company was sold to News Communications, Inc. When Forbes first set up their college rating system, 25% of their rating was based upon the high achievements of alumni, based upon WWiA listings. Today, Forbes compiles its own list of highest achievers. 32.5% of their rating is based upon this list. Shifting from WWiA to their own list has produced no significant change in relative ratings.

authors: Bob Jarvis - Слава Україні


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How to ensure that putting a product's photo in a paper does not violate copyright?
I have put into my paper a photo (available here) that I have collected from the company's website available for free. There is no copyright note, except the one at the bottom of the website and product is available for sale (probably patented). I have contacted the company seeking permission, but they did not reply after a week and I cannot wait anymore.
The paper will be published in an IEEE magazine.
So here are my questions:

How to make sure an online photo carries copyright?
Is citing to their website sufficient to avoid copyright violation?
If received copyright permission, how to use the permission in the paper? (I received permission from another company for another photo). Write it on the image or write "courtesy of ..." (I have seen this phrase quite a lot).

UPDATE 1: Thanks all of you, referring to your answers, I decided to stay in the safe side by removing the photo from the paper. I did not criticize anything and did not admire it either (but it could be a free publicity for them which is ignored despite second email to the company). I just discussed its functionality as an encouraging innovation for particular domain.
However, almost NO ONE yet commented on 3rd question. Can any one help in this regard?

Why don’t you take a photo of the product yourself? Not only does this avoid copyright issues, but also would that photo almost certainly be more appropriate for a scientific publication than the marketing graphics you linked.

I do not have the device :)

If there is a photo on Wikipedia, you can expect it to have a license which allows you to use it (although do check; each picture there has a link to this information).  As a distant second option, perhaps you can find a site with a review with a photo you could get permission to use, although probably not on the timetable you seem to hope for.

@tripleee: And being allowed to use it can mean a variety of things, concerning options of modification and differing requirements in whether and how to indicate the original authors.

Call the company, and ask to speak to the legal department. Based on the website(s) (there's a reference to E-FUN Inc), there might not be one, then ask to speak to the marketing department.

How many questions do you ask in a single question post? If you have not received any answer to your third question; ask it separately in a newer question post.

Photography and other creations carry copyright by default
The answer to your part 1 - the exclusive copyright of a photo belongs to someone from the point of its creation, even if no explicit copyright note is attached.
If you had made the photo of that product, then it would be an entirely different question, but redistributing a photo someone else made is legally almost exactly as redistributing a Hollywood movie.
Available for free doesn't imply a permission to redistribute
If something is freely distributed by it's owner, it doesn't come with an implied permission for you to do the same thing. Unless it comes with a licence that explicitly allows you to do so (e.g. the various Creative Commons licences), you don't have a permission to copy that image further. Citing the source doesn't change that.
Lack of response means lack of permission
If you don't have an explicit permission, then you don't have it regardless of reasons - if an author chooses not to communicate with you, then tough luck. It also may be that the company doesn't have free hands in licencing the image - it's quite possible that the copyright is owned by some photographer, and the company has a licence to use it in their website but not in print.
The journal may want clarifications
The journal submission documents will likely include either a statement that all images are your own, or that you have licenced them appropriately. They may leave the licences as your responsibility or require you to send them the documentation.

This is correct and directly addresses the questions in he OP. It's worth pointing out, however, that some countries have a Fair Use in their copyright laws, and depending on the paper and how the content is used in the paper, one might be able to claim fair use. It's often easier to get the appropriate permissions though, than it is to convince a journal that fair use covers your use of someone else's copyrighted content.

A claim of fair use is generally a defense to suit for copyright infringements, and I suspect most publishers won't be willing to take the risk as you say.

@AdamDavis republishing an image in a journal doesn't fit in generally accepted fair use criteria. It's included as a whole copy, not fragments; the use is commercial (as the publisher core business is charging money for the journals that include the image). If the copy was used for criticism of the image (not the product), then that could be fair use, as you're allowed to "quote" some artwork if neccessary to talk about it; and if it was used in a lecture presentation, not published, then that could be a fair use exception in many places. But this case is rather clearly not legally fair use.

@Peteris, thanks for nice answer. Can u suggest on 3rd question? Pls give a small hint. I appreciate it.

@Espanta you don't neccessarily need to include anything about the permission in the paper - depending on the journal policies you might or might not need to include it together with the paper (but not 'in' it), and if the owner will request some particular way of acknowledgement in the paper, then they'll make that clear.

Without reading the paper, are you sure that the photo is necessary? It looks to be purely decorative, so perhaps you could sidestep the whole issue and leave it out of the paper.

Just because the owner does not reply to your request does not give you implicit permission to use the content. These guidelines by Colombia University lay out the situation well.
If the licensing situation is not clear, assume it is copyrighted. Private companies may get a little prickly if their products are conveyed in anything less than a glowingly positive light. Nevertheless, they usually can't do much if someone posts a bad review on a blog. I don't know for sure, but perhaps fair use will apply.
If there is an attribution license, yes. For example, content posted on Stack Exchange has a CC license with attribution required. Otherwise, nope.
Whichever is common in your field, or specifically requested by the owner of the copyrighted content, should be fine.

@StrongBad I just simultaneously added that bit. For instance, some software I used asked for a specific sentence and citation to be given in the acknowledgements section.

@StrongBad? I assume you means Espanta :). I hope they come up with the permission so I know what to put where.

“If the licensing situation is not clear, assume it is copyrighted.” – You can even go further: Unless the work has been explicitly released into the public domain or similar (which is very unlikely in the respective case), it’s automatically copyrighted, at least if the relevant laws comply with the Bern Convention.

@Wrzlprmft Absolutely, although the more relevant (but much shorter and less prescriptive) treaty these days is the TRIPS Agreement (required for WTO membership)

I think what was meant by "If the licensing situation is not clear, assume it is copyrighted." is "If the licensing situation is not clear, assume that you do not have a license to re-use the piece."

@Espanta it was a comment to me, but I deleted my comment because the edit made it obsolete.

@MichaelKjörling Yes, that is precisely what I mean.

As there have been good and extensive answers to your first two questions and you explicitly asked for answers to your last question, I will only address question number 3.
How you can use an image in a paper depends entirely on the type of license/permission you have received. Basically, you and the copyright holder are free to negotiate any type of attribution or none at all. But even if they do not explicitly mention attribution it is still a sign of good manners to include at least their name somewhere close to the image. In case you are unsure, ask the copyright holder how they would like to be attributed and suggest a manner which you think might be suitable for your paper.
Some images are available under free licenses, e.g. all the images on Wikipedia (with some fair use exceptions) and Wikimedia Commons, Wikipedia's image repository. These licenses specify what you need to do when you want to use an image. Usually, they require that you attribute the author and name the license under which the image was used. Some licenses might also require that you release derivative works of the original image (i.e. when you edited the image in some way) under the same license.

A quick answer if you are subject to US law:

1. How to make sure an online photo carries copyright?

All online photos (and text, videos, etc.) "carry copyright." That is, someone holds the copyright on anything you find online. You are not allowed to redistribute it unless the copyright holder explicitly does something to grant you the right - for example, if they specify a license. (Though under certain circumstances the fair use defense allows you to "get away with it.")

2. Is citing to their website sufficient to avoid copyright violation?

No, citation is completely irrelevant to copyright infringement. Copyright law says you cannot copy and redistribute the content, regardless of whether you cite its source.
Exception: if the content is under a license that makes citation relevant. For example, the Creative Commons Attribution licenses say something like "You are allowed to copy this as long as you credit the author."

3. If received copyright permission, how to use the permission in the paper? (I received permission from another company for another photo). Write it on the image or write "courtesy of ..." (I have seen this phrase quite a lot).

Follow the conventions of your field, of course, but the typical way is something like "Figure from [source], used with permission." This question of mine addresses the case of open access content.

The other answers are technically correct.
However you ought to think about it practically.
Every company wants to sell their products, and unless your article is saying bad things about the product or company, they're going to be happy for whatever publicity they get via your article.
Unless the company is run by morons (does happen sometimes), they are NOT going to sue you for helping them by giving them free publicity. Even tho they could, technically, if they wanted to.
Just credit the source of the photo properly and you're done.

I would be cautious with assumptions like "[...] they are NOT going to sue you for helping them [...]" - they may have a different interpretation of the work or in general a zero-tolerance policy on copyright infringement.

Also, the answer is assuming that your article doesn't contain critical commentary, which would be rather disastrous for academic credibility (depending also on your field / genre).

@CuriousCat: They may indeed. But there is no such thing in life as zero risk, and attempting to live a risk-free life will not get you far. In practice you have to weigh the pros and cons of any action - what is the probability that the copyright holder will be upset? If that happens, what is the probability that a simple apology will be inadequate? If not, what is the probability that it will go to court? That it won't be found fair use in court? And finally, that the damages awarded will be significant. Considering those factors, I think it's silly to worry about it.

@CuriousCat: I'll do the math for you. 0.01 * 0.2 * 0.02 * 0.2 * 0.1 = 8e-7. Less than one in a million. And that's assuming the copyright holder even notices in the first place. Only idiots sue over trivial harms in cases they're likely to lose. Don't sweat this stuff.

@nerdfever.com the most practical risk is not the copyright owner suing, but rather the publisher's legal department saying "you didn't submit proper proof of licencing, we'll not publish the paper".

@nerdfever.com A lot of companies bend over backwards to help their customers, and that may well involve granting rights to use material in published papers, particularly if it is positive. But what if it's bad press? I don't know any companies who are willing to bend forwards. Just because you're unlikely to face repercussions doesn't give you license to flout the law. This is TERRIBLE advice.

The copyright holder of the photograph in question may not be the manufacturer of the product, in which case this advice is entirely irrelevant.

@Moriarty: I'm not a lawyer, but there is such a thing as "fair use" in copyright law, and I'm pretty sure this would fall under it. One of the key tests is that the use does not diminish the commercial value of the image, which I think would be the case here. Most importantly, "fair use" does NOT require permission; this is not "flouting the law". Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use.

@nerdfever.com Have you even read my answer? I'm well aware that fair use exists, but that's not what you're advocating. Your answer didn't even mention fair use. One needs to check very carefully that the usage is fair use before publishing the article. It's not good enough to charge in gung-ho and shout "it was fair use!" at the first sign of trouble.


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How to explore/identify similar works in one's own field?
I bet most of the users here had one of the following bad experiences: your idea and someone's idea happen to be very similar, manuscript topics got scooped, etc. Among these bad experiences, the worst is perhaps finding out a very similar paper was already published after the experimentation, simulation, writing, or even submission was done. This is very time consuming and stressful.
I realize that this question is very general and field-dependent. However, I would love to learn from your experience on how to efficiently look for related works in one's own field. For instance:

Where (websites, publishers, pre-prints... )
When should we find or update these related works, and
What kind of tricks have you used to perform such searches efficiently.

To help you orient, my background is electrical and computer engineering, communication and image/video processing.

Scholar.Google.com, IEEE, and ACM
After every major conference in your field.
See 1, find a paper, then follow its references and the papers that cite it. Repeat.

Actually, I did it but the keywork and searching enginee of IEEE is not very good. btw, what about other publiser such as SIAM, Elsevier etc...

@Atena Scholar.Google.com, don't limit yourself to specific publishers.

In addition to searching the published literature (as the other answers suggest), if your subfield is a very active one you'll also want to know about almost-published literature. There are two ways to do this:

Identify the important conferences in your field, and look through the list of accepted papers as soon as it becomes available.
By following Austin Henley's suggestions you will notice that some names come up especially often as authors of related work.  These are researchers doing work similar to yours, and therefore there is a good chance that their next paper will also be related. Find their homepages and monitor their publication lists on a regular basis. Many researchers list their "to appear" papers, which may not yet be available from the publisher.

If you suspect significant overlap based on a paper title you see in the program of an upcoming conference or the author's homepage, you can request a preprint from the author.

Just one more question, how often should I do this? like update the list of related work?

At minimum: before you begin a project, when you start to write up the paper about the project, and before you submit the paper. Preferably: as often as you can stand, because reading as much as possible in your field makes you a better researcher :)

In addition to the sources listed in A. Henley's answer, try also other databases like SCI (http://www.webofknowledge.com) and Scopus (http://scopus.com) to get a more complete picture.


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Would research internship experience lower my chance of getting a technical job?
I am a CS/EEE person. A resident of India. I am hoping to apply for an internship in either BARC or TIFR. These are internships related to research. A senior told me that having a Research Internship in his CV counted against him for a technical job interview.
Is this true? Should I rather apply for a Technical Internship instead? The kind of job I am looking to do later is a technical one, not one related to research.
CS/EEE -- Computer Science / Electrical and Electronics Engineering
BARC -- Bhabha Atomic Research Centre
TIFR -- Tata Institute of Fundamental Research

How are you defining "Technical Job" and "Technical Internship"? The technical places I've worked at favour academic research experience in a related field very highly.

They really do ??
By technical, I mean a core EEE job or a coding CS job. Not such a descriptive definition, but I hope u get what I mean.

You would need to leverage soft skills from your "research skills" when applying for "technical jobs". No, I don't think research experience will block technical job possibilities -- you will be a well rounded individual, if anything.

I work in a technical job and at my workplace research experience in academia in a quantitative area is highly sought after. The majority have academic research experience.

Okay, doubt cleared. Research Internships are valued by technical job interviewers.
I was misinformed then.
Thank you for your replies.
(Can't I mark the question as solved?)

I can answer this question from my undergrad experience and work ex in India.
Short Answer: No, having research experience doesn't hinder your chances of getting into a technical job.
Long Answer:
Having a good research project/internship demonstrates your deep thinking abilities and capacity to do challenging work often with minimal guidance. Good companies often admire these skills. In addition to this, research internship along with good implementation part(CS specific), count heavily to your favour.
The advise of your college senior (without any offense) is directed primarily towards service sector companies and is misleading. The reason is not that your research internship would not give you proper skills for the job, but that your research experience may give them an indication that you would leave the job for higher studies. There are many other factors such companies consider for minimizing the attrition rate and maintaining high reserve manpower, and research experience is certainly not at the top of that list.

I don't think this would count against you. It could perhaps be beneficial to have both research and conventional internship experience, but I think the research experience could only help you.
Personally, I have not done any research (I am a Computer Science and Business student), but I do know some people who have had both research positions and conventional internships, and they said that interviewers often focused on talking about their research experience (and these people also got extremely good jobs with companies that a lot of CS students dream of working for).


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Pursuing Ph.D. at two institutions simultaneously
I am enrolled in a Ph.D. program at a leading institute in India. However I am facing certain problems which are administrative in nature and hence want to restart my Ph.D. at another institute. I am seeking clarification on the possibility to pursue Ph.D. from two institutes simultaneously. For your reference, I have already completed the course work at the current institute.

Whether or not it's technically possible depends on the rules and policies of the institutions involved.  But  regardless of whether it's permitted, I can't imagine a situation in which it would be a good idea.

I don't understand. As by your description, it sounds like you want to stop being a PhD student at your current institution and transfer to a new institute, correct? In this case, you would not do two PhDs simultaneously. You would stop the first one and start another one (maybe transferring course credits, if that is possible).

If you can keep the old PhD going then your "problems which are administrative in nature" really are not problems anymore. Why torture yourself living two full-time study lives (plus other responsibilities?)

PhD's are not merit badges... more of them is not necessarily better.  See the responses to this question on pursuing two PhD's simultaneously