text:
"First et al.", many authors with same surname, and IEEE citations
I'm describing an evolution of ideas like this:

Wang et al. suggested quantizing the ReLU function [1]. Later, Wang
et al. extended that method by shifting the function base [2]. In
contrast, Wang et al. instead used neurons with multiple spiking thresholds
[3].

I know IEEE allows citations as nouns, but I strongly dislike them
because they ruin the flow of the text. What's the proper style here
if we have multiple Wang et al. published in the same year?

How about: Wang, Smith et al. say underwater basketweaving disturbs local fish populations, while Wang, Miller et al. state that it doesn't.

Does "Wang, Miller et al." work if the three authors are "Wang, Miller, and Jones"?

Since they are all different Wangs (see comment to answer below) I think you need to either (1) add initials to each, if they are different, or (2) rephrase to not use the first author last name to refer to the paper. I suspect the editor will understand why the wording seems more convoluted in that case.

If I was insisting on this format, I might lean on "Wang et al. at XX University ... In contrast, Wang et al. at YY State ...," however I'd probably toss it all together.

This is one of the reasons we generally don't cite by name in my field. It's faster to just say "Quantizing the ReLU function was first suggested in Ref. [1]. Later..."

@knzhou If I see the name and the year, I often recognise the paper without looking it up in the reference section.

This question is similar to: Citing two authors with the same surname – is it worth noting that they are distinct people?. If you believe it’s different, please edit the question, make it clear how it’s different and/or how the answers on that question are not helpful for your problem.

@JFabianMeier Me too, but this often doesn't hold true for Chinese names. Chinese surnames are notorious for being non-distinct, there are so many researchers named Wang or Li that the surname aren't really recognizable.

I think this is sufficiently different to https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/91243/citing-two-authors-with-the-same-surname-is-it-worth-noting-that-they-are-dist that I don't want to close it as a dupe, because that question was asking how to handle it in an author-date referencing style and this is with numerical referencing. The best solutions might well be different.
Voting to leave open for now.
But I encourage @GaslightDeceiveSubvert to edit the question to make this clear.

Why not do

F. Wang et al. suggested quantizing the ReLU function [1]. Later, L. Wang, et al. extended that method by shifting the function base [2]. In contrast, C. Wang et al. instead used neurons with multiple spiking thresholds [3].

like described in this answer to a question that this one possibly duplicates.
If two Wangs have the same initial then you could spell out the first names in full. If two Wangs have the same first name then I would just not use names in the text.

In [1], the authors suggested quantizing the ReLU function. Later, the authors in [2] extended that method by shifting the function base. In contrast, the authors in [3] instead used neurons with multiple spiking thresholds.

I would also consider

[1] suggested quantizing the ReLU function. Later, [2] extended that method by shifting the function base. In contrast, [3] instead used neurons with multiple spiking thresholds.

I like this one, but, sadly (to me), I'm pretty sure it's technically incorrect to use citation numbers as pronouns.

I didn't know initials were proper style. Wrt citation numbers, they make it hard to retain the active voice so you have to resort to passive voice, which I hate.

@GaslightDeceiveSubvert two points. (1) I do not know or guarantee that anything I've written above is "proper style". That's between you and the editor of your journal to discuss. But I've seen all of the styles above "in the wild". (2) In both of my examples using citation numbers I used active voice, but yeah it is a little more awkward and difficult. "In [1] the authors suggested" vs "in [1] it was suggested". I don't hate passive voice, I just opt for active when I can and when it's natural.

Using leading initials seems odd; firstly, Wang might be from somewhere (and published somewhere) where given names come last rather than first; secondly, we already index our catalogs with "Surname, Givenname" or "Surname, Initials"

@MartinKealey Indices and bibliographies are alphabetised by surname because we generally only use the surname in references in the text, and alphabetising by given name would make sources impossible to locate. That doesn’t mean that we suspend the normal order of names when mentioning them in the text. Whether it’s “L. Wang et al. wrote…” or “according to renowned physicist L. Wang”, the normal order of names should be used. Whether or not you choose to follow the order in the author’s native (or published?) language is a different matter, where either choice is defensible.

@JanusBahsJacquet by "indeces" I was referring to entire catalogues, and entire shelving sections in libraries, which have traditionally been sorted by surname. It makes sense for references to follow that precedent, if for no other reason than to make the referent easier to find. On the other hand, if I'm talking about a person rather than a publication, it would 100% be appropriate to say "renowned physicist Lillian Wang" in the order that she would normally write it.

How about something like this:
Wang et al. originally suggested quantizing the ReLU function [1]. In subsequent reports, others extended that method by shifting the function base [2], or in contrast by using neurons with multiple spiking thresholds [3].
You don't need to always list authors. The above is a very rough workaround, but you get the idea.

This is OK. However, the 2nd and 3rd Wangs might be much more famous than the 1st, and then this sounds like one of them made the original suggestion. Perhaps you could put the full name of the 1st Wang.

@toby544 Fame seems irrelevant. The "Later" in the original post seems to clearly indicate that that [1] was published before [2]. The time-order of [3] is less clear.

@MichaelMior I meant that if there are three Wangs working in the same field, then it would be better to make it clear which one you are talking about.

@toby544 I think that's already made clear with the citations.

@MichaelMior What do you mean? It will be clear if you look at the references list, certainly. But if you are mentioning one Wang in the main text, like in the example in this answer, then it would be better to make it clear here which one it is.

@toby544 You are making it clear which one it is, it is the one associated with the cited manuscript. The concept of "fame" is silly. You are citing a specific work, you don't need biographical details of the authors. Frankly you don't even need to name any of the authors, it is just a mechanism to break the monotony of writing historical precedent before discussing your science contextually. If you want to cite a body of work with some historical retrospective then you can make a broader reference to a specific author with full detail.

@toby544 I think if it is a surname that is common enough that three separate papers on the topic authored by entirely separate people sharing a surname, the authors can leave it up to the reader to not make assumptions that the author is one specific person, even if they are better known than the others.

@R1NaNo If you just say Wang, then it it not clear at all which one it is, unless you look at the references list (which is extra effort for the reader). We don't need biographical details, but it is helpful to the reader to know which person is being mentioned.

@BryanKrause I don't think any surname is so common that the author can make that assumption about the readers. I still think it is helpful to the readers to say which Wang it is. But you might be right.

@toby544 I think we will just have to agree to disagree because I see no reason why the reader immediately has to know the name of the researcher because we are not appealing to personal authority or opinion, but rather referencing a specific work. Often times the name used is the first author, which is either a graduate student or postdoc and statistically is unlikely to even have a long-term career in academia.

Why not just use "First Author Last Name, 2nd author Last Name, et al." as the in text reference for these particular refs, if you think it improves readability and minimizes confusion?

Aiui, this is incorrect if there are exactly 3 authors.

@GaslightDeceiveSubvert  why?  Is it because et al. is plural, and shouldn't apply to a single author?  I'd respond to either add the third author to the citation or not, as one sees fit or if their mood changes or if it's Thursday.  If a copy editor sees fit to add the third author to the in-text citation, they will.  As publication "errors" go, this is a tiny one, because clarity wins.

It looks like the problem is not that they are all in the same year, but that the abbreviated lists of authors are all the same.
If all three papers have the same list of authors, you can say "they" after the first time.
If it is different lists of authors, you need to rephrase slightly. Perhaps you could say "With other authors, Wang suggested ... Later, he/she ... In contrast, in a third paper he/she ...." Or you could use the passive ("Later, this was extended ..."), if you don't need to say in the text exactly who did each thing.

I am not sure if this is indeed supposed to be the same Wang everytime.

Every Wang in the example is a different person.

OK. Either put the full names or initials and surnames of these three people, or reword it to avoid mentioning their names. (If you give their surnames, you need to make it clear that they are different people.)


text:
Recommendation letter from alumni
I am applying for graduate school and one of the professors that I am considering to write my letter is an alumni from the school that I am to. Would this letter carry more weight?

Probably not. Most US schools don't even give you extra points for being the child of an alumnus, these days.

While I think @keshlam is right in that it probably won't matter, if the prof is an alum of the same program (and there are still profs in the department who remember that prof, and that prof was a good student - lots of conditions here), it sure won't hurt.  But yeah, probably won't carry more weight.

If your professor did their graduate degree in the particular program you're applying to, this could help. The reason is that their letter can be more specific about the reasons you will succeed in that program: "She will be prepared to pass the quals in subjects X and Y immediately, based on her performance at Undergrad U., and will have no trouble passing the qual in Z at the end of the first year. Compared with the students who entered the Ph.D. program with me in 1992, she would have been in the top 25%." (This benefit can also apply when a recommender was previously on the faculty in the department you're applying to.) I do not think it matters so much whether current faculty remember your recommender personally. However, if the reputation or structure of the program has changed significantly since your recommender was there, their impression will be less relevant.
If your professor did only their undergraduate degree at this school, or a graduate degree in another department, then this will not matter or be noticed at all.

The professor that I have in mind did their graduate degree at this particular school.

As I explained, the relevant question is whether they did their graduate degree in this particular department (or this particular program).

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text:
How specific should I talk about my papers and projects in my personal statement for grad school?
I am applying for grad school and during my undergraduate studies I have some projects and papers. How detailed should I talk about these projects in my personal statement? Should it be like an abstract or is that even too detailed? Or should I provide only the motivation and results of the project?

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text:
CV and personal statement mutually exclusive?
Should the CV and statement of purpose for grad school be mutually exclusive, in particular if something is already in my CV, is it not necessary to mention it in the statement of purpose? For example, for a paper that I published, and I already included it in my CV, then I wouldn't need to say I published this paper in so-and-so journal in my statement of purpose?

Related (to the specific example): Should I link my research in my SOP?

Your CV is a straightforward and concise list of your academic credentials. Your statement of purpose is a chance for you to expand on your credentials (specifically those that make you an especially strong candidate, or to explain things that might seem to weaken your application) and also give some insight into your future plans.
They are not mutually exclusive, nor should they overlap entirely; they serve completely different purposes.

in particular if something is already in my CV, is it not necessary to mention it in the statement of purpose?

If you have something more to say about it that strengthens your application, go ahead and say it in your statement of purpose.

Can you be more specific? For example, I published a paper. How should I talk about that in my statement of purpose? Should I talk more about what was the motivation of the project instead of what I did exactly?

@user1250125 Your SOP is supposed to make a case for your ability to succeed in the program you are applying for. If the publication is related to your planned course of studies and helps make that case, then it should be part of that "story." What, specifically, to say about it depends on the publication and how it makes your case stronger.


text:
Kavli Frontiers of Science: is it a worthwhile use of one's time?
I recently received an invitation to a "U.S. Kavli Frontiers of Science symposium."  I have to be honest, when I first received it, I kind of thought it was conference spam, but investigating further, I came around to thinking it seemed legit (in part because it is organized by NAS and they offered to pay expenses).
But "is a legitimate scientific activity" is a pretty low bar for deciding whether it is worth expending one's limited time to attend a conference (at some minor personal inconvenience), which at least for me is not obviously connected to my research or even necessarily my discipline.  Does anyone here have experience with it?  Are the talks interesting for outsiders to the disciplines?  Is it actually a good networking opportunity?  Is it the sort of thing I should be bragging to my dean about (I'm about to go up for tenure, so bragging rights are somewhat relevant)?  Is it just sort of a glorified TED?

I don't really know about it, but the NAS backing is waaaay different from the status of TED. Also, the fact that as part of an "invitation" they offered to pay your expenses is different from nearly all marginal-or-worthless conferences. I'd guess that it'd be a modest networking help. An invitation with an offer of money is utterly different from an invitation without.

@paulgarrett That's totally fair; obviously I was exaggerating a little about TED.   But again, "a more serious scientific endeavor than TED" is a pretty low bar.  There are lots of great and serious conferences that it still wouldn't make sense for me to attend.

Yes, it's definitely worth attending and you should mention it to your dean.  (It's only a minor honor, but a minor honor is still worth highlighting.)  I did this some years ago, and it was a great experience.  Not particularly valuable for my research, but I met some fascinating people in other fields, some of whom I had more in common with intellectually than I had expected, and I learned many interesting things.

This experience might suggest to the OP that if attendance did not harm something else, by taking away time or energy, then it would be relatively worthwhile... I can imagine that I visualize the apparently eclectic atmosphere: in many ways irrelevant to one's highly focused work, but perhaps happy and upbeat more than many waaay-focused technical conferences. Given some suspicions that NAS is trying to generate a "brand", I'd be interested to hear how wholesome the thing might turn out to be.


text:
I want my article in a particular publication (online) to be brought down. What are the solutions. Please let me know
I want my article in a particular publication (online) to be brought down in a journal, because it was published by one of my ex-teachers w/o my consent. What are the plausible solutions. Please let me know.

Contact the editor in the first instance. You say "my article", so you wrote it and the ex-teacher published it? Or you wrote it together and you agreed to publish, but now want to retract?

If this is in the US, you can file a DMCA complaint with the school's legal department. If they don't have permission, they can't publish it. OTOH, it's possible they actually do have permission, depending on what you signed while in school

Please clarify if your name is on the article.

Please explain why you think that your consent should have been necessary to publish the article. Did you write the article with your teacher? Did you contribute to the research? Without more information, it is difficult to determine whether you have a legitimate grievance and what the best course of action might be.

Are you listed as an author?

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text:
Should I be content with poster paper or should I try again?
A  research paper of mine has been accepted at an IEEE conference.  Although I submitted my best work as a research paper, my best was not  good enough and the reviewers threw it with the poster papers. So, it  will get published in the conference proceeding but will NOT get  uploaded to Xplore Library.
Now  if I go with this, can I try submitting the same paper (as it won't be  online) to other IEEE conferences or reputed journals or do I have to  change it substantially before submitting to other publishers? This  would be a problem because I can not work on it any more without a  top-notch laboratory with chemical equipment; I already did what I  could with just a PC and a lot of time (I am an undergraduate student in a  developing country btw).
Or keeping this in mind, should I simply  withdraw the paper and try elsewhere from scratch?

Are you sure it's not going to be published on Xplore? For the IEEE conferences I know, also papers presented as posters will be published in just the same way as those presented orally.

I agree with silvado. In large IEEE conferences in my field, we don't usually have control over poster/oral presentation.  Both are published though. Did you get an acceptance email after the review round? I would slso encourage you to clarify the publishing issue with the TPC chair. Cheers

The TPC chair clearly mentioned not sending it to Xplore. Now can I publish the same paper later elsewhere? Even if it won't be online, would that interfere with copyright or publication ethics issues?

If it isn’t officially published online by IEEE, it isn’t in the de facto proceedings. Definitely clarify with the PC chair.

Given the constraints you name, I would suggest leaving it in the poster session, but attending the conference as mentioned by the answer of OBu. If you were a doctoral candidate, rather than an undergraduate, I might suggest differently. But you are at the beginning of your career where any publication is a big plus in moving forward. If you have no way to improve the paper scientifically, then it may be the best outcome for now. But you can leverage the publication for application to a graduate program or employment. Not everyone in your situation will have a publication at all. I think admission committees will look favorably on it. You can reference the conference proceedings, of course.
Moreover, even though you have lost access to your lab, you haven't lost access to what you learned there. I think you are in an excellent position to move forward and that potentially jeopardizing that to seek an even better result is riskier than it needs to be at the moment.
Obviously this is just an opinion for you to consider.

Thank you for giving the advice I needed. I am inclined towards what you are suggesting. But I am curious about the future of this particular paper. After presenting it, can I submit the same paper to reputed journals? I know that for conference papers it has to contain at least 30% more data for it to be considered by journals. But as my poster paper will not be online, does the same rule apply? Or if it's a little easier as they will not be able to crosscheck it with the present version?

I doubt that  you can publish it elsewhere. Journals almost always want things that have never appeared. Conference proceedings are a form of publication. In some fields (maybe not yours) they are the most important thing. You have a good conference, of course.

I would recommend to take the chance to visit the conference and discuss your poster content with others. This will give you good feedback and show you how your work is regarded in your field.

The work is a dead end without sufficient funding and laboratory facilities which nobody has in my country. So the feedback will be useless here. I was hoping for getting abroad to work on this (obviously with a scholarship). That's why I need it to be published as a full paper accessible to admission committee or professors.

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text:
CV concerns about misleading admissions committees on accident. Are concerns like this warranted at all?
Back again with a bit of a follow up to this post, albeit I'm not concerned about degree revocation this time:
May have embellished my CV and resume by mistake after I was admitted to MA and Ph.D programs. Could either of my degrees be revoked?
I just realized I cited a poster from my undergrad incorrectly. I accidentally said I presented a poster at an undergraduate research symposium when it was actually a bi-annual psychology poster conference. I also put myself as the first author even though I didn't remember the order that was agreed upon (although I distinctly remember my poster partner didn't mind the order so I probably just went "why not?" even though that order mattered and I didn't know it at the time I made the entry). In case it's also important, I presented this poster for an extra credit assignment in a Cognitive Neuroscience class. The TA for the class guided us through the whole thing and I honestly didn't feel like I deserved to be an author even though I agreed to help and did a poor job at doing so (given how I walked away with a C in the class overall. I wasn't a good undergrad student). When I reviewed the old email exchanges, I definitely don't feel like I deserve it whatsoever and may take it off my CV even though the conference organizers encouraged all of us to list the posters on our CV.
Problem is... I got admitted to 6/8 Master's programs and I'm worried that poster may have given them an impression I did more than I actually did and that could've got me in the door when I otherwise shouldn't have done so.
I also had a different instance one time during my Master's program where I listed myself as an "Investigator" (this was how the campus where I was a research assistant called it) and was corrected by the MA program director to list it as Research Assistant (even though I was called an investigator by my lab, albeit the duties were the same as a research assistant). The reason for the correction was because the program director said it looked like I did more than I actually did even though I wasn't a Principal Investigator (some context - the PI for this lab was German so he may have just called his research assistants the equivalent term, investigators, and I didn't know it since that was my first lab).
Anyway, I'm concerned about someone noticing this and potentially obstructing me currently. I know I have two degrees (BS, MA) and I'm not worried about those getting revoked at all based on the previous answers to my last question. Could this get me into some trouble though?
If this violates any rules like last time, feel free to close it. I'm just concerned about presenting my work in an honest manner and don't want it to affect me if I pre-emptively address it.

I doubt you have much to worry about. I think that these kinds of details on your cv didn't have much effect one way or the other on your admission decisions. I can't imagine someone going back to reread your cv and question that decision.
So update the cv and be more careful from now on.


text:
Attendance Date in PhD
I am applying for PhD for Fall 2024 in the US, I am still pursuing my masters degree. In the applications they ask for the attendance date for every institution, I am expecting to graduate in Spring 2024, so do I put the attendance date between 08-2021 to 05-2024 or 08-2021 to 12-2023?
And if the former, how does it differ from the expected graduation date? ( which they ask for later).

You will graduate in the spring, so you will attend through the spring semester.

I would probably write "08-2021 to present" for attendance date, and 05-2024 for expected graduation.
If you are forced to give a date rather than the word present such as due to some online application system, I think it's fine to also put your expected attendance dates, that is, through 05-2024 even if it's a bit redundant with the graduation date. There are some cases where they could differ such as if degrees are only conferred in spring but you complete your coursework in fall (or only conferred in spring or fall but you complete coursework in a summer term and have to wait until the end of fall semester to actually get your degree).
No one is going to penalize you for whatever you write there as long as it's reasonable, though. No one is going to say "aha! Cheater! You claim to have attended something in the future how could that even be possible!"; similarly if you say you're attending now and graduating in spring they'll assume you will actually attend in spring too and have only entered your attendance to date.

I mean, a large fraction of PhD applications due soon are by current students who won't graduate until next spring. This is not a trick question meant to trip anyone up.


text:
Is there a place to review journals or conferences?
There are plenty of journals and conferences in my research area. And there are things we could look up in advance, like impact factor, journal rank and so on.
But I would like to find a place where I could put my personal experience with the journal (or conference).
For instance, in Amazon the customers can review and criticize the books they read. In my country there is a site where you can complaint about any company that failed to satisfy the customer (a flight company, a magazine, a bank, etc).
One could argue that this would be unfair to the people that invest their time as editors or reviewers, but in my opinion it is a two-way relationship. Things like waiting one year without an answer from editors, poor review or evasive answers, is a disrespect to a research group who invests a lot of time as well.
So, is there a place where one could respectfully give a review and share their experience with a journal or conference?

There are a few sites that do this:

SciRev
Journalysis - Link is dead and Journalysis doesn't seem to exist anymore (end of 2023)
HelpMePublish - Link is dead and HelpMePublish doesn't seem to exist anymore (end of 2023)

Of these, I think SciRev is the most active, but I'm not certain about this. That said, in my experience, the actual rating information on these is not of much value. Uptake is pretty slow, and most of the reviews I've seem to just very high marks indiscriminately. As a result, you can't infer too much from the tiny sample sizes available. The information about time to result, review quality, etc. might be useful in principle, but in practice again you've got tiny sample sizes and probably a selection bias as well in terms of who submits reviews -- though I don't know which way this selection bias would go.
Nature wrote a news piece (not paywalled) about these sites in early 2015.

I would like to provide an update on what Corvus already wrote back in 2015.
The URLs provided are not alive anymore, it is only SciRev that I could find, on a new domain: SciRev.org
As Corvus remarked, quality scores are questionable, but I found review period feedback useful. SciRev still has very small sample size for journals of my interest, but even with 3-4 reviews, coming from different users - you get at least some idea on the timing. In my perception, reported time periods tend to converge - therefore, it can serve you as somewhat valid indication.

In addition to SciRev, the review site already mentioned in previous answers, there is the Humanities Journal Wiki.
SciRev is broader in scope, and while it does contain entries for humanities journals, the site seems to concentrate on the sciences.  SciRev is also highly structured: users wishing to review a journal fill out largely quantitative questionnaires on the review process, which are then used to produce statistics on review times, submitter satisfaction, etc.  It's also possible to submit free-form reviews, though these are optional and go through a vetting process before being published on the website.  This process can take some time; of the two reviews I submitted last week, one was published within a few days and the other still hasn't been published.  Overall I like the concept and design of the site, though for most of the journals I'm interested in, there are next to no submitted reviews.
By contrast, the Humanities Journal Wiki is limited in scope to humanities journals.  It's a wiki that anyone can edit, even without registration—this lowers the bar to participation, which probably explains why the site seems a lot more active than SciRev.  Since all reviews are free-form, it's not possible to quantitatively compare journals, and reviews are wildly different in terms of what information they provide.  On the whole, though, I find it to be more useful for choosing a submission venue.


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How to write/represent the state-of-the-art analysis in a research paper?
I have found that one of the most common remarks from the reviewers is regarding the "state-of-the-art". Especially in terms of applied research. Something like:

The authors have not discussed the state-of-the-art methods properly.
The experiment/results should be compared with the state-of-the-art methods.
Etc.

As a novice researcher, my questions are:

What exactly does "state-of-the-art" mean in applied research?
How to properly discuss or analyse the state-of-the-art method in a paper? Should it be discussed in the literature review section only or somewhere else too?
In terms of applied research (like the application of data mining algorithms), how to compare the obtained results with the results of state-of-the-art methods? How to consider the results of state-of-the-art methods as a baseline and compare your own results with it?

Could anyone please explain with examples?

Could anyone please explain with examples? — Presumably you've read several applied research papers yourself.  (Otherwise, how do you know what other people have done?)  Use those papers as your examples.

State of the art means the best known methodology. This should have turned up in your literature review and if it didn't  you have a gap. The gap would likely be in finding results in very recent papers.
The first reviewer comment could mean that you haven't actually found and discussed the current best available method to compare with, or that you are somehow misrepresenting it in your paper.
But it isn't enough to discuss in in the lit review section. You need to explicitly show how your results compare with the results of the best available.  Very possibly it would be a long section of a thesis, though page limits in papers provide a constraint. If your results are superior, you need to show how and discuss why.
As to number 3 on your list, the methodology you use is up to you to design and should be consistent with practice in your field, unless it introduces, also, a new comparison metric, in which case that needs to be discussed in detail as well.
For data mining, probably something along the lines of applying the "best known" algorithms along with your own to the same set of data is likely appropriate.
But you need to assure the reviewers that you compare apples to apples so that the results are directly compared.
Sorry, I don't have any examples.

It's worth adding that in most of computer science you probably have code, an implementation of this or that method. A proper comparison with prior work would apply different implementations (including your own, of course) to some problems and evaluating the results. A further question is, actually, what kind of a metric you should use to evaluate the results.


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Sign of researcher's professional maturity
When one applies for an academic position (especially for a permanent one) or for a significant funding, (s)he is often asked to show his/her professional maturity in research in the motivation letter/research proposal (or sometimes one is asked to indicate how (s)he would reach this maturity).
The questions is: what are the signs of professional maturity in research that might be mentioned?
My background is theoretical mathematics but the question has little to do with a particular field as usually the positions and funding in question are for researchers from a broad range of scientific areas.

Signs of professional maturity in a researcher:

Having written and administered a grant proposal
Having been invited to sit on a review panel
Having been an invited speaker
Having guided or mentored students
Having organized a conference session
Having published a review paper

A list like this is indeed what I wanted to see. Concerning the last item -- you mean just a paper in a peer-reviewed journal or a paper that is itself a review on another paper/book?

Glad it's helpful.  I mean an article in a peer-reviewed journal that gives a comprehensive overview of a particular area of research.

An ambitious list indeed. I may not recall this as he 'sign of maturity' for a researcher but rather the 'peak of maturity'.

@ÉbeIsaac - Right!  These are definitely things that "might be mentioned"!

Independent research done. I.e., not as part of a guided thesis, not as a junior member in a research group or postdoc. Number of publications as sole author, or at least publications with a variety of coauthors (not just a flurry of papers with the advisor).
More broadly, all research is relevant, the more the merrier; but I'd stress the above points when evaluating proposals (or a colleague for promotion).
I'd say just go for it. Show all you have. If they reject your proposal, you can certainly use it to build the next one. If you don't apply, I'll guarantee you won't get it.

Concerning the text I am working on right now I can not just put everything I have -- there are severe page limitations, everything should be precisely in its place and there is a separate CV section so I would not just copy from it.

@demitau, concentrate on the points I mention. Could also ask for precisions.


text:
Change advisors?
My advisor is changing institutions, and I am at the end of my 4th year in a computational biology program and have passed through all my formal requirements. I have no publications due to the nature of my project.
What would it mean to change advisors at this point. I have been supported by my fellowship ever since I joined this lab (three years), but my funding will be over starting this upcoming academic year. Either my current advisor or advisor I switch to will have to support me with their funding.

How are we supposed to answer this question? Obviously we can't make a decision for you, and we know less about your particular situation than you do - so what do you want us to tell you that you don't already know?

A more specific/suitable question would be: What a change of advisors would mean at this point of the phd? Is this related to what you want to know?

Is it worth it? is really up to you. Please clarify why you used your own fund up to now? Who is supporting you? Are you looking for funding at this time?

please see changes above

One important piece of information you give here is that you do not have any publications. I can't comment precisely about the field of computational biology, but in many fields (e.g. engineering, CS...) this will adversely affect your prospects for an academic position after you finish your PhD. I would say that you should make publishing a priority, and decide accordingly.
If you are close to getting results from your current project with your advisor, you could consider continuing. If the project is a true dead-end, you could consider making changes; but another option could be to finish as soon as possible and try to somehow find a post-doc position in a setting where you can be more productive.

Without publications it is rather difficult to find a post-doc without the word of your supervisor/professors.

@MikeyMike - true; hence, "somehow."


text:
Remote postdoc in the US legal questions
I have a postdoc fellowship in Europe that will end in several months and I am considering applying for a remote postdoc (my field is theoretical/computational and does not require any in-person work by default). I don't really know what are the formalities related to this kind of contracts.
I was thinking about such postdoc in the US. I only have a Russian passport but I had worked in the US before and I have an SSN and an active US bank account. Currently I don't have a valid US visa (and it would be probably difficult to get a new one for me). Is there a chance I might get a contract like that, at least theoretically? Or it does not even make sense to think about it?
UPD: the answer by @user2768 below suggests it is possible but depends on the willingness of the US institution to work with a company-proxy in my country of residence. Does anyone know how strong is this willingness in the actual COVID times? I.e. are there at least some examples of institutions that do something like that?

Stanford seems to allow it, at least currently.

You are a Russian, with a US social security number and a US bank account, but no current right to work in the US. (These details don't seem to help.) You are considering applying for a position in the US, with work being conducted remotely. You cannot be employed as a US employee, given that you have no right to work in the US.
You can be employed as a remote employee or contracted as a remote company. For the former, the employer would likely need to engage an intermediary to handle payments (unless they have operations in your country of residence). For the latter, you'd need to incorporate a company in your country of residence.
TL;DR: Yes, it is theoretically and practically possible, if the employer is willing to employ/contract you remotely. (I can't comment on the likelihood of an employer's willingness.)

Former option is the one I would consider, I guess. So basically it is "theoretically possible but unlikely that a regular US institution would want to bother with it, unless I had something really exceptional to offer".

I thought that perhaps now in COVID times US institutions would routinely contact a remote company to hire foreign postdocs. But apparently you suggest that it is not really the case, at least not yet

@demitau As I write, "it is theoretically and practically possible, if the employer is willing to employ/contract you remotely." I can't comment on whether particular institutes "would want to bother with it," I'm not "apparently...suggest[ing]" anything on that topic.

@demitau - many US funding agencies do not allow funding foreign work, remote or otherwise. For example, most NSF grants only fund the US side of a collaboration - no US$ go overseas. (Yes, there are NSF grants to support US persons overseas, but I don't know of any to support non-US persons overseas.)

@JonCuster It's a bit different for NIH; there are still some restrictions, but NIH funds some foreign research. I don't know much about that process, though, and I believe it always has to be justified during the granting process, I don't think you could add someone after the fact. Covid times are a bit odd, though.


text:
First sentence of a research proposal
I am writing a research proposal and I can not choose the right very first sentence to start the introduction. My research is purely theoretical.
Let's assume I want to study a mathematical model of dynamics of wolfpacks distribution in last 100 years in country C.
There is a separate section for objectives so I would not start from aims.
What would you write to start?
I have several ideas but neither of them looks totally convincing for me.

Wolves are very important
Wolfpacks distribution is very important
Wolfpacks distribution dynamics is very important
Analysis of ecological data is important
In recent years study of wolves/wolfspack distribution/wolfpacks distribution dynamics has received much attention
Many problems of something are related to wolfpacks distribution dynamics
Mathematical modelling of ecological processes has been proved to be useful in analysis of many things over years.

If I were writing a paper I would not care much about it but here people say, that the first words are of particular important and I don't want loose points.
EDIT: As question got popular and everybody wants to correct my orthographic error in "wolfs", I correct it myself.

1, 2, 3, 4: extremely weak -- important to who? 6: If you can't tell us the something, it probably doesn't exist. 5: Has it really? 7: Almost a tautology, but it's the only one in this set that doesn't provoke immediate pushback. Why aren't you discussing this with folks at your own school?

Just a tip for #7 - never use the word "thing" if you can avoid it. There's just about always a more descriptive noun that you could use instead.

@keshlam The phrases were not meant to be just copied and pasted --- something like "important to who" would have been added. Probably I should have specified it explicitly. Unfortunately I don't have many people having successful experience in writing such things nearby. There is one person but I would like to have more opinions.

Nitpick, but it is wolves, not wolfs.

Okay, another nitpick, but it should be "important to whom". (prepositional pronoun)... sorry, I can't help myself with the grammar stuff. :)

The first paragraph of any paper or proposal is always the hardest for me to write, and the first sentence is the hardest part of that paragraph.  In my experience, no matter what I write, it sounds hackneyed; fortunately, the same is true of everybody else's first sentences, including all of the sentences you and other other answers have suggested.  I used to spend days agonizing over the precise choice of words in each opening sentence.
So a few years ago, I adopted the following strategy, which works surprisingly well:

Typeset the phrase INSERT FIRST GRAF HERE in bold red 18-point text at the top of the first page of your proposal.  Promise yourself that you will write this paragraph only at the very end, after you've written and polished everything else.
Start writing the second paragraph, which explains in broad strokes the substance of your proposed research.  Assume that the first paragraph has already explained how novel/important/cool the research area is.
Make sure your introduction includes a few paragraphs describing specific prior work and its impact, as well as the specific work you are proposing and its potential impact.  Keep it high-level; this is just the elevator pitch.  You'll include a more detailed description of both of these points later.
When you are completely finished writing and polishing the rest of the proposal, delete the phrase INSERT FIRST GRAF HERE from the top of the first page and submit the proposal.

Yes, I really have done this, multiple times; and yes, the resulting proposals were funded.
To put it more bluntly: Just get to the point.

Wait, in step 3 do you write the first paragraph of the proposal, or the second? Does the first paragraph ever get written?

Brilliant advice, and also works for papers.  The best first paragraph?  Usually the second paragraph.  Continue to cut off from the top iteratively until satisfied. :)

Absolutely. This trick is one of those I learned when breaking through a near-total writing block.

Indeed I already have done what you are suggesting --- I have an almost-complete-for-submission proposal and I am trying to shape the introduction. However even having everything else written I am having a hard time in choosing the first phrase. I can't choose whether I should start from motivation for my work or from the context description.

@PeteL.Clark See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_style#Paragraphs and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nut_graph — Of course I would be embarrassed to use the word "graf" in an actual proposal or paper, which is precisely why I use it in embedded notes to myself.

@demitau However even having everything else written I am having a hard time in choosing the first phrase. — You've missed my point entirely.  You don't need a first sentence.  So don't write one.  Have a little respect for your readers; assume their attention span will last longer than the first six words. — I can't choose whether I should start from motivation for my work or from the context description. — Flip a coin.

While I think JeffE's answer is still the best and most generic, there is a second strategy to reinforcing your front lines: throw the best names in the field on the front lines, by using citations.  I believe in citing heavily.  First, it's good practice and great for cross-referencing later. Second, people you cite might be reviewing you if they're in any way relevant (so better make sure you're representing their main points right).  Finally, it allows you to skip explaining things that others have already done a good job with.

Moe (2014), Larry (2015), and Curly et al. (2013; 2015) have indicated
  that this a critical period for studying wolf dynamics, due to (timely
  problem, such as tundra erosion in the Arctic) and advances in (your
  method), which can identify key tipping points.  These techniques can
  not only reverse the decline of wolfpacks, but in fact introduce a new
  world dominated by wolves, in a Planet of the Apes (Schaffner, 1968)
  type scenario. A society of wolves will completely reshape how science in
  wolfpack dynamics is conducted, enabling self-directed wolf research.

Well, maybe not the last couple. However, in total, that paragraph does the following rhetorical moves:

Top people say: This is the time to solve Problem
Problem + My New Method = Solution
Solution => Broader Impacts
Solution => Change in Research Practice

While you don't want to oversell, those are the main points you want to reinforce. Say them if you believe them and think others will consider them if you can back them up with sound methodology. In general, I would say introducing a research concept requires saying:

Why it is important: What are the consequences? Why do we need more basket-weaving Maker Spaces? As a general rule, the more people it kills and the faster it kills them, the more money is spent on researching it (hence why rail guns and cancer medicine are both well-funded).
What is the research impact (ceiling): How long have people been debating it? How much will it change how everyone does their research in the future?
Why now: Why can we do it now, but it wasn't done before?  Additionally, what makes you so special? Why can you do it but others won't/can't?
What is the research impact (floor): Even if your approach fails miserably, what would be learned then?

You have the whole proposal to prove this (show, don't tell), but it's good to at least summarize a couple times in the proposal.

P.S. Be polite and please don't steal my basket-waving Maker Spaces idea. Given the recent fervor, I think NSF might offer at least a community-building grant on that... ;)  "The intersection of wearable computing and Maker Spaces through solar basket-hats will revolutionize STEM research, which has previously been dominated by crude tin-foil hats that barely store any electronic information."

Good answer. You're aware of this post, right? :)

I do recall running across that, now that you mention it.  Though after re-reading, I'm really starting to reconsider if I should instead pitch some boat-programming...

I find the way you have expressed your example and interest somewhat confusing and potentially weak, independent of all your suggested phrasings.
I am going to take the fact that you don't know the plural of "wolf" as a subtle clue that you are not actually interested in "the dynamics of wolfpacks [sic] distribution in last 100 years in Country C" and are just choosing an example.  But because you have chosen an entirely made up example it's not clear to me what you mean when you say your research is "purely theoretical".  Doing purely theoretical research in a very (almost ridiculously) specific mathematical modelling problem just doesn't make much sense to me: if you are interested in the underlying mathematics of the model then it must be more generalizable than just wolves in Country C or what's the point?  Or, if you are specifically interested in wolves in Country C then shouldn't there be some practical reason for this?  Well, in fact there doesn't have to be: maybe every single animal group in every single country is worthy of some academic studying a mathematical model of the dynamics of their distribution across a given time scale.  But there's the problem: this probably is worthy of study in some abstract, all knowledge is sacred sense, but as you are writing a competitive research proposal, something which is worthy of study only in some abstract way along with thousands of other similar things does not sound very competitive for funding.
I suggest that your problems may be more fundamental than writing: you need to identify why and in what way your proposed research is valuable.  Really valuable: as in more valuable than someone else's. This is often truly difficult and makes the writing of such proposals emotionally intense (I speak from experience).  In particular in mathematics there is some tension between the pure and the applied: tension not so much in the subject matter itself but in its relative value in the sense of research funding.  If you are going to put in a mathematics research proposal, it needs have clear value as a piece of theoretical mathematics or have truly promising applications.  Or both.  (Since you do mathematics, you surely know that "or" is inclusive!)  Both would be great.  The problem is that what you're proposing sounds like it is attempting to stake out a position of value somewhere strictly between theoretical and applied, but that is not a locus of recognized value.  In general, if there are clearly defined, venerable successful topics of interest A_1,...,A_n, and you pitch a proposal that is some kind of convex combination of them, then unless at least one of the coefficients has value very close to 1 then you are likely to lose out to all of the people who are vigorously doing any one of A_1,...,A_n.  Again, I speak from experience.

I agree that it is somewhat confusing but I wanted to hear some general words to adapt them in my situation later. I have not said that I have a purely theoretical interest, I have said it about my research -- in fact I am doing pure math that is motivated by problems coming from mathematical models analysis in other sciences. Of course I am mentioning it in the proposal text. Your comments more related to the proposal text overall whereas I am really asking about its very start (I have already written and 90% polished proposal as suggested in the JeffE's comment).

@demitau: I adjusted the language slightly.  When I said research interests, I meant the research you are discussing in the proposal.  Yes, my comments are about the proposal as a whole, which is more important than the first sentence.  However the first sentence should speak to the core research interest in your proposal.  None of your proposed first sentences prioritize the theoretical aspects of the mathematics, which is problematic (and perhaps indicative of a larger issues in the text; you haven't shown us that).

I am a pure mathematician, and I have never read a paper or research proposal in pure mathematics which begins by talking about wolves...or any other "motivating" real world objects.  I would go so far as to say that pure mathematics is not really motivated by real world objects like wolves...at least not as strongly as it is motivated by other considerations.  If I were reading your proposal then already from the first sentence I would feel that you are not working in "my field"....

....But then the part about being "purely theoretical" is going to have the opposite effect for many applied mathematicians.  Do you see what I'm trying to say?  Even in your very brief schematic description of your research you are saying things which are convincing both groups that you are not fully in their club.  That's exactly what you don't want to do: rather, you want to convince each group that you are a full-fledged member.

Anyway, of course this is just my impression based on what you've agreed is not actually a literally accurate description of my research.  My parting piece of advice to you is: if you want useful critique on your writing, you should show your colleagues and mentors your actual writing.  Asking for critiques on things that you've made up so as not to show your actual writing is much less useful.

@demitau:  You specified that your research is "purely theoretical". Are you saying that you are working in the field of "pure mathematics"? And that your current research proposal is in the field of "pure mathematics"?  ... If so, the description of your topic (essentially mathematical modeling of animal behavior/migration patterns) sounds more like "applied mathematics". I think this is causing some confusion for Pete L. Clark (and myself, and perhaps others..).

@BethR. You know, it sometimes become difficult to distinguish between Applied and Pure math. I know renown people who seriously think that some of the Fields medallists did Applied math. I would describe my research as pure math analysis of problems that are mathematical models from applications. It has nothing to do with wolves but I have chosen them as the example because they are not ambiguous (otherwise I would have to explain more about my research, whereas I think that the thing I am asking about is more general).

@demitau: Okay, if you say so. :)  ... Either way, will you please promise to run a spelling and grammar check? I won't sleep well until I know that you are planning to do that... EVERY time you write & submit something. :)

@BethR. I have submitted my proposal yesterday. Of course I did the check before. So you can sleep well.

Just a quick comment -- Whichever sentences you choose, PLEASE run a spelling and grammar check! No matter how strong your first and any subsequent sentences might end up being, if they contain many spelling and grammar errors, then you're just defeating your own purposes.
Please note, I'm still not clear what you meant by saying, "Let's assume I want to study a mathematical model of dynamics of wolfpacks distribution..." ... In other words, is this what you will be writing about, or are you just using it here as an example?
Either way, you should pay attention to these types of spelling and grammar errors:

The plural of "wolf" is "wolves" (not "wolfs"!)
"wolfpack" is a singular noun. Therefore, when referring to distribution, you would say either: "wolfpack distribution" or "(the) distribution of wolfpacks"
Where you wrote: "In recent years study of..."
That should be:   "In recent years, the study of..."
"Wolfpacks distribution dynamics..."
should be: "Wolfpack distribution dynamics...", or "The dynamics of wolfpack distribution..."
(note the use of the singular noun, wolfpack)
"Mathematical modeling of ...has been proved to be useful..."
should be: "....has proven to be useful..."
Be sure you're using the correct spelling of "modelling" vs. "modeling". The accepted spelling can vary by country/region. In the U.S., it is typically spelled with one 'L' (modeling). In the U.K. & Canada it is generally spelled with two L's (modelling).

As others have stated, if you really can't think of a good first sentence (or a good first paragraph), just start working on the rest of it. You can always come back to finish the introduction later.
I often wait until the very end before I write the very beginning. :-)

If I were you, I would start with

I want to study a mathematical model of dynamics of wolfpacks distribution in last 100 years in country C.

I agree with this answer: Start by telling what you want to do with just a single sentence, but I would add the aim of the specific approach; evaluate the properties of the model? Use it to predict future wolfpack distributions?

I am not an ecologist, but I would start with something along the following lines:

Among the rich toolset of ecological research methods, mathematical
modeling plays a prominent role (-potential citations-). In particular, it is a popular method
  for studying distribution of species within a geographical area and,
  especially, the distribution's dynamics (-citations-).

I'm not an ecologist either, but I know what my biology teacher at high school would have written in the margin of that version: "Much wind and waffle". Cut to the chase and say what you actually want to do, before the reader gets bored and moves on to the next proposal in the pile!

@alephzero: I understand your point. However, I am sure that you are familiar with the term introduction and its role, which is to provide context to the core message. So, in my opinion, several paragraphs (and, especially, two sentences) is not "much wind and waffle", but setting the stage for a proposal, considering potential variations in skills and research interests of people, who might need to read and understand it, especially, from a high-level perspective.

This suggestion contains a lot of words I feel to be "fill words" that do not contribute to the content of the sentence [rich, prominent, popular, especially]. Some also feel subjective to me. What is a "rich" toolset? tens, hundreds, thousands? As mentioned - the "prominent" role of the method can be reasoned by citation (what would be a very universal claim; one can't know all sources that may rely on other methods). One of my professors provided us with a long list of fill words to avoid. I found this helpful, especially to get sentences shorter and more precise.

@AndréKleinschmidt: When delivering a proposal's (or any academic work's) core message, I also think that it should be more precise (to a certain degree, otherwise it will be too "dry"). However, for introduction, using several adjectives are OK, especially when they are to a large degree supported by literature, as I suggested.


text:
Postdoc positions: turning down alternative offers safely and timely
I have a situation that is probably quite standard, but I don't know the right way to act.
For several months I was looking for a postdoc job in computational neuroscience (probably exact field is not that important for the question but just in case) worldwide.
A couple of months ago a quite famous professor from a distant country (Japan) after a Skype interview told me that he is interested in me but he won't take the final decision until I give a job talk at his institution A. However he was busy for some time after our interview, so his institution bought me a airtickets (quite expensive ones) for a date after about two months. I have promised to inform him if I have other job offers.
Later I have actually received two other job offers from institutions B and C (both from USA), and I like one of them. So I said "yes" to the offer from B and they started to do the paperwork although they told me it should take a week or two for them to prepare an official appointment letter.
Here comes the problem: I was told by my colleagues that I should not turn down the job talk invitation from A and another offer from C, before I get the paperwork with B finished. However it is likely to be finished after I have to go the interview to that distant institution A. I have told the distant professor that I got an offer from B and that I put it on hold (at that time I did not finish making a decision yet). Later I realized that even if A professor makes an offer for me, I the offer from B is better, but I did not tell it to A yet. Professor from C also wants me to answer as soon as possible and wants me to discuss future projects.
So if I tell "no" to A and C now, there is a possibility that the paperwork process with B hangs for some reason (for example suddenly they may receive a better application from somebody else during these weeks) and I will be in an awkward situation. If I keep waiting for the paperwork in B to be finished, I would have to lie to A and C, and I would waste A's money on my ticket (though I would be happy to come to A and give the talk in any case, on my side), which is probably a not very scientifically moral thing to do.
Maybe I am wrong in being suspicious towards institution B, but I got an impression that postdoc position market in the US is very tough and everything might potentially happen and I do consider that it is a big luck for me to have an offer from B, as it is a quite famous place and I think there should be people with stronger CV's than mine, who might be interested in this position, announced publicly.
Could you please advise me, what would be the more academically correct way for me to act?

Giving a job talk is not a promise to accept the job if it is offered.  The job talk can have benefits for both sides even if there is no hire.

Here are some important points to consider:

Are you a bad person to take strategy x rather than y: no. You are fighting for your life here, while other institutions are fighting over having a nice person to talk to and some very minor travel allowance. Your needs take priority. Maximize your utility and don't think of anything else.
Will people or institutions remember any action or inaction on your part and hold a grudge forever? yes. people do that. it's a game theory thing that was set through natural selection. So, whatever you do is ok, but others may still get mad, to the point of even acting against their own interest just to hurt you. So even though you are morally allowed to do anything you want, acting in a way that will get people mad is not in your interest (and that's why we have the mechanism discussed above, to make other scared of making us mad).
Is the offer from institution B a sure thing: NO. Stuff does happen sometimes. You should not assume it will be ok.

So what can you do? First, you should let B know that you have other offers. You can also ask them if getting an offer from them is a sure thing or if instead you should pursue other possibilities for the time being. If nothing else, it will make them want you more.. If they say it's a sure thing and that you can stop looking elsewhere, and they respected people from a respectable institution, it's probably ok. But just to be sure, once you get such a response make sure to announce it to the world. Write on your homepage that you were promised an offer from them, put a copy of the letter on Facebook, do whatever you need to make sure that if they back out their image will suffer. Of course, in that case you should tell prof. A about your offer, explain that you would still be happy to visit and collaborate, and all the other yada yada.
If you don't get a firm commitment from B, then you should act accordingly. You can let Prof. A know that you have information from B that they may make you an offer (make him want you more..), but don't let him know that you will definitely go there once an offer is finalized. If he has any decency he will not ask: travel money is small change and he is making a new connection, this is beneficial for all parties anyway. If he does ask, simply say that you have not made a final decision and you prefer to only decide once you have a firm offer in your hand. If you then get an offer from B before the trip to A you can let A know that you got the offer and it fits you for oh so many reasons that you doubt that you would eventually choose A. But you would of course be happy to collaborate in the future, or visit to give a talk, and yada yada.

I have told B about other offers (and it helped me to negotiate a better salary). But even after asking them twice to send me some official document that would indicate that they are ready to hire me, before starting the hiring paperwork, they did not do that. The professor only have sent me an email offer written in a more formal English. So either he does not know how to make it, or he does not want to make it. But they started the hiring paperwork. What you suggest is close to what I was planning myself and the fact that somebody else thinks it is ok, makes me feel easier about it.

ok I'm glad my answer was helpful. But I just realized that you actually GOT an offer from B, not just an email indicating they will try to make you one. So actually when you get such an email from a professor at the department, cc'ed to an official in the university, saying you have an offer from them, THAT'S ENOUGH. The paperwork always takes time but a reputable institution will never go back on its words. You can rest assured that you'll be fine - even if there's a problem they will find a way to make it work. Still, making it known that you got the offer will lock it even tighter..

Anyway, finally I did it the following way. I got an official letter from B, signed by the department head when I was already in Japan and I got an offer from C as well after giving a successful talk. I have immediately turned down offer A. After I have returned from Japan, I have turned down the C offer as well, telling that I prefer the offer from B because it is better for me life-wise (scientific-wise they are more or less equivalent I would say), which is true. The Japanese professor was not very happy, but he told me that he understands my decision. So I think everything ended well.


text:
How to do the best PhD , brief tips to a new phD student?
I am a graduate student who has been  doing masters for a year and I am moving to PhD program in Chemical Engineering in the same University. My work is mostly computational , molecular modeling. My University is fairly reputed(70- 80 on US news) and my advisor is known in his field ,but our research group is small(3-4 graduate students).There are many postdocs and researchers on this website, As  a new phD student, if you could give some tips on how to do the best phD, to do good after my phD and stay in research field next, that would greatly helpful to many students like me .

Sorry, I'm afraid this question is much too broad (per the [help/dont-ask]). There are entire books that address this question (e.g.: The Unwritten Rules of PhD Research).


text:
How to describe a situation in which you "throw things at the wall and see what sticks" in a master thesis
For context, i'll describe the problem. I'm working in chromatography, and the first part of the work was to do TLC experiments to narrow mobile phase compositions for separation of valuable components of plant extracts through column chromatography. In these experiments, we found that there were impurities that could not be moved by ANY type of mobile phase. We tried several procedures, but none were effective, we just abandoned this problem because something else became evident.
I'm now writing the description of the events in my thesis, and I have a whole subsection with a structure of "we tried this, here is a picture, you can see it did not work", repeated something like 5 or 6 times. Those SHOULD have worked, but they didn't. Imagine having a car in which the engine chugs and does not start, you replace the whole engine, and then the car continues to not start.
I am therefore stuck in a situation in which I can only describe an additional two procedures as "throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks". I am however pretty sure you can't actually write that on a thesis. How should I express this?

Not an answer to your question, but possibly worth mentioning: in thesis writing, do not devote space in proportion to effort invested.

Difficult to answer without knowing its place in the thesis. How do these failed efforts relate to the overall contribution of the thesis? Usually I'd assume that a thesis focuses on a contribution/narrow topic and is not a chronological log of all you did. But if it is relevant for what you achieved (stepping stone to something that worked) I'd have no problem with a chapter describing what did not work. Although question remains — did it perhaps not work because you made errors in the implementation? (BTW, "should have worked but did not" is quite common, you're doing science. :-))

"Exploratory"..

did you also try mixtures? => combinatorial screening of solvents

also, you did an extensive search of solvents.

@ff524 Very true, but also very difficult to accept in the early stages of one's academic career.

It would be best to explain why such experiments were conducted along with supporting concepts that you would like to verify. It ought not to look like a random set of trials.
You may write something like this:

Concept X follows from [explanation of X]. This concept formed the hypothesis Y to justify the following experiments. ... Although the experimental results were negative, it would be of worth to note them here as to why they were so.

In my field we call it "trial-and-error" approach. It's not the best thing to do from a scientific point of view, but some times it's just faster.

So what would be a better thing to do from a scientific point of view then? For me, trial-and-error sounds like an inherently scientific approach.

A better approach is to base the selection of the trial / trial parameters on some supporting theory. If the trial fails, then you need to find the error in your theory or the trial implementation and fix it before trying again. Of course some trials will fail, however, there is a difference between knowing why something failed (bad calculations, wrong assumptions, contaminated experiment, etc.) and fixing it before trying again, and just "throwing on the wall to see what sticks".


text:
How can I ensure the copyrights of my work during expert interviews (data collection)?
I have to conduct some interviews for my PhD with people from industry.
I need them to review my proposed method in order to validate it.
However, I might need to send my work to those who I cannot conduct the interviews with them face to face. So how can I ensure the copyrights of my work? I am going to publish the method and the results right after I finish the interviews but how can I ensure that my work is not going to be used or sent to others before I publish it.

This is not a question of copyright but of intellectual property, such as addressed by patents and similar.

@NajibIdrissi: Copyright is what prevents the others from taking OP's work and just redistributing as is. – Not exactly; copyright is about dissemination and publishing. That would go some steps further than what the OP is worried about.

You (sometimes your institution or employer) own the copyright of your work unless you sell or give it to someone else. What you need here is not copyright but a non-disclosure agreement. Check with your institution's legal or IP office for standard NDA contracts.

@NajibIdrissi That's copyright for you Nope.

@NajibIdrissi: is there a meaningful difference between "redistributing" and "disseminating and publishing"? – Redistributing is broader and includes handing a single physical copy around (without actually copying it). Also, copying in small numbers for private purposes and similar is typically not covered by copyright (although it somewhat falls in the domain).

@NajibIdrissi: So in fact what OP wants goes further than copyright, yes? – Depends on your point of view, e.g. (very roughly), whether you put more value to ideas or concrete works. What the OP is worried about is only partially covered by copyright. In particular, in the most likely scenarios, copyright is not relevant at all.

Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/23874/10643

@NajibIdrissi: Are we talking in circles? – I do not see how. Copyright is still only marginally relevant to this question and when the OP uses the word copyright, they are almost certainly wanting to talk about something else.

Publish a preprint beforehand.

@user2768 do you mean publishing the method alone( without results and analysis) before conducting the interviews? and if I did that, can I still publish in a journal?

@user58840, I don't know what you have, so I wasn't advocating any particular publishing strategy. But you can publish a preprint (e.g., a technical report) before revealing any material. And this doesn't preclude publishing in a journal. (Personally, I wouldn't concern myself with peers stealing my work and I disclose my work without any protection mechanisms in place.)

Short answer: You can't.
Firstly: Copyright extends to your text and figures, and slight modifications thereof. If someone submits that to a journal, you will have all the proof you need to sue him, because you can show the raw data, plus a halfdozen witnesses that saw you write it. Nobody in his right mind would even try.
If they steal your ideas: Tough luck. How will you prove they got them from you? If they're working in the same field, it's not unreasonable they've come to the same conclusions.
Anyway, companies are usually not interested in publishing, except to keep some other company from patenting, or for marketing reasons, in which case they'd rather have your name on the paper than their own.


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Does anyone know how long the peer review process usually takes in the human-computer interaction journal
Does anyone know how long the peer review process usually takes in the human-computer interaction journal (http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hhci20/current)?
I couldn't find any information in their website

I looked at your link... for the first article I clicked on we see:

Received 28 Apr 2015, Accepted 16 Aug 2016, Accepted author version posted online: 01 Sep 2016

So it looks like 16 months in that case.


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submitting two papers (the second depends on the first) simultaneously to the same journal?
I have two studies that are related to each other (The second paper depends on the first one, but it is another study.) I want to submit them simultaneously to the same journal.
Is this acceptable? should I notify the editor in the cover letter that I have 2 papers?

Would it make more sense for them to be a single paper?

@AustinHenley i thought about it, but each study uses a different method and addresses a different issue (but the second study is based on the first one). I was planning on submitting them at different times, but it happened that I delayed publishing the first one, and now i have both ready. I am also pressed on time and i want to submit both.

In what sense does the second depend on the first?

Is it "A and B depend on each other" (like you write in the title) or "B depends on A" (like you claim in the body of the question)?

Yes on both counts.

You should certainly notify the editor in the cover letter. He or she might want to send both paper to the same referees. If he or she finds it dubious, you do not want her or him to discover it after the fact.

The problem is the part of "depends on each other" - if they are separate works, they should stand on their own, as they are going to be reviewed (and potentially read/published) separately. If one cannot stand without the other that's a pretty easy reject for each paper.
Now, it's perfectly acceptable to have two papers that build upon each other. I think I've personally seen a maximum of 3 papers, which end-to-end build upon each other, and were all presented at the same conference.
The key is that each paper must be worthy in its own right, and you must frame each acceptably. I'll use an example from what I witnessed working:
Paper 1: Establish a method fully described in Paper 1 to decide if a person is thinking of Object A or Object B. Mostly theoretical, describing machine learning algorithms and with only a small sample of data to establish if it worked.
Paper 2: Extend method described in 1 to an experiment with human participants, in two experiments which used different approaches of applying the method and tested on a good sized sample of participants. Starts to show potential practical applications of this method, and also highlights issues of accuracy, confusion, how to design objects that are more easily discriminated, etc.
Paper 3: Use methods from Paper 1 and lessons learned in Paper 2 and apply them to a live video game controller scheme, and report the findings on how it worked and what participants thought of the system, which was interesting because the system wasn't all that accurate and it made the games harder.
Each paper had their own unique contributions, and other than a similar intro, listening to all three talks was fascinating, and each paper was it's own accomplishment. If any of the three papers were rejected, the others would still have been appropriate for publication, and you didn't really need to read them in order or all of them to appreciate each one.
So, in the end it is fine if you submit papers that are improved by each other, and which are intimately linked, and even which are better together but which have a different focus and are better written up separately. But if both papers are inextricably linked and truly, strongly depend on each other, that is grounds for rejection of both of them (at least in fields I'm familiar with). This could vary by field, of course.
Ideally, you could make each one sufficiently self-contained as to stand on it's own merits, and still reference each other, making it clear how the papers are distinct and the focus and/or experiment is different. If that isn't possible, I don't know how approaching the editor would help as I haven't seen such a situation, so I'll have to leave it to someone else to advise about that.

My answer takes into account your comments (that you believe the two papers should be published separately from each other, and that you want to submit both papers as soon as possible):
Whether or not this is acceptable depends on the journal. Some might explicitly state that it is not acceptable in the author submission guidelines. Others might not list this policy outright, but will raise the issue if you attempt to submit the second paper while the first is still under review.
I recommend that if you can't find anything in the author guidelines, you should submit the first paper now, and then email an editor with an inquiry regarding their policies on submitting the second paper.
If you do decide to submit both papers to the same journal simultaneously (which I don't recommend in my experience, though I do understand that some journals may be okay with), then you should address your reasoning for doing so in the cover letter.


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My diploma does not have a signature on it
Context: I completed a doctoral degree in Italy at the end of last year (2022). I am now preparing to apply for a research position in France, and one of the required documents is a certification of equivalence for my degree. The latter requires me to present the final degree in the original language.
I requested copies of my PhD certificate in Italian and English; these were not free, I had to pay 16 euro of stamp duty on each and a further 16 euros for the request. In spite of requesting on several occasions that I be provided with paper versions (which I even offered to pick up in person) the administrative staff of the Doctoral School insisted that since CoViD, emailed PDF documents are standard and so they refused that request.
I have now received the "PDF certificates" (which appear to me more like 'diploma supplements', but that's a separate concern), and was surprised to find no obvious mark to certify that these are official documents; in particular, no signature. At the end of (the English version of) the document is written (I have omitted some identifying details),

Revenue fee virtually paid - Authorization of the [regional body + date].
[Town , date]
The head officer, [name]
The data of this certification are extracted from the automated information system of this institution.
Signature is omitted according to item 3, comma 2 of the Legislative Decree 12/02/1993 n. 39.

The lack of signature was concerning to me. After doing some research, I discovered here that the quoted law justifying the omission of the signature was revoked in 2016, that such omissions are now only acceptable for "mass-mailing third parties" and that the unsigned version "carries no legal value". EDIT: I should have checked the claims of this source directly. Indeed, they are mistaken about which part of the law in question was revoked (see here). I have edited the questions below accordingly.
I am following up with the university to try and get some answers, but my question for you is: is the absence of a signature a problem, as far as "officialness" of the document goes? Does it actually matter? Will future employers accept this document as evidence of my degree anyway, even without an electronic signature of any kind? In case it's relevant, I previously obtained a signed confirmation letter which I have been using in applications up to this point (and which I did not have to pay for).

The link you post is a for-profit software company that offers an alternative e-signature system, I would not necessarily trust anything they say in reference to the validity of other signatures.

Good point. Checked and edited accordingly.

Poor word choice on my part. I do not have an "original". Not only was one not automatically issued to me, but I had to go through a bureaucratic procedure to obtain it (whence the question). I would say I find this surprising, but after 3 years in Italy I know this to be typical...

There is no answer here. No one can say how "future employers" will respond.
However, the "failure" here, if any, isn't yours but due to some institutional bottleneck or other flaw. These sorts of things can normally be explained to employers. There are so many systems of certification around the world that employers just have to cope.
Unless there are other reasons for someone to suspect fraud, there is little fear that you would be disadvantaged. You can always point to the department that awarded the degree and/or your advisor, who will probably be happy enough to verify that you've properly been awarded the degree.
If a system is so bureaucratic that it can't accept this and insists (insists) on such a formality, then you may not want to work there in any case.


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Should conference papers in computer science contain full proofs, and should these be checked by reviewers?
I am a mathematician. In my subject, the normal means of disseminating research is to write it up with full and detailed proofs of the main results, which are then typically subjected to a rigourous peer-review process which can often take several years.
Much of my work, however, has an overlap with theoretical computer science, and I am often asked to referee articles sent to computer science conferences, which sometimes seem to me to have a slightly less rigourous review process. Therefore I have the following questions:

As a reviewer, should I insist that CS conference papers contain full proofs of their main results?
Should referees of conference papers actually check these proofs before accepting an article for publication?

These questions stem from a number of bad reviewing experiences I've had recently (as reviewer), in which I've rejected papers for basically a lack of rigour. One, which was submitted to a highly reputable conference, contained about ten additional pages of key proofs in a technical appendix, which was to be consulted ''at the reviewer's discretion'', and which would not have formed part of the final article. I rejected this on the basis that not only were the proofs themselves highly suspect (obviously grounds enough), but that the reader would never have had access to them and would have had to take everything on trust!
However, it turned out that I was the only reviewer who had these issues. The others were not only happy to have the main technical content of the paper relegated to a disposable appendix, but had not even bothered reading it! Eventually the paper did get rejected, but only after a fair amount of arguing on my part.
This is not by any means my only experience of this kind of attitude in computer science peer-reviewing (which would be frankly unthinkable in mathematics), but it illustrates the kind of problems I have as a reviewer.
I understand that there are cultural differences here, and that the speed of the conference system has its merits, so I am wondering whether I am being unfair to judge this system by the standards of rigour one normally expects from mathematical journals?

-1 Either the proofs were wrong or not. I do not understand what "highly suspect" means. Right now your question seems like a rant about CS vs math. Voted to close.

Well a proof can be wrong, it can also be incomplete, it can be lots of things that prevent it from being a proper proof. But that was hardly the point I'm trying to make. The question I'm asking is very clearly stated.

"Should there be rigour?" Of course it should. "Is there rigour in highly reputed TCS conferences?". Of course there is. "Being a reviewer limited n times proves that there is not rigour ?" Of course not. This is the textbook definition of an incomplete proof.

Again, none of these were points that I was trying to make.

It's not clear to me what you're asking. Are you asking whether you, as a reviewer, should insist on full proofs for CS conference papers and check them thoroughly? Are you asking why the review process for CS conferences does not seem as rigorous as  the review process for mathematics journals? Are you asking us whether we think CS conferences should adopt a more rigorous review process than your experiences suggest they currently use? (I voted to close because I read it as that last one.)

Actually I was primarily aiming towards the first and second rather than the last, but I accept your point about clarity. I will try to phrase questions better in the future.

You can [edit] your post to clarify and it may potentially be reopened. (Just as 5 votes can close a question, 5 votes can reopen it.) I suggest reading the [help/dont-ask] on how to ask a "good subjective" question (by Stack Exchange criteria) and clarify accordingly.

I have edited the question to reflect your intention (which you commented on above). Please, check to make sure that I have maintained the spirit of your question. If you don't like the edits, you can always rollback to a previous version of the question. Voting to reopen.

I've edited it myself now, in particular removing the disclaimer which I do not consider necessary (it's hopefully now clear what my questions are, so there is no need to state what my questions are not).

Your call (though, the disclaimer would have helped to prevent the question from getting closed in the first place).

Well instead I've tried to tone down the bits that might be construed as a vague and unproductive attack on the conference system, so hopefully this achieves the same goal.

OP's question is a matter of intense debate and disagreement among (at least a subset of) the theoretical computer science research community. I fully support your argument for rejection on the grounds that the proofs would not be available to the reader, but this is a minority opinion.

"Rigour" is a nice sounding word. I like the way it feels when I say it. But aside from making nice sounds, it has some issues:

... which are then typically subjected to a rigorous peer-review process which can often take several years.

Let's forget about how nice the word sounds and take a stab at a pros and cons analysis of having fast-to-write, fast-to-review, fast-to-publish, not-so-rigorous conference papers.
Pros:

Time-to-publish is reduced (moving from a couple of years to a couple of months), meaning that results can have impact faster.
Other authors will become aware that there are results in this area, rather than trying to prove results that have already been proven but are stuck in a multi-year peer-review process.
Reviewers have to expend less effort reviewing less rigorous papers in a less rigorous way. They can use that excess effort elsewhere.
Authors have to expend less effort to write less rigorous papers. They can use that excess effort elsewhere.
The ability to write less rigorous papers does not preclude the possibility of writing a follow-up paper that is more rigorous.
Authors have something to lose by publishing incorrect non-rigorous results: their reputation. (Not really a pro, rather more of a check-and-balance.)

Cons:

Less rigorous papers may be more prone to being incorrect. This may lead to incorrect papers building on these results.
Once a lack of rigour seeps in, one is on a slippery slope. Without any rigour, one is not proving anything. The whole thing become pointless.

I do not believe in some absolute notion of "rigour" for any non-trivial proof. I believe it's a relative term. One writes proofs for one's audience. The notion of "rigour" is thus community dependent. It is up to a community to decide what level of "rigour" is most appropriate for that community. If the "rigour" drops too low and incorrect results become a problem, the community should adjust. If the "rigour" becomes too high and reviewers have to spend months checking the dotted i's and crossed t's on long proofs for results that are simply not worth that effort, then that will carry its own costs, particularly in terms of the capacity of the community to do work, where diversity of work will inevitably become the first victim (the trend will be towards safe incremental papers).
Applying the standards of rigour from one community to another is, in my mind, thus inappropriate in and of itself. Rigour is, in my mind, not the goal. The goal, in my mind, is that the community be "productive" in whatever notions they and society deem productive (in the sense that society, after all, is funding this cost, and will not continue to fund this cost if the community is expending its capacity in pursuing rigour for rigour's sake).
tl;dr: I believe that "rigour" is a means, not an ends. I think if you really want to take exception to the lack of rigour in a community, you should show that the cons are outweighing the pros, which is to say you should highlight incorrect results and the time wasted by the community on following-up those incorrect results. Simply arguing that community A chooses to have less rigour than community B and thus community A is doing something wrong, is, in my mind, insufficient as an argument. You need to argue that the perceived lack of rigour is a problem.

A conference paper in TCS is usually best seen as an abstract or an advertisement of the full paper.
The full paper should appear in e.g. ArXiv before the conference, and it should eventually be published in a journal.
It is perfectly normal that there are some proofs that are in the appendix in the submitted version and entirely missing in the final conference version. The reader can find the omitted details in ArXiv.

and it should eventually be published in a journal. On this site, you will find some rather interesting discussion on conference papers vs. journal papers in the TCS field, and which is the norm, more prestigious, etc. (e.g., here and there). When you say "should eventually be published," do you mean it is expected, or it would be nice but not "required?"

@MadJack If a conference paper refers to a full version, then it is certainly expected that the full version would one day appear somewhere. Of course it does not always happen, but in the long term I think a pretty good fraction of papers that have had long-term impact have also eventually appeared in journals. (Not because journals are prestigious, but because it is a good scientific practice.)

I see, thanks. Regarding the main question in this thread: generally speaking, if authors of a TCS conference paper cite their, e.g., arXiv paper, which contains more rigor, proofs, etc., would you say that it is common for conference referees to consult the arXiv paper and ensure it's correctness prior to recommending acceptance (assuming the conference paper has no other show-stopping flaws)?

While there is a cultural expectation that TCS conference papers will eventually appear in full on the arXiv or in journals, it is a weak expectation.  In practice, a significant fraction (if not a majority) of TCS conference papers do not eventually appear in full on the arXiv or in journals.

Is this even an expectation that people actually expect? Or is it just a cultural gesture at this point?

Dentists expect their patients to floss twice a day.

Some paper submissions link to a technical report containing proofs. But calls for papers make it clear reviewers aren't required to read those proofs.

What you're describing is quite common. Page limit in a conference can be, say, 15 pages, and in this case there's no way to include a 10 page proof in the main text. It is also likely that the proof is not seen as the main contribution of the paper.
Proceedings of the conference will indeed not include the appendices, but often authors upload papers to their web-pages, to their institutions' repositories, etc, so the proofs may be eventually accessible to the readers.

Please allow me to make some comments. (1) It is also likely that the proof is not seen as the main contribution of the paper. Then how do we verify the main contribution of the paper? (2) so the proofs may be eventually accessible to the readers. The OP is asking  Should conference papers in computer science contain full proofs, and should these be checked by reviewers? not whether the proof is accessible.

The silence I am witnessing on this thread related to the following issue is deafening. Proceedings of the conference will indeed not include the appendices, but often authors upload papers to their web-pages, to their institutions' repositories, etc, so the proofs may be eventually accessible to the readers. — I get the conference-paper-page-limit problem. However, if a more detailed paper exists somewhere (arXiv, personal webpage, etc.), is it common practice that the conference referees will actually look at it to ensure correctness of the conference paper results?

@scaaahu Should the papers also contain source code and datasets? In many cases, you cannot verify the main contribution without them.

@JouniSirén In some purely theoretical computer science papers, say a paper concerning Turing computability, there is no source code or dataset associated with it, only mathematical proofs would be at issue. I was talking about that case.


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How to cite USGS website refereing Landsat accuracy?
I want to cite the official Geometric accuracy of the Landsat imagery, published by USGS on their website http://landsat.usgs.gov/geometry.php. The citation is suggested for a scientific journal.
I am using Mendeley, which ask me to fill in:

Title: Geometric Accuracy of Geometry???
Authors: USGS??? or United States Geological Survey??
Publication: Landsat Missions??
Year: 2016 - I think this is obvious
Pages: ??? What??? pages on website?

Date Accessed: - should I use the american or UK type of date? my paper is written in american english.

Doesn't Mendeley have a form for websites? They are a different category than books or papers in any reference style and in bibtex. Regarding date: I think you should use either ISO format (yyyy-mm-dd) or write the month in letters. Anything else is source of confusion.

Mendeley ask me to fill those information. I am not sure, if I indicate them right.

What are you writing for (thesis, journal, ect.)? That will dictate the answer to your formatting questions.

I am citing for a scientific journal

Each journal is different. I would follow follow the journal's directions. Some are okay with citing webpages as formal citations. Other require webpages to be cited as inline citations.

Personally, I would try to cite the project documentation, which has its own official page, rather than the webpage documentation.
Alternatively, if you cannot find those details in a tech report, I would cite the webpage as a user manual with a URL.
Last, for your specific style questions are unanswerable without knowing your target venue (e.g, journal, report, thesis, etc.).

that's a great source ! thank you ! however, on my website, there are geometry information for Landsat TM, ETM, LE - which are splitted in tech reports. that's why I preffer to cite the whole website ...

The Tech reports have undergone a formal review and publication process. Personally, I would cite them because they are a more rigorous source.