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A journal has published an AI-generated article under my name. What to do?
The Global International Journal of Innovative Research  has published a fake research article under my name, complete with a DOI doi:10.59613/global.v1i3.42. The article appears to be entirely AI-generated.  I never had anything to do with the article: I never created the text, nor did I submit it for publication.  I assume the journal has created and published the article to lend credence to its title.
The article's publication is disparaging me by associating my name with the article's drivel, the journal publishing such nonsense, and the unethical practice of publishing AI-generated text without appropriate acknowledgements. It seems that the article is gathering attention.  I became aware of it, when a colleague fell for it and found it relevant to one of our department's initiatives. What can I do?

This is a journal that's also been known to falsely claim individuals are part of its editorial board and refuse to remove their names. Not sure what the solution actually is.

A "Global International Journal of X" does not inspire confidence.  I'm sorry this has happened :-(

The journal gives a contact address in San Fransisco, but the links to the editors web pages appear to be set up to translate to Indonesian, so it is not clear (shall we say) that this is a genuine journal.  I suspect you are right in your assessment of why the article is there.

I think if these things become more common, it is time to introduce a concept of an anti-publication list. You list papers that you know are in your name but you haven't written. I guess it's perhaps not yet necessary, but maybe it will be.

@DikranMarsupial: Well, one of the phrases "Global International Journal" and "of Innovative Research" is a huge red sail (rather than merely a red flag) and the other one sets the sail on fire. I'm still undecided regarding which phrase plays which part...

I wondered if it would be legal to gather the contact emails of the corresponding authors of all the papers that the journal has published and tell them that they have published a paper that you didn't write.  Unfortunately they are not given on the website or the papers AFAICS.

@JochenGlueck - I think the two are mutually assured destruction phrases, and assigning cause vs effect is not productive here. What a weird world we live in though. Should I be upset if nobody publishes a false paper under my name? Hmmmm...

@JonCuster: "Should I be upset if nobody publishes a false paper under my name?" This question seems to be related to the anti-publication list suggested by Captain Emacs: A longer anti-publication lists counts positively in your CV (just as a longer publication list does) because each item there means that somebody found you important enough to abuse your name for a scam publication.

@JochenGlueck - of course, if the "author" is too famous then nobody would believe they actually wrote the paper. Seems like there is a sweet spot in the (complete unknown)->(Nobel Prize winner) continuum. Although posthumous articles by AI (not Al) Einstein might be an option...

To me, the bigger question is if the paper is retracted, how do you keep it from appearing like your paper got retracted.  Personally, I'd try reporting your case informally to the good people at Retraction Watch (https://retractionwatch.com/meet-the-retraction-watch-staff/) to see if they can offer any advice

Is that your actual university listed as your affiliation? Then they are being defamed too.

The links currently go to a 404 error, which suggests that you may have won (at least for the specific case, rather than the general problem),

Although the links in the OP give a 404 Not Found, the page of the article still appears on google and the entire PDF of the article comes up on google.

@bolbteppa It takes time for Google to update. Three out of five of the top results when I search OP's name and the journal are about the article being fake. The other two are from the journal itself, but one was removed and the other updated to not have that fake paper or OP's name.

Do you think it's relevant that the article was AI-generated? Would it be better or worse if a human had written the nonsense? All that matters is that you didn't write it.

@barmar Good question! That the article was written by AI is a relevant fact, because many organizations consider it unethical to use AI without an appropriate acknowledgement.

@ScottSeidman Very important consideration!

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice.
Given that this journal appears to be a complete scam and is likely to be unresponsive to your requests to remove the article, I think you may have no choice but to treat this as a legal matter involving defamation. You, and potentially your institution, may have a valid claim that the journal's attribution to you of things you didn't say hurts your reputation and that of your institution, and constitutes defamation.
As a first step, I would approach my university's legal counsel (or similar legal department - any large university has one) and ask for their advice and assistance in addressing this issue. As @Dawn said in a comment, they may be able to help by writing a letter to the journal on behalf of the university threatening to take legal action. Perhaps that will be enough to get the journal to take down the article.
If a letter doesn't help, the university may actually need to take concrete legal action against the journal (e.g., filing a lawsuit). If they are willing to do that, that's great for you. If they aren't, you may need to take matters into your own hands by hiring a lawyer.
Legal action doesn't sound like an easy or cheap route to solve the problem, but I'm not sure there is an easier way, so you'll have to decide whether it's worth it.
You can also consider posting a question on law.stackexchange.com to get additional advice on whether the journal's behavior can be considered defamation, and what are some available courses of action. They will very likely have ideas I haven't thought of.
Good luck!

Did the fake article list your affiliation as well as your name? If you're going to sue, you want to be able to show that they specifically meant you and not just someone with the same name.

@Ray apparently yes, per this comment: "My name isn't unique, but my name and the matching affiliation given in the article identify me uniquely and unambiguously."

+1. Neither am I a lawyer, but even if defamation is not applicable, I'd be confident that this kind of impersonation (and using your affiliation, so it definitely affects your institution) is illegal. The question is whether the relevant legal standards apply in the country where the journal is based.

I posted a question on Law SE asking whether this kind of behaviour would constitute defamation.

Update! As of 13 Sept. 2024, It looks like they took down the article.

You can contact the journal with your complaint. I recommend it. You can also ask the legal department at your university/institution for advice and whether they can provide backup.
If you have a website, you can disavow the article there, though that would also publicize it.
However, your name probably isn't unique. It is possible this was done by someone with the same name, though that seems unlikely. Explore the ORCID researcher ID system if you haven't already.

Thank you! My name isn't unique, but my name and the matching affiliation given in the article identify me uniquely and unambiguously.

It might be worth checking the legal department's position first, since if this is a persistent offender there might already be work under way to clip its wings.

Is your name really not unique, @DiomidisSpinellis? I mean, that's a very rare Greek name (I don't think I have ever met any Διομήδηδες in real life) combined with a non-Greek surname. I would be very surprised if there are more of you around.

I have once directly witnessed how a single email has achieved desired results immediately in a case quite similar to OP’s. Basically it threatened legal action.

I would say "Just ignore it or, even better, make fun of the whole story and spread it as wide as you can". Any person who knows you will then laugh with you, and anyone who does not will perceive your name on the article the same way he/she perceived it before it appeared there: as a meaningless combination of letters that will be entirely forgotten the very moment his/her eyes move away from the author line (that's exactly what happened with me when I looked at your linked reference). So it will be only the journal that would lose the reputation in anyone's eyes.
It is the same advice as it was given in the old dialogue:
A: How are you always so calm and in a good mood?
B: I never argue with idiots.
A: But that is not a method!
B: You are absolutely right, Sir!
Just my two cents. :-)

Tell the journal. If they're a serious journal, they'll take down the article (and improve their processes, since those evidently failed spectacularly). You can also try to reach an editorial board member.
If they're not a serious journal (their website does not inspire confidence; I can't find the editor-in-chief's profile at berkeley.edu), contacting a lawyer might be your only option.

The editor in chief appears to be "Cr Castro Valley, University of California, Berkeley, United States".  Castro Valley appears to be the area of San Fransisco to the South East of Berkeley, but still in the same County. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castro_Valley,_California

I do not think OP will want to burn money to fight shadows.

Seems like university lawyers might be able to draft a serious sounding letter, at a minimum… I don’t think it needs outside counsel.

Let's say the Journal takes down the publication -- well now the OP has a retraction, which is less than ideal.

The domain of the journal is not active right now, and the owner of the site seems to hide his identity.
Obviously, the entire site, mellbaou.com, is scam, and by asking this question you have just taken an important step to inform the world.
If you want to do more, then you can alert your local authorities, and if they have got time for your case, then the domain might be blocked in DNS-services.
The certificate for mellbaou.com is issued by Let's Encrypt, and their advice for cases like this one goes as follows:

A website using Let’s Encrypt is engaged in Phishing/Malware/Scam/… ,
what should I do? We recommend reporting such sites to Google Safe
Browsing and the Microsoft Smart Screen program, which are able to
more effectively protect users. Here are the reporting URLs:

https://safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/report_badware/
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/wdsi/support/report-unsafe-site-guest

The link seems to work just fine.

It looks like the website took down the article in question. I tried searching for any articles by the author (based on his username here on StackExchange) and there were no results. So...this answer is irrelevant to the OP, and the last bit is meant tongue in cheek.
I echo what others have said about contacting the journal, explaining the situation, and having it taken down. If they were a serious journal (ha!), then their reputation would suffer if they kept it, so they'd be motivated to take it down. The last thing they want is negative publicity. I'm glad it worked for the OP
Defamation
You stand to gain or lose reputation if somebody publishes as you, and if it's AI, it could be damaging to you. You could threaten legal trouble. Start with mentioning your concern. If they don't fix it, step up and threaten legal issues. If they still don't budge (or respond), you could consider getting a lawyer and following through. (Many jurisdictions allow you to recover court/lawyer fees when suing, so this might not cost you anything — best to ask a lawyer for legal advice, though. Many have free consultations.)
Keep As a Joke
If the AI-generated work is as bad as it sounds, most serious scholars wouldn't see it and think it was really written by you. If you have a small field in which you all kinda know each other, you could announce it and laugh at it together. Bonus points for you if anyone actually cites it (as a example of AI, hopefully—it wouldn't be the first time a paper with a false author was cited!).
Royalties
If the journal makes money off the article that was submitted under your name, perhaps you'd be entitled to some sort of royalties for the (mis-)use of your likeness. One can hope, and one can dream. ;-)

I don't know how you are searching, but just putting OP's username into Google Scholar delivers a profile with 472 entries and close to 15k citations (I tried myself, since I know OP personally and was surprised that you "couldn't find articles by him" - there are many, and they are not hard to find in general). The offending paper is also listed by Google Scholar, easy to find if you sort by year.


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What if I can make a profit for an assignment/project I did similar to "Google"?
This is kind of like the google story. We are currently doing an project individually. The idea I came up with can be used as a website that can make profit. My question is, let's say I was able to make money with the code I am writing, since this is a university project that I will submit for marks, do they own a piece of that profit. I know that the Google guys had to pay about $300 million to Standford but it seemed to me like the "patent issue". And they dropped out so I really can't say much about their case. The facebook story is different.
So am I obligated to share the profit with the university or does this differ from institution to institution? After all, even if they take my code, since I wrote it, I can rewrite it with ease.
Edit: It's kind of like inventing something that can be sold or used as a service. Does the institution own a piece of it.

This cannot be answered in general.
It depends on the contract you have with the institution and the applicable law in your jurisdiction. It may depend on how you were funded as well.
I know of examples from both extremes: your university owns 100% and your university owns nothing, as well as everything in between. Some intermediate setting is probably more common, but, as I said, it depends.

Thanks. I guess it depends on the institution. I just hope they don't own 100% of of mine. Thanks again.

@Touch "I just hope..."  The easy way to find out is to ask explicitly at your university.

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Scholarship effects on later applications
I have the choice to either apply for a sholarship or get a regular salary. Economically, the position is slightly favorable (mainly due to pension prospects), but I also want to consider secondary effects such as prestige in the CV w.r.t. lateron applications.
I know it's hard to put a value on such a thing, so I'm interested in your opinions.

Your situation describes a situation that is relatively common here in Germany, with the choice between "fellowships" at Gradiuerterkollegen and traditional degree programs within faculties and departments. If this is in fact your case, I don't think I would make too much of a difference between the statuses—they are both graduate degree programs, and would effectively carry the same weight. It's largely viewed (correctly) as just different means of internally financing graduate studies. Thus, it would not really make a big difference on your later career.
What can make a difference, however, are the duties assigned to the different programs. Scholarship students may have a substantially reduced set of responsibilities, particularly with respect to teaching and other non-research activities. This may mean that you finish your degree program more quickly and efficiently than someone who has to do substantial teaching as part of the standard graduate program.

@Neuneck You might want to consider talking to people in the department who have either and check whether it is actually the case - while technically your mentor is not allowed to ask you to do duties others are paid for when you have a scholarship, your department may be understaffed and you might then feel obliged to help anyway...

@TobiasKienzler Thank you for the advice. I'm lucky to be free of teaching duties in both cases. I will choose the faculty position since I do not improve my retirement prospects. These are even larger than I thought at first.

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Citation: How To Cite a Book in ACM Style With Multiple Cities?
I need to cite from the "Gang of Four" book, but the title page has fourteen cities listed. I have found information about APA and MLA styles regarding this, but how do I cite a book with multiple cities in ACM style? The ACM Reference Format does not have such an example.

Would the downvoter care to comment on what can be changed in my question? I've attempted at length to find the answer online to no avail.

Usually a book only has one city as the publication venue. Perhaps with more recent ones with all the online culture there could be multiple cities, but with a book this old I think it should not be the case. I couldn't see the title page listing 14 cities in your link, but could it be a possibility that the 14 cities are not the publication venue?

@justhalf how can I determine the publication venue, then? I don't see that in the book. The title page lists the publisher, and beneath that the list of fourteen cities. https://www.amazon.com/Design-Patterns-Elements-Reusable-Object-Oriented/dp/0201633612

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What are the key points in short descriptions of research experience?
When writing short descriptions of research experiences as a student (undergrad or postgrad), what are the key points that professors, potential collaborators and admission committees would like to see?
These might be very short descriptions in a space constrained academic CV, or slightly less short descriptions on an online profile or research statement. What are the key essentials (in the CV case) and the additional points (statement/website case)?

Different people are likely to look for different things: teachers, collaborators, admission and hiring committees at various levels would look for very different things. Maybe you should specify your question?

@VahidShirbisheh - I searched around a bit and read advice from career departments of universities but none seem to answer this qns directly. There are some webpages that do (e.g. eHow) but they sound very general and I thought it would be better to get advice from people in academia.

@F'x - I suppose there won't be a "right" answer. Perhaps it would be useful to have a range of opinions? Especially from people in academia that would be reading the resumes/statements (rather than career department staff).

In a one-sentence statement, I want to state as precisely and concisely as possible as much relevant detail about the project I was working on. For instance

Analysis of Widget Manufacturing

doesn't tell me much about what you did. On the other hand

In-situ XYZ Experiments and Numerical Modeling of the Parametric Influence of Temperature, Humidity, and Cooling Time on the Strength of Widget X under Load-Bearing Conditions

tells me much more about the problem you're working on.
If you have perhaps a paragraph, then I went a short summary of your work. You should provide: a motivation for the problem, an overview of what you did, and a summary of the main methods, results, and conclusions of the work.

What about: 1) skills used/gained (random e.g. Fortran programming, Topology, worked with DNA datasets). 2) non-technical description (to show you can communicate your work to a general audience), 3) Future work/directions/applications?

(1) That would fall under "methods"; presumably you learned how to use the methods you used. (2) For the audiences you specified, a non-technical description is unimportant. (3) Future work and directions falls under "conclusions" under normal circumstances, and only when space allows.


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Two papers with identical introduction and related work
I wrote a paper (for an economics journal) that contained two main theorems. It was too long - over 60 pages. So I split it to two papers - one for each main theorem (and the related lemmas). Now, the introduction and related-work section in these two papers are almost identical, since the topic is the same. Will this be considered self-plagiarism (e.g. by automatic plagiarism detection tools)? What is a good way to write these papers preventing duplication?

I assume that each of your main theorems has its own story of how it will be useful to the readers of the paper. If you get this story straight in the introduction and related work, these sections should be substantially different.

If you give the source, it is not plagiarism.  Like this: "The Introduction and Related Work are repeated verbatim from paper [4]".

If you treat a different aspect of the topic, it is absolutely fair to split it up in two parts. The introduction will sound quite the same, but this is also the case for most introductions in a specific research field. If you define well the objective of the paper you are presenting, you should be fine.
Here is an example of a paper (among many) splitted in two parts that takes interest in one main topic : Part 1 and Part 2


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How are arXiv "new submissions" ordered?
I know people who set a timer for 2 pm eastern time to make sure their paper is the first one to appear on arXiv the next day. I guess the assumption is that the ordering is first-in-first-listed, based on submission order, but I couldn't find any confirmation of this policy. Is this indeed how the ordering works?
Assuming it is the policy, is there a good justification for it?
Note: this isn't to say I endorse this kind of micro-career-optimization, I was just curious to know if this is a documented and justified somewhere.

If you are the last to submit before the deadline, say on a Tuesday, your paper will be first in the Wednesday mailing for its subcategory (e.g. astro-ph.CO). If you are the first to submit after the Tuesday deadline, your paper will be first in its category (e.g. astro-ph) in the Thursday mailing (but last in its subcategory).

There are two different orderings, so you have to work out which one you care about.
There is one ordering for people who receive a mailing for a specific category. This will normally be in order of submission time (first submitted at the top), except that crosslisted items (those that have a different primary category) are moved to the end.
There is a different order for people who go to the website and look at the latest articles for a particular category. This is in reverse order of submission (last submitted at the top), and crosslisted items are kept in submission order.
I assume the main justification for this is simply that there are good reasons not to do anything else. What would you sort by, if not by submission time? Anything I can think of would either be patently unfair or have unintended consequences.
I think it does make sense to sort the list on the website in reverse order - after all, if you continue long enough you will get to the previous day's articles, so sorting in reverse order makes this consistent.

You could make it random, which would make it impossible for people to optimize their submission time. That might be useful if their optimization was causing issues (i.e. abnormal load on the server).

@Shep we have considered this in the past, and may do so in the future. There's been studies that show that the papers at the top of any given category mailing receive more citations, and it's been people's theory that a randomization to that list could influence future citations.

I would assume that the influence on citations would be a good thing: if people are spending time optimizing their submission times on arXiv that's time that could be better spent working out a more merit based ranking. (I'm not saying arXiv should do that, just that academics who are worried about this should probably be working to curate their own lists of arXiv links)

For extra chaos you could also randomize the website listings more regularly.

I suspect that effect is at least partly a self-selection issue. In my experience not many people care about optimising their position, and those who do care tend to write papers that would be likely to be cited anyway.

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What title do you hold after you've defended but before you graduate?
Two friends successfully defended their dissertations yesterday, and many people have congratulated them, calling them Doctor so-and-so. I explained to my wife that they actually don't have that title until the graduation ceremony, that it's similar to a President-elect, who isn't called the President until they are sworn in. So, what title does a doctoral candidate take after they've defended but before they graduate?

See this: http://academia.stackexchange.com/a/12447/5674

possible duplicate of When can you call yourself doctor?

There isn't a formal, universally accepted title here. The general standard has been to call them "Doctor" since everything else is in principle a formality.
The only other note that I'd make is that it's not commencement that makes the student in question a doctor, but rather conferral of the degree by the university. Some universities may confer degrees multiple times per year, but only have one commencement ceremony.
So, I would not include "Ph.D." next to my name, but in the education of my CV, I'd write "Ph.D. (to be conferred Month Year)," as that is entirely accurate representation of the state of affairs.

Formally, they don't take a title before the university awards it, and the awarding is usually done by handing out a certificate stating the title (independent of whether that involves a ceremony or not).
In informal situations, it's nice to address them with the title because they are usually happy and proud of their accomplishment, and what remains to be done before they actually get the title is more or less a mere formality. But you shouldn't put any doctoral title on name tags, staff directories, or anything formal like that before they actually get the document.

I suppose this is similar to me calling myself a "dad" even though my daughter won't be born for another two months?

@JonathanLandrum Yes, that's a nice comparison. Everybody will be fine with that, but you can't put it down in any official documents yet.

In most countries "Dr" is an honorific (in Germany I believe it is a legal title and part of your name) that is typically used when referring to individuals that hold certain types of degrees (most doctorates but not all, for example holders of the JD degree are not typically called doctor, and some non doctorate degrees, for example a BMedSci in the UK). As it is an honorific I think it is perfectly reasonable to bestow that honor to someone during a party to celebrate a doctoral defence. Similarly when seeing someone the first time after the defence using doctor is a nice why of honoring them. In some countries one can pass the defence and still need to make substantial revisions. I would use the honorific as long as the person passed.
In non-formal situations I would avoid it, but then again I avoid using the honorific even for people with doctorates. In formal situations where honorifics are being used I would definitely avoid it. I think it would set a bad tone to go to a job talk an allow yourself to be introduced as doctor. In that situation I would deflect the honorific and say "not yet"

In the (British) English Language the correct name for someone who has qualified to graduate but has not yet done so is a graduand.
One could formally say you are a doctoral graduand, but only other academics would understand.
Also, at the ceremonies in British Universities, the point at which you hold the title is when the Chancellor (or similar awarding officer) intones the word "I award upon those students who have qualified the degrees listed in the official record.. etc".  Until those words have been said, whatever handshaking and parading has happened, you do not have a degree!

In Germany, it is "Doctor Des." standing for Doktor Designiert (designated doctor)


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How to search for USA PhD Studentships?
findaphd.com is an excellent website to search for PhD studentships (PhD funding on specific projects) in the UK. Also, UK universities often advertise PhD studentship opportunities in their "job vacancies" section. However, after much googling, I have yet to find similar sites or departmental advertisements for PhD studentships in the USA.
Questions:

I don't suppose there is a similar site for the USA that I missed during my search?
Are there even off-cycle PhD studentships for specific projects in the USA, like those in the UK?

There is no such site because it is unnecessary.  In Europe, a Ph.D. student is like an employee and is admitted to work on a specific project.  In the USA, a Ph.D. student is admitted in a manner similar to an undergraduate (based on general considerations) and is not necessarily attached to a particular project or even a particular advisor.
Hence, you could say that every US department has a number of studentships available each year, always at the same time (start of fall semester) and you apply for all of them simply by submitting an admission application to the program.
Thus the answers to your numbered questions are

No.
No.

Disclaimer: there are probably exceptions, but what I've written applies 99% of the time.

One additional note: I disagree with the comment below that claims that individual faculty do not decide which students are admitted.  In every program I know, a small committee of program faculty makes all the decisions.  If some faculty member (whether on the committee or not) really wants a particular applicant, that applicant will be admitted.  My own admission came on the same day that I contacted a faculty member (and as a direct result).  Of course, you should always follow this good advice when contacting faculty you'd like to work with.

+1, Also, most American universities provide funding for all their Ph.D. students as part of their admission package (i.e. the students aren't responsible for securing their own funding).

@scientifics: In a typical US PhD program, The number of available PhD stipends (and hence the number of admitted students) is generally correlated with the number of available research positions in the department at any point in time. This may not be the case in humanities programs, however, where the funding model can be quite different.

If some faculty member...really wants a particular applicant, that applicant will be admitted. — This is not true in my department.

The closest that you can come to this in the US is listings of graduate fellowships, which is more closely related to the issue of funding rather than admissions. Pretty much every department has an annual cycle for admitting students, as David mentions.
However, funding models vary widely, so acquisition of an external fellowship can make a significant difference in the kinds of projects one can take (since positions tend to be closely tied to specific projects, as a result of the grant model in the US).


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Double-blind review with four references in a row?
I've read a lot of answers here about double-blind reviews and thesis or single articles.
My problem comes from having four self-references in my article. I feel that if I include them all, could be very easy to infer that this is the fifth one (It's a 4-year granted project and I have been collaborating in a number of software components inside a bigger architecture, now it's the time to use them all to interact with other applications) . But if I ommit some of them, I could end being accused of self-plagiarism. The other articles have been published in the proceedings of conferences that didn't require double-blind reviews, this is the first submission I make to a conference that asks for it (Maybe because of being CORE A) Also not worthless to mention that I'm going to send it as a short paper, so actually it'd be very helpful to cite rather than to repeat past texts.
What should I do?

Related (possible duplicate): Mentioning that my paper extends my project X: compatible with double-blind review? (I don't think the quantity of self-citations makes a difference; the point is, there are references that strongly influence the reviewers' beliefs as to the author's identity.)

Yes @ff524 that's one of the questions I read before asking mine, and the part of "single article" comes from there. Also I read http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31374/how-can-i-cite-my-dissertation-in-a-paper-that-will-be-double-blind-reviewed, the scary http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/37494/after-revision-the-paper-is-not-anonymized-what-does-it-mean/37498, http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/30324/citing-an-article-under-a-double-blind-review-process?s=3|0.6609

I would think the submission instructions should address the issue of how to blind self-citations.  If not, you could contact the editor / program committee, and ask what they want you to do (and suggest that their answer be added to the submission instructions).

Describe those works in the third person but do not anonymise the references. For example, "Doe et al in their work show that..." Even if you are Doe. Very often I review papers (in CS/HCI) whose authors have blanked their past work that they reference. This makes it very hard to judge the quality of the new contribution if compared to the previous work, and it is bad practice in my opinion.
The side effect is that it is conceivable that they could guess who you are, but it is less of a problem than not being able to judge the quality of the contribution, IMHO. If the venue allows it, after acceptance you can change your "Doe et al" with "In our previous work.."


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Apple or Thinkpads, buying for department
I'm asking this anonymously. Our department of computer science just received a donation to buy laptops for students. Major activity will be programming and languages used will be C/C++/Python/Perl/Java/R. We will be instituting a lending scheme for students who can't afford them.
As a committee, we now need to decide whether we should be buying Apple Macbook Pro(13") or Thinkpad (T420) both with more or less similar specifications and price. The Apple will run it's OS and Thinkpad will run Debian Linux.
My question is : We are training the students for research and we wish to provide them with an environment close to how it is in the real world. Should we choosing one over the other considering all students have an inclination for research/academia?
This is not meant to be a flame war but rather a question of whether Academia has hidden liking towards Apple and if yes, why?

Why not let each student choose?  The real world is not homogeneous.

If I told you I had a "hidden liking", then I wouldn't have a "hidden liking" anymore, would I?

I think that neither apple nor Thinkpad T420 have a reasonable advantage for a programmer. A 13" screen is too small for an activity that it is often done with, much bigger displays (at least in my limited experience). I think that a standard programmer doesn't see any difference between these laptop and a good 750$ 15" laptop; but you can buy two of them at the same price of the T420 or the macbook pro. And you can lend them at a lower rate. If you need more computational power, then probably they are not enough. An OpenCL or OpenGL programmer, for example, cannot seriously use them for his job; expecially without a ssh connection to a high performance desktop or a connection with some cloud computing server.
So, my opinion is that you can find a cheaper laptop, with adequate performance, and increase the number of laptop that you buy. Obviously, if the number of laptops is fixed, there is no advantage in a cheaper laptop, even if I think a bigger display can be useful.

I do not think there's any appreciable difference. Both types of machines are able to perform the tasks you require more than adequately, and neither has a significant learning curve for students unfamiliar with the platform. I would choose the one that your IT staff has more experience supporting and the one that has the fewest associated costs.
If all costs really are equal, ask the students; they'll probably have a strong opinion one way or the other.

Does your donor have a preference? Neither will look like good value for money, but Macs are sexy looking. What about buying Macs and dual booting them? This way your students can get experience in both environments.

I don't think that there is technically a real difference between the two alternatives that you mention.
Now, you have to find other ways to choose. I guess that buying macs can seduce prospective students easily (at least more than T420): "Hey Bob, do you now CS dpt XYZ? Sure Alice, this is the coolest on earth, they even give macbooks to their students...".

Couple of reasons I would go with thinkpads are the following. Please keep in mind I have no CS background.

Longevity: thinkpads (particularly T series) have a good track record. They can be repaired, reused and upgraded. Apple computers are almost the opposite. A failure in a component often warants for an entire motherboard (since everything is soldered).
Thermals: Apple has terrible termals. Thinkpads are not particularly superb but they are still significantly better than apple computers. If any of your students needs to do something computation heavy for their research it will be benefical to have some thermal performance.
Rigidity: I don't know much about apple chasis materials but there is a cult around thinkpads' (reddit r/thinkpad) admiring their rigid, reliable construction. If you go in the afforementioned subreddit, you will see people ressurecting very old thinkpads. On the other hand a significant portion of Apple laptops are now under an extensive keyboard replacement program because their keyboards fail. They say it is a small portion of their keyboards but people around me seem to have this issue more often than they make it sound. And when their keyboards fail, it is absurdly long, expensive and hard to replace them. You do not want your students to go through keyboard issues in their busy periods (final weeks etc.).
Upgradability: As mentioned, Apple solders every component to their motherboards. Upgrades are near impossible. T series thinkpads usually have really upgradable motherboards. It is not uncommon to see thinkpad lovers using a 10 year old IBM thinkpad with the new CPU, rams, IPS screen and SSD they installed.
Repertuar: You have mentioned that you would like to give your students "environment close to how it is in the real world" but it is likely the case that they will need to be familiar with a good range of hardware and software. Certainly, thinkpads with linux is the less common choice between the two.

Hmmm. Longevity. My two main Mac computers were both built in 2012. No failures yet. And the older ones like mine are upgradeable. But thinness of the machine comes at a price. Usually in upgradeability. There isn't really room for both a socket and a chip in a really thin laptop. My spouse uses a 17" MacBook pro from 2011. No failures yet. Also pretty upgradeable. Pretty much everything in a laptop is a compromise and a balance of concerns.

@Buffy I really meant for more recent model laptops. I didn't realise the question was asked in 2012. One really interesting thing is the keyboard replacement program is extended to cover their new line of products. They in a sense admit their design is flawed yet won't change anything. They won't even change to an easy to replace design.

Yes, they sometimes do foolish things and need to back out of it. My comments are from 2019, of course. I've actually had good luck buying old (used and refurbished) mac products without reliability issues. I don't know if you'd trust other manufacturers to the same extent.

If you ever have time I would really suggest you to check subreddit r/thinkpad. They have great fun refurbishing / upgrading old computers.


text:
Do I have a chance to get into a great cs grad school?
I am an undergrad from India from a good university( not IIT,NIT).
Our GPA is calculated on a different percentage scale and mine is 73-75%
which is a very good score according to our system.
My GRE score=1600.
I have an internship at a major company.
I am thinking of writing a research paper but have no research experience.
Do I have a chance at the top colleges like UC Berkeley,or Michigan or even Carnegie Mellon?

Maybe.  There's really no way to tell without looking at your complete application.
If you applied to my department's research MS program, your good grades and GRE scores would probably attract enough attention that someone would actually review your application.  Most of our MS applications are rejected without review.  But that's as far as grades and test scores will get you.
Since you claim not to come from an IIT or NIT, there might be some question about how good your university is.  If we've never admitted someone from your school before, we don't know how to calibrate your grades or recommendation letters.  Every year we seem to get applications from two or three new schools in India that even our Indian faculty and graduate students don't recognize.  We do sometimes admit one or two truly outstanding students from unknown schools as a way of gathering data.
Having an internship is definitely good, especially if you did something creative and independent, and not just "My boss told me to implement this thing, so I did."
But the admission decision would really depend on your research statement (or "statement of purpose") and your recommendation letters.  As I have written many times before, graduate admissions committees at top departments are looking for potential for research excellence.  My committee would judge that potential from the content of your statements and letters, and from the credibility of your letter-writers.  Research experience is certainly helpful, but it's not necessary, especially for an MS.
This is really an question for your letter writers.  Ask them directly if they can write strong and substantial letters that focus on your research potential.  If they look uncomfortable (or they don't know what "research potential" means), you should probably aim a bit lower.

Actually I am from Mumbai University which is not too bad.

Top PhD programs in Computer Science are very selective. Just having good or even excellent grades is not enough. At least, you need to have very strong recommendation letters and preferably some undergraduate research experience. I would suggest applying not only to top schools but also to second tier schools.

Sure I will apply to second tier schools too :).

I was wondering if my internship will help me and if I have a chance at a top tier school.

Btw it is MS program not Ph D.

Research MS or course-based MS?

Research based preferably.


text:
What does it mean when APS editors ask us to "list first page" for some refferences?
Basically the title. I don't understand what the editors are asking from us? Are they asking us to make a list out of the first page of these references, e.g. by copying and pasting them into a file and then submit it??
Needless to say, English isn't my first language. Any help is appreciated.

I'd guess that you used the wrong (or no) page number for the two references in the list of references.

I believe they mean that the complete citation in the back of the paper should include the page number of the reference in the journal/book where it was published.
For instance, in APA style:
Einstein, A. (1918). Prinzipielles zur allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie. Annalen der Physik, 360(4), 241-244.
Here 241-244 are the page numbers of the journal where the paper was published, and 241 is the first page.

I think you are probably right. However, my references already had a page number. And I had used Mendeley to automatically generate the Bibtex file so I don't think the formatting had any issues either. (O_o)

I've seen some physics journals with the (weird, in my opinion) convention of listing only the first page, not the last page.  I don't remember whether this was an APS journal.

This is surely it. However, I have submitted to an APS journal in the past and didn’t get this request. That being said, it was rejected within 10 hours!!

@AndreasBlass APS journals generally don't list the range. I guess not doing so used to save some space and paper. These days APS publish so many papers that it's not really a page number anymore, it's a "paper number", if you will. So one paper reference will have "page" number 092101 and the next 092102, with individual pages labeled e.g. 092102-3. Personally, as a reader, I don't see much use in having the page range there anyway, so I don't find it weird.


text:
Should I add descriptions of courses taught on my CV
I'm working on my CV right now. I have been teaching EFL at a university for 2 years. It has been my first university position. I am planning on applying at universities back in the States soon. I am educationally-qualified (meaning, I have the degrees required), however I do not have much experience (6 years teaching, only 2 university). I wanted to list as much information as possible, so I have been writing about each course I have taught (about 6 different courses). I have included course name, objective, textbook, and course highlights (meaning unique projects that would set my courses apart). I am wondering if this is necessary or useful?

EFL = English as a Foreign Language? Is that the term being used instead of ESL now?

@HuckBennett EFL is used for people learning English in a non-English-speaking country. ESL is used for people learning English in an English-speaking country.

@HuckBennett ESL=English as a Second Language. The way I understand it is that EFL and ESL have been mixed usage. See this Wiki page

A brief description of the courses you've taught is never remiss, as it helps reviewers place your teaching work into context. This is especially important for teaching-primary positions. However, for many positions, you also have the ability (or requirement) to submit a "teaching statement." This would be a place, for instance, where you could discuss your unique projects.
What I would certainly want people to know about in the courses I taught:

Full course name
Whether they were required or elective
The intended audience (e.g., "freshmen" or "upper-year undergraduates and graduates in the major")
How long (how many times) you taught the course
Did you have sole responsibility, or was it co-taught
Format of the class (lecture, seminar, laboratory, etc.)
A brief description of the course, if its nature cannot be inferred from the title (for example, "Introduction to US History to 1865" doesn't need an explanation; "The Critical Period" would.)

Other information could be listed on a "courses taught" appendix, but I might not necessarily include it directly in the CV.

Do you think it would be better to list the courses and their descriptions right under the university position, or as an appendix?

Personally, I list them under a separate section of my CV. Basically, the more courses you have, the more important it is to separate it out (in the interests of clarity, organization, and readability.)


text:
How are PhDs from foreign universities percieved in the US?
I live and teach at a university in S. Korea. I may have an opportunity to complete my PhD in TESOL or English linguistics at this university. However, I am reluctant because I have heard that PhDs from non-Western universities (in particular, Korea) are not valued or equatable to US PhDs. Anecdotal evidence from my department supports a similar notion: all the PhDs in my department were received in the US. So, my question is, how are PhDs from non-Western universities perceived? Would a university rather hire someone with a US PhD rather than a US citizen with a Korean PhD?

In mathematics, they are often valued higher than the US degree, especially from the countries where the PhD process is two step (like "candidate of science" and then "doctor of science" in Russia), provided you completed both steps. I won't be surprised though if linguistics departments would prefer someone trained in the country where the language the person specializes in is spoken on the streets. Anyway, usually all PhD's are good enough to make you "job eligible" and much more depends on your post-PhD achievements and reputation and your behavior on an interview if you get one.

I may have an opportunity to complete my PhD in TESOL or English linguistics at this university

If you decide to do PhD in English linguistics, I would advise you to do it in an English speaking country. The reason is simple, how do you convince others that PhD in English linguistics in S. Korea, where English is a foreign language, is worth something?
On the other hand, if you decide to do PhD in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), where that "other language" is Korean, then I think a Korean university may be a reasonable choice if the quality of both the PhD program and the university are quite good.
Your job opportunity in Korea after you obtain your PhD may not be good if you stay in Korea after you graduate. However, you may actually have advantage over somebody who receives PhD from a Western university because their lack of practical knowledge - teaching English to Koreans if you go to countries other than Korea.
I met many Chinese/Koreans in the US, who had gone to English schools. Many of them told me they wish their English teachers had trainings in their native languages so they would have less difficulties while learning English. I deeply believe those English teachers should have gone through trainings by the PhDs like you.

Would a university rather hire someone with a US PhD rather than a US
  citizen with a Korean PhD?

Presumably you mean a US university and not a Korean university. The school from which you obtain your PhD has some impact on the hiring process at US universities, but not much. Having a PhD from a top rated department with a "famous" advisor can be beneficial, but a PhD with an advisor from a university (whether it is a US university or a Korean university) that the search committee isn't familiar with is pretty common. For research intensive universities the most important factor is your future ability to publish and secure external funding.


text:
Asking for a letter of recommendation from the Department Chair
I am applying for a different position in my own department which has better perks and more job security. There is an open search for this position and I am sure it will be very competitive. While I have many recommendation writers outside of my department and University, I was thinking of asking the department chair for a letter of recommendation letter as I have been working closely with him and he has observed my work very closely (and seems to be happy with it).
While I am not afraid of being rejected, I am a little worried that it might be inappropriate to ask the person who is ultimately going to make the final call about this position for a recommendation letter (conflict of interest, perhaps?). Maybe I am being paranoid, but I am very early in my academic career and I am also very excited about this job. Please let me know if you have any good advice. Thank you so much!!!!

The usual practice in a hiring process is that someone on the selection panel cannot also be a referee for any of the candidates.  It is therefore unlikely that your Department Head can give you a letter of recommendation for the position.  This actually puts you in a bit of a quandary, since it rules out at least one senior academic that would normally be one of your references, and possibly also other senior academics in your Department.  In view of this, it would be reasonable for you to write to your Department Head and ask the following:

Can he write you a letter of recommendation in this case, or does that conflict with his selection responsibilities?  (Note that you suspect it is probably the latter.)

Assuming it is the latter, would he have any objection if you note in your application that you are unable to get a reference from your Department Head (and perhaps also from other senior academics you work with) in order to maintain separation of referees from the selection panel, and you would like the panel to take into account that you are thereby forced to seek references from academics who work less closely with you (and therefore have a bit less knowledge of your work).

In practice ---and notwithstanding formal separation of referees and selection panelists--- the academics on the selection panel who work with you are likely to take into account their own observations of your work in addition to the information in your application.  So even if you don't have your Department Head as a referee, he is likely to take account of his knowledge of your performance during the selection process.  Consequently, you are not really at a disadvantage from being forced to seek references from people further removed from your work.  Nevertheless, just in case there is someone on the panel who is not familiar with you, it may be useful to remind the panel that this is the reason you have not given references from your Department Head, etc.

Thank you so much. I will go ahead and ask the Chair.


text:
What is "teaser image"?
What is "teaser image"? It is asked by a journal in a revision request. The only info that I was able to find is at this link:

Please identify a teaser image from your manuscript that may be used in the abstract book as part of the OnlinePlus program and send this information via email to the publication's administrator.  Note that failure to include this information will cause delay in posting/processing your manuscript for publication.

P.S. My manuscript is theoretical.

They want an 'attractive' abstract, to put bluntly.

A sample teaser image is at this page: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=6495454

Note: on the website, they appear to be forcing scaling to 660x295, so you might want to generate a teaser image with the proper proportions.

They want you to select either a figure or possibly a more creative rendering of your research, for the purpose described in your quote. Imagine your article was going to be a book, they want you to pick an image for the cover.
If you don't have eye catching data, try to figure out the most effective way to visually describe your theoretical work, and produce an image of that.

Are there usually figures in abstract books?  These aren't big in my field, but the ones I know just have (text) abstracts.

I'm not sure I can speak to what is usual. Apparently there are in some cases.


text:
How to get a research paper all together
The "research portion" of my paper is mostly done, but I'm having trouble putting together my research. (Keep in mind this is at the undergraduate level). It's not so much that I don't know how to organize my thoughts; in fact, I've written a very detailed outline. I seem to have a two questions I'm wrestling with (I apologize if this is a tad long-winded)

The monotonous proof-theorem-proof-theorem style that essentially consists of a list of facts with no exposition seems to be most accepted. But will this really make my paper stand out? When I think about texts with proof-theorem-proof-theorem, I think of the color gray. If I try to be clever and witty, it could certainly backfire on me, but such papers are the most memorable papers I've ever read!

So what should the tone/style of my paper be?

I'm struggling very much with how detailed my paper should be. By no means am I writing a textbook, but I need to show the audience (namely admission committees) that I know what I'm talking about.  On the other hand, I have a deadline! There's always this looming thought in the back of my head that says "But you can't leave that out!" when I debate if I should skip something just to speed up the process -- it's as if I have a hoarder living in my head. I have this same issue with considering how much background/prerequisite math I should include for the reader -- it is confusing, to say the least,  writing to an audience that is more knowledgeable than the author. This is certainly very difficult for me to figure out.

So how detailed should my paper be?

I'd really like to hear feedback from professors and/or admission committees members. But, of course, feedback from anyone with research experience is appreciated!

Although I think many junior researchers would have this type of question, the standard answer is Talk to your advisor.. I upvote it because the question shows that the OP is working very hard on his paper.

the audience (namely admission committees) — Unless you're planning to submit your paper to the Journal of Admissions Committees, that is not your audience.

@JeffE: One might say it's his "target" audience at least.

Don't you have an advisor which might give you advice on exactly this type of questions?

@JeffE Yeah, perhaps I didn't phrase that correctly, but aeismail said it perfectly.

@Paxinum Well, I came here because I wasn't sure if it was a question worth asking. In my humble opinion, this process is intimidating as an undergrad!

@Mark You will learn more by asking, maybe (s)he can provide you with some other undergraduate work that (s)he thinks is good. It is probably not to much to ask for, or you might even find some yourself.

@aeismail: Nope.  The best way to impress admissions committees with a paper is to ignore them completely and write the paper for the research community.  If you try to make yourself look smart, your paper will suffer.

@Mark: The process is intimidating for everyone!

Apologies for stealing scaaahu's comment into this answer, but I wanted to stress that it is really the only possible answer to this question: ask your advisor!
Getting a hang for the appropriate level of detail is a very tricky thing, and only comes with experience. Also with being clever and witty; if you can pull it off, great, but if you can't, then it distracts from the content of your article. There are no general rules for this, you need advice from a more experienced mentor.
If I were you, I would write up a quick draft without stressing too much over these issues, and go over it carefully with your advisor; they would be able to tell you whether your humour is working, or where you need more or less detail.
That said, a few general tips:

Look at the papers you cite; if they all treat some theory as standard or well-known ("By class field theory....") then you probably can too. Same goes for tone.
Often you can save space and omit details by rephrasing your results in a way that suggests how the proof should go. For example, let's say I have a lemma about a linear operator that gets proven by choosing a basis and then something straightforward; I might then state the lemma in terms of the matrix, so it would be more obvious to the reader how to complete the proof.
(and the most important, imo) Engaging papers are not engaging because of witty one-liners, they are typically engaging because a great deal of effort went into organizing them well. The key is to ensure the reader always knows where they are, where they are going, and how they're getting there. This is not at all easy to do, but if you practice writing with this in mind early on, it will serve dividends later.

Very glad my comment is taken into a very good answer.

+1 for your #3. Putting the finishing touches on my first major paper and this has been the hardest part.

My current field is not mathematics, but I am certainly not a real stranger to the field as I did my diploma (undergrad + masters) education on applied mathematics. Anyways here's my two cents:

The regular structure and tone of research articles is pretty much the same; unless there is a good reason you stick to IMRaD (Intro, Mat&Met, Results and Discussion). Unless there is a good reason, you avoid passive tone, and changes in tense etc. This structure has the benefit of being familiar and intuitive to practically anyone out there. The "RaD" part is typically what's most important.
What's different in your case is due to the fact that research om mathematics is more inductive than deductive. What that means is that you have to make sure your introduction is watertight, all your assumptions are valid. Since the value of your results depend on what you have built them on, the introduction becomes much more important than a "normal" introduction.
Regarding the tone or style; the reason why some people can write witty is most likely because the same person has written many more articles, perhaps even book chapters. The experience really shines through in academic writing. Besides an established/respected professor isn't likely to be judged for humor in writing, the same way a junior scientist would be.
Alternatively the person in question might be "witty" in his/her personality, and that wittiness passes on to the writing. As a young, aspiring academic you should be more worried about getting it right than getting it pretty/witty.
It's usually hard to decide on that sort of stuff without having any more information. How much did you write? How much work are you presenting in that paper? It's usually a good idea to stick to the upper limit for the paper. Any journal (in my experience) will give you an upper limit on number of words/characters/pages for manuscript submission. I can only imagine admission committees would do the same. If there really isn't a defined limit, ask a more experienced colleague/friend perhaps, or a professor?

Hope it works out fine.

Any journal will give you an upper limit for a manuscript — False.  I've never heard of a mathematics journal imposing a page limit.

@JeffE You don't even get a word/character limit? If that truly is the case, I apologize for the generalization.

some good qualith math journals have page limits, e.g. Archiv der Mathematik has a soft-ish 10 page limit

@mt_: I stand corrected!


text:
Web Service to fetch article citations
I am trying to find a way to search for all the citations contained in an article. What I want to do is create a workflow for my research where:

I have a pool of articles that I have already read.
I want to find a new article to read, based on this pool of articles, so I find all the citations of all the read articles and calculate the most cited article, which is the next article I should read (obviously skipping articles that I have already read).

But I have been unable to find a way to automatically download all of the citations of a specific article. Is there no way to do it? even payed?

I know of no tool, free or paid, to do this, but if you are willing to exchange money for this service, perhaps hiring someone else...?

@BenNorris, you mean manually?

@vainolo: it is an interesting problem the one that you try to solve. There are publishers who give URL links for (some of) the references. I am thinking of mining the source html page of a paper's online url (for example this one, selecting the "reference" tabs, identifying the URLs pointing to other papers, and then downloading them in the same way.

@ElCid Yes, but i'm not sure if all sites provide the links (I know ACM and IEEE do), and more than that, it means that if they change the site's design all the mining code goes to the trash :-(

@vainolo What is your field of work?

@NobleP.Abraham Software Engineering

Thought adding your field would help in getting a better answer, relevant to your area.

@vainolo Yes, I mean manually. A Noble's excellent answer below states, automated scraping of citation databases tends be against the EULA and/or TOU.

Readcube might have the tools to get halfway there. Worth seeing if that fits your pipeline.

@bobthejoe Thanks for the link. Nice app, but it is still dependent on external web sites to gather the information. And from my first use, it couldn't identify about 75% of my PDFs.

@vainolo. Readcube is certainly... imperfect. I personally use Mendeley since Readcube can't figure out my library.

Cross-link to related question: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/46847/how-to-download-references-to-database-that-a-paper-includes-and-all-articles-th

There seems to be no service or tool that let's you download articles in bulk. This is probably so because most journals do have zero tolerance for bulk/automated downloads. Automated downloads are some times (may be most of the times) an attempt to infringe the copyrights.
For example, ACM Digital Library ToS has this restriction.

Under no circumstances are the following actions permitted:

Using scripts or spiders to automatically download articles or    harvest metadata from the ACM Digital Library. This activity is a serious violation of  ACM’s DL  usage policy and will result in the temporary or permanent termination of download rights for the subscribing institution.

That being said, irrespective of the field of research, here are some services (free and paid) that offers you a list of citations / cited by articles (other than the journal's webpage for the article).

CrossRef (some services are paid ones)
Web of Science (Paid)
Google Scholar (Free)
NASA ADS (for astronomy and allied fields. Free)

While ACM provide free Cited by list, IEEE provides this for subscribers/members.
Also please note, from NASA ADS FAQ

In addition, references may be incomplete due to our inability to
  match them with 100% accuracy (e.g. in press, private communications,
  author errors, some conference series, etc.). Anyone using the
  citations for analysis of publishing records should keep this in mind.

which is true for any citation / Cited by lists.

I find such an ACM policy really arrogant and silly: how could the downloading of the list of references from "a" paper possibly be against that policy? so if I automatically extract the links and then manually fetch them, would that be right I suppose? I understand that the policy is against the mass downloading of all the papers in all the conferences, but that clause is really silly...

It seems that crossref.org is beginning to roll out providing a list of citations (the works that a given work cites):
https://www.crossref.org/blog/distributing-references-via-crossref/
[See the aptly named section "OMG! OMG! OMG! Does this mean I can get references from api.crossref.org?"]
Using the example doi from the above link (doi:10.7554/eLife.10288), you could obtain the list of citations in that work at:  https://api.crossref.org/v1/works/10.7554/eLife.10288.xml
Alternatively, with content negotiation, you could just use:
curl -L -H "Accept: application/vnd.crossref.unixsd+xml" \
 https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.10288 > data.xml

The citations are listed in the <citation_list> element.
Warning: The citation data is, according to the link above, only available in the XML, not the JSON, representation. Also, the service is not available for all works, yet.

PubMedCentral gives you full text and their API may be able to do it.
But getting all article PMIDs which are cited by paper X is the necessary step for that and this is hard - I don't think thre is a service..
Unless you parse the full text yourself using your own code.

There is a service. The ELink API defines linkname "pmc_pmc_cites" for this purpose.


text:
How much value do papers without new scientific information have, i.e. seminar papers such as overviews of or examples for current methods in CS?
So I wrote a seminar paper in grad school (MSc) with examples on how companies use method x to improve their security. It includes zero original research, no new methods and it would never ever be published in a journal, because the substance is really not there.
It gives a theoretical background of the problems itself and then different current examples from 2 companies that I researched over the internet and a conclusion. Thus, not only academic sources but also other sources (companies) are used and it basically shows the application of academic concepts.
Other researchers could use this paper to potentially find ways on how to dig deeper and how to address some problems specifically, but I did not point something like that out myself.
My question:
Does this count as research and does it make sense to hand those kind of papers to PhD admission departments?

This is akin to a review article, in the sense that you're interpreting and reporting on existing work, rather than creating something new. There's nothing wrong with a review article, and many scientists do write them during their careers (but usually not before they've started a doctoral program!).
That said, while I believe that it is not nearly as good as a "standard" research paper in establishing one's capabilities to do original research, it may have some merit. If the schools to which you are applying allow you to submit additional documentation, then you could consider sending it in, if you believe it is of sufficient quality.

In the Definition section of Research Wiki page,

A broad definition of research is given by Martyn Shuttleworth - "In the broadest sense of the word, the definition of research includes any gathering of data, information and facts for the advancement of knowledge".

I think your paper counts as research. I would hand those kind of papers to PhD admission departments if I were you. At the very least, the paper shows that you have the research potential even if it contains no original idea or new methods.
However, you need to make sure the paper is of good quality. If the quality is poor, it could have negative effects. You probably want some experts (like your advisor) review it before you send it out.


text:
Up until which application level should one keep supplying a bachelors transcript of records together with the actual certificate?
I just found out that my undergraduate institution made a tiny error on my transcript of records. I moved to another country and am currently in my masters and I'm wondering if I should make the effort to get that little mistake corrected.
So how often will I need that transcript of records from my bachelors in the future?
I assume that after I have the masters degree I am probably expected to just send in the bachelors and masters certificate (+letters of recommendation etc.) for applications in academia or industry, because adding both transcripts of record would bloat my application significantly.

In addition to field making a difference, there are strong differences between countries. For instance, for my jobs in the US, I never needed to show any of my diplomas; however, I had to supply my transcripts for undergraduate and graduate programs. By contrast, in Germany, job applicants are normally expected to show their entire pedigrees—which means at a minimum the diploma certificates at both the university and high school levels! (I was also expected to produce the transcripts, of course.)
So, the best advice I can give is to follow the expectations of the industry in the region where you are applying. If you have any doubts about what is required, ask the contacts for the position or program.

Yes, you should get the error corrected.  Do it now, before you need it.  Although not all employers will want to see it, there's a chance that some may, and if they do, they will probably need it quickly.
Generally you should not include a transcript or other official documents with your application unless they are specifically requested.  Your resume or CV will have the basic information about your degree.  As you say, it adds several pages; if an employer wants it (and some will!) they should say so.
This may vary by country, but when applying to faculty jobs in the US, perhaps 10% of employers required a copy of my undergraduate transcript; enough that I couldn't afford to ignore it.
I'm not sure what you mean by a "certificate"; the US may not have a direct equivalent.  Here you do get a diploma, but this is just a fancy piece of paper that you frame and hang on your wall; it lists only the degree and the date, with no further details.  Nobody has ever asked to see my diploma.  For us, the transcript is the only real official document; it is sent directly from the institution so that it can't be tampered with.  (However, many employers will be satisfied with a simple photocopy for a preliminary application, and only request an official copy in the final stages.)
As there have been some high-profile cases lately of people claiming degrees that they didn't have, I'd expect that in the future, more employers will want to see transcripts.

Very good answer, exactly what I was looking for. By certificate I meant the bachelors diploma, it states the degree+date and the names of the modules+grades (3 pages overall). The transcript however additionally states the courses inside the modules and the terms in whcih they were completed as well as the meaning of the grades (=the grading system) to achieve an international comparability between bachelor degrees - this transcript has 4 pages. I hope this clears this up a bit. :-)

I guess this largely depends on where you apply. Industry usually interested in what recent projects/ education you have. However, academia usually want to see the complete history of the candidate. Regardless where you apply, doing good on the most recent degree is a good sign of productivity.

The grades are on the actual certificate, but the transcript of records provides a more detailed description of the courses inside each module and the meaning of the grades - but it also adds 4 more pages to the application and since one should respect the time of the person who reviews the application I want to know in which cases it is standard to send the transcript of records in and in which not.


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How to find a suitable summer internship university/department abroad?
Let's assume I want to look for a research internship at a university in the next year, what are decent strategies to find a suitable professor/department?
A few come to mind:

Ask home university/department/professor for contacts and use that connection? What if I have no prior research experience and professors only know me from classes?
Google and send CV + Statement to (many) professors via email and hope for the best
Google for positions that are explicitly offered for 8-10 week summer internships
?

This may get closed, as it is off-topic if you are an undergraduate (but I happen to think it could be considered on topic if looked at from the prospective of being a professor and giving advice to students).

I am a graduate (master) student in the european system, so this question should technically be on topic.

I am assuming you are an undergraduate; correct me if I'm wrong and I'll amend my answer.
It has been my experience that summer internships at a university that you don't attend are very rare.  My advisor explicitly ignored all cold emails from students asking if they could work with her during the summer (even if they were not asking to be paid).  Logistically, without being enrolled in the school, things like getting access to school servers, badgeing/keys for offices, etc. is just that much more difficult, and professors just don't have the time to vet students from external schools, nor much of an incentive to do so.
With that caveat:

Ask home university/department/professor for contacts and use that connection?

Absolutely, but it is going to take more than getting contacts to get a summer internship. Unless your professor reaches out to those contacts himself/herself, you're probably not going to get much traction.

What if I have no prior research experience and professors only know me from classes?

Then you are less likely to entice them to help you.  You're better off trying to work with those professors at your own university instead of trying to use them to work somewhere else.

Google and send CV + Statement to (many) professors via email and hope for the best

Please don't bother them -- they get too much spam to begin with.  You'll not only waste your time, but theirs as well.

Google for positions that are explicitly offered for 8-10 week summer internships

This is the best option, but I suggest not limiting yourself to universities and to branch out to look for internship experience in industry (if this is such a thing in your field).  For one, there are probably more opportunities, and secondly, they are generally more structured and you might get more out of the experience.
Incidentally, many professors use the summer months for work-related travel and to take vacation.  This makes it even more unlikely that you will find a position, as the number of professors around during the summer is minimal.  On the other hand, if you happen to find a professor that will assign you to one of his/her graduate students, you could potentially still work in the lab under the grad student tutelage instead of directly for the professor (and, indeed, this is probably what will happen in any lab -- as an undergraduate you will probably work more for the graduate students than for the professor, although this obviously varies by school and professor).


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Ad hoc work detracting from PhD project
Setting
I am a graduate student in a quant/informatics group (size = 2 people: my advisor and I) housed within a larger academic group that do wet laboratory/bench research. I have my own project independent of those in the larger bench research group.
Problem
We often get requests from the bench researchers for some data analysis. My advisor has been passing all these ad hoc requests to me and I do duly comply.
Anticipated consequence
If the current pace of requests continues, I think that my PhD project will suffer.
What actions should I take and why?

Is your advisor aware of how much you are spending on this?

No I guess that's why step 1 in D.Salo's answer is important

Also, the policy in my group is that we give a couple of meetings of advise "for free". If they need more than that, we start talking about authorship, or other compensations.

Authorship isn't a problem, it's actually kind of a given. We're embedded within this larger research group (is that uncommon?) but authorship isn't going to be good enough if my phd goes down the drain...

One remark to your situation and to the accepted answer. In my experience it was not uncommon for "junior" students (i.e. first few months of project) to be thrown at any work that comes their way. The idea was, that they're still learning, and should not turn down any opportunity to do something and learn more. Of course, these assignments were somehow related to the work, the student was doing, but s/he was in no position to say "no, this isn't my project" until s/he gained the know-how to work more or less independently. (cont'd)

So when I was starting work on my diploma project I had all sorts of crap coming my way and got into a lot of conflicts with superiors if/when I declined certain assignments. But once I started getting good results on my project, and started pulling long evenings measuring my samples, taking "no" for an answer became the norm, even if the request came directly from my supervisor. Before you complain to your supervisor, have a think, are you convincingly busy with your own stuff, and does your supervisor see, that you've got things to work on? (cont'd)

As a PhD student you are already well on your way to being an independent researcher and, especially if you're not in the beginning of the PhD, you're the one, that should manage your workflow.

Step 1: Gather data. For an appropriate period of time, keep a record of who asks for what task and how long each task takes to do. If you have comparable control data from before the requests started flooding in, track progress on your own project also, so that you can demonstrate the damage to your own work.
Step 2: Bring the problem to your advisor. Show your advisor the data. Explain what you need in terms of time: X amount of time for your own work per Y work period. Ask your advisor how best to make that happen (do bring ideas if you have them, but be open to things you haven't thought of).
Step 3: With your advisor's support, bring the problem to the rest of the research group. You should do this with proposed solution(s) in hand (one common Organization Hack is to bring two or three possible solutions, any of which would content you, in order to limit the apparent options to wins for you).
Derailment is possible here, especially if your advisor is unsympathetic, but a calm and data-driven approach is likeliest to achieve your aim.

I would say you should switch the first two steps. Take this up with your advisor before you start spending time gathering data which may not even be needed (for all we know, the advisor may already have part of the relevant data, or may not have realized that it was affecting the project, so he may simply agree to send less work that way in the future).

Learn to say no.
Also, you should talk to your advisor about this. He should want you to succeed and may not know the effects these tasks are having on you. Perhaps he doesn't know how much time the work is taking you or since you always say yes, he thinks you don't have enough work to do. Communication is key!

Impose resource limits
If there is an understanding that it is good to do certain tasks, it doesn't mean that it's good to spend all your time on them so that it hurts your other duties. Make up a reasonable limit (and possibly agree on it with your supervisor) on what is the upper ceiling of hours per week to devote to such requests so that you still have adequate time to work on your own project.
If such requests are common, regular and frequent, then schedule specific times in your workweek to work on them. When that time is up, that's it - go back to your project and you'll resume handling the remaining outside requests next week. If a large backlog starts to accumulate and things start taking unreasonably long then that's what should happen in a situation where the volume of such ad-hoc requests is too large - instead of sacrificing your project while hiding the real problem from everyone else. It will be a clear indication to the requesters and supervisors that some other resources or people are needed to handle those tasks.


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What can I do with multi-subfigure figures on ResearchGate.net
As many of us are aware, ResearchGate.net is a popular site on which researchers showcase their publications. In addition to the PDF for a published work, the site interface allows you to upload PDFs for figures, together with captions.
This becomes difficult, however, when your figures are actually made up of multiple subfigures. There doesn't seem to be direct support for specifying subfigures of the same figures and having them show up alongside each other.
What (if anything) can be done to overcome this - other than uploading each subfigure separately, or not uploading them at all?

Could you upload a PDF containing all panels of the figure?

One answer, hinted at by @Anyon's comment, is to generate, for each figure, a PDF with the subfigures laid out as they are in the full work - and upload that. Perhaps one also needs to include the subfigure captions in that PDF.
This seems like a lot of hassle, but perhaps one can make LaTeX automate this somehow.


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Should one keep record of papers one reviews? (and of the reviews themselves)
Just like my other research-related activities, I keep a complete record of the reviews I perform: both the original papers and the reviews I have written, as well as the revised manuscript I receive one, and the final published manuscript if it is published (but sometimes in a different journal!)
I don't think I ever read anything in reviewer guidelines that forbid this, but I recently met someöne who argued that confidential material should be deleted after review. It's true that keeping it on my hard drive exposes it slightly to a risk of breach of confidentiality, but no more than the rest of confidential material that I handle every day…
So, what are policies on this matter and what are the existing practices?

I do the same (i.e., save all versions of a manuscript I receive and all of my and the other reviewers' comments that I receive through the review process). I save them in a single directory according to their manuscript number, which tends to keep things fairly organized and easy to find later.
Why might I want to find them later? First, when I receive a revision, I find it is a lot easier to go back and look at the files I have stored locally to see what I recommended change (in case it has been months since I first saw the manuscript), whether the author(s) did, in fact, change anything, and whether the changes were actually in-line with my and the other reviewers' suggestions. This came up recently when I received a revision that claimed to make changes but I found they had actually not made changes in the manuscript (the original and revision were strikingly similar) and I suggested a rejection.
The second instance where this can come up is receiving the same manuscript from a different journal (e.g., because it was rejected by the journal you reviewed for first). Having your previous comments and the previous version allows you to see how the manuscript has developed and either provide original feedback or reiterate points that still need improvement that you highlighted in your previous review. Or, decline to review because youf ind it difficult to present an unbiased opinion.
A third, and final, reason that I find it useful to save these things is pedagogical. In graduate school, several professors sent us versions of their reviews for manuscripts so that we could see how to write a peer review. Having manuscripts and your reviews available makes passing down that future pedagogical activity much easier. (Note that sharing manuscripts may be more controversial than sharing one's review, but if the paper was previously available as a working paper or conference paper and was subsequently published, I see little ethical concern with sharing the manuscript with future students.)

A fourth reason, for me, is that often a paper I review is one that I will want to read again later (because it's on a subject that I'm interested in).  My notes are often helpful in reminding me about details of the paper that I'd otherwise have to figure out from scratch.

There is no legal reason to hold on to old reviews, it would be the responsibility of the journal in that case. I have kept a record of my reviews just as you describe you have done, mostly because I like to save my work. I sometimes curse this because I can see reviews I would like to share with students but cannot since I perceive them as confidential unless agreed otherwise with the author(s), and the reasons I would like to share them usually does not reflect well on the paper.
Unless the reviews are made under a contract of some sort, I would argue that they fall under immaterial rights; it is your intellectual work which is provided to (1) the author and (2) the journal. I do not think anyone else can claim rights to a review.
The review work is generally made under the assumption that it is a communication between reviewer and author, albeit filtered through an editor. I have not seen any instance where someone has argued ownership of a review in my field, either in general or in the case of the journal where I am an editor. As a reviewer one must always consider the fact that all help that is provided is practically given away and should of course be seen in the greater perspecite of both giving and receiving in some form of balance.
Instances where reviews may be contracted are common when reviewing reports for government agencies or commercial enterprises. I have not seen, but cannot discount the possibility, that a journal or publisher could have such agreements. But I cannot imagine such an agreement would be hidden, it would be communicated very clearly.
As for keeping your reviews safe from being spread, I would say that the journals electronic manuscript systems are far more likely to be hacked into than that of an individual researcher. To some extent I would compare having a review on a hard drive to having it in a ring-binder. It IS possible to get hold of it but I doubt more security than that is required (i.e. ordinary computer "security" measures, e.g. provided by a university).


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Will delaying entering grad school for a year to pursue study abroad put one at a strong disadvantage?
I'm a year away from getting my undergrad degree in (computer) engineering, with a minor in Japanese. I never had the opportunity to do a study abroad due to the rigors of the major. As some probably know, the JET program is a program by which selected individuals move to Japan to teach English at public schools for a year (or two or three, but not more, I believe). I've always been very interested in doing something like this, but I have always assumed that doing so would ruin my chances of getting into a graduate program or landing a good job upon my return.
It wouldn't be like attending grad school before entering the industry or vice versa, in that I would be teaching English for a living, not studying or working in my field. I could still self study, and my field gives me the advantage of still being able to apply my skills working on personal projects and open-source software, but I would certainly be removed from the industry and academia, I would expect.
I feel like leave from the field would look bad to any prospective schools or employers. How accurate is my assumption? Would a leave of absence to do something like this reflect poorly on me in the eyes of potential schools or employers?

if you just want to travel to Japan and work there, you can do so academically. Consider this answer.

As someone who has never taken a gap year, I'd encourage you to take the opportunity. The experience alone would be worth it, but having a break to think about life and where you want to go is also useful.

That answer is very interesting Artem. Something I'm definitely going to look into, thank you.
And I have little doubt it would be a magnificent experience, but I'm worried about the consequences after it ended.

This might have a small negative effect on your chances of admission, by making you look less committeed or sure of your long-term goals.  However, I believe the effect would be quite small, and in many cases it wouldn't be an issue at all.
One way to avoid this issue completely would be to apply to grad school and then defer for a year after admission.  Deferring may or may not be possible, depending on the field and university.  In my department, several grad students defer each year, usually for things like Part III of the Tripos at Cambridge.  I don't recall a case where someone was teaching English for a year overseas, but I imagine deferring for that would be allowed.

P.S.  I should clarify that I don't think it should affect your chances of admission, but it might if the wrong person ends up on the committee.

This will not hurt your future plans. International experience and second language skills like this will likely help, even if they are not related to your undergraduate or graduate career.

I often hear (On workplace, etc) of how poor it looks when a candidate has been out of work for a long period, even or especially of their own will. While I wouldn't be out of work, per say, I wouldn't be working in my field for a year, which I fear wouldn't look good. As Anonymous Mathematician said in their answer, it seems like it would reflect poorly on me. Perhaps the experience and language skills would outweigh that?

A year is not a long period between college and grad school, although it might be if you're out of work without having a good reason to be.

As others have said, a year teaching English won't look bad on its own.
That being said, if you are thinking of graduate school, you might want to figure out who will write you letters of recommendation, and ask them to write the letters now. You want your letter writers to write for you while their memories are still fresh, rather than having to remind them of what exactly you did with them a year later, by email.

I don't think a gap year of the kind you describe would influence my admissions decision adversely. If anything, it would make me more intrigued. As with all things, you should make sure to articulate your story well in your personal statement if you think it needs explanation.

In my experience (biology), I think that taking a couple of years off before grad school provided me with an advantage during applications. Granted, I was working at a biotech company, so I was still developing "relevant" expertise (though in the end, it wasn't really relevant to what I worked on for my dissertation).
I think that the most important consideration is that you continue to learn during your hiatus. Fluency in a foreign language can be very valuable in academia -- I expect that there are a lot of top-notch computer scientists in Japan. Ideally, you would be able to establish relationships with Japanese CS students/researchers; I'd bet that many of the students are itching for help learning/practicing English.
There are a few reasons that older applicants may be more attractive in general:

They are not continuing in school by default/inertia, and so are more likely to complete the program
They are more mature, so they are less likely to cause drama in the department.
They can bring outside perspective into their research. The academic career machine places a big emphasis on "shaking things up" and learning from a wide variety of situations/mentors.

I also see a couple of possible downsides:

Some fields have a youth cult, where they think that radical thinking comes from young researchers. Specifically, I'm thinking of mathematics, though this may apply to CS. In contrast, the conventional wisdom is that biologists value experience and perspective.
You will be older when you graduate and start your academic career. This may not be a big deal if your grad programs are short (5 years). A low salary and the need to chase jobs across the country/globe may not seem like a problem when you are 21 and healthy, but things are different when you are 30 and have responsibilities and are not as strong as you once were.