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How does peer review detect cheating when replicating a study isn't an option?
Disclaimer: This is the third incarnation of my question because the previous two have met with silence.
Adapted to this site:
For a scientific study to be accepted as "truth" the standard process is peer review. When the subject is something like math where you can follow through all the steps and recreate the logic in your head, that works great.
But what about cases when that's not an option - for example, research into the efficiency of a vaccine or a new drug? After Phase 3 trials the pharmaceuticals company releases the data which is then scrutinized by (I'd expect) both peer researchers from rival companies and government agencies. But how can they detect that it's not all or in part a lie? There is after all a huge financial motivation for the company to do it. Even when the reviewers are highly motivated to find any traces of fraud, what is the actual process by which they do it, if they can't replicate the study itself and compare the results?

Did you consider that there is also a huge financial reward for not lying? Being the company known for producing a drug with (very) harmful side effects is not going to sit well with shareholders since the company value could take a big hit.

@Jeroen - True, but only if you're found out. And also there are other ways to cheat - for example not by masking harmful side effects, but by exaggerating efficiency. That's a lot harder to detect.

Determining "truth" is not part of peer review.  https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/148027/13240

Exaggerating efficiency (saying 85% rather than 80%) is much less harmful than masking harmful side effects. But other will eventually replicate studies when others compare their new drug to the company in questions drug.

I can't answer your question, because I'm not a pharmacologist or experimental researcher, but two important points are that (1) reviewers can check the research design and the appropriateness of the methods used in a study without performing a replication, (2) reviewers rely on rough heuristics and experience to perform a "smell test" - if something "smells fishy", they can ask for more evidence. this is more of an art than a science. in any case, peer review is no silver bullet against fraud.

Even subsequent experiments may fail to find a notably wrong value. See Timeline of measurements of the electron's charge

Since vaccines are of particular interest right now: It would involve a huge amount of work and malice to fabricate a phase 3 study. And what is there to gain? The malice would be detected in phase 4 (aka in the real world) and than the company would be on the hook for damages, which can be quite the expense. Ask Grünenthal if Contergan was a good investment.

For a scientific study to be accepted as "truth" the standard process is peer review. You should never take a single study as "truth", your response should be 'that's interesting'.  Taking single studies as truth is why science journalism, particularly around diet and food science, is a complete mess of contradicting info. When a whole bunch of studies, preferably ones that look at the question from different angles, start agreeing with each other, that's when you start to have some claim on having found some truth.

@Christian - "It would involve a huge amount of work and malice to fabricate a phase 3 study." - how so? At the end of the day it's just a stack of papers. Skip the phase, produce fake papers. Sure, there's a few people involved, but my gut feeling says you should be able to keep the number of conspirators below 20. Am I wrong? Although I agree that real world results later would expose the fraud, that would be MUCH later.

@eps - I agree. Unfortunately this isn't always feasible - such as in the aforementioned Phase 3 drug studies. Though, of course, after the drug is deployed you can then slowly start gathering real-world statistics.

@Vilx making a huge stack of papers make sense is already a lot of work when you don't lie. And for a study with 40.000 people you need more than 20 people.

I take issue with your first statement, that for a "...study to be accepted as "truth" the standard process is peer review". The purpose of peer review is not to be the judge of what is true or not, but to evaluate (simply put) whether a study is well-conducted, is using adequate methods, is acknowledging relevant previous research, and if the conclusions are supported by the data and analysis. Another way of putting this might be that peer review is about validation of the claims made, but not about validation of truth. Some other thoughts and guidelines on the purpose of peer-review can be found here; on scope and responsibilities, from PNAS (see "Peer Reviewer Instructions" and "Reviewer responsibilities), and a relativly clear statement on the scope of peer-review, from The Royal Society (see "Reviewing instructions").
In a scientific context, "truth" is something that follows from repeated studies that confirms previous results, and is based on a network of theory and observation that is (to a large extent) congruent. However, generally, I would say that it is more appropriate to define the scientific method as a way to search for "truth", than a method to determine what is "true" (opinions will probably vary on this though).
When it comes to cheating, especially with regard to data, the possibilities to detect this during peer-review is limited, even in the ideal situation when data has been made fully available. If researchers for example fully fabricate data, or tamper with raw data, this will not be caught in peer-review, since only the modified data will be avaliable. Add to this that the time available to peer-review is very limited, so a full statistical re-analysis of the data is not possible. This is also one of the reasons for the need of replicated studies and other studies with supporting evidence before results are accepted as "true".

Does that mean that a peer review does not validate data in any way? For example, if I  conducted a study of the average age of people passing my house and concluded that all 1000 of them were 27 years old and named "John" - that would obviously be nonsense. But peer review would let that pass assuming everything else was in order?

No, in your paper you would need to describe the methodology, which in your scenario (almost surely) has a huge flaw, and that would be detected in the peer review. As written in the answer, your study will not have been "well-conducted" and will not have used "adequate methods".

@Vilkx- In many fields, it's a standard practice that raw data are supposed to be made publicly available. But reviewers are under no obligation to check them. Some fields have introduced dedicated "artifact evaluation" processes following the actual peer review.

@Vilx-: Most likely (not sure about Medicine, but other subjects), if you'd omit the fact that you only ask people who are 27 years old, people would not realize that unless the result seems really silly (as in this case). Indeed, there are many "false" studies out there (sometimes out of malice, sometimes because of lacking knowledge). In the case of Covid vaccanication, however, the study gets "replicated" in the sense that failures will be detected when the population is vaccacinated.

@cheersmate - Oh, no, the methodology description would be perfect. It's just that I wouldn't do any of it and would simply invent all the raw data.

@Vilx- This varies a lot between scientific fields, so it is hard to give a general answer. Overall, peer-review is not a one-size-fits-all process, and the areas covered by peer-review therefore varies between fields, journals and individual researchers/peer-reviewers.
However, yes, in some fields there are attempts to also review and data. The situation/possibility to do this has become a bit better with time (again, with huge differences between fields) due to mandates to openly publish data sets. [cnd...]

[Cnd...] However, to fully review data and the statistical analysis of this data is a huge undertaking, and the normal peer-review process doesn't have time for this. Remember, the normal time set aside for peer-review (generally done unpaid, by voluteers) is a couple of hours, to sometimes a couple of days, so the possibility to fuly review data is limited, even when full data sets are available.
I should also mention that I didnät really notice your Q title at first, and mostly wrote my answer on the issue of valitating "truth". The issue of cheating is diffucult, ...[cnd..]

[cnd...] and only some aspect can really be caught by peer-review, even in the ideal case. If researchers for example fully fabricate data, or tamper with raw data, this will not be caught in peer-review, even when full data sets have been made openly available. Therefore the need for replicated studies and other studies with supporting evidence to approach something that resembles "truth"

For an interesting  view on peer review, truth and correctness, read Gelman's blog: https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/?s=peer+review

@Vilx- well crafted fraud is indeed extremely hard to detect and usually requires someone involved coming forward. As other answers have said, the strong disincentive is that if you do it long enough you will most likely be caught and your reputation ruined.

Quite simply, it doesn't and it can't. Further, the aim of peer review is not to detect fraud. Peer review can answer the questions:

Does this study answer an interesting question that has not already been answered else where?

Does the study use the correct methodology to answer the question? Are there flaws or gotchas in the implementation? For example I am currently having a back and forth over what is the most appropriate way to remove a particular sort of bias from a data set. These are the sort of subtleties that a non-expert reader might not be able to detect
Check that the conclusions drawn are supported by the data and analysis provided. Are there subtle reasons that what the authors claim doesn't follow? For example, it might take an infectious disease epidemiologist expert to tell  where a particular interpretation of results about Covid is falling victim to the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy.

Journals can and sometimes do detect particularly egregious cases of fraud (like some categories of imagine manipulation), and reviewers will hopefully catch cases where authors are being evasive, cherry picking data, ignoring flaws in the data, or suggesting things that don't quite follow, but outright lies are more or less impossible to catch.
This is why generally things don't become accepted as truth on the basis of just a single study.  While outright replications are rare, future studies will use previous studies as starting points, and if those previous studies are incorrect it will become apparent as the house of cards built on them doesn't stand up.
In fact we rarely ever accept anything as TRUTH. Science doesn't find truth, and all papers are wrong. Instead science as a whole, average over everything asymptotically approaches truth, but on a small scale it is not a smooth approach, but random walk. A biased one to be sure, more two steps forward and one back than the opposite.
This is why breaking into a new field can be difficult. You need to absorb the complete milieu of the field. You need to get a feel for what the field as a whole believes, rather than what an individual paper says. That's not to say the field is always right and the individual paper wrong, but siding with the field will make you right more often than wrong.

"all papers are wrong" - I would adapt this statement for mathematics where it's probably not a good way of saying it. Even if true statements mathematics ultimately depend on an agreement of the community, mathematical knowledge is typically orders of magnitude more stable than in any other topic.

Yes. This more applies to empirical disciplines.

TL;DR: Finding outright fraud is not the job of peer review; it is not difficult to cheat in a publication and it is not easy in general to discover it. However, fraud in important work will ultimately be found out. Fraud in unimportant work may linger for a while because nobody will bother to use or reproduce the results.
Peer review rarely can identify fabricated data directly (there are exceptions, see the case of Jan Hendrik Schön, where graphs were identically reproduced in different contexts; or cases where image manipulation can be clearly established).
However, note that fabricating data is the ultimate scientific crime, even worse than plagiarism. If the question is important, you waste other researchers valuable time and direct them away from other more productive lines of work.
Furthermore, if the question is important, you will be found out. It may take time, but you will be found out. This is how science works. It makes mistakes, results are foggy, but the fog will clear at some point. If you ever fabricated data, you will have a very hard time to ever be believed again - actually, I would venture so far as to say
you will never be believed again. No one wants to waste their time on work by someone who is not just sloppy (such as the Cold Fusion case), which is bad enough, but actively mislead their peers.
If the question is unimportant, and one is out of the eye of scientific scrutiny, then one may survive for a while in the system (there were cases where whole careers were built on this over longer periods); however, then, what's the point? What's a charlatan without an audience?
Peer review is mostly a sanity check for the most coarse omissions, mistakes, or really clumsy fakes. But discovering the latter is not the purpose of peer review. Given above incentives to not lie, peer review assumes that the authors have given their best shot at being truthful and it tries to capture honest mistakes; another role is evaluating the quality of the research (which is often very subjective and may have a latency of decades before it becomes more "objectively" evaluable).
[Addendum: One major class of issues could theoretically be discovered by peer review in a similar way as vote tampering, namely by statistics such as Benford's law - however, unlike in voting where results matter immediately and on a large scale, peer reviewers do not typically invest the time to run detailed evaluations of whether the statistics has been tampered with. Scientific work is not treated as adversarial as would be vote manipulation or intelligence work, and it would be a huge waste of time to do so, as there is enough to do with the exploration of the unknown.]

I see. I wonder though if companies are not more resilient against bad reputation than individuals. Sure, if it later comes to light that data was falsified then there will be fines, maybe even someone jailed, difficulties in the stock market... but the company will carry on. And the general public has a short memory. Scandals are a dime a dozen these days. A few years later things will be back to normal.

@Vilx- That's a different question and has nothing to do with typical peer review issues. There is a reason why you have to disclose company links as reviewer. Reputational damage can still be very expensive, even if not destructive. Business follows different laws from academia.

True, true. Well... as you probably have gathered, I'm really looking for the answer to the question "what makes the test results of a vaccine vendor trustworthy?" And... I thought it was the same peer review process at play here, even though the "peers" in this case are government overseers. Guess not. My search continues.

No system, peer review or anything else can prevent a concerted attempted at outright lies. Things that argue against complete invention are: A very large number of people are involved in these trials, they would ALL need to keep their mouths shut. And often these trials are not carried out by the companies themselves, but by contract trials organizations, and these are paid the same irrespective of the outcome of the trial. And they really would be wiped out by such a scandal, which would have to involve 1000s of people never saying anything.

@IanSudbery Indeed. OP is to some extent justified in the abstract question of safety approval, though probably not in the concrete one of the vaccines, as show the details of the issues around the approval of the Boeing 737 Max. In a vaccine approval, the damage created by knowingly withholding/faking facts is, however, so much more expensive than even that, not just in terms of immediate loss of lives, but also in the reputational damage to vaccination campaigns as a whole, that I expect the full force of the law and governmental power to be unleashed at the perpetrators.

One only has to look at the large fraction of drugs that fail to make it through the approvals process to see that this is at least not ubiquitous.

@Vilx-  it's pretty hard to do what you are talking about in large companies simply because of the bureaucracy and number of people involved, even for smaller decisions.  the incentives are more in line when you are talking about small startups whose future may depend on a product being approved and there's less people involved that can put the brakes on or call foul.  A perfect example being Theranos -- there's no way Holmes could have pulled that off as a manager in some giant pharma company.  And if anything, brands are FAR more image conscious these days than before social media.

@IanSudbery - Citation very much desired? :)

@IanSudbery - Also - 1000s of people? Well, if you actually do the study, yes. But for merely producing the right paperwork, shouldn't it be enough with just a few people?

Citation for which bit? That most trails are actaully conducted by CROs or that a large proportion of drugs fail trials?

1000s might have been an exaggeration, 100s perhaps. You couldn't just pretend to do a trial but not actaully do it. What are all those people going to do when they find out they've been involved in a trial for the last 3 years that they've never heard of? I mean, you might just about get away with inventing numbers and putting them in a table for an academic journal, but not for a medical regulator - you'd need the details of all the centers involved, the enrolling physicians, the trial nurses, the consent forms...


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How to prepare for the questions you get at a research interview
I recently applied for several permanent research positions. The interview were all similar: a talk on your past, present and planned research and some time for questions. I prepared well for the talk and got feedback from several colleagues.
My problem is to prepare for the question part. I think my project is well thought through but when comes the time to anwsering questions, I completely loose my confidence. The type of feedback I got the most was that I'm not able to 'advertise' myself and my project.
So I have two questions:

How do you usually prepare for questions ?

Do you know any good training courses that could help building up my confidence to answer these type of questions in an efficient way ?

I did anticipate some of the questions and prepared them but I never know if the answer is satisfactory to the people asking. How do you typically prepare for questions?

Thank. Good point, I did get some feedback on these (considered a bit long and slow). I guess what I'm looking for are ways to practice and improve this "thinking on my feet" skill! How do you do when does not come naturally and you are more of a 'slow' thinker?

You might be able to put together a mock interview. You can give (even laypeople) a list of questions and have them rattle them off. Professors may be willing to help also.

Please consider removing Do you know any good training courses that could help building up my confidence to answer these type of questions in an efficient way? from your question. That's a shopping question which is off topic for this site

The type of feedback I got the most was that I'm not able to 'advertise' myself and my project.

Every interview is a sales pitch.  The famous book, studied widely at military academies around the world, The art of war, by Sun Tzu, states that if you know your enemy and you know yourself, then in a thousand battles you need not lose once.
When applied to sales or job interviews, it requires one to thoroughly investigate who is being pitched to and clearly articulating the value you are proposing in a short period of time.
Therefore, I recommend studying how you can refine your pitch from a well rehearsed academic presentation at great length down to a two minute pitch and even better to an elevator pitch.
By focusing on the most important value proposition your skill in "advertising" yourself and your project will improve.
I hope that answers your first question about how to best prepare for your interviews.  I believe that if you start with a good pitch, The questions of the interviewers will then naturally go deeper into the content, instead of the other way around.  My guess is that you are providing too many details, The interviewers are getting lost in the details and not seeing the bigger picture value of your work.
To answer question number two regarding training. I would start by familiarizing myself with the work of Steve Blank, The creator of NSF Innovation Corps.  He has excellent presentations and videos, but this blog post seems to address but I believe is your issue directly.  https://steveblank.com/2010/04/22/turning-on-your-reality-distortion-field/

There is no generic answer. Depends on the area, the place, etc. The main thing is to understand what do they want from you. Strong research? Team work? Leadership? Something else? Then search for, say, "how to show that you are a team worker?" . It should give you a clue.

Without context of the position level (e.g., post doc, research support staff, faculty, etc.) my suggestions will be vague.

How do you usually prepare for questions?

Do research on the position, research group, and institution as well as the type of person they are looking for.
Then think about how your research fits into these.
For example, let's say you are a biologist who studies pesticide effects on song bird ecology using field studies and computer modeling. Depending upon the position you might several different angels:

Ecotoxicology who uses avian case studies for an ecotox department
Computer modeler who uses ecological examples for a modeling position
Ornithologist for a biology department looking for a person to teach ornithology
Field ecologist for a biology department looking for field ecologist

Ideally, you can learn these details ahead of time.
If not, ask them at the start of your interview and ask about the position more.

Thanks, I am relatively well prepared in terms of the content of my answers, I rather thinking of ways to improve how I deliver them. Any thoughts ? I have practiced with a few different researchers. What I missing is not content, it's form.

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Am I responsible for not reproducibility of collaborators’ result?
Recently, I have ran into some issues about reproducibility of some of my research results which are obtained by our collaborators from different university. In fact, in our current repository there are some saved figures and plots which are significantly different from the results of current scripts written by our collaborators. I knew this issue from the beginning but our collaborators explicitly mentioned in their emails that those results are not relevant and the current results which could be obtained from current codes are credible to use, so I didn’t care too much and just used the current results which seem more relevant to me for my presentations, proposal, etc. Recently, my PhD advisor tried to prepare a presentation based on those results and I don’t know why he insists to reproduce those old results which are not matched with current results obtainable by current codes. He sent me an email and its language was like it’s my fault that we could not reproduce those results from collaborators. As a result, I’m thinking am I the one that should be blamed here really? BTW I sent an email to our collaborators and asked for clarification which I didn’t get any response yet. Any ideas or suggestions are appreciated about how to deal with this problem.

why don't you just send an email to your collaborator with your adviser in Cc? "Dear Collaborator, I am trying to reproduce some results for Prof. X's presentation, however I am not able because of changes you might have made to the scripts. Can you please clarify blabla?"

@Anon I mentioned that I sent an email to collaborators and I cced my adviser as well but still no response.

This is a grey area, and there are people on both sides of the fence. Take a look at the Schön scandal, especially the "responsibilities of coauthors" section of the Bell Labs investigative committee report. Some summaries:

Co-authors share a significant part of the credit.
If amazing results are reported, then the simple presence of a well-known researcher as a co-author gives credibility to the paper, even before it is reproduced.
However if a co-author's work turns out to be wrong, inaccurate, or (even worse) fraudulent, everyone else's name on the paper is suspect. Negative reputational damage is virtually assured.
... nonetheless, at least in this particular case, all the coauthors were exonerated of misconduct.

Notably, the committee agrees that it's an "extraordinarily difficult" question, and they don't feel qualified to make a specific judgment. Therefore, you'll have to draw your own conclusions about what it means to be a coauthor, and make your own decisions on whether or not you care about being able to reproduce your collaborator's results.

It sounds like you are in a difficult position, but, yes, if your name is on a publication or report, people will assume that you are responsible for everything in it.
It may be that you have been caught by your own carelessness, of course, accepting something you weren't sure about because they "seem more relevant to me". It is hard to be definite here with so little information, but perhaps you need to be more careful.
But the situation now needs some resolution. This is something you need to work out with your advisor and perhaps your collaborators. I think the only way to really solve it is to have a general meeting where you discuss the situation. Someone, somewhere, seems to have been making improper assumptions. Perhaps there is shared blame here. But if all fingers are now pointing at you, then you have to work to find a general resolution as the situation isn't likely to change without your action.
Your attitude in such a meeting should be "this is what happened... this is what I assumed... this is why I acted as I did", being entirely truthful. Some of the blame may fall to you, but better that it be worked out than that it not be.

I didn’t judge based on only “seems relevant to me”. As I mentioned in the question collaborators explicitly mentioned that those results are not correct and final results obtainable by current codes should be taken as our final results and be presented or used everywhere. This mention that I’m saying is about some emails that mainly are sent and received between my advisor and our collaborators. So I assume my advisor read their e-mail carefully and he knew that those old results should be removed. Why I didn’t removed those results? Cause they are obtained by collaborators not me.

Also again I would like to say I didn’t accept blindly anything cause I read their code carefully line by line and compare their results with similar results from literature and after that I’m saying they’re results “seem more relevant to me”. So, I’m not judging based on pure speculation.

I was just quoting you. A longer excerpt: "I didn’t care too much and just used the current results which seem more relevant to me for my presentations, proposal, etc.".  That is why I suggest that part of the problem may lay with you. But it is your advisor you need to convince, not me.  People will naturally  assume that you are responsible for things done under your name. It is too late to go back in time, of course, so you need to figure out how to get out  of an uncomfortable position in a satisfactory way.

ICJME does not hold every author responsible for misconduct by a different author. Rather you are only responsible to investigate claims of misconducted. See for example my answer https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/42136/what-should-the-chemist-who-synthesized-a-drug-expect-regarding-coauthorship-of/42140#42140

@StrongBad, I wasn't interpreting this as misconduct. But even the fourth point of the guidelines suggest  every author is responsible for the entire work. They may not be blamed for the misconduct of others, of course, if they do due diligence, but that is a different question. Even then, a certain level of carelessness will result in blame. Not the situation here, I think.

@Buffy Even based on equal responsibility of all authors regarding the results, I assume my adviser also is responsible equally as me cause his name is on the final report which is already online based on these results. But, I’m wondering why when direct person, which is responsible for entire codes and results, is pretty much available and could be asked for clarification why I am the one only should be blamed?! I mean my adviser didn’t ask the collaborators which looks the first option to find a resolution to me to ask main person that created something about its functionality or its results

Again, it is your advisor who needs convincing. No, I don't think you are entirely to blame. Yes, it is likely shared. Go talk to the person that has the issue.

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My former adviser published an article from my master thesis in a predatory journal without my consent, what should I do now?
My former master adviser published an article, which is derived from my master thesis, in a predatory journal without my consent. He put my name as the first and corresponding author and his name as the second author. I just found it when Researchgate sent an alarm to me that you have a new publication! Right now, I'm a PhD student in the US and he is a professor in a different country, which these kind of activities are common and there is not strong infrastructure against research misconduct like the US or Europe. I don't want to make my CV dirty by putting an article in it, which is published in a predatory journal. I sent an email to the editor and editor-in-chief of this journal in order to retract the article but I didn't receive any response after a week. I'm wondering is it possible to request a DMCA take down to Google by myself to at least remove it from Google Scholar or Google search or it needs to inform my current university and they do an action?

I (luckily) never had to deal with a predatory journal, but I assume that you didn't get any emails during the submission process, which is highly disturbing if your listed as the corresponding author o.O. I mean if they don't even do that, why would they answer your emails...

@BasJansen Exactly! The odd thing is how someone could be listed as "corresponding author" but they don't even send you an email that you are a co-author in a submission in their journal?! sigh...

I'd start by talking to the adviser, asking him why he did it, and see what he says.

@Allure I asked my adviser already but still after a week, I didn't hear back from him. I know his personality and I don't think he would give me a reasonable response regarding this problem. The worst part is: I am listed as corresponding author and people might think it's me that I submitted this article to a predatory journal and that really bothers me.

Do you have any need to remain on good terms with your former advisor?

@NateEldredge Not really cause it’s already destoryed completely and I didn’t even get recommendation from him for my PhD application.

One idea would be to disavow it on your CV, e.g. "There may be papers appearing in predatory journals under my name.  Any paper not listed here has been published without my consent and I disavow it."  I wonder what people think of this idea?

@NateEldredge, I think it brings attention where you don't want it. I would do this if I was opposed to the content of the publication though.

@highBandWidth Absolutely. Don't draw attention to it. An early mistake (even if it wasn't technically yours) in the career is easily forgiven. The advantage of being seen as inexperienced - use it.

@AloneProgrammer: Note that you can retract your close vote by clicking on close again. (This way you won’t waste reviewer time when making a mistake.)

I don't want to make my CV dirty by putting an article in it, which is
  published in a predatory journal

All you need to do is just to forget about it. You don't have to waste time on contacting your advisor or Google.

Nobody read predatory journals. The amount of papers in good venues are already too much.
Nobody will remember your name until you have a strong publication record with different sets of authors. (Otherwise people only remember the most well-known authors)
When you are somebody to be searched for, you probably have other publications that appear in the first search results. Researchers are busy, nobody have time for an old paper that has not been cited, in an unknown journal.

You could try having it removed. Predatory journals may not comply with your request or have anyone respond to you. This will also probably destroy your relationship with your former advisor, which you may need at some time if you need a recommendation etc. If you think your relationship is already destroyed completely, this may not matter.
If you never list this article in your CV, webpage, google scholar profile etc., and never cite it, it may not do any damage to your academic reputation. You say you're a PhD student in the US, so this is probably from your masters or undergraduate work. If you do well and publish a few good first author papers during your PhD and some good shared authorship papers, I don't think an early paper in a predatory journal you don't record yourself is going to matter a lot. People would just assume you were young and inexperienced then and you've grown as a researcher since.
I would be more concerned with the content of the matter. Does it contain any false results, embarrassingly bad language, un-cited work or plagiarism? Something like this is definitely more damaging and you should try to have this removed. Would you have been fine with the exact same paper in a good journal?

I tried to submit it to some reputable journals before coming to the US but it got revision and because I was busy with starting my PhD I didn’t edit the article to submit the revision and probably those revision requests are expired by now. So, yes I would like to publish it in a reputable journal but I’m wondering why he sent it to a really terrible one... The bad thing is that it’s already indexed in Google scholar and because my name is really unique even in my native language I believe if someone will search my name will find this article in that predatory journal for sure.

Do you have any thoughts about how to "try having it removed"?  OP already said that they asked the journal to remove it, and were ignored.

@AloneProgrammer: I hope the plural in your comment is a typo.  You didn't submit it to multiple journals at the same time, did you?

@NateEldredge Nope that was just typo. In fact, I looked at my elsevier account and that revision request was valid until last January.

One could write to the journal (done). 2. Write to any bodies the journal is part of, or indexed in, cc'ed to the journal. 3. Write to the chair or other administrative people in the former university. I personally recommend against escalating it this high, but it's possible. From the advisor's perspective, they usually get to decide where to publish, and the student left without pursuing it to the end.

@highBandWidth step 3 will not work cause I mentioned it’s not an European or US university which everybody cares about research misconduct. I admit that I didn’t revised the manuscript but he could send me an email to send it to another at least reasonable journal so I don’t think it justifies his action to submit it to a predatory journal.

@AloneProgrammer 1. It doesn't justify it, but changes the degree of the misconduct. 2. Different universities might deal with it differently, but I think it's a little too generalized and sloppy to think that non US/European universities are openly ok with research misconduct.

@highBandWidth Unfortunately in our country it is quite OK among highly educated people. I mean it’s kinda unique even among the non-European/US countries.

I would follow up with your advisor one more time, and give them a deadline to respond otherwise you will follow up with their institution. Do you have someone at your university you could talk to- a local advisor perhaps? If you don't get a response, report him to his department and the university.
As for the journal, I've heard emailing these predatory journals and threatening to take legal recourse often works with a hard deadline. Try following up again with legal action in the subject matter. Tell them they are violating copyright law and you have been in touch with a lawyer and will be pursuing action by X date.
Also consider, there was no copyright transfer, so the paper could be published in the legitimate journal, ideally with an editorial note on the paper explaining what has happened.


text:
Creating a permanent URL to put in a publication
In an upcoming publication, I need to link to the data I used for the publication so that others can see/use the data as well — both for reviewing the given work and also for intended use in the future. However, my institution has not offered any hosting solutions and I have not (yet) found any acceptable external solutions which absolve me of financial and legal responsibility for maintaining the data and the hosting infrastructure. I will not be at the given institution for very much longer, so e.g. putting it on my personal site at the institution is not a solution. The primary data in question is about 12GB in size, so it needs to be a proper "repository" for the data rather than just e.g. an attachment distributed with the publication itself.
Nevertheless, I need to at least have a stable link to some place where the data can be located; The stability of the actual location is not as important as the stability of the link itself. How/where can I procure a permanent URL to link to research data in a publication which does not cost me anything as an individual?

About 12GB, so I doubt that that would be a possible avenue...

Is it possible to register for a doi in cases such as this?

It's probably not the best idea because it requires other people to decide to host your data, but if you expect that to be the case or if you have a Computer constantly running anyways, IPFS might be a solution

In addition to server based hosting you might consider making a torrent available. Torrent applications can make use of online mirrors in addition to p2p transfer.

@WesToleman reading your comment, I was reminded by Archive BitTorrents because SE uses it.

Regardless of how you choose to host the data I recommend that the publication itself contains a cryptographic hash of the data file (I am assuming it will be distributed as an archive file such that a single hash will cover it all). That will allow anybody who wants to inspect the data to verify that they have the correct data and it can also help a bit in tracking down the data should the original download link stop working.

This question is now protected so I can't answer but you could have a look at http://academictorrents.com/

@errantlinguist https://goo.gl/ It is from Google. It has been around since 2009, hence I find it trustable.  The good thing abou this is - once you put the link in a hard place -  a research paper or resume, you can be sure whomsoever access that will reach where you want them to.  This is because you can change the content linked to your goo.gl link.  So, suppose you host the 12 GB file in onedrive for 5 years because you have free space, you can link that to your permanent goo.gl link.  Later on, you get free space in GDrive, you move the 12gb data there, and update your goo.gl link. :)

There is an important distinction between a Uniform Resource Locator and a Uniform Resource Name; the latter might be a better fit for your requirements. The most common URN in this setting is probably a DOI.

I can't post a proper reply, because the thread is locked, but I think Mendeley Data (https://data.mendeley.com/) provides a free service for exactly that purpose.
You will have to find out if they can host that much data and if you are in agreement with their sharing model.

How about google drive?

Perhaps the question should state whether or not the data should also be immutable. Having a permanent link (i.e. one that always resolves) doesn't mean it always resolves to the same data.

Maybe Zenodo or other "Academic Data Repository". Googling this would give you a list. Zenodo have some advantages.

Gives you a DOI, Digial Object Identifier, a unique link and a academic standard for citations.
You don't need acceptance to publish your data.
Is a official EU project, used for giving research grants in Open AIRE project.
Is hosted by CERN.
Runs free software in the entire stack.

It's worth adding that Zenodo is backed by CERN and its data is hosted on the CERN datacenters and, if Zenodo were to fail at some point, the availability guarantee is also provided by CERN.

But the URL is not persistent? e.g. will the url https://zenodo.org/record/1120275 ever break? Nothing on their policy page mentions URLs specifically.

@jiggunjer I'd assume having a DOI strictly dominates that for academic audience.

@jiggunjer zenodo.org/record/1120275 is not permant. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1120275 is permanet.

Duplicate on Open Data: https://opendata.stackexchange.com/q/980/190

If you also have some code associated with this data that you might like to share, another option might be GitHub.  You wouldn't host the 12GB dataset in a GitHub repository itself; instead you would host your code, and create a readme.md file (GitHub will do this virtually automatically for you) where you write out instructions or other narrative.  This is where you would include a link to wherever you've chosen to host the data.  You can then update this link any time you want or need (for example, if you change institutions).
This has a number of advantages over simply finding a static place to stick the data and sharing that link:

GitHub is almost a decade old and has over 20 million users, so it's not going anywhere
Public repositories are free
Including any code you want to share in the same place is very convenient
The readme.md lets you write out whatever message you would like a future user to encounter, such as guidance not included in the original paper, errata, etc.
Everything is updatable by you at any time, but still maintains the static link
Using version control on your code is a fantastic habit to form
GitHub makes it very easy to include copyright and licensing info
You can use GitHub to build an entire website if you want to go that route (GitHub Pages), which can include what you've shared

@DSVA It most certainly answers the question.  He didn't ask where you host data, he asked how to get a static link to data.  GitHub does that and more, which is what I wrote.

@DSVA this is not a "bad" (downvote-worthy) answer even it's not amazingly "good": I have seen people doing something similar, where they e.g. create a bare-bones GitHub repo with a few example files and a note saying "This data was used for Stark et al. 2017. 'Sustainable mining of dragonglass in coastal regions'. Westerosi Geology, pp. 12--44. Contact stark@winterfell.edu for the entire dataset." The only bad part about this is that I can't have this data under a personal GitHub account and don't want to create an orphan account which no one at the department uses.

@DSVA unfortunately this is actually answering the question. Even in the question it is stated that "The stability of actual location is not as important as the stability of link itself." So github, bitbucket or whatever service you are choosing can host a permanent link to your possibly changing location of the data. And this a good idea as well since you can move your data around instead of a single storage for ethernity. But answer can be converted to more Version Control Repositories centric than Github though.

+1 this is a great answer. Github will provide a link as close to permanent as you are likely to find anywhere on the Internet. This way you can put the 12GB of data anywhere you like, even on multiple free hosts, as many as you can find within reason. And provide a list of links on the Github readme. If a few links die (a site like pingdom will monitor them for you, for free) you can always top the list up by uploading the data to some new hosts

The Github approach doesn't quite satisfy the requirements of the OP either; they will need to ensure that whatever hosting the readme.md points to stays valid, which is a possibly manual process, and also it's possible they may change their username at some point for whatever reason. However, if the latter is acceptable as a tradeoff, then using a bit.ly link that can be modified later would be a suitable frontend (and could be redirected anywhere later on).

Tell us about GitHub in 50 years, then we'll talk.

I actually use the GitHub to host a link of my data.  The data is actually on a  home server with a dynamic IP address.  I have a cron job to check the IP address and update GitHub page everytime the IP address changes.  It works great.

The answer is not that bad, but only answers half of what OP asked. He is not looking only for a static link, but also for some place to put the data 'which absolve me of financial and legal responsibility for maintaining the data and the hosting infrastructure'. There are lot of valid and complete answers here. but this is valid, but not complete.

Why should github be more permanent than all the other repositories which closed in the last years (BerliOS, Freshmeat, Freecode, gna!, gitorious, codehaus, code.google,  Fedorahosted.org)? I update the list from time to time on: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Upstream_repository_shutdowns

@Cochise What you're describing as missing is not part of his question.

@JonasStein Because Github is very big and those were all very small? I just looked at a few, but Berlios reported 50k users versus GitHubs 20m, and Gitorious reported 11% of the Git market share versus GitHubs 87%. Nothing on the internet is 100% permanent. That doesn't change anything about Github being a very safe option.

The only reason Github is being used for is that 'it is unlikely to go away anytime soon'. As far as I can tell there's little benefit of Github over say a wordpress.com site.

I would also add that you can generate a PURL for the github repo (or for anything for that matter). purl.org

Big files can be handled using https://git-lfs.github.com/

There are services that provide enough to support 12 GB of data. For example, Figshare provides 20 GB of free space (file size limit 5 GB) for private storage and apparently unlimited public space. They state they can support larger files but not through user upload.
When you publish data you can assign a doi to the data set (this can actually be done much earlier in the process as a reserved number). Many journals also use Figshare (and likely other services) for their "Supporting information" as well. I do not know if adding such information is associated with costs.
I am only familiar (not associated) with Figshare and do not know limitations of other similar services so see this as an example. Also look in to the possibility to add the data as supporting information to your article.

I see that figshare has been around for 6-7 years, which is a relatively long time on the Internet and a good sign since longevity is key here.

I agree that the "right way" to link to a dataset is to assign a DOI to it. To that end, zenodo.org is a free service that accept up to 50GB per dataset.

@LCT There's something to that but I think people tend to overemphasize the importance of a DOI. Don't get me wrong, it does have clear advantages, in the sense of being intended to be permanent, being a standard that academics are familiar with, and being compatible (in some sense) with existing citation formats, but let's not get carried away thinking that, say, anything without a DOI is necessarily inferior.

@DavidZ An archive without DOIs isn't necessarily inferior. An archive without a reasonably well-established method for permanent document identification is, though.

@E.P. Right, I'm just calling out the implication (intended or not) that a DOI is the "right way" to permanently identify a resource and any other type of permanent identifier is the "wrong way".

@E.P. A cryptographic hash is a more reliable and more widely used way to identify the data than DOI. The hash doesn't give you any URL for locating the data but it does give you a way to verify that you got the right data once you have located it somehow.

If your data is a collection of  books, audio, or video files, you may host them on the Internet Archive's website, https://archive.org (upload page: https://archive.org/create/).

The Internet Archive is a San Francisco–based nonprofit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge." It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, movies/videos, moving images, and nearly three million public-domain books. As of October 2016, its collection topped 15 petabytes. In addition to its archiving function, the Archive is an activist organization, advocating for a free and open Internet. [...]  Founded by Brewster Kahle in May 1996.

It's free to upload and download.
Examples:

1 GB of PDF: https://archive.org/details/LREC2016Proceedings
11 GB of MP3: https://archive.org/details/cv_corpus_v1.tar

The Internet Archive is also working on establishing a copy of their entire archive in Canada, as well as that they (per that official blog post) have partial copies in Egypt and the Netherlands, along with their primary archive storage in the USA. This should help provide both geographical and to some extent political diversification.

You could use a service that provides PURLs (persistent URLs).
Such a URL redirects to a target URL of your choice, and you can update the target URL in case you need to move to a new hosting location.
Examples

The best known service is https://archive.org/services/purl/.
Since 2016, the service is provided by the Internet Archive (blog post). From 1995 to 2016, it was provided by the OCLC.

Lorcan Dempsey of OCLC welcomed the announcement as “a major step in the future sustainability and independence of this key part of the Web and linked data architectures. OCLC is proud to have introduced persistent URLs and purl.org in the early days of the Web and we have continued to host and support it for the last twenty years. We welcome the move of purl.org to the Internet Archive which will help them continue to archive and preserve the World’s knowledge as it evolves.”

It uses several domain names, including purl.org, purl.net, and purl.com.
You need an account on https://archive.org/ to create and manage your PURLs.
Another, younger service is https://w3id.org/, provided by a group of organizations that follow a social contract:

There are a growing group of organizations that have pledged responsibility to ensure the operation of this website. These organizations are: […]. They are responsible for all administrative tasks associated with operating the service. The social contract between these organizations gives each of them full access to all information required to maintain and operate the website. The agreement is setup such that a number of these companies could fail, lose interest, or become unavailable for long periods of time without negatively affecting the operation of the site.

They claim:

All identifiers associated with this website are intended to be around for as long as the Web is around. This means decades, if not centuries.

It uses the domain name w3id.org.
To create and manage your PURLs, you need to submit a pull request on GitHub or send an email to their mailing list.
Some more.

Risk assessment
For the objective to get a permanent HTTP URL (with the ability to change the redirect target) without having to pay something, a PURL service would be the best choice:

Providing permanent HTTP URLs is the primary goal of these services, and their only reason of existence. Their whole focus will be on keeping these URLs working.
Providing such a service is not complex, and not hard on the servers, so there is a good chance that it can be kept online in the future, even with a very limited budget.

Other web services might also care about permanent URLs, but they have to care about much more stuff in addition, so their priorities are different, and they might have to discontinue their service because of commercial reasons.
As an example, take Google and look at how many services they discontinued (among them also services that provided URLs for their users’ content). And if there are businesses that could afford (and want) to keep URLs from unprofitable services alive, Google would certainly be among them, right?

This is a useful suggestion, but note that OP is looking also for somewhere to host the data. A reasonably permanent URL for accessing the data is nice, but you'll still need some place to point it, which the OP seems to want to be free of charge.

@MichaelKjörling: Yeah, this post answers only the question in the title and the bold part. As OP says "The stability of the actual location is not as important as the stability of the link itself", I don’t think it makes sense to recommend a hoster here, as any gratis hosting service would do the job, given that the permalink can be updated.

This makes more sense than a github repo

I think this neatly combines with @FranckDernoncourt's answer

isn't this what doi.org does too? With the added benefit that url = site + doi ?

@jiggunjer: I’m not familiar with DOIs, but according to this answer, the services that allow gratis registrations require that the data gets uploaded to their own servers (which I would not recommend); and I think there are some gratis registrants only for specific scientific domains. -- If there is a registrant that offers gratis DOIs that can point to any URL, I guess this could be a good alternative to PURLs. A benefit of PURLs is that they can be semantic (you can choose to use meaningful words instead of only numbers).

One recently launched service that addresses your problem is the Wolfram Data Repository:

The Wolfram Data Repository is a public resource that hosts an expanding collection of computable datasets, curated and structured to be suitable for immediate use in computation, visualization, analysis and more.

In the launch announcement, Stephen Wolfram writes:

With the Wolfram Data Repository (and Wolfram Notebooks) there’s finally a great way to do true data-backed publishing—and to ensure that data can be made available in an immediately useful and computable way.

In another part of the post, he writes:

Each entry in the Wolfram Data Repository has an associated webpage, which describes the data it contains [...] every entry also has a unique readable registered name, that’s used both for the URL of its webpage, and for the specification of the ResourceObject that represents the entry.

Regarding the size of the data sets, he writes:

There’s no limit in principle on the size of the data that can be stored in the Wolfram Data Repository. But for now, the “plumbing” is optimized for data that’s at most about a few gigabytes in size—and indeed the existing examples in the Wolfram Data Repository make it clear that an awful lot of useful data never even gets bigger than a few megabytes in size.

The announcement is very long and has much more about the rationale and vision behind this service and details of how it works. I couldn't find information about pricing -- presumably it's free for now -- or what promises Wolfram is making regarding the permanence of the data storage (except for the vague sentence "The Wolfram Data Repository, though, is intended to be something much more permanent"). But the service is fairly new so I expect those things will be clarified eventually. Wolfram Research is a serious company with high credibility in the scientific community and has been around since 1987, so this looks like an intriguing option for your data storage problem.

Nice addition. I dont knew. But, they expect the data to be in the user account before submission, and a account that supports this size of data appears to be $103/month. http://www.wolfram.com/development-platform/pricing/ The vendor locked in is another point to consider, but out of the scope of OP question.

I need to link to data used for a publication...I need at least a stable link to some place where the data can be located

Provide a link to your personal site and redirect from there.

E.P. raised the issue

Google Drive data is mutable - it could be altered by the owner at any point (and, conversely, viewers do not have any guarantee that the data they see five years after publication, if it is still there, has not been altered in the meantime). This makes it completely unsuitable for this purpose.

This issue is orthogonal to the OP's question, but nonetheless interesting. It can be solved by taking a cryptographic hash of the data and including that hash in the publication.

As stated in the OP, I cannot and will not be personally responsible for the data.

@errantlinguist, what does that mean?

DataPort is an initiative from the IEEE. You can host up to 2 TB and you will receive a DOI.

It costs 2k USD to host a dataset that is open to any user of the service, while a free upload is only accessible to paid subscribers. That would not solve OPs problem. Also the site seems to be still in beta.

They (temporarily, as of today 2019-11-11) offer the OPEN ACCESS DATASET for free.

Nothing lasts forever, but free file hosting services exist even without restrictions on size. Nothing in the world is really free, so, these services would impose some other kind of restriction, e.g., advertisement, or noticeable downtimes, or low bandwidth, or discomfort for uploading or downloading, or really ugly and long (but stable!) URLs, etc. These services might also ask you for all your private data and sell it later or send you lots of targeted spam. Choose a service that causes you as little discomfort as possible. That would be my solution.
How to find such a service would be a different question. I usually first find a site comparing dozens of free hosting services and then take it from there.

Whoever downvoted: why?

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Poster session without a poster
The airline forced me to check my poster and now it's gone lost. The session I was supposed to participate in is today, so there's little chance of finding a printer in town in a few hours†; What do I do?

† In Germany, no businesses may operate on Sunday except with explicit exemptions, and a German printer would rather go out of business than work on a Sunday anyway. Also, this is a small town in the middle of nowhere; when I write "little chance" I really mean "no chance".

I wish you had read the question Flying with a poster tube as a hand luggage before your flight.

Cuz, you know, you can totally tell what some airline attendant with decide at the gate a week before flying.

Divide your poster in 9 and print those in standard sheets?  Here is a photoshop plugin

And for completeness the gimp method

Have you tried contacting the conference organizers and explaining your situation to them? At the very least it's probable they have access to a printer.

The first thing to do would indeed be to contact the conference organizers. They typically have local people who will know if there is any suitable printing service around, if you are lucky they might even have planned for this kind of situation (it's not so uncommon).
If not, assuming that the poster accompanies a paper in the proceedings a backup plan would be to just print the paper in standard A4 sheets in any standard printer you can find, and display them on the poster board. It's better than nothing.

@Al-Khwarizmi and most others: Why do you post an answer as a comment?

@Wrzlprmft Good catch, I've copied my comment to separate answer.

"there's little chance of finding a printer in town in a few hours" - In a major city? I could see some difficulty at a resort town or something, but otherwise there are print shops all over, and they don't usually need much notice to print a poster.

@Bryan Krause this is not a major city and is in Germany on a Sunday, where nothing is open at all, so, yes, my statement is very true.

I think that's pretty clearly a special circumstance; thanks for adding it to your question.

Unfortunately, in Europe (e.g. France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Holland ad nauseam) it's not so special...

What did you end up doing?

I notified the organizers and showed the PDF on my laptop; very professional indeed...

It's much more likely you can find access to an A3, or even A4, printer (perhaps through the organisers). While it isn't exactly optimal, you could print your poster tiled across sheets.

Try to contact the conference organizers and explain your situation to them. At the very least it's probable they have access to a printer.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Cannot attend CS conference but coauthor isn't registering
The deadline to register for a peer-reviewed computer science conference with proceedings is in three days and I cannot attend despite being the main author of a paper there since I am leaving the current institution for non-academic employment. I cannot afford to lose this job and losing it will have catastrophic consequences. I have discussed this issue with the coauthor for many months, and they kept saying "I'm pretty sure that I can go, but if not we'll find a solution". At least one author of the paper must be registered and at least that person must present it at the conference or else the paper will not be published.
There has been still no tangible proof of the coauthor either definitely going to the conference or registering, and I do not know this person well enough to trust them. The publication is critical as it is the only proof of me producing anything in quite a long time, so I cannot afford to lose this publication. I cannot take the stress any more. How do I ensure that someone registers for my paper so that it appears in the proceedings?

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

Why can't you attend? I mean, why technically?

It has been discussed at length that you should reconsider if the paper or not leaving to present it are more important and I urge you to do that.
However, assuming you know your situation better than us, even though it sounds off, here's the only solution I can think of:
Ask. Nicely!
Call your co-author, say please (because you want something from him) and hope he says he'll register. Then explain how important it is and ask for a confirmation so that you can sleep better. Make sure it doesn't come across as mistrust and that you're just asking because it's so important to you.
If that doesn't work, swallow your pride and beg. Offer to pay the flight (if you were going you'd pay it too (?)). Offer something else. Most people will agree to do it when they understand the severity of the situation. But maybe try to explain it more in depth than you did here, because I haven't understood it yet.

+1 but I would offer to pay in the beginning. Not after being refused. And maybe try to sell it as giving them a free opportunity to tour the city as well (though if they take extra days to tour it, you obviously wouldn't pay for the extra hotel etc.).

@Mehrdad offering to pay is just to underline desperation, not to bribe them. I think emotional understanding is worth more than a flight and personally if someone were desperate enough to pay for a flight, I'd try to make the presentation possible, not because of the money but just to help.

I personally find the idea to beg quite embarrassing. Instead, another way of doing this is asking them to do it as favour to you from the beginning. In the end we all like doing favours and helping people (although this may be counter-intuitive), even more so if it's beneficial to us as well.

@user347489 I don't know if that's a cultural thing somewhere, but for me asking nicely and asking for a favour of pretty much the same thing with a different name. Sure, begging is embarrassing, but if you're in a position where your career depends on someone doing you a favour and it's that much of a deal that asking nicely doesn't work (maybe there's a birthday party they'd rather attend or whatever), then begging seems to be the only way.

Another possibility is that your "non-academic employment" obviously values your skills - have you considered asking them if they will give you leave (paid or unpaid) to let you present - and it has been known that some people say in their intro "I am here thanks to the grace of X...".

I'm just at a CS conference together with a student who did exactly this :). And we managed to get some funding to cover some of the traveling expenses, bt this might be tricky depending on the university.

The publication is critical as it is the only proof of me producing anything in quite a long time, so I cannot afford to lose this publication

Then you should be turning up yourself. You can't blame this on anyone else: you messed up your schedule.

How do I ensure that someone registers for my paper so that it appears in the proceedings?

Do it yourself. Sorry, it's that simple. You need to start taking responsibility for this now.
I understand that, having left it so late, it's going to be a little awkward getting time off from your new employer. However, presenting an academic project at a conference is a pretty good reason to have that time off — an employer not understanding of that is probably not somebody I'd want to work with. It's just that late notice that you're going to have to contend with. Given its importance to you, you should have had this event as a fixed date on your diary for months now, and noted it to your new employer early on.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

I took 3 continuous weeks off in the first few months of my most recent job (and mine was just for vacation), unpaid by choice. They offered to let me go "in the hole" and get paid for those weeks. It's not an unreasonable request, although the sooner you ask the better off you'll be.

This may depend on the publisher of the paper. Some conferences explicitly require that one of the authors of the paper presents it at the conference. I can read this requirement from your text, but you have to be careful.
If you just register an author, that is not enough. They have to present! If someone else presents the paper that might still not be sufficient.
You should also consider contacting the person above your co-author. Discuss this issue with him/her and point out that presenting at the conference is important. Then you do not need to trust your co-author that much and you might have a more reliable answer.
Regarding your leaving for another employment: Have you talked to this employer? They might be willing to support your case (e.g., giving you a few days off).
Even if this hurts financially: Have you considered just going to the conference and presenting on your own? I have seen people doing this from similar situations. However, this can be quite expensive and might not be a feasible option.

If someone else presents the paper that might still not be sufficient. — I’m willing to accept that such conferences exist, but I have never encountered one. (Then again, theory conferences tend to publish proceedings just before the conference starts, and they accept late registration, so they can’t tell if no author is present.)

@JeffE, while this is true for proceedings that are produced before the actual event (be that printed or digital) the organizers of the conference may still chose to remove any "no-show" contributions from their online repository.

@Ghanima Sure, they may decide that, but I've never encountered a conference that does decide that.

@JeffE, at least SPIE explicitely threatens to do so, though I have no idea if they really see it through. My point, however is, that the importance of online repositories is probably as high as or even higher than that of pre-made proceedings, thus giving the threat some real weight.

You are worrying too much
If you are leaving for non-academic employment, then the loss of the paper is unlikely to have any significant impact on your future career. Outside of academia, employers are likely to place little or no value on your publication record and - by the time you're looking for your next job - whatever your going to be doing that means you can't attend the conference will be considered far more important than whether or not you got this paper out. You don't need to worry so much about it.
You should trust your co-author
You say "[t]here has been still no tangible proof of the coauthor either definitely going to the conference or registering" but there's no tangible proof of the opposite either. Stop borrowing trouble from an imagined future.

+1 "Stop borrowing trouble from an imagined future" - great quote!

Leaving academia does not imply you might not be coming back in a near or distant future. Better keep your options open.

You might try talking to the conference chair to see if there are any options if you absolutely can't make it.  AAAI also has the policy of "At least one author must register and present", but this year, there was a paper for which none of the authors were able to obtain visas, and thus couldn't attend.  One of them recorded a video of them giving the talk, and the session chair played it at their scheduled time.  Perhaps you could work out something similar.
I have no idea how common that sort of arrangement is, though.  Their situation was certainly one that was beyond their control, so if the reason you can't attend is less compelling, the chair may be less accommodating.

There's no reason that the paper can't be presented by a random colleague.  You still have to satisfy the registration requirement, but if you know someone else who is going to be there, you can ask them to present for you.  You'd want to provide them with slides, etc.  If you don't know anyone attending the conference well enough to ask them, you could ask the session chair (assuming she's already identified) for advice.

Usually, conferences require one of the authors to be present.

This certainly won't work in my field (social sciences).

This. @padawan: So, his friend walks up to the podium and says "Hello, I'm presenting XYZ. I want to apologize on behalf of [OP], who is not feeling well and couldn't make it today." - will he be taken off stage? Of course not.

@einpoklum They might not be taken off stage, but they might be taken out of print.

@JessicaB: I find that extremely hard to believe. Name one example of this happening in a non-esoteric conference.

@einpoklum My area doesn't do conferences in that sense. I would consider it perfectly reasonable though, if the conditions of publication explicitly stated that a presentation by one of the authors was required. There's a difference between being genuinely sick and not planning to show up in the first place (paying for travel, accommodation, any conference fee).

@JessicaB: 1. There isn't that much of a difference. People do get sick for psychological reasons. 2. I doubt people will actually look into how genuinely sick OP was, out of common courtesy.


text:
Some weirdo is harassing me via e-mail and knows my physical address at uni; What do I do?
A particular individual whom I've only had contact with via e-mail is angry that they didn't get to participate in an experiment I ran (yes, just that fact makes me glad I didn't choose them). I tried telling them that the experiment is over and not to contact me again but that simply made them even more aggressive; Taking a cue from stalker victims, I have since then been ignoring their e-mails, but they continue to become even more aggressive.
In my original e-mail contact with them, my signature had my physical address in it, and based on their previous behavior, I'm concerned that they may attempt to come to the department and cause mischief or possibly (in the worst case) even commit criminal acts†. Unfortunately, I do not even have the person's name because they never wrote it in their e-mails, so I don't have much to go by even if I try to contact the police.
I have informed my supervisor of the issue, and he has not told me what to do: He merely explained the two possibilities (responding or ignoring) and the possible outcomes of each. I do not want to be responsible for any craziness which happens; What do I do?

† I am particularly concerned because there is hardly any concept of security at the department at all. In fact, It's already the case that things get stolen from the department every once and a while.

"so I don't have much to go by even if I try to contact the police": The police has means to investigate, even if the only thing you have is an email address. If you think that you're being stalked and you fear that this person could commit a criminal act, go to the police.

Contacting the police is a good idea if the person makes threats, if only for establishing a paper trail that could help if that person decides to accuse you of anything . But I wouldn't expect them to actively take any protective measures given just a history of anonymous emails.

"I do not want to be responsible for any craziness which happens" No matter what happens, you are not responsible for it, the other person is.

The police may be able to find the person based on the email address.

How about:

I have told you not to contact me on this matter. If I receive any more threatening emails I will go to the police.

The best case scenario is they stop after receiving some form of the above.
Depending on exactly how alarming the emails are, you could also go to the police now, as well as taking it up with someone else in the University -- check your university's grievance procedure and support services. While your supervisor was unhelpful, there should always be some way to escalate or someone else to ask. You can talk to your fellow students and researchers, people you trust, to find someone who is supportive and helpful. Try to get a restraining order against this person.


text:
Gift for mentor after his thesis defense?
I'm attending the thesis defense of one of my undergrad mentors this week. I owe almost everything about where I am today to him. I want to get him a gift, but I'm not sure what. He owns his own business, so a gift card seems pointless when he won't be short of money. I have never seen him eat or drink anything, EVER, so I'm not sure what kind of candy or food would be appropriate. He's a guy, so flowers are out.
We did have a shared love of a certain book series, but I already got him one of those for a Christmas gift and I feel like it might be weird to get another one again.
His thesis is something pretty abstract—even the name of the project has no real-world analogue. So a "cute" gift related to his thesis would be tough to come up with.
Also I'm a girl, if that matters, and I don't want to give him anything that would be creepy/weird/over-the-top with the gender difference taken into account.

Something for his office? Many researchers never take the time to decorate their offices; if he's one of those, it probably wouldn't be imposing to give him a nice picture or set of bookends or something. I've always wanted a cactus on my window sill, but never taken the time to go shopping for one :-)

Does he dress smart? a set of cufflinks? with / without initials? An engraved pen? Mont Blanc or similar?

Have you graduated yet? Is the supervisor/student relationship completed?

I have received several ties from students over the years...

A bottle of whiskey to celebrate his defense !

*reads last sentence of question* *looks at username* Clever girl.

Why are flowers out?

@SolarMike what do you do with ties? I guess they might add a little color hanging on the wall, but don't they get dusty :)

@StrongBad wear them - have to respect the dress code... ironed shirt, tie, suit, polished shoes - obviously terms that have no meaning for many...

These are a lot of good suggestions, but lol at the people suggesting ties/cufflinks. His PhD is in computer science!

@YYY: we don't know much about individuals involved, but if the mentor or mentee is an alcoholic this could cause many problems.

@BobJarvis Sure and if the mentee is badly allergic to pollen, bringing flower in the defense room could cause many problems as well (such as totally failing the defense). I conjecture that for any gift you will find a person on the earth for whom the gift is a catastrophe, but with this state of mind you'd better stay at home and not gift anything.

A nice coffee mug is always appreciated.  Bonus if it has some design relevant to him or his work.

@user2768: For two reasons: 1. May be construed as a romantic overture. 2. The mentor may not like to receive flowers as a gift.

@einpoklum It is surely clear when flowers are given as a romantic overture (1) and the mentor not liking flowers isn't particular to flowers, it holds for any gift (2).

Whiskey, a book, a star wars themed USB pen....

A short (1-2 paragraph) hand written note on a card or postcard would be an appropriate gift.
I have mentored about a dozen undergraduates and I still have the thank you notes they sent to me on my pin board in my office. The notes are nice reminders about the impact I had on the students.

+1. I have a desk drawer full of these notes.  I dig them out and read a few when I get grumpy with my job.

All right, I will do this. I didn't know if it would be weird to write a note like that given the gender difference. I'm very socially awkward lol. Anyway I'll probably do that and get a cactus or something for his desk. I actually make cards pretty well so that could also be a nice touch.

@ribs2spare I've gotten notes like this from undergraduates and graduate students of both genders and definitely never found it weird (nor suggestive of anything but professional appreciation of mentorship); if anything, the notes from other men are more unusual only because in my experience women have been more thoughtful about this sort of thing. Certainly nothing weird about writing a note for you to worry about.

One thing I would consider adding is perhaps a digital version of the same or similar note that they could add to their CV, as an indicator of their experience mentoring.

@Randall I'm glad I'm not the only one with a "smile file"

Actually, the thing that would be most appreciated - and valued - is a hand written letter on nice stationery giving congratulations and thanking him for his help in your own work.
Short, professional, sincere.
He will save it forever.

This is culturally dependent.  You should follow local cultural norms.
When I was in Sweden, the PhD candidate would, after their successful PhD defence, organise a party, with typically between 30 and 50 people invited, such as family and friends from the office and outside.  If they were supervising a few undergraduate students, they would probably invite them.  At such parties, it was entirely common that people would bring gifts, which would all be placed on a table.  If such a party exists and you are invited, by all means bring a small gift, similar to what you would bring if invited to a birthday party.  I received food, books, souvenirs, and a few joke presents.
However, if such a party does not exist or you are not invited, and such gifts are unusual in your location, then it may be more appropriate to stick with a card such as suggested in other answers.

If I had any grasp or intuition for "local cultural norms" I probably wouldn't be here...

@ribs2spare Then you may need to ask someone within your institute, as this can be very locally dependent.

It is fairly typical for a student to give a thank you gift to their mentor when finishing. These gifts cause minor issues:
Is it ethical to accept small gifts from students?
Is it appropriate to buy a "thank you" gift for a PhD supervisor?
but you are not talking about a thank you gift, but rather more of a congratulations gift (e.g., like a wedding or baby gift). These are also awkward and the general advice is a group gift
Advisor's wife is having a baby, should we be getting him something?
Advisor getting married, should grad students chip in for gift?
Thinking about this in light of you having given a Christmas gift
Is it appropriate to give university lecturers Christmas cards?
makes me think this is all very weird. I would not want a congratulatory gift (especially one of any monetary value) from an individual student. If he is a mentor of a number of students, or works in a lab with other doctoral students, maybe you can take part in a group gift/card. I would avoid doing anything as an individual. This becomes especially true if you have not graduated yet.

It seems to me from the question that this was a former advisor of the student ("one of my undergrad mentors" and "I owe what I am today to him"). So while the OP is still obviously an academic junior, it seems that she is attending the defence as a (hm, what's the correct way to express this) friendly professional connection, i.e. former student keeping in touch professionally and showing support to his work by attending. So I don't actually think any of the cases you mention cover the situation from the question, at least according to my interpretation of the question.

Yes penelope, you hit the nail on the head with this. That's exactly the situation I was trying to describe.

It's not the metored person who's graduating, but rather the mentor; and there is no relation of authority between them AFAICT. So I don't believe your links apply. Agree with @penelope

Ask him for advice about buying wine.  If you actually get advice, use it to select a nice bottle for him.  If demurs about the wine advice, make a gift to the university in his name.  They'll send a nice card and won't mention the amount.

Sure the OP can choose a better card than the university will... They will probably send someone who has never even met the academic concerned...

Possibly.  Generally, the Office of Development, or whatever the fundraisers are called, has a supply of cards with something evocative of the University itself... bell tower, old library, etc.

I agree that it's culturally dependent, but in many cultures, you could bring sweets or something else that's edible, for after the thesis defense. I would personally consider chocolate from a higher-quality brand. It's not something of great value, but it's not something you'd just by at the corner kiosk; it is associated with some level of affection, but - unless you buy a heart-shaped box - it won't be construed as romantic. Most people (in my experience) like it, but at the same time it's acceptable not to open and have it right away if they don't want to.
As for a thank-you letter - that may be appropriate in general, but I don't see how that relates to that mentor's thesis defense in particular. Perhaps a congratulatory card which also has a couple of thank-you lines would go well with the chocolate though.
PS - Chocolate is also kind of a generic gift. It might well be better to get something which would be specifically appreciated by your mentor. But this answer is intended for other readers as well...

One gift that is often really appreciated is a nice pen. Not a cheap one, but a fancy one, in a nice box. In some cultures it is the habit to not buy it yourself, but to wait until someone offers it to you. You can get them from 50-200USD.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7b/Fountain_pen_writing_%28literacy%29.jpg/1200px-Fountain_pen_writing_%28literacy%29.jpg

A nice matted and (optionally) framed photo of the city/town in which the university is located (e.g. from a local photographer) might be a nice gift, especially if it has an iconic skyline or downtown.  This is even if the mentor doesn't plan to continue in the same city, because he still spent a number of years there and it had an impact on his life.  It's also a nice relatively neutral item that can help decorate a future office.
In addition, +1 to Richard Erickson's answer about a thank-you/congrats card with a paragraph or few from you.

Contact the school and find out the dimensions of the diploma. Then purchase a frame and matting so that he can hang it nicely in his office.
This is totally appropriate and specific to the occasion.

No, please, no. A lot of people would never hang their diplomas anywhere (e.g. I threw my diplomas in some long forgotten cabinet...)

@MassimoOrtolano Well, I got my high school diploma framed after a successful doctoral dissertation defense.  Sadly, diploma and frame are in a closet.

@cag51 Your reading of the question is not the same as mine. If I understand it correctly, the present is for the OP's former mentor, and this mentor is just now defending his thesis (presumably his Ph.D. thesis). In particular, the mentor is not a professor (yet).

ohhh, yes, you are right. Thanks for pointing that out.

In this case, I would just be concerned about whether he already has plans to have it framed, or wants it framed a certain way.

authors: Bob Jarvis - Слава Україні


text:
Summer research opportunities for undergraduates
I am an American citizen but I am doing my undegraduate studies in math/physics in Europe. I am looking for a way to get some research experience this summer. My ultimate goal is to return to the US for graduate studies in physics, and it appears that research experience is a de facto requirement for admission to top programs.
It seems that in Europe summer research programs are not as popular as in the US, where the NSF funds the well-known REU program.
Unfortunately, the acadameic year at my school ends well after most REU programs begin. My school also does not offer research opportunites until the 3rd year, after the grad school application deadlines.
Are there any other options someone in my position might explore?

REU programs have discretion to change the program dates to suit you.  Ask them if they are willing.  Also, ask around your university for local opportunities.  More research  experience is better - you can do some locally and some elsewhere.

If you don't mind going somewhere other than your own institute, try iaeste (International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience, iaeste.org). My old research group took a couple of students every summer, they got to take part in interesting projects.

Are there any opportunities at your European school?  During the year or during summer?  Funded or unfunded?
You really don't need to do groundbreaking research as an undergrad.  Just doing something (some exposure) is plenty.  Your grades and scores are much more critical.  FWIW, I didn't have any research as I was working and playing a sport. Schools were fine with that.
When you get to grad school, there will be plenty of time to dive deep into research and to distinguish yourself by how well you do at it.

As I mentioned in the OP, my school has a research internship (lasting 4-5 months, funded) but this begins only after grad school application deadlines. It seems like at the top grad 10 schools in math/physics, undergrad research experience is a de facto requirement.

Yeah, I would try to do something.  But why wait for some specific named, funded program that is formalized and where they take care of you.  Just find someone that will put you in the lab (go and talk to profs or grad students, network).  Maybe be a little flexible and make it more applied than super theoretical if that is easier to be useful there.  Go grind some HTSC powders or push some Si wafers or whatever.


text:
Author without institutional or professional affiliation
Here is the case: An author has made substantial contribution while not been related to any institutional or professional  affiliation.
The question I sent to Nature:
An author has made substantial contribution while not been related
to any institutional or professional  affiliation.

Is it okay for this author to include his personal email and postal
address as his affiliation in the manuscript?

Nature answer:

Thank you for your email. At this stage, please just include the
  author and mention this in your cover letter so that the editor is
  aware of the situation.

The question I sent to PLOS ONE:
According to your submission guidelines "Each author on the list
must have an affiliation". However an author has made substantial
contribution while not been related to any institutional or
professional affiliation.

Is it okay to include "Independent Researcher" as an afilliation
in this case?

If not, what is the recommended Affiliation for this Author?

PLOS ONE answer:

Thank you for getting in touch and for your interest in submitting your
  work to PLOS ONE.
Your suggestion of recording the author as an "Independent Researcher"
  for their affiliation is acceptable.  May I ask you to clarify in the
  cover letter if this co-author is self employed (i.e. charges for
  their advise/service) when submitting your work.
If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact
  us again.

Any thoughts and previous experience with something like this is greatly appreciated.
Thank you!

Slightly related: What should someone who works at a tech company that isn't associated with the work list as affiliation?

Thanks, the "Independent Researcher" is quite reasonable indeed.

For what it's worth, you might look at the the Ronin institute which aims to promote--and in some cases, offer an affiliation to--researchers in this position.

This Ronin institute is interesting.. it really might be an indication that individual research is getting more frequent. Perhaps CrossRef could use this and try to implement yet another solution for the scholar issues of this era.. It's is funny how history repeats itself for independent research was actually how it all started thousands of years ago!

This is an unusual situation, but when it arises giving your personal address as the "affiliation" is an acceptable approach. (Whether you will get a different reaction from journals and reviewers after doing so is another question...). Note that many journals still refer to this field as the "address" rather than "affiliation", which answers the question for you ;-)
I've seen personal addresses used in papers several times in various fields; most frequently in avian ecology, a field with a strong tradition of independent local researchers. However, it crops up in various places to a smaller degree.
In some cases, I know it's a retired academic continuing to publish (without an "emeritus" status) while in others it's almost certainly "spare time"-type research. I can't speak to how common it is outside the sciences, but I've seen a number of history papers with what are almost certainly personal addresses on them, so it's certainly a known practice there.

I have seen personal email addresses used on several math papers, even when the author has an academic affiliation.

I'm a bit surprised someone would put their personal address on a paper which anyone can download and read.  At my institute there were occasionally talks from independent researchers and they would just put Independent Researcher as their affiliation.


text:
Approaching a company unsolicited for internship opportunities as an academic
It's already been discussed on here how to find internships/temporary research opportunities at universities and also when exactly to do an an internship at a company during one's PhD, but there doesn't seem to be much information on how someone goes about finding internship/temporary research opportunities at companies.
There are a few companies which do stuff which is very similar to what I'm researching, and a couple of those are even posting full-time jobs for work nearly identical to my own albeit looking for people who are more experienced in the field than I currently am. How can I approach said companies which are actively working on my own research topic (more or less) with a proposal to spend a period of time working with them?

However you go about your process, you should be careful about intellectual property that belongs to your university.

If your research is strongly related to commercial activities, then your advisor may know folks at some companies. Have you asked your advisor for some industrial contacts?

Find out how to email the human resources department. Call the main switchboard if necessary.  Once you have a name, title and email address, you may send your CV with a short cover letter; requesting that your CV be circulated to such-and-so departments. State you will follow up by phone in a couple of days, and then do.This is a good procedure for getting your CV out there and I think it's better than applying for the wrong job.  You should put your employment objective (internship -- don't specify paid or unpaid at this point) in a prominent place on the page.  Keep the CV very streamlined.

I think it makes a difference whether you want to ask about a paid versus unpaid internship - companies may be more likely to agree to an unpaid internship. However, you could reach out to someone who would be in an authority position related to the job announcement you already found and ask if there are any opportunities to gain experience through an internship. The worst they can say is no.

Thanks for highlighting the distinction. If I can't find the name of the hiring manager, would it be okay or might it be hurtful to apply for the full-time position through their online career portal and mention my current status and real intentions therein?

I think it makes a difference whether you want to ask about a paid versus unpaid internship - companies may be more likely to agree to an unpaid internship -- In the technical fields I'm familiar with, paying an intern is not an obstacle for employers.

Also related to what @MadJack just said, in many cases paying an intern is legally required for employers. In the US, at least, you can only be an unpaid intern if the work is completely educational in nature and you are effectively a burden rather than a resource on the company. If you are actually doing useful work for them that would otherwise by done by a full employee, even if on a novice level, you must be paid.

@errantlinguist: If you don't speak to someone directly, I would only apply for the job if you can submit a cover letter explaining your situation. But that's just my opinion - this way you would be less likely to waste individuals' times if they aren't interested in what you are proposing. However, if you do not have any intentions of working for the company later on, I'm not sure that it would be hurtful, either.

The best ways to connect are via your advisor (as mentioned by @MadJack in a comment) and by meeting people at conferences.  You can also cold-call so to speak, by finding papers at conferences that are relevant to your work and then reaching out.  I've had numerous industrial interns who initiated contact that way.
I do NOT think that going through HR is the right way to find internships for a PhD student, unless HR has already posted explicit advertisements, which some companies do.

Things to figure out before you approach anybody:

Does the company actually innovate technically or do they just apply other people's tech and tie the loose ends?  This may_not_ be easy to determine!
Which papers have been published in relevant scientific conferences (perhaps also irrelevant ones) with people listing the company as their affiliation? That's a good idea about the kinds of activities they might be interested in and points of contact.
Look for people on LinkedIn who work there -  find people who seem to be those you might work with if you were to intern there.
Who is the CTO? Look on the company website or just Google it.
In fact,  their company website,  while generally a poor source of information,  may still have a Research section which might name some relevant people and maybe even their interests.
Talk to people you know who have worked there, or who could refer you to people who have worked / been working there,  for inquiring informally about this.

Once you ha e a bunch of information and a list of potential contacts, make the decision of who to contact first and how to make your pitch.