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Will my results still be publishable if I used ethically objectionable techniques in my research
At the moment I am involved in a neurobiology research trying to assess the feasibility of using emotional response to elicit distinct EEG (brain wave) patterns from the brain using static images. Distinct brain waves can be used as control signals to perform distinct actions traditionally done using a remote controller (i.e. flipping through the channels).
Conventionally, people have tried using different images such as a flower or a tiger,  a spaceship or a musician in attempt to trigger different responses. The team believes that these input stimulus are too "lite" to produce consistent and reliable results. We wish to investigate whether pornographic images, or images depicting violence, death will produce even stronger responses. Nothing too wild, but definitely involves things that people do not talk about while doing these kind of research.
Since there are a dearth of publications on this technique for eliciting EEG, the best way for us to meet the deadline is to go ahead with these "non-traditional" trials. On the one hand I think my project supervisor will be shocked that we have even thought about using these method, or he will reject it out right claiming an ethical issue, but we are hopeful that a small breakthrough may be reached if the team followed through with this experiment.
What should the team do in this case? Should we go through with our experiment and jeopardize our reputation or should we just give up on this train of thought and risk failure by continuing with the methods that are likely not to yield any useful results?

Publishable or not aside, does the consent form indicate there will be explicit images and potential negative feeling? If not and someone got sick afterward, there can be consequences.

There's plenty of research using graphic material, so are you sure your premise is correct? Not everyone is (sorry) a prude.

You are trying to find something that can be used as a control signal. How did you exactly arrive at making use of something related to emotions? (Think it now, not when my referee report comes in ;-) You are on the wrong track. Try instead some early response that does not involve so high cognitive processes. Have a look at what visual steady-state responses (SSVEP) are for example.

Closely related question: If someone conducts unethical research unbeknownst to anybody, but produces positive results, what would happen to the research once discovered?. If all participants are willing, the material is legal in your country, and your university's ethics board and the journal's editor are happy, then there shouldn't be a problem. Most problems arise when possibly dubious methods have been covered up, and/or the relevant parties haven't approved the research.

the best way for us to meet the deadline is to go ahead with these "non-traditional" trials — Therefore, you will not meet the deadline.

Elaborating further on @Penguin_Knight comment, could I ask you to edit your question so to clarify what is the situation with current ethics approval and use of graphic content? There are already some excellent answers, but for the sake of future (read: similar) questions, it'd be nice to know the state/context of ethics approval and consent status of your research.

I cannot answer your question, but I would be more than happy to be part of this test because I think that science should not be influenced by "common sense of decency".
As long as the people you test agreed to watch "strong and mature content", I don't think it's unethical to show them a pornographic image or a violent crime scene.

All research involving EEG on human subjects will require IRB, or equivalent ethical review board, approval in order to be published in a reputable journal. Studies involving pornography, violence, and death are not that uncommon and your IRB will have procedures in place to deal with these types of studies. They will likely require you to provide clear information about what the subjects will see during the experiment if it does not impact your hypothesis. They may require you to prescreen subjects for past experiences that may make the images more salient, again if it doesn't interfere with the hypothesis. Finally, if the images are disturbing, they will likely require you to have a support mechanism included in your debrief. Often, if the subjects are limited to students, understanding how to get emergency access to a psychologist is enough. In extreme cases they may require a psychologist to be on site.
NEVER do research without ethical approval. There is nothing in your proposal that sounds so shocking that it should cause a supervisor to think less of you. He/she may not want to go down that road on scientific or personal moral grounds, but you should still feel comfortable raising the idea with your supervisor.

First, do I understand correctly that a large part of your question is whether you should avoid discussing this significant and controversial change in research methodology with your project supervisor because you think that he would reject it outright for ethical reasons?  If so, what am I missing that makes this even conceivably a good idea?  Most supervisors will have a huge problem with that behavior whether it yields breakthrough results or not.
Even assuming that you have the primary authorization to run the project, your idea of, under deadline pressure, just taking a quick shot at showing project participants images of pornography, violence and death with the goal of getting suitably vigorous brainwave activity again sounds almost too-bad-to-be-true.  It is in the nature of disturbing images that people who are shown them may be...disturbed.  That's not a side-effect: that is an essential part of the effect you're trying to produce.  People can react in unpredictable ways to being shown such imagery: if it triggers, say, depressive or violent behavior in a subject, then....yikes, you could be in so much trouble.  Compound that with not running it past your supervisor: yikes squared.
Once more: talk to your supervisor.  It is really distressing to me that you see a possible ethical objection and are asking other people on the internet whether or not it can be brushed aside if the results are nice.  This is doubly wrong-headed: on the one hand, you don't actually know if your methodology would be ethically objectionable: scientific research involving pornographic or violent images is not inherently ethically objectionable; it's just potentially sensitive and needs to be handled with extreme care and professionalism.  But in case what you're suggesting turns out to be truly ethically objectionable according to the standards of your discipline: of course you're going to have severe difficulties publishing such work, and publishing it could do you more harm than good.  Exchanging ethical integrity for better research results is a terrible proposition....right?  Is that really news to you?
Finally:

Should we go through with our experiment and jeopardize our reputation or should we just give up on this train of thought and risk failure by continuing with the methods that are likely not to yield any useful results?

Meaningful research inherently carries the risk of failure: that is not a peculiarity of your situation.  But you present a dichotomy of research failure versus showing pornographic and/or violent images.  I'll take door number three: maybe it's just my own prejudice -- none of my academic successes have inherently involved violence, pornography or death -- but I will suggest that another solution may be lurking out there somewhere.

Thank you for your thoughtful and comprehensive response. I guess a lot of it stems from lack of result and the desperation stemming from it. Everyone in the team seems to be so adamant of doing this and yes if it is done, one of us is going to be volunteer to be the subject. Your arguments are sound and your remarks have left a great impression on me. I will urge the team to rethink this proposition before going on this potentially destructive endeavor.

@StrongBad: I certainly appreciate what you're saying.  But in this case, isn't showing disturbing images to the very people who selected them the least problematic way to run the experiment?  Medical students learn to inject and suture themselves and each other before they are allowed near a patient.  It seems to me that there are some things that you have to be willing to try on yourself before you ask someone else to try.  By "others", I mean whoever else had this bright idea.  This is not to say that I am endorsing the practice; I'm just pointing to what I think is a much lesser evil.

As I said, I am really thinking of trying out an idea on yourself, not on others.  If I want to collect and show myself disturbing images, it is my right to do so.  It would of course be ridiculous to do that in lieu of a formal experiment and try to publish it, but if I'm trying to decide whether it's at all plausible that this would generate brainwave activity, I would much rather freak myself out than someone else.  Self-experimentation is part of scientific tradition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-experimentation, though of course sometimes it goes too far.

Nevertheless I removed the paragraph: the idea that some group members could (subtly, perhaps) pressure others to participate in a half-baked procedure with unknown psychological consequences is indeed a concern.  Thanks for your input.

I'm going to approach this from a different angle as I think your premise is flawed.
Graphic images will only produce a more "energetic" response if the subject's threshold is below the image's level, so you will have to do a lot of pre-screening. This will, by definition, prepare the subject for what they are about to see and lessen the impact, thus negating exactly what you are trying to accomplish.
Consider these (extreme, but that's what you want) examples:
Image: teen girl getting railed by 4 very well endowed men.
Subject A: Average soccer mom. Reaction: vomits on EEG machine.
Subject B: Retired porn producer. Reaction: None. Been there, filmed that.
Image: Messy truck vs. motorbike accident scene.
Subject A: Average soccer mom. Reaction: vomits on EEG machine.
Subject B: Ambulance attendant / policeman. Reaction: None. Saw worse than that yesterday.
Image: Flowers.
Subject A: Average soccer mom. Reaction: None.
Subject B: Trauma surgeon. Reaction: Can't breathe. Hyper-allergic to pollen, image triggers psychosomatic reaction as he almost died from the real thing last week.
Image: Clown from Poltergeist.
Subject A: Average soccer mom. Reaction: Smiles. She likes horror movies, and that's a classic.
Subject B: Battle-hardened soldier. Reaction: Panic attack - watched movie on a sleepover when he was 9 and now has coulrophobia. Can barely handle McDonalds.
In summary, a neutral image familiar to everyone will produce a consistent response. Going too far off the well-trodden path will become increasingly unpredictable but will not always result in stronger results.

There are lots signals (EEG and others) which grow with the magnitude of a stimuli. While hard thresholds with binary outcomes are not unheard of, they tend to be the exception and not the rule. Accounting for individual differences, either through factoring out causes or averaging them away, is typical of this type of research.


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How does Google Search know which paper you have cited?
Pick a random paper using Google Search, for instance

Click on the Cited By link, and you will see:

a list of writings, ranging from thesis, conference paper, arXiv paper, etc. etc....
published on a wide range of platforms such as academia.edu, arXiv, semanticscholar.org, ieee, nowpublishers...
using a variety of citation styles

It seems to me that if this was an automated process, then Google would have to keep track of every single new paper which has been published, and find the list of citation section in each paper, find a particular paper which has been cited, update the citation page for that particular paper and repeat for all citations for that paper.
But then it would have to gain access to those papers in the first place and some of them have subscriptions such as IEEE ones. It would have to ignore citation styles but keep track of correct version of whichever paper it has been cited (preprint, etc.).
Is this really how Google keeps track of citations in the Cited By link?
Can someone who has insider knowledge into publish enlighten me as to how Google Search seems to be able to know citations between papers?

Yes, it is of course an automated process.  I do not have firsthand knowledge, but I've been told that publishers give Google access to bibliographic data (and it's hard to see how Scholar could have this information otherwise).  Most publishers make citations available on their site in addition to the bibliography in the PDF, so Google might mine it from the publisher website or the PDF.

Given the amount of money Google has, I guess that an IEEE subscription is the least of their problems.

it's hard to see how Scholar could have this information otherwise — They could parse it from other papers' bibliographies, just like humans do.

@FedericoPoloni Yes the point is, is there a much easier way that this process is done. For example, IEEE uploads the papers directly into a Google owned database.

It seems to me that if this was an automated process, then Google would have to keep track of every single new paper which has been published

Yes, this is exactly how Google does it. They crawl the web anyway, and if they find something that looks like an academic paper, they add it to their special Google Scholar index. Extracting citations from PDFs is technically not easy, but not something that is a big barrier if you have the manpower and years of experience in information retrieval like Google does.
As for how they get access to IEEE etc. - this is to the best of my knowledge not disclosed. Maybe they are just paying for institutional access like everybody else, maybe they get free access from the content providers so that they can build up their index.

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sort: votes


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Is it reasonable for an institution to ask for families total income in application form?
The online application form for a post graduation course of an engineering institute in India asks for students to compulsorily enter the total annual income of their entire family. I had a chat online with their representative who offered no explanation about it other than "Sir it is compulsory to fill the details".
I assume they need these details either to figure out whether a student deserves scholarship or not, but in that case the question could have been asked in a different way.
Is it reasonable for them to ask such a question and is it sensible for me to fill in the actual annual income of my family? What if I fill in a random amount or enter zero?

Why would it not be reasonable?

Because income is a private matter and not related to admission. In my opinion, all they need to know is whether I have passed the qualifying exam and meet their eligibility criteria for the course.

Why is it not relevant to admission? It is relevant in at least two ways: ability to pay, and need for aid.

I struggle with how anyone can reliably answer this. Do they define "family"? I have no idea what my mother's income is, and no expectation she'd tell me. I have a better idea about my wife's earnings - but again there's nothing that means she has to tell me if I ask, or has to be truthful about it. Whatever you put on the form has to be a guess.

I'm western citician but stayed some time in india.  My impression is that in many cases it is there completly irrelevant if some request is reasonable or not. You have to find an indian way to get what you want.

I don't have any direct experience with educational systems in India, so this is a very general answer.
In response to a question, you said that you view the practice as being potentially unreasonable

Because income is a private matter and not related to admission.

But if they are using this information to figure out whether you deserve a scholarship it does seem to be related to admissions.  According to their website, all students are considered for fellowships, so this could be it.  Admittedly there are less reasonable, um, reasons they might want to have this information: e.g. they may want to give preferential treatment towards or against students with high family incomes.

[I]n that case the question could have been asked in a different way.

I think you're probably right about this.  And the online representative does not seem to have been at all helpful (we can all sympathize with that!).  It seems you have the following options:

Make a more concerted effort to speak to someone in the admissions department -- either by email, phone or in person -- to find out the reasons behind this request.  If appropriate, you could also make clear that you are not seeking any sort of financial aid and see if that changes the situation.
You can feel that the practice is a bit unreasonable and invasive but decide that it is in your best interest to comply with it anyway.
You can decide not to apply because of this, in which case I think it would be a good idea to contact someone (higher up than an online representative) in the admissions department.

What if I fill in a random amount or enter zero?

That is a bad idea.  Many institutions (academic and otherwise) view lying during the application process as grounds for termination of your position into the indefinite future.  Saying that you have zero family income in particular is liable to get you in trouble: they may wonder how you are going to pay for the program, or they may come back with a financial aid / fellowship offer that it would be very unethical for you to accept.

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Is there a valid way to put up a paper on arXiv or GitHub and make it private just before a conference?
I wrote a paper and it has been in limbo for more than a year because I need to re-write the code in C++ to get more proof of my algorithm before sending it to a conference.
To avoid being scooped, I considered putting it on arXiv, but was wary of exposing the algorithm to the public and I heard that it messes with the conference reviewer's double blind review.
So if arXiv and HAL archives do not have the option to keep a paper private, would uploading the paper to GitHub in a private repository serve as proof if I ever need to prove that I came up with the idea first, if I've been scooped? This way, I would be able to give private access to the repository to whoever is investigating. I wonder if this would get counted as scooping if the person who scooped the idea never knew about my paper because it was in a hidden private repository.

I'm no kind of lawyer. What is the normal way to establish such things? I don't think arXiv or GitHub are good ways to establish copyright on intellectual property. But I could be wrong. Also, if you want to present it at a conference, maybe the conference organizers should be consulted about such policies?

Reddit discussion about the usability of github as a flag-planting tool. Short summary: It's not trivial. Git commit dates (both of them) can be set arbitrarily, so they prove nothing. Use git commits made through the github web interface, or publish hashes of your work (Newton did something like this when he discovered calculus).

I'd also wager that most worries on priority scooping seem to be exaggerated. (And from looking into historical reviews and wide-spread credit (such as naming) for some popular things I had a feeling that naming and fame do not necessarily happen on the priority basis. It seems to be almost random!) So, my recommendation is: The best you can do is publish early and publish visibly (arXiv is visible enough). The history (with capital H) will then sort it out anyway.

would uploading the paper to GitHub in a private repository serve as proof if I ever need to prove that I came up with the idea first, if I've been scooped?

You can prove you came up with the idea first, but you can still be scooped, since credit will be given to the first public work.

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How to write an untested hypothesis?
When writing a journal paper, we are expected to write in third person. But when I present some assumptions of other researchers and then want to say that I disagree with that and then present my own hypothesis, how do I write it?
Example:
Artificial neural networks store neural weights, which are a generalized way of memorizing and abstracting training data, similar to the neurons of the human brain.
I disagree with that because I theorize that memories are not stored in the neurons. I don't have any evidence, but can provide my theories about how memory storage actually works.
But I can't start writing it as "My hypothesis is that...", because it isn't in third person. What is the right way to write it?

"When writing a journal paper, we are expected to write in third person" says who? I only know the plural form, even for single authors.

You don't need to drop out of the normal first-person-plural way of academic writing. You can write something like:

Bob e.a. [1] theorize that (something you disagree with), but we are skeptical because (reasons you disagree). In this paper we offer an alternative hypothesis (your own ideas) and propose experiments to support it.

It doesn't matter whether you're a single person writing the paper or a team, you use the "academic we". That's just the convention.

But you are switching to the first person, plural in this case!

@mmeent you're right, I'll fix the answer

You need not go to first person to convey this idea.  How about: Alternatively, it may be the case that ... [your alternative goes here].
Just be sure that your theories are testable, lest they become conjecture. Then test your theories.

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Is my GPA good enough for top-tier graduate schools?
I'm currently an undergraduate and have a cGPA of about 3.6 in Mathematics. I worry that it's not good enough to land me a place at some of the best graduate schools such as UCB, Princeton and MIT. I still have a little over a year left till I get my degree, which means that I still have time to mess up or increase my GPA. So I guess my question is pretty straightforward, is my GPA enough? What more should I do to improve my chances? I've loved mathematics since a long while but now I fear that I'm worried only about maintaining good grades which has made me lose interest in everything I study. I want to get the same interest that I had back but the grades keep holding me back from it. I initially wanted to delve into research but given that I've lost interest in everything how can I expect it to be fun?What do I do to fix that? Any help would be appreciated.

What are your math ACT/SAT scores? Have you published? How did you do on the Putnam exam?

I'm not an american student and if I ever apply to one of the above mentioned universities I'll apply as an international student. I never gave SAT or ACT as my university didn't require them.

The 3.6 looks a bit weak, but there's lots of other relevant information that's not in your question.  For example, a poor grade in first-year calculus wouldn't matter so much if you have solid A's in more advanced courses; on the other hand, solid A's in calculus followed by lower grades in more advanced and theoretical classes would be a serious problem.  Also, letters of recommendation are very important in graduate admissions.  If you've done a research project and your supervisor writes an ecstatic letter about the quality of your work, that can compensate for lower grades in some classes.

You may consider that (i) everyone wants to get into these departments, but not everyone can (even among those who have a perfect GPA), (ii) the U of TX, U of CO, U of MI group of universities ain't bad either.
In the end, your GPA is only one aspect of the puzzle. An important part is also where you get your undergraduate degree. A GPA of 3.6 doesn't count nearly as much if you're at Pomona City College or Fresno State, than if you are at MIT or a highly selective liberal arts college. That is, unfortunately, not something you can do anything about at this point in time, but it's worth keeping in mind when you wonder what you aspire to.
Ultimately, while I applaud you for aspiring to go to MIT, UCB, etc, you will find that in the long run it's unhealthy to expect to get there. Very few people do, but most come to realize that being on the next step down is not a bad place to be either. Setting achievable and realistic goals is a worthwhile endeavor.

Unless they did something like achieve Putnam fellow, then they won't care about the grades at all.

authors: евгений иванов


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Literature for commercialisation of research
What are some good books to read for people who have been in academia their entire career (regardless of length of that career) and now want to commercialise something from their research? I am looking for tips for people who have no education in law or business, including patent rights and the business side on how to start a research-company etc.
I understand that it is a broad question, but I hope and think that it could in fact be relevant to more researchers than me.

I don't know about a good book, but, please, get somebody on board who has experience running a business. You are just setting yourself up to failure if you try to do this entirely on your own.

To clarify, you are looking for a book (or other literature) that will teach non-business-types how to deal with all the issues in business (finance, law, competitive analysis, strategy, etc.)? You would be MUCH better off to partner with someone with that background. Imagine a business person with no experience writing software asking "Can you recommend a book that tells me how to create an ERP system?"

Starting and running a business is an entirely different skill set from being a professor, one that takes years to learn how to do well.  You also aren't going to be able to put your whole heart into it unless you are planning to quit academia.
If you are at a research university, there is probably some sort of Technology Transfer Office filled with people who would like nothing more than to educate you on this subject.  Good TTOs will also help do matchmaking with the entrepreneurs who come to them looking for technologies to build a business around.  Your university might also have a business school.  If so, there are probably teams of students looking for new business projects and case studies.
In either case, you want to find partners who are on the same wavelength as you and who you can trust.  Commercializing has a mix of business management, finance, marketing, and technological development, and you probably want people involved who are specialists in all of those disciplines.


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Can participation in online academic competitions destroy patent rights?
I have developed an algorithm/software that does a specific task. I want to let the algorithm compete in an academic competition, where the code is run on a password protected server on a secret test set by another researcher. I will describe my research vaguely in the few lines that each researcher must submit about their work to be able to compete.
Will any of this destroy my chances of acquiring a patent for the algorithm afterwards?

This question appears to be off-topic because it is about patent law, not academia

It very well could. Talk to a patent attorney. If you can get the contest runner to sign a non-disclosure agreement, then you might be able to protect your patent rights.
That being said, algorithms are not patentable in most jurisdictions, and software is quickly losing its patentability in the US.

Thanks. I got a little interested in "software is quickly losing its patentability in the US" so I asked a question about software patents http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28001/what-constitutes-software-patentability


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Copyright Status of a Math Text
If this is not the correct forum for this question, or too specific, feel free to close it. I'm more or less from MSE, and this seemed like the place to ask.
There's this well-known math text called "Characteristic Classes" by Milnor and Stasheff which is regarded as a staple among topology students in the field. It's a classic, and is highly regarded by everyone. The problem is that it's old, comparatively speaking. I don't seem to be able to hunt down a 'new' copy in the sense that it's updated printing, font, etc, and it's kind of an eyesore to read. For me personally, this writing actually causes headaches, to the point where I can't read for much longer once it starts. The copyright date inside the text is from 1974.
I don't know anything about copyright law at all - I'm just a graduate student. Since I have time this summer, I was thinking about trying to transcribe some sections of the book into LaTeX, with modern diagrams and fonts that might be a little easier on the eyes. It would probably involve some headaches along the way, but I can't be the only one who experiences this, and it might help someone else down the line. Plus this would let me insert in footnotes or endnote comments about things that jumped out at me while reading. It's a rich text so there are lots of places where this happens.
Obviously if I do this for myself and don't share it with anyone, there's no problem. But if I were to do this, it would really be for the benefit of other grad students or mathematicians. If I were to post it on a blog or something, it might violate some kind of copyright law, and obviously I want to avoid that kind of problem. Is this sort of thing legal, and more generally, how do I go about finding out what is or is not legal in the United States?

Thanks for proposing to add to the body of legible and searchable text :) seems very scholarly

Might I suggest WorkBooks as a potential place to get involved?  I haven't looked to see if they're making progress, but they certainly share a desire for copyright free and searchable text.  Perhaps you can instead improve upon what they are doing?

Publishing someone else's work without permission violates their copyright.

I would submit that being a graduate student is not an excuse for not knowing about copyright law - instead, copyright law is one more aspect of the things you should be learning, and it should be treated with the same due diligence as all other soft skills. This is not to bash you - this is you doing (part of) your due diligence correctly, right here - but "I didn't know it was illegal" is never an excuse.

related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/15783/re-typesetting-an-old-paper-what-to-do-with-the-result

Alfred, did you retype that book? You may like this MO post.

I would encourage you to contact the authors. Both John Milnor and James Stasheff have their contact info on the web. As Stasheff is emeritus, Milnor might be a better bet.

I attended Stony Brook as an undergraduate. I didn't think it would be this easy. I just assumed there would be some kind of legal barrier, or that it would be much more complicated. Maybe it is... but of course he would know. I'll write him tonight. Thank you!

@AlfredYerger Well, it could still be complicated. Perhaps the authors don't actually own the copyright in the book; it may lie with the publisher, and in that case the publisher would have to be the one to grant permission for the kind of thing you want to do. (I doubt they will.)

I think this is bad advice because of @DavePhD's answer which points out that the copyright is owned by the publisher. So, even if the authors were OK with the proposed derivative work, they couldn't give permission. Or, more likely, they could give permission, and later the OP would discover that the publisher has a problem with it and that it is their opinion which matters... (Yes, it sucks, and this is one of the reasons why I think it's a bad idea to give away one's rights to a publisher.)

Milnor and Stasheff's text was published 43 years ago by Princeton University Press and a lot has happened since then in the world of typesetting. My guess is that the authors would be the right people to persuade the publisher that it was time for a new edition.

The author would be in touch with the responsible people at the publisher. They could more authoritatively convey the notion that there is ongoing interest in the text, and desire among those interested for a more modern edition. I would look at this as an opportunity to make a deal with the publisher to prepare a newer edition. Depending on how much the OP thinks he can add content-wise, beyond improved design, it may even be worth co-authorship credit. For instance, if the material can be updated to reflect newer results in the field, cover proof techniques that were unknown at the time, etc

This isn't a isolated book, it is part of a series.  Annals of Mathematics Studies, volume 76.  http://press.princeton.edu/math/series/amnum.html Contacting an author is insufficient.

I myself edited a book that went out of print. The publisher refuses to do anything, neither giving back or giving up copyright nor printing it again. The text is now essentially lost.

The copyright holder is Princeton University Press.
Princeton University Press says:

Permission to Reprint a Complete Book
A full reprint of a Princeton University Press title requires a license from the Press or other copyright holder. For English language licenses, please contact permissions@press.princeton.edu.

Feel free to edit in: It is unlikely that Princeton University Press will grant permission for you to digitize the book for free, seeing as they have made an eBook available for sale.

Copyright can revert to the authors in case the book goes out of print, depending on the copyright transfer agreement. However, given that the eBook is available from the publisher, this is highly unlikely to apply.

A very rough rule of thumb for US copyright law is that everything published in 1923 or later is protected by copyright.  That means you can't make a copy without the permission of the copyright holder.  Making a copy is precisely what you want to do.  There are certain "fair use" exceptions, such as for quoting short passages, but they don't appear to apply here.
You'd have to get the permission of the copyright holder; that might be the authors, or their publisher, or some other persons to whom the copyright might have been transferred.  They could refuse permission, or demand an arbitrary amount of money; that would be their right.
A nice general overview of US copyright law is at http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/.  It's a good thing for anyone in the US to become familiar with, especially an academic who is likely to publish copyrighted works.  See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain_in_the_United_States for a discussion of "public domain" which refers to works which are not copyrighted or whose copyright has expired.

Material which was published before the 1940s would have had its copyright expire 28 years after publication unless it was renewed.  Since some material published in the 1920s and 1930s had its copyright renewed and some didn't, some such material is in the public domain, while some will be copyrighted indefinitely.

@supercat Material published before 1964 had to have their copyright renewed, but the URAA restored copyright to most non-US works. Works published after 1922 will leave copyright 95 years from publication; it's not impossible that that will change, though I would be stunned if this Congress changed the law before 2019, when 1923 works go into the public domain, but "copyright indefinitely" is clearly unconstitutional, and there's no reason to assume that it will be changed.

@prosfilaes: Before the extension of copyrights from 75 years to 95 years, it may have been reasonable to expect that works' copyrights would expire 75 years after publication.  Is there any more reason to believe that works will expire at age 95 than there would have been to expect expiration at age 75?  Personally, I think copyrights should be much shorter by default, but renewable for longer if someone pays an escalating renewal fee.  As long as an author is continuing to make use of a work, I have no particular problem letting the author keep exclusive rights to it.  My objection...

...is to the vastly more common situation where the creator of a work essentially abandons it after 10-20 years, but other people who might benefit from being able to use it, cannot.

@supercat The last copyright extension, that brought us more inline with Europe, was not unexpected. Works did expire under the publication + 75 years standard, and it seems reasonable to assume that if there's another copyright extension, it won't be rushed through in time to stop early 1920s works from falling to the public domain.  Given the post-legislative response to the last copyright extension act, it's likely that it won't go through silently. If you object to longer copyright terms, don't treat them as inevitable, plan to fight like hell if Congress proposes them.

No reason you couldn't learn a bit about copyright law yourself. You can actually get a decent understanding of the basics by reading the law itself, title 17 of the United States Code. I'm not a lawyer, but I've read a good chunk of this stuff. I'd point you to these sections to learn the basics:

Sections 102 and 103 describe what copyright applies to: any original work "fixed in a tangible medium" (e.g. written down, recorded, stored on a hard drive), as well as compilations and derivative works (i.e. modified versions of someone else's work), but only to the added value you created by compiling or modifying the original. Copyright does not apply to the ideas contained within a work. Also, section 105 says that official works of the US government are not covered under copyright (though there are subtleties in what is considered an official work of the government).
Section 106 describes what activities are controlled by copyright law. There are six:

reproduction
creation of derivative works
distribution to the public
public performances
public display
public broadcasting, in the case of sound recordings

When non-lawyers talk about "copyright", they are typically talking about the right to undertake these activities. To say that someone "owns (or holds) copyright in a work" means that they may reproduce, modify, distribute, perform, display, or broadcast that work, that they may authorize others to do so, and furthermore that other people are not allowed to do these things without authorization from the copyright holder - although there are some exceptions.
Probably the most relevant exception for academics is fair use, described by section 107. Fair use means that, under certain conditions, people can do the things that would normally be prohibited under section 106 even without authorization from the copyright owner. The catch is that just what those conditions are has to be decided by a court on a case-to-case basis. The law instructs judges to consider four factors when deciding:

"purpose and character" of the use: commercial? educational? for research, criticism, parody? etc.
nature of the work, e.g. how complex it is
how much of the work is used
the effect of the reuse on the market for the original

All four factors matter, so you couldn't just say "I'm doing this for educational purposes, clearly it's fair use".
Section 201 says that the authors of a work own the copyright when the work is created, or if it's a "work for hire", whoever did the "hiring" owns the copyright. They can transfer it to others, or transfer only some of the six protected rights, or do so only under certain conditions, or so on.
Sections 302, 303, and 304 describe how long a work is covered under copyright law, i.e. how long people are prohibited from doing the six things without permission. It's an absurdly long time: for works published after 1978, the life of the author plus 70 years, or for works published before 1978, 28 years from publication with the option for renewal for another 67 years. (In your case, I think it's likely the copyright was renewed, so the book is probably still protected.)

There's a lot more to the law but I think most of it is less relevant in your case.

Obviously if I do this for myself and don't share it with anyone, there's no problem.

There's "no problem" in the sense that nobody would ever find out. (Or if they did, let's be honest, 99% of people wouldn't care.) But technically, I think even that might not be legal. After all, I'm pretty sure what you're doing is preparing a derivative work, which is one of the protected rights, even if you never share it with anyone. It might fall under fair use but that would have to go to a court to decide - again, if anyone ever cared enough to go after you for it, which they (almost certainly) wouldn't.

But if I were to do this, it would really be for the benefit of other grad students or mathematicians.

This could easily be irrelevant. It would probably be considered in a decision on whether your project constitutes fair use of the original book, but other than that, copyright law doesn't care who the work benefits.

If I were to post it on a blog or something, it might violate some kind of copyright law

I suppose technically it's the preparation of the derivative work that violates the law, and I'm not sure if distributing the work counts as a whole separate violation on top of that, but the important factor is that putting this on a blog makes it public, which means your copyright violation is in plain view of anyone who would want to hassle you about it. This hassling would probably take the form of a DMCA notice - something like a cease-and-desist letter for suspected copyright infringement - sent to your hosting provider, who would either pass it on to you along with a demand to remove the content (if they're "cool") or would just remove it themselves without warning (if they're not). Now, I'm not going to go in detail about the DMCA here, as this post is getting long enough already, but you should know that these notices are fairly cheap and easy to send, they do carry legal weight but there is a process for challenging them, and if the issue isn't resolved by that point, then you might well wind up in court.

In practice, if you post it on a blog, the most likely outcome (other than "nothing happens because nobody cares") is a DMCA notice sent to your web host, not a lawsuit filed against you personally.  Such a lawsuit is always possible, of course, but the incentives are stacked in favor of a notice because lawsuits are expensive and slow.

@Kevin True, after writing all this I forgot to mention the DMCA. I'll edit accordingly.

One should be very careful about attempting to understand the law by reading legislation. People without legal training are apt to misunderstand legal texts, since common English words very often have very specific meanings.

@DavidRicherby Recent decisions with similar facts should be studied, like Cambridge University Press v. Mark P. Becker.  https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/summaries/cambridgeuniv-becker-11thcir2016.pdf Especially the four fair use factors.


text:
My adviser is hesistant about letting me graduate. How should I handle it?
I have seen the work of previous and current students and I have done a lot more than them, and my dissertations is about 60% written already, however, my adviser seems to not be comfortable with the idea of me graduating in May (Is January now). I have asked him several times up front and he keeps evading the topic and goes around it and never confirms it. He is always on travel and is not even at my same institution anymore, so that makes things worse. I have a job lined up and he knows about it, but he seems to be holding me back. I have talked to fellow students and they feel he is being unfair to me. What should I do?

Does the adviser indicate you have enough research content?

Do you have a sense of why he is (or may be) holding you back?  Is it that he wants to keep you around because of the work you're doing for him or that he feels that you are not ready to graduate / has higher ambitions for your thesis work?  You would probably respond differently in the two situations.

Most departments have a faculty member who serves as the director of graduate studies. Talk to this person about the situation. He or she will have much more contextual information than any of us here, and it is this person's job to resolve such conflicts between students and advisors.

You need to check on deadlines for your university.
With a May graduation date, you may have to apply to graduate within the next few weeks, and your defense may have to occur a month or more before graduation. Your committee will have to read your dissertation, you'll have to revise it, and resubmit, etc.


text:
Using a figure from a journal article on a personal website
I'm writing an article on a personal website and in some of the reference material that I'm already citing, there are a few good figures that I'd like to include in the article.
This is probably a silly question but I'm wondering if this is allowed under copyright laws. Specifically, if I cite the original paper/source, would I be violating any copyright laws? Should I be contacting the authors of the paper for permission?

It's probably a copyright violation if you don't get permission. It's also probably covered under Fair Use laws in the US, but Fair Use is a defense against a lawsuit not a thing that prevents people from suing you, so you might be subject to a whole range of legal trouble starting with a DMCA takedown request and extending through a to lawsuit. You might win all these situations, but you might be out tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
If you want to use it with permission, you should contact the copyright holder. Find the copyright statement on the first page of the journal article or in the front matter of the book, e.g. "©1995 Elsevier" or whoever, and contact them. If it's a big publisher, they probably have a use, licensing, or copyright clearance web page for requesting permission to reproduce small parts of works they own. In many if not most cases, the author is the wrong person to contact since they likely transferred the copyright to the publisher as part of their publication agreement. Usually, especially for academic works, the license to use a figure for academic/commentary purposes will be free.
If the copyright is held by a university or the author(s) personally, you might start with an author. They might be willing to give you permission directly if they can.


text:
For what sorts of reasons would a university deny an application to a graduate program in the U.S. after the department recommends it for admission?
I'm in the process of applying to Ph.D. programs right now, and professors from two schools have let me know that I've been recommended for admission and that the graduate studies department still had to approve the recommendation. In both cases, I was assured that there was no way the approval would be denied.
I don't have any red flags in my application, so this is a question out of pure curiosity. How often does it happen that the graduate school at large goes against the recommendation of the departmental committee, and for what sorts of reasons would this happen?

I feel like this question has been asked before, but I can't find it.

@NateEldredge I did a search before posting since I felt like it would surely be on here, but I couldn't find it either.

@NateEldredge Maybe you're thinking of What are some red flags that even the professors cannot help in the admission?

I feel like I answered something similar too....

In both the private and public R1s that I've been in (in the USA), the departments run admissions. They read through the applications and then send the graduate school their ranked list of admits, a rolldown list, and the list of rejects.
However, technically the department does not admit students, the graduate school does. So the department list are only "recommendations."
I would say that 99% of the time, the graduate school acts on those recommendations. They'd be fools not to, since the disciplinary expertise is in the department.
The 1% that I've personally experienced was with a graduate student who had horrible GRE scores but other stellar qualifications. Despite our university annually sending us guidance saying that GREs are not correlated with graduate school performance, very low scores could be cause for concern in their office (likely because of national rankings, but I have no insight there).
The dean of the graduate school wrote to us about that student and held up their admission. We had to write a response as to why we felt other aspects of their application overrode their poor GRE scores, and the student was admitted. But the experience did make it clear that the graduate school does look over admits, and might step in for extreme cases -- and why we have to be careful in our communications with students that we're only recommending admission.
Another scenario that might apply is that the graduate school changes its calculation midcycle in terms  of how many slots a department might have, or how much funding is available to students (cutting, for example, some fellowship slots). I haven't heard of this happening, but I would imagine the grad school reserves the right to pull such a maneuver, especially as we are asked to submit ranked lists and so it is possible that the 13th student in a 13 member list might be sent off the island in some scenarios.

This would also apply to language tests.  Departments sometimes want to admit someone whose language skills are sufficient to do research, but not sufficient to TA.  The graduate school may enforce its standards for TAs at the point of admission.

Another data point: About 20 years ago, I chaired my department's graduate admissions committee for three years. Although the graduate school occasionally did some strange things, they never deviated from our admissions recommendations.

I think the other answers are correct.  In addition, if you publish a controversial pro-(terrorism, rape, Hitler, etc) article after the department recommends admission but before the graduate college formally admits you, they may feel free to not admit you.

My university provides an example of this scenario for a tenured faculty hiring recommendation. So, sadly, it's easy for me to imagine a similar response to a controversial graduate applicant, but with much less fallout for the institution.

@JeffE thank you for providing the link.  That case was on my mind when I wrote the answer, but I could not recall enough details to google-fu a link.

Creative answer, but in this scenario the department is also likely to revoke its own recommendation, so it's not so much in the spirit of what OP was asking about, which was situations where the department and grad studies would have differing opinions about whether to admit the same student given the same information about them.

@DanRomik "In both cases, I was assured that there was no way the approval would be denied." leads us to believe that the process is pro forma - so it would take something extraordinary to happen.


text:
As a graduate student, am I allowed to use university letterhead in a letter of recommendation for an undergraduate student?
This is in the U.S. I am a graduate student, and an undergraduate student who I mentored in an independent reading project has asked me to write her a letter of recommendation for an internship outside of the university.
For some context, I am the organizer of the program at my university through which undergrads apply to do these projects, and this program is advertised on the university website.
I haven't been able to find any information on who can use the letterhead on my university's website, thought I'm sure it's buried there somewhere. I was only able to one other question about this on here, and it was about an undergrad using the letterhead for a personal matter.

Do you physically have access to the letterhead? (I.e., a .docx template.) If so, what instructions were there when you obtained it? If not, perhaps you should ask someone for it and see what instructions come with it.

It's probably OK.  When I was a grad student, they sold the paper stock and you could just buy it.  My take would be just do it under the Grace Hopper theory of easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission.  Also what they don't know doesn't hurt them.  But I wouldn't try to represent yourself as an agent of the college either and would be low key about it (academics can be stuffy about PI versus not).  Make it clear in first para, your role as a student yourself.

Allowed by whom?

Yes, letters of recommendation are official university business, so you can use letterhead.  It would be unusual if you did not.

Letters of recommendation are within the scope of official business, so it would usually be normal for this to be on university letterhead.  However, since you are only a graduate student, and not a regular staff member of the university, I would recommend that you should first check with the relevant professors/administrator in your Department to make sure you are authorised to write letters of recommendation at all.  The Department might prefer for letters of recommendation to come only from academic staff, in which case they might decide to bump the request up to someone higher.  When in doubt, ask the senior people in your Department.

I agree, in general, but it also depends on whether you are writing representing the university or representing only yourself. If you are representing the university, then the university has a valid interest in knowing what is written and why. So, I think that asking is required here. And the answer might, validly, be 'no, don't do that'.


text:
Do I have to ask a research advisor before sharing a technical report?
After finishing my bachelor's degree, I received a fellowship via my home university to conduct independent research at a university of my choosing. All of my living expenses and stipend were taken care of by this fellowship, and the project I worked on was my proposal. I reached out to professor Z to see if he would host me and supervise the project if I were to receive the fellowship, and he said yes.
I'm now applying to PhD programs, one of which gives the option to submit a research writing sample. I would like to submit the final report I wrote up on my project, but I'm not sure if it requires my advisor's permission. This report would presumably be shared among the graduate admissions committee.
Some other possibly relevant info: there are no plans at this time to publish the results. The project wrapped up over a year ago now. There is no ongoing research on this topic in professor Z's research group (which I know because I keep in contact with a few students in his group). The report does not (to the best of my knowledge) contain any information on ongoing projects within Z's research group.
The deadline for my application is soon and I haven't received a response from my advisor yet (which is my fault for not asking him sooner, but not relevant to the actual question I'm asking). If he doesn't respond, I've told myself that I won't submit it. I have actual published work that the committee can pull up if they like, I just thought it would be a plus to show the results of a research project that didn't lead to any publication, but which highlights my research abilities anyway.
I'm curious though what the etiquette is in this case. Would it be a major faux pas for me to submit this writing sample with my application?

It usually wouldn't be an issue, but it could be kind of awkward if after you've already done it, Professor Z says "no" for some reason ;)

I would like to submit the final report I wrote up on my project — If you did the project and you wrote the report, why would you need anyone else's permission?

I haven't understood why you were hesitating.  You shared several reasons why it would not be a problem.  You made a convincing case that there would be no danger of some publishable results being scooped.
I suppose now that you asked Prof. Z's permission, with brief lead time, it could be awkward if you submitted it and then he wrote back subsequently to say no.  You could get around this, however, by writing again, to ask if he received your email, and to say that you would very much like to submit the report in your application, but will omit it if he notifies you by (date).  Put something like "time sensitive" in the subject line.
If you're asking just to satisfy your curiosity, sort of in hindsight, then my answer would be no, you wouldn't need to ask permission in the situation you described.


text:
Why do professors take on service duties?
Why do professors take on service duties, such as reviewing papers for a journal, or sitting on university committees?
What benefit does this have to their careers?  I can't imagine they enjoy reviewing papers, at least not more than all the other things they need to fit into their busy schedule.

Many times the professor does not do the reviews by himself. There are postdocs and PHD students who actual do it by subreviewing.

Another pretty-much-duplicate: Why do research faculty pursue administrative positions, such as dean, provost, president, etc. ? Do such positions spell the end of one's research?

@StephanKolassa: There seems to be overlap with the questions you mention. How about the "sitting on university committees" part of the question?

@StephanKolassa I disagree that this is a duplicate, as I think it covers other aspects of service as well.

Here's my vote to keep this open. Would also like to hear more from a prof about required dept/university service.

There is a lot more to service than just university committees and reviewing.  There's also organizing, community outreach, national panels, external dissertation committees, etc...

Most professors are required by their departments to do some sort of service to the university and department. It's a duty of their job, often assigned by their department chair, and may be required as part of their tenure case. Someone who is actually a professor may be able to say more.
Paper reviewing, and the peer review system as a whole, is a cooperative system. Profs need peer-reviewed publications to get tenure, so someone has to do the reviewing. Nobody gets explicit points or credit for  reviewing, but if everyone tried to free-ride, then no papers would get reviewed, and the system would collapse. As a non-professor, I don't do as much reviewing (dozens of papers a year) as my professorial colleagues (hundreds per year, often, depending on field), but every time I submit an article to a journal, I'm asked to do a review by the editor, which helps keep me involved in reviewing. I suspect that people also don't want to develop reputations as free riders, so when asked to review, within reason, they do it.
In addition, sitting on a program committee for a conference involves a lot of reviewing, and it can be a great way to meet and network more closely with more senior or more junior researchers depending on your own level, both of which have their advantages. Doing both kinds of reviewing and doing it well can help one build a reputation as someone who supports the system. Besides the general benefits of a good reputation, it may lead to program committee chair positions, other conference organizing positions, and journal editorships.
In the end, having a bad reputation for not reviewing and not doing other kinds of service could seriously affect one's tenure case or future job prospects.

Hundreds per year?  That's amazing.  It takes me months to do 1 review...

@Kimball, which is why I said "depending on field". Mathematics or other theory papers requiring someone to review the proof in detail before accepting are the clear exception here, but I was just at a workshop with a computational chemistry prof who asserted he reviewed $O(150)$ papers per year (presumably including conferences).

I hope you didn't take my comment critically, because that's not how I meant it.  I know things are different in other fields (and there's also variation within math), I just had no idea how many orders of magnitude different.

@Kimball, no offense taken. I was a bit surprised by the 150 number, too, but then I realized if I scaled my reviewing to someone who was submitting 10 papers a year or more, then I'd be in the same boat.

I had heard people in other fields try to review 3-4 papers for each paper they submit, so this was in the back of my head, but I guess some people review a lot more (or submit a lot more than I expected).

@BillBarth if O(150) was Big O notation it doesn't mean what you think it means

@user, I know precisely what it means, but I also know that people colloquially use it to mean "order" which is short for "on the order of" by which they mean "about" or "approximately". It's a purposeful abuse of notation.

O(150) or (O(3000) for that matter) papers per year does not make any sense. But i guess you already knew that

@user, of course it makes sense, just not in the pedantically narrow sense. People use it in this way all the time.

@BillBarth "pedantically narrow sense"?! You are wrong. But you are right that you're not alone not understanding Big O notation. Have a good day!

In addition to the other good answers here, service is also a good way to promote something that you actually believe in:

Do you like Conference X and want it to be better? Somebody's got to run it, and run it well, or else it's going to be a crappy conference.
Don't like jerk reviewers?  Be a thorough reviewer who gives constructive criticism.
Were you helped by others in any way?  Step up to do the same and pay it forward.

Taking on service duties demonstrates to the community, including co-workers and superiors that you are willing to roll up your sleeves and pitch in; it demonstrates a certain level of team spirit. Not doing so could get noticed at some stage and might affect your reputation as a good employee or community member.
A benefit from sitting on certain committees is that it could allow you to influence policy or decision making.
You could also derive a certain feeling of personal satisfaction from undertaking service duties.

In addition to all the reasons given here, some might consider it an honor to be asked to do a review, even though it may be a chore. Essentially, you're being asked, "We need someone with a lot of expertise in this field to help us decide if this is a well-written paper that would be of interest to the community, or just some piece of junk. Can you help us do that?" It takes quite a gruff curmudgeon to respond, "No, I'm too busy."

A professor that wants his career to survive needs to help his university to survive.
Two "survival" tasks for the university are reviewing others' papers, so that the university will continue to be seen as a source of research, and "administrative" tasks that allow the university to continue operating.
Not every professor will enjoy doing both sets of tasks. Some will prefer one to the other, and specialize in those, while a few can do "nothing" and let others carry the burden for them.

1: It is a job requirement (relevant to tenure, promotion and raises, being allowed to have graduate students, and in extreme cases, keeping your job). 2: It can be in your self interest to support good research and weed out bad research. Likewise teaching, and policies about teaching (such as, what courses are required, what can be used to satisfy generic requirements).


text:
What are the downsides of publishing your statement of purpose on the Internet after you've already been admitted to a PhD program?
After getting into some top schools, I linked my statement of purpose on my personal website so it could serve as a resource for others.  Are there any reasons this might be a bad idea?

One problem is that no one can know for sure that they were accepted because of their , or despite, especially with something as potentially subtle as the statement of purpose. And what would make sense with one larger file might make negative sense with another... People often copy blindly... ?!?

In general, I think this sounds like a great idea.  I would further say that the same essential content is often a good starting point for your personal professional website.
The only potential downside that I see is that in the future you might look back with embarrassment on naive ideas in your statement where your feelings have evolved over time.  If you have enough self-confidence to be OK with with that, it's fine: nobody will expect a mature researcher to believe all of the same things they did when just starting grad school.

I think it would be a good idea. I often field letters from applicants asking about how to frame an SOP and have trouble pointing to good (and bad) SOPs as examples.
That being said, you should add a note to the top of your SOP saying that you've submitted it to turnitin.com and other plagiarism detectors -- even if you haven't and never intend to, it should serve as a deterrent for a lazy applicant who just wants to copy/paste your text in and submit it as their own.

In comments, I was asked if graduate admissions use plagiarism detectors. The graduate school at my R1 started doing so a year or two ago. The results are included with the dossier. The admissions committee is free to ignore it, but the DGS or Chair is asked by the Provost about applicants whose statistical coincidence is higher than the norm.

Does anybody run SOPs through a plagiarism detector? Of course, I suppose that doesn't matter if applicants think they might.

We do at my R1. The graduate school started doing so a year or two ago. The results are included with the dossier. The admissions committee is free to ignore it, but the DGS or Chair is asked by the Provost about applicants whose statistical coincidence is higher than the norm.


text:
Is there anyway to "get credit" for post Masters work on a resume?
I quit my PhD in physics about a year and a half ago. I started school in 2011, got my token Masters in 2013, and passed my quals. I then did about 2.5 years of research, mostly coding, to verify the theoretical models my advisor and I were working on.
This actually turned me on to high performance computing. Combine this with a distaste for poverty and I jumped ship to be a software engineer.  Now I'm looking at a promotion and I'm trying to get credit for my time working as a developer for my advisor.  HR "requires" 3 years of professional experience for promotion to the level I'm trying to achieve.
Can I spin the time as a sort of free lance dev? If so,  how? I refuse to let HR dismiss this developmental time of my career.

Were you being paid as a research assistant or equivalent?

Yes, I was being paid as an RA.

You could attempt to list it as time doing development but the fact that HR has arbitrary rules about time required for promotion is a big red flag to me.

Supposedly these are "guidelines", but I'm trying to get all my ducks in a row.  I learned most of the skills doing my job now during these years doing independent research.

Research assistant is a job as well as part of an education, and it is common to see it listed as part of one's appointments on an academic CV.  After all, you are being paid for the work you do (even if typically at a subsistence level).
It would thus seem quite reasonable to list it that way on an industrial resume as well, as part of your list of prior employment, thereby providing a clear statement of your time working in that capacity.  Whether your HR department is reasonable enough to accept this or not is an entirely unrelated question, I'm afraid.


text:
6-months internship has nothing to do with what was promised
Since sept 2013, I have been doing a Masters in mathematical finance. Our course requires us to do an off-cycle internship of 5 months minimum (typically, from April to September).
During this internship, I'm supposed to do something that is at least remotely related to mathematics/finance, and at the end of the internship, I have to give a report of what I have done. The content of that report is supposed to contain actual mathematical researchs / developments / ideas, and is necessary for the obtention of my diploma.
Unfortunately, since my internship started I have been given absolutely no work fitting the requirements.
What I've actually been tasked to do is repetitive work consisting in using a software to process tons of record from a database, generating new records as output, and making sure the generated data is consistent.  Whenever of these jobs fail I have to debug the software and propose a fix to make the job work. There is roughly ~50 millions records to be processed and the end goal is that all of them were processed correctly. As far as I can tell there is no way this will be done by the end of my internship, which is in 2 months.
What's worse is that the team I'm in is facing increasing pressure to have all these records processed soon, while the higher-ups are heavily implying that it is taking so long because we are slacking off. This is pretty annoying because I want to make a good impression and I'm working as good as possible, but at the same time I don't feel like it is worth the effort to work extra-hard on this, given how little recognition I get and given that I will leave before the positive consequences of my work can affect me.
What can I do in my situation ? I haven't started my internship report yet (I don't even know what subject I could do it on), and I know I will to do it on my own time. At the same time the repetitive nature of my work makes me pretty burned out and whenever I never feel like working on maths for several hours.
TLDR: my 6 months internship that is supposed to be about mathematical finance is actually about doing extremely tedious work, and I have to complete a report by the end about all the mathematical research I'm supposed to have done.
What would you do in that situation ?

Do you have a signed contract or any document describing your duties / rights in term of the internship?

@Dmitry Savostyanov : nope, the contract I have is generic to the firm and doesn't refer to anything special

There are two people who can help you

Your immediate manager
Your advisor (or tutor if you don't have one)

Talk to your manager first about the requirements stated by your university, and how to translate your work into a working paper or report worthy of submission in an academic institute. I am sure he will be of help.
Then try talking to your advisor/tutor on whatever was discussed with your manager. He/She can advise you on planning your report.
I had been into such a situation, and my advisor suggested a way to tweak my working to do some additional tests/work. That extra work made my work eligible for an academic report.

By advisor, do you mean the persons from university?: Yes. And don't tell the manager you want something else, ask him how to translate this work to an academic report acceptable for submission. Take his suggestion or whatever answer and then talk to your advisor about it.

The work you've done, while repetitive, may well be relevant to mathematics/finance. In order to answer this, you need to understand what the purpose of the task was, where the input data came from, and how the output is used. Your manager (or work colleagues) should be able to explain this to you, but you need to take the initiative to find out! An internship is a learning experience for you; if you're not asking questions, you're not learning.
Then, if you still feel that this work is not relevant to maths/finance, talk to your advisor at the university. If they agree with your assessment, they will probably take steps to correct the problem. If it is too late to correct the problem, they can at least insure that this doesn't happen again, perhaps by speaking with the company, or even not allowing students to intern at that company again.


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Proposing collaboration to an invited speaker?
I am organising a conference. This will take place in 6 months time. One of the invited speakers works on a topic that is highly related to my research interests. I would like to propose a specific collaboration to this professor, but I feel that the fact that I invited him to the conference (I am paying for his accommodation, expenses ...) may induce some pressure to accept my invitation to collaborate.
I wonder whether I should just wait after the conference to tell him about this project or if it is OK to tell him now? The reason I want to tell him now is that I would not like to wait for another 6 months to start this project.

I don't see any ethical dilemma here unless you threaten to retract his invitation. Don't even hint at it. You liked his work enough to invite him to speak, you should feel free to invite him to collaborate. If he declines, thank him for considering it and tell him you're looking forward to his talk this summer. If he shows interest in collaborating, keep the email conversation going, set up a phone call, etc, etc, and see where it goes. You might be able to use his visit to get some real work done (write a paper, write some code, write a grant, etc) if you're already agreed to collaborate. Don't waste your time between now and then.

I don't think it's so much an "ethical" issue as just "personal awkwardness"... If I were on the receiving end of this, I'd feel a bit put off, and I think I'd never propose such, especially to a more senior person in that situation.


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Grad student asking department for increase in stipend
If a graduate student knows that they are on the lower end of the stipends offered to their cohort, and if they are performing as good or better than their other cohort members (as measured by grades, number of publications, number of current collaborations, etc.), then is it acceptable to ask for a higher stipend? If so, how would you go about this?

Isn't the stipend the same between grad students from the same department, the same level of education, and provided that they have the same source of funding (RA/TA with X experience/fellowship X/etc)? In other words, how do you define the cohort you mention?

All students in my department's cohort have a particular fellowship from the college or from the graduate school. The awarded amount differs between students. There is up to $6,000 difference between students in my cohort, and I am on the low end.

There should be, but I doubt you'll be successful. We (my year's cohort) had all the same living stipend which was about $10k less than minimum wage; to be more competitive, this was more than doubled for the following and subsequent cohorts. I asked if at least some adjustment was possible, and was reminded that the higher stipend was not in my (our) contract. :) It doesn't hurt to ask though.

Do you mind if I ask who you approached to ask about the raise, gnometorule?

I honestly don't remember (it's 19 years ago). I would start talking to whoever faculty you are closest to, for directions, but also to maybe get someone on board to support you.

@FranckDernoncourt not necessarily — the story that gnometorule mentions happens still today at a university whose program I'm familiar with.  Stipends were doubled from $800/mo to 1400/mo, but only for the new incoming students, not for current students who will continue to get $800/mo for the rest of their tenure in the program.  It's more than a bit unfair, but the funding model at the school budgets the whole five years of funding upon entry for each student, rather than all students each year.

Yes, you can certainly ask that the department reconsider the amount of your stipend. However, you should also prepare for the case where they do not adjust it.
Normally, I would start by talking with your advisor, as she will most likely have to be on board for any increase to be successful. Then, I'd approach either the graduate student advisor orthe graduate student administrator for the department. There may already be rules and policies in place for how to request a stipend increase. If that doesn't work, the next steps are probably to contact the chair of the department and the dean for graduate students (or other appropriate officer at your institution).
However, depending on where your funding comes from, it may or may not be possible to get an increase. For instance, NSF or NIH stipends are normally set at a uniform level across a college or university. It's also possible that the students with higher stipends have outside funding which reduces the actual cost to the college. Finally, your advisor may not be able to afford a large stipend increase.

I'd recommend talking with your advisor or another mentor to see whether they have any information about how stipend decisions are made behind the scenes.  The $6k disparity sounds high to me, and it's really awkward if it gets decided early on and then never adjusted, since how impressive someone seems on entering is imperfectly correlated with their accomplishments four years later.  On the other hand, no department wants to individually negotiate each stipend on a yearly basis.
The first question is whether you are proposing an isolated fix for yourself (with the theory being that the current system is generally good, except for the poor result in your case), or a systemic change.  If it's the latter, then it's probably best if you can get a faculty member to take up the cause, since they can try to build widespread faculty support in a less confrontational way than graduate students could.  The best chances of change are probably if there's some clear unfairness or disparate impact.  For example, if the current system is on average giving lower stipends to female students, not explicitly because of gender or performance but (let's say) because they negotiate less vigorously before signing, then I'd bet the administration will be eager to make changes.  On the other hand, other large-scale changes may take more time and political finesse.
If you are just dealing with your own case, then you could still benefit from an advocate but can more easily try to make the case yourself.  How tricky it is depends on what sort of argument you are making:

You might argue that your stipend was wrongly set from the beginning.  This will be a difficult argument to win unless you can point to something objective, because the department will not want to set a precedent that might encourage half the grad students to try making the same argument.  However, it can't hurt to try if you do it tactfully (nobody likes to be told that they screwed up in the past, so you should treat this gingerly).
You might argue that your initial stipend was reasonable, but the circumstances have changed dramatically.  This may be your best shot, but again you need an objective argument that distinguishes you from the other students who would also like increased stipends.

Graduate students are not expected to have a lot of money. Just enough money to live, plus a beer or two at the weekend, is the general consensus in Biology. In my PhD intake, we were all placed on 50% contracts (approx. $1300), while the following year's intake all got a 60% contracts (approx. $1400). This came after years of student protests by current and former Max Plank graduates.
And $100 a month goes a long way - at the very least I could get some health insurance, so I asked a few times if could be bumped up to the 60% contract, and the response from the Max Plank was a resounding "NO!"
But then one day I received an electricity bill for $2000, which was the sum of the last two years bills combined which I thought was included in the rent but now apparently had to pay. I went to the institute's financing department to ask for help or legal advice, but again I received a definite "not our problem."
After this I became quite poor. I sold what luxuries I had acquired over the last 10 years, I started working evenings as a freelance programmer, and I became quite depressed. I was "visibly poor" so to speak. Poor, depressed and very very tired.
That year my old contract was canceled, then a new contract given to me at 60% rate.
So I see the moral of this story as, you don't have to be nice to your sheep, but dead sheep are no use to anyone. Use the little leverage you have by saying to your institute "Pay me more money or I will have to divert my time and energy into something that does", and you will see the true value of your meat in the academic marketplace.

Honestly, '-1'. While one does not get rich with A-13 / 2 or the equivalent IMPRS stipend; the roughly 1.000 Euro after taxes should be enough to live quite decent. The moral of this story should actually to plan things properly, including health insurance and electricity.

1-room apartment rent is on average €700/mo in this city (I pay more), which is just over 50% of most student's earnings. With the undisclosed €2000 a year extra electricity bill ( I was wrong in my initial post, it was two payments of €2000 I had to make), rent and electricity together would make 66.6% of a typical PhD earnings. With health insurance between 80-100€ a month, approaching 7-8% of ones earnings, you can see why many foreign stipend holders leave it out. Blame it on preparation, but 10% pay rise provides a buffer against financial disaster than no amount of planning could.

This answer is disturbingly self-belittling. Grad students are "expected" to be poor to the point of suffering from depression, as long as they don't become "dead sheep"? Aside from this not being very good advice for the OP, truly I'm concerned for the psychological well-being of the person writing this. @J.J, good luck with your career. I hope you remember you deserve better than to be treated like an almost dead sheep, and have some good friends to remind you that life can be good and that you are more than just "a piece of meat in the academic marketplace".


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Applying for job at same university as PhD application
I have a question for a situation, but I'll try to keep it brief. Couldn't find any similar questions, but I'm not sure how to phrase the search either.
I graduated with my MS in Jan. 2014, just around a year ago. At the time, I was trying to relocate to a different city for personal reasons. One of the places I applied for a job was a University in the city I wanted to live in, call it 'City X'. I did NOT get that job, but it came down to me and another candidate so I was close. I ended up taking a position in the same place as the MS program, thinking I would work for a year (or so) and then try to relocate after finding another opportunity in city X.
Now, I have been thinking of obtaining my PhD and the same University in City X above offers it, so I applied about two months ago. I would LOVE to go to this school and get a PhD with this University. Based on past years, I expect the admission decision should come out in the next few weeks. I only applied to this school, given my relocation needs. I feel as though it is a coin flip whether I am admitted (longer odds than I would like personally).
Here's the dilemma though. Another research-related position (job) opened with the same University. This job would be great too! I should also mention that the person looking for the new hire might also be sitting on the Admissions Committee. My question is this: will applying for this job hurt my chances at being admitted to the PhD program (or vice-versa)? I don't want to risk ticking someone off and not getting either position. Is this an actual risk or am I being paranoid? I just want to keep my options open.
Given both offers, I would take the position in the PhD program, as it is a long-term goal of mine. Part of me thinks that I should wait for the decision from the PhD and then apply to the job. The job was just posted today, so I could get results from the Admissions Committee before the job search is over...theoretically. The other part of me thinks I should just apply and see what happens.

Do you know any professor at that university who you might be able to ask this question informally and privately, and feel out the culture?

@D.W. Previously, I've exchanged emails with a professor after interviewing. I do think reaching out and asking privately is a good next step. Thanks!

First of all, apply for both. It is the best for you to be open to all the options.
However, if both applications goes through, I would recommend to choose the job; simply because you probably will get paid better on the top of learning about the research without the clock ticking. Also, you become a staff and not a student; and you will be treated more professionally.
You can always switch to the Ph.D. after working for sometime, knowing exactly what you want to work on; based on your research-based work experience.


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PhD with Master's but without Bachelors
I left University early (during the final year) and was only awarded an associates degree (one level below a full bachelors) in Computer Science.
I've been an IT professional for a few years now (development and consulting) and I'm looking to fix my broken educational record.
At this point, I could enter a bachelors programme in the final year and upgrade my associates degree to a full bachelors OR I can go straight into a Master's degree. Several Universities have offered me entry to their part time Master's degree in computing off the back of my associates degree and work experience.
I'm at a loss as to what I should do?
I've always wanted to do a PhD in software engineering project methods or maybe something more comp sci based but I fear that a masters without a bachelors won't be good enough to be accepted anywhere.
What do you think?
Thanks

Have you tried asking the universities in question whether they would consider you for PhD entry based on the master's degree without a bachelor's?

Most have replied saying that they can't comment unless I make an application. I haven't started the masters yet.

Which Universities are stronger?

Masters degrees are higher than bachelors, so it should be easier to get into a PhD program with a MS instead of a BS (assuming the schools are a comparable level).

Another more year will not kill you. Do the BSc (since it will take only one additional year) then the MSc and then you can do whatever you want, without worrying. This standard route is slower but certain.

In Italy you can start a Ph.D. only after a bachelor degree and, of course, if you win the contest, because the Ph.D. is not open for all.

@GiacomoAlessandroni I would add that the bachelor degree is not enough (honestly I have no idea if it's an explicit requirement), you need also the master degree  (in Italy and in most of Europe)

@Alexandros That depends on the country...

I don't know the country of your residency; but in the UK and in the US, you can start a Ph.D. after a bachelor degree; without a master degree.
Now because you already did most of the bachelor degree, and want to the Ph.D. afterwards, I would recommend to do the followings:
Documents: First you need to gather two things. First, your transcript of the subjects that you passed. Second, a CV that shows your industrial experience, in details (e.g., what programming language you used exactly, etc.) on building software.
Meetings: Now there is some work to be done here. What you want is to meet someone in the software engineering/computer science department; that can listen to you and give you guidelines, on how to apply for the course. This is very important, because after he/she sees your CV, he/she might be able to help you what courses you need to take besides the final year project to get your bachelor degree. I would start, emailing head of the departments and see if they can help. If not, I would start emailing the senior lecturers. Don't expect a random staff in the department to help you with this. Simply you need someone senior with loads of experience in the department.
Further Notes: For your final year project, you need to do massive amount of work, because you need to get a Ph.D. position afterwards. Don't do a final year project with an unknown advisor in the field. His/her recommendation letter for the potential Ph.D. supervisor is essential. Also, you need to get a very good mark; so the potential Ph.D. supervisors accept you as a Ph.D. student.

I have a similar problem I am dealing with. I finished my BSc in Computer Science a few years ago but with very low grades. I wouldn't normally be accepted for Masters degree with the grades from my Bsc degree. However the relevant work experience that I have as Software developer gives me better chances to get into a good University MSc course. However I am more interested into doing a Phd in Computer Science.
So my thoughts are the following:
1st Masters can give you better thoughts and perspective on the future Phd if you haven't studied many theoretical modules while doing the first 2 years of you bachelor degree.
2nd People tell me Phd is very different compared to Industry work. In Industry we want something practical to sell product/service so we are constantly trying to improve the product/service and the process of making it(SOLID principles). In doing a Phd the end product is not for sale so it doesn't really matter if you solve the problem fully rather the focus is on making progress towards solving it and showing it.
Hope my thoughts help.


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Can I use a figure under CC BY-SA 3.0 in an academic paper
CC BY-SA requires that you distribute anything derivative of the work with the same license.
I found a very nice but complex diagram (let's say a CAD model) under this license and I  would like to modify it to add the relevant information on top of it for an introduction to a paper. Can I use this image on a scientific paper in any case, or I must make sure that the paper itself is under CC BY-SA?

If you publish it in an Open Access journal, why not?

@OlegLobachev well, not all open Access journals are CC BY-SA 3.0.

No, but one can inform her-/himself, or even ask the editors. They might be willing to amend the licence in this separate case. There is also the question if it is possible to publish something under CC-BY-SA-NC what is partially under CC-BY-SA. This is however a wrong venue for such questions, I guess.

This question might be better suited for https://law.stackexchange.com/

@DarrenOng or https://opensource.stackexchange.com, but I saw that there are few academic related CC questions in Academia so I went for it.

Would your use of the figure be covered by the doctrine of "fair use" in the US (or similar provisions in other countries - so that you don't need any CC license to use it)? Alternatively, would it work if you just cite (instead of embed) the figure?

The licence terms of CC-BY-SA are quite clear on the matter (bold by me):

Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you
  must distribute your contributions under the same license as the
  original.

You can use this image and modify it, but you must give appropriate credit and indicate the changes made. Most importantly, the article will have to be under a CC-BY-SA. Or at least the image must be under it. But I doubt it would be efficient to have part of an article under a licence and part of it under another.

Of course your revised figure must be released under a compatible license. However, I doubt that the paper as a whole can be considered a "derived work" under copyright law. Of course it is possible that the paper focuses so much on that figure that it actually is derived from it, but that seems unlikely.

This is is fact what I had in mind when asking the question. Is the paper considered derived work, even if the figure is just mildly relveant to what the paper shows?

@AnderBiguri, that seems unlikely. However if the figure itself is essential (you indicate not) then it might fall into a different category. If you could re-do the paper without the figure does it have the same sense? Of course, the law is the law. You can, of course, contact Creative Commons directly: https://creativecommons.org/about/contact/

Yes, my research is not doomed without the figure, I am asking more to know the answer than because I need the figure